The Henderson Equation (43 page)

"Because there are no absolutes in this business,
Everybody perceives the truth differently." He squeezed her hand, waiting
for a return movement, but it remained limp in his. How could she know that it
was not in his power to decide? She would find that out soon enough. He must
now give her some hope of victory, some sense of his own hesitation, as if
there were any.

"I haven't completely made my decision," he said
simply, hoping she would jump to the bait.

"Well, you haven't satisfied me as to why you're not
going to run it. Perhaps I can make you see that we have got to run this
story."

"I hope you don't see me as pigheaded."

"Not at all, Mr. Gold." He felt the return of her
pressure on his hand, knowing then that he had touched her compassion, feeling
no remorse or guilt, forcing himself now to see only the abstraction of her
young body, her attractiveness to his senses.

"Being the commander isn't easy, Martha. This power
over the word is a ridiculous burden. You can't imagine how difficult it is. It
requires a great respect for moral value."

"Yes, that's exactly the point. It is, after all, a
moral question." She finished the glass of wine. He moved closer to her
now, seeing the flush begin on her cheekbones, a gentle film of goose pimples
on her arm. He felt his sexuality stir, dispelling the fear of potential
fulfillment. It was a special joy to feel his manhood harden in his pants.

"Do you really understand?" she asked, letting
him frame her face in his hands.

"I understand," he said, which he did, her sense
of outrage, her exquisite belief in fairness and honesty. This is strictly a
peccadillo, a lark, he told himself. He had no desire to be mentally intimate,
felt unable to abide the thought of afterplay, the intellectualizing of the
act, the need for her to unburden. It was an unhappy prospect and for a brief
moment he hesitated. There was no way she could make the remotest dent in his
resolve to keep the Henderson story out of the
Chronicle
. He had already
made his surrender, had tasted the bile of defeat, and Henderson with his
unwelcome confession had put the finishing touch on the decision.

She might be giving the experience a mystical frame,
hallucinatory, as if it were necessary to offer herself to the cause of truth.
Lifting her from the chair by the pressure of his hands on her face, he touched
her body with his, feeling the softness of her flesh beneath the incredibly
thin film of her clothes. He pressed his pelvis toward her so that she could
feel the urgency of his hardness. He felt himself shiver, giddy with the desire
to humiliate her, create some violation on her body. Perhaps he would strangle
her, he thought, as his hands slipped from her cheeks to her throat. Instead,
he lifted her chin and brought her lips to his, kissing her, tonguing her
deeply, until her response was sure.

Who is this stranger? he asked himself, lifting her dress,
his fingers groping between the cheeks of her buttocks. He was hoping she might
resist now, challenge his manhood, force his brutality. Am I feeling Charlie's
madness now? he wondered. Must I feel Charlie's madness to find myself? But she
did not struggle, perhaps feeling his need for this violation, as if it might
seal a bond between them. I am being ludicrous, he told himself, as he tugged
downward on the elastic of her panty hose, pinching each cheek of her buttocks,
urging her to cry out in pain. Stepping back suddenly, he removed his trousers,
watching her, feeling the hard length of his erection as she watched it, her
eyes revealing confusion, fear. Not a sound passed between them as he pulled
her downward to her knees, feeling her resistance, then surrender. Her hands
groped on the carpet for support, perhaps knowing what must happen, expecting
it to happen. Did she suspect his mendacity, his need to abuse? He kneeled
behind her as he sought a swift, brutal entrance in the attitude of pursuit,
the way of dogs. She was dry, tight, but despite his own pain, he pushed on
relentlessly, feeling the strength of his brutality and her humiliation as her
body fought silently to reject him. She cried out, a wailing sound of agony, as
she accepted his thrust, his abuse. The wail was drowned in the air, as he
plunged forward, gripping her hips, forcing her movement as she whimpered in
pain. There was no pleasure in it for him, only compulsion, which whetted the
fury of his movements, made him see the shape of his own helpless animality. He
could not will himself to stop as he moved her body back and forth, feeling the
harsh envelope of her flesh as it fell back on his erection which spitted her
without mercy, until he felt his own pain turn to numbness.

"Please come," she shouted at him through her
agony, reaching a hand behind her to caress his testicles, but he knew that was
impossible, since it was hardly the culmination he could induce as he gripped
her body, holding her buttocks close as she tried desperately to disengage. He
could feel the sweat pour from him through his exposed flesh, the pores of his
hands, his belly making sticking sounds as he plunged relentlessly. He did not
know how long it went on, except that he finally became conscious of a sudden
sag in her body. Disengaging, he turned her over. She had fainted, her features
frozen in pain. He lifted her limp body to the couch and ran to the bathroom
where he soaked a towel in cold water, then returned and bathed her face,
watching her regain consciousness. Her eyes looked up at him, terror-stricken,
helpless.

"You fainted," he said. Even at that moment he
could not find any gentleness.

"You hurt me," she whispered, the color returning
to her cheeks. He seemed to be goading her to hate him. She pushed his hands
from her body and sat up, the towel still pressed to her forehead. It was only
after she had stood up, balancing herself against the couch as she winced in
pain, that he could summon any compassion. He watched her walk unsteadily into
the bathroom, her buttocks still exposed, her dress still stuck to her back. Seeing
her this way, he could visualize the measure of his own venality. It was more
than rape, he told himself. It was an attack on her pride, her goodness, her
conception of decency and honor, all things which he imagined he had debased.
He felt sick with the knowledge of his own capacity to inflict such horror, but
it gave him no feeling of expiation, no sense of the moment of truth, no
release.

He listened to the sound of water running in the bathroom,
imagining how she must feel as she administered to her abused body. He could
feel his stomach knot and nausea begin, the retching rise in his gut as he
dashed into the kitchen and put his head under the faucet of the sink, turning
the cold water on his head. Then she was standing over him, watching. He turned
the faucet off, feeling her eyes, the water dripping onto his shirt.

"I should never have come," she said. She was
still pale, but she had recovered her equilibrium.

"Then why did you?" he asked. He wanted to sob,
but found the strength to resist.

"I thought I could persuade you," she said
calmly.

"You didn't." He cleared his throat, hesitated.
"I took advantage."

"I asked for it," she said, her voice strong.
"Consider the blame shared."

Who is the victim, he wondered? Had he been the manipulated
or the manipulator? Once again he felt the nagging vulnerability of his age, of
his generation and all its anachronisms.

"I was prepared to do anything to get that story
printed," she said, shuffling into her coat.

"Where the hell is the morality in that?" he
said, suddenly angry.

"The truth is worth any sacrifice."

"And I thought that I had abused you."

Her head moved from side to side, her blonde hair soft and
flowing with the movement. She started toward the door, turning, her hand on
the knob.

"Despite this bungle, that story must be told."

"Bullshit," he shouted. "I decide
that." A shadow of fright fell on her face as she let herself out the
door.

"You had no right," he shouted after her, knowing
that she was out of earshot, as he ran into the bedroom and flung himself down
on the bed.

What he experienced then could not be sleep, since he was
conscious of his sense of place, a sensation of floating on the
pedestal-propped bed in the clear expanse of space. The glass of the large
windows had become invisible and he was simply hanging in the Washington air,
suspended near the blinking red lights of the neighboring television and radio
antennas. There was some logic in his position. It was, after all, his own
room, in his own apartment. The incongruity was Charlie's face sneering at him,
disembodied, like one half of a helium-filled balloon. He could hear his own
voice barraging Charlie's face with questions, although he could not make out
what these questions were, only that they were becoming increasingly repetitive
in tone and inflection; he was apparently asking the same question over and
over again. It was maddening not to be able to make out the sound of his own
question, or to find the substance of it even in his own mind. Worse, the face
that was Charlie's did not understand the question, and it increased his agony
to see that Charlie's face was almost flat and did not reach that place in his
skull where the ears should be. So he was screaming, or so he thought, a
question that he could not understand, even though he was the one who was
screaming it, and which could not be heard since the face that was allegedly
receiving the question had no ears. Only the clicking sound of typewriter keys,
coming from somewhere in the distance, relieved what had become an interminable,
hopeless, unbearable frustration. He knew that once he found the source of the
sound, he could tap out his question and because the face of Charlie did have
eyes, here at last might be a way to get through. He felt something inside
himself leave his body in search of the typewriter, whose clacking keys grew
louder, then faded, then grew louder again, until finally the sound of the keys
disappeared completely and he knew he was screaming out a foreign sound. But
his eyes were open now and he could feel a hand on his shoulder shaking him.

"You're having a nightmare." It was Jennie's
voice. He could barely catch his breath and his clothes were bathed in sweat.
"You were howling."

"What did I say?" he asked, exhausted. The
memories, of the dreamlike episode were clear. Perhaps she might unlock the
mystery of the unheard question.

"Just odd noises. You must have had a bellyful of
cheese." With her words came a faint odor of wine, champagne perhaps.
"I've been writing my story." The source of the typewriter sound, he
thought, looking at his watch. It was only eleven. She had dashed from the
White House to the apartment to write her story, to get him to help.

"I was going to be a real rat and wake you," she
said brightly, brushing back his matted hair. Sitting up, he felt a sharp pain
in his loins, remembering. She flicked the switch, bathing the room in suffused
light. Her hair smelled of cigarette smoke. Leaning against the headboard, he
lit a cigarette, puffing deeply, looking around the room. Was he searching for
Charlie's face in the air, noting the spot where it had hung, disembodied and
scowling?

"Take a gander, salamander," she said, pushing
the copy paper in front of him. He took it and started to read, the stilted
awkward sentences assailing him like hurled rocks.

"What shit!" he said. He could see her mouth
tighten, her eyes narrow.

"I seem to be particularly constipated tonight."
She grabbed the lit cigarette from his hand and puffed, blowing the smoke out
like gusts of anger. "I really saw it, too," she said. "The
stupidity of the inane toasts. The platitudes. That silly little Jordan king
with his ramrod back and deep voice, a pint-sized Omar Sharif. The tacky
dresses of the Cabinet wives, the oh-so-with-it show biz types, the whole media
exploitation, another contrived happening. I tried to carry it in my head until
I could get to a typewriter, and then I sat down and it all came out like dry
little turds."

Normally he would have been gentle, praising her, making
changes, merely rearranging words to give greater scope. But now he held the
copy as if it were a disintegrating animal corpse. She looked at the face of
the clock on the end table.

"I've got to get it down to the
Chronicle,"
she said, holding out a copy pencil. He held the copy out at arm's length and
dropped it in a pile on the bed.

"Don't tease, Nick," she said, reaching to
retrieve the paper. When she had reassembled the pages, she handed it back to
him. This time he flung it in the air, watching the papers float to the floor.

"Come on, Nick. Really, I haven't time." He
watched her carefully, wondering how long it would take her to discover the
reality. Again she started to retrieve the papers.

"Please, Nick," she said, holding the papers now
as if she were hugging a child. "Stop playing." She reached out, copy
in one hand, pencil in the other, her lips pouting, a contrived attitude of a
cute little girl begging for a favor.

"You can't bake bread with horseshit," he said,
smiling.

"Please, Nick. Pretty please." She stubbornly
refused to accept his refusal, sure of her hold over him.

"Submit it the way it is," he said quietly. She
looked at the first page of the copy again.

"They'll laugh at me, Nick. You're quite right. It's
absolutely awful. The copy desk people will snicker over it. They'll tear it
apart and tomorrow Margaret will know, Nick."

"What will Margaret know?"

"That you're not helping me anymore. I'll be at her
mercy."

"There's always Myra."

It was said softly, but he could see it strike her like a
tracer bullet. Her body actually moved backward as if it had been hit.