“They’ll resent him in any case. But they’ll know (they already do know, I’m sure) that there are objective reasons for firing Carl. He’s rather systematically taken kickbacks from the hiring agencies he works through. His predecessor did as well, and it may almost be thought to be one of the fringe benefits of his job. But I hope that you, Daniel, will resist the temptation. For one thing, you’ll be earning something over double Carl’s salary.”
“You realize,” Daniel said in as neutral a tone as he could manage, “that Carl will lose his draft classification along with his job.”
“That’s Carl’s lookout, isn’t it? By the same token, you stand to inherit his exemption. So I suggest that you do have that P-W housing removed from your stomach. Harvard’s security network is probably a few degrees tighter than mine. You wouldn’t want to be setting off alarms every time you went to class.”
“I’ll be only too happy to be rid of it. As soon as I start the job. When would you like me to report?”
“Tomorrow. Drama requires despatch. The more sudden your rise, the more complete your triumph.”
“Mr. Whiting—”
“Still not ‘Father’?”
“Father.” But it did seem to stick in his mouth. He shook his head, and said it again. “Father, the one thing I still don’t understand is why. Why are you doing all this for me?”
“I’ve never tried to resist what I regarded as inevitable. That is the secret of any very prolonged success. Then too, I like you, which sweetens the pill considerably. But it wasn’t my decision, ultimately. It was Bobo’s. And it was, I think, the right one.” He exchanged a nod of acknowledgement with his daughter. “Old families need an infusion of new blood from time to time. Any other questions?”
“Mm. Yes, one.”
“Which is?”
“No, I realize now it’s something I shouldn’t ask. Sorry.”
Grandison Whiting didn’t press the point, and the conversation moved back towards the laying of plans, which (since they were not to be carried out) need not be reported here.
The question Daniel didn’t ask was why Whiting had never grown his own beard. It would have been so much easier in the long run, and he’d never have run the risk of being accidentally unmasked. But since the answer was probably that he’d tried to grow one and it hadn’t come in to his liking, it hadn’t seemed diplomatic to ask.
Daniel decided (among the many other plans that were formed that night) to grow a beard himself. His own was naturally thick and wiry. But after the wedding, not before.
He wondered if this were the fate he’d foreseen for himself so long ago, when he was pedalling along the road to Unity. Every time he’d gone to Worry, he’d had to pass the same spot on the road where he’d stopped and had his revelation. He could remember little of that vision now, only a general sense that something terrific was in store for him. This was certainly terrific. But it wasn’t (he finally decided) the particular benediction that his vision had foretold. That was still up ahead, lost in the glare of all his other glories.
10
It seemed ironic to Daniel, and a bit of a defeat, that he should be having his first flight in an airplane. He had sworn to himself, in the not-so-long-ago heyday of his idealistic youth, that he would never fly except on his own two transubstantial wings. Now look at him — strapped into his seat, his nose pressed against the postage-stamp of a window, with four hundred pounds of excess baggage, and a track record of absolute zero. For all his brave talk and big ambitions, he never tried — never tried trying — once Grandison Whiting had laid down the law. It was Daniel’s own fault for mentioning that he meant to smuggle in a flight apparatus from out-of-state, his fault for believing Whiting’s stories about friends of his right here in Iowa who flew. Pure bullshit, all of it. Not that it mattered, awfully. It only meant he’d had to postpone the big day for a while longer, but he knew that time would fly even if he didn’t.
Now the waiting was behind him, all but a few hours. He and Boa were on their way. To New York first, where they would change for a jet to Rome. Then Athens, Cairo, Tehran, and the Seychelles for a winter tan. Economy was the official reason for changing at Kennedy rather than going direct from Des Moines, since everything, including travel bookings, was cheaper in New York. Daniel, despite his every extravagance, had established a reputation as a pennypincher. In Des Moines he’d wasted one whole day fleeing from one tailor to another, horrified by their prices. He understood, in theory, that he was supposed to be above such things now that he was nouveau riche, that the difference between the prices of two equivalent commodities was supposed to be invisible to him. He ought not to itemize bills, nor count his change, nor remember the amounts, or even the existence, of sums that old friends asked to borrow. But it was amazing, and dismaying, what the smell of money did to otherwise reasonable people, the way they came sniffing and snuffling around you, and he couldn’t stop resenting them for it. His character rejected the aristocratic attitude that money, at least on the level of “friendly” transactions, was no more to be taken account of than the water you showered with, much as his body would have rejected a transfusion of the wrong blood-type.
But economy was only an excuse for booking the honeymoon through New York. The real reason was what they’d be able to do during the twelve hours between planes. That, however, was a secret. Not a very dark secret, since Boa had managed for a week now not to guess despite the broadest hints. Surely she knew and wasn’t letting on from sheer love of feigning surprise. (No one could equal Boa at the art of unwrapping presents.) What could it be, after all, but a visit to First National Flightpaths? At last, sweet Jesus: at long, sweet last!
The plane took off, and the stewardesses performed a kind of pantomine with the oxygen masks, then brought round trays of drinks and generally made an agreeable fuss. Clouds rolled by, revealing checkerboards of farmland, squiggles of river, plumblines of highway. All very disappointing compared to the way he’d imagined it. But after all, this wasn’t the real thing.
First National Flightpaths was the real thing. First National Flightpaths specialized in getting beginning flyers off the ground. “All you need,” the brochure had said, “is a sincere feeling for the song you sing. We just provide the atmosphere — and leave the flying to you.”
He had been drinking steadily all day during the wedding and the reception, without (he was pretty certain) letting it show, even to Boa. He continued drinking on the plane. He lit a cigar, which the stewardess immediately made him put out. Left feeling abashed and cantankerous, he started — or rather, restarted — an argument he’d had earlier that day with Boa. About her Uncle Charles, the Representative. He had given them a sterling service for twelve as a wedding present, which Boa had insisted on cooing over privately, as they were driving to the airport. Finally he’d exploded and said what he thought about Charles Whiting — and his brother Grandison. What he thought was that Grandison had arranged their marriage for the benefit of Charles, and of the family name, knowing that Charles was shortly to be involved in something approaching a scandal. Or so it had been presented in some of the more outspoken newspapers on the East Coast. The scandal concerned a lawyer hired by a sub-committee of Ways and Means (the committee that Charles chaired), who had caused a stink, no one knew precisely what about, since the government had managed to clamp the lid on before the actual details became public. Somehow it concerned the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization concerning which Charles had made several intemperate and highly publicized remarks. Now the sub-committee lawyer had vanished, and Uncle Charles was spending all his time telling reporters he had no comment. From the first inklings in the Star-Tribune it was obvious to Daniel that the wedding had been arranged as a kind of media counterweight to the scandal — weddings being irreproachable P.R. It was not obvious to Boa. Neither of them knew more about it than could be gleaned from papers, since Grandison Whiting refused, categorically, to discuss it. When, only days before the wedding, he realized the depth of Daniel’s suspicions, he became quite incensed, though Boa had managed to smooth both their tempers. Daniel had apologized, but his doubts remained. From those entanglements had issued their quarrel in the Whiting limousine (a quarrel further complicated by Boa’s panicky concern that the chauffeur should not overhear them); this was again the subject of their quarrel en route to Kennedy; it promised to be their quarrel for ever, since Boa would not allow any doubts about her father to go unchallenged. She became Jesuitical in his defense, and then strident. Other passengers made reproving glances at them. Daniel wouldn’t give up. Soon he’d driven Boa to making excuses for Uncle Charles. Daniel reacted by upping the level of his sarcasm (a form of combat he’d learned from his mother, who could be scathing). Only after Boa had burst into tears, would he lay off.