The Aquaintaine Progession

  The Aquaintaine Progession

  The Aquaintaine Progession

  The Aquaintaine Progession

  The Aquaintaine Progession

  PART ONE

  Geneva. City of sunlight and bright reflections. Of billowing white sails on the lake sturdy, irregular buildings above, their rippling images on the water below. Of myriad flowers surrounding blue-green pools of fountains duets of exploding colors. Of small quaint bridges arching over the glassy surfaces of man-made ponds to tiny man-made islands, sanctuaries for lovers and friend sand quiet negotiators. Reflections.

  Geneva, the old and the new. City of high medieval walls and glistening tinted glass, of sacred cathedrals and less holy institutions. Of sidewalk cafes and lakeside concerts, of miniature piers and gaily painted boats that chug around the vastshoreline, the guides extolling the virtues and theestimated value of the lakefront estates that surelybelong to another time.

  Geneva. City of purpose, dedicated to the necessity of dedication, frivolity tolerated only when intrinsic to the agenda or the deal. Laughter is measured, controlled glances conveying approval of sufficiency or admonishing excess. The canton by the lake knows its soul. Its beauty coexists with industry, the balance not only accepted but jealously guarded.

  Geneva. City also of the unexpected, of predictability in conflict with sudden unwanted revelation, the violence of the mind struck by bolts of personal lightning.

  Cracks of thunder follow; the skies grow darkand the rains come. A deluge, pounding the angry waters taken by surprise, distorting vision, crashing down on the giant spray, Geneva’s trademark on the lake, the jet d ear, that geyser designed by man todazzle man. When sudden revelations come, thegigantic fountain dies. All the fountains die andwithout the sunlight the flowers wither. The brightreflections are gone and the mind is frozen.

  Geneva. City of inconstancy.

  * * *

  Joel Converse, attorney-at-law, walked out ofthe hotel Richemond into the blinding morning sunlight on the Jardin Brunswick. Squinting, heturned left, shifting his attache case to his righthand, conscious of the value of its contents butthinking primarily about the man he was to meetfor coffee and croissants at Le Chat Botte, asidewalk cafe across from the waterfront. “Re-meet”was more accurate, thought Converse, if the manhad not confused him with someone else.

  A. Preston Halliday was Joel’s Americanadversary in the current negotiations, the finalisingof last-minute details for a Swiss-American mergerthat had brought both men to Ge neva. Althoughthe remaining work was minimal formalities,really, research having established that theagreements were in accord with the laws of bothcountries and acceptable to the International Courtin The Hague Halliday was an odd choice. He hadnot been part of the American legal team fielded bythe Swiss to keep tabs on Joel’s firm. That in itselfwould not have excluded him fresh observationwas frequently an asset but to elevate him to theposition of point, or chief spokesman, was, to saythe least, unorthodox. It was also unsettling.

  Halliday’s reputation what little Converse knewof it was as a troubleshooter, a legal mechanicfrom San Francisco who could spot a loose wire, ripit out and short an engine. Negotiations coveringmonths and costing hundreds of thousands had beenaborted by his presence, that much Converserecalled about A. Preston Halliday. But that was allhe recalled. Yet Halliday said they knew each other.

  “It’s Press Halliday,” the voice had announced over the hotel phone. “I’m pointing for Rosen in the Comm Tech-gem merger.”

  “What happened?”Joel had asked, a mutedelectric razor in his left hand, his mind trying tolocate the name; it had come to him by the timeHalliday replied.

  “The poor bastard had a stroke, so his partnerscalled me in.” The lawyer had paused. “You musthave been mean, counselor.”

  “We rarely argued, counselor. Christ, I’m sorry,I like Aaron. How is he?”

  “He’ll make it. They’ve got him in bed and on adozen versions of chicken soup. He told me to tellyou he’s going to check your finals for invisible ink.”

  “Which means you "re going to check because Idon’t have any and neither did Aaron. This marriageis based on pure greed, and if you’ve studied thepapers you know that as well as I do.”

  “The larceny of investment write-offs,” agreedHalliday, “combined with a large chunk of atechnological market. No invisible ink. But since I’mthe new boy on the block, I’ve got a couple ofquestions. Let’s have breakfast.”

  “I was about to order room service.”

  “It’s a nice morning, why not get some air? I’m at the President, so let’s split the distance. Do you know the Chat Botte?”

  "American coffee and croissants. Quai du MontBlanc.- “You know it. How about twenty minutes?”

  “Make it a half hour, okay?”

  “Sure.” Halliday had paused again. “It’ll be goodto see you again, Joel.”

  “Oh? Again?”

  “You may not remember. A lot’s happened since those days . . . more to you than to me, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Well, there was Vietnam and you were aprisoner for a pretty long time.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and it was years ago.How do we know each other? What case?”

  “No case, no business. We were classmates.”

  “Duke? It’s a large law school.”

  “Further back. Maybe you’ll remember when wesee each other. If you don’t, I’ll remind you.”

  “You must like games…. Half an hour. Chat Botte.”

  As Converse walked toward the Quai du MontBlanc, the vibrant boulevard fronting the lake, hetried to fit Halliday’s name into a time frame, theyears to a school, a forgotten face to match anunremembered classmate. None came, and Hallidaywas not a common name, the short form “Press”even less so . . . unique, actually. If he had knownsomeone named Press Halliday, he could notimagine forgetting it. Yet the tone of voice hadimplied familiarity, even closeness.

  It’ll be good to see you again, Joel. He had spokenthe words warmly, as he had the gratuitous referenceto Joel’s POW status. But then, those words werealways spoken softly to imply sympathy if not toexpress it overtly. Too, Converse understood whyunder the circumstances Halliday felt he had

  to bring up the subject of Vietnam, even fleetingly.The uninitiated assumed that all men imprisoned inthe North Vietnamese camps for any length of timehad been mentally damaged, per se, that a part oftheir minds had been altered by the experience,their recollections muddled. To a degree, some ofthese assumptions were undeniable, but not with re-spect to memory. Memories were sharpened becausethey were searched compulsively, often mercilessly.The accumulated years, the layers of experience . .. faces with eyes and voices, bodies of all sizes andshapes; scenes flashing across the inner screen, thesights and sounds, images and smells touching andthe desire to touch . . . nothing of the past was tooinconsequential to peel away and explore. Fre-quently it was all they had, especially atnight always at night, with the cold, penetratingdampness stiffening the body and the infinitelycolder fear paralysing the mind memories wereeverything. They helped mute the sharp reports ofsmall-arms fire, which were gratuitously explained inthe mornings as necessary executions of the unco-operative and unrepentant. Or they blocked out thedistant screams in the dark, of even moreunfortunate prisoners forced to play games, tooobscene to describe, demanded by their captors insearch of amusement.

  Like most men kept isolated for the greater partof their imprisonment, Converse had examined andreexamined every stage of his life, trying tounderstand . . . to like . . . the cohesive whole. Therewas much that he did not understand or like buthe could live with the product of those intensiveinvestigations. Die with it, if he
had to; that was thepeace he had to reach for himself. Without it thefear was intolerable.

  And because these self-examinations went onnight after night and required the discipline ofaccuracy, Converse found it easier than most men toremember whole segments of his life. Like aspinning disk attached to a computer that suddenlystops, his mind, given only basic information, couldisolate a place or a person or a name. Repetitionhad simplified and accelerated the process, and thatwas what bewildered him now. Unless Halliday wasreferring to a time so far back as to have been onlya brief, forgotten childhood acquaintance, no one ofthat name belonged to his past.

  It’ll tee good to see you again, JoeL Were thewords a ruse, a lawyer’s trick?

  Converse rounded the corner, the brass railing ofLe Chat Botte glistening, hurling back tiny explosionsof sunlight. The boulevard was alive with gleamingsmall cars and spotless buses; the pavements werewashed clean, the strollers in various stages ofhurried but orderly progress. Morning was a time forbenign energy in Geneva. Even the newspapersabove the tables in the sidewalk cafes were snappedwith precision, not crushed or mutilated into legiblepositio"And vehicles and pedestrians were not atwar; combat was supplanted by looks and nods, stopsand gestures of acknowledgment. As Joel walkedthrough the open brass gate of Le Chat Botte hewondered briefly if Geneva could export its morningsto New York. But then the City Council would votethe import down, he concluded the citizens of NewYork could not stand the civility.

  A newspaper was snapped directly below him onhis left, and when it was lowered Converse saw aface he knew. It was a coordinated face, not unlikehis own, the features compatible and in place. Thehair was straight and dark, neatly parted andbrushed, the nose sharp, above well-defined lips. Theface belonged to his past, thought Joel, but the namehe remembered did not belong to the face.

  The familiar-looking man raised his head; theireyes met and A. Preston Halliday rose, his shortcompact body obviously muscular under theexpensive suit.

  “Joel, how are you?” said the now familiar voice,a hand outstretched above the table.

  “Hello . . . Avery,” replied Converse, staring,awkwardly shifting his attache case to grip the hand.“It is Avery, isn’t it? Avery Fowler. Taft, earlysixties.. You never came back For the senior year,and no one knew why; we all talked about it. Youwere a wrestler.”

  “Twice All New England,” said the attorney,laughing, gesturing at the chair across from his own.“Sit down and we’ll catch up. I guess it’s sort of asurprise for you. That’s why I wanted us to meetbefore the conference this morning. “ mean, it’d bea hell of a note for you to get up and scream”Impostort’ when I walked in, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m still not sure I won’t.” Converse sat down,attache case at his feet, studying his legal opponent.“What’s this Halliday routine? Why didn’t you saysomething on the phone?”

  “Oh, come on, what was I going to say? "By the way,old

  sport, you used to know me as Tinkerbell Jones.’You never would have showed up.”

  “Is Fowler in jail somewhere?”

  “He would have been if he hadn’t blown hishead off,” answered Halliday, not laughing.

  “You’re full of surprises. Are you a clone?”

  “No, the son.”

  Converse paused. " Maybe I should apologize.”

  “No need to, you couldn’t have known. It’s whyI never came back for the senior year . . . and,goddamn it, I wanted that trophy. I would havebeen the only mat jock to win it three years in arow.”

  “I’m sorry. What happened . . . or is it privilegedinformation, counselor? I’ll accept that.”

  “Not for you, counselor. Remember when youand I broke out to New Haven and picked up thosepigs at the bus station?”

  "We said we were Yalies “

  “And only got taken, never got laid.”

  “Our eyebrows were working overtime.”

  “Preppies,” said Halliday. “They wrote a bookabout us. Are we really that emasculated?”

  “Reduced in stature, but we’ll come back. We’rethe last minority, so we’ll end up getting sympathy….What happened, Avery?”

  A waiter approached; the moment was broken.Both men ordered American coffee and croissants,no deviation from the accepted norm. The waiterfolded two red napkins into cones and placed onein front of each.

  “What happened?” said Halliday quietly,rhetorically, after the waiter left. “The beautiful sonof a bitch who was my father embezzled fourhundred thousand from the Chase Manhattan whilehe was a trust officer, and when he was caught,went bang. Who was to know a respected, if trans-planted, commuter from Greenwich, Connecticut,had two women in the city, one on the Upper EastSide, the other on Bank Street? He was beautiful.”

  “He was busy. I still don’t understand the Halliday.”

  After it happened the suicide was coveredup Mother raced back to San Francisco with avengeance. We were from California, you know . .. but then, why would you? With even morevengeance she married my stepfather, John

  Halliday, and all traces of Fowler were assiduouslyremoved during the next few months.”

  "Even to your first name?”

  “No, I was always ”Press’ back in San Francisco.We Californians come up with catchy names. Tab,Troy, Crotch the 1950’s Beverly Hills syndrome. AtTaft, my student ID read “Avery Preston Fowler,’ soyou all just started calling me Avery or that awful”Ave.’ Being a transfer student, I never bothered tosay anything. When in Connecticut, follow the gospelaccording to Holden Caulfield.”

  “That’s all well and good,” said Converse, “butwhat happens when you run into someone like me?It’s bound to happen.”

  “You’d be surprised how rarely. After all it wasa long time ago, and the people I grew up with inCaiifornia understood. Kids out there have theirnames changed according to matrimonial whim, andI was in the East for only a couple of years, just longenough for the fourth and fifth forms at school. Ididn’t know anyone in Greenwich to speak of, and Iwas hardly part of the old Taft crowd.”

  “You had friends there. We were friends.”

  “I didn’t have many. Let’s face it, I was anoutsider and you weren’t particular. I kept a prettylow profile.”

  “Not on the mats, you didn’t.”

  Halliday laughed. “Not very many wrestlersbecome lawyers, something about mat burns on thebrain. Anyway, to answer your question, only maybefive or six times over the past ten years has anyonesaid to me, “Hey, aren’t you so-and-so and notwhatever you said your name was?’ when somebodydid, I told them the truth. ”My mother remarriedwhen I was sixteen.’ “

  The coffee and croissants arrived. Joel broke hispastry in half. “And you thought I’d ask the questionat the wrong time, specifically when I saw you at theconference. Is that it?”

  “Professional courtesy. I didn’t want you dwellingon it or me when you should be thinking aboutyour client. After all, we tried to lose our virginitytogether that night in New Haven.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Joel smiled.

  Halliday grinned. “We got pissed and bothadmitted it don’t you remember? Incidentally, weswore each other to secrecy while throwing up in thecan.”

  “Just testing you, counselor.I remember. So youleft the gray-flannel crowd for orange shirts andgold medallionsP”

  “All the way. Berkeley, then across the street toStanford.”

  “Good school…. How come the international field?”

  “I liked traveling and figured it was the best wayof paying for it. That’s how it started, really. Howabout you? I’d think you would have had all thetraveling you ever wanted.”

  “I had delusions about the foreign service,diplomatic corps, legal section. That’s how itstarted.”

  “After all that traveling you did?”

  Converse levered his pale blue eyes at Halliday,conscious of the coldness in his look. It wasunavoidable, if misplaced as it usually was. “Yes,after all that traveling. There were too many liesand no one told us about them until it was
too late.We were conned and it shouldn’t have happened.”

  Halliday leaned forward, his elbows on the table,hands clasped, his gaze returning Joel’s. “I couldn’tfigure it,” he began softly. “When I read your namein the papers, then saw you paraded on television,I felt awful. I didn’t really know you that well, butI liked you.”

  “It was a natural reaction. I’d have felt the sameway if it had been you.”

  “I’m not sure you would. You see, I was one ofthe honchos of the protest movement.”

  “You burned your draft card while flaunting the Yippie label,” said Converse gently, the ice gonefrom his eyes. “I wasn’t that brave.”

  “Neither was I. It was an out-of-state library card.”

  “I’m disappointed.”

  “So was I in myself. But I was visible.” Hallidayleaned back in his chair and reached for his coffee.“How did you get so visible, Joel? I didn’t think youwere the type.”

  “I wasn’t. I was squeezed.”

  “I thought you said "conned.’”

  “That came later.” Converse raised his cup andsipped his black coffee, uncomfortable with thedirection the conversation had taken. He did notlike discussing those years, and all too frequently hewas called upon to do so. They had made him outto be someone he was not. “I was a sophomore atAmherst and not much of a student…. Not much,hell, I was borderline-negative, and whateverdeferment I had was

  about to go down the tube. But I’d been Hying sinceI was fourteen.”

  “I didn’t know that,” interrupted Halliday.

  "My father wasn’t beautiful and he didn’t havethe benefit of concubines, but he was an airlinepilot, later an executive for Pan Am. It was standardin the Converse household to By before you got yourdriver’s license.”

  “Brothers and sisters?’

  “A younger sister. She soloed before I did andshe’s never let me forget it.”

  “I remember. She was interviewed on television.”

  “Only twice,” Joel broke in, smiling. “She was onyour turf and didn’t give a damn who knew it. TheWhite House bunker put the word out to stay awayfrom her. "Don’t tarnish the cause, and check hermail while you’re at it.’”