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The Ambassador

Michael Goodell

They walked along the edge of the water without speaking. Arm in arm after dinner they strolled, digesting sights and sounds once familiar and those never seen before. The boats bobbed on the black-turning blue surface of the sound and ABBA standards drifted from the bandstand along the way. She laughed at The Dixie Queen moored just ahead of them.  “How funny. A Mississippi riverboat here.”
      "That's new," he said.
      "I imagine there's a lot that's new."
      "In twenty years, yes." He stopped at the corner and looked back towards the Grand Hotel. "She's not. New awnings, maybe, but that's all."
      "I love our room. So bright and airy. And the view!" She squeezed his hand and felt like skipping. "Is that really where the Nobel Prize winners stay?"
      He said yes, again. She wondered to herself if anyone famous had ever stayed in their room. He suggested they stop for an aquavit, in the park across the street.  They took their seats at a table near the square, in the shadow of some otherwise forgotten king. "I suppose there must have been," she said.
      "Must have been what?"
      "Someone famous."
      "Someone famous," he repeated.
      "In our room."
      He sighed and gazed at the big white boats moored along the quay. She laughed suddenly.
      "What is it?"
      "Remember when you thought you'd win it?"
      "I never really thought I would. But I wanted to."
      "Same thing."
      He shook his head. "Not really. You don't talk about what you really dream."
      "So you were what—kidding everyone?"
      "Myself. I was kidding myself." His bitterness sent her back to the days when he would boast of that dream. If he hadn’t thought he would, then why had he forced her to read so many of his lousy stories? If he never expected to win it, then all the hairy-chested bravado, that Hemingway derring-do, was all just a posture. Either that or he wasn’t being truthful now when he said he’d never meant it.  One way or the other, it was a lie.
      She propped her elbows on the table, fingers intertwined above her brandy glass. She rested her chin on the tips of her outstretched thumbs and watched him watching the sea. He slumped in his chair, smoking idly. Rökning, she thought. How proud she'd been to pick it up herself from the sign on the subway, and how he'd laughed at her pronunciation.
      He inhaled deeply, the butt in his left hand. He twirled the snifter with his right and blew the smoke upwards in two streams past his nose. He was the one who had wanted to come here, she thought. To share with her this city where he spent those happy boyhood years. Why, then, could he not share her excitement in it?
      The ash grew so long off his cigaret she was sure it would fall before reaching the ashtray. He removed his glasses and laid them on the table. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, between deep-set hazel eyes. She loved his nose, and that gesture, and smiled though he didn't see it.
      "You're going to lose it."
      "What?" He spoke so abruptly she almost thought she’d cry.
      "Your ash."
      He looked at his hand as if surprised to find he was smoking.
      "Here, let me," she said, reaching for the ashtray. "It'll fall if you move."
      "I can do it," he insisted.
      The ash left a gray smudge on the white tablecloth when he tried to brush it away. She bit her lip and glanced at the harbor, wondering what it was he had seen there.
      The pop band resumed their playing on the bandstand in the middle of the park. The music pulsed above the sounds of laughing children and families enjoying the late night twilight. A horse-drawn carriage clopped by, carrying a couple snuggled in the naive embrace of newlyweds.
      "Americans," he sniffed.
      She said she thought it was romantic.
      "It's like Chicago, or New York, or anywhere else. It's what the tourists do.”
      "Well why can't we be tourists?" She told herself not to whine, and instead set her sights on quiet reason. "Isn't that what we are—tourists?" It sounded closer to shrill.
      "Not here, we aren't." He waggled two fingers in the air and the waitress disappeared behind the bar.
      "Can we go walk along the water after this one?"
      He shrugged. "If you want."
      She leaned back suddenly and craned her neck to see around the back of the café.  "Is that 'Surfin' USA' I hear?"
      "Probably." He frowned. "When my father brought me here there was a folk band and everyone wore native costumes. It was very festive. I remember a swirl of blues and yellows and lots of gentle laughter." He flicked his cigaret at the base of the statue. "Pox Americana."
      "I wonder how he's doing?"
      "Mother says the only change we can expect is death."
      "At least he hasn't had to read the papers."
      "I wish he could," he said, tossing off the rest of his drink and standing. "I wish he could read every word. I wish he could hear the accusations. I wish he could smell the scandal."
      "But that would be so cruel."
      He nodded. "You wanted to walk?"
      She jumped up and turned towards the water.
      "No, let's go through the park first. I want to see how much it's changed."
      "Why don't you stop torturing yourself? Of course it's changed. The whole world's changed in twenty years."
      "That's true." He spun on his heels and headed towards the Opera House, leaving it up to her whether she followed.
      She bowed her head and trotted after him.
      Together they turned to the right at the Opera Café. One of the hottest spots in town, the concierge had told them. They passed it by and strolled the tree-lined promenade, past the horses nuzzling each other in front of their carriages.
      She laughed. "Remember the horses we saw in Charleston who wore diapers so they wouldn't mess the street?"
      He only nodded.
      "You used to laugh at that."
      "I used to, yes."
      "Why don't you laugh anymore?"
      "I'm tired of laughing at the past."
      She turned away and said nothing.
      "Is laughing so important?" he asked. He stopped by the bandstand, where a single violinist, a wraithlike girl, had driven the Beach Boys perpetrators off the stage.
      "I like to be happy." He had no answer to that apparently, so they watched and listened to the musician for a while. The fragile instrument seemed bulky against her frame. It seemed she fought rather than held it, yet from the struggle produced notes of surprising delicacy. When she finished the number, one of Vivaldi's seasons, she stepped back for a moment, cowering before the audience's potential response. She looked grateful for the applause, as if these strangers' acceptance was more essential to survival than the Kronor passersby tossed into her case. She launched into "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," and glided over the notes she couldn't reach.
      "Do you want to laugh at the past?" he asked.
      "You make it sound so evil."
      "When we lived here," he began—despite her squeeze on his arm to hush and enjoy the music—"Mother used to send me on errands to father's office, his club, and the various restaurants in which he conducted business. He always seemed happy to see me. 'Here comes The Ambassador,' he would say. That's what he called me, The Ambassador. He'd set me on his lap, and introduce me to the people he was with. Then one day she sent me to a restaurant just around the corner from here. He was with a woman, and as I walked in he said so the whole restaurant could hear, 'Well, here comes Mother's little spy.'"
      "How awful for you."
      "It's pretty ironic when you stop and think about it."
      When she remained silent he said, "What's the matter? I thought you liked to laugh at the past."
      She shook her long black hair and said, "You must have hated him for that."
      "Strangely enough, I moved closer to him. I figured out what my mother was doing and resented her."
      He nudged her to move along down the path, and tossed a few coins in the violinist's case as they passed. Past the playground and the glassed-in sidewalk cafes they turned right, then right again to return through the heart of the park.
      They paused by the fountain to watch the old men sitting alone side by side, smoking and saying little. He reached for his pack. He shook out a pair and she took one. As he lit it for her she remembered when he said that lighting a woman's cigaret in a public place was the greatest intimacy he could imagine.
      Just beyond the table tennis players, a crowd had gathered around a giant chessboard painted on the pavement. She tugged on his arm to stop and watch. A tall, old man, with thinning gray hair and wispy beard, stood to the side. He propped his chin in his right hand, his elbow cradled in his left. He thought for a long time before nudging a white pawn ahead one space with a timidity almost painful to witness.
      Before he had left the board, his young, dark opponent seized the knob atop his bishop and twirled it diagonally ahead three spaces. The young man stepped back triumphantly.
      The old man frowned, and stared, and frowned again. He crept forward to move his queen to the right. The observers murmured their approval. The youth grabbed his king, slung it to the right one space, took half a step back then raised his hand. "Wait." He moved the king back a space.
      When the white rook slid across the pavement to stand behind his queen, he whispered to her, "Now he'll resign."
      But instead the kid moved the king again, this time behind a pawn.
      "Idiot," he muttered in her ear.
      Three moves later, black was mated and the audience applauded. As they walked away he said none of them knew anything about chess.
      "You mean the crowd?"
      "They shouldn't have applauded. That kid should've resigned before we got there. It's an insult to keep going when it's over."
      "Maybe he didn't realize it was over."
      "Maybe he shouldn't have been here," he mimicked her tone.
      Maybe we shouldn’t be here, she thought, but commented on the old man’s skill instead.
      He nodded. "He obviously knows the game. Too bad he was the only one." As they neared the café she slowed and said, "I don't think we should have any more, do you?"
      He shrugged. "You're probably right." They turned towards the water. "Can you imagine anything more pathetic?" he asked. "He probably lives alone, and his only pleasure is chess. He comes down here every evening hoping for a game and ends up babysitting idiotic tourists."
      She grabbed his hands and turned him to face her. "Why must you destroy every moment?  Why can't you just accept something without analyzing it to death?"
      He looked back to the water.
      "I didn't realize I was the scourge of the superficial,” he said.
      "Maybe I’m making too much out of it." She smiled and twined her arm with his. "But you know what I was thinking? It’s too bad they don't have those back home."
      The light changed and they crossed the street with the other pedestrians. "You know what would happen if they set one up in the States?" he said. "In twenty-four hours every piece would be stolen or broken. They'd have to keep them locked up. That would mean someone would have to be there with a key. So they'd have to rent them out to pay his wages. Then somebody would notice the spectators and start charging admission. Then the corporations would get a hold of it. Soon all the white spaces would say Starbucks, the black ones McDonald's, and each of the chessmen would wear a different logo."
      She laughed.
      "It isn't funny," he snapped.
      She didn't respond. There was nothing to say. Down along the waterfront the boats rocked at their moorings as night finally fell. They strolled past the boats, listening to the gentle slap of the water and the clank of the hooks against the bobbing metal masts. The lights of the Royal Palace shimmered on the black, black water of the sleeping sound.
      She decided to give in. It could be the only thing to save them, and her reservations didn't seem so compelling at the moment. "Maybe we should live abroad for awhile."
      He stopped, and turned, and kissed her gently on her eyebrow. "We can't."
      "Why not?"
      "Mother. She's going to need someone after father dies. I'm the only one available."
      "Can't you hire a nurse or something?"
      He shook his head. "I can't rely on strangers to fulfill my responsibilities."
      "Why not?" she demanded. "Isn't that what she did?"
      "What do you mean?"
      "Nannies, governesses, boarding schools. She couldn't have spent any less time with you if she'd gotten an abortion."
      He laughed, and said that her democratic upbringing prevented her from appreciating the benefits of that system.
      "Democratic upbringing," she sneered, pulling away from him. "You should've followed your father into the State Department. 'Democratic upbringing'—that's just a your version of 'working class,' isn't it?"
      He chuckled. "Maybe it is."
      He grabbed her arm before she could run away. "Wait. That's not what I meant. I mean you have this great egalitarian streak in you. You believe in total equality; you bought the American Ideal in its entirety, and I love you for it. My parents were too busy fulfilling that dream to bother with the ideals. Don't be angry."
      She shook her head stubbornly, tears threatening to drown her words. "Your mother never forgave me for marrying you. Do you know what she told me on our wedding day? 'You two are too different.'"
      She shook off his conciliatory hand. "Maybe she was right."
      He wrapped his arms around her and held her. As he kissed her eyes and cheeks and lips she realized he was happy. She began crying in earnest, and when she did she felt him change. His body sagged and the happiness went out of him. "What is it?" she asked.
       "You're right. Mother never liked you. And I never liked her, but that doesn't change things. Taking care of her isn’t something I want to do. It's just something that comes with life."
       "But it's not fair," she protested. "It's not fair to me—to you. She shouldn't put such a burden on you."
      He stared at her and she was wounded by the sadness in his eyes. "Don't you realize life is nothing but a series of burdens? First you're a burden on your parents. Then your children are a burden on you. Then your parents are a burden on you. Then you're a burden on your children. Then you die."
      "How long have you felt that way?"
       "Years and years," he said.
       "How can you bear to go on living it that's all life means to you?"
      He shrugged and pressed her shoulder to turn and begin the long walk back to the hotel. "As soon as my father dies Mother will throw out his magazine collection," he said.
      She pulled away. "What has that got to do with anything?"
       "If you would just listen, maybe you'd understand." His arm tightened around her shoulders. "My father never threw away a magazine in his life. There must be hundreds of boxes with back issues of 'The Economist,' 'Foreign Affairs,' and 'National Geographic' in our basement. Mother always hated them. She used to beg him to get rid of them. I remember once she screamed at him, 'They're worthless. They're absolutely worthless.'
       "My father said, 'I know. I just can't let them go.'"
      He leaned against the fender of a car and stared at the harbor. "That's the way I feel about my life, I guess."
      She felt a burden of her own begin to lift, to waft gently into the salt scented air. How could something so heavy for so long become so fairy light, she wondered.
      "Well, that’s the way I feel about my life, too."
      She turned and walked back to the light, where the Grand Hotel stood bright against the darkness. She left him, standing there with the boats bobbing and the masts clanking, the lights shimmering on the water. She left him, staring out to sea, still searching for whatever it was he thought life had promised him.