American Romantic (9 page)

A part of your own dialectic, I believe, Harry said.

Where did you get such an idea?

Your chairman has mentioned it many times.

The captain shrugged, a show of annoyance.

I know a man who thought such a dialectic would be helpful in his marriage.

I do not understand, the captain said.

It wasn't, Harry said. Helpful.

The captain had been chain-smoking all this time and now he lit another Old Gold and looked off to the west. Dusk was coming on, the air lifting and cooling a degree or two. They sat for a moment without speaking. Harry wondered how the captain's mind worked, if there was anything in it besides ideology. He gave the impression of filtering everything through the ideology and then leaving it to age like fine whiskey, growing deeper and richer, more profound, a whiskey without impurities. Certainly that was what he wanted for his country, a regime without impurities. If only to please himself, Harry decided to take the conversation in another direction, sports, films, music. But the captain had no interest in sports and had not seen a film in years. He tried to remember the last one he saw.
The Four Hundred Blows
he said suddenly. A French film, worthless, depicting a state of ennui. A tedious affair, the camera moving in and out of metro stations.
The Four Hundred Blows
was self-absorbed, another example of French personalism. It was not instructive. It was not logical. The captain said he had no time for films. He had no interest in films that were incorrect and there was no place for them in the Party. He looked directly at Harry and said, I want a simple thing. A people's government. A government therefore without corruption.

The ambassador had instructed him to listen, listen damn hard. Harry had done as instructed without recourse to pen and notebook, which in any case had been taken from him. He had listened and listened and decided now to tell a story of his own, his last evening in Paris en route to the war zone. That evening he went to a recital, a pianist playing Liszt at a small
salle
off the Champs-Élysées. A countrywoman of yours, he said to the captain. A disappointment at first. She was tentative at the piano and Liszt does not respond well to tentativeness. However—and here Harry smiled at the memory of her—she was lovely to look at, tiny, small-boned, wearing a flowing amber tunic over white silk trousers. Around her throat was a gold necklace with an emerald pendant the size of a chestnut. Seated alone in a box seat, stage left, was an elderly Frenchman, quite tall with snow-white hair, immaculately dressed in a dark suit with a white silk scarf. His arm rested casually on the railing of the box. He never moved during the recital—a short program, a nocturne, the Sonata in C Minor. If the Frenchman had been sitting for his portrait, the artist would have been Max Beckmann. The Frenchman watched the pianist with a private half-smile, as though he were watching a cherished daughter. And I go into such detail, Captain, because halfway through the program a miracle occurred. Her tentativeness vanished and she threw herself into Liszt, attacking the piece with the passion, one might almost say the fury, of one of the Russian virtuosos or Liszt himself. She seemed to gather confidence as she advanced, bending over the keyboard as her fingers flew left and right. And when she finished the Frenchman rose to join the storm of applause. When she took her bows she looked so delicate that the slightest breeze could carry her away. But appearances were deceptive. She was made of steel, at least as far as her music was concerned. The evening concluded, the Frenchman vacated his box and disappeared into the crowd. Onstage, two workmen were peering into the interior of the Steinway. It seemed that in the final two minutes of the Sonata in C Minor the pianist had broken a string. Do you know how unusual that is, Captain? As for me, I thought I owed myself something more after such an evening, so I strolled down the avenue thinking about this girl, your countrywoman. She wore an emerald at her throat and she played like an angel. A story from Europe, Captain.

I do not care to be adrift in a European world, the captain said.

A thrilling evening, Harry said. She played beautifully. If she had been a young American I would have been very proud.

The captain looked at his fingernails, expressionless. He said, Our diaspora is not large and much of it finds refuge in Paris. Paris is a grail for them, especially the women. True comrades prefer native soil. Our ancestors are here. I have no doubt that your pianist is from our South, probably a landowning family. Their daughter was educated abroad so that she could play your Liszt in a
salle
off the Champs-Élysées. These people, they own land and have import licenses. This one is better off in Paris playing foreign music. Here, she is a parasite.

Harry replied that she was much appreciated by the audience. A standing ovation. Three curtain calls. Many in the audience were in tears.

What was her name? the captain asked. No doubt she has taken a French name.

But Harry had forgotten the pianist's name.

The two sat smoking as dusk came on. The suddenness of it was always a surprise, an invisible hand on the cosmic meridian. There were no sounds elsewhere in the camp and Harry wondered if the others were asleep. He thought that in other circumstances this meeting would be an agreeable interlude, conversation of no particular significance, two friends discussing the day's events and planning for whatever came next. Exploration was poor today, perhaps something will turn up tomorrow. There was so much terrain still to cover. However, things did not always proceed according to plan. Mistakes, errors of judgment, bad luck. Chance always played a role. Chance married to unreasonable expectations, a lethal combination.

It's a disappointment, Harry said. We've come to know each other, not intimately but well enough to speak cordially. Yet we've made no progress.

The captain did not answer, unless his grunt was an answer.

It's a shame, really, Harry said. This dead end.

I am not certain what it is you want, Monsieur Sanders.

Nor I you, Harry said. This meeting was your idea. Your side's.

That is not true.

I believe it is so.

You are in error, the captain said.

Harry summoned a smile. We'll have to begin this dialogue sooner or later. Next month, next year, the year after. It's inevitable. The longer we delay, the more difficult dialogue becomes—

Au contraire,
the captain said.

—because positions harden. I suspect you find time on your side but the longer this war continues the more blood will flow, your country awash in blood. Rivers of it. You cannot imagine the force we can bring to bear. Armadas, aircraft beyond count. Six, seven divisions of troops. Surely there is a way this can be avoided.

The captain did not reply, seemingly lost in thought. Then he looked up and smiled, a wide bright smile of undoubted sincerity. Harry was taken aback, then realized that was the point of their war. Throw everything at us. Throw everything you have. Throw the hydrogen bomb, and at the end of the engagement we will remain and you will be gone. The greater the odds, the greater the victory, a victory that will be written about for generations, for a hundred years. A thousand years. Harry had been waiting for an insight and now he had his insight, bleak as it was.

So our conversation is at an end, Harry said.

It would seem so, the captain agreed.

A waste of time, Harry said.

Not entirely, the captain said.

I am already overdue. My ambassador will worry about my whereabouts. If you can lead me to a secure area, I will take my leave.

That will take time, the captain said. Not a long time. Perhaps a few days. Arrangements are being made.

The agreement was: safe passage for me.

Nevertheless, the captain said.

Nevertheless what? Harry said.

You will not be harmed, the captain said. But for your part, it would be wise to exercise patience. Reflect on where you are and who you are and who you are with. This mission of yours is—controversial. Not everyone approved.

He slowly stubbed out his cigarette and put the butt in his pocket. Harry thought there was something petulant about him now, a show of boyish insurrection, his voice rising when he said the word “controversial.” The captain said nothing more and strolled away. Harry watched him go, then fell into a worried sleep.

Now he stood at the perimeter of the camp in the early morning wondering what came next. He was not a wilderness man. Connecticut was not wilderness. He remembered sitting around campfires twenty years before, listening to the complaints of boys. He was a Cub Scout. On overnight trips to the hills around Salisbury the pack and its leader sat in a circle and told stories while the campfire blazed, ghost stories and other stories. Harry was recognized as the storyteller of the troop and always went first, weaving fantastic tales of pirates and other outlaws lurking just beyond the ring of fire. There were many villains—ghosts, savage Indians, Nazis, and the pitiless infantry of the Japanese Imperial Army—but everyone preferred pirates. Harry got so wrapped up in his story he half believed it himself, the peg-legged captain and the first mate with a parrot on his shoulder, the captain's wife with Dracula's long teeth. They were supposed to be learning about the woods and how to survive on a tin of water and a shard of flint, little else. A hatchet and native cunning—except there was no native cunning, only a half-dozen ten-year-old boys and the scout leader, Mr. McDonald, overweight in a royal-blue shirt and khaki shorts, high-top tennis shoes, and a yellow neckerchief. Mr. McDonald was a postman by trade, a disciplined walker. Everyone was asleep by nine p.m., except Mr. McDonald, who read mystery novels by flashlight. That was the sum of Harry's experience in the wilderness. He wished now he had been attentive when Mr. McDonald told them about navigation by the stars, the North Star and the Dippers and Orion's belt, but he had not been, unable to imagine the usefulness of such knowledge—yet another failure of his imagination. He remembered lying awake and wondering what lay beyond the circle of light and wishing he were older and able to explore on his own. The wilderness was unpredictable. That was why it was called wilderness. Late one Saturday afternoon the group had gotten lost, blundered, mistaking one trail for another. Mr. McDonald, studying his map, declared that everything was fine, absolutely fine, they'd reach the trail just ahead . . . Except Harry could hear the fear in his throat, the little cough after “just ahead” and a surreptitious peek at the flimsy trail map in his hand. Harry heard it and pretended it wasn't there, that the cough and the tremor around the edges of Mr. McDonald's voice were the result of a long day spent with unruly boys, not fear and discomposure. He had heard a similar rustle in the voice of Basso Earle, courtesy and Southernness, its sinuous sentences speculative yet sure-footed. His voice was not quite confident. It was the summoning of confidence, as in his account of Adele, the leftist rogue whose friendship with Basso's wife was—dubious. And toward the end of their conversation, Basso asked, Who's Sieglinde? As if to signal knowledge of his private life. At the time he had thought little of it, beyond his own surprise. But now when Harry thought about it he wondered if denial was a part of his own inner makeup, his world view, the way he got on in life day to day. Not believing what was in front of his eyes. Of course it was. The odds were always stacked against, and the way around it was to ignore the odds. Diplomacy itself had illusory aspects. Smoke, and then mirrors.

His mission was straightforward, textbook stuff. Harry would meet his counterpart and either something would come of it or nothing would. Probably nothing would, yet there was value in observing the enemy up close, listening to what he had to say and how he said it. What was important to him. That was the ambassador's point, simply to begin a conversation and see where it led. Words could lead anywhere. We have to begin somewhere, the ambassador said. There will be negotiations, sometime, somewhere, and we must look on this as the necessary prelude. The clearing of throats. If we decline a parley, Harry said, isn't that a show of weakness? Danger was minimal. What would they gain by holding captive or harming a junior foreign service officer? Give me a brief, I'll follow it to the letter. Mostly I'll listen. As he ruminated, Harry wondered if he wasn't back around the campfire in the Connecticut woods, spinning tales about pirates beyond the circle of light. But he had to admit also his backthought: If he was successful, what a coup! Harry was the first mate with the blue parrot on his shoulder and a double-edged sword at his waist, the one who came from nowhere to settle whatever scores needed settling. During their last conversation the ambassador recounted the Secretary's doubts. Are you certain that Sanders is the man for this mission? He's awfully young. A bit brash, isn't he? Yes to all of the above, the ambassador replied. But he's an awfully bright lad. Not lacking in ambition. More to the point, not lacking in mettle. And he won't go beyond the brief. I'd say it's worth the chance. What do we have to lose?

Harry heard a stirring in the camp, and from somewhere in the jungle the cry of a bird, and next, from far away, the thut-thut of a helicopter's rotor—but the sound may well have been something else, a truck perhaps, or a farm vehicle. As if there were Deere tractors in the far south of the wretched Delta, a swamp, notoriously difficult of access. But if it was a truck, that would mean a road, and Harry had seen no roads en route to the camp. It occurred to him then—such were the uncertainties of the jungle atmosphere—that the thut-thut was a motorbike come to fetch the captain. Harry scurried back to his own hut and smoked a cigarette. He heard chatter among the guards and some laughter. The thut-thut ceased. But soon enough it began again, receding as the motorbike sped away in the direction it had come from. Harry was disappointed that the comrade captain had not thought to say goodbye, nor to explain the “arrangements.”