When he was ready to go, and she could make out one of him, not two or three, she said, “You meant everything you said tonight, George, didn’t you?”
“Everything, sweetheart.”
“I think I bored you, talking so much, but I was so excited. It’s not every day a girl is proposed to and accepts. I hope I didn’t say anything foolish or-or indiscreet. Did I?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, if I did, it doesn’t matter, because we belong to each other now, no secrets, never, promise? You can trust me with everything and I can trust you. Isn’t that right, George?
“Sweetheart, from now on you’re not Edna Foster and I’m not George Murdock. We are Mr. and Mrs. Murdock, almost, for all intents, and whatever we say to one another, and that goes for both of us, is sacred as pillow talk. Agreed? Agreed.”
“I love you, George. You’ll be famous, I know.”
“That’s not important. I love you too, that’s all that matters. You have a great trip to Paris, and stay away from those seductive Frenchmen-”
“George, silly-”
“-and when you return, I’ll be right here, with the wedding band and a job, a real big job this time. That I can promise you for sure.”
FOR RELEASE AT 9:30 P.M. PARIS TIME
Office of the White House Press Secretary Abroad
THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY, PARIS
COMPLETE TEXT OF PRESIDENT DILMAN’S SPEECH AT APPROXIMATELY 11:00 P.M. TONIGHT CLOSING THE FIVE-DAY CHANTILLY CONFERENCE FOLLOWS. THE PRESIDENT IS DELIVERING THE ADDRESS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATE BANQUET BEING HELD FOR HIM AND FOR PREMIER NIKOLAI KASATKIN OF THE U.S.S.R. BY THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS OF VERSAILLES PALACE. SIMULTANEOUSLY THE TEXT OF PREMIER KASATKIN’S REPLY WILL BE RELEASED AT THE SOVIET EMBASSY.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE BANQUET, PRESIDENT DILMAN WILL RETURN TO PARIS FROM VERSAILLES. HE WILL SPEND THE NIGHT IN HIS SUITE AT THE QUAID’ ORSAY BEFORE FLYING TO WASHINGTON IN THE MORNING.
WHILE THE five-day conference had been successful, the long hours had been strenuous, and Douglass Dilman had intended to return to Paris the moment that he and Premier Kasatkin and the French President had finished their public speeches. But when the formalities in the Hall of Mirrors had ended, and the bewigged, liveried servant had assisted Dilman from his chair, the Russian Premier energetically charged to his side.
“Mr. President,” Kasatkin had said in his guttural yet clearly understandable English, “you do not leave so soon to go to bed, no? In my country, to lie down after much rich food and wine is like lying down in the grave. Always, after feasts, I walk for thirty minutes in the court inside the Kremlin walls. We must enjoy a breath of air together in the magnificent gardens of Versailles, not to observe how tyrants built and lived, but to see that we live in health, now that we are friends and in accord.”
For a moment Dilman’s mind went to the five days of arguments, concessions, bartering in the drafty Grand Château at Chantilly. Although the Soviet Premier had been generally reasonable, his occasional flare-ups of temper had been irritating, as in the instance of his demands for freedom for native Communists in Baraza and other AUP countries. Too, his sporadic sarcasm had been annoying, as when he had chided Dilman and Eaton for finding a Communist bogeyman under every American bed. “You outlaw the Turnerites on the pretext they are using our good Moscow gold to overthrow you,” he had said. “Do you think we are crazy to waste money on your oppressed minorities, to incite them, when they have more anger against their capitalist overlords than we ever had or will have? Bah. When you are in trouble, you try to wriggle out and divert your masses from your own shortcomings by making them see Red, at home or in Africa.” Yet the gibes, the tantrums, had been fewer than Dilman had expected, and after Kasatkin had spoken his pieces for his Presidium and Pravda back home, he had always proved ready to trade. He was not a fanatical crusader, Dilman had guessed early. He was a pragmatist. When he spoke as Communism’s voice, with Lenin’s intelligence, he was perverse. When he spoke for himself, with his own intelligence, he was reasonable.
Now the Russian had extended a friendly and spontaneous invitation to Dilman, and Dilman found the other’s brusque, forthright, roughneck warmth difficult to resist or offend. Yet Dilman was tired. “Well,” Dilman said hesitantly, “I had promised Mr. Illingsworth and Secretary Eaton we’d try to get back at-”
“You promise nothing to the ones who work for you, you owe them nothing,” Kasatkin said with mock severity. “You owe only your proletariat, the working people, your allegiance and health to do good.”
Dilman cast a sickly smile at the Russian leader. “I’m less certain than you that my proletariat-or yours, for that matter-are all so unanimous in worrying about our good health.”
“You speak for yours, I shall speak for mine,” said Premier Kasatkin cheerfully. “Come now, Mr. President, some air, the two of us together, no advisers, no specialists, no petty bureaucrats. Five days we have been surrounded. One night, the last, let us be alone together, a social promenade to cement our continuing good relations. What are thirty minutes in a lifetime, after all? And who knows?” He winked broadly. “Our thirty minutes may mean more to the world than our other accomplishments of a lifetime.”
The Russian seemed so determined to end their meeting on a friendly note that Dilman could deny him no further. “Very well,” he said. “A short walk, then, in the gardens.”
Arthur Eaton had come upon them during the last exchange, and he appeared pained, trying to indicate that he disapproved, but Dilman avoided his eye. Dilman had permitted the Russian to take him by the arm, when Eaton finally protested. “Mr. President, we’re expected to depart-”
Premier Kasatkin brushed his hand toward Eaton as he might brush off a bothersome fly. “You go have some champagne with the other courtiers, Eaton. You keep busy with my pretty secretary with the yellow hair over there-Natasha. She admires you. Give your President and me, two simple men of the streets with bad table manners, a chance to discuss earthier matters alone-like our children, and our hernias. A half hour, Mr. Secretary.”
And now Dilman and Kasatkin were crossing the ancient cobblestone courtyard of the seventeenth-century Palace past the saluting Garde Républicaine, marching through the gate of the iron grillwork fence, preceded and followed at short distances by United States Secret Service men and Soviet KGB agents.
As the two leaders entered the 250-acre gardens, Dilman could see that the autumn season had already stripped the ancient trees of their green foliage. Yet the night was mild, refreshing, and the varicolored gush and spray of the spotlighted fountains lent their walk a festive air.
Dilman indicated a path that led in the direction of the Trianons, and the Russian Premier nodded and turned off with him, while the bodyguards ahead scampered back into line. Out of the corner of his eye Dilman glanced once again, as he had so many times in the past five days, at his Soviet counterpart and marveled at the familiarity of his face. What there was about Kasatkin, he had realized from the moment of their first handshake in the Grand Château at Chantilly, what there was that had partially disarmed and captivated Dilman, was the Russian leader’s uncanny resemblance to old Grandpa Schneider.
In the pantheon of Dilman’s memory, the brightest eternal flame honored Grandpa Schneider. When Dilman was seven and eight and maybe nine years old, surrounded by squalor, poverty, anger, deprived of all love except that which his mother could find strength and time to spare, the only male affection and guidance that Dilman had known had come from Grandpa Schneider. The old man-although lately Dilman had realized the old man could not have been that old then-had not been a grandpa and his name had not been Schneider. He had been an immigrant Jewish bachelor and a tailor (which, in Yiddish, was schneider), and because, when he was not hunched over the sewing machine or over the steam presser, he sat in a rocker, wearing a shawl and spectacles low on the bridge of his nose as he stitched, he had become Grandpa Schneider to the colored neighborhood and had been as pleased as if he had been crowned.