Читать книгу Twentieth Century Limited Book Two ~ Age of Reckoning - Jan David Blais - Страница 3

I ARRIVE EARLY AT STEVE’S OFFICE but, as usual, he’s already there. For a lawyer, the guy works very hard. Cahill arrives mid-morning and greets me with a hearty handshake. He is from North Cambridge – we went through BC together. I studied, he played football. Big florid-faced, blustery Irishman, think Tip O’Neill. After a hundred seventeen minutes – I am counting the ticks – they pronounce my answers satisfactory. Steve will file them and move to dismiss the case. It won’t succeed, he says, but we’ll give the judge a preview of our case. What I think about our case is not printable, but that’s just me.

We’ve received another missive from Paul’s ex, the fair Diane, demanding to know what I am doing with his stuff, saying it’s hers though for a price she’ll let me do all the work. We’re past the point of what she is, it’s just a matter of how much. Painful, reading Paul’s journals, seeing the problems develop between them. Makes me thankful – I was very lucky. I met that Lucie who has just surfaced only once, but I don’t want to spoil that story.

I have to say I wasn’t that impressed by Paul’s big report. I recall thinking he didn’t answer what he set out to answer. But maybe that’s unfair. Outside your area of expertise as I certainly was, you use standards you’d scream about if somebody applied them to you. But it certainly raised his standing. Interesting, how that film got him thinking about television.

I got a kick seeing Yamani maneuver Paul into a corner. And you can see his devotion to Israel beginning to cool, rightfully so if you ask me. I am curious to hear about that Mossad rumor. I tend to dismiss it, but crazier things have happened.

I haven’t yet had a chance to look at that disk of Jonathan’s. He should have given me a manuscript. Easier to fall asleep over.

* * * * * * *

BY MID-SUMMER OF SEVENTY-EIGHT, we got word Jimmy Carter was about to launch an all-out effort for peace between Egypt and Israel. A risky business, unpopular in many quarters. Warsaw Pact countries threatened military action if its former ally made peace with Israel. The Arab states fumed, terrorist groups threatened reprisals. Nevertheless, he plowed ahead. Early September, Carter whisked Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin to Camp David, intending to lock them up until a deal had been struck. I asked Fred what I could contribute and he told me to draft something about the implications for oil supply, particularly if the Arab nations moved against Egypt.

Twelve days later the men emerged, all smiles. Israel agreed to withdraw its Army from the Sinai, evacuate some 4,500 civilian settlers and return the land to Egypt. It was guaranteed free passage through the Suez, Egypt free passage to Jordan. Diplomatic relations would be established and armed forces limited in border areas. The U.S. committed to billions for the two countries. A vague statement dealt with an autonomous Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza. No agreement on Jerusalem.

It was Carter’s finest hour, though for Sadat and Begin the consequences were more complex. Egypt was expelled from the Arab League and its headquarters were shifted to Tunis. More pragmatically the Arab states complained that Egypt failed to get anything meaningful for the Palestinians. Though most Israelis supported “Land for Peace,” the nationalists continued to oppose return of historic and holy land. Many settlers simply refused to leave their homes. Violence was widespread as the government moved ahead with evacuations and the handover. Israel had agreed to halt new settlements but Begin caved to pressure and authorized their expansion in the West Bank and Gaza.

The two leaders would go on to share the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. They also would run afoul of domestic hard-liners. In 1981 Sadat would be assassinated by an Islamist group. Begin, forced to resign over fallout from his 1982 invasion of Lebanon, would live out his life in isolation, dying within the year.

One evening later in the month, I made my way to the Columbia campus. Ed Said’s magnum opus had just appeared and I was pleased to be invited to his book party. I found him in a meeting room in the Faculty Club, surrounded by well-wishers. I purchased a copy and perused as I moved ahead in the line. Finally I stood at the table.

“Paul! So good to see you! Thank you for coming!”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, though it was close – I’m off to Riyadh tonight.”

“Ah, yes, your oil beat. Let me say your series was excellent, many favorable comments, though one colleague takes issue with you about the role of market power.”

I nodded. Nothing new there. As he signed my book I looked at the line. “Let me catch up with you later.”

When I finally cornered him I asked what his take was on Camp David. “Much credit to Mr. Carter, though I do fault Sadat for not doing more for the Palestinians. However if Carter’s framework proves fruitful that will be a very good thing.”

“It seems Sadat has lost his Arab friends.”

He pointed at the book I was holding. “That’s what my book is all about – the mistaken belief that all Arabs are the same. Sadat proves the point.”

“Sometimes it takes a military man to make peace.”

“A general speaking of peace is listened to, not so professors or journalists. By the way, I received a note from our mutual friend Hamid Rashid the other day. He says you and he see each other from time to time. I hope he keeps up his writing, he is quite good.”

“He’s working on something in Arabic this time.”

“Good for him! When I meet a young man like him it reminds me how I have been caught between two stools, as it were. Too Arab for my western friends, not Arab enough for my Arab friends.”

“I’ll read your book on the plane. May I give you a call when I finish?”

“By all means,” he said, turning to a young woman tugging at his elbow. “You may wish to know I have altered my opinion – I now have some hope for you. You show signs of becoming one of those rare journalists who reports knowledgeably on Arab and Moslem life. Let us visit when you return.”

THAT SUMMER, JIMMY CARTER and his diplomats had a full plate. Camp David, of course, plus strategic arms talks with Russia and discussions on normalizing relations with China. And following a summer of mutual vituperation and violence, Khomeini’s thirteen-year exile in Iraq ended as, at the behest of the Shah, he was expelled, finding refuge in a Paris suburb. Strikes, demonstrations and riots were taking their toll on Iran. Oil production and export fell precipitously. I collaborated with our Cairo-based Mideast team, discussing the effect three million barrels lost each day was having on world supply and price. The Shah installed a military government and some production was restored, but the general in charge suffered a heart attack and events continued to spiral out of control. Charlie Stebbins commented that U.S. policy was rudderless, with no clear plan for an Iran without the Shah, in fact no plan at all.

At one point I called Hamid to take him up on his offer of introductions. I wanted to see first-hand what was going on. “Too late,” he said, “too risky. My sources have dried up, even my father is in hiding. You don’t want to be a westerner in that country. You could always visit Khomeini in Paris.”

“I doubt he’d be interested in talking to me.”

“You never know, he and his crowd look more like a government-in-exile every day.”

“How’s your new book coming?”

“You’d better get your Arabic together – I mean to finish it by next summer. It’s a book of poetry, a modern update of traditional Persian themes.”

Despite a hectic schedule I caught most of Peter’s Little League games and was pleasantly surprised at his athletic ability, more than I ever had. Soccer in the fall was even better. The skill level was rudimentary, and only as the season was far along did theory and execution establish any sort of connection. Peter’s other big activity was preparing for his First Holy Communion. One night I picked up his catechism expecting to visit with an old friend, but instead found a slick paperback with oversized print and colorful drawings. It had Qs & As all right, but gone was the majesty, the sternness, replaced by encouragement and support. I flipped through the book and, dismayed, put it down. Later that evening it dawned on me, maybe I’m the one out of step. These days, fear is out, love is in. Positive sentiments are what it’s about. Counsels of perfection? Apparently too burdensome for an unruly youngster but, I thought, what about the times he really needs a kick in the pants? For some reason the old Marines saying came to mind. If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow... even, I figured, small balls and small minds.

AFTER A SHORT ILLNESS, in August Pope Paul VI died. Two weeks later the world was startled to learn his successor – Karol Józef Wojtyła, first non-Italian since the sixteenth century and first-ever from Poland, who took the name John Paul II. I was interested to learn of his youth under the Nazis, his friendships with Jews and his efforts to protect them. As a young man he’d been a hiker, a skier, active in a theater troupe, and author of poetry and plays, continuing to write even after ordination. I looked forward to what he had up the papal sleeve, not only for the Church but his country, chafing under the Russian Bear.

My main point of contact with the Church was our local parish. With the demands of my job I didn’t volunteer for anything, but somebody asked if I’d give a talk on my work as a reporter, part of a public affairs series. Well-received, this made me a target and I had to turn down a request to work on the new church building fund drive. Frankly, I saw nothing wrong with the old one – it had adapted well. A large table stood where the communion rail had been, serving as altar. The priest faced the people, guitars and flutes did their thing in the shadow of the disused pulpit, but this wasn’t good enough. In keeping with the new theme of sociability, seating would be in the round. A multi-year project, the goal was four million dollars. The old brick church where Diane and I were married would be razed for parking.

I’d never considered myself old-fashioned, but the busy-ness of the new liturgy got to me. Singing and responding in English, shaking hands with your neighbors, Sunday no longer afforded peace or the opportunity for quiet reflection. And when the stately drone of Latin disappeared, the element of mystery was diminished. I knew the new generation would accept these new forms, never miss the old days, never even know about them. Confession wasn’t what it used to be either, the boxes shuttered and replaced by face-to-face encounters with a priest or group absolution following a “penitential service.” Uneasy with this innovation, my solution was to partake less frequently. And when was the last time I prayed the rosary, the old friend that helped me through Vietnam? Where was mine, even?

Sin wasn’t what it used to be, but that I counted an improvement. A new emphasis on conscience, doing right by the people who matter – family, neighbor. Sitting in the bench one Sunday, thinking that nobody talked about Hell any more, I wondered how Father Ronan had come through the changes. I should get hold of him, reconnect. Father Trần, too. What I got myself into wasn’t their fault.

From time to time I reflected on the state of my old mainstays. True, John XXIII had spoken out against the war. I should have paid him more attention, but so should the American bishops. But for them the lure of patriotism and politics was too strong, and they lagged behind even Martin Luther King. Why was that? And why do I say “even?” If I’ve learned anything, it is that Catholics have no monopoly on truth or virtue or courage. There had been Catholics against the war – I’ve mentioned James Miller, the Dorothy Day group, the Berrigans – but the mainstream relegated them to the fringe, to the same league as pinko agitators, certainly nobody a Cardinal Spellman would embrace. And now, such wholesale changes in the life of the Church.

It still hung on, but this icon was teetering. Church attendance was down, priests and nuns leaving the ministry in droves. A lot of older Catholics were upset and confused. One elderly woman I greeted on Sundays confided, “I don’t feel holy any more. Am I still a Catholic?” she asked me, “I feel more a Protestant all the time.” Kinder and gentler today’s God might be, but fear had been a more salutary part of the mix than the reformers credited. Folk songs and happy talk aren’t enough. The new Pope would visit New York in the fall. I had no desire to add to the Yankee Stadium crowd and thought perhaps I could find a more personal way to meet him. I’d talk with our Religion Editor, Gabriel Griffin (that’s right, Gabriel!), see if he had an idea how.

As for America the invincible, our confidence was in tatters and my automatic patriotism a thing of the past. Americans wondered whether they could ever again trust their leaders, but now at least, Carter gave us a glimmer of hope. Though not always consistent or effective, having a decent and forthright President meant a lot. Whether enough remained to be seen.

My personal darkness was mostly behind me, though occasionally I caught a glimpse. Sudden noises still made me start. Whenever I filled the car, the smell of gas put me in mind of Firebase Tango. I couldn’t pass a panhandler without giving him something, especially if he had a Vietnam Vet sign. And of course Mr. Stumpy was a constant presence, though we had long since made our peace. When I thought of Vietnam, it was more the moral questions. My answer – and it is no defense – I had been under the sway of the patriotism that had shaped me. Even my college immersion in moral inquiry wasn’t enough to loosen its grip. Only later, when my eyes adapted to the dark realities, did I see patriotism for the false prophet it is.

As for my work, I didn’t like being defined as a business expert, yet there I was, focusing on big money issues. Thank God for the politics and the foreign policy, the fascinating people and places, but at bottom it was about the money. Also troublesome, as our lives went forward, I had come to see how different Diane and I were. Financial games and status were as captivating to her as they were turn-offs to me. Not long after our big production, Fred mentioned the top brass was interested in grooming me for an editor’s job. Tom O’Connor also told me so at the Christmas party after we’d had a couple too many. No thanks, I told them, I don’t need the headaches. The field is where I belong, plus an opinion piece from time to time. I had to laugh – the Army thought I was officer material, but that suit didn’t fit either.

INSANITY WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US. As the year drew to a close a freighter two weeks at sea carrying 2,500 Southeast Asian refugees was refused entry by Malaysia. We and the Times gave the story a big play. France, Canada and the U.S. agreed to resettle the passengers and the ship was allowed to dock. And the refugees kept coming. I was gratified to see Church leaders make these new arrivals welcome. Too late to cry over the mess we made but at least we were helping to clean it up.

Less than two weeks later, nine hundred members of a California cult and its leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, committed “revolutionary suicide” by drinking Kool Aid spiked with cyanide. A few days before, a delegation led by Congressman Leo Ryan along with reporters and television crews, arrived in “Jonestown,” Guyana. After visits and interviews, as they and several defectors were about to depart, Temple stalwarts opened fire. Six people including Ryan and an NBC reporter were killed, nine wounded. Panicked, Jones assembled his followers around a vat of poisoned Kool-Aid and encouraged everyone to drink. If you can believe it, mothers used syringes to squirt the liquid into their own babies’ mouths. Jones was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Another field day for the media.

FINALLY, IRAN. With Khomeni-inspired turmoil cresting, two weeks into the new year the Shah left his country, saying “I am feeling tired and need a rest.” He would never return. The country went crazy, Khomeni followers filling the streets, waving pictures of the Ayatollah. Headlines proclaimed THE SHAH IS GONE. Welcomed by Sadat, Egypt would be the Shah’s first stop, but he would wander the rest of his days and die a pariah.

Iran’s oil industry had basically shut down. I collaborated on front-page stories as the price of oil shot up. Talking with Hamid, he said Khomeini’s talk about killing foreigners is a bit much, “but the fact is, they won’t want to stay. The secularists will be no match for him. His followers are too numerous and, Paul, they are rabid. As for the great mass of people, they blow one way then the other. They are fed up with the Shah and will welcome a change, but they have no idea what they’re getting into.” There was a pause on the phone. “Times like this I praise Allah that I am not in your business. I get up, write six hours, meet friends at a café, talk, have dinner, go home, read, go to bed. Unlike you, I do not worry about the world’s problems. And my work goes well... oh, did I tell you? Warner Brothers have optioned The One-Eyed King.”

“That’s fantastic! I hope they did well by you.”

“I have no complaints, but my hope is they actually make the film. Optioning does not guarantee that, I’ve learned to my sorrow.”

“How are your Arabic stories coming along?”

“Very well, in fact I am including some poems too. The Arabic language cries out for poetry and of course, Persian poets are among the world’s finest, rivaling even Shakespeare.”

On February 1, a Thursday, we led with a banner headline:

KHOMEINI RETURNS

HUGE TEHRAN WELCOME

TELLS FOREIGNERS TO LEAVE OR ELSE

Our man in Iran, Ray Jessup, reported from Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport as the turbaned, bearded 78-year old religious leader made his way through the city in a triumphant motorcade. The crowd was put at six million. Shapour Bakhtiar, leader of the three-week old provisional government, angrily denounced demands that he step aside, but Khomeini stood firm. “I shall kick their teeth in. I appoint the government by support of this nation.”

We reported that the State Department was taking his warning seriously and was beginning to evacuate dependents and non-essential personnel. Within ten days Khomeini had appointed his own prime minister, armories were seized and the military withdrew its support from Bakhtiar, whose government promptly collapsed. By the end of March a nationwide referendum passed with ninety-eight percent supporting an Islamic Republic. That night I found a succinct message from Hamid on my answering machine.

“Told you so.”

SETTING ASIDE THOUGHTS OF SEEING TEHRAN any time soon, I refocused on the oil beat. Following our success, Fred had expanded my territory to energy issues more broadly. I explored oil from shale rock, tar sands, synthesized from coal. I dug into the prospects for greater use of domestic natural gas. I reported on wind farms in Alaska and at Altamont Pass, site of the disastrous 1969 Stones concert. I visited an experimental tidal energy plant in the Bay of Fundy (shades of New England river mills!) and laid plans to see one on the Brittany coast. I visited an Arizona shopping center powered by the sun and a solar housing development in the hills above L.A. But these technologies were having a hard time gaining traction. Every time the price of oil dropped, investors blinked and put their wallets back in their pockets. The venerable coal industry was still a significant part of our energy mix, especially for big-city electric generation, so I spent a few days tramping around coal mines in West Virginia, glad I didn’t have to do that to make a living. Then, of course, there was nuclear power, which was finally taking hold in the U.S. as well as certain European countries and the USSR.

At the end of March, Jimmy Carter’s Middle East virtuoso performance was capped by a White House signing ceremony. Following the initial euphoria, it took half a year of head knocking to bring Sadat and Begin around. Normalization of relations would come next year. Carter had exactly three days to savor his triumph. My first word was a call from Fred. “Get your bag together, you’re on your way to Harrisburg P.A.”

“Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna River. Steel, farming, railroads. What’s going on?”

“You see China Syndrome?”

“Last weekend, in fact. A good film, though I cannot abide Jane Fonda. You’ll find tickets and dinner on my expense report, category of research.”

“We’ll see about that. Meantime, take a look at the TV. A nuclear powerplant there is coming unglued. You’re on an eleven-thirty flight. See Sandy. Ciao.”

During the short flight I flipped through the folder I had grabbed racing out the door. Nuclear means clean, abundant power, predictable if not low costs. Also, down the road, the prospect of cutting loose those who take our money with one hand and stab us with the other. The protest industry’s cause du jour, nuclear’s risks had been blown way out of proportion.

Ambitious politicians like Teddy Kennedy were lining up against, and they’d have a field day if the incident toward which I sped was as serious as first reports indicated. To me it was the height of irresponsibility to ignore the issue – what is the alternative? My own view, nuclear has been haunted by its horrific first use, also by our anxiety from living so long with the threat of nuclear annihilation. As for the nuclear genie escaping the Big Power bottle, if peaceful technologies could be diverted to military use, that was a legitimate concern.

Our landing approach gave me a good view. On the sandbar called Three Mile Island were not one, but two nuclear powerplants. No dense white clouds of the kind that typically belch from the cooling towers, only a few wisps of steam. I picked up a rental car and made the short drive to the plant. Press pass in hand, I worked my way through the crowd of police and security guards and found myself in a cramped conference room converted to a media briefing room. There were plenty of us, radio, TV, print reporters, photographers. This had been the day’s top story since coming across the AP wire around nine.

The facts were sketchy. Shortly after 4 a.m. pumps supplying water to TMI-2’s steam generators stopped running – it wasn’t known why – then safety systems shut down the turbine and the generator it powered. But the temperature continued to rise, decaying radioactive materials still heating water around the core. Water carries heat from the nuclear core and creates the steam that spins the turbines that produce the electricity. As this water is heated, the reactor is cooled, otherwise it overheats and, in the extreme, melts down. A faulty water pump may not sound like much, but it is a big, big deal. Metropolitan Edison’s spokesmen said they’d there has been no radiation leak, “everything is under control, no danger exists to public health and safety.” But why did the water pump stop running? What were they doing to identify the problem and contain it? Short answer, they didn’t know. Maybe tomorrow. Not a hundred yards from what might be a nuclear time bomb, this was not reassuring.

About eight I checked in at the motel and began writing. They were holding the lead position on page one. Our Washington bureau would report on the federal response and Governor Thornburg’s reaction. On CBS Walter Cronkite dipped into doomsday language several times. Before filing I flipped channels to see whether local news might have spotted anything I had missed. Next morning over room-service breakfast I perused the Times and a Patriot-News from the gift shop. For the Gazette a joint byline, yours truly from Middletown, Pa, and Al Starkey from Washington, under the headline –

PENNSYLVANIA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT

RADIATION LEAK PROBED

Some residents were heading for their in-laws, others stayed put behind closed doors. Most businesses remained open, hoping for the best. It turned out, the problem was from mechanical failure and human error, a common combination. Radiation leakage, not a threat outside the facility, was massive inside the reactor building. Cooling system failure had allowed nuclear fuel to melt and contaminate the coolant, which escaped and flowed into the basement of the reactor. On the third day NRC experts reported that a hydrogen gas bubble was trapped in the pressurizer above the reactor core. Asked if a catastrophic explosion was possible, the scientist admitted it was. Governor Thornburg issued a recommendation that pregnant women and children under two evacuate for five miles around.

As Kennedy and the critics attacked, Jimmy Carter tried desperately to shore up nuclear as a mainstay in our drive for energy independence, visiting Three Mile Island at the height of the emergency. Several days in, the experts defused the hydrogen bubble and ended the immediate crisis. TMI-2 was shut down, and when their operating license expired in 2014, both units would be decommissioned.

Back in New York I reported on the political fallout (sorry). A march on the nation’s capitol demanded an immediate shutdown of all nuclear plants. The NRC stopped issuing new nuclear plant permits and New York state banned all construction. Anti-nuclear was part of a growing national preoccupation with danger and harm prevention. Some called this paranoia, I reported, noting that things go wrong, machines fail and hurt people, chemicals have side effects. Cranberries, no. 2 red dye, saccharine, seat belts, bike helmets, now the ubiquitous warning label. And a spate of environmental laws – Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, clean air and water legislation. Not only was the Robert Moses era dead and buried, today it is inconceivable. No longer is it possible in any reasonable time to gain approval for even clearly beneficial projects.

THE BIG LOSER WAS JIMMY CARTER, nuclear engineer, champion of technology. Protestors, public opinion and panicked politicians excised his alternative energy program’s vital core. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The turmoil in Iran would deny that country’s oil to us for an indefinite time. Inflation raged as people watched their paychecks and savings fall in value. “Can do” was an echo of a distant, quaint time, supplanted by gloom and pessimism. It was un-American, a betrayal of our social compact, that what you worked all your life for could just slip away.

His approval rating below twenty-five percent, Carter decided to go on the offensive. In a nationally televised speech, he asked the nation to join him in overcoming its “crisis of spirit” and adapt to a new age of limits. Carter scolded those who “tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.” This floored me. Saying that to a nation built on producing, selling and buying! A strong reaction set in against what became known as Carter’s “malaise” speech. Two days later he asked his entire cabinet to resign and several who had clashed with him, including James Schlesinger, found theirs accepted. Charlie Stebbins said Carter meant to signal a new start, a breath of fresh air. Instead it came across as bumbling and incompetence. The people wanted leadership, not preaching.

ON A DREARY AFTERNOON some good news blew in and cleared the skies big time. We won the Pulitzer! The newsroom saw it come over the wires, and as I dragged in from an interminable press conference my colleagues stood and cheered. I reached Diane at her office – she’d just heard. Tom O’Connor called our team together, one thing led to another and the day ended in a fizzy celebration. I wonder how many goofs made it into the next day’s early edition. We won for Public Service, granddaddy of the journalism Pulitzers, for “a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper.” The citation made a point of noting several energy policy initiatives launched within months of the series. As customary, the paper was the named winner but Fred, Alan and Charlie were singled out, and I was credited as lead reporter. Lead reporter!

Friday afternoon, Fred told me to clear my calendar for an important assignment but he refused to tell me anything more. About seven he came by and steered me in the direction of our local watering holes, not normally a venue for breaking news. Turned out to be a party at the Spike, part celebration of the Pulitzer, part my nine-and-a-half year anniversary with the paper. In his speech Fred said no matter how valuable I was, the Gazette could afford only one party. Thoughtfully Fred invited my Kells crowd and Diane too, which I appreciated.

The highlight was Ray Archibald’s presentation of a skin-tight Hydrocarbon Man outfit, red and yellow and blue, specially tailored for me. Of course I had to model it, and it was so hard to get off I just left it on. It made for a warm and clammy evening but yielded some great pictures. Diane had engaged Kristen for the weekend so we stayed in and celebrated, playing at being adults for the first time in a long while.

First week of May we celebrated Peter’s First Holy Communion. I was relieved Diane went along, and with apparent good humor. She came to the ceremony and even her parents showed up. I hadn’t seen Jim or Catherine for some time. When I called them a few weeks before, Jim begged off but Catherine accepted. She and Stan and the girls arrived the day before and we put them up in our guest room, their two on guest beds with Emma, their adopted sister. The night before we had a gala reunion and a fine meal, courtesy of Kristin who cooked well when motivated. Honoring my special request she baked a big ham. Outstanding. The afternoon before, Peter made his first confession. I had no intention of grilling him but when he came home I asked how it went. “Okay, I guess.”

“You feel better than before?”

He paused. “I didn’t feel bad to start with.”

“Good.” Times have changed, I thought, but he’s a different kind of kid, too, doesn’t take everything so seriously. A nice balance between caring and worrying. That’s progress.

When we got home from Peter’s event Diane said she needed to spend time on her work so I took the kids for a walk along the town beach. Watching the children run back and forth, Peter and Paul, unmatched twins, longish hair flowing in the breeze, Emma, now four, our golden girl. Beautiful children... thank you God for such a gift. As I strolled the beach I recalled the dense, complex society that enveloped me on my big day. It saddened me to realize my children would never experience drop-in Canadians or raucous Irish or fistfights and wrestling, or making up after. And only one set of grandparents, another sadness. For the sake of my profession, my ambition, I had distanced myself from the people and places that defined me. Time’s arrow flies away, it doesn’t curve back. But, I thought, our kids are well accepted and happy, it’s wrong to think of their scene as some lesser shadow of my own.

For Diane’s birthday I got tickets to Abba, the Swedish group we both liked. I thought it was great but in the car driving home Diane seemed out of sorts. “Did you notice, we were the oldest people there,” she said.

“You’re a year older, you’re just sensitive.”

“No, I mean it, we were the oldest people there.”

“I’ll bet you there were some, somewhere, older than us.”

“I didn’t see them.”

“There were twenty thousand people.”

“That doesn’t matter. You didn’t even notice.”

“I noticed there were a lot of young people but so what? We happen to like young people’s music. That should make you feel good, not bad.”

I shook my head as Diane lapsed into a sulk. Disheartening. But I am built to keep trying.

Several Vietnam films had appeared. I read the reviews but that’s as close as I wanted to get. No, that’s not right – I was interested, but worried how they might affect me. Same with the novels and memoirs starting to surface. I finished Going After Cacciato – its farcical tone probably helped. One day I noticed The Deer Hunter, said to be a powerful film, was playing at our local arts theater. After working up my courage I told Diane I was ready, and one Friday night we went. Good thing it was a Friday. The film laid me low all weekend. I had nightmares for a month, some nights waking up screaming. Diane had grown used to my normalcy and for the most part so had I, but the jungle is never very far off. She wanted to shield the children from my problem. One day I would speak to them about all this.

I NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT PAUL JUNIOR. Mid-summer he was confined to bed with a strep throat. After a dose of antibiotics and taking it easy he seemed back on his game, playing outside, all the normal things. Then he began complaining of pain in his legs, his arms ached and his breathing was labored. Our pediatrician ran a series of tests. That evening as I put him to bed Paulie joked about the wires they’d hooked up to him, how the goo they used was cold and tickled. That evening the phone rang. Diane picked it up. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Doctor Taylor,” she whispered. The call went on a good ten minutes. She listened, nodding her head. When she hung up she turned to me.

“He says Paulie may have rheumatic fever. They want him in the hospital for more tests. If that’s what it is, they’ll have to begin treatment.”

“The poor little guy.” I got up and put my arm around her shoulders.

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “You know, I had a feeling something bad was going to happen.” She bit her lip, “everything’s been going along so well. I mean, we’re just making it up as we go along. It was too perfect.”

We gave Paulie the news in the morning, then told Peter who understood and Emma who didn’t but sensed something bad was happening. Two mournful sets of eyes followed Paulie who waved from the car window as we drove away.

There had been significant damage to the mitral valve. A surgical option existed but wasn’t recommended for someone this young. Handle it with medication and lifestyle. After he was released and put in his downtime, he could look forward to a mostly normal life, though no heightened physical activity at first. A steady, gradual regimen, build himself up, injections every two weeks, unclear for how long but at least five years. And always the chance some future illness, itself innocent, could trigger a recurrence or burden his weakened heart beyond its limit. Back home, Paulie picked up more or less where he had been, but as we strove for normalcy an undercurrent of fear was there that was new.

What was I to think about Diane’s intuition? I suppose if you play Cassandra long enough eventually you’ll hit the mark. I didn’t believe in hexes, anyway she didn’t tell me until after the fact.