1963
EVEN THOUGH Richie had said several times that he would like to move back to the old house, Mommy and Daddy either laughed at him or didn’t say anything, and finally Janny came into his room one afternoon and said, “Stop talking about it. They are never moving back to the old house. This house cost sixty-two thousand dollars!” Now it was better, and Richie was willing to admit that he liked his room—having it to himself, and also that he could keep his train set up all the time. And it was his train set. All of the engines had been given to Richie, and if you owned the engines, then you were the boss.
Donna Fitzgerald’s house was on the way to a pond they liked, so they had to pass it if they were going to play at the pond. The pond had plenty of frogs and also lots of fish, and the most fun was to throw stones at the frogs. Richie had hit a frog three times in the fall (Michael had hit four). Throwing stones at the fish was fun, too, but because of refraction, you could not actually hit one. Nedra had said that they should have a fishing pole or two if they promised not to poke each other’s eyes out, but they didn’t get any fishing poles, and now the pond was frozen, and so it was much more fun to run and slide from one side of the pond to the other.
Donna Fitzgerald had skates, and one day she yelled at Michael and said that the pond was her very own. But there was a fence between her house and the pond, and the next day, Michael had watched in secret as Donna came out of her front door, walked to the road, turned right, and went toward the pond, her skates slung over her shoulder. If the pond were hers, she would not have walked there by the road. So the pond was not hers, according to Michael.
Richie said, “Well, it’s not ours, either.”
“But she can’t stop us, and we can go there whenever we like.”
She was a big girl. The other kids said she was eleven, or maybe twelve, but she was heavy-shouldered and she had breasts, and she also had big feet. She went to the public school, and the other kids also said that she should be in seventh grade but she had been held back twice, and she was still in fifth grade. Michael grabbed Richie and pushed him through the opening in the fence, and then kind of poked him so that he would walk along ahead. By this time, Donna was on the far side of the pond, lacing up her skates. The ice was a foot thick. It was pure white, with lines of cracks in it that had frozen over, and it ran smoothly into the snow on every side. There were two places where you could climb to the top of a little hill and run down through the snow, then launch yourself, sort of leaning back, and slide to the middle of the pond. Richie had gotten most of the way to the other side once.
Now Donna stood up and made twisty steps to the edge, then lifted her arms and one leg and slid onto the ice. It was not like that girl in Snow White and the Three Stooges, though, because Donna Fitzgerald was so fat.
The pond was tear-shaped, and the tip of the tear was long and curved. Donna headed in that direction. Richie could hear the sound of her skates scraping on the ice—it was that still today. Nedra said more snow was coming. Donna disappeared.
Michael had picked up a piece of a branch, rather thick, and was bending over the edge of the pond, smashing the end of the branch into the rim of the ice, breaking it into little pieces. Richie scrambled to the top of the hill and ran down as fast as he could, and when he passed Michael, he smacked his brother and knocked him down. He then slid a long ways without even trying. He could almost, he thought, have spread his arms and taken off. When he came back to the hill, Michael punched him in the stomach, and then they both ran down the hill and slid. Michael slid two feet farther than Richie. They slid four more times.
Richie said, “We should learn to skate.”
“Nedra said you can go to a rink in Englewood and take lessons.”
They both sighed. They had been kicked out of swimming lessons and out of tennis lessons for fighting. The tennis coach had even given them a second chance, but they had then been kicked out again when Michael smacked Richie with the rim of his racket, and not just the strings.
“Dad said you just put the skates on and skate. The faster you go, the less you fall down.”
Michael punched him in the stomach again, but he could hardly feel it with his heavy coat. He pulled Michael’s hat down over his eyes, and then pushed both of his shoulders until he sat in the snow, got around behind him, and pushed his face in the snow. Michael came up gasping, his face all red and icy, grabbed Richie’s mittens right off his hands, jumped to his feet, and ran. Richie laughed and fell backward, then lay on his back in the middle of the pond, looking up at the clouds; Michael returned and dropped the mittens on his face. Michael was laughing, too.
At the edge of the pond, a little hidden under a wooden box, were Donna Fitzgerald’s galoshes. They were large and black, with buckles. Inside them were some thick wool socks. They removed the socks, then filled the boots with snow and a few pebbles that were lying around, and some sticks. The socks were red. Michael picked them up and headed down to the tear-shaped part of the pond, where the water came in. Donna was practicing spinning around or something, and he ran past her, waving her socks, to where the ice was pretty thin. He got down on his knees. When he started soaking her socks in the cold water, she shouted, “Hey, you little brat!” and skated at him as fast as she could. He stepped gingerly toward the even thinner ice and stood there, waving the socks.
She got closer and closer, and then she went right through the ice. Michael shouted, “Fatso, fatso, fatso!” and ran past her, throwing the wet socks at her. He turned around once and saw that she had dropped into the pond up to her thighs. She started screaming and waving her arms. Michael kept running.
Michael passed Richie and said, “Come on, let’s go home,” and Richie followed him. He did not stop or turn around to look at Donna. They came to the edge of the pond, ran up the hill, got out to the road, and ran home. When they got there, Nedra was making a meatloaf. She said that Mommy and Daddy were going out for dinner, and they would be eating early. Michael followed Richie into his room and said, “There are two of us and one of her, and if you ever say that we were even at the pond, I will break your arm.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I think I killed her.”
Richie didn’t answer, and Michael went back into his own room.
Richie thought it was interesting, a few days later, to discover that Donna was fine and Michael hadn’t killed her. Life wasn’t like in the movies, then.
—
ARTHUR HAD ALREADY ACCEPTED the Grumman job, and Lillian had gone around Bethpage and a few other towns on Long Island with Andy, and Andy had helped her put a bid on a house—much smaller than the one they had in McLean, but big enough. Tim had persuaded her to let him stay with the Sloans for the rest of the school year, and Dean had found a hockey team not far from Bethpage that looked pretty good. Debbie wasn’t saying anything, and all Tina wanted to know was whether she would have a bigger room in the new house. The day before the Realtor came and went over the McLean place, she got a cleaning crew in and made it look as good as she could. The Realtor hummed here and smiled there and stared at the pool and admired the view from Arthur’s office, and all in all, Lillian decided that getting Arthur out of the agency was the less evil alternative.
Arthur now professed to be glad of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only time he’d been really worried, he said, was when he was getting on the plane in Des Moines right after Claire’s wedding—the U-2s had photographed the equipment in Cuba, and Arthur, not having yet seen the photographs, had imagined such powerful missiles and warheads that when he saw the medium-range R-12s that were there, he was almost relieved. He said to Lillian, “So they kill us in Washington. They can’t get everyone with that crap.” And, yes, maybe it had been touch and go there for a moment—no one would ever know the truth about that, would they? Even the Kennedy brothers, even Khrushchev, even General LeMay probably would never know—all of their memories of those moments would be filtered through a mix of relief and regret. A
t least no irretrievable impulse or accident had intervened. And so, Arthur told her, in the end, it did everyone good to have to face up to the implications of ten years of posturing, and when Khrushchev decided that he wasn’t Stalin after all, and Kennedy decided that he wasn’t Churchill, the subsequent clearing of the air was worth the shock. Not to mention that Kennedy had decided to dismantle the Thor missiles in England and the Jupiters in Italy and Turkey—he had turned out to understand the Golden Rule, and LeMay had turned out to understand that Kennedy was indeed commander-in-chief.
But Arthur was drinking more—four times since Christmas, Lillian had had to put him to bed, and another time she had found him passed out on a lounge chair by the pool. And hadn’t the idea crossed her mind that he stopped at the lounge chair because he couldn’t make it to his real goal, the deep end, nine feet of prospective release from every argument, every uncertainty, every dilemma? How long had it been since he wanted to make love? Valentine’s Day he made a game of it, with chocolates and a new peignoir, but the old ardor, that combination of lust and paternal yearning, had been absent.
She stood at the door with the Realtor, nodding. The Realtor’s instinct was that the place would show beautifully. She held both of Lillian’s hands between hers and moved them up and down. Then the Realtor turned her head and said, “Oh, I think you have a visitor. Well, Mrs. Manning, I really look forward to this! How are you, sir?” And she clickety-clacked down the walk and got into her Lincoln. The man nodded to the Realtor and hurried up the walk, hunched over but smiling. Lillian’s gaze flicked to his car—only a Ford, a Country Squire. And then Lillian was shaking his hand, and he was saying, “Mrs. Manning! We haven’t met before, but your name is always on Arthur’s lips. I gather you are a font of wisdom!” And Lillian said, “Would you like to come in, Mr. Bundy? I’m afraid Arthur isn’t here at the moment.”
He said, “Thank you, I would like to chat with you for a moment or two. I won’t take much of your time.” He did have that gaze that sought hers out. While he was shaking her right hand, his left hand went to her elbow and then to the small of her back, and she was given to understand that she would do whatever he asked.
They went into the living room, and he sat on the pinkish sofa, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees, and his shoulders hunched. He said, “Now, Mrs. Manning—but I think of you as Lillian. May I call you Lillian?”
Lillian nodded.
“I just heard of Arthur’s plans this morning, at breakfast, and I jumped in my wife’s car because it was right outside the door with her keys in it. That’s how worried I am about Arthur.”
Lillian said, “I think Arthur will be fine once he’s got a different job.”
He smiled. “Ah. Maybe. What I’m worried about is Arthur abandoning me. Every day, I say to the President, ‘Mr. President, Arthur Manning says this, or Arthur Manning says that,’ and if I can’t say that to the President, I don’t know what I will say.”
Lillian felt herself staring. Then she said, “I don’t think Arthur realizes he has such influence. He’s never even met the President.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? The President is very, very good at ignoring everyone in the room. It’s the ones outside of the room that make him nervous.” He smiled. Lillian realized that she was supposed to smile also, and did.
“What does Arthur say?”
“Arthur is very cautious,” said Mr. Bundy. “And I have to say, when we got the news of Ap Bac, it impressed me, and it impressed the President, that Arthur wasn’t in the least surprised.” Arthur had told Lillian about Ap Bac—a battle in a village in South Vietnam where the Viet Cong had made the South Vietnamese and the American reinforcements look like fools. Bundy shook his head. “Terrible rout, that was, and about as far from Saigon as from here to Baltimore—less even.” He wrung his hands and shook his head.
Lillian said, “I didn’t hear about that.” It was the job of all the wives never to hear about anything.
“January 2, and that was part of the problem. The South Vietnamese forces had to wait for the Americans to sober up after New Year’s, so they let the enemy get the jump on them.”
“They knew you were coming.”
“They baked us quite a cake.” He didn’t smile.
“Well, sir, I suppose, since you bring it up,” said Lillian, “that’s Arthur’s problem. No one is surprised at any given action except our side.”
“Yes! That is so true! A perennial frustration. Perennial!”
Lillian said, “I think Arthur has made up his mind.”
“Oh, he has. Indeed, he has. I know that. But have you made up your mind?”
“Excuse me?” said Lillian.
He stood up and went over to the window. “What a wonderful place this is, ideal for children, adolescents. A very welcoming and comfortable place. Lovely landscape. Nothing like this even exists around Bethpage.”
“You know we’re going to Bethpage?”
He smiled. Of course he did.
“Arthur is a figure around here! Respected for his conscience and his wit, not to mention his belief in our country. Arthur is irreplaceable, and I shudder at the thought of doing without him.”
He came back to the sofa and sat down again, but this time he leaned forward and took Lillian’s hands in his own. “Lillian. Do you know what my job is?”
Lillian shook her head.
He said, “I am the national security adviser. My job is to apply the brakes. I recognize as well as anyone that the road leads downhill, a steep hill. There are plenty of people that I see and talk to every day who want to step on the gas and drive the car straight over the cliff. There are a few who want to turn off the road and stop. They don’t have a chance, no matter what the President truly thinks—and, between you and me, even I don’t know what the President truly thinks. But I can apply the brakes, with Arthur’s help. I can and I do, and I will.”
He was hypnotic, the way he cocked his head and caught her eye, and then nodded ever so slightly until she was nodding with him. And then the brilliant smile—the smile that told her that she agreed with him, Arthur was essential, they couldn’t do without Arthur.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she wasn’t sure that Arthur could take the pressure any longer, but she didn’t say it, because she knew, as soon as she thought it, that to say it, or even imply it, would be the greatest betrayal of all, would be a kind of catalyst. Instead, she said, “I think Arthur will certainly appreciate your desire, sir.”
“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’ ” he said. “Makes me feel about eighty. I know he’s kept quiet about this in order to avoid having me plead with him.”
“Arthur is a secretive person anyway,” said Lillian.
He knew he had won. He glanced at his watch, and stood up from the pinkish sofa.
At the door, he took both her hands, just the way the Realtor had done, and shook them up and down. He said, “You must do what’s best.”
She knew what that was.
Arthur, of course, knew that he had been there. After the kids left the dinner table, he said, “Persuasive, isn’t he?”
“He is, Arthur. But I am not going to try to persuade you. He thought I would, but I won’t.”
“I have been at this for seventeen years—twenty if you count the war, Lil.”
“I know.”
“The Grumman people Frank knows have interviewed me three times.”
“I know.”
“There’s a fortune to be made there.”
“Is there?”
Arthur didn’t say anything, but, yes, there was. “However.”
Lillian turned her fork over on her plate.
“I can’t say I liked my prospective new colleagues terribly much. Very serious, serious people.”
“Aren’t your present colleagues very serious people?”
“They have been whittled and honed and pared and polished. At the bottom they have a few qualities left.” r />
“Which ones?” said Lillian.
“Wit. Dread. Hope. Not always in that order.”
“I don’t really like the new house.”
Arthur said, “Shall we do the easy thing, then?”
And once again that day, Lillian just nodded.
—
JOE AND HIS UNCLE JOHN kept arguing about what to plant, how much to plant, whether to leave some acreage fallow. Joe had seen a picture of stored corn reserves in a Time magazine, and the picture spooked him—hills and billows of grain just sitting there. The article said there were something like a billion bushels in storage, and no market—maybe no future market until 1980, not for seventeen years. Joe remembered the old saying “The best place to store corn is hogs, and the second best is whiskey.” His dad had made use of the first option, though not the second. However, Joe didn’t have hogs anymore—they were too much work for one man with no one to help him. Yes, the government had bought the surplus corn in the winter; a few of those billion bushels no doubt had belonged to Joe Langdon and John Vogel. John had no doubt that the government would pay for it again this year, store it again, and come up with something to do with it—rocket fuel, maybe. In the fall, the Canadians had sold almost seven million tons of wheat to the Russians—a first, as far as anyone knew, but secret deals happened all the time, didn’t they? Wheat wasn’t corn, however, and Joe hadn’t paid too much attention, though everyone sitting in the Denby café had been pretty hot under the collar, half of them wondering why the Canadians would feed the enemy (“Well, the Cuban missiles weren’t pointed at Montreal, were they?” said Bobby Dugan. “Every man for himself, and why not?”), the other half wondering how the American government had been so stupid as not to get in on the deal (“Food is food; if they’re starving, we’re no better than Stalin was, not to sell it to them”). At least the government was consistent, thought Joe. It would be a sign of craziness to feed them with one hand and blow them up with the other.