Exiles in the Garden (12 page)

Lucia looked closely at Alec, trying to judge his reaction. She wondered if he could read between the lines. Stefan never could. Really, she was judging his sincerity. This Alec was certainly not Stefan, who prized silence above all else. Silence and discretion, she amended. Alec was more attractive than Stefan, she thought, with his pale gray eyes and disarming manner; he knew how to tell a story, too. Alec looked at her straight on whereas Stefan was a personality in profile, a one-eyed jack. When Alec spoke his voice was soft. She did not think he would be rough.

Alec said, How is it a Swiss story?

Lucia paused fractionally. It's dense, she said.

I think I want to go home now, she added.

All right, he said.

With you, she said.

On their way out she gave a little mischievous wave to the secretary of defense, who smiled and waved back. In the car Alec kissed her, their lips barely touching. He took a roundabout route once they were under way, to the Mall and around the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol behind them. There were pleasure boats on the Potomac, their running lights slithering on the gray surface of the water. The opposite shore was a thin dark line. One very large yacht motored slowly in the direction of National Airport, two smaller boats ahead and two behind like pilot fish. A full moon rose in the eastern sky. Alec wondered aloud if the large yacht was Kennedy's, the
Honey Fitz.
It was large enough, one hundred feet long at least, displaying only a few running lights. Inside, a rosy glow came from the saloon. Alec turned to Lucia and explained about presidential yachts, a perquisite like Air Force One and Camp David. He thought he saw people on the fantail, guests for the evening cruise. They could be anybody—the shah of Iran, Charles de Gaulle, Che Guevara, the ghost of T. E. Lawrence, or a movie star like Lauren Bacall or David Niven. Who knew who they were? Picasso? John Steinbeck? Maybe even his father if there was something Kennedy wanted badly enough and thought that a night on the
Honey Fitz
might get it for him. They were drinking and having a fine time on the Potomac. De Gaulle had decided to lecture the shah. Picasso was playing gin rummy with David Niven. George Jessel was telling jokes. A president could call anyone to his table, refusals not accepted. Not that anyone would want to refuse. What would be the point? Alec imagined shooting them wide-angle, focusing on Lucia telling them about her mother's political house, her devotion to socialism, Kennedy listening intently while he smoked a cigar, Che nodding in approval.

And then they were around the curve and entering sedate Rock Creek Park. Alec was trying to slow things down. He returned to his yacht reverie, speculating to Lucia that even now Kennedy was enjoying a bullshot on the fantail of the
Honey Fitz
while his secretary of defense was scrutinizing documents and ignoring his meal at the so-so restaurant on New York Avenue. Lucia was laughing, her head nestled into his shoulder, her hand warm against his chest. She murmured something he couldn't hear. Her scent filled the car. He was dizzy with it.

What did you say?

Drive faster, she said.

Five hours later they were still entangled in his bed, windows thrown open to the balmy night. Alec had the idea they were one body. In the darkness he saw an ankle and did not know whose it was. He didn't move, liking the mystery. They had been lying together in silence, not quite dozing but not awake either. He asked her if there was anything she wanted—every phrase was now a double entendre—and she answered yes, she wanted a cup of tea. When he came back with the tea she was sitting up, the sheets gathered around her, staring into an abstract distance. She blew on the tea to cool it, then balanced the cup and saucer on her belly. She began in the middle of her thought, no preamble. She had some sympathy for the husband. What was his name? Robert. She understood Robert, his contrived accent, his excuses, his delusions of importance, his evident weightlessness. She thought probably he was losing himself in Russia. He wouldn't be the first to do so. Even Russians were nervous, Turgenev for example, who seemed to find tranquillity only in France. She understood this because Robert reminded her of herself. Often she felt she was slipping away, losing touch. Her American thoughts were different, looser, without context. Probably she didn't know how to express herself properly. There were times when she felt she could not breathe and yet unlike Robert she was unable to enter fully into American life. She recognized this as fear and believed it common among displaced Europeans. Turgenev became an itinerant, Baden and Paris and provincial France his preferred locations. Always he was drawn back to Russia, though he refused to die there. He would give the motherland his heart but he wouldn't give her his soul. His great subject was the landmass of Russia and how its citizens accommodated themselves or not. At the end he too was weightless. Russia was mightier than he was, a tempest that swept all before it. Lucia spoke slowly. Her voice was drowsy. She said, Turgenev had his idea of Russia as my mother had her idea of socialism.

But I don't know what I have, she said.

You have me, he said.

Right now I feel happy with you, yes.

My American, she added.

We have found each other, he said. It's unusual. You had to come all the way from Switzerland.

To find you, she said.

And if I hadn't been assigned the shoot at the embassy ... He did not finish the thought. Life did hang by threads, enigma its core. Her arms were around him now. She whispered into his ear.

He said, I don't want you to lose yourself or slip away.

It's difficult for me, she said.

In America there's something for everyone.

There is?

Definitely. It's a promise.

I'm trying, Lucia said.

Lucia gave notice at the embassy, something that was not done but she was determined to do it. In the event, the ambassador and his wife were understanding. Lucia had been very good with their children and they wished her the best. You and your photographer, the ambassador's wife said. And he is the son of a United States senator! You have done well for yourself, Lucia. He looks to be a fine young man with a promising career. And you seem much happier now than you have been. We were worried about you. America is an unforgiving country. Americans are quick to forget when it suits their purposes. And quick to remember for the same reason.

Lucia moved in with Alec and got a job at the National Zoo. She had always loved animals, bears especially. She was a guide for groups of foreign tourists owing to her fluency in French and German. After hours she helped with the cages. Lucia found the zoo workers entertaining, many of them young and at loose ends; they constituted a kind of family, animals included. In due course she met Alec's parents and found them welcoming. Alec's mother was a chain smoker and in that, if in no other way, she reminded Lucia of her own mother. The senator was more reserved. He reminded her of a music teacher she'd had in Zurich, a better talker than he was a musician or a teacher. Senator Malone spoke in a heavy baritone that rose and fell as if he were reading from a script. Alec called it his toga-talk. The senator did not treat his son with respect so her relations with him were guarded. He invited her to call him Kim, but she could not bring herself to do it so continued to address him as Senator. When they told his parents that they planned to marry, Alec's mother was delighted and full of ideas, the wedding to be held at the Episcopal church in Chevy Chase, the reception at one of the downtown clubs. A champagne reception with an orchestra, toasts to fini sh things off. The chaplain of the Senate can do the honors.

Would you like that, dear?

We have other plans, Alec said.

Let Lucia speak for herself, Alec. It's her wedding. It's the bride who decides. It's her day. But we are so happy you decided to have the wedding here as opposed to Switzerland, so far away.

We'd planned to elope, Lucia said hesitantly.

Elkton, Maryland, Alec said.

Alec's mother lit a contemplative cigarette, her lipstick bright against the white paper. We could have such a nice wedding reception at the club, all our friends, all your friends, a day to remember always.

The Johnsons will come, the senator said. Maybe even the president. Jackie, too.

Lucia looked at him, startled. They will?

Of course they will, the senator said. Jack and I go way back. We've known the Johnsons for many, many years. Last year we were at the ranch. The senator went on to speak of other Washington personalities, men and their wives. Lucia did not recognize the names but understood they were important. The names flew past. Humphrey. Dirksen. Udall. Acheson. Krock. She had the picture of a theatrical troupe, introduced and then hustled offstage. Lucia was tongue-tied. She did not know what to think; the idea of the vice president at her wedding, perhaps even proposing a toast, asking her to dance, was alarming. The president and Jackie likewise was unthinkable. She wondered what her mother would say. Surely she would approve of the president, who with his charm and mordant humor was seen almost as an honorary European. But her mother would be suspicious all the same, of Kennedy's robber baron father and the vice president's oil connections. The vice president had once shown up at a reception at the embassy, moving briskly around the room, the ambassador at his side; and then he was gone, vanished through the double doors, one of his assistants explaining that he was obliged to return to the White House for a meeting with the president. The ambassador did not believe him. He had done his duty and now wanted to go home or to his office on the Hill, drink a double Scotch, make some calls. Lucia felt her chest tighten and for a moment she thought she would faint. She turned to Alec and was unsettled to see his stony expression.

We've made our plans, Alec said.

Let Lucia have her say, the senator said.

I want what Alec wants, Lucia said.

They were standing in the living room of the Malone house in Chevy Chase, cocktail time. Alec and his father and mother were drinking highballs, Lucia a glass of champagne. Alec had brought a bottle for the occasion. The room was brightly lit and filled with photographs of Washington personalities, some of the most recent shot by Alec. Many of the photographs were quite old. Lucia's mother's study was similarly decorated—perhaps decorated was not the exact word for it, more a statement of principles. Her photographs were grainy and formal. The subjects wore hats. Turgenev, Adorno, James Joyce, Walter Benjamin, and a lithograph of Robespierre. Lucia looked at the Malone collection and wondered if any of them were of Swiss ancestry. Doubtless not. The Swiss did not figure in the American experience. In that way, the Washington personalities were no different from Turgenev, Adorno, James Joyce, Walter Benjamin, and Robespierre. Where was the Swiss imprint on the world? But it was the simple truth that the Swiss had never been colonizers. They were content in their mountain fortress, occasionally venturing abroad when business required it. All the men in the Malone photographs looked well fed and wore blue suits, except for one very well fed adventurer who was dressed in riding boots, jodhpurs, and floppy hat, an exceptionally toothy grin below a bushy mustache, robust to the point of caricature.

A reception would mean so much to your mother, the senator said to Alec. And to me, too. I have an idea! Perhaps a smaller affair, the wedding and reception right here in this living room. I can get the chaplain of the Senate—

That should be Lucia's choice, Kim. Alec's mother looked anxiously at her daughter-in-law-to-be. She did not know her well and they had never had a private conversation. Lucia appeared pale, her eyes downcast. She had fini shed one glass of champagne, Alec had poured her another, and now that was gone. Mag thought they had pushed Lucia too hard. The poor girl was out of her depth, totally dependent on Alec. She hoped her son knew what he was doing but had no great confidence on that score. Alec had always gone his own way, bullheaded like his father. His bullheadedness sat side by side with an alarming indifference to the world around him, as if what happened there was no concern of his. He did not seem connected to anything, not his work, not his country; perhaps this girl, now on her third glass of champagne, was the solution. Also, Alec had not a clue as to what his wedding day meant to his father and mother. An only child was always a burden.

The senator said, Whoever does the service, we could still have a restricted reception of twenty people, perhaps a few more.

Too many hurt feelings, Mag said sharply. It's the best way in the world to make enemies, especially in Washington.

You have a point there, the senator said.

The Johnsons, for example.

But they would head the list!

And the Dirksens and the Humphreys. What about them?

The senator fell silent and Lucia had a sudden sense of futility, a vertigo. She was unable to see the way ahead. Her list would have included only a few names: the ambassador and his wife; and Andrea and Jeanette, au pair girls she saw often in the park; two or three others from the zoo. The bear girl and her husband. Lucia had friends in Switzerland but she had been out of touch with them and they could not afford a trip to America in any case. Lucia had thought of herself and Alec as a nation of two, subject to their own laws and customs, but now she wasn't so sure. Alec's parents had their own claim. She realized that she would be surrounded by strangers at her own wedding if the Malones had their way. The thought of being introduced to people she did not know at such an intimate occasion appalled her. She would not know what to say—and then she imagined her father arriving, risen from the dead wearing his Borsalino and smoking a cigarette, introduced to the vice president and all the other notables, astonished that his daughter moved in such elevated circles. He was not himself disconcerted, appearing perfectly at ease in a fine suit and polished shoes. Yet it was apparent from his looks and his manner that he was an outdoor man among indoor men. Women were drawn to him and it was a moment before he and Lucia embraced. Hello, Papa. Hello, Lucia, you look lovely today. Where have you been, Papa? I have been away, he said, living in Czechoslovakia. I live in the country, a beautiful house on a mountaintop ... Lucia's thought vanished there and she was back in the Malones' living room.