“No, I won’t.” She pulled away and said fiercely, “I don’t mind being in love, but I’m never going to have sex. No one’s going to make me. Not Arnold or Virgil or Kevin Bacon.”
Mary said solemnly, “Well, if that’s your decision…”
“Definitely. Mom, what did President Ellison say when you told him you weren’t going to be his ambassador?”
“He was very brave about it,” Mary assured her. “I think I’d better get dinner started.”
Cooking was Mary Ashley’s secret bete noir. She hated to cook, and consequently was not very good at it, and because she liked to be good at everything she did, she hated it even more. It was a vicious circle that had partly been solved by having Lucinda come in three times a week to cook and clean the house. This was one of Lucinda’s days off.
When Edward came home from the hospital, Mary was in the kitchen, burning some peas. She turned off the stove and gave Edward a kiss. “Hello, darling. How was your day? Dorky?”
“You’ve been communicating with our daughter,” Edward said. “As a matter of fact, it was dorky. I treated a thirteen-year-old girl this afternoon who had genital herpes.”
“Oh, darling!” She threw out the peas and opened a can of tomatoes.
“You know, it makes me worry about Beth.”
“You don’t have to,” Mary assured him. “She’s planning to die a virgin.”
At dinner Tim asked, “Dad, can I have a surfboard for my birthday?”
“Tim—I don’t want to rain on your parade, but you happen to live in Kansas.”
“I know that. Johnny invited me to go to Hawaii with him next summer. His folks have a beach house in Maui.”
“Well,” Edward said reasonably, “if Johnny has a beach house, then he probably has a surfboard.”
Tim turned to his mother. “Can I go?”
“We’ll see. Please don’t eat so fast, Tim. Beth, you’re not eating anything.”
“There’s nothing here that’s fit for human consumption.” She looked at her parents. “I have an announcement to make. I’m going to change my name.”
Edward asked carefully, “Any particular reason?”
“I’ve decided to go into show business.”
Mary and Edward exchanged a long, pained look.
Edward said, “Okay. Find out how much you can get for them.”
8
In 1965, in a scandal that rocked the international secret-service organizations, Mehdi ben Barka, an opponent of King Hassan II of Morocco, was lured to Paris from his exile in Geneva and murdered with the help of the French secret service. It was following this incident that President Charles de Gaulle took the secret service from the control of the premier’s office and placed it under the aegis of the Ministry of Defense. Thus it was that the current minister of defense, Roland Passy, was responsible for the safety of Marin Groza, who had been granted sanctuary by the French government. Gendarmes were stationed in front of the villa in Neuilly on twenty-four-hour shifts, but it was the knowledge that Lev Pasternak was in charge of the villa’s inner security that gave Passy confidence. He had seen the security arrangements himself and was firmly convinced that the house was impregnable.
In recent weeks, rumors had been sweeping the diplomatic world that a coup was imminent, that Marin Groza was planning to return to Romania, and that Alexandras Ionescu was going to be deposed by his senior military officers.
Lev Pasternak knocked on the door and entered the book-crammed library that served as Marin Groza’s office. Groza was seated behind his desk, working. He looked up as Lev Pasternak came in.
“Everybody wants to know when the revolution is going to happen,” Pasternak said. “It’s the world’s worst-kept secret.”
“Tell them to be patient. Will you come to Bucharest with me, Lev?”
More than anything, Lev Pasternak yearned to return to Israel. I’ll only take this job temporarily, he had told Marin Groza. Until you’re ready to make your move. Temporarily had turned into weeks and months, and finally into three years. And now it was time to make another decision.
In a world peopled with pygmies, Lev Pasternak thought, I have been given the privilege of serving a giant. Marin Groza was the most selfless and idealistic man Lev Pasternak had ever known.