Observing his locked briefcase propped against a deep chair, he made his way to it, sat down heavily, and devoted himself to the combination that sprung open his lock. There was only one thick sheaf of printed sheets, fastened into a manila binder, inside the briefcase. This was the Minorities Rehabilitation Bill that the Senate and House had passed, and that was now in his hands awaiting his signature. He had read it thoroughly last night, made some notes and put question marks in the margins about certain provisions, and now he must reread the seven-billion-dollar bill once more and do what needed to be done, what the majority of his staff, of Congress, of white America and black America were apparently waiting for him to do.
He opened the manila binder to examine the bill a final time, but his vision was double, and his stomach heaved higher and higher toward his throat. He dropped the folder on the end table and gagged, clutching the arms of his chair, willing for himself the sea legs and stomach and mind and inner ears of F. D. R. or Kennedy or T. C. And then his convulsions stopped, and he lay back limp, arms flopped on his thighs, legs outstretched, a minor skirmish won, praying for the Dramamine to put down the enemy and save the beleaguered battlements of well-being and dignity.
Half reclining in this state of stupor, Dilman tried to remove his mind from water to land. His memory sought out Wanda, Julian, Mindy, Aldora… piteous Aldora of their long ago… it had gone wrong the second-to-last day of the last week of their honeymoon, driving home through Joplin, Missouri… going into that nice-looking bar for a late afternoon drink, because Aldora from the start had always liked a late afternoon drink, and when inside having their cocktail, those two drunken young business fellows had come up, hey-buddying him, hey-buddy-what-you-doin-with-one-of-our-white-girls, hey-buddy?… and knowing they were loaded to the gills, trying to explain, not fight, explain that Aldora was colored like himself and his bride… and trying to leave until they grabbed him and held him, saying hey-buddy, you-not-leavin, no, not leavin with any white girl… and him trying to pull free, until they wrestled him down and pummeled him bloody and Aldora began screaming… and the men going at last, hooting and whooping… and he and Aldora… the real beginning of the trouble had been then, but not the real beginning, for it had begun when she was born more white than black, fair skin, unfair heart… displacing her bitterness at fate, life, for making her almost white but not enough, displacing it by resenting her lot with him, his dark skin… and his striving to show her he was no poor black trash, but more a man, worthy of her, big lawyer, big politician… but no good, because there was Mindy, almost white like herself, so white she also had the prospects Aldora had abandoned too early, and Aldora’s growing contempt for him and her hoarding and segregating of Mindy, as if he would contaminate his daughter… and then Aldora wanting another Mindy, to prove something, maybe flee from him, but again no good… worse… getting Julian, black as coal, reminder that her husband was black and she was black and Mindy was black too… and his own trying to lift them up in politics, lift them high as white men, to make up for being Aldora’s black albatross, and Mindy’s, too… but too late to lift them up with him, because they had escaped, both escaped… Mindy, with Aldora’s conspiratorial help, into a white private school in Colorado, the name of which he’d never known, and then into the East, the white white East… and Aldora escaping too, into a bottle, a bottle a day, as insulated by glass as a model ship in a great big bottle… and his trying everything to reach her and help her escape, even trying to crawl into the bottle with her, no good… even taking a room in the sanitarium with her, no good… until she’d escaped at last, in a coffin, in the ground, where no one is almost white, where all are equal, still and equal, possessed of one mind, dead, one flesh, dead, one face, dead, white-wanting, free-wanting Aldora, in the subterranean planet of nothingness where there were no demons of almost.
He envied her, too, and wanted to escape the drowsy too-oft-relived nightmare, and now he had the Dramamine, and he escaped.
He dozed.
An eternity? An hour? How long had it been? He did not know, after the rattle of the door and then the persistent knocking upon it and then the calling out of his name had aroused him.
Blinking, he sat up, rubbing his eyes. He swallowed. The Adam’s apple had running room. There was still a clogging thickness in his throat, but the nausea and dizziness were gone, and so were Aldora and those dreadful years.
“Who is it?” he called out. He shook himself fully awake. “Who’s there?”
“Mr. President-”
He recognized Miss Foster’s muffled voice, and he said, “Come in, come in.”
She poked her head into the lounge. “Mr. President, Mr. Abrahams is aboard. Would you-?”
“Of course, send him in. I’ve been waiting for him.”
She left the door open, and the squishing of her sensible rubber soled shoes receded up the corridor, to be replaced in seconds by the solid smack of Abrahams’ leather heels.
Like himself, Dilman was pleased to be reminded, Nat Abrahams was not to the sea or manor born. Abrahams’ husk of brown hair had been tangled by his boat ride, and the bulky tweed coat he carried slung over one white shirt sleeve, and his tie pinned down by a gold-plated tie clasp, and his uncreased heavyweight wool trousers, and his scuffed brogues gave him the appearance of a landlubber adrift on a raft.
It occurred to Dilman, as it had occurred to him once before, years ago, how much resemblance his friend bore to Frederic Dorr Steele’s profile drawings of Sherlock Holmes, especially this moment when Abrahams, having greeted Dilman, stood in profile, too, his bony, falcon countenance adorned with pipe and jutting jaw, and all the admirable cold wisdom of the great detective. Could one imagine a hearty and windblown nautical Sherlock Holmes? Inconceivable. As impossible, Dilman decided, as Nat Abrahams and himself on this luxury yacht. With an ally of the anchored earth present, Dilman felt well for the first time. He felt as restored as if he had disembarked on terra firma.
Abrahams strode across the lounge, billowing a trail of smoke, clutched Dilman’s hand heartily, and pulled up a side chair.
“Quite a layout,” he said, his hand taking in the yacht’s lounge. “Been enjoying it?”
“It’s a hell ship, Nat,” he said. “This is what must have inspired Edward Everett Hale to write The Man Without a Country. I know how Philip Nolan felt. Any day, give me my own, my native land.”
Abrahams studied him. “Mal de mer, Doug?”
“Times ten,” said Dilman. “I became seasick going up the gangplank. You have no idea what it’s been like, Nat. All my advisers and officers and aides up there, inhaling, exhaling, full of salt air and the bounding main. Everyone telling me what a perfect day it is, great riding vessel, ocean like a carpet, and me alone, the only one, staggering around, trying to hide from them, not to let them see that all I want is to upchuck. I couldn’t fish, couldn’t eat, couldn’t even make sense talking to Eaton. I’ve devoted every minute to concentrating on not throwing up. I guess I wanted to uphold my position of authority. Tell me, how can you be Commander in Chief of the Navy and have your head in the toilet bowl the whole lousy voyage? They’re born to it, up there, their stomachs trained for it. How can I let them know their Commander thinks a knot is something you tie-and that the closest he ever came to a yacht was when he turned the pages of Holiday-and that all the President accomplished today was that he didn’t vomit? But I haven’t fooled them one bit, Nat, not Eaton or any one of them. They know I’m as out of place here as in the White House… What’s the idea winding me up like this, Nat? But anyway-you brought it up. How do I feel? Sick and demeaned, and thanks for coming to hear me complain.”