Windmills of the Gods (9 page)

She had to go on living. For them. She had to give them the love Edward would not be able to give them.
We’re all so needy without Edward. We need one another so terribly. It’s ironic that Edward’s death is harder to bear because we had such a wonderful life together. There are so many more reasons to miss him, so many memories of things that will never happen again. Where are you, God? Are you listening to me? Help me. Please help me.

Ring Lardner said, “Three out of three are going to die, so shut up and deal.” I have to deal. I’m being terribly selfish. I’m behaving badly, as if I’m the only person in the world who is suffering. God isn’t trying to punish me. Life is a cosmic grab bag. At this moment, somewhere in the world, someone is losing a child, skiing down a mountain, having an orgasm, getting a haircut, lying on a bed of pain, singing on a stage, drowning, getting married, starving in a gutter.
In the end, aren’t we all that same person? An aeon is a thousand million years, and an aeon ago every atom in our bodies was a part of a star. Pay attention to me, God. We are all a part of your universe, and if we die, part of your universe dies with us.

Edward was everywhere.

He was in the songs Mary heard on the radio, in the hills they had driven through together. He was in bed at her side when she awoke at sunrise.

Got to get up early this morning, honey. I have a hysterectomy and a hip operation.

His voice came to her clearly. She began to talk to him:
I’m worried about the children, Edward. They don’t want to go to school. Beth says they’re afraid that when they get home I won’t be here.

Mary went to visit the cemetery every day, standing in the icy air, mourning for what was lost to her forever. But it gave her no comfort.
You’re not here,
Mary thought.
Tell me where you are. Please.

She thought of the story by Marguerite Yourcenar, “How Wang-Fô Was Saved.” It was the tale of a Chinese artist condemned to death by his emperor for lying, for creating pictures of a world whose beauty was contradicted by reality. But the artist cheated the emperor by painting a boat and sailing away in it.
I want to escape too,
Mary thought.
I can’t stand it here without you, darling.

Florence and Douglas tried to comfort her. “He’s at peace,” they told Mary. And a hundred other cliches. The easy words of solace, except that there was no solace.
Not now. Not ever.

She would awaken in the middle of the night and rush into the children’s rooms to make sure they were safe.
My children are going to die,
Mary thought.
We’re all going to die.
People were calmly walking the streets.
Idiots, laughing,
happy
—
and they are all dying.
Their hours were numbered, and they wasted them playing stupid card games and going to silly movies and pointless football games.
Wake up!
she wanted to scream.
The earth is God’s slaughterhouse, and we’re his cattle. Don’t they know what’s going to happen to them and to everyone they love?

The answer came to her slowly, painfully, through the heavy black veils of grief. Of course they knew. Their games were a form of defiance, their laughter an act of bravado—a bravado born from the knowledge that life was finite, that everyone faced the same fate; and slowly her fear and anger melted and turned to wonder at the courage of her fellow human beings.
I’m ashamed of myself. I have to find my own way through the maze of time. In the end, each of us is alone, but in the meantime, we must all huddle together to give one another comfort and warmth.

The Bible says that death is not a final ending, it is merely a transition. Edward would never leave her and the children. He was there, somewhere.

She carried on conversations with him.
I talked to Tim’s teacher today. His grades are improving. Beth is in bed with a cold. Remember how she usually gets them this time of the year? We’re all having dinner over at Florence and Douglas’s tonight. They’ve been wonderful, darling.

And, in the middle of the black night,
The dean stopped by the house. He wanted to know whether I planned to go back to teaching at the university. I told him not now. I don’t want to leave the children alone, even for a little while. They need me so much. Do you think I should go back one day?

A few days later:
Douglas got a promotion, darling. He was made chief of staff at the hospital.

Could Edward hear her? She did not know. Was there a God, and was there a hereafter? Or was it a fable? T. S. Eliot said: “Without some kind of God, man is not even very interesting.”

President Paul Ellison, Stanton Rogers, and Floyd Baker were meeting in the Oval Office. The secretary of state said, “Mr. President, we’re both getting a lot of pressure. I don’t think we can hold off any longer on naming an ambassador to Romania. I’d like you to look over the list I gave you and select—”

“Thanks, Floyd. I appreciate your efforts. I still think Mary Ashley would be ideal. Her domestic situation has changed. What was rotten luck for her may turn out to be good luck for us. I want to try her again.” He turned to Stanton Rogers. “Stan, I’d like you to fly out to Kansas and persuade her to accept the post.”

“If that’s what you want, Mr. President.”

Mary was preparing dinner when the telephone rang, and when she picked it up, an operator said, “This is the White House. The President is calling Mrs. Edward Ashley.”

Not now,
she thought.
I don’t want to speak to him or anyone.

She remembered how excited his call had once made her. Now it was meaningless. She said, “This is Mrs. Ashley, but—”

“Would you please hold?”

Moments later the familiar voice came on the line. “Mrs. Ashley, this is Paul Ellison. I just want you to know how terribly sorry we are about your husband. I understand he was a fine man.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. It was kind of you to send flowers.”

“I don’t want to intrude on your privacy, Mrs. Ashley, and I know it’s been a very short time, but now that your domestic situation has changed, I’m asking you to reconsider my offer of an ambassadorship.”

“Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly—”

“Hear me out, please. I’m having someone fly out there to talk to you. His name is Stanton Rogers. I would appreciate
it if you would at least meet with him.”

She did not know what to say. How could she explain that her world had been turned upside down, that her life had been shattered? All that mattered now were Beth and Tim. She decided that in all courtesy she would see the man and then refuse as gracefully as possible.

“I’ll meet with him, Mr. President, but I won’t change my mind.”

There was a popular bar on the Boulevard Bineau that Marin Groza’s guards frequented when they were not on duty at the villa in Neuilly. Even Lev Pasternak occasionally visited the bar. Angel selected a table in an area of the room where conversations could be overheard. The guards, away from the rigid routine of the villa, liked to drink, and when they drank, they talked. Angel listened, seeking the villa’s vulnerable point. There was always a vulnerable point. One simply had to be clever enough to find it.

It was three days before Angel overheard a conversation that gave the clue to the solution of the problem.

A guard was saying, “I don’t know what Groza is doing to the whores he brings in there, but they’re sure whipping the hell out of him. You should hear the screaming that goes on. Last week I got a look at the whips he keeps in his closet…”

And the next night: “The hookers our fearless leader gets up at the villa are real beauties. They bring them in from all over the world. Lev arranges it himself. He’s smart. He never uses the same girl twice. That way, no one can use the girls to get at Marin Groza.”

It was all Angel needed.

Early the following morning, Angel changed rental cars and drove a Fiat into Paris. The sex shop was in Montmartre, on the Place Pigalle, in the middle of a section populated by whores and pimps. Angel went inside, walking slowly along the aisles, carefully studying the merchandise for sale. There were shackles and chains and iron-studded helmets, leather pants with slits in front, penis massagers and Joy Jelly, inflatable rubber dolls and porno videotapes. There were male douches and anal cream and six-foot-long braided leather whips with thongs at the end.

Angel selected a whip, paid cash for it, and left.

The following morning, Angel brought the whip back to the shop. The manager looked up and growled, “No refunds.”

“I don’t want a refund,” Angel explained. “I feel awkward carrying this around. I would appreciate it if you would mail it for me. I’ll pay extra, of course.”

Late that afternoon, Angel was on a plane to Buenos Aires.

The whip, carefully wrapped, arrived at the villa in Neuilly the following day. It was intercepted by the guard at the gatehouse. He read the store label on the package, opened it, and examined the whip with great care.
You would think the old man had enough of these already.

He passed it through, and a guard took it to Marin Groza’s bedroom closet, where he placed it with the other whips.

Fort Riley, one of the oldest active army forts in the United States, was constructed in 1853 when Kansas was still referred to as Indian territory. It was built to protect wagon trains from Indian war parties. Today it is used primarily as a helicopter base and a landing field for smaller military fixedwing planes.

When Stanton Rogers landed in a DC-7, he was welcomed by the base commander and his staff. A limousine was standing by, waiting to drive Stanton to the Ashley home. He had telephoned Mary after the President’s call.

“I promise to make my visit as brief as possible, Mrs. Ashley. I plan to fly in Monday afternoon to see you, if that’s all right?”

He’s being so polite. And he’s such an important man. Why is the President sending him to talk to me?
“That will be fine.” In a reflex action, Mary asked, “Would you care to have dinner with us?”

He hesitated. “Thank you.”
It’s going to be a long, boring evening,
Stanton thought.

When Florence Schiffer heard the news, she was thrilled. “The President’s foreign affairs adviser is coming to dinner
here
? That means you’re going to accept the appointment!”

“Florence, it means nothing of the kind. I promised the President I would talk to him. That’s all.”

Florence put her arms around Mary and hugged her. “I just want you to do whatever makes you happy.”

“I know that.”

Stanton Rogers was a formidable man, Mary decided. She had seen him on
Meet the Press
and in photographs in
Time
magazine, but she thought:
He looks bigger in person.
He was polite, but there was something distant about him.

“Permit me to convey again the President’s sincere regrets about your terrible tragedy, Mrs. Ashley.”

“Thank you.”

She introduced him to Beth and Tim. They made small talk while Mary went into the kitchen to see how Lucinda was getting along with the dinner.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Lucinda said. “But he’ll hate it.”

When Mary had told Lucinda that Stanton Rogers was coming to the house for dinner and that she wanted her to make a pot roast, Lucinda had said, “People like Mr. Rogers don’t eat pot roast.”

“Oh? What do they eat?”

“Chateaubriand and crepes suzette.”

“We’re having pot roast.”

“All right,” Lucinda had said stubbornly, “but it’s the wrong dinner.”

Along with the pot roast she had prepared creamed mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables, and a salad. She had baked a pumpkin pie for dessert. Stanton Rogers finished everything on his plate.

During dinner Mary and he discussed the problems of the farmers.

“The farmers in the Midwest are caught in a terrible squeeze between low prices and overproduction,” Mary said earnestly. “They’re too poor to paint, and too proud to white-wash.”

They talked about the colorful history of Junction City, and Stanton Rogers finally brought the discussion around to Romania.

“What is your opinion of President Ionescu’s government?” he asked Mary.

“There is no government in Romania, in the real sense of the word,” Mary replied. “Ionescu is the government. He’s in total control.”

“Do you think there will be a revolution there?”

“Not in the present circumstances. The only man powerful enough to depose him is Marin Groza, who’s in exile in France.”

The questioning went on. She was an expert on the iron curtain countries, and Stanton Rogers was visibly impressed. Mary had the uncomfortable feeling that he had been examining her under a microscope all evening. She was closer to the mark than she knew.

Paul was right,
Stanton Rogers thought.
She really is an authority on Romania.
And there was something more.
We need the opposite of the ugly American. She’s beautiful. And she and the children make an ail-American package that will sell.
Stanton found himself getting more and more excited by the prospect.
She can be more useful than she realizes.

At the end of the evening, Stanton Rogers said, “Mrs. Ashley, I’m going to be frank with you. Initially I was against the President appointing you to a post as sensitive as Romania. I told him as much. I tell you this now because I’ve changed my mind. I think you may very well make an excellent ambassador.”

Mary shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers. I’m no politician. I’m just an amateur.”

“As President Ellison pointed out to me, some of our finest ambassadors have been amateurs. That is to say, their experience was not in the foreign service. Walter Annenberg, our former ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was a publisher.”

“I’m not—”

“John Kenneth Galbraith, our ambassador to India, was a professor. Mike Mansfield started out as a reporter before he became a senator and then was appointed our ambassador to Japan. I could give you a dozen more examples. These people were all what you would call amateurs. What they had, Mrs. Ashley, was intelligence, a love for their country, and goodwill toward the people of the country where they were sent to serve.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“As you’re probably aware, you’ve already been investigated very thoroughly. You’ve been approved for a security clearance, you have no problem with the IRS, and there’s no conflict of interest. According to Dean Hunter you’re an excellent teacher, and of course you’re an expert on Romania. You’ve got a running start. And last but not least, you have the kind of image the President wants to project in the iron curtain countries, where they’re fed so much adverse propaganda about us.”

Mary listened, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Mr. Rogers, I want you and the President to know that I appreciate everything you’ve said. But I couldn’t accept it. I have Beth and Tim to think about. I can’t just uproot them like—”

“There’s a fine school for diplomats’ children in Bucharest,” Rogers told her. “It would be a wonderful education for Tim and Beth to spend time in a foreign country. They’d learn things they could never learn in school here.”

The conversation was not going the way Mary had planned.

“I don’t—I’ll think about it.”

“I’m staying in town overnight,” Stanton Rogers said. “I’ll be at the All Seasons Motel. Believe me, Mrs. Ashley, I know what a big decision this is for you. But this program is important not only to the President but to our country. Please think about that.”

When Stanton Rogers left, Mary went upstairs. The children were waiting for her, wide awake and excited.

“Are you going to take the job?” Beth asked.

“We have to have a talk. If I did decide to accept it, it would mean that you would have to leave school and all your friends. You would be living in a foreign country where we don’t speak the language, and you would be going to a strange school.”

“Tim and I talked about all that,” Beth said, “and you know what we think?”

“What?”

“That any country would be really lucky to have you as an ambassador, Mom.”

She talked to Edward that night:
You should have heard him, darling. He made it sound as though the President really needed me. There are probably a million people who could do a better job than I could, but he was very flattering. Do you remember how you and I talked about how exciting it would be? Well, I have the chance again, and I don’t know what to do. To tell you the truth, I’m terrified. This is our home. How can I bear to leave it? There’s so much of you here.
She found that she was crying.
This is all I have left of you. Help me decide. Please help me…

She sat by the window in her robe, looking out at the trees shivering in the howling, restless wind.

At dawn she made her decision.

At nine o’clock in the morning, Mary telephoned the All Seasons Motel and asked for Stanton Rogers.

When he came on the line, she said, “Mr. Rogers, would you please tell the President that I will be honored to accept his nomination for the ambassadorship.”