Part 6 (1/2)

Janet's hand had hovered over the sweetened pomegranate juice as if she expected it to metamorphose into a vodka martini.

Inez had watched Jack Lovett. She had never before seen Jack Lovett show dislike or irritation. Dislike and irritation were two of many emotions that Jack Lovett made a point of not showing, but he was showing them now.

”You people really interest me,” Jack Lovett said. He said it to Billy Dillon but he was looking at Harry. ”You don't actually see what's happening in front of you. You don't see it unless you read it. You have to read it in the New York Times, then you start talking about it. Give a speech. Call for an investigation. Maybe you can come down here in a year or two, investigate what's happening tonight.”

”You don't understand,” Inez had said.

”I understand he trots around the course wearing blinders, Inez.”

Inez remembered: Jack Lovett coming to get them in the coffee shop of the Borobudur the next morning, after the grenade was lobbed into the emba.s.sy commissary. The amba.s.sador, he said, had a bungalow at Puncak. In the mountains. Inez and Janet and the children were to wait up there. Until the situation crystallized. A few hours, not far, above Bogor, a kind of resort, he would take them up.

”A hill station,” Janet said. ”Divine.”

”Don't call it a hill station,” Frances Landau said. ” 'Hill station' is an imperialist term.”

”Let's save the politics until we get up there,” Jack Lovett said.

”I don't want to go,” Frances Landau said.

”n.o.body gives a rat's a.s.s if you go or don't go,” Jack Lovett said. ”You're not a priority dependent.”

”Isn't this a little alarmist,” Harry Victor said. Harry was cracking a boiled egg. Jack Lovett watched him spoon out the egg before he answered.

”This was a swell choice for a family vacation,” Jack Lovett said then. ”A regular Waikiki. I wonder why the charters aren't onto it. I also wonder if you know what it would cost us to get a congressman's kid back.”

Jack Lovett's voice was pleasant, and so was Harry's.

”Ah,” Harry said. ”No. Not unless it's been in the New York Times.”

Inez remembered: The green lawn around the amba.s.sador's bungalow at Puncak, the gardenia hedges.

The faded chintz slipcovers in the bungalow at Puncak, the English primroses, the tangles of bamboo and orchids in the ravine.

The mists blowing in at Puncak.

Standing with Jack Lovett on the green lawn at Puncak with the mists blowing in over the cracked concrete of the empty swimming pool, over the ravine, over the tangles of bamboo and orchids, over the English primroses.

Standing with Jack Lovett.

Inez remembered that.

Inez also remembered that the only person killed when the grenade exploded in the emba.s.sy commissary was an Indonesian driver from the motor pool. The news had come in on the radio at Puncak while Inez and Jack Lovett sat in the dark on the porch waiting for word that it was safe to take the children back down to Jakarta. There had been fireflies, Inez remembered, and a whine of mosquitoes. Jessie and Adlai were inside the bungalow trying to get Singapore television and Janet was inside the bungalow trying to teach the houseman how to make coconut milk punches. The telephones were out. The radio transmission was mainly static. According to the radio other Indonesian and American personnel had sustained minor injuries but the area around the emba.s.sy was secure. The amba.s.sador was interviewed and expressed his conviction that the bombing of the emba.s.sy commissary was an isolated incident and did not reflect the mood of the country. Harry was interviewed and expressed his conviction that this isolated incident reflected only the normal turbulence of a nascent democracy.

Jack Lovett had switched off the radio.

For a while there had been only the whining of the mosquitoes.

Jack Lovett's arm was thrown over the back of his chair and in the light that came from inside the bungalow Inez could see the fine light hair on the back of his wrist. The hair was neither blond nor gray but was lighter than Jack Lovett's skin. ”You don't understand him,” Inez said finally.

”Oh yes I do,” Jack Lovett said. ”He's a congressman.”

Inez said nothing.

The hair on the back of Jack Lovett's wrist was translucent, almost transparent, no color at all.

”Which means he's a radio actor,” Jack Lovett said. ”A civilian.”

Inez could hear Janet talking to the houseman inside the bungalow. ”I said coconut milk,” Janet kept saying. ”Not goat milk. I think you thought I said goat milk. I think you misunderstood.”

Inez did not move.

”Who is Frances,” Jack Lovett said.

Inez did not answer immediately. Inez had accepted early on exactly what Billy Dillon had told her: girls like Frances came with the life. Frances came with the life the way fundraisers came with the life. Sometimes fundraisers were large and in a hotel and sometimes fundraisers were small and at someone's house and sometimes the appeal was specific and sometimes the appeal was general but they were all the same. There was always the momentary drop in the noise level when Harry came in and there were always the young men who talked to Inez as a way of ingratiating themselves with Harry and there were always these very pretty women of a type who were excited by public life. There was always a Frances Landau or a Connie Willis. Frances Landau was a rich girl and Connie Willis was a singer but they were just alike. They listened to Harry the same way. They had the same way of deprecating their own claims to be heard.

It's just a means to an end, Frances said about her money.

I just do two lines of c.o.ke and scream, Connie said about her singing.

If there were neither a Frances nor a Connie there would be a Meredith or a Brooke or a Binky or a Lacey. Inez considered trying to explain this to Jack Lovett but decided against it. She knew about certain things that came with her life and Jack Lovett knew about certain things that came with his life and none of these things had any application to this moment on this porch. Jack Lovett reached for his seersucker jacket and put it on and Inez watched him. She could hear Janet telling Jessie and Adlai about the goat milk in the coconut milk punches. ”It's part of the exaggerated politeness these people have,” Janet said. ”They'll never admit they didn't understand you. That would imply you didn't speak clearly, a no-no.”

”Either that or he didn't have any coconut milk,” Jack Lovett said.

Frances did not have any application to this moment on this porch and neither did Janet.

Inez closed her eyes.

”We should go back down,” she said finally. ”I think we should go back down.”

”I bet you think that would be the 'correct thing,' ” Jack Lovett said. ”Don't you. Miss Manners.”

Inez sat perfectly still. Through the open door she could see Janet coming toward the porch.

Jack Lovett stood up. ”We've still got it,” he said. ”Don't we.”

”Got what,” Janet said as she came outside.

”Nothing,” Inez said.

”Plenty of nothing,” Jack Lovett said.