IT WAS THURSDAY morning on the east coast of the United States and almost every major city center in the world had the appearance of midtown Manhattan after Broadway shows had let out. There were crowds without any sense of destination with people walking to nowhere, shouting in joy, and holding newspapers in their native languages so the short, huge headlines could be seen by others, and almost everyone seemed to have a camera to make a permanent image of their own on a day that would be known in all places for all time to come. All of this took place in cities throughout the world despite the warnings of the possibility of improvised explosive devices left behind by retreating revolutionaries, and despite the ruins of the cities in which they celebrated and despite images ingrained in their heads of what had happened in the seeming eternity of ten days.
And in the real Times Square of the real New York City there were crowds that exceeded its usual New Years Eve except it was day and it was in the summer and there seemed to be hundreds of sailors scattered throughout the crowd all in navy-blue uniforms and there were just as many, or maybe more young women dressed as nurses in white dresses and white stockings. Whether these people were all really sailors and nurses was doubtful, but some of them probably were and they were kissing each other with the sailors and possible-sailors bending the nurses and possible-nurses backward in embrace, in attempted duplication of the 1945 Alfred Eisenstaedt photo whose prominence had endured so many decades as it became a symbol of the end of World War II. But the buildings of Times Square now could not be compared with the buildings of Times Square in 1945, nor could they be compared with the buildings of Times Square less than two weeks back. Some of them were no longer there. Some of their remnants were on the streets. There were yellow tapes everywhere around ruins including the headless statue of George M. Cohan.
In Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania Avenue was closed as a quickly scheduled parade was held with automobile traffic being signaled by police to detour to distances that took the traffic almost to Virginia or Maryland depending on what side of the street the automobiles happened to be heading. Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue and most of the numbered streets they intersected were also closed as fleets of Homefront Inspection Vans transporting those whose instruments could find improvised explosive devices, and for trucks picking up the already inspected ruins.
The Pennsylvania Avenue parade was scheduled to end after making the bend to 15th Street up to the Treasury Building and to stop there rather than making the turn of the Avenue to go as far northwest as the White House, but that didn’t stop huge crowds from gathering outside the White House filling the Avenue and filling Lafayette Park across the street and all the adjoining streets. Unlike so many demonstrations in front of the White House through the pre-war years, many of the people held banners saying, “Thank God You’re Safe, Mr. President” and “Wadsworth Forever!” and “Victory!” and “We Won!” and “U.S.A.” and “It’s Over, Over Here!”
President Wadsworth was in the quiet of the White House’s Oval Office sitting on his yellow lounge chair facing Eli Jared who had his black eye-patch placed over his left eye and he was sitting on another yellow chair and so was Wayne Stuart who was in a place he had never been, and appropriately though uncharacteristically he was wearing a black suit and red tie, and was very self-conscious about his long and full hair that he did not have an opportunity to have cut for this meeting.
The appearance of the Oval Office was remarkably the same as it had always been. It looked as though the invaders intentionally did little damage to it or whatever damage that might have been done had been removed and pre-invasion appearances were quickly restored in the day since victory. The flag of the United States and the flag of the presidency and the flags of the U.S. Armed Forces had made a return appearance. At least on the surface, the Oval Office looked as it had looked during the normal days of the Wadsworth Administration.
President Wadsworth, very characteristically, was at least attempting to look at ease on that yellow lounge chair, his legs crossed and smoking a cigarette. “Let me give you the schedule. As you know, full constitutional law has been restored just as you wrote on your Executive Order, Eli. I re-executed it last night. The restoration of all monuments, memorials, shrines, and national properties will be underway in full next Monday with some of them starting today. I am calling for tomorrow, Friday, to be a Day of Prayer for those taken from us and a day of thanksgiving that the enemy has been defeated.
“Eli, tomorrow night I want you to make a speech to a Joint Session of the Congress. It was a decision that was unanimously endorsed by the members of the Congress that we could contact. Mr. Stuart, because of the high recommendation of Mr. Jared, on Saturday morning at ten o’clock here in the Oval Office I am making a presentation to you. It’s the Medal of Freedom. That, Mr. Stuart, is the highest civilian award a president can bestow on anyone.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You should know that was the first recommendation President Jared gave me.”
Wayne Stuart turned to face Eli Jared. “Thank you.” And then he turned to President Wadsworth. “Thank you.”
President Wadsworth nodded. “You are so welcome, Mr. Stuart.” He turned his head to Eli Jared. “Also Eli, as you recommended, I will give the Distinguished Service Medal to Secretary Desmond and to Admiral Keith Kaylin. Now, I am positive that some committee of the Congress or any number of committees will ask for a report on what happened during those ten days the Surviving Executive Branch of the United States was in operation and you might designate some of your people to start working on that. In fact, you might as well have them make it a report for me at my request, and then you will have all the material for the Congress when their committees ask for the same kind of thing. The only difference between them and me is that they will probably ask you questions for days and days. I only have praise.
“Mr. Stuart, I have a couple of souvenirs for you, that is if they have been replenished this morning. Let us see,” and he walked to his desk and opened its top left-side drawer. Then he nodded. “Here is a tie-clasp for you. It has the presidential seal and all that—and some cuff links—and something else, and this one I know is here.” He walked to the white shelves that held knick-knacks and a few books. He took one book off the shelf. “The inspection team found this book here this morning. It’s in Arabic. You can tell your grandchildren that this book was left behind in the Oval Office by the enemies of the United States some time during the ten days of their take-over and given to you by the President of the United States the day after victory—the victory you did so much to bring about.”
Wayne Stuart shook his head and said the now-familiar “thank you” that he had said so many times during this visit.
“Mister President,” Eli Jared asked, “how were you able to put together such intense inspections throughout the nation with so many vacancies in the bureaucracy to do the work, and probably thousands who have yet to get in touch with their own departments and agencies?”
“What was it Kennedy said? When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Also, there is the unsaid rule of government: The smaller the bureaucracy, the more you can achieve.”
Eli Jared nodded. “No. You certainly can’t say that publicly but I know what you’re saying is true.” And Eli Jared took a big brown cigar from his suit-jacket pocket. And there was the President of the United States lighting it for him. Eli Jared continued, “I remember the most successful days of NASA were when it was just starting. That’s when it had no bureaucracy. None. Its headquarters were small enough to be located in the Dolley Madison House on ‘H’ Street across from Lafayette Square where Dolley Madison lived after President Madison died. Just up the street from here. I think it had about twelve people working there. God, what they did! Remember that, Mister President?”
He nodded with a smile. “I do. Eli, can you stick around for a while? I know you probably want to get to writing your speech for tomorrow night, but if you can, let’s have a bite and talk.”
“Of course, Mister President. I’d like that. Frankly, I would like to hear what you’ve been through while I’ve been hiding at Sebotus!”
“And I want to hear what you have been doing for the past ten days in that little facility of yours in Virginia! Isn’t it something? For as long as our generations last, no matter where they were, people will be talking about what they went through and asking their friends what they went through. Almost everyone in the United States and in so much of the world went through what we all thought humans could not endure—some of them didn’t—but some like us, are fortunate enough to be able to talk about it. Or maybe it isn’t so fortunate for us. All of us are wounded, some deeper than others, but all of us are wounded . . . severely.” He paused and there is nothing more silent than the Oval Office when no one is saying anything.