Edge of Eternity (101 page)

Everyone now knew that this money came from CREEP. However, Nixon was still denying that he had known anything about it. Yet here he was talking about it six days after the burglary!

The gravelly bass voice of Nixon interrupted. “The people who donated money could just say they gave it to the Cubans.”

George heard someone in the room say: “Holy crap!”

The special prosecutor stopped the tape.

George said: “Unless I'm mistaken, the president is proposing to ask his donors to perjure themselves.”

The special prosecutor said dazedly: “Can you imagine that?”

He pressed the button and Haldeman resumed. “We don't want to be relying on too many people. The way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say: ‘Stay the hell out of this.'”

This was close to a story Jasper Murray had run based on a leak from Maria. General Vernon Walters was the deputy director of the CIA. The Agency had a long-standing agreement with the FBI: if an investigation by one threatened to expose secret operations of the other, that investigation could be halted by a simple request. Haldeman's idea seemed to be to get the CIA to pretend that the FBI's investigation into the Watergate burglars was somehow a threat to national security.

Which would be perversion of the course of justice.

On the tape, President Nixon said: “Right, fine.”

The prosecutor stopped the tape again.

“Did you hear that?” George said incredulously. “Nixon said: ‘Right, fine.'”

Nixon went on: “It's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing, which we think would be very unfortunate for the CIA and for the country and for American foreign policy.” He seemed to be spinning a story that the CIA might tell the FBI, George thought.

“Yeah,” said Haldeman. “That's the basis we'll do it on.”

The prosecutor said: “The president of the United States sitting in his office telling his staff how to commit perjury!”

Everyone in the room was stunned. The president was a criminal, and they had the proof in their hands.

George said: “The lying bastard, we've got him.”

On the tape, Nixon said: “I don't want them to get any ideas we're doing it because our concern is political.”

Haldeman said: “Right.”

In the room, gathered around the tape player, the assembled lawyers burst out laughing.

•   •   •

Maria was at her desk in the Justice Department when George called. “I just heard from our friend,” he said. She knew he meant Jasper. He was speaking in code in case the phones were tapped. “The White House press office called the networks and booked air time for the president. Nine o'clock tonight.”

It was Thursday, August 8, 1974.

Maria's heart leaped. Could this be the end at last? “Maybe he's going to resign,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“God, I hope so.”

“It's either that or he'll just profess his innocence again.”

Maria did not want to be alone when this happened. “Do you want to come over?” she said. “We'll watch it together.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I'll make supper.”

“Nothing too fattening.”

“George Jakes, you're vain.”

“Make a salad.”

“Come at seven thirty.”

“I'll bring the wine.”

Maria went out to shop for dinner in the heat of Washington in August. She no longer cared much about her work. She had lost faith in the Justice Department. If Nixon resigned today, she would start looking for another job. She still wanted to be in government service:
only the government had the muscle to make the world a better place. But she was sick of crime and the excuses of criminals. She wanted a change. She thought she might try for the State Department.

She bought salad, but she also got some pasta and Parmesan cheese and olives. George had refined tastes, and he was getting worse as he grew into middle age. But he certainly was not fat. Maria herself was not fat but, on the other hand, she was not thin. As she approached forty she was just getting, well, more like her mother, especially around the hips.

She left for the day a few minutes before five. A crowd had gathered outside the White House. They were chanting, “Jail to the Chief,” a pun on the anthem “Hail to the Chief.”

Maria caught the bus to Georgetown.

As her salary had improved over the years she had moved apartments, always to a larger place in the same neighborhood. She had got rid of all but one of the photos of President Kennedy during her last move. Her current place had a comfortable feel. Where George had always had rectilinear modern furniture and plain decor, Maria liked patterned fabrics and curved lines and lots of cushions.

Her gray cat Loopy came to greet her, as always, and rubbed her head against Maria's leg. Julius, the boy cat, was more aloof: he would show up later.

She set the table and washed the salad and grated the Parmesan cheese. Then she took a shower and put on a cotton summer dress in her favorite shade, turquoise. She thought about putting on lipstick and decided not to.

The evening news on TV was mostly speculation. Nixon had had a meeting with Vice President Gerald Ford, who might be president tomorrow. Press secretary Ziegler had announced to the White House reporters that the president would address the nation at nine, then had left the press briefing room without answering questions on what he would speak about.

George arrived at seven thirty, wearing slacks and loafers and a blue chambray shirt open at the neck. Maria tossed the salad and put the pasta in boiling water while he opened a bottle of Chianti.

Her bedroom door was open, and George looked inside. “No shrine,” he said.

“I threw away most of the photographs.”

They sat at her small dining table to eat.

They had been friends for thirteen years, and each had seen the other in the depths of despair. Each had had one overwhelming lover who had gone: Verena Marquand to the Black Panthers, President Kennedy into the hereafter. In different ways, both George and Maria had been left. They shared so much that they were comfortable together.

Maria said: “The heart is a map of the world, did you know that?”

“I don't even know what it means,” he said.

“I saw a medieval map once. It showed the earth as a flat disc with Jerusalem in the center. Rome was bigger than Africa, and America was not even shown, of course. The heart is that kind of map. The self is in the middle and everything else is out of proportion. You draw the friends of your youth large, then later it's impossible to rescale them when other more important people need to be added. Anyone who has done you wrong is shown too big, and so is anyone you loved.”

“Okay, I get it, but . . .”

“I've thrown out my photos of Jack Kennedy. But he will always be drawn too large on the map in my heart. That's all I mean.”

After dinner they washed up, then sat on a large soft couch in front of the TV with the last of the wine. The cats went to sleep on the rug.

Nixon came on at nine.

Please, Maria thought, let the torment end now.

Nixon was sitting in the Oval Office, a blue curtain behind him, the Stars and Stripes on his right and the president's flag on his left. The deep, gravelly voice began immediately. “This is the thirty-seventh time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this nation.”

The camera began a slow zoom in. The president was wearing a familiar blue suit and tie. “Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort.”

George said excitedly: “That's it! He's resigning!”

Maria grabbed his arm in excitement.

The cameras pulled in for a close-up. “I have never been a quitter,” Nixon said.

“Oh, shit,” said George, “is he going back on it?”

“But, as president, I must put the interests of America first.”

“No,” said Maria, “he's not going back.”

“Therefore I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.”

“Yes!” George punched the air. “He's done it! He's gone!”

What Maria felt was not so much triumph as relief. She had woken up from a nightmare. In the dream, the highest officers in the land had been crooks, and no one could do anything to stop them.

But in real life they had been found out and shamed and deposed. She had a sense of safety, and realized that for two years now she had not felt that America was a secure place to be.

Nixon admitted no faults. He did not say that he had committed crimes, told lies, and tried to put the blame on other people. Turning the pages of his speech, he referred to his triumphs: China, arms limitation talks, Middle East diplomacy. He finished on a defiant note of pride.

“It's over,” Maria said in a tone of incredulity.

“We won,” said George, and he put his arms around her.

Then, without thinking about it, they were kissing.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

It was not a sudden burst of passion. They kissed playfully, exploring each other's lips and tongues. George tasted of wine. It was like discovering a fascinating topic of conversation they had previously overlooked. Maria found herself smiling and kissing at the same time.

However, their embrace soon turned passionate. Maria's pleasure became so intense it made her breathe hard. She unbuttoned George's blue shirt so that she could feel his chest. She had almost forgotten what it was like to have a man's bony frame in her arms. She relished his big hands touching the private places of her body, so different from her own small soft fingers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw both cats leave the room.

George caressed her for a surprisingly long time. She had had only
one previous lover, and he had not been so patient: by now he would have been on top of her. She was torn between pleasure in what George was doing and an almost panicky need to feel him inside her.

Then at last it happened. She had forgotten how good it felt. She crushed his chest to hers and lifted her legs to pull him farther in. She said his name again and again until she was overwhelmed by spasms of pleasure, and cried out. A moment later she felt him ejaculate inside her, and that made her convulse one more time.

They lay fused together, breathing hard. Maria could not touch him enough. She pressed one hand into his back, the other on his head, feeling his body, almost fearing that he might not be real, this could be a dream. She kissed his deformed ear. His panting breath was hot on her neck.

Slowly her breathing returned to normal. The world around became real again. The TV was still on, broadcasting reactions to the resignation. She heard a commentator say: “This has been a truly momentous day.”

Maria sighed. “It sure has,” she said.

•   •   •

George thought the ex-president should go to jail. Many people did. Nixon had committed more than enough crimes to justify a prison sentence. This was not medieval Europe, where kings were above the law: this was America, and justice was the same for everyone. The House Judiciary Committee had ruled that Nixon should be impeached, and Congress had endorsed the committee's report by a remarkable majority of 412 votes to 3. The public favored impeachment by 66 percent to 27. John Ehrlichman had already been sentenced to twenty months in prison for his crimes: it would be unfair if the man who had given him his orders were to escape punishment.

A month after the resignation, President Ford pardoned Nixon.

George was outraged, and so was just about everyone else. Ford's press secretary resigned.
The
New York Times
said the pardon was “a profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act” that had destroyed the new president's credibility at a stroke. Everyone assumed Nixon had cut a deal with Ford before handing over to him.

“I can't take much more of this,” said George to Maria in the kitchen
of his apartment. He was mixing olive oil and red wine vinegar in a jug to make salad dressing. “Sitting behind a desk at Fawcett Renshaw while the country goes to hell.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I've been thinking about it a lot. I want to go back into politics.”

She turned to face him, and he was puzzled to see disapproval on her face. “What do you mean?” she said.

“The congressman for my mother's district, the Ninth Maryland, is retiring in two years. I think I can get nominated for the seat. In fact I know I can.”

“So you've already talked to the Democratic Party there.”

She was definitely angry with him, but he had no idea why. “Just exploratory discussions, yes,” he said.

“Before you talked to me.”

George was startled. Their romance was only a month old. Did he already have to clear everything with Maria? He almost said that, but bit back the words and tried something softer. “Maybe I should have talked to you first, but it didn't occur to me.” He poured the dressing over the salad and started to toss it.

“You know I just applied for a really good job in the State Department.”

“Of course.”

“I think you know I want to go all the way to the top.”

“And I bet you'll do it.”

“Not with you, I won't.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Senior State Department officials have to be nonpolitical. They must serve Democratic and Republican congressmen with equal diligence. If I'm known to be with a congressman I'll never get a promotion. They will always say: ‘You can't really trust Maria Summers, she sleeps with Congressman Jakes.' They'd assume my loyalty was to you, not them.”