The senator knocked and walked into the office. The governor was in the desk chair. Beth was perched on a comer of the desk, long slim legs crossed and swinging gently.
“Come in, Jake,” the governor said. From the big room outside the mixed sounds of rock music and song blended in cacophonous counterpoint. From the bar came a sudden burst of laughter. “Sit down,” the governor said. “I don’t cotton to the bacchanalia either.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“Nonsense.” The governor paused. “You came in with a purpose, no?”
He had always seen deep, this Bent Armitage, the senator thought, which probably at least partly explained his success in public life. You did not go as far as he had gone without knowledge of your fellow man.
The senator sat down and stretched his legs wearily. “A long lonesome road,” he said, and smiled. “The youthful bounce is long gone.”
He gestured toward the telephone. “Anything new?”
“I phoned down the lists,” the governor said. “And then”—he paused, smiling—“I indulged myself by calling my daughter, Jane, in Denver.” The mile spread. “I charged the call to the executive mansion telephone. That will give the auditors pause. Anyone you want to call, Jake? I’ll let the taxpayers pick up your tab too.”
The senator shook his head. “No one,” he said. He stood up suddenly. “Do you ever doubt yourself, Bent? Do you ever wonder just what in hell use you have been to anybody?”
The governor grinned. “Frequently.”
“I mean it,” the senator said. He took his time. “When you’re a kid just starting out—for me that was back in thirty-six, just elected to my first term in Congress—you look around and see the big ones, the important ones, the man in the White House, the Cabinet Officers, names you’ve read about ever since you could remember He paused and plumped back down in the chair. He waved one hand. “You study their style because they’re what you want to be.” His smile was wry. “It’s in today to talk about a search for your identity. That implies that there is already a you and all you have to do is be yourself.” He shook his head. “What you’re really doing is hunting for the character part you’re going to play for the rest of your life, a very different thing indeed.”
I have always doubted myself, Beth thought suddenly, but I was sure the reason lay in my own shortcomings. She watched the senator in wonder.
“So,” the senator said, “you find the role you want and you learn it letter-perfect.” He paused. “And it works. It’s convincing. First you’re a bright young fellow. Then you’re a comer in his forties, beginning to carry some clout. You reach fifty, sixty, and you’ve come a long way, but you aren’t there yet. Do you know what I mean, Bent?”
The governor’s smile was sad. “You’re never there” he said. “There’s always something just over the next hill, and the next. And when you reach it, it has changed too.” He spread his hands in a gesture of dissolution. “What looked so bright and shiny from a distance up close is just sunlight on smoke.”
“And so you wonder,” the senator said, “just when you’re going to make the final step that puts you where you’ve always wanted to be so you can relax and enjoy it and know that you’ve fought the good fight, done the job well, earned your rest’ and your place in the sun, lived out whatever crappy platitude you choose.” He shook his head. “The answer is—never. That’s why they don’t retire, those old men in Washington and other places. They keep hoping that the time is going to come when they’ve done it all and they can rest content. And it isn’t going to come ever, but you don’t realize that until you face something like—this. And then suddenly you wonder why you ran so hard all your life, chasing something that never existed. Don Quixote, Galahad chasing the Grail—it’s so damn futile!”
“But fun,” the governor said. “Admit that, Jake. You’ve had just a hell of a time outsmarting, outarguing, outstaying the rascals who got in your way. Would you change it?”
“Probably not. And that’s the stupidest part of all. We don’t even learn.”
The governor leaned back in his chair and laughed. “What’s so damn funny?”
“Your lament,” the governor said. “It tucks its tail in its mouth and rolls like a hoop. Of course you’d do it all the same way. Because you’re you, Jake Peters, sui generis. You fought and scrambled and bit, yes, and butted in the clinches when it was necessary—as I did—and you enjoyed every minute of it, wins, losses, and draws. You’ve been your own man, and how many can say that?”
“He wrote fiction in college,” the senator said to Beth. “Bad fiction.”
“And,” the governor said, “you have the gall to admit that you enjoyed it all, but still find it futile? What more can a man ask than to be able to look back and say it was fun?” The governor paused. “You’ve probably left some things undone. We all have. But when you leave the restaurant filled to the brim with a good meal, do you spend your time regretting that you couldn’t eat everything?”
“That,” the senator said to Beth, “has always been his special touch: the homely analogy.” He stood up. “As a philosopher, Bent,” he said looking down at the governor, “you’re no Santayana, but you may have made I a point or two worth considering. I’ll ponder them outside.” He paused in the doorway to flip his hand in a vague gesture. “By the way, number twenty-one just went off.” He spoke directly to Beth. “It was the naked chick. She thought—”
“I’m number forty-nine,” Beth said, and made herself smile.
The senator hesitated, and then waved again as he walked out.
“And that,” the governor said, “leaves us alone again , for a moment at least. He smiled up at Beth. “So pensive?”
“All the things you said to him,” Beth said slowly, I “could apply as well to you, couldn’t they?”
“Probably.” The governor smiled again. “But the difference is that when you say them-to yourself, you don’t necessarily believe them.”
“I think I understand, Bent.” She was smiling too. “I hope I do.”
“There have been times,” the governor said, “when I have done things I am not particularly proud of, or allowed them to be done, which is the same thing, in order to achieve an end I thought worth the compromise. I know I am capable of deluding myself—at least temporarily. I think everyone is, and some not temporarily.”
“I think you are a good man, Bent, in the best sense of the word.”
“Thank you.”
“I think you are a better, stronger man even than you believe. You are the one they come to. You are the one they listen to.”
“Easy on that buildup, even if I love it.”
Beth shook her head. “He said it, the senator. He said ‘until you face something like this’ you keep on—fooling yourself.” She paused. “I am not fooling myself any longer. I hate what’s happening. I don’t want to die.” The governor took her hand. “Fair enough,” he said. He was smiling gently. “Now tell me: what number did you draw? Was it twenty-one?”
31
To the west the sky had darkened and evening thunder-heads were beginning to build. Giddings stood in the doorway of the trailer, watching. “A cloudburst now,” he said. He looked over his shoulder at Brown, and shrugged. “A miracle? The Red Sea rolling back?” He shook his head and wiped the back of his hand wearily across his forehead. It left a black smear.
One by one Chief Oliver had called down the names of those safely across, and Patty had found them on the listings and checked them off.