“The driver…a farmer…suffered concussion but is now conscious and will be all right. The two cows were killed and the injured party will have to be paid for the loss of what was the sum total of his working capital. Naturally I instructed the lawyers to examine with a fine-tooth comb the liability clause which…”

  For the first time Frederika interrupted. “Had she been drinking?”

  Dr. Paulus took a moment to answer. A drop of sweat clung like a tear to his chin. Then he nodded. “The alcoholic level of her urine was eighteen per cent. She must’ve stopped somewhere on the way and…”

  Nothing matters now, thought Peter. He shut his eyes; the lids as dry as Dr. Paulus’s lips. Over and over he repeated to himself the phrase “it’s just as well” which he knew would be constantly sounded in the weeks to come. But it was not just as well, he thought fiercely, opening his eyes. They had murdered her, just as they had intended. He turned to Clay to find that Clay was watching him; the blue eyes wide and clear and knowing. Each knew the other’s thought. It was just as well.

  * * *

  —

  The Sanfords and Clay sat in the first row of the crowded church. In the street outside people had gathered, strangers attracted if not by the tragedy at least by potential scandal. Inside the church, though all the magnates were on hand to comfort Blaise, there were not many of Enid’s old friends, those bright girls and boys of before the war who had danced at Chevy Chase, hunted near Warrenton, swum at Rehoboth Beach, got drunk at Middleburg; a golden company whose every movement was, in Peter’s memory at least, underscored by popular music. Resplendent youths in white duck made love to bright girls in flowery dresses and for what had seemed forever it was summer; then the deep purple did indeed fall and the war killed some while those who survived changed, married, grew older and the music which had gone round and round stopped, and for Enid had come out here.

  They rose and sang, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!” Peter joined in the singing, anything to distract himself from looking at the coffin and imagining what it contained. Better to contemplate the quick as they brooded upon the dead. Elizabeth Watress sat between Millicent Smith Carhart and her mother. The three ladies, all in black, resembled the Norns as they sat in the front row across from the Sanfords. Once Elizabeth glanced at Clay but he did not respond; he sat, eyes lowered, like a good boy told not to squirm in public. Beside him sat his daughter, fascinated by the display. From time to time she looked up curiously at her grandmother who wept without a sound, behind a black veil. Blaise, vague and disassociated, twice dropped his hymnal and each time Clay retrieved it for him.

  Then the minister said Enid’s name and Peter suddenly found himself staring at the coffin. But the lid is really a door, he told himself; slowly, like an idiot, he repeated the thought over and over to himself. A door. A door. Now open the door, the heavy metal door. I found you, Enid, come on out. Why? They’ll never find us here. But what about the game? To hell with the game. There’s no air. We’ll suffocate. You are yellow, aren’t you? Anyway, it’s empty, thank God. Remember all those wild turkeys they brought back from Aiken? And every rime you took a bite there’d be a mouthful of shot! Come on, you want to, don’t you? The door slammed, with a heavy sound of air being both compressed and expelled. The car crashed into the truck.

  “Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live. Behold thou hast made my days as it were a span long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of thee; and verily every man living is altogether vanity.”

  Outside the church, black limousines lined Lafayette Square. The coffin was already in the hearse when Peter stepped out into daylight and saw Diana, who said, “It’s awful, isn’t it?” To which there was no answer but “Yes, it is.”

  Sky sunless; grass brown; trees bare of leaves and empty of birds. A cold wind circulated among the mourners. But Peter was beyond any notice of the day or of the company for at the back of his eyes he had begun to feel pain while in his chest something harsh and loud demanded utterance. Then as the coffin was lowered into the freshly dug trench, the world was veiled; his eyes burned with salt. Fortunately, the minister’s office of the dead was spoken in a voice so deliberately beautiful that Peter was able to stifle easily the animal cry within.

  “He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.”

  When it was all done, not wanting to speak to anyone or be looked at, Peter broke away from the mourners and hurried back to the car, where a man he had never seen before stood waiting.

  “I’m Al Hartshorne.” Peter allowed his hand to be shaken. The man was small, easy to overlook. A lawyer, he told Peter; a friend of Enid’s. “In fact, I was going to handle the divorce for her.”

  “Yes, I remember her saying something about it…about you.” Peter wished the others would hurry up and rescue him from a conversation he did not want. But the funeral party was some distance away, moving slowly among stone crosses and marble angels, a dark straggling company.

  “Poor kid. She had the lousiest luck. When they put her away like that, she told me you were the only one who stood up for her, the only one.”

  “Well, it’s over.” Peter wanted to sound harsh, and succeeded.

  The lawyer looked at him with some surprise. “But I don’t think it is. That husband of hers is still alive.”

  Peter was jolted into consciousness by the unexpected ferocity of a man he had assumed would say no more than what was expected and decently go away. “Of course he’s still alive.” In the middle distance, Clay seemed to be supporting Frederika, who needed no support, but they made a touching picture for the photographers, who were as usual present to record each station of Clay’s ascent. “Do you suggest we kill him, for Enid’s sake?” Peter rounded on the lawyer, as though he were the enemy.

  “Well, you admit he killed her, locking her up.”

  “He wasn’t the only one.” Peter looked at Blaise, who seemed to be giving the minister detailed instructions, no doubt making suitable arrangements for Enid in the Episcopal paradise.

  “She thought it was Clay’s idea and that Mr. Sanford just went along.”

  “She must have told you a good deal about us.” Ironic understatement: there was no one Enid would not discuss her most intimate affairs with. She must have been entirely candid with her lawyer and possible savior. Apparently mere death would not end her mischief.

  “I guess I do feel like one of the family.” What had she told him? All right. I’ll shut the door. There’s plenty of air.

  “Anyway I’ve prepared quite a dossier on the Congressman there.”

  Beneath a tall monument, Clay dried his daughter’s eyes. Ecstatic, the photographers pushed to one side minister, Blaise, Frederika. This was what they had come for. Peter looked away, unable to bear the sight. Also, from where he stood, the child had suddenly, unexpectedly resembled Enid, a miniature Enid who blew her nose beneath a monument to William Kay Rollins…whose replica no doubt existed somewhere at this very moment, full of life and blowing its nose, too. The seed continues. Do we? Yes or no? If yes, what monotony. If no, no.

  “We had collected a lot of evidence proving adultery. Different girls, the usual sort of thing, but quite a lot of it. He likes to go to bed with two girls at a time. While one waits and watches in one bed, he has the other in the other bed. Then when he’s finished…”

  “Lechery never lost a man a vote.”

  “I’m sure it has.” The lawyer was mild. “But there was something really interesting I found out.”

  “Not the business about my father and Clay.” Peter was irritable at the thought.

  “No, nothing like that. I always told Enid I thought she was a bit overboard on that one.”

  “Enid was a damned fool.” Peter astonished himself.

  “In some ways.” The tone was agreeable. “But we loved her, didn’t we?” The question required an answer.

  Peter avoided the small bright eyes, so like those of a stuffed bear he had slept with for most of his childhood until one day Enid, to spite him, had thrown it into the river. “Yes, we loved her. What about Clay?”

  “I have been in touch with a man who was with Clay in the Philippines. In fact, he was there when all the hero business happened.”

  Peter anticipated what was next. “And your friend says that Clay was not a hero?”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “I don’t believe it. There must’ve been a hundred witnesses when Clay carried that man out of the burning hangar.”

  “The man was dead by the time the medics got to him.”

  “Clay could still have done what he did. Anyway, you can’t prove he didn’t.”

  “But I can. You see, Clay wasn’t at the airfield when all this happened.”

  Holding his daughter’s hand, Clay approached the car. Looking at his enemy, Peter refused to believe that he was not a hero. To give meaning to their struggle, Clay must be great and therefore dangerous to the Republic.

  Peter demanded proof. According to all the dispatches, Clay had commanded the attack on the airfield.

  “He led the attack in the sense that he was commanding officer, yes, but actually he wasn’t involved in any of the action because that morning he had cut his foot…”

  “Cut his foot? For Christ’s sake, do better than that!”

  “I’m only telling you what I was told by a friend of mine who knows the doctor who was looking after the foot while the attack was going on.”

  “Then how could he have been decorated, if he wasn’t there?”

  “He was there just at the end. And of course it was his unit that did the fighting.”

  “Then if he was there at the end he could have carried that man out of the burning hangar.” Peter was impatient. “After all, if he was decorated there must’ve been at least one witness.”

  “Yes, there was one witness. But only one.” The lawyer smiled. “Harold Griffiths.”

  Mystery solved. He should have guessed the truth from the beginning. “How did they get away with it? Everybody must’ve known the story was phony.”

  “Nobody knew for certain except the doctor. In all the confusion, Clay could have done what Mr. Griffiths said he did. Besides, Clay was a popular officer. Nobody grudged him the medal.”

  “Except the doctor in question.”

  “He doesn’t grudge anybody anything. In fact, he’d forgotten about the whole thing until he took his two boys to a drive-in to see that movie they made about Clay and of course he remembered it all and thought it quite a joke, and told his friend of mine who told me.”

  Clay was now within earshot. His voice carried on the cold wind. “We’ll go straight home, dear. Don’t cry. That’s a good girl.” Then he was beside them.

  The lawyer was jaunty. “I’m Al Hartshorne, Congressman. Come to pay my last respects.”

  “Thank you.” Clay helped the child into the car. “I remember you very well,” he said in a voice that was perhaps too neutral. He turned to Peter. “You better help your mother.”

  Peter obeyed him. It seemed the thing to do.

  EIGHT

  I

  “I have a statement to make.”

  “Could you start again, Congressman. And step back…that’s right. There was a shadow across your face. More to the left. That’s fine.”

  The Caucus Room of the Old House Office Building was filled with what looked to be most of the Washington press corps. They were in a friendly mood. There had even been some applause when Clay entered, an uncommon tribute from journalists largely indifferent to minor politicians-on-the-make. But Clay was a favorite. For one thing, writers in need of money could be reasonably certain that Blaise’s team of publicists would find a market for almost any article that featured the young congressman. Best of all, the interview itself would be conducted at Laurel House, in the company of handsome girls as well as famous men, off duty and complaisant, like bears in a national park. The golden ambience of Laurel House was particularly attractive to Washington journalists accustomed to the somewhat depressing domestic arrangements of the usual legislator. Even those members of the Congress who were wealthy did not live on the Sanford scale, with yachts and private planes and all the conveniences of large money. The journalists were overwhelmed, as they were meant to be.

  Blaise once confided to Clay that though there were men in Washington who could not be bought for a million dollars in cash, there was not one who could resist a week’s trip on a yacht in the company of film stars. The winning was seldom permanent, since treason is the essential business of even the most frivolous clerk. But with certain predictable exceptions, the press supported Clay because he was an attractive figure in a profession not noted currently for the charm of its practitioners, witness the First Magistrate, whose foolishness did not appeal even to the mythical folk who had elected him largely because they liked the charmless man with the moustache even less than they liked him. Clay, however, was young, celebrated, with access to the sort of fortune without which no politician can take the prize; or so certain grim commentators maintained, looking upon Truman as an accident in a society where soon only the very rich or those in thrall to the rich could afford to play the exciting game of king-of-the-castle.

  Clay knew that his remarkable situation automatically made him Presidential and he was pleased if somewhat surprised to note that the thought of his eventual success caused no resentment, doubtless because it was too far in the future; others would come first. Meanwhile the press favored him, tactfully ignoring the fact that, to date, his political performance was not inspiring. But then the old hands knew that to rise, the ambitious politician must be careful not to do anything that might in any way cause distress or alarm. So far none realized that Clay’s dim record was the result not so much of an unzealous temperament as of a conviction that at this moment in the Republic’s history the people wanted only to be let alone to watch television and forget the exhausting trials of the recent war. To offer them adventure in their current mood would be disastrous. Later, if required, thunder might roll, lightning flash; and Clay had perfect confidence that when the time came he could make whatever weather the bright days of his primacy required.

  Clay stared straight into the blinding television lights, like a sun worshiper certain of the ultimate beneficence of his god. He was pleased to note that on the most important day of his political life he was not in the least nervous. He even enjoyed the lights which obliterated the room, giving him the sense of being entirely alone, except for the recording camera and the impersonal millions.

  “All right, Congressman. Let’s go.”

  Clay turned in to the camera’s lens and began to speak. He knew the words by heart. The text was careful and sincere, with nothing in it to alarm or inspire. Yet it would set him in motion. “After much deliberation…response of friends…desire for further service…problems that need fresh approach…action…future…I announce my candidacy for the United States Senate.”

  That was it. No one was surprised. Everyone knew that sooner or later Clay would run for the Senate. Last winter he had made a tour of the state without once setting foot in his own district. That was all the clue the press needed. They predicted that this was Clay’s year to move, and he did not disappoint them.

  The lights contracted to darkness. He blinked his eyes, saw hands raised to attract his attention.

  “Congressman…Clay…Mr. Overbury…I have a question…Sir…”

  The voices mingled, one into the other. He pointed to an arm at the back of the room. He was rewarded with an unfamiliar voice. “Sir, assuming that you’re elected to the Senate…”

  “I’m not assuming anything.” Amiable laughter. The room was slowly coming into focus. The arm belonged to a stranger. That was bad luck. He had wanted to begin with a planted question.

  “Of course, sir. Anyway, should you be in the Senate, I would like to know just what your attitude will be to the hearings which are now going on in reference to the charges made by Senator McCarthy as to the exact number of Communists currently employed by the State Department.”

  Clay had several answers ready, depending upon the way the question was phrased. He began cautiously. “Well, for one thing, I assume that by next November those hearings will have been concluded…”

  “Even so, sir, what is your position now?”

  Clay’s baritone topped the other’s tenor; he knew all the tricks of drowning out other voices without seeming to raise one’s own. “…concluded and once they are I’m sure the Tydings committee, with all the help it is getting from the FBI, will be able to pinpoint just who is a Communist and who is not and then the Executive will act accordingly.” Clay started to recognize a woman in a large hat, but the relentless tenor was again raised.

  “That’s all very well, Congressman, but I think as candidate for the Senate, you should make your own position crystal clear as to what you think of Senator McCarthy’s crusade to rid the Executive Branch of the many Communists who have taken root there during the last twenty years…” There were rude murmurings from the liberal journalists, but Clay refused to play up to them. One slip of the tongue and he would be smeared up and down his state as soft on Communism or worse. The issue was hot.

  “I’m afraid I don’t personally know how many Communists there are in the Executive Branch of the government. But if there are any, I have every confidence that they will be rooted out.”

  “But how can anybody get at them, unless Democratic Senators like you stand up to the President and those other fellow travelers and demand that White House files containing the names of thousands of Communists be released to Senator McCarthy…” The tenor suddenly went falsetto. There was mocking laughter from the back of the room.