Irving Wallace - The Man

Dilman slumped back, unable to overcome his anguish. “Julian, give me that address. I’m flying right in. I want to see her.”

“No, Dad, please-that’s the first thing she said when she knew I was calling you-she doesn’t want to see you or anyone else, no one for a while. The doctor agrees. She’s pretty weak. It would only upset her, I mean badly, that’s what the doctor says. She needs rest, some time to think, think by herself. Of course, I knew you’d want me to hire nurses to be with her-”

“She really tried to kill herself?” Dilman repeated, still aghast at what had taken place.

“Well-it was awful for her, Dad-being revealed naked in public like that, and-wait, one second, she’s trying to say something… what, Mindy?… Sure, sure, okay… Dad, I-I showed her the newspapers with the statement you made in reply to the exposé. She was just repeating something from what you said, about the crime of passing not being hers but everyone’s, for not letting her grow up with dignity. It’s hard to understand her, the way she’s talking-so indistinctly.”

Dilman understood her, if his son did not. “Julian, let me have a word with the doctor.”

The physician, impressed by the opportunity to speak to a President, was verbose and clinical, but his prognosis came down to no serious aftereffects. Mindy had taken a lethal dose of Nembutals, and been discovered, and her stomach emptied in the nick of time. With proper care and rest, she would be on her feet in forty-eight hours. As for her mental outlook in the days to come, that, of course, was beyond the province of a general practitioner. Right now it would not be advisable for the President, for her father, to visit her, considering her emotional state. Perhaps it would be permitted in the near future, if she wished it. At this time, unwise.”

When Julian came back on the telephone, Dilman said, “I want you to remain there in her apartment, nurse or no nurse, at least overnight. Mindy may want someone close to talk to when she wakes up.”

“I’ll stay right here, Dad.”

“And you keep in touch with me. Understand?”

“Absolutely. I’ll call you later tonight.”

Dilman shook his head, although there was no one to witness his despair. “Poor baby. I only wish she’d see me. I have so much to say to her.”

“She’s alive, Dad. That’s all that matters. Maybe one day-”

Maybe one day.

Slowly, Dilman hung up.

He could envision, with sorrow, Mindy’s probable destiny. Condemned and ostracized in New York City, truly alone, of no people, no race, she would-like the Wandering Jew, the cobbler who had pushed off the Lord-become an eternal wanderer, too, in search of identity and belonging. As long as she could endure it, there would be for Mindy, endlessly, another city, another lie, another fearful life lived within the fragile lie, and another exposure. Perhaps the only peace she would ever know would be the peace of the oblivion she had sought, and been denied, today. How soon would she be driven to seek it again?

Aching with grief, Douglass Dilman left his desk, circled the room, and then finally he opened the door to Miss Foster’s office and went inside. He had no specific business with his secretary. He wanted only the solace of companionship.

Edna Foster, partly attentive to the letter she was typing, partly attentive to the television screen, halted in her work and greeted him with a guilty nod.

“I guess I’m being compulsive about it, Mr. President,” she said. “I can’t keep my eyes off the set.”

On the small screen, Tuttle and Eaton were no longer in view. The camera was offering a panoramic picture of the crowded Senate floor, galleries, and press section. The volume had been turned down too low for Dilman to hear the announcer.

“What’s happening?” he asked Miss Foster.

“There was a motion for recess,” said Miss Foster. “After Mr. Tuttle finished with Eaton, the prosecution rested its case. I don’t think they’ve made such a good case-I mean, there are no facts, if you think about it.”

Dilman said, “Unfortunately, Miss Foster, too few people watching, including the senators, may think about it. Did they say what comes next?”

“Yes. Mr. Abrahams said that, except for introducing and reading the defense affidavits, he has only to examine the five witnesses for the defense that he has subpoenaed. Then somebody from the floor made a motion which was passed by a voice vote. It was agreed that Mr. Abrahams could begin his examination of defense witnesses at five-thirty this afternoon. Then the court will adjourn at seven for dinner and convene again tonight, for a night session, at eight-thirty, continuing until all the defense witnesses have been heard and cross-examined. Tomorrow the Senate will convene at ten o’clock in the morning for the closing speeches. The House managers will be given one hour, then Mr. Abrahams will be given one hour. Then there will be a lunch break, and Johnstone said if there were no undue delays, no further points of law to be discussed, the voting should begin at two o’clock tomorrow.”

It came as a small shock to Dilman that the trial, which had become a way of life for him, was almost over. There was left only the rest of this fading day, some drugged sleep, and then tomorrow the final decision to acquit or convict. He was not prepared for judgment day, not so soon, but then, he supposed, no one ever was, really.

“Thanks, Miss Foster, sorry to interrupt your work.”

He went back into the lonely Oval Office and closed the door. Hands locked behind him, he walked around the room. He tried to figure out why the trial’s end appeared to him to be so sudden and disturbing. Then he knew the answer. There was a sense of incompleteness about it for him, because he had not been an active participant. It was as if a great vessel was sinking-maybe yet to be saved, more likely to be lost forever-and the captain was not there; the captain was somewhere far away, on land, going over the steamship company’s accounts. That would be wrong, as this was wrong.

He called to mind Nat Abrahams’ firm injunction of ten days ago-ten thousand years ago, it seemed by emotion’s calendar-that the President, although legally permitted to do so, must not stand as a living witness in his own defense. Like himself, President Andrew Johnson had wanted to be heard and had been kept silent by his managers. In the end, perhaps, Johnson’s managers had been proved right. But somehow, this second Presidential impeachment trial in American history was different, basically different, from the nation’s first. The first had been important, aside from the opposing two philosophies on reconstructing the defeated South, because it pitted the legislative branch of government against the executive branch. President Johnson had been tried for being an obstructive politician. This second impeachment trial, however, was vastly more crucial to the United States. The basic issue was not the differences between two powerful branches of government. The basic issue was the hushed and invisible Article V of the impeachment. Dilman knew that Abrahams was right. As President, he was not being tried for being an obstructive politician. He was being tried for being a Negro.

Yet, the real reason for the historic trial would never be heard again on the floor of the Senate. The trial had gone its way, with oratory and testimony, and suddenly, tomorrow, it would be done, and at no time would the Senate have been forced, or the public outside have been forced, to examine themselves openly so they would understand why they were voting as they did. What had there been, these cruel days, to represent President Dilman? The interrogation of witnesses on peripheral charges, the speeches on evasive indictments. And now, tonight, more witnesses, more affidavits, offered to the Senate and the nation on what they preferred to hear and see, not on what they should hear and see.