Keith directed the driver past his old apartment on Wisconsin Avenue, then down some side streets where friends lived, or had once lived, including streets on which lived women he'd known. He didn't see anyone he knew on the streets, which was just as well, he thought.
He tried to picture Annie here and realized that she would be perplexed and perhaps bewildered by this world. Even the simple act of telling a doorman you wanted a taxi would be alien to her. Of course she'd pick it up quickly, but that didn't mean she'd enjoy urban living, not even in the quaint streets of Georgetown. No, she'd feel dislocated and she'd become dependent on him, and that would lead to resentment, and when a woman was resentful — who knew where that would lead?
They could live in the suburbs, of course, or the exurbs, and he could commute, but he pictured phoning her out in Virginia or Maryland at eight P.M. and telling her he had a meeting that would last until midnight. Younger couples in Washington and elsewhere led this kind of existence, but they were in the striving mode of their lives, and both spouses usually had careers, and one of them hadn't spent most of their lives in a rural town of fifteen thousand people.
She'd adjust, of course, and probably not complain, because that was how she was. But it would be such an uneven relationship; it would be his world, and his job, and his friends, and he no longer cared for this world, that job, or those friends and colleagues. He would be miserable.
But maybe not. That was the thought that kept nagging at him. He knew he didn't want to impress her with the so-called glamour and excitement of Washington cocktail parties, formal dinners, important people, and power. He wasn't impressed, and he doubted she would be. On the other hand, maybe a year or two wouldn't be bad, as long as it was finite. During that time, maybe the situation in Spencerville would resolve itself. He played around with this thought, then said, "Could it work?"
The cabbie glanced back. "Yes, mister?"
"Nothing. Take a right here." Keith read the name on the cabbie's license — Vu Thuy Hoang. He asked the man, "Do you like Washington?"
The man, from long practice and with the inherent politeness of the Vietnamese, replied, "Yes. Very good city."
Like so many of his displaced compatriots who lived and worked in the capital of the country that had tried to help and succeeded in failing, this man, Keith thought, had suffered. He didn't know how or to what extent, but there was a story of suffering in Vu Thuy Hoang's history that would shame most Americans, like himself. Keith didn't want to know the story but asked the man, "What part of Vietnam are you from?"
Used to the question from one too many Vietnam veterans, he replied quickly, "Phu Bai. You know?"
"Yes. Big air base."
"Yes, yes. Many Americans."
"Do you go home?"
"No."
"Would you like to go home?"
The man didn't reply for a few seconds, then said, "Maybe. Maybe for visit."
"You have family in Phu Bai?"
"Oh, yes. Many family."
"You are welcome back? You may go to Vietnam?"
"No. Not now. Someday. Maybe."
The man appeared to be in his mid-forties, and Keith imagined that for some reason or another, he was persona non grata in his native land. Perhaps he'd been a government official under the old regime, or a military officer, or had worked too closely with the Americans, or done something more sinister, like been a member of the old, despised National Police. Who knew? They never told you. The point was that in Phu Bai there was a police chief, and the police chief had a list, and on that list was this man's name. That police chief was sort of the Phu Bai equivalent of Cliff Baxter, except that Keith's problem with Baxter wasn't political or philosophical — it was purely personal. But the bottom line was the same — some people could not go home again because other people didn't want them to.
Keith said to the man, "Back to the hotel."
"Yes? No stop?"
"No. No stop."
At the Hay-Adams, Keith gave Vu Thuy Hoang a ten-dollar tip and free advice. "As soon as you can, go home. Don't wait."
Chapter Twenty-four
The following morning, the phone rang in Keith's room, and he answered it.
Charlie Adair said, "I'm downstairs. Whenever you're ready."
Keith resisted several sarcastic replies. At some point in the middle of the night, he'd come to agree that none of this was Charlie's fault. He said, "Five minutes."
Keith straightened his tie in the mirror and brushed the jacket of his dark blue Italian silk suit. If he didn't count putting on a sport jacket and tie for Sunday service at St. James, this was the first suit he'd had on since his retirement party almost two months before, and he didn't like the way he looked in it. "You look like a city slicker, Landry." He left the room and took the elevator down.
Charlie greeted him with some wariness, trying to judge his mood, but Keith said to him, "You're right, it's not your fault."
"Good insight. Let's go."
"The ticket."
"Oh, right..." Charlie found the airline ticket in his jacket and gave it to Keith. "I booked you to Columbus on USAir, nonstop. There's a rental car reservation slip, too."
Keith examined the ticket and saw he was leaving National Airport at 7:35 and arriving at 9:05. He asked, "Couldn't you get something earlier?"
"That was the next available nonstop in first class."
"I don't care about nonstop or first class. Anything earlier to Toledo or Dayton?"
"Dayton? Where's that? Look, the White House travel office booked it. I don't think there are a lot of flights going out there, buddy. Just be happy it's Columbus, Ohio, and not Columbus, Georgia. See the travel office later if you want."
"This is okay. Let's roll."
They walked out the front door to where a Lincoln sat waiting. It was raining, and the driver walked them to the car, holding an umbrella over their heads.
In the backseat, Charlie said, "I spoke to the secretary's aide, Ted Stansfield, last night, and he was delighted you could come."
"What were my choices?"
"That's the way they talk. Mock humbleness. The secretary of defense will say to you, 'Keith, I'm delighted you could come. I hope we haven't inconvenienced you."
"Is that when I tell him to fuck off?"
"I don't think so. He's prepared to welcome you back on the team, so if he says, 'Good to have you back,' you say, 'Good to be back in Washington,' like you didn't quite catch his meaning. Then you go shake hands with the president. If they've briefed him that you're wavering, he'll say, 'Colonel, I hope you give this offer your full consideration and that you'll accept it.' Then you say, 'I will, sir,' meaning you'll give it your full consideration and not meaning you'll accept it. Get it?"
"Charlie, I was a master of the equivocal phrase, an expert at the meaningless sentence, a scholar of the ambiguous word. That's why I don't want to come back. I'm relearning plain English."
"That's very disturbing."
Keith added, "I assume you didn't tell Ted Stansfield that I didn't want the job."
"I didn't, because I wanted you to have some time to think about it. Have you thought about it?"
"I have."
"And?"
"Well, I took a taxi around town last night and did some deep thinking. I went to the Lincoln Memorial and stood in front of the statue of the great man, and I asked him, 'Abe, what should I do?' And Mr. Lincoln spoke to me, Charlie. He said, 'Keith, Washington sucks.' "
"What did you expect him to say? He got shot here. You should have asked someone else."
"Like who? The fifty thousand guys whose names are on the black wall? You don't want to hear what they have to say about Washington."