Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,17
be worshipped; he would like to be obeyed. To an extent these desires are felt by all politicians, or else they would have chosen another, less authoritarian profession. But in some cases the desires are extreme, borne of a compulsion to compensate for past humiliations—an illegitimate father, maybe, or rejection by an academic institution one aspired to attend. There chafes a sense that the world does not understand him, does not appreciate him, and so he must remake it into a world that does. Domination is not merely a fantasy but also a form of revenge for his status as a failure, a subordinate, “an outcast among outcasts”—as The New York Times would put it in an obituary of the Führer running to no fewer than thirteen thousand words.
In the kitchen stood three half bottles of Pinot Noir, a jug of Stolichnaya, and an unopened bottle of Knob Creek. Looking out the window down to the pool, where Clete was skimming impurities off the surface with a long-handled net, Alice uncapped the vodka, tipped it up for a swig, and returned to the porch.
But megalomania is not the word. Both suffix and prefix imply an excess, an incongruent sense of one’s own influence, delusion. Yet Hitler was not deluded as to the magnitude of his power. He was deluded as to the worthiness of his objectives, yes, but it does not seem possible that he could have overestimated his impact on the history of humanity. When, then, does one man’s delusion become the world’s reality? Is it every generation’s destiny to contend with a dictator’s whims? “By shrewd and constant application of propaganda,” we read in Mein Kampf, “heaven can be presented to the people as hell and, vice versa, the wretchedest experience as a paradise.” But only when the people in question fail in their duty toward vigilance. Only when through inaction we are complicit. Only when we are sleepwalking ourselves.
Another swig.
“Baby? Baby, where are you?”
A radio came on. A toilet flushed. Feet crossed the old floorboards and treaded boyishly down the stairs. Alice watched through the porch window as he went over to what looked like an old wooden munitions box, selected an album from the stack inside, and slid it ceremoniously from its sheath. A moment later there was an abrupt, furry blurting sound, followed by the tropical strains of what sounded like a luau.
Beyond the blue horizon
Waits a beautiful day
Goodbye to things that bore me
Joy is waiting for me!
Between verses he shouted through the window: “Want a drink?”
They were in the screenhouse, licking barbecue sauce from their fingers and watching a canoe glide across the glassy harbor, when a figure appeared on the lawn, approaching unsteadily through the dusk. “Virgil!” Ezra called out. “What’s the good word?”
“Mole got under my toolshed this morning but I took care of him.”
“You took care of him?”
“I took care of him.” The old man coughed, lifted the screenhouse’s door, and stooped warily to enter.
“Listen, Virgil; I’ve got a favor to ask. You know this lot over the road? The one that goes down to North Cartwright?”
“Yup.”
“Do you know who owns it?”
“Lady down in Cape Coral’s had it for years.”
“What sort of a lady?”
“My age about. Stokes, her name is. Uncle used to live in that little gray clapboard over on Williette. When he died his kids sold it to those musical fellows.”
“Well, I’d like to get in touch with Miss Stokes, if I can, because I’ve been thinking I’d like to buy that lot before someone else comes along and puts up a car wash.”
Virgil nodded, coughing again, his shoulders convulsing and the skin around his liver spots flushing a vivid shade of plum. “Darling,” Ezra said quietly. Alice nodded and went into the house; when she’d returned and handed Virgil a glass of water, Virgil said, “Thanks, Samantha.”
Later, she and Ezra were in the kitchen playing gin rummy when Alice inquired casually what one “should do out here, in case of an emergency.”
Calmly reordering his hand, Ezra replied, “You mean what should you do if we’re in the middle of doing it and my cigarette lighter goes off?”
“That sort of a thing, yes.”
“Call Virgil.”
“Ha.”
“I’m serious. Virgil’s the local EMT.”
“The local EMT is a hundred years old?”
“He’s seventy-nine years old, and he was an ambulance medic in World War Two. He was there when Patton said, ‘We’re training you bastards to kick the butts of the Japanese.’ Not that you should know who Patton was. Gin.”
He got up to go