Andrew looked out the window — one of those unopenable bronze-framed windows, and all he could see was a building across the wide empty street that was just like the one in which he stood looking out at what he thought might be a shadowed reflection of himself. These were condominiums designed to look like office buildings, architectural statements celebrating the prevailing culture. He’d never seen a city like this, spread out on a flat plane. It baked in heat that shimmered up in the afternoon, and with its endless parking lots all filled under a hot sky and, in the downtown center, these characterless skyscrapers covered in dark glass. Andrew believed it could not be called a city if it did not have narrow streets filled with people and shops, horns blowing, the sidewalks overflowing and a nightlife into the early hours. Here everything went still after sundown, the traffic lights mindlessly directing nonexistent traffic. The two college boys were invited to the dinner that first evening and seated down at the far end of an enormous table that stood under three glistening chandeliers. Even I could tell the place settings were of the finest china, with heavy silver, and thin-stemmed wineglasses that contained the light as small golden suns. And this was just their pied-à-terre. We sat below the salt along with the secretaries and family business flunkies, none of whom were interested in talking, a spiritless lot suffering their lesser stature in silence while the formal reception and many toasts went on at the far end. It was a colorful dinner, in fact, all these sheiks and princes in their keffiyehs and designer floor-length tunics, men without women, mustached, bearded, stately, impressive, and in fact dressed appropriately in cotton for this desert. But when it came to a close and everyone stood and moved en masse out of the dining room, this is what I want to tell you: Andrew accidentally stepped on the train — if that was what it was — of one of the princes. It ripped, a flap of it fell open, and there in front of me was this hairy leg. It wore a running shoe. The things we remember. A moment later my roomie pulled me into a side door, running me up some back stairs two at a time till we got to his rooms and fell on our beds laughing.
The next morning I was told to leave by one of the secretaries. The heir apparent excused the chauffeur and ruefully drove me to the airport. The airport had the family name and there were huge photographs of his mother and father above the escalators. I’ll see you back there, he said, uncharacteristically gloomy. And Andrew understood that for a moment he’d been brought into the family dynamic as an incidental player in his roommate’s ongoing struggle.
IX
SO THERE YOU HAVE some of my memory, in case you doubted me.
I didn’t doubt you.
I was surprised to find him a middle-aged man. Unless you’ve seen someone on a daily basis, in which case the changes are imperceptible, it takes a moment before the remembered image dissolves.
Hadn’t you seen photographs, interviews on television, speeches?
Not the same as running into a life up close. Later, when I was sitting around in the Oval Office, I recognized the same twist of the mouth before the punch line of some dumb joke. That was the same. And the cockiness was there. But the eyes, a little bit scared, the eyes. Like he’d realized what he’d become. The hair gunmetal dull, some thinning on the crown.
As for the others, Chaingang and Rumbum, they were small men, I mean physically small, the one red of face, scowling of mouth, the other impeccably tailored and barbered, the instincts of a peacock, but both smaller in scale than their pictures, so that was interesting.
Who did you say?
It was a game of his — subtle, really — a sign of his affection, a kind of honorific, or maybe a brand such as you burn into a steer, because it was also a means of letting you know he owned you, knew what you were in essence. Like with Peachums. So the two key men in his administration, the ones who ran things, were Chaingang and Rumbum.
And what were you?
He stamped me as well, with his breakout smile. I was Android.
I see.
Uncanny, as if some dendrite winding through his brain was snappier than the billions of others. Because I was Android, all right. Tap me with your knuckle, hear the clunk.
So there you were.
He would never ask Android anything about himself, personal stuff, how his life had gone, whether he was married, those questions you ask if you have any curiosity. It was as if we were still at Yale.
Well, they had probably done a background check.
Why would he bother reading it?
Anyway, there you were.
Yes, to people’s puzzlement. Because I had to be a game first of all. Bright and early the first day I was there he summoned me to the Oval Office.
Just sit over here, Android, and don’t say a word. Don’t look up, don’t pay any attention. Here, read this magazine. Make believe you’re at the dentist’s office. And so I sat there off to the side while he conducted the morning’s business, receiving staff, holding meetings, my presence unexplained. As if he didn’t know I was there, as if I was an illusion of the others. Maybe I was Secret Service, though I hardly looked the part. But, if he didn’t seem to notice me, nobody could say anything. What a good time he was having keeping a straight face.
And were you enjoying the joke?
Would you in my position? The joke was my anonymity. I was like a shadow he’d cast. As if I was still his roommate. After a day or two of this, like everything in Washington it turned into news. That the president had a stranger hanging around his office was reported in the Spectator, a four-page subscription weekly: MYSTERY MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE! That makes two of us, the president said.
Chaingang scripted the White House response for the administration spokesman. Of course no reporter would be allowed near me. It was put out that I was a dear college chum just visiting for a few days. That had an element of truth but didn’t go down with the bloggers. I was to the president as Clyde Tolson was to J. Edgar Hoover. Or the president was seriously ill and required a physician constantly by his side. This was not to be borne: The chief of staff said I had to go. My presence was damaging to the president’s image as the leader of the free world. And there were questions of national security. Not that I ever heard anything interesting — they all talked like the newspapers. But I was remanded to my basement office in the cleaning closet. If the president wanted to kick back, he snuck down there when no one was looking.
What about your White House Office of Neurological Research? Why wasn’t that mentioned?
That the president’s science advisor knew nothing about? Never mind the CIA and the NSA. It would have sent the memos flying. Resignations. I might have actually had to do the work I was supposed to do. No, that was a secret that couldn’t be leaked. You remember the point was to make sure I kept my mouth shut.
Peachums’s idea.
Yes. Like the others, he didn’t like to see me upstairs. I heard him shouting one morning. As I walked into the Oval Office, he stormed out, taking up most of the doorway. But my old buddy would want me to have coffee just to sit around and talk about anything except being president. His war was not going well. He’d invaded the wrong country. You can’t imagine the anxiety that produces.
Amazing.
What’s amazing? You think I’m making this up?
No, it’s just that—
I was a story for a day or two before it all suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Where were you at the time? You of all people. And if not, it’s in the file, it would have to be.
What file?