Joan Didion - Democracy

“This sounds like something Frances will be dressed for,” Janet said.

“—Point I want to make is this,” Frances Landau said. “Congressman Victor isn’t interested in confrontation.”

“That’s something else he can tell them.” Jack Lovett was looking at Inez. “Any points you want to make? Anything you want understood? Mrs. Victor?”

“About this friend of Inez’s,” Frances Landau had said later that night at the hotel.

Inez was lying on the bed in the suite that had finally been found for her and Harry and the twins. There had been a mix-up about whether they were to stay at the hotel or at the ambassador’s residence and when Harry had insisted on the hotel the bags had to be retrieved from the residence. “We always put Codels at the residence,” the junior political officer had kept saying. “This Codel doesn’t represent the embassy,” Jack Lovett had said, and the extra rooms had been arranged at the desk of the Hotel Borobudur and Jack Lovett had left and the junior political officer was waiting downstairs for the bags with a walkie-talkie and one of the ten autographed paperback copies of The View from the Street: Root Causes, Radical Solutions and a Modest Proposal that Frances Landau had thought to bring in her carry-on bag.

“Which friend of Inez’s exactly,” Inez said.

“Jack whatever his name is.”

“Lovett.” Janet was examining the curtains. “His name is Jack Lovett. This is just possibly the ugliest print I have ever seen.”

“Batik,” Frances Landau said. “A national craft. Lovett then.”

“Frances is so instructive,” Janet said. “Batik. A national craft. There is batik and there is batik, Frances. For your information.”

Frances Landau emptied an ice tray into a plastic bucket. “What does he do?”

Inez stood up. “I believe he’s setting up an export credit program, Frances.” She glanced at Billy Dillon. “Operating independently of Pertamina.”

“AID funding,” Billy Dillon said. “Exploring avenues. Et cetera.”

“So he said.” Frances Landau dropped three of the ice cubes into a glass. “In those words.”

“I thought he was in the aircraft business,” Janet said. “Inez? Wasn’t he? When he was married to Betty Bennett? I’d be just a little leery of those ice cubes if I were you, Frances. Ice cubes are not a national craft.”

“Really, the aircraft business,” Frances Landau said. “Boeing? Douglas? What aircraft business?”

“I wouldn’t develop this any further, Frances,” Harry Victor said.

“I’d definitely let it lie,” Billy Dillon said. “In country.”

“It’s not that clear cut,” Harry Victor said.

“But this is ludicrous,” Frances Landau said.

“Not black and white,” Harry Victor said.

“Pretty gray, actually,” Billy Dillon said. “In country.”

“But this is everything I despise.” Frances Landau looked at Harry Victor. “Everything you despise.”

Inez looked at Billy Dillon.

Billy Dillon shrugged.

“Harry, if you could hear yourself. ‘Not that clear cut.’ ‘Not black and white.’ That’s not the Harry Victor I—”

Frances Landau broke off.

There was a silence.

“The four of you are really fun company,” Janet said.

“This conversation,” Frances Landau said, “is making me quite ill.”

“That or the ice cubes,” Janet said.

When Inez remembered that week in Jakarta in 1969 she remembered mainly the cloud cover that hung low over the city and trapped the fumes of sewage and automobile exhaust and rotting vegetation as in a fetid greenhouse. She remembered the cloud cover and she remembered lightning flickering on the horizon before dawn and she remembered rain washing wild orchids into the milky waste ditches.

She remembered the rumors.

There had been new rumors every day.

The newspapers, censored, managed to report these rumors by carrying stories in which they deplored the spreading of rumors, or, as the newspapers put it, the propagation of falsehoods detrimental to public security. In order to deplore the falsehoods it was of course necessary to detail them, which was the trick. Among the falsehoods deplored one day was a rumor that an American tourist had been killed in the rioting at Surabaya, the rioting at Surabaya being only another rumor, deplored the previous day. There was a further rumor that the Straits Times in Singapore was reporting not only an American tourist but also a German businessman killed, and rioting in Solo as well as in Surabaya, but even the existence of the Straits Times report was impossible to confirm because the Straits Times was said to have been confiscated at customs. The rumor that the Straits Times had been confiscated at customs was itself impossible to confirm, another falsehood detrimental to public security, but there was no Straits Times in Jakarta for the rest of that week.

Inez remembered Harry giving a press conference and telling the wire reporters who showed up that the rioting in Surabaya reflected the normal turbulence of a nascent democracy.

Inez remembered Billy Dillon negotiating with the wire reporters to move Harry’s press conference out in time for Friday deadlines at the New York Times and the Washington Post “I made him available, now do me a favor,” Billy Dillon said. “I don’t want him on the wire so late he makes the papers Sunday afternoon, you see my point.”

Inez remembered Jack Lovett asking Billy Dillon if he wanted the rioting rescheduled for the Los Angeles Times .

Inez remembered:

The reception for Harry at the university the night before the grenade exploded in the embassy commissary. She remembered Harry saying over and over again that Americans were learning major lessons in Southeast Asia. She remembered Jack Lovett saying finally that he could think of only one lesson Americans were learning in Southeast Asia. What was that, someone said. Harry did not say it, Harry was too careful to have said it. Billy Dillon was too careful to have said it. Frances Landau or Janet must have said it. What was that, Frances Landau or Janet said, and Jack Lovett clipped a cigar before he answered.

“A tripped Claymore mine explodes straight up,” Jack Lovett said.

There had been bare light bulbs blazing over a table set with trays of sweetened pomegranate juice, little gold chairs set in rows, some kind of trouble outside: troops appearing at the doors and the occasional crack of a rifle shot, the congressman says, the congressman believes, major lessons for Americans in Southeast Asia.

“Let’s move it out,” Jack Lovett said.

“Goddamnit I’m not through,” Harry Victor said.

“I believe some human rights are being violated on the verandah,” Jack Lovett said.

Harry had turned back to the director of the Islamic Union.

Janet’s hand had hovered over the sweetened pomegranate juice as if she expected it to metamorphose into a vodka martini.

Inez had watched Jack Lovett. She had never before seen Jack Lovett show dislike or irritation. Dislike and irritation were two of many emotions that Jack Lovett made a point of not showing, but he was showing them now.

“You people really interest me,” Jack Lovett said. He said it to Billy Dillon but he was looking at Harry. “You don’t actually see what’s happening in front of you. You don’t see it unless you read it. You have to read it in the New York Times , then you start talking about it. Give a speech. Call for an investigation. Maybe you can come down here in a year or two, investigate what’s happening tonight.”

“You don’t understand,” Inez had said.

“I understand he trots around the course wearing blinders, Inez.”