Claire Marvel (2 page)

No, I thought, I wouldn’t be going to Café Pamplona. It wasn’t an invitation. There was enough potential disappointment in any given day without the need to add to the risks. Beauties like her—women with extravagant umbrellas—were inevitably, biologically engineered to seek out beauty in their mates. And so she would. Me, I’d play the odds. And the odds said No way. This wasn’t habit, I tried to assure myself, just sound reasoning.

“Julian.”

I looked up. Dal was standing there, serene, exotic.

“Should I go in?”

“I’d talk fast if I were you,” she said in a bored voice. “He kept looking at his watch.”

three

W
HAT FLASHED THROUGH MY BRAIN
as I heard the deep-voiced “Come in” and entered the spacious office with the cherry-wood desk and mahogany rocking chair were the old photographs I’d often seen reproduced in magazines of a youthful, strapping Ronald Reagan on his Santa Barbara ranch—splitting wood, mending fences, riding the range. Professor Davis was standing by the window. Of course I’d seen him many times in lecture, where he was known for speaking in Churchillian fashion for two hours without notes. But here in the intimate confines of his office he seemed altogether more imposing. Not quite fifty, tall—like his hero and “friend,” the actor-cum-president, he possessed broad square shoulders and large powerful hands. He favored suits rather than the usual professorial tweeds. His salt-and-pepper hair was impressively
full, his brows two thick brushstrokes made by a supremely confident artist. Behind rimless glasses his eyes were a piercing blue. And he had a leader’s nose: meaty yet straight, with a hawkish boldness that on a man of less defined character might have been a cartoon.

He glanced at his watch. “Are you the last?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I have a plane to catch soon. In the meantime we’ll talk. Have a seat. That’s a Kennedy rocker, by the way. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”

It was a joke, I figured, however tepid; but he didn’t smile and so neither did I. I sat on the rocker. For himself he took a wooden armchair emblazoned with a faded Harvard insignia.

“Professor Davis …” I began.

“You’re in my class,” he interrupted, scrutinizing me with sharp eyes.

“Yes. I’m—”

“Don’t tell me.” His brow creased, the verticals deeply etched. “Rose. Something Rose. Am I right?”

I stared at him, not sure whether to feel flattered or alarmed. “Julian.”

“What?”

“Julian,” I repeated a bit louder.

“That’s it. Charlie Dixon mentioned you to me. I’m looking for a research assistant. Is that why you’re here?”

“Actually—”

“My last one was a disaster. Thought he was a young Voltaire.” He scrutinized me again, as if I’d just that moment walked into the room. “You always sit on the left. Correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Same seat. Don’t tell me it’s superstition—I don’t believe in magic. Did you know Dixon recommended you to me? You did some noteworthy research for him, I believe.”

I nodded. “For his book on Teddy Roosevelt and the election of 1912. Just the final section, the part dealing with the Progressive Party platform—direct senatorial elections, woman’s suffrage, reduction of the tariff, the social reforms. That kind of thing. Actually, Professor Davis—”

“Have you read the whole book? Because Dixon sent me a copy last month, hot off the press, and I’ve had a look-through. Strictly between us, I think it’s soft.”

“Soft?”

“Don’t worry, I don’t mean you. Old Charlie’s been castrated by his Liberal desires. This isn’t serious political scholarship. Show Dixon a big fat government program—a sinkhole for the taxpayers’ money—and what he sees is the proverbial tree of caring. Christ, all the man wants to do is hug it. TR would’ve taken the big stick to him in a heartbeat.”

“Roosevelt saved quite a few trees himself,” I couldn’t keep from pointing out. “Proverbial or not.”

“It’s not the saving I necessarily object to, it’s the hugging,” Davis said. “I’m all for saving—the Constitution, that is. Remember: Conservative stands for conservation. You’re not some hugging Liberal, are you?”

There was a faint, appraising smile on his face but the voice underneath was hard as pavement. He was looking at me as if measuring me for a suit or a coffin.

“I’m a Democrat,” I answered. “But I don’t hug.”

“You’ve got balls, then?”

“I like to think so.”

Davis’ smile broadened slightly, and for the first time in his presence I felt myself relax.

“You want the job?”

“You’re offering it to me?”

“I am. On a trial basis, of course.”

“Of course. Yes, absolutely, I want the job.”

“Good.”

There was a pause. I breathed out, glanced around. Behind Davis, between two windows gloried with timeless views of the Law School, there was a wall of photographs of himself with various kings of the Republican establishment: two with Reagan, three with Meese, one each with Weinberger and Shultz. Several had been taken on a golf course. I’d heard it said that his friendship with Meese, which dated back to Reagan’s failed ‘76 presidential campaign, was the key to Davis’ career. Early in Reagan’s first term he’d used his pull with the attorney general to gain access to the inner circle of the president’s unofficial policy advisors—where, by all accounts, he remained. He spent two days a week in or around the White House. His Conservative politics I sincerely disagreed with, but his talent and success I felt compelled to admire.

“Actually, Professor Davis, I was hoping I might be able to talk to you about my dissertation as well.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that.” He looked at his watch again and rose from his chair. “Let me see. It’s 4:17. At 7:30 I have to be dressed for dinner at the Jefferson Hotel. The attorney general will be there. What odds do you give me of making it?”

“Slim to none.”

He smiled with evident self-satisfaction and I saw that I’d just walked into his punch line. “That’s the problem with you Liberals,” he said. “No vision.”

“Better blind than wrong,” I shot back.

He paused; behind his glasses his eyes appeared to harden to sapphires. I waited with half-caught breath to see where my tongue had landed me.

Finally, he reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder. “I have a car waiting outside,” he said in an avuncular tone. “Ride with me to the airport and we can talk details.”

four

H
E WANTED TO MEET AGAIN
at the end of the week, following his return from Washington. There was a book he was writing for Random House, currently titled
Congress and the Constitution,
and a possible memoir. He’d be lunching at the Faculty Club Friday but would have an hour free in the afternoon. Let’s meet for coffee, he said. I asked him where and with a challenge in his eye he told me to choose the place. My first test.

Café Pamplona wasn’t at all the sort of place to take someone like Davis; not if you wanted to impress; not if you had an ounce of sense. It was a hangout for Euros and would-be Euros dressed in black. A certain Left Bank cool, not power, was the currency there. He would hate it on sight.

I arrived an hour early. A Spanish-style café vaguely Moorish in decoration, low-ceilinged and cramped, down a few steps from the street. The narrow ground-level windows were all sealed shut and the air was thick with cigarette smoke. The round marble-topped tables were occupied by dark-clothed bodies and pale faces, Claire’s not among them. For three days I’d been unable to stop thinking about her. Now I found a spot in the corner, ordered a cappuccino, and sat watching the entrance, vividly imagining the moment when she might walk through the door and see me and break into a huge smile. Ridiculous, of course. Foolish, idiotic … still, I sat watching.

There was plenty of time. Time to study an odd kidney-shaped puddle of water left on my table by the previous occupant; time to consider the question of my dissertation and how I should present myself to Davis.

He arrived promptly on the hour. His entrance made the café smaller. It was his legacy to leave others with a diminished personal landscape yet still with some unarticulated sense of the heightened possibility of their lives. Today his suit was navy blue and his tie yellow. He might have been a CEO or even the Gipper himself. He approached my table refusing to bow to the architecture, his head passing just inches beneath the nicotine-stained ceiling. Handing me a legal folder of impressive girth, he declared, “My manuscript,” and eased himself into a chair.

“Fifty percent done. I thought you should read what’s there before we move ahead.”

The waiter sidled over. Davis ordered a double espresso
and requested that the table be cleaned; with a swipe of cloth, the puddle disappeared.

He took a look around. “Quite a little hellhole you’ve got here,” he said amicably.

I grinned with relief.

He told me more about the book he was writing. Even by historical standards, he argued, the Democrat-controlled Congress was overreaching in its attempts to thwart the president. All this smoke-and-mirrors bullshit about Iran-Contra was nothing but an excuse, he declared. A certain amount of partisanship was fine and expected, a product of human nature; but there was this slip of paper called the Constitution. We finally had a man in the White House who honored it and understood the ways in which it was designed to keep America strong. The current Congress wasn’t simply
against
Ronald Reagan, it was intent on distorting the literal words and institutional prerogatives expressed in the Constitution in order to bring him to his knees. His book, Davis claimed, contained a timely historical analysis of such irresponsible legislative gamesmanship and a powerful argument against it.

He sat back, his face etched with certainty. I finished my cappuccino and dabbed at my mouth with a paper napkin. I was seeing, far more clearly than I had at our first meeting, the huge gulf that separated our political beliefs and our views of the world.

He seemed to be waiting for me to comment and so I did.

“One could also argue that it’s the president and his self-aggrandized view of executive power that’s out to bring Congress to
its
knees,” I said.

Davis stared at me until a willowy flutter of doubt ran up my insides.

“Now listen,” he snapped. “We don’t have to agree on all the details. But we have to come together on the basic principles.
My
principles, to be precise. Otherwise, you understand, the deal’s off.”

“I understand.”

“And do we agree on those principles, Julian?”

I hesitated. Looking at him, weighing the possibilities. Envisioning my father’s disappointment had he been witness to this moment. Disappointment not at the squandering of professional opportunity but rather at the unseemly desire to sell out. Though with characteristic reticence he would have abstained from passing explicit judgment on me.

Then I told my new mentor what he wanted to hear.

“Good.” Davis swallowed the last of his espresso and checked his watch. “So tell me a little about yourself.”

I looked away. Through the closed windows I saw the disembodied legs of people walking in both directions. I thought how badly I’d wanted Claire to witness my collegial meeting with Professor Carl Davis of Harvard and Washington, and a mist of shame briefly clouded the bright vision of my future.

“I’m from New York,” I said. “After Columbia I spent two years working at the Council on Foreign Relations. Then I came here.”

“Right. Dixon told me.” Davis’ tone had turned buoyant; he seemed relieved to have gotten through the preliminaries and was eager now to close any gaps between us. “You must have studied with Gordon Klein at Columbia,” he said.

“He was my thesis advisor. And I took his course ‘Legislating Freedom.’ ”

“Gordon and I go back thirty years. He’s my son Peter’s godfather.” Davis’ expression was confidential. This minor personal connection we happened to share was significant to him. In an easier, more welcoming tone of voice he inquired, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Peter’s a bit younger.” He paused, regarding me with an almost paternal eye. “The other day in my office you mentioned your dissertation.”

I nodded.

“Tell me about it.”

I cleared my throat. “I intend to deal with various incarnations of the Progressive Party, their consequences and significance,” I began. “The elections of 1912, ‘24, and ‘48. Especially ‘48, with Wallace running for president—this time challenging the Democrats, not the Republicans. He gets endorsed by the Communists and the American Labor Party, attacks Truman for not working with the Soviets to end the Cold War, argues for repeal of Taft-Hartley and the reestablishment of wartime price controls. Political suicide, right? Still, a million votes in the general election made clear that without the Progressives there was no way in the world Truman would’ve made it by Dewey. Then the whole thing went bust. The Progressive Party more or less evaporated. Where’d the voters go? That’s what I want to get at. A million people isn’t small change. Professor Davis, I want to write about the continuing presence of a legitimate third-party political movement in
America, an invisible, shifting group of voters that’s been waiting in the wings for forty years, looking for a viable option. The spring below the surface. I want to shine a light on that force and its long-term political consequences.”