Irving Wallace - The Man

“Everyone knows Dilman has that son in college, but-”

“George, I told you I never, never lie,” she said indignantly. “He has a daughter, too, older than Julian, and it’s a secret because she’s passing for white in New York, so he doesn’t recognize her maybe, or she him, I don’t know which, so that’s why nobody knows, but it’s true.” Through bleary eyes, she decided that he was still unconvinced of her integrity, and this was no way to begin a marriage. “George, he calls her Mindy, so does Julian call her Mindy, except her made-up passing name is Linda. Linda Dawson.”

“I can see where that would make him worried,” said George Murdock sympathetically. “It’s just odd, somebody as black as the President having a daughter hidden somewhere, white enough to pass.”

“Hormones,” she said knowingly. “Or is it genes?” She studied George’s many faces and tried to bring him into focus. “I don’t lie or exaggerate, George-”

“I didn’t say that you did.”

“But maybe you are thinking it-Edna, you are thinking, she is the kind of wife who’ll get drunk and make up stories and embarrass you socially. You said he’s black so how could he have a daughter who could pass? I can prove it, George. I wrote it down word for word in my diary. Did you know I have a diary? I started one the day T. C. moved into the White House. I thought some day-I’m not pretending to be a writer like you-but my job, I thought some day maybe my diary could be history. It isn’t much, but I am a President’s confidential secretary, two Presidents’, and maybe some day when we’re all dead, our children can make a million dollars getting a writer to fix it up. You hear of those things.”

“Very intelligent, Edna. I see I’m going to have an intelligent wife. Just don’t put me in your diary.”

She started to giggle and could hardly stop. “Of course you’re in it, George, but nothing you won’t like. You and T. C. and President Dilman-”

“And Mindy Dilman alias Linda Dawson. Pretty exotic company.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, and released it. “Did Dilman tell you all of that stuff about his family?”

“Heavens, no-George, do you think we can have just one more drink to celebrate, a short one?-Dilman? No, he’s secret as a clam or something, and I don’t blame him, do you? But about the daughter, it came from him, sort of, well-I’m not sneaky, don’t think that-I’m very integrity, full of-you know-I never leak things to you-isn’t that so, George?”

“I’ve never known anyone with as much integrity as you, Edna.”

“Thank you. So you understand. Part of my job is, you know, to monitor his calls, the business ones, like I did for T. C., listening on the extension and taking down the gist of it shorthand so he has a record to refer back to. Standard procedure. So whenever Dilman makes a call, I’ve got to listen, except when it’s something real personal, like when he calls old friends like Nat Abrahams or the Spingers or some woman who lives with them named Gibson or his son, he tells me to get off, and let it be personal and I do. Well, this day he was letting me monitor calls, and maybe he was busy or upset, I don’t know, but he called his son and didn’t tell me-to get off, I mean-maybe he didn’t know or forgot I was on the line-and there it was, the President and his son Julian talking, and when I heard what they were saying to one another, I knew I shouldn’t be hearing it but I was too embarrassed to get off and let him hear the click and then always have him suspicious of me, so I suffered through, it, and when they hung up, I hung up simul-same time-and that’s how I heard the argument about his daughter and her passing, and about her, the daughter, being like her mother, Dilman’s wife, who wanted her to be white like she wanted to be white herself, and because Aldora, Dilman’s wife, couldn’t, she took to drinking-I don’t believe in drinking except socially, do you, George?-until she even became an alcoholic in that sanitarium in Illinois-in Springfield-and died after, except that was a long time ago. Isn’t it all horrible, George, how people let their lives become? Ours won’t, will it? For my part it won’t, I promise you.”

“I promise you, too.”

“I’ll be the best wife ever, George, once I’m away from that horrible atmosphere.”

“You’re the best wife in the world right now, darling. Let’s have one more for the road on that. Okay?”

They drank, and a half hour later they had a hamburger and gallons of hot black coffee-she was determined to give evidence of her wifely frugality-at the counter of the Mayflower Coffee Deck.

After that, they strolled for a long time in the cold, and George bought her a gardenia corsage in some place that was open late and warm inside, and then they walked through Lafayette Square until she felt the cold and began to sober. Then, so thoughtfully, so generously, he hailed a taxicab and took her home, and because it was late and she was wonderfully weary and he was inspired to get up early in the morning and look for the right job, he did not come in, except inside the hall of her apartment. She stayed in his arms, and as they kissed this time, she permitted him to pet her bust as long as he wanted to, because her bust and all of her belonged to him, and it felt good, so good.

When he was ready to go, and she could make out one of him, not two or three, she said, “You meant everything you said tonight, George, didn’t you?”

“Everything, sweetheart.”

“I think I bored you, talking so much, but I was so excited. It’s not every day a girl is proposed to and accepts. I hope I didn’t say anything foolish or-or indiscreet. Did I?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, if I did, it doesn’t matter, because we belong to each other now, no secrets, never, promise? You can trust me with everything and I can trust you. Isn’t that right, George?

“Sweetheart, from now on you’re not Edna Foster and I’m not George Murdock. We are Mr. and Mrs. Murdock, almost, for all intents, and whatever we say to one another, and that goes for both of us, is sacred as pillow talk. Agreed? Agreed.”

“I love you, George. You’ll be famous, I know.”

“That’s not important. I love you too, that’s all that matters. You have a great trip to Paris, and stay away from those seductive Frenchmen-”

“George, silly-”

“-and when you return, I’ll be right here, with the wedding band and a job, a real big job this time. That I can promise you for sure.”

FOR RELEASE AT 9:30 P.M. PARIS TIME

Office of the White House Press Secretary Abroad

THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY, PARIS

COMPLETE TEXT OF PRESIDENT DILMAN’S SPEECH AT APPROXIMATELY 11:00 P.M. TONIGHT CLOSING THE FIVE-DAY CHANTILLY CONFERENCE FOLLOWS. THE PRESIDENT IS DELIVERING THE ADDRESS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATE BANQUET BEING HELD FOR HIM AND FOR PREMIER NIKOLAI KASATKIN OF THE U.S.S.R. BY THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS OF VERSAILLES PALACE. SIMULTANEOUSLY THE TEXT OF PREMIER KASATKIN’S REPLY WILL BE RELEASED AT THE SOVIET EMBASSY.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE BANQUET, PRESIDENT DILMAN WILL RETURN TO PARIS FROM VERSAILLES. HE WILL SPEND THE NIGHT IN HIS SUITE AT THE QUAID’ ORSAY BEFORE FLYING TO WASHINGTON IN THE MORNING.

WHILE THE five-day conference had been successful, the long hours had been strenuous, and Douglass Dilman had intended to return to Paris the moment that he and Premier Kasatkin and the French President had finished their public speeches. But when the formalities in the Hall of Mirrors had ended, and the bewigged, liveried servant had assisted Dilman from his chair, the Russian Premier energetically charged to his side.

“Mr. President,” Kasatkin had said in his guttural yet clearly understandable English, “you do not leave so soon to go to bed, no? In my country, to lie down after much rich food and wine is like lying down in the grave. Always, after feasts, I walk for thirty minutes in the court inside the Kremlin walls. We must enjoy a breath of air together in the magnificent gardens of Versailles, not to observe how tyrants built and lived, but to see that we live in health, now that we are friends and in accord.”