Free Democracy by Joan Didion Page A

meticulously pressed fatigues and French aviator glasses she had worn the year before in Havana. There was Janet, dressed entirely in pink, pink sandals, a pink straw hat, a pink linen dress with rickrack. “I thought pink was the navy blue of the Indies,” Janet had said in the Cathay Pacific lounge at Hong Kong.
    “India,” Inez had said. “Not the Indies. India.”
    “India, the Indies, whatever. Same look, n ’ est-ce pas? ”
    “Possibly to you,” Frances Landau said.
    “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “It means I don’t quite see why you decided to get yourself up like an English royal touring the colonies.”
    Janet had assessed Frances Landau’s fatigues, washed and pressed to a silvery patina, loose and seductive against Frances Landau’s translucent skin.
    “Because I didn’t bring my combat gear,” Janet had said then.
    Inez did not remember exactly why Janet had been along (some domestic crisis, a ragged season with Dick Ziegler or a pique with Dwight Christian, a barrage of urgent telephone calls and a pro forma invitation), nor did she remember exactly under what pretext Frances Landau had been along (legislative assistant, official photographer, drafter of one preliminary report or another, the use of Bahasa Indonesian in elementary education on Sumatra, the effects of civil disturbance on the infrastructure left on Java by the Dutch), but there they had been, in the customs shed of the Jakarta airport, along with nineteen pieces of luggage and two book bags and two tennis rackets and the boogie boards that Janet had insisted on bringing from Honolulu as presents for Jessie and Adlai. Jack Lovett had picked up the tennis rackets and handed them to the embassy driver. “A tennis paradise here, you don’t mind the ballboys carry submachine guns.”
    “Let’s get it clear at the outset, I don’t want this visit tainted,” Harry Victor had said.
    “No embassy orchestration,” Billy Dillon said.
    “No debriefing,” Harry Victor said.
    “No reporting,” Billy Dillon said.
    “I want it understood,” Harry Victor said, “I’m promising unconditional confidentiality.”
    “Harry wants it understood,” Billy Dillon said, “he’s not representing the embassy.”
    Jack Lovett opened the door of one of the embassy cars double-parked outside the customs shed. “You’re parading through town some night in one of these Detroit boats with the CD 12 plates and a van blocks you off, you just explain all that to the guys who jump out. You just tell them. They can stop waving their Uzis. You’re one American who doesn’t represent the embassy. That’ll impress them. They’ll back right off.”
    “There’s a point that should be made here,” Frances Landau said.
    “Trust you to make it,” Janet said.
    Frances Landau ignored Janet. “Harry. Billy. See if you don’t agree. The point—”
    “They’ll lay down their Uzis and back off saluting,” Jack Lovett said.
    “This sounds like something Frances will be dressed for,” Janet said.
    “—Point I want to make is this,” Frances Landau said. “Congressman Victor isn’t interested in confrontation.”
    “That’s something else he can tell them.” Jack Lovett was looking at Inez. “Any points you want to make? Anything you want understood? Mrs. Victor?”
    “About this friend of Inez’s,” Frances Landau had said later that night at the hotel.
    Inez was lying on the bed in the suite that had finally been found for her and Harry and the twins. There had been a mix-up about whether they were to stay at the hotel or at the ambassador’s residence and when Harry had insisted on the hotel the bags had to be retrieved from the residence. “We always put Codels at the residence,” the junior political officer had kept saying. “This Codel doesn’t represent the embassy,” Jack Lovett had said, and the extra rooms had been arranged at the desk of the Hotel Borobudur and Jack Lovett had left and the junior political