THE PRESIDENT
A Novel
1
He was a policeman when he became President of the United States of America. He was fifty-five years old. His hair was black and full, his posture upright, his energy unflagging. He didn’t want to settle down in six years, he only wanted to hang up his uniform. He still had big plans.
2
In the summer of 1981 Jay Immer was growing suspicious. His wife was acting oddly. Since he’d been on vacation, that is, since he’d been working at home, Lucy had gotten nervous every day around noon. She stole glances at the clock on the wall, acted like she was reading, pretended to watch TV or do some chore—but in doing so she always seemed preoccupied. It looked like she was waiting for the mailman, a heavyset, chubby-cheeked simpleton named Jim whose honesty was written all over his face. Jay liked Jim. The mailman was always in a good mood and never at a loss for a joke. Why was Lucy waiting for him? As soon as she heard his moped, she left the house and took the mail from him with a smile.
“Did you order something?”
“No.”
“Are you waiting for something?”
“What would I be waiting for?”
“Jim, for instance?”
Lucy broke into loud laughter and clapped her hands in front of her mouth. She tried to say something but couldn’t manage to. It hadn’t sounded as witty as he’d intended. Jay felt a little ashamed, and because he didn’t want to come off as unsuitably jealous, at dinner that evening he said, well, maybe he couldn’t put away as much food as Jim, but —
Lucy gestured dismissively.
“You really could use some acting practice.”
“Are you waiting for a love letter?”
“I entered a contest. We might win a swimming pool. I want to get lucky too, for once.”
“You did get lucky once,” Jay said, pointing to himself.
When the letter came he was mowing the lawn in front of their White House. The sky was dark blue and cloudless, and the driveway was gleaming. He’d hosed down the hot asphalt. In three days he would put his uniform back on and go out on patrol. Jay was sweating, his white undershirt was wet, and blades of grass stuck to his arms, chest, and face. He wondered how much a swimming pool cost.
Jim had zoomed away, leaving Lucy standing in the street. She’d wrapped a thin red towel around her body, under which she wore a striped bikini that she’d broil in for hours on a lounge chair out in the back yard whenever the sun was shining. She was so tan that Jay sometimes asked her if she really was white. He insistently warned her about skin cancer, but time after time she swept his worries aside with an indulgent smile. Standing by the mailbox, she tore the envelope open, unfolded the letter, scanned the contents, and—froze.
She held her hand to her mouth, but still it emitted a short, loud noise before she kissed the letter over and over again. Jay turned off the lawnmower, and the neighbor woman across the street opened her kitchen window. Lucy looked at him, dumbfounded. She was trying to say something, but only hugged the letter to her body.
“This—”
She stood facing him, out of breath. She had run over to him. When was the last time he’d seen her running? She waved the letter around before his eyes—
“I—”
She took his head in her hands, pulled him toward her, and kissed him noisily on the mouth. She had tears in her eyes. When he started to say something, she handed him the letter. It was dotted with red kiss marks.
He’d been President for quite some time when he tried again and again to imagine the moment when Lucy had sent in the contest entry behind his back. It was, she claimed, the first and only time she’d ever deceived him.
How many times had Jay heard how he bore an amazing resemblance to that actor? To that union boss from the Screen Actors’ Guild? To that advertising spokesman for General Electric? To the governor of California? To the Republican presidential candidate? To the new president?
But Jay was fifteen years younger. Fif-teen years!
On the one hand, he was flattered. Ronald Reagan looked fantastic. Women adored him. He was always the Good Guy, the simple American with his heart in the right place, who never said too much, but was always beaming. Whose dazzling good nature dazzled everybody. Whose laughter was infectious. On the other hand, constantly being compared to someone else got on Jay’s nerves. The eyes: for sure! The mouth: no question! The hair, if he just combed it differently: spot on! The nose: a little lower, but still! Only the teeth: neither white enough nor straight enough.
Even though Jay occasionally amused his friends and coworkers by playing Reagan, reaping enthusiastic applause, he’d started changing his appearance so people wouldn’t constantly bring up the resemblance. The spitting image! He didn’t want to be anybody’s spitting image. His face was his own. Like two peas in a pod! He’d been hatched in the Old World, and his parents had toiled and struggled to make a better life for their son. A dead ringer! Why was he always the guy who looked like somebody else? Hadn’t he achieved anything? Wasn’t he doing anything to aid his fellow humans? Like putting his life on the line?
“Just one more time,” Lucy had said one Sunday in the spring, “please, just for a laugh, and as a souvenir.” She had pushed the dining table in front of the bookshelf. They’d had Wiener schnitzel for dinner, which means he’d pounded and breaded and deep-fried, and because Wiener schnitzel was his favorite dish, but by no means hers, he couldn’t refuse her request.
Jay had put on his only black suit, even though it was a snug fit all over, and allowed her to put a red necktie on him and groom his hair with Brylcreem. He folded his hands on the table by the little flag with stars and stripes that Lucy must have bought recently, and looked thoughtfully and confidently into the lens of the camera that his wife pressed up to her right eye. As he said later, it was even fun for him, although he had asserted the opposite and immediately slipped into his sweat suit.
While he sat in his patrol car, did paperwork, or interrogated suspects at the precinct house, while the sun grew more intense and people were strolling in lighter and lighter clothes along the shore of Lake Michigan, at home in the northwest part of the city Lucy sat down at the desk with his old typewriter and, using two fingers, slowly and meticulously typed the text it had taken her two weeks to write down by hand. Day after day she’d reformulated it, changed it, and corrected it until she was satisfied. Twice she made typos, and twice she ripped the paper out of the machine, wadded it up, and threw it on the floor. But the third time she made it to the end, typed the comma after with best regards—because cordially, sincerely, and especially yours seemed inappropriate—and signed it with his name. She’d also practiced the signature for two weeks; it rolled off her pen. Then she folded the letter, put it in an envelope with a photograph, addressed it, and sealed it.
The next day at the post office she kissed the letter, laid it on the counter, and tucked the receipt in her purse. She had faith, but she was also superstitious.
“That’s the love letter I’ve been expecting for weeks!”
Lucy laughed and clapped her hands, while Jay didn’t understand what he was reading; while he gradually began to understand what he was reading, but couldn’t process it; while he was still holding onto the handle of the lawn mower and sweating. His skin was oily and smelled like the suntan lotion that glistened on Lucy’s body. He was furious, he was flattered, he was moved and angry. He shook his head and scanned these words once more: selected from 179 entries.
He could see something in front of him, and then again nothing. A different life flashed before his eyes, one that enticed and scared him. He liked being a policeman, even though sometimes he could hardly stand it. Maybe he’d get another promotion. He’d never even considered any other life, he liked his life the way it was, with Lucy and his job and their friends, with the house they’d built; selected from 179 entries, with—
“This is document forgery! Docu—”
“Go take a shower. Then we can discuss this calmly.”
Lucy kissed him on both cheeks, lifted up his hand, and spun around beneath his arm. The neighbor woman closed her window.
3
Two weeks later, Jay and Lucy flew to California. They sat up front in first class. Separate from the rest of the passengers, they toasted their new life with prosecco. They’d never heard that word before; it was as unfamiliar and exciting as everything that had fluttered into their lives along with that special-delivery letter. Stewardesses bustled around them, handing them refreshing towelettes and topping off their drinks with a smile, while people walking past turned their heads in amazement to catch a second glance at Jay and Lucy.
“No,” Jay said, briefly shaking his head, when yet another person turned around. “I’m not him.”
“He only says that for my sake,” Lucy said, lowering her voice, “because I’m not Nancy.”
They were served first-rate food accompanied by heavy red wine that got them wound up, especially Lucy, who very rarely drank alcohol. Her cheeks blushed and her voice grew brighter. On the plane they could order as much and as often as they wanted. They ordered a lot. They wanted more.
“Well, it ain’t Air Force One,” Lucy said, “but it’s good for a start.”
Jay choked. He had to snort and held his hand in front of his mouth. His fingers acted like a sieve. His white shirt was spattered with drops of red wine.
“That’s the only one we brought,” Lucy said.
“I’m not Brezhnev, you know,” said Jay.
“Looks like an assassination attempt.”
“But seriously: you don’t think that’s way they picked me out?”
“You need a white vest. Top priority.”
“You’re right. Much more important than the question whether I’m supposed to attract assassins and get shot full of holes in someone else’s place. When was it he got shot?”
“In March, I think. The main thing is the white shirt.”
They laughed. It didn’t matter. They’d either buy a white shirt or count on the fact that the president can do anything he wants to. After all, they called him the most powerful man in the world. It probably wouldn’t even matter if he showed up naked or disguised as a unicorn. They watched a movie they thought was funny, ate chocolate cupcakes and drank coffee, and nudged each other when the snotnose in a suit two rows ahead of them tried some fancy talk on the stewardesses, but neither his ten-dollar words nor his pocket square and flashy watch impressed them.
“He doesn’t talk,” Lucy whispered, “he converses.”
Their flights had been paid for by the agency. Neither of them had ever been to California or flown first class. They’d never gotten around much at all, but that didn’t matter. Now and then a trip to the other side of the lake, once to Canada to see Niagara Falls, every few years a few days in New York. Jay had long shifts and rare days off, and when he did have time off, he mowed the lawn, fixed something around the house, or tended to his vegetable garden. When the weather was nice he hung the laundry up in the back yard, which the neighbors thought was strange. His mother had also hung the family laundry outdoors, even though they didn’t have a yard.
When they got off the plane in Los Angeles they shaded their eyes with their hands and smiled at each other. Two workers at the end of the jetway pointed at them and whispered.
“I really should be living here,” Lucy said, “not in the Windy City.”
“Let’s go to the beach right away!”
By the conveyor belt where they’d picked up their luggage, Lucy firmly took hold of his hand.
“Work first, then pleasure.”
“The appointment is only—"
“You mustn’t be nervous. They want something from you. Not the other way around.”
Outside the terminal, Lucy hailed a taxi. In the back seat she put her hand on his. Silently they looked out the windows. The taxi driver studied them in the rearview mirror. Their new life was beginning beneath palm trees.
Jay closed his eyes. He was a policeman. He had no idea how to behave in an agency. Just that word: agency! He was geared up. But proud too. They had invited him.
Because he looked like somebody else.
“You should probably forget about speaking. You have kind of a strange accent. That’s not the way he talks.”
Jay felt himself blushing. The corners of his mouth were pushing downward while he made an effort to keep smiling. “Smile!” Lucy had said, “stay confident! Selected from 179 entries! Presidents don’t blush.” Jay Immer cocked his head as if he hadn’t quite heard what he’d just heard, and opened his eyes wide. The heavyset agency head was wearing a light blue suit, his pink shirt was unbuttoned past the second button, and he mopped the layer of sweat on his bald head. He laughed and shook his flushed head.
“I can’t” believe it. It’s like—”
The agency head stood up, fiddled with the collar of his suit jacket, and sat down on the edge of the desk, crossing his legs and turning his massive torso toward Jay. He pulled a checkered cloth with his initials on it out of his jacket pocket and dabbed the beads of sweat off his upper lip.
“It’s like I’m sitting in my ordinary office with the president. The resemblance is incredible. Phenomenal! Here, face to face, you look even more like him than you do in the photo. I feel so—”
He laughed.
“—insignificant. If it wasn’t for your wife, you’d still be chasing crooks, right?”
“I am still a policeman.”
“You’ve gotta retire! You’ll make more money, the work’s much less stressful, and it’s a lot safer, too. It’ll be fun for you. You’ll have fun, fun, and more fun!”
“Mister—”
“It’s Ron, call me Ron. No formalities”.
The agent stuck the handkerchief back into his jacket pocket, took hold of Jay’s right hand, and said: “Mister President.” He pressed firmly and shook it a long time. His hand was warm and a little moist. His breath was labored.
“Everything but the teeth.”
Jay looked at the snow-white shirt he’d purchased with Lucy in an upscale shop. He’d felt like he was in a temple. When he entered, he lowered his voice, and Lucy only whispered too. It was the most expensive shirt he’d ever owned. He didn’t want to buy it, but Lucy insisted. He put on his most radiant smile, slowly raised his eyes, and looked directly at Ron. At this moment Jay Immer swore to himself he’d never get his teeth whitened. He’d also never been able to afford to have them straightened—or wanted to. The house was more important. And their daughter.
“Austria,” Ron said. “You escaped from the Communists one more time.”
“More like the Nazis.”
“1929.”
Ron stood up and walked to the bank of windows. A seagull flew by and a siren started wailing. He slowly nodded his head.
“Your parents must have been really brave. Right in the middle of the Great Depression! Reagan was still in college then.”
“There’s something I wanted to ask.”
“Shoot! You’re the president.”
“Do I get a bodyguard?”
“A what?”
“You know, because of the threat of assassination.”
Ron laughed so hard he choked. He fanned himself and looked at Jay, amused.
“No one’s going to drive you through Dallas in an open car.”
They stayed two nights.
The sun shone mercilessly and the traffic was enough to drive you crazy, but Lucy was able to lie on the beach and swim in the ocean while Jay waded through the salty water in bathing trunks and thanked first God and then Fate for this woman whose hand he had asked for five years after the war, out in New Jersey, where she lived with her parents and younger siblings in a small apartment, surrounded by Poles and Jews and Italians, and they too were Austrians, not Germans—but in truth they had long been Americans and nothing else. Lucy’s grandparents had set off from Austria-Hungary to the New World. They were born in German West Hungary, which is the area that his parents had learned to call Burgenland before they boarded ship eight years later in Hamburg.
Lucy’s parents had spoken American English, while he was sometimes embarrassed for his parents, who could speak neither English nor German properly. Their English had a strange accent and even Viennese emigrants could hardly understand their German. He thought of his mother as he trudged through the water and saw Lucy far off and holding onto a red buoy, remembering how she’d revealed to him a few months before she died that it had been a year and half after their arrival when she ventured into a butcher shop for the first time. She’d tried to learn the new language from radio and television, but also by listening. She had bought a book of idioms and repeated the words and phrases aloud when she was home alone. On the way to the butcher shop she was still repeating, under her breath, the sentence she was going to say. Then when she was facing a pale assistant in a white apron, she said:
“Hello, I want a piece of beefpork.”
The assistant looked at her, puzzled.
“Which will it be, beef or pork?”
At this moment, the butcher himself came out from the rear of the store. He looked angrily at his assistant and said:
“You dummy, why don’t you speak German with the lady? Was hätten Sie denn gern, Gnädigste?”
Jay’s mother had laughed when she told this story. A moment later she went silent and looked at him for a long time. “You can’t imagine how ashamed I was. I don’t think I’ve ever blushed so much in my life. Not even the first time your father asked me if he could kiss me.”
They had both been beneath the earth for a long time now, Mother and Father, and they had often talked, the more frequently and fervently the older they got, about their native land, about their home, about Burgenland, about the little villages and big celebrations, about the small town they grew up in, where they hadn’t earned anything, about all the snow in the winter, when they trudged across snow-laden fields and meadows to Sunday Mass, about the hard work in the hot fields in the summer, about the gypsies who rode in wagons and sharpened scissors and mended pots and wove baskets, about the Catholics, about the Protestants, the Reformed and the Jews, about the Hungarians, the Germans and the Croatians. Nonetheless, he had always wondered one thing, which he had always kept to himself: what kind of homeland is it that only becomes one in memory?
Jay noticed how a young woman in a red swimsuit and mirror sunglasses was watching him. She laughed shrilly and called to him, asking if he knew how much he looked like the president. And she was only saying it now because she’d looked around and hadn’t seen any bodyguards. She swam toward him.
“I can guard my own body,” Jay said. The young woman laughed. He put on the expression in the photo that had brought him here.
“Did you know,” Jay said, “that people in the Soviet Union have to wait for years for a car?”
The young woman looked at him, puzzled.
“Now, one little worker has good luck and gets a phone call saying he should come to the car dealership. The salesman hands him the purchase agreement and says he can pick up his car ten years from today. The worker asks: ‘In the morning or in the afternoon?’ ‘What difference does it make, comrade,’ says the salesman, ‘whether you pick up your car ten years from now in the morning or the afternoon?’ ‘Well,’ says the worker, ‘the plumber’s coming in the morning.’”
The young woman laughed, dipped both hands in the water, and sprayed it at him.
“For a second there I still wasn’t sure,” she said, “but that accent! Have a good day! And for God’s sake, keep us out of a nuclear war!”
Jay had been so young when he was drafted. Eighteen years old, still almost a child, but when he returned from Europe he was grown up—never to be a child again. He waded through the water, along the beach, paying no attention to the people looking at him. How strange that here and now, on a day that was supposed to make him happy, a day he should be enjoying, he was thinking of fear and bloodshed. He was standing beneath the Californian sun, and the people around him were relaxed and cheerful like that young woman who had christened him President with water. Lucy was enjoying her first day as First Lady, while he—
Had to seize the opportunity. He didn’t want to get hit by a bullet again, lured into an ambush, or be confronted with all the pain and misery and violence he experienced every day. He no longer wanted to get to know people from their worst side.
The fate that was Lucy had his interests at heart. When his parents were as old as he was now, they had looked much older. Scarred by life—he now understood the phrase. How nice it would have been if they’d been able to experience how their little Julius Imre, born on November 9, 1926, in Oberwart or Felsőőr, had become, as Jay Immer, President of the United States of America.
The war wouldn’t let go of him. Seagulls flapped overhead, ice cream vendors hawked their wares, children drank from coconuts with straws. He didn’t think about it often, at least not on purpose. It was just that sometimes he suddenly woke up in a sweat from bad dreams, heard Lucy breathing or softly snoring next to him, crept to the bathroom, drank some water, and snuggled up with her again so he could find his way to a more peaceful sleep. How breathtaking life was. His unexciting, average life, which except for a few people was interesting only to insurance agencies, billing departments, and political parties just before elections. And now all of a sudden there was this—a chance for a new beginning.
If his parents hadn’t emigrated to the United States with him and Eduard back then, he would have been sent as a soldier to the Eastern Front, to Poland or the Soviet Union. He would have assaulted innocent civilians, seen deserters dangling from lampposts, and would probably have given his life for Führer and Fatherland and Aryan blood. He would have been one of the people he’d freed the world from as a soldier in the U.S. Army. Julius Imre versus Jay Immer. Or vice versa. And even if his contribution was a small one, he was proud of having fought against Hitler and his gang of murderers, not on the front lines, but still. Eduard, who had long been Edward or Ed, had not come back from the war. Mowed down in Normandy like thousands of other young men. His big brother, who’d wanted to be an astronaut, with whom he’d played football on the street till it got dark. Only the Italians were as good at it as Ed was. Ed, whom he admired and loved—and for thirty-seven years had seen only in his dreams. His father had accepted the news seemingly unmoved, while his mother had never gotten over it. Father hadn’t either, he realized now.
“Hey, Jay, wait up!”
He turned around to see Lucy coming toward him. She looked so happy he had to laugh.
“Look at you shuffling along! As if you had to make a decision in the Oval Office about war and peace. Aren’t you happy?”
“Sure I am. Of course. Very happy, in fact. I’ve made a decision: I’m going to quit the job.”
“Was there ever any question?”
Jay gave Lucy a hug.
“With a First Lady like you I’ll survive any assassination attempt.”
Jay spent the next day at the agency. Because they had never seen anything even approaching the opulence of the breakfast buffet, he and Lucy had eaten so much that when his measurements were taken, he needed pants with a waist two inches bigger than usual.
Jay was dabbed at and made up, his face was powdered, the hairline on his neck shaved, his hair trimmed and jauntily combed back with Brylcreem. His fingernails were manicured, his eyebrows pruned, his crow’s feet covered up with a brush. Once he had to close his eyes and then open them again as wide as possible, and then he was supposed to open his mouth slightly just to shut it again right away, but with his lips resting lightly on each other.
Jay let it happen. Being president wasn’t easy. Only when the young man with the long, blond curls—he was made up like a woman and had wonderfully shining eyes—put a tiny razor to Jay’s nostril did he flinch.
“You’ll breathe better,” the young man said, winking at him. “Your nose will be freed up, and the boogers—”
“Just make it quick. Please.”
The small round razor blade, which reminded him of a lawnmower, tickled his nasal septum. He couldn’t help but giggle and sneeze. When the little lawnmower was put to his ear a short time later, Jay closed his eyes with a sigh and let himself be subjected to anything that came along. Power and fame must be well groomed. He was doing it for Lucy. One small buzz for him, an unblocked ear for mankind.
He would even have to take off his expensive white shirt. They handed him a fresh one that was starched and smelled like lavender. They brought him an elegant black sport coat with a white pocket square, the pants (two inches wider) were hanging in the changing room, and when Jay came back, the young man who smelled like a woman put a maroon necktie on him. Jay rarely wore a necktie; even at his wedding he hadn’t worn one so elaborately tied. It occurred to him, as the young man looked contentedly at his knot, that even back then, more than thirty years ago, Lucy’s cousin had asked whether she realized how much her future husband resembled the actor Ronald Reagan. “Or the other way around,” Jay had said. The cousin laughed. It hadn’t sounded funny to him.
Jay had never been dressed by a man. The young man, whom he secretly called Cherub, brought two gilded cufflinks from his makeup table, held them up between thumb and forefinger, and beamed as if they were his own. Then he fastened Jay’s cuffs and tugged on the sleeves of the jacket, which he carefully smoothed out.
“The shirt always has to stick out a little. Or else there’s no point in having gold cufflinks.”
The young man walked once around Jay before standing right in front of him and studying his face. Then he fussed with the pocket square. Jay held his breath.
“You look fabulous. If I look that good when I’m your—"
“I’m fifteen years younger.”
The young man looked at him, uncomprehending.
“Than Reagan.”
The young man rolled his eyes and shook his head with exaggerated slowness.
“What I said was: You look fabulous.”
Casual. Natural. Thoughtful.
Determined. Empathetic. Cheerful.
Relaxed. Insightful. Steadfast.
The instructions whirred around Jay, making him dizzy. First he was sitting at the desk in the Oval Office, then he was stepping through a portal and striding down a boulevard; sitting on a park bench, sinking into the back seat of a limousine, standing a short time later at a window, getting photographed from behind and from the side; raising a champagne glass in a toast, and placing his hand over his heart while singing the national anthem, which of course he didn’t really sing in front of the photographer and her assistant; reaching for a telephone receiver, laughing at a joke he just told—and waving a lot.
Naturally he kept hearing that he should be natural. But every time he heard natural, he just felt tremendously unnatural.
“Just walk normally, walk naturally.”
But there was the camera, and he didn’t walk naturally, he walked artificially. He didn’t know what to do with his arms, and he especially didn’t know what to do with his hands. Just thinking about what would be natural made him tense up. Should they be at his sides? Should they be moving? Clasped behind his back? He’d never given a thought to the way he carried his hands.
Late in the afternoon they showed up at a studio. On a large screen was a projection of the Statue of Liberty. The sky was gray and a fierce wind was blowing, as indicated by the flapping flags. In the background, the dirty green Lady Liberty held her torch in the air as the Hudson River rippled on the screen. In front of it stood a real speaker’s lectern.
The Cherub helped Jay out of his suit coat before taking off the cufflinks and rolling up the sleeves to just below the elbows. Jay was asked to sit down on a chair; in the background, Ron nodded with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. The young man was already running his hands through Jay’s hair, tousling it, tugging on individual strands, taking a step back, sharply refreshing the part with a comb, tugging on other strands, and rumpling up Jay’s hair again before nodding enthusiastically. Then he deftly unbuttoned the top four buttons on the shirt.
“But now,” he said, “if you please. The lectern is yours.”
Jay took his place behind it.
“Last September,” Ron said, “you remember. Of course you remember, it was you who gave the speech! ‚Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.’ That’s the spirit we want. You’re pugnacious, you hold on to the lectern with both hands so you don’t clench your fists and punch the air, you say the great sentence that he ended his speech with after twenty minutes: We will make America great again.”
Jay remembered the speech while he was pounding on the lectern and an assistant pushed a huge fan toward him that was set on full speed and raised Jay’s hair. Ron was leaning against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Jay gazed beyond him.
He remembered the speech differently. He remembered its beginning, when Reagan said he was the first Republican since 1968 to appear in Democratic Hudson County, because many Democrats were also disappointed by the cronyism that was running the country. Jay especially remembered how Reagan, with a firm gaze, spoke of the Statue of Liberty behind him, of Ellis Island, where millions of people arrived from all over the world to start a new life, to work hard, and to build this wonderful shining city from which only the water was separating them. And not only this city, other cities too, and towns and farms in the United States. He spoke of their courage, their ambition, how they valued family and community, of their desire for peace and freedom, not least because so many had fled from persecution, scorn, and tyranny. All of them together had built the greatest home of freedom in history.
While Jay was thinking of these words, in his mind’s eye he saw his young parents: his father in his well-worn Sunday suit, which couldn’t conceal his rural origins; his mother in a long, white dress with a knitted vest over it. How they and their little sons, shy and hopeful in the huge Registry Room on Ellis Island after the long Atlantic crossing, joined a virtually endless line to be examined and questioned and marked with white chalk on their clothing. And he saw himself, even though he couldn’t see, even though he was not able to remember the small boy who was so close and so unfamiliar to him and whose name was Julius Imre, in the midst of all those people and luggage and policemen and doctors. Now he had only the vague memory that suddenly everything was bigger by far.
While cameras flashed nonstop and Ron gave two thumbs up, it occurred to Jay that he, whose father had raved about Roosevelt and the New Deal and despised the Republicans all his life—which is why Jay had more or less naturally become a Democrat—had listened to Reagan for the first time. He liked what he heard. Reagan had started his campaign with a bow to Jay’s parents. He had stressed the difficulties that they’d taken upon themselves and talked about the simple people who are so easily forgotten.
Jay ran his hand back through his shock of black hair, looked angrily at the fan, grasped the lectern with both hands, and leaned far forward.
Without you, he thought, Mama, Papa, as he moved his lips soundlessly, I wouldn’t be here. And if it weren’t for Here, I’d be a different person, or maybe I wouldn’t even exist anymore. And without Lucy I’d be a washed-up policeman.
“Great,” Ron cried, “fantastic! Tears in your eyes! Big emotions! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Lucy was tired from the sun and Jay was tired from the hours of posing, and even if they’d planned to explore Los Angeles at least a little, on their last evening they stayed in their room. They wanted nothing more than to take it with them.
In white bathrobes they lay on a huge bed with a comfortable mattress. The room was as big as the living room in their White House. You could adjust the lights by remote control, and images passed soundlessly over the television screen. As long as they didn’t order lobster three times a day they could order whatever they wanted, Ron had said, and needless to say the agency would pay for it. Needless to say, Jay had never eaten lobster—and had never really wanted to. He could also do without mussels, squid, and other sea creatures. He opened his second can of beer from the minibar, and Lucy drank sparkling water and orange juice.
“To our presidency, you forger!”
“Just keep your feet on the ground, you most powerful man in the world.”
They lay back on the big fluffy pillows. They each had their own little bed tray, which a Black employee in a white suit with a black bow tie had carefully set down while politely asking them to just stay in bed and let themselves be pampered. On each tray table stood a china plate with the hotel’s crest on it, and on the massive desk across from the bed, in front of a large mirror, sat the brass hoods the employee had lifted from their plates with a smile, before wishing them a nice evening and disappearing.
“A knife and fork,” Jay said, “are they nuts? Who eats a burger with a knife and fork? Not to mention French fries!”
“I do. And the upper crust does. The thing is so humongous it’s impossible to get it in your mouth with your hands.”
“I can.”
“That’s why you look like you’ve just been through another assassination attempt.”
Jay looked at his bathrobe. It was splotched with streaks of red and yellow. For a moment he was afraid he’d have to pay for the cleaning. Then he remembered the agency’s needless to say.
“The corners of your mouth! Like a little kid!”
In spite of that, Jay left the knife and fork lying on the floor. He reached for the cloth napkin he’d tossed down by the bed and smoothed it out over his chest.
“Aren’t I a fine gentleman? Almost a Frenchman.”
“This is the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten.”
“Beef from Argentina. At least that’s what the menu says.”
“What do you suppose he’s doing right now?”
“Who?”
“The president.”
“Eating lobster. Lobsterburger. With golden silverware.”
Jay looked at Lucy in the mirror. She had a white towel tied around her head. Her immaculate white bathrobe set off her tan even better. Despite all the sun worship, she had the skin of a young woman. In her bathroom there were countless tubes and tins with cremes whose purpose he did not know. All he knew was that their number kept growing. Stuck in the middle of her burger was the long toothpick that he hat immediately removed from his. She poked her fork into the bun and tried to cut off a piece with her knife. When applied to lettuce and meat, this operation brought certain difficulties with it. Jay grinned. Lucy tenaciously repeated the operation until she had cut the hamburger into pieces. Then she set her knife and fork down, picked up the first tidbit between her thumb and forefinger, and popped it in her mouth.
“Do you know, First Lady, what the big difference is between him and me?”
“Not divorced, married only once. Besides, you’re not the oldest president of all time.”
“But I am the first president from Burgenland.”
“Burgenland!”
She shook her head.
“You’ve never said that before! Just don’t start making pilgrimages to those folklore festivals where everyone props their crutches against the wall before they start dancing. Every club elects its own Miss Burgenland, even the funeral co-op! And none of them have even ever been there. For heaven’s sake, let’s not start in digging out roots!”
Digging out roots. Jay laughed. Sometimes he was amazed at what came out of Lucy’s mouth. And he wondered how whatever came out had gotten into her. He pictured himself in the garden digging out roots, tugging them out of the ground and shouting: a hundred percent Burgenland, seventy percent German, thirty percent Hungarian, and that makes a hundred percent German West Hungary! But when he thought about his father and his complexion—and his own—there might have been a couple percent Gypsy in there too. He saw himself lifting the roots with a bit of soil clinging to them and praising them to the neighbor. Tada! That’s me! Your president!
After dinner he sank back into the pillows, put his arm around Lucy’s shoulders, and reported to her on his day, somewhat exaggerating the size of the sweat spots under Ron’s arms. Then he told about possible gigs that Ron wanted to book him for, and about the twenty percent that the agency—
“You didn’t sign anything, did you?”
“Well, it was all happening pretty fast and—"
“Those people are cutthroats! You have to get a lawyer to check it out first!”
“Twenty percent is all right. Without Ron I wouldn’t be getting eighty.”
“They put in all kinds of conditions and restrictions and what do I know—"
Jay stood up, went to the closet, and dug a blue folder out of his backpack. Then he walked over to Lucy, bowed slightly, and placed the folder on her stomach.
“I told Ron: not before the First Lady gives it her blessing.”
25 (excerpt)
When Jay Immer climbed out of his white Lincoln in Wixom, he patted Shawn on the shoulder. The giant gently closed the door behind him, and Jay nodded in thanks. Olive green bomber jacket, khaki jeans, black sports shoes. The president was one of them. A friend of the workers, a friend of industry. He didn’t have to make an effort to smile. He beamed of his own accord. He’d started feeling anxious when he saw the distant tall white water tower with the Ford logo approaching, but now the tension had dissipated. He was ready.
It was a surprise visit. The outgoing president wanted to say goodbye to the people who made this country great. No big sensation, just a small camera team from a local broadcaster. No welcoming words, no gushing praise. It wasn’t about him; it was about the people who worked hard for themselves, their families, and the United States. He wanted to be among the people one more time. He wanted to thank them.
“Mister President,” the manager said. “It’s an honor, sir. Everything’s ready to go. Even if we did have to pull it together very quickly.”
“The honor is mine,” Jay said, extending his hand. “If something is close to my heart, even I can be spontaneous.”
Aaron and Shawn took him between them, and Sam the Third took the manager aside. The camera team followed. Pomerance had been able to arrange them for his cause.
Jay felt like he was floating on air. Something seemed to give him wings. He saw himself from behind, from the camera’s perspective. He saw his back on the screens with Farewell visit in Wixom, Michigan superimposed on them. Men and women, young and old, white and black, were cheering for him. They clapped and shouted the president’s name, while Jay Immer was led past hydraulic arms that assembled car bodies, past cranes that lifted empty automobiles into the air, past men who bolted the wheels on, to the conveyor belt that carried Lincoln Town Cars in which workers installed seats with lightning speed. A precise meshing of machines and human beings; each and every one had a task. Women polished the new cars to a high luster in no time.
It was like a dream. It was how he imagined it while he fell asleep or when he woke up in the middle of the night. Maybe there was something to the method of picturing, before falling asleep, how something great could be put into action, down to the smallest detail. To believe night after night that what seems impossible is actually possible. Because it was possible. Because with this face, in this world, at this historic moment, it was possible.
Before he knew it, Jay Immer was standing on a platform on a hydraulic lift. Sam the Third set the gym bag down next to him. Shawn and Aaron assumed their positions: two big, strong men in black suits and white shirts, with wired buds in their ears. As the platform was slowly raised, the crowd broke out in cheers.
The machines kept running. Below Jay about a hundred workers and engineers were waiting, densely packed. They waved to him and whistled and clapped. He did not have to reach for his bag. He needed no script. When he raised his arms, they gradually quieted down. This is how Reagan had been received by Congress eight years ago, after the assassination attempt. Jay waved. He was beaming. He indicated that now was good. He cleared his throat twice. The camera was directed at him.
“Do you know,” he said, “how many motor shows I’ve opened in my life? You don’t know. A lot. You can’t know, because no one reports on it. Every time I open one of those shows or fairs, I’m amazed at these miracles of technology, and in my mind I bow down before the people who produce these kinds of things. Today I bow down to you. To each and every one of you.”
He lowered his head briefly. The applause was deafening. Jay saw enraptured faces and heard ecstatic voices. He saw the camera panning from the workers to him and back again. He was live on television. He was making history. He was not a clown like Gorby.
“If I had told my grandfather about these cars, he’d have said I was crazy. On TV you see the president riding in a Cadillac Fleetwood—”
Scattered catcalls. Jay raised his hands in a calming gesture.
“But when I’m driving myself, that is when I’m not being driven or riding, I drive a beautiful white 1988 Lincoln Town Car. By the way, it’s out there in the parking lot.”
The people laughed and hooted. The manager nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s why I came to you here, and not to—”
He whispered: “Flint.”
He’d never gotten so much applause.
“To—”
He whispered: “General Motors.”
He had the crowd in his hands.
“I bow my head to your abilities, to your work, to the early morning hours and late nights, to the long shifts, to what you create here. You are the foundation of this country! You are its present moment in history!”
Jay had to pause if he didn’t want to yell. He didn’t want to yell. That was bad for his voice, bad for him. Yelling was a thing of the past for him. He bent over, took a green cap out of the gym bag, and put it on.
“You can also be its future! We are at a turning point in history. It’s not about me. I’m no spring chicken. It’s about your children, and your children’s children. About our children’s children. It’s about this planet! Today I must tell you something. I will be honest with you.”
Jay took a breath. This was his moment. Something was going on below. The two agents who had once rung his front doorbell were talking insistently with the camera crew. Jay had to catch his breath. He closed his eyes briefly. He looked down again. Right below him, Shawn and Aaron had their arms folded across their chests. He had to get to the point.
“These beautiful cars are killing our planet!”
The crowd fell silent.
“They’re polluting the air. They’re warming up the earth. They’re keeping us dependent on oil. They’re changing the cli—”
The first catcalls, the first contorted faces. At this moment, Jay Immer saw the cameraman lowering his camera. The agents were looking up at Jay while they cut their way through the crowd. They were signaling to him in no uncertain terms that the party was over. He was no longer live. His face no longer protected him.
“So what’s gonna happen to us?” someone yelled. He was met with excited agreement.
“Does your Town Car run on nuts?” a woman shouted.
“Bring him down here!”
“But this is—”
Jay braced himself against the panic that threatened to overcome him. He was alone with these people who were no longer favorably disposed toward him. He wouldn’t be the first one to be rendered harmless by the Secret Service. The agents were struggling through the crowd, badges displayed, heading for Shawn and Aaron.
“We want a planet,” Jay said, “where people can live. We have to think in the long term, not by presidential terms! We’re selling off the future of our planet and of our descendants for the sake of the powerful interests of the present day. Think of your paycheck, then think of the profits Ford is taking in. Ladies and gentlemen, we can build cars—you can build cars—that run on green energy, that don’t burn gas, that will take the pressure off our atmosphere and will allow our children and grandchildren to breathe. So that there is still an Antarctica and penguins when they are born. So that the coral reefs survive. So that the beauty of our planet is preserved. You can build trains and lay tracks all across this land. That’s why you are the future of this Earth!”
A surge of applause, mixed with shrill whistles and jeers. Some of them were cheering for him again, and others were giving him the finger.
“What does it say on that hat?”
“MEGA!” a woman screamed.
“Let’s make America great again?” Jay paused; it got quieter. “Again? We are great. We can become even greater. All of us together.”
The agents were standing in front of Shawn and Aaron. Shawn and Aaron were not moving. From below, fists were being brandished at him. He saw faces full of hate; faces like he hadn’t seen since the war. Some people were clapping too. Some were smiling at him again. Two men were brawling. The manager looked at Jay reproachfully. Jay lifted up the gym bag and threw the green caps into the crowd.
“Make Earth Green Again!”
Translated by Geoffrey C. Howes