Exiles in the Garden (11 page)

She did. Eventually.

And was that a happy time for her?

It was an improvement on what she'd had.

Was it an improvement on what you'd had?

It was, Alec said.

Were you in love with her?

I would have done anything for her.

That means you weren't, Lucia said, the words harsher than she intended and so she smiled, making a joke of it.

Olivia used to tell me wonderful stories about the Iron Range. Her parents were radicals, born in Norway. She couldn't take their politics seriously. They were forever plotting the overthrow of the government in Minneapolis in order to set up a rump state in Ely or Babbitt. Olivia was very close to her parents. Politics to her was a sideshow. That was one other reason we got on so well. What she wanted really was a family of her own, a real house in a real neighborhood, the school down the street. That was the life she wanted.

Lucia was silent a moment, wondering how to frame the next question. She said, Was Olivia in love with you?

I think she was, Alec said. Not for keeps, though. Not for marriage. We never talked about that.

A family of her own, a house in a neighborhood. Is that enough?

It is for many people, quite a number of people, really. Anyhow it's what she wanted.

But not what you wanted.

I hadn't given marriage much thought.

This does not sound like a love match, Lucia said.

Oh, it was. It was in its own way. We had good times together. We looked out for each other. And when all else fails you can't beat lust.

Lucia smiled broadly. What happened then?

She went back to Minnesota.

No regrets?

She didn't like cheating on her husband even though by that time she was certain he was cheating on her. Whether he was or he wasn't, he made it clear that he preferred life in important Moscow rather than life with unimportant her. That seemed to be the end of her dreams of a family, a real home in a real neighborhood, the school down the street, and all the rest. There was something boastful about him now and somewhere in Moscow he had acquired a new accent. When he wasn't dropping Russian words and phrases he was talking about the State De-pot-ment and the ambassa-duh. The transatlantic static on the line concealed much but it couldn't conceal that. That was the way with him, the job and the climb up the ladder. The farther from her the better. Still, he was her husband and she didn't like cheating on him.

And you. What did you think?

I didn't like it either. But not enough to stop it.

That sounds like an honest answer.

It is an honest answer, Alec said. You see, they were childhood sweethearts, students together at UMinn-Edina. He was a wonderful student. His attention to studies was one of the things she found attractive about him. His ambition was to see the wide world and for a time that was her ambition, too. Ambition was an attractive thing in boys, she said, until suddenly it wasn't. Olivia thought their story was a Washington story and one other reason why she distrusted Washington. Why, he was just a boy from Hibbing. His parents and grandparents were Iron Range people. And now their boy was in Embassy Moscow, a rising star at the State De-pot-ment. Unless that, too, was a fiction.

Is he still there?

I don't know. Olivia went back to Edina. I got a postcard from her the other day, a picture of the open pits of the Iron Range. No message. Love, Olivia.

And the mighty attraction?

It was a mighty attraction, Alec said. Over now.

Lucia sipped her wine, her eyes fastened on his. That was what you wanted to tell me?

Not just that. The whole story.

Didn't you tell me the whole story?

Ninety-nine percent, he said.

And that one percent?

I've forgotten, he said. You always forget one percent.

She smiled at that and speared a last forkful of lasagna, chewing it without enthusiasm. The restaurant was emptying but not the table next to theirs, embroiled in an argument about the Democratic nominee in 1968, six years hence.

Lucia said, Are you ambitious like Robert?

No, I'm not ambitious.

Maybe that's the one percent, she said.

Oh, horseshit!
the loud young man at the nearby table roared and then fell silent, abashed. Diners rising in their chairs sat down again. The restaurant itself came to a sudden halt as if a heavy hand had pulled on its reins. The secretary of defense and two younger men took seats at a table near the hedge that ringed the terrace. At once they began to confer, their heads close together. They gave no indication they knew they were in a public place. They might have been in an office, for instantly documents were produced from a briefcase and each began to read. When a waiter approached he was waved away. The surrounding silence gave way to murmurs of conversation, including the loud young man, much subdued now, commenting only that Lyndon Johnson had about as much chance of being nominated as the man in the moon. It was Bobby's turn. As he spoke his eyes drifted off in the direction of the table near the hedge. At last he shook his head in admiration. He's so brilliant. He's the most brilliant SecDef this country has ever seen. And do you know why? He's in command of the facts, that's why.

I like making pictures, Alec said. I suppose ambition comes into it somewhere.

But you don't think about it.

Not much, he said.

Lucia nodded her head at the table near the hedge. Who is that?

That is the secretary of defense. A local hero.

Alec wondered what had brought the secretary of defense to this restaurant, not on anyone's list of highly recommended. What it had was an agreeable terrace, so long as you didn't mind the exhaust fumes from the street. The prices were in line and the waiters were friendly. Alec watched the owner walk to the secretary's table and place a hand on the shoulder of one of the younger men, who rose to his feet to introduce the secretary. So the owner was a friend of the secretary's friend who, from the look of him, was more likely an aide. The owner produced a bottle of wine, opened it, placed menus on the table, and departed. The secretary and the two others continued to read documents. The wine was poured but not tasted.

I had an affair such as yours, Lucia said. Except he was not married.

Did it end well?

He was not a suitable man, she said. He was older. He was fifteen years older than me. I think he was a professional bachelor. That was the way he saw himself and I didn't mind. We had good times together. He was a keen skier. Lucia paused, smiling at the thought, her eyes far away. Beautiful skier, really. It was a pleasure watching him. We often raced and he only beat me once. He didn't like losing, not at all, especially to a girl with a bad leg. Stefan was a competitive personality. Every time he lost he'd go into a funk and I'd think about losing the next time, but I never did except that once.

Most men are competitive, Alec said.

But not you, Lucia said.

Not particularly, said Alec. Also, I don't ski.

I think my affair was very much like your affair with the exception of the marriage.

A mighty attraction?

Lucia smiled. Fun, isn't it?

Assuredly, Alec said. Then, Does it bother you that Olivia was married?

No. She was lonely. Her husband was far away and inattentive. Probably she thought she had lost him for good. Lucia laughed suddenly, moving her head from side to side. This is a strange conversation for me, she said. We hardly know each other.

We know each other, Alec said.

Not so well, Lucia said.

What did he do? His work.

Stefan was a banker. Also, he wrote literary articles for one of the Zurich papers. His articles were highly regarded. They were very difficult. Stefan wrote in High German. And then I left for America.

Because of the literary articles?

They were not connected, she said. You never ski?

I never learned.

I think you would be good at it. You have the body for it. Lucia took another sip of wine, making a face. Since we have come to know each other so well, I do not mind telling you that this wine is filthy.

As bad as that?

It tastes like ink, she said. So, she went on, I left Switzerland because I wanted to visit America. I thought I should see it. Stefan was against it. He warned me that America was not anything like Switzerland and that the differences were not agreeable. But I thought that was the reason I should go. Everyone talks about America, what they like about it and what they don't, so I thought I should see for myself. Stefan had never been to America except once, at a conference where no one spoke German. Also, I was a convenience for him and he didn't want to lose the convenience. Someone told me of the ambassador's need for an au pair. So I took the job at the embassy and I have to say that Stefan was not entirely incorrect in what he said. America lacks density. It lacks ... Lucia sought the word and came up with "thrift." Alec listened hard, wondering why the United States should be reduced to a single word or phrase. They would never reduce their own countries to a word. He hoped she would not complain about American innocence. Lucia thought a moment and added, But I am enjoying very much my dinner with you.

It's thrifty, Alec said. Especially the wine.

Lucia ignored his remark, gesturing instead at the secretary of defense and his aides, still huddled over their documents, not speaking. She said, Are you a part of that?

No. I only take photographs for the newspaper.

You're not involved in the other?

Not really. Alec did not know how far to take this thought. He said, I like the craft of photography, the details you have to pay attention to. The feel of the camera. I'm like the man building a ship in a bottle and at the end of it that's what you have, a ship in a bottle. It's honest work. I don't know that it's anything more than that.

You made a wonderful shot of me, Lucia said.

It was good, wasn't it? Five seconds. It took me five seconds.

What's wrong with that?

Nothing's wrong with it. Best shot I've made in months. Five seconds.

I don't understand—

It was you, Lucia. You were the shot. I just happened to point the camera in the right direction.

That is foolish, she said.

Not foolish, Alec said.

I think you are a utopian, Lucia said.

She took a sip of wine and looked at the table by the hedge. She said, Your secretary of defense looks tired. He looks as if he could use a good meal and something better than this filthy Chianti. Lucia put her chin in the palm of her hand and continued to scrutinize the secretary of defense. She said, I'm used to it. There was always politics in my mother's house. Politics and books, more books than politics, I think. But they were the same thing. Books were politics, especially novels and poetry. If they didn't have politics they weren't worth reading. My mother said I would marry a political man, a reformer. We would reform the world, this man and I. She was quite sure of that, although I never believed it. She was sure of herself, my mother. She believed in socialism the way religious believe in the church. She thought of the Soviets as the antichrist, corrupting socialism, luring it into a nasty orthodoxy. In the end all the Soviets believed in was themselves. Brutes. My mother called them brutes. Still, she never lost her faith. She had a love affair with socialism. After my father left us she went to bed with socialism. I think she was a utopian. Our apartment was filled with utopians, all of them speaking secondary languages and failing to understand one another when the points were subtle. Also, they were gnomic. They were in love with theory, even my mother. Of course she is gone now, dead three years next month.

Through the candlelight Alec saw Lucia's eyes fill with tears.

I miss my mother, she said. Even her socialism.

Alec nodded without knowing exactly what he was agreeing to. His own political house had to do with campaigns and elections won and lost, legislative programs, the number of congressional districts in Iowa, the supplemental appropriation for the army. Belief didn't come into it since disbelief was unthinkable, along with UFOs and atheism. Alec supposed his father believed in elections. Certainly he believed in the apparatus of American democracy, two political parties, conventions every four years, the Electoral College. Elections certified democracy. In that way democracy was part of the furniture, and if your party lost this year's election you'd get it back next time or the time after. The pie was large, slices enough to go around. Socialism was not on the table, at least the table Senator Malone dined at. Socialism was not an election issue and hadn't been since Joe McCarthy, and socialism to McCarthy was a slogan, the commonist conspiracy, the commonist menace, commonism in the State Department. Joe McCarthy couldn't pronounce the word correctly even when he was sober. Alec tried to imagine his father explaining McCarthy to Lucia's mother—his bogus war record, his mastery of the televised image and the trumped-up charge, and the peculiarities of the state of Wisconsin where all rivers ran north. None of the arguments that had enraptured Europeans for two generations had resonance chez Malone. Alec was tempted to tell Lucia of his own political house but guessed that now was not the time, their meal almost finished but the night with a ways to go. Lucia was silent now, her expression taut. Alec knew she was thinking again of her mother's death. Her still face was lovely in the light of candles.

Tell me more about your mother.

Lucia shook her head.

Your house sounds more interesting than mine, Alec said. Was Stefan a political man?

Oh, no, she said. Not Stefan. Stefan was a banker. His literary articles were a sideline, weekend work. When he was not skiing. He would not have approved of the house I grew up in so I never mentioned it. With us it was a physical thing. He never talked about his banking and I never asked, and I never talked about my mother and he never asked. That was how we got on in the world day to day, more or less. Lucia saw no need to add that Stefan was often rough. She liked his roughness for a while and then she didn't like it. She felt manhandled. She said with a smile, That's enough said. Ours was a Swiss story. Untranslatable.