Edge of Eternity

  Across the lobby Dave saw a man in his early seventies dressed in a silver-gray suit with a red-and-white striped tie. He recalled his mother saying that her father had always been a dandy. Dave smiled and said: "Are you Grandfather Peshkov?"

  They shook hands, and Lev said: "Don't you have a tie?"

  Dave got this sort of thing all the time. For some reason the older generation felt they had the right to be rude about young people's clothes. Dave had a number of stock replies, ranging from charming to hostile. Now he said: "When you were a teenager in St. Petersburg, Grandfather, what did cool kids like you wear?"

  Lev's stern expression broke into a grin. "I had a jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat and a brass watch chain, and a velvet cap. And my hair was long and parted in the middle, just like yours."

  "So we're alike," Dave said. "Except that I've never killed anyone."

  Lev was startled for a moment, then he laughed. "You're a smart kid," he said. "You've inherited my brains."

  A woman in a chic blue coat and hat came to Lev's side, walking like a fashion model although she had to be near Lev's age. Lev said: "This is Marga. She ain't your grandma."

  The mistress, Dave thought. "You're obviously too young to be anyone's grandmother," he said with a smile. "What should I call you?"

  "You are a charmer!" she replied. "You can call me Marga. I used to be a singer, too, you know, though I never had your kind of success." She looked nostalgic. "In those days I ate handsome boys like you for breakfast."

  Girl singers haven't changed, Dave thought, remembering Mickie McFee.

  They went into the restaurant. Marga asked a lot of questions about Daisy, Lloyd, and Evie. They were excited to hear about Evie's acting career, especially as Lev owned a Hollywood studio. But Lev was most interested in Dave and his business. "They say you're a millionaire, Dave," he said.

  "They lie," said Dave. "We're selling a lot of records, but there's not as much money in it as people imagine. We get about a penny a record. So if we sell a million copies, we earn enough maybe for each of us to buy a small car."

  "Someone's robbing you," said Lev.

  "I wouldn't be surprised," Dave said. "But I don't know what to do about it. I fired our first manager, and this one is much better, but I still can't afford to buy a house."

  "I'm in the movie business, and sometimes we sell records of our soundtrack music, so I've seen how music people work. You want some advice?"

  "Yes, please."

  "Set up your own record company."

  Dave was intrigued. He had been thinking along the same lines, but it seemed like a fantasy. "Do you think that's possible?"

  "You can rent a recording studio, I guess, for a day or two, or however long it takes."

  "We can record the music, and I suppose we can get a factory to make the discs, but I'm not so sure about selling them. I wouldn't want to spend time managing a team of sales representatives, even if I knew how."

  "You don't need to do that. Get the big record company to do sales and distribution for you on a percentage basis. They'll get the peanuts and you'll get the profits."

  "I wonder if they would agree to that."

  "They won't like it, but they'll do it, because they can't afford to lose you."

  "I guess."

  Dave found himself drawn to this shrewd old man, despite his criminal reputation.

  Lev had not finished. "What about publishing? You write the songs, don't you?"

  "Walli and I do it together, usually." Walli was the one who actually put the songs down on paper, for Dave's handwriting and spelling were so bad that no one could ever read what he wrote; but the creative act was a collaboration. "We make a little extra from songwriting royalties."

  "A little? You should make a lot. I bet your publisher employs a foreign agent who takes a cut."

  "True."

  "If you look into it, you'll find the foreign agent also employs a subagent who takes another cut, and so on. And all the people taking cuts are part of the same corporation. By the time they've taken twenty-five percent three or four times you got zip." Lev shook his head in disgust. "Set up your own publishing company. You'll never make money until you're in control."

  Marga said: "How old are you, Dave?"

  "Seventeen."

  "So young. But at least you're smart enough to pay attention to business."

  "I wish I was smarter."

  After lunch they went into the lounge. "Your uncle Greg is going to join us for coffee," Lev said. "He's your mother's half brother."

  Dave recalled that Daisy spoke fondly of Greg. He had done some foolish things in his youth, she said, but so had she. Greg was a Republican senator, but she even forgave him that.

  Marga said: "My son, Greg, never married, but he has a son of his own, called George."

  Lev said: "It's kind of an open secret. Nobody mentions it, but everyone in Washington knows. Greg ain't the only congressman with a bastard kid."

  Dave knew about George. His mother had told him, and Jasper Murray had actually met George. Dave felt it was cool to have a colored cousin.

  Dave said: "So George and I are your two grandsons."

  "Yeah."

  Marga said: "Here come Greg and George now."

  Dave looked up. Walking across the lounge was a middle-aged man wearing a stylish gray flannel suit that needed a good brush and press. Beside him was a handsome Negro of about thirty, immaculately dressed in a dark-gray mohair suit and a narrow tie.

  They came up to the table. Both men kissed Marga. Lev said: "Greg, this is your nephew, Dave Williams. George, meet your English cousin."

  They sat down. Dave noticed that George was poised and confident, despite being the only dark-skinned person in the room. Negro pop stars were growing their hair longer, like everyone else in show business, but George still had a short crop, probably because he was in politics.

  Greg said: "Well, Daddy, did you ever imagine a family like this?"

  Lev said: "Listen to me, I'll tell you something. If you could go back in time, to when I was the age Dave is now, and you could meet the young Lev Peshkov, and tell him how his life was going to turn out, do you know what he'd do? He'd say you were out of your goddamn mind."

  *

  That evening George took Maria Summers out to dinner for her twenty-ninth birthday.

  He was worried about her. Maria had changed her job and moved to a different apartment, but she did not yet have a boyfriend. She socialized with girls from the State Department about once a week, and she went out with George now and again, but she had no romantic life. George feared she was still mourning. The assassination was almost two years ago, but a person could easily take longer than that to recover from the murder of her lover.

  His affection for Maria was definitely not that of a brother. He found her sexy and alluring, and had ever since that bus ride to Alabama. He felt about her the way he felt about Skip Dickerson's wife, who was gorgeous and charming. Like his best friend's wife, Maria was simply not available. If life had turned out differently, he felt sure he might be happily married to her. But he had Verena; and Maria wanted no one.

  They went to the Jockey Club. Maria wore a gray wool dress, smart but plain. She had no jewelry on, and wore her glasses all the time. Her hairpiece was a little old-fashioned. She had a pretty face and a sexy mouth, and--more importantly--she had a warm heart: she could have found a man easily, if only she had tried. However, people were beginning to say that she was a career girl, a woman whose job was the most important thing in her life. George did not really think that could make her happy, and he fretted about her.

  "I just got a promotion," she said as they sat down at the restaurant table.

  "Congratulations!" said George. "Let's have champagne."

  "Oh, no, thank you, I have to work tomorrow."

  "It's your birthday!"

  "All the same, I won't. I might have a small brandy later, to help me sleep."

  George s
hrugged. "Well, I guess your seriousness explains your promotion. I know you're intelligent, capable, and extremely well educated, but none of that counts, normally, if your skin is dark."

  "Absolutely. It's always been next to impossible for people of color to get high posts in government."

  "Well done for overcoming that prejudice. It's quite an achievement."

  "Things have changed since you left the Justice Department--and you know why? The government is trying to persuade Southern police forces to hire Negroes, but the Southerners say: 'Look at your own staff--they're all white!' So senior officials are under pressure. To prove they're not prejudiced, they need to promote people of color."

  "They probably think one example is enough."

  Maria laughed. "Plenty."

  They ordered. George reflected that both he and Maria had succeeded in breaking the color bar, but that did not show that it was not there. On the contrary, they were the exceptions that proved the rule.

  Maria was thinking along the same lines. "Bobby Kennedy seems all right," she said.

  "When I first met him he regarded civil rights as a distraction from more important issues. But the great thing about Bobby is that he'll see reason, and change his mind if necessary."

  "How's he doing?"

  "Early days yet," George said evasively. Bobby had been elected as the senator from New York, and George was one of his close aides. George felt that Bobby was not adjusting well to his new role. He had been through so many changes--leading adviser to his brother the president, then sidelined by President Johnson, and now a junior senator--that he was in danger of losing track of who he was.

  "He ought to speak out against the Vietnam War!" Maria clearly felt passionately about this, and George sensed that she had been planning to lobby him. "President Kennedy was reducing our effort in Vietnam, and he refused again and again to send ground combat troops," she said. "But as soon as Johnson was elected he sent thirty-five hundred marines, and the Pentagon immediately asked for more. In June, they demanded another one hundred seventy-five thousand troops--and General Westmoreland said it probably wouldn't be enough! But Johnson just lies about it all the time."

  "I know. And the bombing of the north was supposed to bring Ho Chi Minh to the negotiating table, but it just seems to have made the Communists more resolute."

  "Which is exactly what was predicted when the Pentagon war-gamed it."

  "Did they? I don't think Bobby knows that." George would tell him tomorrow.

  "It's not generally known, but they ran two war games on the effect of bombing North Vietnam. Both showed the same result: an increase in Vietcong attacks in the south."

  "This is exactly the spiral of failure and escalation that Jack Kennedy feared."

  "And my brother's eldest boy is coming up to draft age." Maria's face showed her fear for her nephew. "I don't want Stevie to be killed! Why doesn't Senator Kennedy speak out?"

  "He knows it will make him unpopular."

  Maria was not willing to accept that. "Will it? People don't like this war."

  "People don't like politicians who undermine our troops by criticizing the war."

  "He can't let public opinion dictate to him."

  "Men who ignore public opinion don't remain in politics long, not in a democracy."

  Maria raised her voice in frustration. "So no one can ever oppose a war?"

  "Maybe that's why we have so many of them."

  Their food came, and Maria changed the subject. "How is Verena?"

  George felt he knew Maria well enough to be frank. "I adore her," he said. "She stays at my apartment every time she comes to town, which is about once a month. But she doesn't seem to want to settle down."

  "If she settled down with you, she'd have to live in Washington."

  "Is that so bad?"

  "Her job is in Atlanta."

  George did not see the problem. "Most women live where their husband's job is."

  "Things are changing. If Negroes can be equal, why not women?"

  "Oh, come on!" George said indignantly. "It's not the same."

  "It certainly is not. Sexism is worse. Half the human race are enslaved."

  "Enslaved?"

  "Think how many housewives work hard all day for no pay! And in most parts of the world, a woman who leaves her husband is liable to be arrested and brought home by the police. Someone who works for nothing and can't leave the job is called a slave, George."

  George was annoyed by this argument, the more so as Maria seemed to be winning it. But he saw an opportunity to bring up the subject that was really worrying him. He said: "Is this why you're single?"

  Maria looked uncomfortable. "Partly," she said, not meeting his eye.

  "When do you think you might start dating again?"

  "Soon, I guess."

  "Don't you want to?"

  "Yes, but I work hard, and don't have much spare time."

  George did not buy this. "You think no one can ever live up to the man you lost."

  She did not deny it. "Am I wrong?" she said.

  "I believe you could find someone who would be kinder to you than he was. Someone smart and sexy and also faithful."

  "Maybe."

  "Would you go out on a blind date?"

  "I might."

  "Do you care if he's black or white?"

  "Black. It's too much trouble, dating white guys."

  "Okay." George was thinking of Leopold Montgomery, the reporter. But he did not say so yet. "How was your steak?"

  "It melted in the mouth. Thank you for bringing me here. And for remembering my birthday."

  They ate dessert, then had brandy with coffee. "I have a white cousin," said George. "How about that? Dave Williams. I met him today."

  "How come you haven't seen him before?"

  "He's a British pop singer, here on tour with his group, Plum Nellie."

  Maria had never heard of them. "Ten years ago I knew every act in the hit parade. Am I growing old?"

  George smiled. "You're twenty-nine today."

  "Only a year off thirty! Where did the time go?"

  "Their big hit was called 'I Miss Ya, Alicia.'"

  "Oh, sure, I've heard that song on the radio. So your cousin is in that group?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you like him?"

  "I do. He's young, not yet eighteen, but he's mature, and he charmed our cantankerous Russian grandfather."

  "Have you seen him perform?"

  "No. He offered me a free ticket, but they're in town tonight only, and I already had a date."

  "Oh, George, you could have canceled me."

  "On your birthday? Heck, no." He called for the check.

  He drove her home in his old-fashioned Mercedes. She had moved to a larger apartment in the same neighborhood, Georgetown.

  They were surprised to see a police car outside the building with its lights flashing.

  George walked Maria to the door. A white cop was standing outside. George said: "Is there something wrong, officer?"

  "Three apartments in this building were burglarized this evening," the cop said. "Do you live here?"

  "I do!" said Maria. "Was number four robbed?"

  "Let's go look."

  They entered the building. Maria's door had been forced open. Her face looked bloodless as she walked into the apartment. George and the cop followed.

  Maria looked around, bewildered. "It looks the way I left it." After a second she added: "Except that all the drawers are open."

  "You need to check what's missing."

  "I don't own anything worth stealing."

  "They generally take money, jewelry, liquor, and firearms."

  "I'm wearing my watch and ring, I don't drink, and I sure don't own a gun." She went into the kitchen, and George watched through the open door. She opened a coffee tin. "I had eighty dollars in here," she told the cop. "It's gone."

  He wrote in his notebook. "Exactly eighty?"

  "Three twenties and two t
ens."

  There was one more room. George crossed the living room and opened the door to the bedroom.

  Maria cried: "George! Don't go in there!"

  She was too late.

  George stood in the doorway, looking around the bedroom in amazement. "Oh, my God," he said. Now he saw why she was not dating.

  Maria turned away, mortified with embarrassment.

  The cop went past George into the bedroom. "Wow," he said. "You must have a hundred pictures of President Kennedy in here! I guess you were a fan of his, right?"

  Maria struggled to speak. "Yes," she said, sounding choked up. "A fan."

  "I mean, with the candles, and flowers, and like that, it's amazing."

  George turned away from the sight. "Maria, I'm sorry I looked," he said quietly.

  She shook her head, meaning he had no need to apologize: it had been an accident. But George knew he had violated a secret, sacred place. He wanted to kick himself.

  The cop was still talking. "It's almost like a, what do you call it, in a Catholic church? A shrine, is the word."

  "That's right," said Maria. "It's a shrine."

  *

  The program This Day was part of a network of television and radio stations and studios, some of which were housed in a downtown skyscraper. In the personnel department was an attractive middle-aged woman called Mrs. Salzman who fell victim to Jasper Murray's charm. She crossed her shapely legs and looked at him archly over the top of her blue-framed spectacles and called him Mr. Murray. He lit her cigarettes and called her Blue Eyes.

  She felt sorry for him. He had come all the way from Britain in the hope of being interviewed for a job that did not exist. This Day never hired beginners: all its staff were experienced television reporters, producers, cameramen, and researchers. Several of them were distinguished in their profession. Even the secretaries were news veterans. In vain Jasper protested that he was not a beginner: he had been editor of his own paper. The student press did not count, Mrs. Salzman told him, oozing compassion.

  He could not go back to London: it would be too humiliating. He would do anything to stay in the USA. His job on the Western Mail would have been filled by someone else by now.

  He begged Mrs. Salzman to find him a job, any job, no matter how menial, somewhere in the network of which This Day was a part. He showed her his green card, obtained from the American embassy in London, which meant he had permission to seek employment in the States. She told him to come back in a week.