Joan Didion - Democracy

“Jessica Christian Victor?” Jack Lovett was squinting at his notes. “Born February 23, 1957?”

Harry did not look at Inez.

“Hair blond, eyes gray? Height five-four? Weight one-hundred-ten?” Jack Lovett folded the envelope and put it in his coat pocket. “The address was yours.”

“But you didn’t write it down.”

Jack Lovett looked at Harry. “Because I knew it, Harry. 135 Central Park West.”

There was a silence.

“Her weight was up when she got her license,” Inez said finally. “She only weighs a hundred and three.”

“The fact that somebody had Jessie’s license doesn’t necessarily mean it was Jessie,” Harry said.

“Not necessarily,” Jack Lovett said. “No.”

“I mean Jesus Christ,” Harry said. “Every kid in the country’s got a tennis visor.”

“What about a tennis visor?” Inez said.

“She was wearing one,” Adlai said. “At dinner. In Seattle.”

“Never mind the fucking tennis visor.” Harry picked up the telephone. “You got the Seattle number, Billy?”

Billy Dillon took a small flat leather notebook from his pocket and opened it.

“I have it,” Inez said.

“So does Billy.” Harry drummed his fingers on the table as Billy Dillon dialed. “This is Harry Victor,” he said after a moment. “I’d like to speak to Jessie.”

Inez looked at Jack Lovett.

Jack Lovett was studying his envelope again.

“I see,” Harry said. “Yes. Of course.”

“Shit,” Billy Dillon said.

“There’s a kid who flew in this morning from Tan Son Nhut,” Jack Lovett said. “A radar specialist who’s been working Air America Operations.”

“Her aunt, yes,” Harry said. “No, I have it. Thank you.” He replaced the receiver. He still did not look at Inez. “Your move,” he said after a while.

“This kid is supposed to have seen her,” Jack Lovett said.

“Did he or didn’t he?” Harry said.

“I don’t know, Harry.” Jack Lovett’s voice was even. “I haven’t talked to him yet.”

“Then it’s not relevant,” Harry said.

“She only weighs a hundred and three,” Inez repeated.

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Harry said. “It’s about as relevant as this radar specialist of Lovett’s. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Dwight Christian said. “It means she’ll fit right in.”

Harry stared at Dwight Christian, then looked at Billy Dillon.

“Welcome to hard times, pal,” Billy Dillon said. “Try mentioning Sea Meadow.”

“In fact she’ll outweigh nine-tenths of them,” Dwight Christian said. “Nine-tenths of the citizenry of Saigon.”

“I knew you could dress that up.” Billy Dillon looked at Harry. “You want to make a pass through State? Usual channels?”

“Usual channels, Mickey Mouse,” Dwight Christian said. “Call the White House. Get them to light a fire under the embassy. Lay on some pressure. Demand her release.”

“Her release from what?” Harry said.

“From the citizenry of Saigon,” Billy Dillon said. “Follow the ball.”

There was a silence.

“I may not phrase things as elegantly as you two, but I do know what I want.” Dwight Christian’s voice had turned hard and measured. “I want her out of there. Harry?”

“It’s not quite that simple, Dwight.”

“Not if you’re from Washington,” Dwight Christian said. “I suppose not. Since I’m not from Washington, I don’t quite see what the problem is.”

“Dwight,” Inez said. “The problem—”

“I had a foreman taken hostage on the Iguassú Falls project, I didn’t phrase things so elegantly there, either, not being from Washington, but I goddamn well got him out.”

“—The problem, Dwight, is that nobody took Jessie hostage.”

Dwight Christian looked at Inez.

“She just went,” Inez said.

“I know that, sweetheart.” The hardness had gone out of Dwight Christian’s voice. “I just want somebody to tell me why.”

Which was when Adlai said maybe she heard she could score there.

Which was when Inez slapped Adlai.

Which was when Harry said keep your hands off my son.

But Dad, Adlai kept saying in the silence that followed. But Dad. Mom.

Aloha oe .

Billy Dillon once asked me if I thought Inez would have left that night had Jack Lovett not been there. Since human behavior seems to me essentially circumstantial I have not much feeling for this kind of question. The answer of course is no, but the answer is irrelevant, because Jack Lovett was there.

Jack Lovett was one of the circumstances that night.

Jack Lovett was there and Jessie was in Saigon, another of the circumstances that night.

Jessie was in Saigon and the radar specialist who was said to have seen her was to meet Jack Lovett at the Playboy Arcade in Waianae. This radar specialist who had or had not seen Jessie was meeting Jack Lovett in Waianae and an electrician who had worked on the installation of the research reactor at Dalat was meeting Jack Lovett in Wahiawa.

The research reactor at Dalat was a circumstance that night only in that it happened to be a card Jack Lovett was dealing that spring.

Jack Lovett did not see any immediate way to get the fuel out but he wanted to know, for future calculation, how much of this fuel was being left, in what condition, and for whom.

The research reactor at Dalat was a thread Jack Lovett had not yet tied in his attempt to transfer the phantom business predicated on the perpetuation of the assistance effort, which was why, on that Easter Sunday night in 1975, he took Inez first to meet the radar specialist at the Playboy Arcade in Waianae and then across Kolekole Pass to meet the electrician at the Happy Talk Lounge in Wahiawa.

The off-limits Happy Talk in Wahiawa.

The Happy Talk in Wahiawa across the bridge from Schofield Barracks.

Where Inez stood with her back against the jukebox and her arms around Jack Lovett.

Where The Mamas and the Papas sang “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

The radar specialist had been on the nod.

“I don’t need the hassle,” the radar specialist had said.

The electrician had already left the Happy Talk but had left a note with the bartender.

Da Nang going, that dude at Dalat definitely a wipe-out , the note read.

On the screen above the bar there were the helicopters. There were the helicopters lifting off the roof of the American mission and there were the helicopters vanishing into the fireball above the ammo dump and there were the helicopters ditching in the oil slick off the Pioneer Contender .

“Fucking Arvin finally shooting each other,” the bartender said.

“Oh shit, Inez,” Jack Lovett said. “Harry Victor’s wife.”

“Listen,” Inez said. “It’s too late for the correct thing. Forget the correct thing.”

Which is how Jack Lovett and Inez Victor happened that Easter Sunday night in 1975 to take the Singapore Airlines flight that leaves Honolulu at 3:45 A.M. and at 9:40 A.M. one day later lands at Kai Tak, Hong Kong.

Recently when I took this flight I thought of Inez, who described it as an eleven-hour dawn.

Inez said she never closed her eyes.

Inez said she could still feel the cold of the window against her cheek.

Inez said the 3:45 A.M. flight from Honolulu to Hong Kong was exactly the way she hoped dying would be.

Dawn all the way.

Something to see, as Jack Lovett had said at the Happy Talk about another dawn in another year. Something to behold.

It occurs to me that Inez Victor’s behavior the night she flew to Hong Kong may not have been so circumstantial after all.

She had to have a passport with her, didn’t she?