'A divorced man,' Vera said grimly. 'God forbid he ever becomes the president.'
'What did Nixon do?' Johnny asked. 'Jesus Christ, I...' He glanced at his mother, whose brow had clouded instantly. 'I mean, holy crow, if they were going to impeach him...
'You needn't take the Savior's name in vain over a bunch of crooked politicians,' Vera said. 'It was Watergate.'
'Watergate? Was that an operation in Vietnam? Something like that?'
'The Watergate Hotel in Washington,' Herb said. 'Some Cubans broke into the offices of the Democratic Committee there and got caught. Nixon knew about it. He tried to cover it up.'
'Are you kidding?' Johnny managed at last.
'It was the tapes,' Vera said. 'And that John Dean. Nothing but a rat deserting a sinking ship, that's what I think. A common tattletale.'
'Daddy, can you explain this to me?'
'I'll try,' Herb said, 'but I don't think the whole story has come out, even yet. And I'll bring you the books. There's been about a million books written on it already, and I guess there'll be a million more before it's finally done. Just before the election, in the summer of 1972...'
2.
It was ten-thirty and his parents were gone. The lights on the ward had been dimmed. Johnny couldn't sleep. It was all dancing around in his head, a frightening jumble of new input. The world had changed more resoundingly than he would have believed possible in so short a time. He felt out of step and out of tune.
Gas prices had gone up nearly a hundred percent, his father had told him. At the time of his accident, you could buy regular gas for thirty or thirty-two cents a gallon. Now it was fifty-four cents and sometimes there were lines at the pumps. The legal speed limit all over the country was fifty-five miles an hour and the long-haul truckers had almost revolted over that.
But all of that was nothing. Vietnam was over. It had ended. The country had finally gone Communist. Herb said it had happened just as Johnny began to show signs that he might come out of his coma. After all those years and all that bloodshed, the heirs of Uncle Ho had rolled up the country like a windowshade in a matter of days.
The president of the United States had been to Red China. Not Ford, but Nixon. He had gone before he resigned. Nixon, of all people, the old witch-hunter himself. If anyone but his dad had told him that, Johnny would have flatly refused to believe.
It was all too much, it was too scary. Suddenly he didn't want to know any more, for fear it might drive him totally crazy. That pen Dr. Brown had had, that Flair -how many other things were there like that? How many hundreds of little things, all of them making the point over and over again: You lost part of your life, almost six percent, if the actuarial tables are to be believed. You're behind the times. You missed out.
'John?' The voice was soft. 'Are you asleep, John?'
He turned over. A dim silhouette stood in his doorway. A small man with rounded shoulders. It was Weizak.
'No. I'm awake.'
'I hoped so. May I come in?'
'Yes. Please do.'
Weizak looked older tonight. He sat by Johnny's bed. 'I was on the phone earlier,' he said. 'I called directory assistance for Carmel, California. I asked for a Mrs. Johanna Borentz. Do you think there was such a number?'
'Unless it's unlisted Qr she doesn't have a phone at all,' Johnny said.
'She has a phone. I was given the number.'
'Ah,' Johnny said. He was interested because he liked Weizak, but that was all. He felt no need to have his knowledge of Johanna Borentz validated, because he knew it was valid knowledge - he knew it the same way he knew he was right-handed.
'I sat for a long time and thought about it,' Weizak said. 'I told you my mother was dead, but that was really only an assumption. My father died in the defense of Warsaw. My mother simply never turned up, huh? It was logical to assume that she had been killed in the shelling... during the occupation ... you understand. She never turned up, so it was logical to assume that. Amnesia ... as a neurologist I can tell you that permanent, general amnesia is very, very rare. Probably rarer than true schizophrenia. I have never read of a documented case lasting thirtyfive years.'
'She recovered from her amnesia long ago,' Johnny said. 'I think she simply blocked everything out. When her memory did come back, she had remarried and was the mother of two children... possibly three. Remembering became a guilt trip, maybe. But she dreams of you. "The boy is safe." Did you call her?'