Early Warning

“January 2, and that was part of the problem. The South Vietnamese forces had to wait for the Americans to sober up after New Year’s, so they let the enemy get the jump on them.”

“They knew you were coming.”

“They baked us quite a cake.” He didn’t smile.

“Well, sir, I suppose, since you bring it up,” said Lillian, “that’s Arthur’s problem. No one is surprised at any given action except our side.”

“Yes! That is so true! A perennial frustration. Perennial!”

Lillian said, “I think Arthur has made up his mind.”

“Oh, he has. Indeed, he has. I know that. But have you made up your mind?”

“Excuse me?” said Lillian.

He stood up and went over to the window. “What a wonderful place this is, ideal for children, adolescents. A very welcoming and comfortable place. Lovely landscape. Nothing like this even exists around Bethpage.”

“You know we’re going to Bethpage?”

He smiled. Of course he did.

“Arthur is a figure around here! Respected for his conscience and his wit, not to mention his belief in our country. Arthur is irreplaceable, and I shudder at the thought of doing without him.”

He came back to the sofa and sat down again, but this time he leaned forward and took Lillian’s hands in his own. “Lillian. Do you know what my job is?”

Lillian shook her head.

He said, “I am the national security adviser. My job is to apply the brakes. I recognize as well as anyone that the road leads downhill, a steep hill. There are plenty of people that I see and talk to every day who want to step on the gas and drive the car straight over the cliff. There are a few who want to turn off the road and stop. They don’t have a chance, no matter what the President truly thinks — and, between you and me, even I don’t know what the President truly thinks. But I can apply the brakes, with Arthur’s help. I can and I do, and I will.”

He was hypnotic, the way he cocked his head and caught her eye, and then nodded ever so slightly until she was nodding with him. And then the brilliant smile — the smile that told her that she agreed with him, Arthur was essential, they couldn’t do without Arthur.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she wasn’t sure that Arthur could take the pressure any longer, but she didn’t say it, because she knew, as soon as she thought it, that to say it, or even imply it, would be the greatest betrayal of all, would be a kind of catalyst. Instead, she said, “I think Arthur will certainly appreciate your desire, sir.”

“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’ ” he said. “Makes me feel about eighty. I know he’s kept quiet about this in order to avoid having me plead with him.”

“Arthur is a secretive person anyway,” said Lillian.

He knew he had won. He glanced at his watch, and stood up from the pinkish sofa.

At the door, he took both her hands, just the way the Realtor had done, and shook them up and down. He said, “You must do what’s best.”

She knew what that was.

Arthur, of course, knew that he had been there. After the kids left the dinner table, he said, “Persuasive, isn’t he?”

“He is, Arthur. But I am not going to try to persuade you. He thought I would, but I won’t.”

“I have been at this for seventeen years — twenty if you count the war, Lil.”

“I know.”

“The Grumman people Frank knows have interviewed me three times.”

“I know.”

“There’s a fortune to be made there.”

“Is there?”

Arthur didn’t say anything, but, yes, there was. “However.”

Lillian turned her fork over on her plate.

“I can’t say I liked my prospective new colleagues terribly much. Very serious, serious people.”

“Aren’t your present colleagues very serious people?”

“They have been whittled and honed and pared and polished. At the bottom they have a few qualities left.”

“Which ones?” said Lillian.

“Wit. Dread. Hope. Not always in that order.”

“I don’t really like the new house.”

Arthur said, “Shall we do the easy thing, then?”

And once again that day, Lillian just nodded.

—