The woman kept staring at him, her eyes like lasers.
“Marika, aren’t you going to speak to me?”
They both remained silent for a moment. At last, she responded with quiet anger. “You should not have come. You don’t belong here anymore. I told the doctors not to let you in.”
George looked at Dr. Rozsa, who nodded. “Yes,” he affirmed, “Mrs. Donath was very much against it. It was your father who insisted.”
Marika turned her face away.
“Shall we go in now?” Dr. Rozsa asked.
George nodded. For his vocal cords were paralyzed.
He stood for a moment after they entered the room, looking at the frail, white-clad form on a pile of pillows.
The old man sensed his presence and rasped out, “Is that you, Gyuri?” The question was punctuated with a racking cough.
“It’s me,” said George, still motionless.
“Come closer to the bed. Don’t be afraid. Death is not catching.”
George started forward nervously.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” said Dr. Rozsa, making his retreat.
“Sit down,” the patriarch commanded, motioning his bony finger at a wooden chair placed near the bed.
George silently obeyed.
He had not yet dared to look his father in the face. He had somehow managed to avoid making visual contact. But now their gazes met and locked.
Istvan Kolozsdi still had the same stern visage, albeit emaciated and extremely pale. George stared at him and thought, This is the demon I’ve been afraid of all my life. Look at him. So small and frail.
He listened as his father breathed with difficulty.
“Gyuri, do you have children?” he asked.
“No, Father.”
“Then who will come and comfort you when you’re lying as I am?”
“I guess I’ll get married one of these days,” George replied. And wondered, Is that why he wants to see me—to make sure I find a wife?
There was an uneasy silence.
“How are you feeling, Father?”
“Not as good as I will when it’s all over,” answered the old man, and gave a laugh that made him wince with pain. “Listen, Gyuri,” he continued, “I’m glad to have this chance to talk. Because there is something I want to tell you.…”
He paused to draw strength and breath.
“On second thought,” he contradicted, “I don’t have to tell you. Just open that drawer.” He pointed to the gray bedside table. “Open it, Gyuri.”
George leaned over to obey his father’s order.
Inside he found a tangled mass of newspaper clippings in several languages. Some were yellowing, some torn.
“Look. Look at them,” the old man prompted.
There were articles from the world press about him. About George. There was even—God knows how it had gotten there—a profile published last year in the International Herald Tribune. He was dumbfounded.
“What do you see?” asked the patriarch.
“I see a lot of old rubbish, Father,” George answered, trying to make light of it. “What do you see?”
Making a supreme effort, the old man lifted himself onto his elbows and leaned toward George. “I see you, Gyuri. I see your face in every paper in the world. Do you know what you have done to me?”
George had painfully anticipated this question.
“Father, I—I—”
“No,” the old man interrupted. “You don’t understand at all. You’re a big shot in the world.”
“On the wrong side,” George said deprecatingly.
“My boy, in politics there’s no wrong side. There is only the winning side. You have the makings of a master politician, Gyuri. Kissinger will eventually stumble and—you’ll become the Secretary of State!”
“That’s wishful thinking.” George smiled, trying to retain his composure. He could hardly believe that for the first time in his life Istvan Kolozsdi had praised him.
“You’re twice as smart as Kissinger,” the old man insisted. “And what’s more, you aren’t a Jew. I’m sorry I won’t be around to see the rest.”
George felt tears welling in his eyes. He tried to fight them back by attempting lighthearted banter.
“I thought you were a dedicated Socialist,” he said with a smile.
The old man emitted a sandpaper laugh.
“Ah, Gyuri, there’s only one philosophy that rules the world—success.”
He took a long lingering look at George and said, beaming, “Welcome home, my son.”
Twenty minutes later, George Keller left his father’s room, gently closing the door. Marika was still seated there, impassive. He sat down next to her.
“Look, you have every right to be angry with me,” he said nervously. “There’s so much to explain. All this time I should have written—”
“You should have done a lot of things,” she said mechanically.
“I know. I know.”
“Do you, Gyuri? Did you ever think what you were doing when you abandoned us? Did you ever even try to find out how father was? Or me? Or even Aniko?”
He suddenly grew cold. As frozen as he had been that wintry day so many years ago. All this time, whenever he had thought about those moments—or whenever dreams compelled him to remember—he’d felt a piercing shame. The only consolation had been that it was his private secret. But now he realized that other people knew. How?
“I tried to find her,” George protested helplessly.
“You left her! You left her bleeding there to die.”
“Where—where is she buried?”
“In a shabby municipal flat.”
George was stunned and incredulous. “Are you saying she’s alive?”
“Barely, Gyuri. Just barely.”
“What does she do?”
“She sits,” Marika answered. “That is all she is able to do.”
“How can I find her?”
“No, Gyuri, you’ve caused her enough pain. And I won’t let you hurt her anymore.”
“Please, Marika, I have to see her. I have to. I want to help her.”
She shook her head and quietly concluded the conversation. “You should have done that eighteen years ago.”
She turned her back and would not speak to him again.
The next morning when he arrived at the hospital, George Keller was informed that his father had died peacefully in his sleep during the night.
He took the first flight back to Paris. He had never felt more lonely in his life.
The moment he cleared customs at Washington’s Dulles Airport, George picked up the phone and called Catherine Fitzgerald at the Nader office.
“Hi, how was the trip? The papers said you did well in Moscow.”
“It’s a long story,” he replied. “Right now I need an urgent favor from you.”
“The sound of that worries me, Dr. Keller. You never do anything without an ulterior motive. What exactly is it you’re after?”
“A wife,” George replied.
There was sudden silence at the other end of the wire.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“You know I have no sense of humor. Now, will you marry me?”
“I won’t say yes unless you name a specific time and place.”
“How’s Friday noon at the clerk’s office at the Municipal Center on E Street?”
“If you’re even one minute late,” she warned playfully, “I promise you I’ll walk.”
“And if you’re late,” he retorted, “I promise you I’ll wait. Now do we have a deal?”
“Let’s say we’ve had a successful negotiation,” she replied. And before hanging up, added with sudden tenderness, “George, I do love you.”
After the wedding, Cathy permitted her parents to give them a small reception at the family home in McLean, Virginia. There were several of Cathy’s old friends from school, a few Nader’s Raiders, some of her father’s law partners and their wives. Georg
e invited only one couple—Henry and Nancy Kissinger.
The Secretary of State proposed a witty toast that utterly disarmed and enchanted the bride, who had spent the preceding night dreading the thought of seeing her old nemesis.
“I hope we can be friends now,” Henry smiled as he kissed Cathy.
“Dammit,” she replied happily, “it’s true what they say about you, Henry. Your charm is irresistible.”
“I hope you hear that, Nancy,” quipped the Secretary to his new bride.
For a Republican working in Washington, D.C., late July 1974 was hardly a time for honeymoons. Though Cathy moved into George’s townhouse right after the wedding, she barely saw him. And then only very late at night.
For now it became increasingly clear that because of the Watergate scandal, Nixon was going to have to resign from office.
While Henry Kissinger metaphorically—and sometimes literally—held the tormented President’s hand, George helped Al Haig set the White House in order.
If his wedding had lacked confetti, it was more than made up for by the mass of shredded paper emanating from the Executive Mansion late those evenings as George “deep-sixed” documents that various members of the “Palace Guard” brought in to him.
George destroyed the material so quickly that he didn’t have a second to determine what he was being given. He simply stuffed it into burn bags to be carted off.
Cathy was awake when he arrived home one morning at three o’clock.
“I don’t know whether to offer you a nightcap or breakfast,” she joked. “If it were anyone else, I’d think there was another woman.”
“Hell, it’s like a deathwatch over there, Cath. Al Haig feels it’s only a question of time.”
“Why doesn’t Nixon just quit and put everybody—especially the country—out of its misery?”
George looked at her.
“It’s a helluva decision,” he said softly.
“Yes, but he’s got a helluva lot to answer for.”
“So does every politician,” George responded. “We’ve all got some kind of skeleton in our closet.”
“Not you, Georgie,” she said, embracing him. “You’re still a high-minded public servant, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he answered, trying to seem jocular.
“Then why not quit while you’re ahead? When Nixon goes, let’s go too.”
“Don’t be silly, Cathy. Now’s the time the Administration needs me most.”
He didn’t add that it was a rare opportunity to make a quantum leap ahead in his career.
“Ah,” she said, kissing him on the cheek, “my patriotic husband.”
• • •
At eleven-thirty on the morning of August 9, Henry Kissinger buzzed George to come into his office. The White House Chief of Staff was also present.
“Morning, Al,” said George, cheerily doing his best to imitate a military salute.
Haig merely nodded somberly in the direction of the Secretary of State, who was seated at his desk holding a small piece of white paper.
“Oh,” George said solemnly, “is that it?”
Kissinger nodded and handed George the document, which read simply:
Dear Mr. Secretary,
I hereby resign the office of President of the United States.
Yours truly,
Richard M. Nixon
George scanned it several times and looked at Haig.
“Where’s the President now?” he asked.
“Strictly speaking,” Kissinger replied, “at this moment there is no President.”
Haig concurred. “Yeah. Just think, George. Right now the three most powerful guys in the United States—and by consequence the world—are standing together in the same room. Does it feel good?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied noncommittally. But it did, in fact, feel very good.
“Anyway,” said Kissinger, rising from his chair, “unless we want to rule as a triumvirate, we’d better head for Gerry’s swearing in.”
Gerald Ford had spent the majority of his adult life as a contented congressman from Michigan. He had never aspired to the White House. And yet now he had become the most powerful leader in the Western world, in a tension-filled atmosphere he did not really relish.
The responsibility of office did not weigh too heavily on Ford. He could meet that challenge. But he couldn’t bear the cutthroat competition among his aides for access to his ear.
Old football player that he was, he could recognize a tackle trying to break through to reach the quarterback. And he knew he had to clear the field to give himself some running room.
Obviously, Kissinger had to remain for continuity—and for the nation’s image in the world.
Yet, despite the fact that Haig insisted that the new President badly “needed him,” Ford wanted to get at least this Nixon courtier away from Washington. Happily he found a glittering pretext.
He got Al Haig appointed Supreme Commander of the NATO Forces—thereby transferring him to Brussels. He would remain in the White House just long enough to help in the negotiations for the Nixon pardon.
Then, to establish his own global stature, Ford set off with Kissinger to meet Brezhnev at a summit meeting. Naturally, George Keller was in tow. And he was so conspicuously effective that during the long flight home on Air Force One, the President invited him to his quarters.
“What did you talk about?” Kissinger asked with a scintilla of jealousy as he returned to his seat.
“You won’t believe this, Henry,” he replied. “It was about football.”
“But, George, you don’t know the first thing about the game.”
“Listen, Henry, if there’s one thing I learned at Harvard, it was how to pretend that I always know what I’m talking about.”
George and Cathy Keller quickly became the most popular young couple on the Washington social scene.
And George soon discovered that his wife had a remarkable gift for “party politics.” She could initiate a dialogue for him with anyone, and was especially adept at dealing with the Fourth Estate. The press “discovered” the up-and-coming Dr. Keller and wrote admiringly.
There was only one difficulty. George could not adapt to marriage.
There weren’t parties every night, and sometimes he would come home from the office and have no one to talk to but Cathy. He would discourse knowledgeably about the issues of the day. But he was really talking at her.
Marriage vows did not make him less guarded with his emotions. He could give, but he couldn’t share. He could make love, but he couldn’t make her feel loved.
Still she was undaunted, patiently waiting. Surely he would ultimately master the art of intimacy, the way he had every other challenge in his life.
But in the meanwhile she had her own life to live. George had his career, but Cathy had a cause.
Three years earlier, Congress had approved the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting sex discrimination against women. If it could be ratified by two-thirds of the states, the equality of male and female would become the law of the land.
Cathy wanted to pack her bags and join the pro-ERA bandwagon to barnstorm the uncommitted states.
“Catherine, this is ridiculous,” George complained. “You’re the last person in the world who needs an equal-rights amendment. You’re strong, you’re independent, you’re a gifted lawyer. My God, if you’d apply yourself, you could become a Supreme Court judge.”
“But, George, isn’t ‘altruism’ in that vast vocabulary of yours? I’m not doing this for me. I want to stand up for the millions of people who are doing a man’s job and getting a woman’s pay.”
“Cathy, you’re starting to talk like a pamphlet.”
“Well, it’s only fair, George. Most of your dinner conversation is like an interdepartmental memo. Do you think it’s fascinating just because it’s about someplace like Afghanistan?”
“Are you accusing me of being boring?”
“No. I’m just accusing you of thinking that all that matters in the world is what goes on in your office.” She sighed in exasperation. “Can’t you appreciate anybody else’s commitment?”
George switched to a more personal plea. “Look, what really bothers me most is that we’ll be separated.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said, and added sarcastically, “So why don’t you take a vacation and come on the road with me?”
His best arguments could not dissuade her. In the end, she even convinced him to drive her to the airport.
Cathy lost count of the number of speeches she made. Paradoxically, she often found the women harder to convince than the men. Most of them were actually frightened of losing their “second class” status. But she could empathize with their feelings; they had been so inculcated to be subordinate that they were afraid of being unable to stand on their own. Her job was to give them the courage of their own worthiness. And it was damn tiring.
In the space of three months, she and her fellow crusaders harangued, debated, and cajoled their way across Illinois, Oklahoma, and Florida in a heroic—if losing—effort.
Although they regularly spoke by telephone, she and George did not see each other till Memorial Day weekend, when they were Andrew’s guests at the Eliot summer house in Maine.
As they were flying back to Washington, Cathy remarked, “Your old roommate is lovely. Why isn’t a guy like that married again?”
“I’m afraid he lacks confidence,” George replied.
“I noticed. But I don’t see why. I mean, he’s so kind and considerate. And he’s got a great sense of humor. I think what he needs is a good woman to straighten him out.”
“That would take a lot of doing, Cathy. Do you know anybody up to the job?”
“There must be dozens of women,” she replied. “I mean, I could do it.” She smiled at him. “But of course I’m spoken for.”
“Lucky me.” He smiled back, taking her hand.
“You’re right, darling. I’m glad you finally noticed.”
Late one afternoon in November 1975, George was alone in his office, dictating comments on an area report, when Kissinger opened the door.
“What’s the matter, Henry? You look a little upset.”
“Well,” said the Secretary, as he sat down in an easy chair, “to tell the truth, I am a bit depressed.”