Celia crossed her fine long legs and smiled, and Winslow found himself staring stupidly at his own wife’s discreet décolletage. He had learned long ago he was no match for Douglass’ devious rhetoric and Celia’s stubborn ripostes; he did not intrude.
Celia said, “Don’t you think they’re having the same problems in Russia?”
“They’ll never let it get out of hand this way.”
“What will they do, then? Purge a whole generation? Destroy the nation’s youth?”
“If they have to. It’s been done before. Stalin killed far more Russians than non-Russians but you notice the Soviet Union has survived and that’s the important thing.”
Celia said, “You’d have a different slant if you had children of your own.”
“Thankfully I haven’t.”
“You really should have got married a long time ago.” She was teasing him and Winslow resented her complacency because she was impervious to Douglass’ abrasiveness and he was not.
“Why get married?” Douglass said. “It only means you’ll probably get divorced.” His eyebrows stirred. “Actually I suppose it all shouldn’t come as a surprise—the kids are uninspired because they’ve got uninspired parents. Wouldn’t you say, Fred?”
“What?” The skin on Winslow’s face tightened.
“Look at you—soft around the middle, living in this plastic air-conditioned bourgeois paradise, going through life like a puppy that keeps wagging its tail hoping it’ll persuade people not to kick it again. That’s what that kid of yours sees—a tired middle-aged guy who goes through life being sold by the last person who spoke to him.”
Winslow looked down to see that his hand had formed itself into a fist. Douglass laughed. “And never darken my door again, eh? You cut a rather ridiculous figure for a would-be pugilist, Fred.”
Winslow Opened his hand and heard Celia say, That’s enough, Rams.” Her voice was cool.
“I suppose it is. I meant nothing personal by it. You do understand, Fred?”
Winslow made a sound of dismissal and pushed back the red haze of anger. Douglass uncoiled himself and stood up. “I suppose it’s time to go. Oh by the way,” he added, enjoying it, “a gentleman by the name of Dangerfield arrived in town this afternoon and I imagine we’ll be getting together with him and some of our mutual friends very shortly—perhaps tomorrow. It gives pause for thought, doesn’t it, after all this time?”
“What is it?” Winslow asked. “An inspection?”
“More than that this time, I think.”
Celia said, “It doesn’t mean anything,” but not as if she believed it.
Douglass laughed. “You’d hate for anything to upset the applecart now, wouldn’t you?”
“And you’d love it.”
“It isn’t a question of what I’d love. Let’s not forget what we’re here for. Celia, have you got any engagements planned for tomorrow and Thursday? If so cancel them—I’ll want you available instantly. The same goes for you, Fred. Maybe you’d better call in sick tomorrow and stay home.”
“I can’t. We’ve got a Senatorial investigation coming on the base Friday morning.”
“Forrester? Yes. Awkward timing, but we’ll see what we can do. If worse comes to worst we’ll meet without you and Celia will bring you up to date.” Douglass turned away and went toward the door and added over his shoulder, “Let me recommend you prepare yourselves for whatever may be required. It may be time for us to take things out of mothballs and if so we don’t want to find any moth holes in them, do we?”
Having given himself the curtain line he walked out.
Winslow watched the red tail lights of Douglass’ Volkswagen disappear down the street and then he slammed the door and tramped back through the house. Celia was already outside in the yard. They walked silently down the dusty alley the length of the block and turned right on the gravel sidewalk. There was a chill and he wished he’d brought a sweater.
“He was only trying to throw a scare into us.”
“He wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, Fred.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“Did I?”
“When you told him to shut up. I wanted to smash a few of his teeth.”
“That wouldn’t have been too bright, would it.”
“‘Whatever may be required,’” he said. “What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t think he knows, himself.”
“He knows something we don’t know. How can you take it so calmly?”
“What can we do except wait?”
They crossed a street and Winslow said, “Suppose we have to do something that ruins everything we’ve got here?”
“We’ve lived with that for years.”
“Is that all there is to it? What about the kids? What do we tell them?”
“We don’t tell them a thing, Fred.”
“Sure. It’ll be lovely if they have to find out from someone else.”
“Who else is going to tell them?”
“For all we know we’ll be in the headlines.”
“For all we know we won’t.” She stopped and turned and faced him. “Fred, it’s what we are here for.”
“How can they expect us to be the same people we were then? Just because they’ve banked double pay for us and told us we could come home to early retirement as soon as we’re finished here? Do they think that’s really what we want after all this time? Go home to what? No friends left over there—God, we’d even have to learn the language all over again. A miniature apartment with a tiny refrigerator and if we’re lucky central heating to get through those God damned winters—spend half a day standing in line to buy your clothes, maybe use half our savings to buy an unreliable little excuse for a car so we can go to the country on a few weekends in the summer when it’s not snowed in. That’s no good for us any more—you know it and they must know it; it’s too late for all that. We’ve changed too much.”
“Fred—”
“Please don’t remind me I ought to be glad of a chance to serve my country. It isn’t my country any more.”
“I won’t. We’re a little too mature for all that. I won’t even tell you we’ve been seduced by decadent bourgeois values—leave all that to Rams, he’s the only one who still believes in slogans even if he’s the one who puts them down. I’m sure we’ve been seduced by it all but I’m sure they never expected otherwise. They only expected one thing of us—that we never forget who they are, or what they’re capable of. We’re never out of their reach. Your brothers and sisters and mother, and my parents and nieces and nephews. Even Alec and Barbara.”
“That’s what Nicole said. I wonder if she knew about Dangerfield.”
“Nicole?”
“She gave me a peptalk this afternoon.”
“Then she probably knows. Rams would have told her before he told us. They’re two of a kind.” She turned and began walking again. “They’ve got us on a leash. They wouldn’t have sent us if they couldn’t be sure of controlling us for our whole lifetimes—they wouldn’t have taken the chance of one of us defecting. How many times have we walked up this street and had this conversation before? There aren’t any loopholes. All we can do is to be thankful we’ve had the past twenty years.”
“And Alec and Barbara?”
“Whatever happens they’ll survive it or they won’t.”
“Do you get any real comfort from that kind of asinine fatalism?”
“Fred, what’s the point of agonizing over things that are beyond our power to decide?”
There were clouds over the moon and between street lights it was quite dark; Winslow took his wife’s arm. She said, “I was the one who was full of idealism when we volunteered to come over here. Sometimes I thought you came simply to be with me. I couldn’t tell if it was what you wanted for yourself or not. But then I told myself I was flattering myself—no woman could force you to do a thing you didn’t really want to do.”