American Romantic (26 page)

That's their specialty, Harry said. Fitting in. They want you to forget they're writing everything down.

I don't fit in, May said. I am unmoored except to you. Is that a burden? I imagine it is. My efforts here are provisional. Cosmetic, I would say. Validated only in the photo opportunity at the orphanage or clinic. Ambassador's Wife Dedicates Child Care Center. And that's me, wearing a pair of sensible shoes and a smart American smile, a mannequin in a shop window.

Oh, come on, Harry said.

You try it sometime.

I do it all the time. It's part of the damned job.

You'd be better off with Zoe, with her bush hat and her Rolex. Did you find her attractive?

May, he said. Don't say that.

Thing is, May said, I'm not certain we belong here at all. I'm not certain that the people wouldn't get along better if we were gone. They got along fine without us for hundreds, thousands of years.

They did not get along fine without us.

They're still here, aren't they?

What we do here is valuable. We should be doing more, not less.

I wish I could be convinced. I'm not.

They depend on us, Harry said.

That's another problem. Dependency.

You have a point there, Harry said.

May did not reply to that.

We have a year to go, Harry said. Can you bear it?

I can bear it.

Later this month we'll go somewhere.

I'd like that, she said.

You choose, he said.

All right, she said.

You can forget about the photo opportunities. I'll put a stop to them.

Thank you, she said.

Christ, he said. This place. It's so—

Strenuous, she said.

Strenuous, Harry agreed.

Thank God we're together, May said.

 

As spring turned to summer, May's mood improved and once again she pitched in, organizing relief efforts, volunteering at clinics and schools and the other places where there was need of the ambassador's wife. She tried to set herself apart, recognizing the limits of compassion. Her new attitude was successful at first, then less so. She did not thrive. She grieved for the victims, and there were so many of them, children especially, most of them famished, some of them suffering from diseases too exotic to treat with any confidence that the medicines would actually work. She was astonished at the forbearance of the mothers. One afternoon a child died in May's arms and she did not know it until a pair of ragged hands tore the child from her and disappeared into the bush, leaving May aghast. How could she not have realized that the child was gone? But the very young children were so small, scarcely larger than dolls, with a doll's eyes and a doll's rubbery skin and unnatural hair. The rosebud smile was missing. They were passive like dolls and often when they opened their mouths no sound came forth. The act of speech was too much for them, and each day word came of a fresh disease that turned healthy men into skeletons. Nothing had prepared May for this experience—and then she remembered the doctor at the English hospital asking if she wished to see her stillborn child, and she recoiled in despair and turned her face to the wall. Words failed her. If you asked her, as Zoe did one day, if she felt she was effective in her rescue work, she would have replied, Yes, within limits. Within the bounds of what she was called upon to do. Yes, in the sense of an amateur mariner successfully navigating a rowboat on the open ocean. Within the boundaries of time and tide and the weather and God's will and her own morale. She asked the reporter Zoe, Is it true that conditions are much worse in Ivory Coast? She opened her mouth to say more but her escort Axel, the embassy's aid administrator, observing her distress and finding trouble ahead, cut short the interview and hustled her into the embassy van. One more clinic to visit.

 

Home at last, May stepped through the front door and into the foyer. She heard the servants rattling plates in the kitchen. Through the porch door she saw Harry having a drink beside the pool. The water was a soft turquoise. The day's heat was beginning to lift. Harry wore a planter's hat, its wide brim casting his face in shadow. His skin was brown from the sun. May stood a moment watching him. Harry had an open book in his lap but he was not reading. He was staring into space and smiling, preoccupied as he so often was. May was exhausted, and when she looked at the pool she thought it could have been a suburban pool anywhere in America, a low board at the far end, wooden tables and chairs here and there, a portable bar under the awning. Then she noticed a copy of
Newsweek
at Harry's feet. May had a sudden desire for a swim and went at once to their bedroom and pulled on her bikini. Downstairs, she ran through the door and dived over Harry's feet into the pool. She swam one lap and another and gave it up after four laps. She hung on the side of the pool and Harry handed her a gin and tonic, the lime bright in the failing sun.

Harry said, You ought to check out the water before you dive in. They found a cobra in there the other day. Little one.

She said, I. Don't. Give. A. Shit. About. Cobras.

That's what I told Gamal. Let the cobras flourish, I said.

We had timber rattlers in Vermont. Seldom seen, but once seen, never forgotten. Nasty brutes.

They say the same's true with cobras.

Do they now? May said.

They surely do, Harry said.

She dipped her head underwater and remained there for a count of fifty while she rubbed her forehead and cheeks, feeling her sweat dissolve. The dead child at the clinic was still on her mind. When she rose from the water, shaking her head like a sea lion, she felt better. The gin helped, too, and she took another swallow, the glass cool and slippery in her hand. She stared at Harry's feet and legs, brown and taut as a lifeguard's. Under the brim of his planter's hat she saw curly locks of hair, hints of gray here and there. He looked ten years younger than his age, a curiosity because he rarely exercised. And then he moved and she saw the scars on the soles of his feet, ugly ridges with suture marks still visible. She gave his foot a soft squeeze. She asked him if he wanted another gin and tonic; she certainly did. Don't bother, she said. I'll get them.

May said from the bar, Did you have a good day?

He said, The usual.

I wish I could say the same.

What happened?

A baby died in my arms. I didn't even know it.

My God, Harry said.

Little thing. She'd fit into a shoebox. Her heart just stopped.

My goodness, Harry said. His memory stirred, conjuring the dead woman in Village Number Five. He opened his mouth to say something, then decided not to.

I hated it, she said.

You don't have to do that business anymore. I told you that.

You know something? I think I won't.

Good idea, he said. Bravo.

Do you think this place is cursed?

Harry shook his head, giving no direct answer, unless the head-shake was a direct answer.

A week later, he left for an ambassadors' meeting in Dakar. The envoys were to appreciate the situation in Africa for the benefit of an assistant secretary of state. On Friday evening May went alone to the French embassy, a reception for the traveling foreign minister, an ocean of champagne and platters of foie gras with toast points, two wheels of Brie and wedges of bleu and Camembert and, so incongruous she had to look twice, a plate of Ritz crackers. She had been introduced to the Belgian chargé d'affaires, newly arrived and finding his way around. Andres spoke an elegant French-accented English acquired, it turned out, at the University of Colorado. So they reminisced about Colorado, hiking and skiing, fishing in the mountain streams, and Denver restaurants, where the beef was sublime. Andres had been an exchange student and May said she was, too, in a way. She described the Northeast Kingdom, which, oddly, he had heard about, though he seemed to think it resembled Switzerland. Not Switzerland, she said, more like East Prussia with the Masurian Lakes and tiny hills and forests of fir and strict codes of conduct—well, maybe not strict codes of conduct; the Northeast Kingdom was loose so far as conduct was concerned. She had never before thought to compare Vermont with Prussia but Andres had laughed and laughed. They did not move far from the buffet table except to fetch shrimp when it came by. This was Andres's first embassy reception but he seemed to know many of the guests, who invariably greeted him as Monsieur le Comte, and when May asked him about it he said yes, he was a count, but it didn't mean anything and he didn't care about it. That was one of the things he liked about America, none of that titled rubbish. He said this was his first posting abroad, not very promising but you had to start somewhere. The Belgians had been terrible in Africa—not that anyone in Belgium cared. Probably the best thing he could do was stay out of sight, become the invisible Belgian. Really, he said, we Belgians were criminals. Criminal behavior, including the king. The king most of all, fooking war criminal. Kings should be outlawed, imprisoned, or sent into exile. May was charmed by him, this Count Andres, his wit and ready smile and denunciation of his own government. May had but scant knowledge of the Belgian record in Africa. Andres was light on his feet, graceful as a dancer, and he surely did like champagne. She had the idea that, for Andres, life was not to be taken seriously. Central Africa did not seem a good choice for him.

She said, Do you like to ride horses?

Of course I like to ride horses. I am riding horses my entire life.

Find two and we can go riding.

There are no horses here. I checked.

They say the president has a stable.

I will present my credentials next week and ask him.

Good, she said. I understand he wants an air force. He claims he has enemies in the north and they can only be subdued from the air. That's what I hear.

I will promise him a jet fighter if he will let us ride his horses.

That should do it, May said. Throw in a couple of battle tanks.

Washington has probably already given him his air force and the battle tanks, too. I am sure I have been outmaneuvered.

Try anyway, May said.

Rest assured, Andres replied.

He asked her about Harry, how he got on with the government. Were they cooperative? May's answer was noncommittal, though she knew Harry was at odds with the Pentagon over the air force issue—grotesque, as Harry said. She was only having fun with the horses but thought now that she had gone too far. In the brittle silence Andres asked her what she did in her spare time. She replied that she did relief work. She visited medical clinics and schools. Once she dedicated a village well. Andres seemed to sense that she was uncomfortable talking about herself, so he turned the conversation back to horses, where they might be ridden and when. Finally, as the reception was breaking up, he asked if she would like a nightcap at his villa, only a few steps from her own. May said yes, that would be nice, a glass of wine at the end of the evening. Andres said they should take his car, and she agreed. She had dismissed her driver knowing that someone would offer her a lift home. They all lived within six blocks of each other.

Andres drove a green Karmann Ghia convertible, the bucket seats so confined their shoulders touched. He drove at speed but knew what he was doing behind a wheel. She was not alarmed as she often was with Harry, who had no love of automobiles and drove slowly and without enthusiasm. He often took his eyes off the road. Harry looked on cars as an opportunity for sustained conversation, no telephones or meetings to break things up. Andres hardly spoke except to comment on the softness of the night, the many stars overhead, and the aroma of lilacs. Were they lilacs? Jasmine, May replied. They were two minutes from Andres's villa, a modest bungalow hidden behind an enormous hedge. He parked in the carport and they entered the kitchen. He opened the door to the pool area and indicated chairs gathered around a table. He said he would drink beer and May said she would have beer, too. Belgian beer, Andres said, the best thing about his country. May took a seat, stretched out her legs, and looked at the stars, searching for the Southern Cross and not finding it. Things were not in their places in Africa. Untamed Africa had its own rules, ill-defined boundaries with chaos on both sides. She was drowsy, thinking that Andres brought a measure of civilization to the night. May kicked off her shoes and rubbed her toes on the flagstones, still warm from the day's heat. Suddenly a bottle of beer was at her elbow and Andres was stepping into the pool, his own bottle held aloft in his right hand, Mr. Statue of Liberty. A moment later his head appeared at the edge of the pool, his hair slick as honey. He said, If you're looking for the Southern Cross, it's over your right shoulder. She looked up and stared at the Southern Cross. Andres described the prophetic properties of the Southern Cross, something he claimed to have heard firsthand from an astronomer. He turned his back on her then, allowing his legs to float. Andres was well muscled, the long muscles of a swimmer. He had not bothered to put on swim trunks. She reached out and touched his honeyed head, not slick but coarse. He wore his hair long, curling over his ears. Andres did not look or talk like any diplomat she had met. His behavior did not fit the norm either. Yet here she was at one o'clock in the morning having a party-after-the-party, so to speak.

She wondered what it would be like if she went away with him, only a few days. But where could they go? There was no place to go in this wretched landlocked country, not a hotel, not even a rest house. She put her hands on his wet shoulders. He appeared not to notice. Andres said, I have always wanted to live in Africa, not forever but for a time, see it up close, try to fathom it. Of course that was an impossible objective. You didn't fathom Africa, you got out of its way. You did not in any case interfere. He had always been a trekker, traveling in much of Asia Minor, once to Peru. Did you know there was an opera house in Iquitos, in the back of beyond up the Amazon, an opera house as handsome as any opera house anywhere? Trekking, you moved at your own pace and when you felt like it you stopped. If the country was banal or uninteresting you hopped a train until you found something agreeable. That's why I joined our foreign service, he said. Though that was probably a mistake. A failure of foresight. Andres laughed then, genuine mirth. I don't think I like diplomatic work, always saying what you mean in a tone of voice that casts doubt. It's a gentleman's job certainly, and that's what's wrong with it. The fact is, there isn't much to do here, this playground for idle hands. The reason I'm here is that Belgians have some mining interests in the east. I'm supposed to look out for their interests, let them know if the Russians are poaching. We have concessions and they must be kept up-to-date. Now that I think about it, my diplomatic work has nothing to do with being a gentleman. More like a fly on the wall. A fly with a fax machine.