American Romantic (28 page)

Harry poured a large whiskey and stepped to the fire. He lit the kindling but it failed to catch. When he lit it again he managed to coax a weak flicker of flame. He sat in the big chair next to the fire and waited. He wondered how he would regain his balance, his thoughts turning every which way, now thinking of May in her Honda, now of the unfinished cable on his computer at the embassy. He tried again to remember the subject but could not. These thoughts were as slippery and fleeting as fish. He stared into the smoldering fire and noticed on the mantel a stack of yesterday's mail. He leafed through it, half a dozen invitations and a postcard in an unfamiliar hand. It took him a moment to decipher the signature, that of his aid administrator in Africa years before, Axel Brown. He had not heard from Axel in years. Axel had resigned from the foreign service and gone to work for a foundation, and now he was writing to say that he and Zoe Aaron were returning to the United States after so many years in Africa, inside work at the head office in Washington. They hated to leave Africa but their twin daughters were enrolled at Georgetown and they wanted to be nearby. Besides, it was time. The postcard was signed by Axel, “Most fondly,” and a P.S.: “Give love to May.” Harry tapped the postcard on his fingernail, remembering Axel and Zoe, Axel so quiet, Zoe a dynamo, more energy than was good for her. He and Zoe had had a brief fling—well, any fling was by definition brief—those many years ago, nothing serious. However, he had not forgotten and now the memory returned in fragments. It was an incoherent memory. Incomplete would be the better word. It had happened at one of the aid stations deep in the interior. Soon after, Zoe and Axel were together. And now they had twin daughters in college. Harry remembered Zoe coming to him for advice. She was weary of magazine reporting and wanted a change, something more—active. Would the foreign service be a good idea? It would not, Harry told her with a smile. Diplomacy is not your long suit, Zoe. He suggested instead one of the relief agencies or a foundation; there were many good ones.

I love Africa, Zoe said.

I know, Harry replied.

I could stay here forever.

I know that, too. Good luck to you, kiddo.

Things are alive in Africa, Zoe said. So much to be done.

And all the time in the world to do it, Harry said.

Harry took off his shoes and massaged his feet. His toes were like ice. Those three years in Africa. How had they managed it? Zoe and Axel slipped from his mind and when he took a swallow of scotch he thought of his father. He would have to tell his father about May, find a gentle way to do it. The old man was very old, an antique, but in good health and of sound mind except for occasional blank episodes, when he drew a curtain and went away. His mother had died years back. Harry and his father were the last of their line. He would have to go to Connecticut to see his father. He had not been back in almost a year, and it was time.

Harry sat listening to the clock tick and then caught sight of a photograph of May on the mantel. They were having lunch at the harbor restaurant in—and at that moment he could not remember where it was, only that the surroundings were charming. It was April, the day balmy, ships moving idly at anchor. The harbor was very old, dating to antiquity. She wore dark glasses and smiled for the camera. He remembered the meal, bouillabaisse and sorbet to finish, coffee medium sweet. They were reminiscing about Africa, something they did not often do. We were lucky to get out alive, she said. Remember the cobra in the swimming pool? Harry was looking at her photograph and trying to remember her voice, its timbre and rhythm. He was searching for it now in his study, as quiet as a desert, but nothing came to him. Her words returned but not her voice. He was unnerved at this thought and pushed the button on the CD player and waited for whatever was there—as it turned out, Brahms's
German Requiem.
He sipped whiskey and devoted himself to Brahms, thinking now of the German dead in two wars. Brahms composed the
Requiem
after the death of his mother; the world wars were many years distant. May had always wanted a posting in Berlin, but he told her that Berlin was not in the cards. He had no special expertise, not even the language. Germany required total commitment, like a marriage or a war. Berlin was filled with ghosts; turn any corner and you were face to face with the Third Reich. Germans frightened people, themselves most of all. But they were also hospitable and fiercely intelligent. Their diplomatic corps was first rate, good at staying out of trouble, good at lengthy explanations of complex moral questions, very good at defending their commercial interests. Their security services were exceptional inside their country, thin on the ground elsewhere. Their diplomats had surprising latitude, but of course they did not have a Pentagon to worry about. Harry closed his eyes and thought about Germany and its immense capacity for delusion. Perhaps that was the source of inspiration for its composers. The sublime melodies of Brahms and Mahler could come only from some German-speaking magic garden of the soul. Whatever the source of German romanticism, Harry wished he had seen it up close, listened to it in conversation, negotiated with it. American delusions, mostly of grandeur, often of the evangelical variety, the Good News of democracy, also frightened people. Americans lacked modesty. Americans did not set a good example. Americans cast a long shadow of self-righteousness, and if you didn't like it they sent the Sixth Fleet and a squadron of warplanes. That was what the ambassador's years of diplomacy had taught him. The shrill ring of the telephone startled him but he did not move from his chair and eventually the caller gave up.

Go away, he said aloud.

I do not wish to be disturbed.

What on earth had caused him to think about Germany?

Harry rose heavily from his chair and limped to the cabinet and poured another whiskey, this one not so large. He paused to listen to the third movement of
Ein deutsches Requiem,
thinking that he would have been a good choice for embassy Berlin. He had a high appreciation of forgetfulness, a constant struggle. Germany was only trying to stay calm and out of everyone's way and be left alone to build a durable republic and an export economy, a mighty engine that would prevent another Weimar or Third Reich, and that was Harry's preference, too, had anyone asked, and no one did. There were temptations on every continent. Still, the less meddling the better, one more lesson learned from his own war.

He would have liked Moscow, too, or Paris. Naturally they were not in the cards either, those embassies being reserved for specialists or friends of the president or retired politicians or industrialists, people who thought they were owed a favor. He was certain that May would have liked Berlin and Paris. There were horses aplenty in both capitals and good places to ride them. She would have hated Moscow, the constant suspicion, the bad food, the trials of ordinary life.

Harry pulled his chair closer to the smoldering fire, sparks here and there but no flames. He hunched his shoulders and listened to the sizzle that meant the wood was soft, wet with rain. He heard the wind against the windows. There was nothing more dispiriting than a cold fireplace. He pulled his jacket around him. No doubt he should go to bed. There would be much to do in the morning, telephone calls, messages from the Department. As if on signal the phone rang once more and Harry did not move, counting ten rings before it stopped. Probably he should have a few people in tomorrow night or the next night. He was not especially close with the diplomatic community, unlike other places he had served where casual dinners were frequent. Perhaps something for the embassy staff, all of it. Harry looked again at the fire, a wan affair providing neither heat nor light. The room was cold. But he was not ready for the climb upstairs, the rooms dark, the bedroom empty. He sat alone in the cold a while longer, wondering to himself why he had gone on so long about Berlin. Surely it was listening to the
Requiem.
Brahms had written it for his dead mother but Harry could not listen to it without thinking of Germans and their wars, in the way that listening to Cole Porter made him think of young American expatriates dancing on tabletops at two in the morning. He had never heard of an American diplomat retiring to Germany. He had friends who had served in embassy Berlin and had loved it, but when retirement came they went to Tuscany or back to the row house in Georgetown, or to Maine or Florida. He did not want to return to America, that was for sure. He would take his final tour at the Department in Washington and then say bye-bye. He had no idea where he could live in America, certainly not Connecticut or Washington or any of its suburbs. He had sent some money to Clinton's campaign but not enough to buy a retirement embassy—Jamaica, say, or Malta. Not even Burundi. He was too old for Burundi. Burundi required stamina and a high tolerance for disorder and an idealism that had left him long ago, and he had never been generously endowed anyhow. Idealism was an acquired quality, one dependent on circumstance, the facts of the matter, meaning successful outcomes. Harry thought of diplomacy as Sisyphus thought of his wretched stone. May had objected to that, arguing that nothing was more idealistic than the pursuit of a doomed objective. They had argued about it for most of an evening, the evening ending in peals of laughter and Harry promising to write a check for five thousand dollars to the local Red Cross; that was in Africa. Certainly idealism could return at any time, arriving at the door in a top hat and a white tie, energy to burn, and an impossible task at hand. But it would not return for him, and if it did he would not recognize its face. Go away. I do not wish to be disturbed.

He heard a soft knock at the door and said, Yes?

Ramon appeared with a plate of cold cuts. He said, I am very sorry.

Thank you, Ramon. It was so sudden. How did you hear?

He said, From the valet next door.

The French?

Yes. They are very upset. They called your private line but you did not answer.

No, I didn't.

They said you are welcome at any time. They would like to help.

I'll call them tomorrow.

Ramon put the plate on the sideboard, along with a napkin and flatware. He said, Will there be anything else?

No, thank you, Ramon. Harry stared bleakly at the sticks of wood in the fireplace, stone cold at last, not so much as a wisp of smoke. He reached to massage his feet. He had walked longer than he intended, at any event longer than was good for him. His whiskey was tepid in the glass and when he looked up he saw that Ramon had left the room as silently as he had entered it. He began to quarter the cold cuts, ham, salami, a German sausage. Ramon had brought mustard also. He quartered once, and again. Ham, salami, sausage. Finally the slices were child-size bites. He ate a morsel of ham and stepped to the sideboard and made another whiskey. Across the lawn the French embassy was ablaze with lights. He sipped whiskey. It had had no effect so far. He ate a slice of salami and pushed the plate away. Then he shook his head as one does when baffled by events, a telephone call from a stranger, a road accident, and life collapsed utterly. This happened all the time in his professional life, an assassination, a border incident, a sudden change in American policy, a scandal. Bad news so often came by telephone.

Harry lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring that held its shape for the length of his arm before it broke apart. He stepped to the window that looked onto May's garden. He heard the click of hydrangea stalks in the wind. The garden was dead. Beyond it through the high hedge he saw a faint yellow glow. The party was over. A smart gust of wind rattled the hydrangeas. The garden was dark but he could make out the shape of the heavy wooden rocker where in warm weather May would sit for hours reading. She always seemed to know when he was at the window. She would look up and give a little wave, wiggling the fingers of her right hand, and return at once to the page she was reading. Later, when he peeked out the window once again, she would be on her hands and knees weeding the garden. Clearing it, really. Giving symmetry, meaning order. Or flavor, she would say, a complex flavor like a good French stew. A tangled garden was worse than useless. Enough chaos in ordinary life. A garden was meant to be a place of repose, a delight to the eye, don't you agree? He did agree. Even so—what was a garden without a weed?

 

She had left him a note, on his desk when he returned in the evening from the embassy.
I'm off for a few days, back Sunday morning. XOXO, M.
He had a hint something was in the wind because the night before she had commenced a long reminiscence about her life in Slother, affairs of the family, the time her father broke his wrist arm-wrestling at the August carnival. She was a small child, six, seven years old. The broken wrist did not stop her father, who continued on, seemingly oblivious, until he fainted. He never complained about it then or later. The family generally was subject to injuries, and of course she herself had fevers around the ides of March. We were often in a state of crisis, May said. Was your family in a state of crisis? Not that I remember, Harry said. Perhaps we were distracted by world crises. I had the usual childhood diseases. Injuries were not common in my family. The ides of March did not figure on our calendar. Lucky you, May said. We had all the childhood diseases and more, except for Belle, who was the picture of health. She was proud of it, too, her clean bill of health.

My father worried about money, Harry said, which was absurd. He had plenty of money. He had a trust officer at a bank in New York who was supposed to do the worrying. How did that work, exactly? May asked. Harry explained about trusts, how they were established and who was responsible for the investments and so forth and so on, a vague answer because there was an edge to May's voice. So, she said, your father asked the trust officer for money and he sent some? I suppose that was it more or less, Harry said, in a manner of speaking.

That's the way to go about it, I suppose, May said.