A ruling passion : a novel (38 page)

died within

uentin Enderby died diree years after his first stroke, at the age of eighty-three. Lily Grace and Rudy Dominus were at his side. They had been talking about the low ratings of "The Dominus Hour" when he had another stroke, his fourth, and minutes. It was Dominus who called Sybille with the

news.

For the past year, Enderby had seen almost no one but Dominus and the nurses, and Lily when she was home from school. Sybille stopped in once a day, but she would leave after a few minutes, as soon as they began to quarrel. She was impatient and irritated at his stubborn reftisal to die, and her anger was ignited whenever he would suddenly have a spark of interest in the cable network and demand that she bring him up-to-date. Most of the time he seemed uninterested— in fact, he seemed almost to have forgotten it—but then, without warning, his head would come up; he would square his shoulders and become alert and forceftil, sending for paper and pencil, gesturing broadly as he expounded ideas, loudly pressuring Sybille to do nothing until she cleared it with him. He would look at the books and make

scathing comments about the amount of money she was spending, and challenge her to justify it; and when she grew defensive and said it took time to make a floundering network profitable, he would shout her down, saying she'd had a year, two years, three, and nothing to show for it but a steady outflow of money. Sybille refused to discuss it. "I'll make it the biggest there is," was all she would say. "I just need the right mix of new people and new programs, whatever it costs; then

ru—"

"It isn't more money you need; it's brains!" he would roar, and at that she would storm out of his room.

His fury of activity might last for as long as a week, and then vanish, and once again his days would blur into each other in a numbing routine of watching television with the glazed look of someone who really saw and heard none of it, or sitting in his chair beside the window overlooking the Potomac, or half reclining in bed, dozing as Do-minus read the Bible to him or Lily sang folk songs. And Sybille would return to the routine she considered rightfully hers, of running the network without answering to anyone or being pestered by meddling comments and questions.

And then Enderby was dead. He died on a cold, gray December afternoon, and two days later Sybille dressed carefully in a black suit trimmed in black fox for the fimeral. She had decided there would be only a graveside service, conducted by Rudy Dominus, who had begged for the honor and in any event was the only minister she knew. She had sent a notice to the press, and everyone at the network, announcing the date and time of the fianeral, and coffee at her apartment afterward. It would be done properly; no one would be able to criticize her for not being a good wife, or widow.

It was cold at the cemetery, with leafless trees stark against a lowering sky. But there was a crowd at the gravesite and that was what Sybille cared about: they were all employees of EBN, but to the reporters it would look as if she and Quentin had dozens of friends. And then she saw, at the back of the crowd, Valerie, bundled in fur, arriving just as Dominus began to speak.

Sybille paid no attention to what he said. Scraps of phrases floated to her, but, as always, she was bored with anything she could not see or buy. Quentin's soul was between him and Dominus; it had never had anything to do with her. She half turned from him, bringing the crowd into view while seeming to gaze mournfully at the coffin suspended on a frame over the open grave. Beneath lowered lids, she scanned the faces. No one was paying attention to Dominus, she

noted, which was why his ratings had been bad from the beginning: he had never been able to make anyone care about being saved by him. In fact, Sybille thought bitterly, he had the same problems Enderby had accused her of having when she was trying her damndest to prove herself on camera. He could not connect with an audience. But En-derby had not seen that in Rudy Dominus, or had turned a blind eye, and so Dominus had his show, while Sybille had been robbed of hers.

Her gaze reached Valerie. Of all of them, she was the only one really listening to Dominus, her face intent and curious. Faking it, Sybille thought; trying to act pious. Why does she bother? And why is she here at all.> Because she danced with Quentin a few times .>

"He has finally attained the peace we all long for in our sinful lives," Dominus intoned. "And thinking only of forgiveness in his last moments, he showed us the way to find our own." He fell silent, his head bowed. Behind Sybille, the others looked around for clues, then they too bowed their heads.

"Quentin was our friend," Lily Grace said into the silence, and her high, cool voice made everyone look up. "He loved us with the love of a good man who discovers that he has more to give than anyone ever asked of him, much more than he would have thought he could give. Quentin learned that very late in his life, when he was mortally ill, but he found it in time to treasure it with the joy of self-discovery. Quentin learned to trust himself, to believe in himself, to like himself. What more could any of us ask than that: to see, as if a curtain had been pulled away, the riches within ourselves? Quentin closed his eyes for the last time with the peace of a man reborn, who finally believed that he was truly good."

Her voice, small but true, rose in a French folk song. Looking again at the people behind her, Sybille was astonished to see some of them dab at their eyes and spontaneously bow their heads. And Valerie was watching Lily with admiration. Sybille's eyes narrowed and she turned back to Lily, studying her as she sang, wondering what she had missed about her. The girl was dressed in a black wool coat that came to her ankles; she wore heavy boots and black cotton gloves, her small features were pale in the cold air, and her hair fell straight, covering her shoulders like a white-blond veil. Ordinary, Sybille thought; very young, incredibly badly dressed; as simple as a farm girl.

But Valerie had seen something to admire. A familiar bubble of rage began to form inside Sybille. What had Valerie seen in Lily Grace that had been invisible to Sybille? Something, something, something. It hammered inside her: She saw it; I missed it. She saw it; I missed it.

So, for the first time, she began to think about Lily as a person separate from Rudy Dominus. Dominus, of course, was no longer with EBN; Sybille had canceled his program the day after Enderby died. That meant she no longer had a God show. At one time she would not have given that a second thought, but the climate in the country had changed since Enderby bought the network; God was big business now, and the people who had gotten in early, like Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Jim and Tammy Bakker, were cleaning up. Lily Grace was no competition for those big hitters, but maybe, as someone's assistant, she could add something different, if Sybille could figure out what it was.

I'll think about it later, she decided; there's no rush. She'll be tied to Rudy's apron strings until somebody cuts her loose. And I can do that anytime, if I want to.

The coffin was mechanically lowered into the grave, moving silendy downward within the steel frame. Sybille watched it absendy, thinking of the network and what she would do with it. She wasn't sure she wanted to keep it. It was a constant drain, and brought her no pleasure; it hadn't even brought her prestige, because it was small compared to others, especially a network like CNN. But there were those figures Quentin had held out tantalizingly that night at La Chaumiere —all those dollars, all that influence and power—when he spread the whole glittering prospect of cable television before her and talked her into plunging into it with everything she had.

That was the exciting time, when her Television of Joy, backed up by an enormous advertising campaign, was being written about in newspapers and magazines. Her audience grew, and the ratings climbed, advertisers clamored to be part of what they thought was the new wave of television programming, and cable operators signed up by the dozens to carry the EBN package. Sybille was busier than she ever had been; her name was known; her picture, taken by a well-known photographer of models and society women, appeared in articles in the local and national press and in the glossy pages of Town and Country, Washington Dossier and Vogue. Often there was also a photo of Enderby, seated at a desk, although, when Sybille was asked about him, she could not force herself to lie, and so she told the truth: that he did nothing anymore; she was completely alone in carrying the burden of EBN and its Television of Joy. She was also alone in becoming part of the Washington social scene, but she managed that bravely, always enlisting someone at EBN to be her escort to the whirl of dinners and cocktail parties that included government officials, con-

gressmen, lobbyists, bankers, lawyers and newspaper and television figures: a glittering array that made her feel, at last, part of the heights she had eyed for so long.

And then it ended. Her ratings began to sink, slowly, then more precipitously, as viewers deserted her for the ordinary programming they had watched before she came along. Bewildered, Sybille began to make changes: she rearranged the schedule, hired new anchors, bought a soap opera set in Palm Beach, a women's wrestling show, and a new set of X-rated films, and increased her advertising. Nothing helped. Movies, especially Westerns and pornography, held their ratings, but the rest of the schedule soon was a desert. Fewer articles were written about her, and the ones that did appear were critical. And with that, her social life dried up. There was nothing that the network brought her anymore.

Why keep it? she thought as she led the mourners from the cemetery and settled back in her limousine for the short ride to her apartment. She stared unseeing at the streets of Georgetown. What did she care about a network Enderby had bought? She'd have all his money; she didn't need to work; and, anyway, she could get a fortune for EBN. She'd find a buyer and get out of Washington—a horrible place; she'd always known it would be; all wrapped up in itself and its own sense of importance—and go somewhere and—

And what? What would she do?

The limousine stopped at the entrance to her building in the Watergate, ril think about it tomorrow. Fll think ofsomethin£f. I can afford to do anythin£f I want.

Everyone came to her apartment and drank coffee and Scotch and martinis, and devoured the feast catered by Ridgewell's. Clusters of people she saw at work every day stood about, crowding her rooms as they had not been in the entire time she and Enderby had lived there, talking about ratings, politics, sports, and the price of housing. No one talked about Enderby.

Valerie stood to one side, drinking sherry and watching Dominus move through the rooms as if building a constituency. When he reached her, she asked about Lily Grace. "I sent her home," he said. "She was chilled and emotionally drained by the funeral; I made her apologies to Sybille." His protruding eyes were fixed on her. "You are an extraordinarily beautiful woman; I hope you guard against letting that warp your life."

Valerie's eyebrows rose; then she broke into laughter. "Thank you. That's the most graceful compliment anyone has ever given me."

"It was not a compliment. It was a warning."

She was still smiling. "But half of it sounded like praise. Do you always have a knife handy when you say something kind?"

He frowned. "Meaning what.>"

"Oh, the kind of things you said about Quentin at the cemetery. You said he was a superb entrepreneur who built a major independent station in the crudest city in the world, and then you said his arrogance had driven him to overreach himself so that he knew only un-happiness and low ratings."

Dominus stared at her. "Those were my exact words."

Valerie nodded. "And you did it over and over again. Every time you praised him you'd stop and take a breath, and then stick in the knife. Is Lily the only one who says something kind without contradicting it in the next minute?"

"I do that? I stop and take a breath?"

"Every time. As if you're getting ready to lunge."

"That is a wicked thing to say. You have beauty and intelligence"— he took a breath—"but you are too proud; you will suffer loneliness and terrors because of it."

Valerie gazed at him in silence, a small smile on her lips, and in a moment he scowled deeply.

"The world is not a pretty place. You should be pleased that I find anything at all to praise in you. There are many people in whom I find nothing, though I wresde with myself, attempting to find good in them. There are people even God could not find good in, though He almost never takes the time to look for it; He directs those of us on earth to do it for Him."

Valerie gave a small laugh again. "Even God gets mixed reviews. You must be very alone, judging a world where everyone is flawed, without God to turn to."

"I do not judge; I observe and comment, no more. And of course I turn to God; the two of us share the burden of a troubled world. He could not do it without me and I would have a much more difficult time without Him."

Valerie began to laugh, but there was no responsive smile in Dominus; he was absolutely serious. "Tell me about Lily," she said. 'Ts she your daughter?"

"In spirit only. I have cared for her for years, since she was a girl. Lily is absolutely pure and sees only purity in others."

"And she believed what she said about Quentin."

"Of course. Lily cannot lie."

'Was she right? Did he know he was a good person before he died?"

"No. But Lily believed he did. Lily always believes the best of everyone. Her charm—perhaps her genius—is that she convinces others that she's right about them and thus makes them feel good. And then, of course, they give more money, which allows us to continue our work." He saw Valerie's curious look. "How can we bring our message to the needy, if our own needs stand in the way? We satisfy ourselves so we can satisfy others. We will soon organize a church in New Jersey, in a house I have bought with Quentin's help. I will allow Lily to preach there occasionally; mostly she will visit the sick and comfort the bereaved. When we are ready, you will come and listen to us—yes?— and I am confident that you too will give us money, for you will want us to carry on. But you have not talked about yourself at all." He glanced at her wedding band and the diamond that flashed beside it. "Do you and your husband live in Washington?"