But Arthur was drinking more — four times since Christmas, Lillian had had to put him to bed, and another time she had found him passed out on a lounge chair by the pool. And hadn’t the idea crossed her mind that he stopped at the lounge chair because he couldn’t make it to his real goal, the deep end, nine feet of prospective release from every argument, every uncertainty, every dilemma? How long had it been since he wanted to make love? Valentine’s Day he made a game of it, with chocolates and a new peignoir, but the old ardor, that combination of lust and paternal yearning, had been absent.
She stood at the door with the Realtor, nodding. The Realtor’s instinct was that the place would show beautifully. She held both of Lillian’s hands between hers and moved them up and down. Then the Realtor turned her head and said, “Oh, I think you have a visitor. Well, Mrs. Manning, I really look forward to this! How are you, sir?” And she clickety-clacked down the walk and got into her Lincoln. The man nodded to the Realtor and hurried up the walk, hunched over but smiling. Lillian’s gaze flicked to his car — only a Ford, a Country Squire. And then Lillian was shaking his hand, and he was saying, “Mrs. Manning! We haven’t met before, but your name is always on Arthur’s lips. I gather you are a font of wisdom!” And Lillian said, “Would you like to come in, Mr. Bundy? I’m afraid Arthur isn’t here at the moment.”
He said, “Thank you, I would like to chat with you for a moment or two. I won’t take much of your time.” He did have that gaze that sought hers out. While he was shaking her right hand, his left hand went to her elbow and then to the small of her back, and she was given to understand that she would do whatever he asked.
They went into the living room, and he sat on the pinkish sofa, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees, and his shoulders hunched. He said, “Now, Mrs. Manning — but I think of you as Lillian. May I call you Lillian?”
Lillian nodded.
“I just heard of Arthur’s plans this morning, at breakfast, and I jumped in my wife’s car because it was right outside the door with her keys in it. That’s how worried I am about Arthur.”
Lillian said, “I think Arthur will be fine once he’s got a different job.”
He smiled. “Ah. Maybe. What I’m worried about is Arthur abandoning me. Every day, I say to the President, ‘Mr. President, Arthur Manning says this, or Arthur Manning says that,’ and if I can’t say that to the President, I don’t know what I will say.”
Lillian felt herself staring. Then she said, “I don’t think Arthur realizes he has such influence. He’s never even met the President.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? The President is very, very good at ignoring everyone in the room. It’s the ones outside of the room that make him nervous.” He smiled. Lillian realized that she was supposed to smile also, and did.
“What does Arthur say?”
“Arthur is very cautious,” said Mr. Bundy. “And I have to say, when we got the news of Ap Bac, it impressed me, and it impressed the President, that Arthur wasn’t in the least surprised.” Arthur had told Lillian about Ap Bac — a battle in a village in South Vietnam where the Viet Cong had made the South Vietnamese and the American reinforcements look like fools. Bundy shook his head. “Terrible rout, that was, and about as far from Saigon as from here to Baltimore — less even.” He wrung his hands and shook his head.
Lillian said, “I didn’t hear about that.” It was the job of all the wives never to hear about anything.
“January 2, and that was part of the problem. The South Vietnamese forces had to wait for the Americans to sober up after New Year’s, so they let the enemy get the jump on them.”
“They knew you were coming.”
“They baked us quite a cake.” He didn’t smile.
“Well, sir, I suppose, since you bring it up,” said Lillian, “that’s Arthur’s problem. No one is surprised at any given action except our side.”
“Yes! That is so true! A perennial frustration. Perennial!”
Lillian said, “I think Arthur has made up his mind.”
“Oh, he has. Indeed, he has. I know that. But have you made up your mind?”
“Excuse me?” said Lillian.
He stood up and went over to the window. “What a wonderful place this is, ideal for children, adolescents. A very welcoming and comfortable place. Lovely landscape. Nothing like this even exists around Bethpage.”
“You know we’re going to Bethpage?”
He smiled. Of course he did.
“Arthur is a figure around here! Respected for his conscience and his wit, not to mention his belief in our country. Arthur is irreplaceable, and I shudder at the thought of doing without him.”
He came back to the sofa and sat down again, but this time he leaned forward and took Lillian’s hands in his own. “Lillian. Do you know what my job is?”
Lillian shook her head.
He said, “I am the national security adviser. My job is to apply the brakes. I recognize as well as anyone that the road leads downhill, a steep hill. There are plenty of people that I see and talk to every day who want to step on the gas and drive the car straight over the cliff. There are a few who want to turn off the road and stop. They don’t have a chance, no matter what the President truly thinks — and, between you and me, even I don’t know what the President truly thinks. But I can apply the brakes, with Arthur’s help. I can and I do, and I will.”
He was hypnotic, the way he cocked his head and caught her eye, and then nodded ever so slightly until she was nodding with him. And then the brilliant smile — the smile that told her that she agreed with him, Arthur was essential, they couldn’t do without Arthur.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she wasn’t sure that Arthur could take the pressure any longer, but she didn’t say it, because she knew, as soon as she thought it, that to say it, or even imply it, would be the greatest betrayal of all, would be a kind of catalyst. Instead, she said, “I think Arthur will certainly appreciate your desire, sir.”
“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’ ” he said. “Makes me feel about eighty. I know he’s kept quiet about this in order to avoid having me plead with him.”
“Arthur is a secretive person anyway,” said Lillian.
He knew he had won. He glanced at his watch, and stood up from the pinkish sofa.
At the door, he took both her hands, just the way the Realtor had done, and shook them up and down. He said, “You must do what’s best.”
She knew what that was.
Arthur, of course, knew that he had been there. After the kids left the dinner table, he said, “Persuasive, isn’t he?”
“He is, Arthur. But I am not going to try to persuade you. He thought I would, but I won’t.”
“I have been at this for seventeen years — twenty if you count the war, Lil.”