Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (47 page)

 
          
 
"You'll have to stop being silly, Mr.
Burnham. Our silly days are over." She turned her back and returned to her
office.

 
          
 
"Why?" he called after her.
"Where is it written that powerful people can't be silly? I think a lot of
powerful people are silly. Ridiculous, even."

 
          
 
There was no reply. Obviously, Dyanna had
concluded that his argument did not deserve the compliment of rational
opposition.

 
          
 
He noticed a vase of pink flowers on the
coffee table. "Where'd the flowers come from?"

 
          
 
"Evelyn Witt," Dyanna said.

 
          
 
"Nice."

 
          
 
"If you say so."

 
          
 
Her disembodied voice was beginning to annoy
him. It was prim, sharp as a rapier, righteous. Like Tom Sawyer's Aunt Polly.
One more crack from him and she'd probably storm into the office and grab him
by the ear and wash his mouth with soap.

 
          
 
"What do you mean?"

 
          
 
"They're anemones."

 
          
 
"So?"

 
          
 
Aunt Polly appeared in the doorway again.
"Anemones are very pretty. Everybody notices them. Everybody loves
them."

 
          
 
"So?"

 
          
 
"They don't last. They have a very short
life. They bloom, and they die."

 
          
 
Burnham laughed and said,
"Beautiful!"

 
          
 
"You think that's funny?"

 
          
 
"Don't you?" Burnham was still
laughing.

 
          
 
"I think you're disturbed." She
turned away.

 
          
 
He had a few minutes with nothing to do. He
decided to call Christopher. If he could decipher the mystery of his phone
console.

 
          
 
He could ask Dyanna to place the call for him.
No. There was something distant . . . Victorian . . . about asking one's
secretary to call one's children.

 
          
 
He could have the White House operators call
for him. Yes. If he wasn't at home, they would find him and page him. Chris
would think being paged by the White House was cool. He hoped.

 
          
 
He punched a button at random, got a dial
tone, punched another button, beside which were the letters "W.H.,"
and got an operator. He asked her to locate his son.

 
          
 
She called back in less than a minute.

 
          
 
"He won't take the call, Mr. Burnham."

 
          
 
"What? He said that?" Burnham
choked.

 
          
 
"No, sir. I spoke to a woman. She
said—here, I wrote it down—'I won't let the White House pollute his space.' I
don't know what it means."

 
          
 
"Thanks." Burnham hung up. He could
hear his heart beating, and his palms itched with rage. He thought he would
like to break Sarah's nose with the heel of his hand. He should have placed the
call himself. At least he would've yelled back at her.

 
          
 
Ten minutes to go. He looked at his IN box. It
was empty. He had no assignments. Maybe from now on his assignments would come
only through the unmarked door behind him. He wanted to call MacGregor and
Butterworth, tell them what had happened to him, enjoy a laugh over the
absurdity of it all. But he knew they wouldn't find it funny. They'd be civil,
and pretend to be amused and eager to hear about it, and they'd agree to have
lunch tomorrow or the day after, but as soon as the call was finished they'd be
sniping at him, obeying the universal truth for men caught on a social,
economic or political ladder: Whenever something marvelous happens to a
colleague, a little bit of me dies. They would be bitter and resentful and,
worst of all, ignorant of how he had accomplished whatever it was he had
accomplished, and their ignorance would breed endless nasty speculations.

 
          
 
There was no way he could convince them that
the change wasn't marvelous, for in the White House, proximity to the President
was the Holy Grail. He had been moved into the West Wing. Therefore, life had
to be wonderful. Q.E.D.

 
          
 
Dr. Johnson knew better. "All envy would
be extinguished," he told Burnham now, "if it were universally known
that there are none to be envied, and surely none can be much envied who are
not pleased with themselves."

 
          
 
And why, Burnham thought, am I not pleased
with myself?

 
          
 
Because I am a fraud.

 
          
 
And how do I know I am a fraud? Because the
only thing I know about why I am here is that I do not deserve to be here.

 
          
 
Who am I to make that judgment? The President
must see something in me.

 
          
 
Sarah says the President has no taste.

 
          
 
And why do we listen to Sarah, she who speaks
well of no one who doesn't summer in Hyannisport?

 
          
 
Maybe I am worth something. Maybe I can
actually contribute something, just by doing whatever the President wants.

 
          
 
Maybe power can be fun.

 
          
 
He gazed out over the South Lawn, past the
Ellipse, at the gleaming white needle of the
Washington
Monument
.

 
          
 
“I feel patriotic," he said, turning to
the field of multicolored buttons on his phone. "Let's invade
somebody."

 
          
 
In an instant Dyanna stood in the doorway,
monitoring him like an intensive-care patient. He smiled at her.

 
          
 
"It's
ten o'clock
," she said, flat-faced. "You're
due in the Cabinet Room."

 
          
 
"What in the name of the gentle Jesus am
I gonna do—"

 
          
 
A buzzer sounded, harsh, commanding. For a
moment, Burnham thought that his impious use of the name of the Savior had
tripped some secret moral alarm. Then he saw the red light flashing on his
POTUS phone. He snatched up the receiver.

 
          
 
"Yessir!"

 
          
 
"Ready, Tim?" said the President
pleasantly. "We're all here."

 
          
 
"On my way. Sir." He replaced the
white instrument.

 
          
 
“We're all here? Burnham jumped up from his
chair. The entire Cabinet of the
United States of America
is waiting for me!”

 
          
 
"Where's the Cabinet Room?" he
shouted to Dyanna.

 
          
 
"Across the hall."

 
          
 
He dragged his fingertips through his hair and
checked his suit. He looked like he'd been wrinkled by a professional.

 
          
 
"Here." Dyanna handed him a yellow
legal pad.

 
          
 
"What's that for?"

 
          
 
"Who knows? Looks good."

 
          
 
"Right. Right. Thanks." He started
out the door.

 
          
 
"If you need me in there," she said,
"just call."

 
          
 
The Cabinet Room door was ajar. He pushed it
open gingerly, like a chambermaid reluctant to disturb a guest en deshabille,
and stepped inside.

 
          
 
There, sitting around the giant oval table,
beneath the portraits of Great Presidents, with their aides attendant in chairs
against the wall behind them, were the Secretaries of Absolutely Everything.
Each sat in his personal chair adorned with his personal plaque, which, if he
was a good boy and served his President well and didn't get indicted or piss
off Epstein or some vocal minority group, would be presented to him by the
President upon his departure.

 
          
 
The President sat halfway down the table, on
the east side, flanked by the Secretaries of State and Treasury. The President
saw Bumham and said, "Good! Come on in, Tim, and shut the door." Then
he addressed his Cabinet. "Gentlemen . . . who wants to cast the first
stone?" He smiled and, without looking at Burnham, motioned him to his
side.

 
          
 
No one spoke. As Burnham walked along beside
the table, he felt eyes appraising him with amusement and contempt, as if the
assembly were the first Oglala Sioux to spot Custer on the ridge above the
valley of the Little Bighorn: If he kept his distance, he might survive; if he
dared venture into their territory, he was chopped meat.

 
          
 
He saw, but did not look at, Mario Epstein in
a chair against the far wall, a statue of cold stone.

 
          
 
He saw Warner Cobb against a wall nearer to
him, doodling on a notepad. He did look at Cobb, praying for a smile of
encouragement, but Cobb would not look at him.

 
          
 
See? Dr. Johnson reminded him. Many need no
other provocation to enmity, than that they find themselves excelled.

 
          
 
The President had placed a chair for Burnham
directly behind his own, as if he expected Burnham to be an interpreter between
himself and the Secretary of State. He patted the seat of the chair, and Burnham
sat in it.

 
          
 
The President leaned toward Burnham and said,
"You know Parker?" He tapped the Secretary of State.

 
          
 
"My pleasure," said Parker Randall,
with all the enthusiasm he lavished on other people's servants. The Secretary
wore one of those shirts without a collar—you had to attach a different-color
collar—and his Tiffany collar pin, and a yellow paisley tie. He smelled like
the men's room at "21," treacly.

 
          
 
"Mr. President?" Burnham whispered,
and the President tilted backward, offering Burnham his ear. "What do you
want me to do?"

 
          
 
"Listen, son," the President said
out of the comer of his mouth. "Just listen."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir." Burnham uncapped a
felt-tip pen and placed it on the yellow pad that lay across his lap.

 
          
 
The Secretary of Agriculture spoke first. He
was a spare, weathered man in his early sixties who had been a farmer and a
professor of agronomy at a wheat-belt university.