The Second Saladin

“Paul, it’s Sister Sharon.”

“Sister Sharon! How are you? How in the world did you find me?”

The nun taught at Resurrection, back in his other life. She had the third-graders, and was a funny, quiet, plain girl, so young, who’d always liked him.

“Paul, it wasn’t easy. You left an address with the diocese to forward your last check; one of the secretaries gave it to me. It was a government office in Rosslyn, Virginia. I went to the library and got out the Northern Virginia phone book and looked up the government offices. I finally found one with the same address. It took an hour. I called the number. I got a young man named Lanahan. I told him who I was and he was very helpful.”

Lanahan. Sure, he’d break his Catholic neck to help a nun.

“Finally he gave me this number. Am I disturbing anything?”

“No, uh-uh. What’s up?”

“There’s a telegram for you. It came to the school. They were just going to send it along but I thought it might be important.”

Who would send him a telegram?

“I had to open it to see if it was an emergency.”

“What’s it say?”

“It’s from your nephew. He wants money.”

Chardy, an only child, had no nephew.

“Read it to me.”

“‘Uncle Paul,’ it says, ‘onto something, need dough. I beg you. Nephew Jim.’”

Trewitt.

“Paul?” Sister Sharon said.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said, but he was calculating. Trewitt had found a soft route back in, trusting no one except his hero, and reaching him through his whole other life. Trewitt, you surprise me. Where’d you get the smarts — from some book?

“Is there any kind of address?”

“Just Western Union, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Is it all right?”

“It’s fine. A college kid, a little wild. Always in trouble, always after me to bail him out.”

“I’m glad it’s not serious. Paul, we all miss you. The boys especially. Even Sister Miriam.”

“Give ’em my love. Even Sister Miriam. And, Sister Sharon, don’t tell anybody about this. It won’t do the kid any good. He’s probably in some jam with a girl and he doesn’t want his folks to know about it.”

“Of course, Paul. Goodbye.”

She hung up.

“Johanna, I have to go out. Is there a Western Union office around here? Come with me.”

“Paul. You look ecstatic.”

And Chardy realized he was.

23

For the moment, the Kurd could wait, Chardy could wait, it could all wait. Other things occupied Joseph Danzig.

He was astonished. What little rabbits they were. He had lived most of his life in a kind of sexual sleep; then, at forty-seven, catapulted into an absurd celebrity, made preposterously powerful, imprinted upon the collective imagination, he was also granted, almost as a fringe benefit, an astonishing freedom with women. Not that they were attracted to his body — it was a wreck, a blimpish shamble of wrinkles, almost toneless muscles, a wilderness of wattles and fissures, a great, white dead thing — nor even his power (for they could not partake of that) nor his mind (they never talked about anything). They sought him not for cocktail party conversation or to get jobs with the State Department or for exclusive interviews to advance their careers in journalism or to punish their husbands or lovers.

Why then?

He asked one once, a lissome Georgetowner, thirty-four, ash-blonde, Radcliffe, old Washington/Virginia connections. They were at the time both naked and had just consummated the act with passion though not a great deal of skill — in this field, Danzig was well aware that he was merely an adequate technician. With prim efficiency Susan, for such was her name, was preparing to dress, arranging her Pappagallos, her Ralph Lauren double-pleated slacks, her cashmere turtleneck (from Bloomingdale’s, he guessed; it’s where they all dressed these days), her subtly checked tweed sport coat that re-created almost hue for hue the Scottish heather.

“Susan,” he said suddenly, “why? I mean, really: Why? Be honest.”

“Well, Joe,” she said, matter-of-factly — and paused. He knew she was the mother of two girls, three and five, and that her husband was a Harvard law grad in the midst of a flourishing career with the FCC. “Well, Joe” — naked she was small and fine, with tiny shapely breasts and delicate wrists. She was slender enough to show ribs and had creamy, mellow skin. She had tawny hair, expensively taken care of, and had been a champion golfer and an excellent doubles tennis player. “I guess you could say I was curious.”

Curious!

He had shaken his head then. He shook it now; he was with a twenty-six-year-old congressional aide, a bright Smith girl he had met casually at an embassy cocktail party. They had just accomplished an exchange of favors intense and satisfying and wholly meaningless. They were on the top floor of the Georgetown house in what had been a previous owner’s music room — a wide space that drew in light from the brightness outdoors and splashed it abundantly around. Meanwhile, birds sang and bees buzzed and the flowers and bushes in his garden grew under the skillful nurture of a Philippine gardener.

The girl — by coincidence her name was Susan too, which was perhaps why the first Susan had so recently been in his mind — was dressing quickly and without, it seemed to him, regret. The room stank of sex, a peculiar odor, of which he could never get enough when aroused but which disgusted him afterward. He was, in fact, a little nauseated with himself. He had come, of late, to enjoy certain deviations from the standard male-female menu, certain varieties of dish or sauce. It was always the same: what had seemed exotic, astonishingly inviting, fascinating, erotically creative almost, seemed now merely unwholesome, to say nothing of unhygienic. He wanted badly to brush his teeth and use mouthwash, but was unsure of the etiquette: would such a gesture seem impolite? She had not brushed her teeth and she had used her mouth quite as industriously as he had used his (and simultaneously). He felt gross, an ogre. Yet it was not his fault. These girls these days! A nod, a nudge, a gentle suggestion as oblique and encoded as a secret cipher, and off they went like Bangkok tarts after treasures their mothers could not have conceived of, would not have even had the vocabulary to describe. And they expected — demanded — he reciprocate.

Such odd creatures. Their minds, really, were different from men’s. For one, they were more grown-up, less romantic (as a rule, no matter that it defied the popular stereotype), more organized. Their brains were full of little compartments. This Susan, the other Susan, too, all the Susans, could fellate him like tigresses, smile, get dressed and return uncontaminated to their other lives. They’d go back to husband or lover, having entirely separated their adventure of the afternoon from their reality of the evening. Meanwhile, he or any man would brood and fret and remember, feel tainted and unworthy, clinched with guilt. Astonishing!

So now he stood wrapped in his robe at the broad window, peering down at the mazelike garden beneath him.

“It’s quite attractive, don’t you think? This new one works awfully hard, although I don’t think he understands me. I certainly don’t understand him.”

“Huh?” Susan said, getting her haunches (she was not quite as slim as the first Susan) into her pantyhose with a final pump of the pelvis.

“The garden. I was talking about my garden and the new gardener.”

“Yeah,” she said, self-absorbedly.

“It has such order. It is a very pleasing design.”

“Joe,” she said, “I’m going now.”