Enlightenment (20 page)
Authors: Maureen Freely
Jeannie Wakefield’s first attempt to hold her father to account came out on the anniversary of the murder, the 4th of June 1972. It appeared in the slim, doomed ‘International’ section of one of Boston’s underground papers, under the headline ‘Who Killed Dutch Harding?’
It was, she later conceded, more about herself than anyone else, and it was studded with the innocent indiscretions that all young journalists must make until they’ve lost a few friends. She was on the
Crimson
by then, though only in the lowliest capacity. Before taking the story to the underground paper she had been foolish enough to try it out on the great gods then in charge of the place. They had rejected it out of hand.
Her biggest mistake was to say what she thought of people. So her father was a ‘failed spy’ and Hector was a ‘recovering and sermonising alcoholic’. Her mother was a ‘deeply mendacious hysteric in deeper denial’ and Sinan’s mother was a ‘once celebrated, now forgotten chanteuse’, while Chloe’s mother ‘liked to think of herself as a bohemian but scratch the surface and what you found was a 50s housewife.’
Miss Broome (who had burst into tears of gratitude when Jeannie had tracked her down to a school in Maine) did not fare much better. She was, Jeannie wrote, a ‘would-be radical in deep denial about her lover’s subversive activities’. The murder victim’s parents, whom she’d doorstepped in Burlington, Vermont, were ‘rockjaw WASPS whose faces had frozen while they were raking leaves.’ Their sin was to say
they had no son called Dutch Harding. Their denial fuelled her fire, as did the lesser obstructions thrown in her way by so many friends.
Her greatest sin was to say what she said about Chloe.
Chloe spent most of December in Holyoke Centre, and in March she once again slit her wrists. But somehow Jeannie remained convinced that she was as hell-bent on this investigation as she was. This despite the fact that Chloe tried, on several occasions, to talk Jeannie out of it.
In the article Jeannie said that she and Chloe had fallen out when she had told Chloe about meeting up with No Name. Or rather: ‘my father’s former errand boy, a veteran of the Peace Corps whose modest success as a stringer had, by his own admission, deeply compromised his honour.’
She implied that she’d set up this meeting herself. In fact, she was sitting in the Café Pamplona late one night in March when he just walked through the door. She didn’t recognise him right away – not only did he have long hair now, he also had a beard. She wasn’t even considering an article at that point. She was just trying to get to the truth. The idea of setting it down on paper was born during this conversation she had with No Name.
He told her he’d seen ‘Billie’ Broome a week or so earlier. ‘She said you were trying to get to the bottom of this murder, and perhaps trying a little too hard.’ Accustomed as she was by then to people trying to talk her out of it, she said, ‘Well, why shouldn’t I?’
His face darkened. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I think you should know this. I’ve been doing some digging myself.’
‘And?’
‘Let me put it this way. The story doesn’t hold together.’ He paused. ‘One thing is certain. Dutch Harding was what I said he was. Possibly a good deal worse. It’s pretty clear that he was not just working for your father. Does that surprise you?’
She nodded, but the cool thing sweeping through her at that moment was relief. The worse Dutch Harding turned out to be, the less she had to blame herself for fingering him. So who else was he working for?
He shook his head. ‘Can’t say. I mean that literally. I thought I
was getting somewhere, but then the well dried up. You might have better luck, though. Have you managed to track down Sinan? No? How about your father, then? What’s his line? Okay,’ he’d said, upon hearing that Jeannie and her father were not speaking. ‘That I
do
understand. I don’t know if I’d be either if I were you. But if you ever change your mind…’
He mentioned a name – an old classmate from college who just so happened to have gone to the same prep school Dutch had attended – ‘a guy with the same politics we have’ who now worked in the underground press. When he’d heard about the murder, he’d said he’d be interesting in running a piece on it – but only if Jordan could come up with corroborating evidence about the CIA tie-in. ‘So really I’ve come to find out what you’ve been able to find out.’
Jeannie didn’t have anything of value to tell him, and she left the Café Pamplona that night feeling very young and very useless. So she was all the more surprised at Chloe’s reaction when she told her who had turned up at the Pamplona.
She became very agitated. She told Jeannie she was a fool. ‘You have to forget Dutch Harding! Forget he ever existed.’ Jeannie just couldn’t understand why she’d think that. It was rewriting history. It was wrong! So they stopped speaking. Soon there was no one to temper her obsession.
She wrote the article in May, in the white heat that should have gone into her exams. She took it to the
Crimson
the day after she finished, and she did not take her rejection well. It was two or three days later that she got a call from a Greg Dickson. His name sounded familiar but it was only after she put the phone down that she remembered he was the old classmate of No Name’s who now worked at the underground paper. He told Jeannie that he had ‘dropped by the
Crimson
the other day’ and that her ‘piece’ had fallen into his hands. Self-centred eighteen-year-old that she was, she did not think to question this story. ‘We have a lot of cleaning up to do,’ he said. ‘Your language is sophomoric, but the story speaks for itself. It touches on important themes. I’ll see what we can do.’
The final, heavily edited, version of ‘Who Killed Dutch Harding?’ began with an account of the day she’d met Sinan and went on to
tell the rest of the story in the order she had discovered it. It did not mention her father by name, though any fool would have guessed they shared a surname. Although she ended with a list of unanswered questions, she made her own thinking clear. Whoever had committed this murder, it had been her father who had set it into motion.
What was her part in it? she asked in the closing paragraph. Would Dutch be alive today if she had not barged into that apartment? Was it her fault that Suna had jumped out of that window? Had she ruined Sinan’s life, too, and Haluk’s, assuming, of course, that they were even alive? Bearing in mind who she was and what she stood for, was it not a travesty for her to plead innocence?
‘WHEN INNOCENCE IS A CRIME.’ That was the headline. The piece caused a small sensation. It even got picked up as a news item in the
Boston Globe
: ‘Radcliffe Freshman Points the Finger at CIA Dad.’
That same morning, Greg Dickson phoned to tell Jeannie that he’d just had a call from an attorney representing ‘the family of Wilhelmina Broome.’ He wasn’t too concerned, though. It would be bad if they sued, he said, but it was all in a day’s work for the free press. The next day, he sounded more strained. He’d now heard from attorneys representing ‘the family of Amy Cabot’. The third day, he was livid. And paranoid. ‘Does the name Stephen Svabo mean anything to do?’ he asked. He had not given her two seconds to consider his question when he yelled, ‘Who exactly are you working for, you fucking bitch?’
When Jeannie’s phone rang an hour later, it was the paper’s attorney. There were now five people threatening to sue, ‘and since your interests and those of my client diverge, I would strongly advise that you retain your own counsel.’
The next time the phone rang that morning it was Jeannie’s father. ‘I understand you need some help.’
June 8
th
1972
‘My father’s new home is a little yellow ranch house on a base near Williamsburg, Virginia. Inside, with the curtains drawn, you’d never know. It’s the world’s smallest and most pathetic museum – wall to wall Turkish and Persian and Afghan carpets, copper trays, copper plates, copper lanterns and alabaster eggs. Indian miniatures hung between Japanese brush drawings and the wild abstractions of that Venezuelan painter he played tennis with in Caracas.
Open the curtains, and you see an empty road, a row of yellow ranch houses, and an electric power line draped across a colourless sky. From time to time a purring car will pass. Will pull into a driveway. Will wait for the garage door to respond to its wordless command. They all play the same clattering lament: “I need oil, I need oil, I need oil.”
So this is how the mighty are fallen.
If I didn’t want to die, I’d laugh.’
June 8
th
1972
‘Newsflash: he doesn’t blame me. I have the right to my own opinions. He does want me to write and apologise to Mother, who is, and I quote, “a good-hearted woman”. She’s made many sacrifices on my behalf and deserves better than what I gave her in that “intemperate” piece of mine. But as far as he himself is concerned, it’s open season.
I can say whatever my little heart desires.
Comment and analysis: while he was in that clinic, whatever it was, he rewrote the story of his life. His new version of “the events of last spring” is exquisite in its simplicity. Forget politics and culture clashes, riots, spies, rumours and vicious lies. Forget the Cold War. He messed up because he had let alcohol take over his life. Or to quote him precisely, because he “let the bourbon do the talking”. More precisely, the bourbon convinced him he was a “little god”. But alas, he turned out not to be. He made some bad guesses, he allowed himself to be fooled, misled and framed. But hey, there’s an upside. He got me and Chloe out in time, didn’t he? So at least no one can blame him for endangering innocent Americans.
I’m glad to say I made this point. I’m sad to say it had zero effect. I might as well have been talking about his great uncle’s stepson. Is this really my father, I’m beginning to wonder? Or was I dining with a zombie? He looks as if he’s been in the world’s longest shower. No dirt on him!
His new enthusiasm is cooking, and wasn’t it a lovely meal. First Julia Child’s spinach soup, and then her roast pork and potatoes in mustard and cream sauce. He tells me he got “bitten by the Julia bug” in that wonderful clinic. It was part of the program: “finding new ways to fill all that time I used to spend on lifting and lowering that glass.” And crushing insurgents, I felt like adding. Compiling files on innocent students, and sending out agents provocateurs to push them over the edge.
Although I didn’t say any of that out loud, he read my mind anyway. (How I
hate
that. Hate it, hate it, hate it!) He said, “Look, I know. It must be galling, having to lean on me, having to be here. I am, I know, the person you hate most right now. But look, I don’t see what choice we have. If I don’t help you, these bastards are going to eat you up. And not because of what you said or wrote. They’re using you to get to
me
.”
Nota bene
:
How it’s always a conspiracy. How he’s always smack at the centre of it. I made this point, too. He just sat back in that chair of his and in that infuriating drawl of his, asked, so then tell me again, who exactly was it that linked you up to Mr Whatsisname, the
editor of that groundbreaking underground newspaper that was kind enough to let you spill your guilt all over its front page? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it an ex-flunky of mine? I was quick to remind him. This happened to be an ex-flunky who was so disgusted by what he’d seen that he’d been brave enough to switch sides.
But this didn’t dent old ironside. No siree. “Now that takes courage,” was all he said. “Not just courage, but foresight and resolve.”
I am being killed with kindness, tortured with private jokes.’
June 11
th
1972
‘Today, after spending many hours flipping channels, trying to read, failing to read, making snacks I didn’t want just to pass the time and checking the clock every five minutes, because all I had to look forward to was my father’s eventual return, I made a terrible, terrible mistake.
The mistake was to go out for some fresh air. I think I knew it was a mistake before I reached the first corner, because there is something soul-destroying about walking past eleven identical ranch houses, all in a little yellow row. But worse was to come: for by the time I had reached my fourth yellow corner, there were sirens wailing in on me. Can you believe it? Then came the arrest. Dad had to come all the way over to Security and bail me out! He offered to get me “authorisation” to walk the length and breadth of this benighted base in future, but frankly, I’d rather skin a cat.
I have to ask myself what I’m doing here.
I could leave. I must leave. I must face this alone.’
June 11
th
1972
‘I told him. He listened, nodded, considered, acquiesced. That’s fine, he said. But before you go, let’s make you a plan. Shall we?
He mapped out what he’d done already. “As of noon today, you have yourself a lawyer.” An old classmate of his, based in Boston. And so on and so on. “He’s not charging us the full whack, but if you undertook to pay his bill out of your own earnings, I think you’d find
it burdensome in the extreme.” Etc. etc. When I caved in, he gave me that new smile.
I hate him, and everything he stands for. Everything he’s done. Every lie he’s ever told. But most of all, I hate him for that smug,
all-knowing
, all-embracing smile.’
June 12
th
1972
‘As for the “free world” he keeps harping on about. Well, if I’ve learned one thing from all this, it’s that you can’t say what you want in the Land of the Free, either. Yes, I know I should have chosen my words more carefully, should have written the facts in black and my opinions in red, so that every legal hotshot in the world would know I was telling a story
as seen through my own eyes
…
But rules are rules, my lawyers tell me. If I am to accuse a spy of spying, I am to furnish tapes, affidavits, photographs! I am to believe that Miss Wilhelmina Broome was so deeply injured by my remarks that she tripped and fell while jogging, scraping and bruising her knee. Is this the same woman who urged us to stand up for the truth, take courage in our convictions? Perhaps not, because I am now told by her millionaire father’s lawyer that Miss Broome was only very briefly a member of the SDS and has never knowingly known a Weatherman. As for Amy Cabot, her “family” now informs me that she has never been a housewife, or aspired to the life of a bohemian, or knowingly owned a pair of mauve palazzo trousers.
How petty can you get
?’
June 13
th
1972
‘Today they cut a deal for me. Tomorrow I write a retraction. Big Dick has agreed to run it on the front page, but I fear it will run over. When I’ve inserted all the client-serving lies all these lawyers are demanding, it is going to be about six times as long as my original.’
June 13
th
1972
‘I can’t write this. I won’t.’
June 17
th
1972
‘I woke up in the middle of the night. I went out to the kitchen for a glass of water and thought of Sinan, and how he must hate me. How he’s right to hate me. I finger the villain, and then I run away.’
June 18
th
1972
‘If I had a fraction of his courage, I would have gone out into that storm and stayed there until the lightning found me.
But here I am, back in the safety of the porch.
The porch is in Rehoboth – just fifty yards from the beach! We’re here for the weekend, while Dad and this old classmate of his who cut such a good deal for me draft the retraction I have refused to write. They keep telling me to go off and have fun with the kids but never have I felt a wider gulf between myself and the other members of my generation.’
June 19
th
1972
‘One day I am going to look back on this day and understand it. I will know by then that life just isn’t fair. I will know, too, that the Angel of Death is everywhere, and close enough to touch, but I’ll have come to see that it’s this shadow that gives life its beauty. Or so I am led to believe by the greatest, wisest, most prescient father the world has ever known…
The worst part is the reminiscing. Why he has chosen to confide in me at this late date I do not know. This must be the ultimate torture for my crimes: to sit here on this lawyer’s porch and hear how much my father misses Amy, Istanbul and what he calls “the life”.
He kept talking about colours. The ochre yellow of the rainwater that ran over the cobblestones at springtime, the pink sheen of the
Bosphorus just before the sun goes down, the molten churning just before a storm…
At one point I said, “Why bother? It’s not as if you can bring it back.”
“But I will,” he said. “And one day, so will you.”
But it takes time, he went on to warn me. “Naturally, I am interested in knowing what happened. So trust me to do my delving in my own way.”
When in Rome do as the Romans, he went on to inform me. Especially when in Istanbul. There were three golden rules:
1) Everything is mired in history.
2) No one ever tells you the whole story, so you can never be sure you know where you are.
3) You tie the knot at your peril, because the story never ends.
His chorus line: “Jeannie, I am going to get you through this.”
And: “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to get you back on track.”
But what about the others?
“Let’s save that for later, shall we? Let’s save our skins first. We may not know the facts, but one thing is clear. We’re dead meat in Istanbul right now, you and me both.”
No one wants anything to do with us! He’s spent the last fortnight knocking on every conceivable door, but no one’s talking. No one! This may change in future – it usually does – but for now, my personal spymaster informs me, it’s over. “Really over. So why don’t you read this thing over so we can type it off tomorrow and send it off?”
This was when he handed me the retraction. When I reached the end and pushed it back at him, he wrote in large letters at the bottom of the sheet: “ACCORDING TO ALL THOSE PRESENT, THIS NEVER HAPPENED.”
“And let that be a lesson to you,” he said. “The law is there to help people lie. People with lawyers, that is.”
“That’s sick,” I informed him.
“That’s life.”
“Not if I had anything to do with it,” I said.
“You show ’em, girl! Go for it!” He reached into his briefcase.
“But I’m not a spook for nothing. I still have a trick or two.” He brought out a file. “Don’t ask me how I got this.” It was a carbon copy
of a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to my enemy and former editor, Greg Dickson:
“We are writing to you to express our deepest concern about the article penned by Miss Wakefield entitled ‘Who killed Dutch Harding?’ that appeared in the issue dated June 4
th
1972. In addition to casting unsupportable aspersions against the Turkish state and referring to the alleged operations of foreign intelligence services within its borders, it also makes a faulty claim about the victim himself. We can affirm that there were indeed reports of his murder in the Turkish press. We can also affirm that two Turkish citizens mentioned in your article (Suna Safran and Lüset Danon) have both been found guilty of crimes against the state and are currently serving their sentences. However, no one has been charged with the murder of Dutch Harding. Indeed, under Turkish law this would be impossible, as no charge of murder can be made in the absence of a body. It seems that Miss Wakefield has neglected to check her facts. We suggest that when you are next considering the possibility of publishing a report about our country, you take the precaution of making contact with our press department…
”
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked my dear old Dad. “I’ve learned my lesson, OK? I should have checked my facts. I should have…”
“Read it again,” he said.
I read it again.
He tapped his cigarette against the ashtray.
“This time, did you catch it?”’