(1964) The Man (54 page)

Dilman led his Secretary of State to the red silk Empire sofa against the wall, where they could have relative privacy. “I’ve finished with Amboko,” Dilman said. “He’s agreed to everything—everything.”

Eaton’s long diplomat’s face, used to shrouding reaction, this time could not conceal his surprise. “Really? Splendid, Mr. President. How did you accomplish it?”

Dilman would never let one like Eaton know the truth. He said, “Oh, we’d talked so much, and then suddenly, a few minutes ago, he threw in the towel. He said that he would put his entire trust in us, to protect him against his native Communists and Soviet meddling.”

“And we shall,” said Eaton. “I’ll speak to Monty Scott tomorrow. I’ll see that he has his best Central Intelligence agents over there. Were there any reservations?”

“Not one,” said Dilman. Then he snapped his fingers as he had an afterthought. “Except this. He wants our news release to be optimistic but ambiguous. He doesn’t want his concession made public until he’s had time to return home and secure his position there. Also, he thinks we should be silent about his concession so we can spring it on the Russians as a bargaining point.”

“Of course, of course,” agreed Eaton with a trace of impatience. “I suggested from the start that if we won this agreement from Baraza, we withhold it until we sit down with Premier Kasatkin. When Kasatkin begins to rave and rant about our ratification of the African Unity Pact, we hand him this concession to prove our good will. Will you sign the AUP?”

“Tonight.”

“Excellent, Mr. President. I’ll reopen negotiations for resumption of the Roemer Conference at once. The Russians seem to be agreeable to holding the talks in France, in Chantilly. Are you?”

“Perfectly.”

“Consider it done.”

“One thing, Mr. Secretary.” Dilman was conscious of his continuing formality with Arthur Eaton. Try as he would, he simply could not call this formidable person Arthur. “Edna Foster and Tim Flannery are standing by downstairs. Could you slip away for a few minutes and notify them? I promised Amboko a rough draft of our joint press statement at Blair House tonight. If he has any amendments, we can incorporate them in the morning. You can tell Flannery to let the press gang know they can go home and get some sleep. We’ll have nothing for them until nine in the morning.”

“I’ll do that at once, Mr. President. I’ll go upstairs and call Edna and Tim immediately.” He did not leave. He said, “I think we can agree, then, your first State Dinner has been a success.”

“In some respects,” said Dilman. He decided to say no more. “I’d better get to the East Room. They may be waiting for me.”

“I shall not be long,” said Eaton.

He left the room without a glance at Sally Watson.

Sally Watson had remained stationary in the corner of the Red Room, watching Arthur Eaton go into the Main Hall. He was moving purposefully, with concentration, and so she guessed that he was not yet on his way to the entertainment in the East Room. Restlessly she stayed on, waiting for the room to be emptied of all but herself. The moment that she saw President Dilman take his leave she gathered her long skirt a few inches from the floor for greater mobility. Just as Dilman disappeared into the Green Room, she hastened into the Main Hall.

She had the briefest glimpse of Arthur Eaton, beyond the central pillars, as he turned off to the wide staircase that led to the private apartments on the second floor. Except for the chief usher, the Secret Service agent Beggs, and a White House policeman, there was no one to observe her as she hurried along the red carpet of the arcade to the stairs. There she found two more Secret Service agents, who greeted her admiringly. For their eyes she made her ascent with more reserve and dignity.

The State Dinner had been a thrill for her, because of its success and despite its failure, although the failure part made her feel insecure about her position as social secretary. From the instant, however, that Arthur Eaton had sought her out in the Red Room, all thoughts of the dinner had vanished from her mind. Arthur—now really her Arthur, her darling, since she had visited him twice alone in his Georgetown house, and had had the one midnight drive with him to that tiny bar near the Normandy Farms, off the River Road in Potomac—had dominated all her waking hours. Arthur had been beautiful tonight, and in their minutes together, considering the important guests around, he had been almost daring. She suspected, from his lack of inhibition, that he had been drinking more than he ordinarily drank. She had not minded, indeed, loved it, because it had made him more open and romantic.

She remembered: he had teased her about their evening last week in his house that nestled behind the trees on Dumbarton Avenue. After dinner, after the maid and cook had retired, he had poured the brandies, while she had studied the antique-filled gracious Tudor living room with its two fireplaces. She had felt drunk with excitement that night, reckless, and following the brandy she had blurted out, “Arthur, I don’t want to embarrass you, but where is your wife?”

“In Florida,” he had replied calmly.

“No—no—” Her hand had drawn an arc around the room. “I don’t see a single framed photograph of your wife. Isn’t that peculiar?”

He had remained unruffled, smiling. “Not at all, my dear. You see, I put them away in drawers before you came the first time. They’re still in the drawers.”

“Oh.” She had speculated upon that act. “What if she came home suddenly?”

Still unperturbed, he had said, “I doubt that she will be here for many months.”

Sally had then wondered if they were quietly being divorced, and prayed for it, but had not bothered him with it, for she wanted no definite answers so early, not until she was indispensable to him. “I see. Well, it is cozier this way. I wouldn’t want her glaring at me. You were thoughtful, Arthur. You think of everything.”

He had come to sit on the sofa beside her. “I don’t want you distracted when you are with me. These evenings mean too much.”

She had held out her arms, and he had gone into them, embracing her passionately, kissing her eyelids and forehead and ears and lips. And then the special telephone from the Pentagon had come between them. That had been that.

The next time together, he had kissed her again, caressed her, in his car in the parking lot outside the café in Potomac, and had briefly resumed after driving her to her home, but he had done no more.

She had desired him, and was ready to satisfy his desire when he made the demand. He had not yet demanded her, at least not until tonight in the Red Room, when he had been somewhat drunk and was dazzled by her low-cut white gown. After she had teased him about that time in his living room, the hiding of Kay’s photographs, he had become serious and so had she. He missed her every day, he had whispered. He wanted to see her more, be with her alone, know her better. She had waited expectantly for the final overture, the ultimate invitation, and then President Dilman had stolen him away.

She could not let go of their precious exchange, its promise and potential, and she was determined to play their scene out to its conclusion. Perhaps, because of whatever Dilman had told him, his mood had been altered and he would not go further with her. Or perhaps nothing had changed. She must find out. And so instead of going to the East Room to help direct the seating, her duty as President Dilman’s social secretary, she had followed Arthur Eaton upstairs.

She stood now, uncertainly, in the vast West Hall of the President’s private second floor. No one, not even the valet, was in sight. She wondered which of the fifteen rooms Arthur had gone into, and then she wondered if he would be conferring with someone or be by himself. The champagne bubbled behind her eyes, reinforcing her adventure, making her intrepid.

Stealthily she went to the Monroe Room, tried the door, peered inside. It was empty. Shutting the door softly, she started toward the Yellow Oval Room, and then, nearing it, she heard his voice. She stopped beside the partially open doors, listening, trying to determine whether Arthur was speaking to someone in the room or on the telephone.

He was addressing Tim—that would be Tim Flannery—but still no evidence whether it was the press secretary in person or on the telephone. She listened harder. Only Arthur’s voice could be heard, then silences, then Arthur again. No question now. Telephone. To hell with discretion.

She released the folds of skirt gathered in her hand. She peered down at the cleft between her breasts, which were pressed high by the built-in brassière cups of the evening gown. She took hold of her bodice at the waist with both hands, pulling it down an inch (the way it was meant to be) so that the milky rise at the top of her bosom was defined as her most attractive accessory. Lightly touching her hair to be sure every strand was in place, she straightened. Boldly she opened the first entrance door and walked into the Yellow Oval Room.

He was standing with the receiver at his mouth and ear, leaning against a sofa. When he saw her, he lifted his hand in welcome, smiling, but continued to listen to the voice on the other end. Suddenly he cupped the mouthpiece tightly and called out softly, “Be right with you, darling.”

Sally closed the doors, then wandered about the lustrous room, hardly listening to him, knowing only that he had apparently dictated something about Baraza, and was hearing Flannery read it back, and was suggesting revisions. On a fragile Louis XVI end table she noticed three books in a neat pile, the President’s reading, and when she bent to read the titles, she found them strangely incongruous with the furnishings of the living room. One was the latest
Congressional Staff Directory
, another
Our CIA Defense
by Montgomery Scott, and the third, at the bottom of the pile, a faded, mottled, secondhand volume,
My Bondage and Freedom
by Douglass. She drew the bottom book out from under the others and opened it to the title page, which read “My Bondage and My Freedom, Part I—Life as a Slave. Part II—Life as a Freeman. By Frederick Douglass.” It had been published in New York and Auburn by Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, in 1855. Sally turned to the lengthy dedication and then to the following page, and there, above the “Editor’s Preface,” was an inscription in pale blue ink, a slanting, definitely feminine inscription that read, “For my favorite Senator—the first Douglass would have been so proud of the present one. With enduring affection, Always, W.” The date was last year, the day and month President Dilman’s birthday, she remembered.

Sally examined the inscribed “Always, W.,” closed the book, lifted the others, and returned it to its former place. Going to the wall to the right of the fireplace, intending to study the two Cézanne paintings once more, her mind lingered on the inscription to Dilman. Her feline curiosity reached for, pawed and clawed for, a female W. connected with the President. Mrs. Wickland, wife of the House Majority Leader? No, unthinkable, not a
personal
inscription like this one. W.? At once, it came to Sally. W. for Wanda, Miss Wanda Gibson, the friend of the Spingers, whom Dilman had invited to the State Dinner tonight, who had neither responded to the invitation (gauche), nor appeared, although Dilman had insisted that she would (interesting). So Wanda Gibson, probably Wanda if she was the W., was a personal friend, even last year on his birthday. Intriguing.

Before she could speculate further, she felt cool, strong hands on her naked shoulders, and turned around to find herself looking up at Arthur Eaton.

“Business concluded,” he said. “I’m glad you came up here, Sally.”

“I thought you might need a secretary.”

He held her arms, squeezed them. “I might need someone who needs me.”

“I hoped you’d say that. I—I was unhappy the President interrupted us. It was going so well.”

“I was sorry, too, but it was important. He brought Baraza into line tonight. Not that it was so difficult. But I’m afraid he needed something affirmative to shore up his pride. In all my existence I’ve never been witness to anything like the social rejection that took place downstairs.”

“It was terrible. I hope he doesn’t blame it on me.”

“On you? Nonsense. You did what you could.”

“I swear, ninety-six of them accepted—
accepted
. Do you know how many showed up tonight? I counted the cards. Fifty-seven. I checked with my office right before dinner. And then with Edna. There was such a flurry of notes, telegrams, telephone calls, terribly apologetic, everyone fallen ill at once. I’ve never known an epidemic like that to sweep Washington. And the worst part of it was the cruel timing, the heavy last—minute declining, so that by the time I realized what was actually going on, it was too late to remove the table settings and chairs. I mean, it couldn’t be done, there was no time left. So there they were, those embarrassing chairs. I’m sorry for him. It’s so humiliating. It’ll be in all the columns tomorrow, you can be sure. No matter how many faults he has, he didn’t deserve this.”

“I don’t like it either,” Eaton said. “Whatever one’s views, there is such a practice as observing the social amenities. We have a generation of gauche boors.”

His usage of
gauche
brought to her mind what had been there a minute ago. “At least his friends showed up, the Spingers, the Abrahams, all—except one.”

Eaton’s eyebrows raised. “One?”

Sally savored her tidbit. “Have you ever heard of Miss Wanda Gibson? She works for Vaduz Exporters . . . no, of course you haven’t. Well, she lives with the Spingers, and as far as I can guess is an old friend of the President’s. He specifically invited her for tonight, and when she didn’t answer and I asked him what to do this morning, he went into a long thing about how she would show up anyway with the Spingers. He disowned any personal interest. He said that her export company traded with Baraza, and she would be someone Amboko and Wamba could feel at home with. Well, the President was mistaken. Miss Gibson did not appear. And also, I don’t mind telling you, and this I don’t understand at all, he was mistaken about Miss Gibson’s Vaduz company being involved with Baraza. I wanted to make conversation with Ambassador Wamba before dinner, so I mentioned Vaduz, and he looked blank, perfectly blank. He’d never heard of it. Do you think Wamba was bluffing? Or that the President didn’t know? Or—I know this is awful of me—that the President invented an excuse for inviting Miss Gibson?”