Epilogue

“The First Lady
of Our Hearts”

This last Christmas I went home, as I have on many major anniversaries over the years, to be with my parents in Punxsutawney. They are in their eighties, now, filled with years and the honor given them by a large and close-knit family. There amid my brothers and sisters and their families, I renewed my faith in the simple goodness of America, the strong roots from which I come, the kindness of decent folk toward one another. Essentially, I suppose, I am still little Anna Kowalczek from Punxsutawney, PA. I sometimes think Anna Hastings lives in some other world, though I know we are the same. A tribute, an homage, a strengthening, a renewal—such have been my visits home. It is good for me to remember the simple sod from which I sprang.

—ANNA HASTINGS, by Anna Hastings

“Ed,” she said a week before the holiday, her voice sounding oddly nervous and tense over the phone, “where are you going to be for Christmas?”

“I’ve been planning to go to my sister in Florida,” I said. “Why, have you got a better offer?”

“Well, I was thinking,” “she said carefully. “You went to Florida last year, didn’t you?”

“Every year. It’s a family ritual. Why?”

“Well, I was just wondering if—if maybe this time you might like to—to come home with me to Punxsutawney. I’ve talked to Bess and Tal and they’re going to come. It would be great to have the team together. LeRoy and Kate are going, too, so we can all ride up in the Continental.”

“You haven’t heard from the kids,” I said quietly, and for just a second her voice broke.

“N—no. So I thought maybe it would be great fun to have you all with me. If,” she added with a rare humility that I could tell was genuine, “you would be—be willing to, that is. You know my family, they’re nice, you’ll enjoy being with them. Do you think maybe—? It would really mean an awful lot to me.”

“Why, sure, Anna,” I said, wondering how I was going to break the news to my own family, who would not be happy. “If you need us, we’ll be there.”

“I think I do,” she said in a lost-little-girl voice that threatened for just a moment to give way to tears but with great determination did not. “Yes, I think maybe I do.”

“O.K. I’ll look forward to it.”

“Bless you all,” she said. “You’re my own true friends.”

And only, I thought. And only.

So early on December 24 we started out to join the long last-minute caravans out of the District to neighboring states and cities. The day was cold, gray, crisp, threatening snow, but the big car was snug and warm as LeRoy piloted us carefully north through the bare-branched countryside. Kate had made up a picnic lunch, the built-in bar Gordon had ordered installed when he got the car three years ago was full of goodies, and before long we were all talking a blue streak and having a great time. Anna’s noticeable depression as we pulled away from empty Patowmack House began to lighten as we went along; in a little while she was chatting away as gaily as the rest of us. As she had predicted, more wistful than then convinced, it really was great fun to be together again, out for a lark, relaxed and happy, all else forgotten. By the time we reached Punxsutawney in the afternoon Bessie, Tal and I were thoroughly glad we had come. We could see it was doing wonders for Anna, and that was still, in the old loyal way that by now was not only habit but almost instinct, our most important concern.

As we drove into town LeRoy suddenly spoke up in a delighted voice. “Why, Mrs. Hastings! Look at that!”

And there, just beneath “PUNXSUTAWNEY CITY LIMITS,” was another sign, obviously new, gleaming white through the gloomy day:

HOME OF ANNA HASTINGS,

JOURNALIST, POLITICAL LEADER,

FINE CITIZEN,

GREAT AMERICAN:

PUBLISHER OF THE WASHINGTON “INQUIRER”

“Isn’t that nice,” Bessie said softly. “Isn’t that nice!”

“Oh, dear,” Anna said. “I think I’m going to cry.”

And started to for a moment until Tal said in a loud voice, “‘Now, now, Famous Publisher! Stop that nonsense! It’s Christmas Eve and we’re all here and everybody’s happy! Right? Right! And I’m going to have one more quick one before we get to the house. Join me, anybody?”

“Sure,” I said, against my better judgment but anything to divert Anna. “Bess?”

“Oh, what the hell!” she said, holding out her glass. “Come on, Anna! All we can do is fall at your folks’ feet when we come in the door.”

“They’re Polish,” Anna said, brightening up with a chuckle. “They like people who enjoy life. My dad in particular can handle a few. But make mine light if you will, Tal … light, I said! Somebody has to be dignified when we get there.”

“We will defer to our ’stinguished—’stinguished leader,” Tal said solemnly. “The Firsh—Firsh Lady of Our Harsh!”

Which struck us all as mightily amusing as we turned into the Kowalczek’s quiet residential street and came finally to the modest house where her folks had lived for more than sixty years. (“I’ve tried to buy them a bigger one,” Anna told me years ago, “but they won’t have it. They’re happy where they are, so that’s fine with me.”) Seven or eight cars were already there; from the house came a loud babble of happy talk. The three brothers, two sisters, respective in-laws and kids had obviously already taken over.

It had been probably ten years since we had been to Anna’s home. She used to invite us up now and again for family occasions, and about once a year her parents or some brother or sister, and family, would come down to Washington for a few days, stay at Patowmack House to enjoy the exciting and alien life of their glamorous relative; but in recent years as things had grown tenser with Gordon and the children, this had dropped off, though the kids continued to go up to Punxsutawney from time to time. So we knew everybody in a general way, but of course by this time there were older kids, more kids, aging sisters, older brothers, fewer hairs, grayer hairs, more wrinkles, extra pots. Family life: lots of years and lots of changes. We were instantly swept into the warm embrace of the Kowalczeks: hailed by Kowalczeks, kissed by Kowalczeks, hands shaken by Kowalczeks, backs slapped by Kowalczeks, smothered in Kowalczeks. Everybody talked at once, nobody listened, everybody had a marvelous time.

Anna’s parents, still a little in awe of their famous daughter and her Washington friends after all these years, greeted us shyly, two little old dried-up people who peered up at us with bright little smiles and bright little eyes that didn’t miss a thing. Both of them hugged Anna with a special fierceness that told how glad they were to see her, how much they loved her, how proud of her they were; how sorry they were that she couldn’t bring her own family, how much they wanted her to be happy. Again she came close to tears, but with extra hilarity from us and from brothers and sisters who also perceived this, we all managed to keep things light and roaring. Family gossip took over for a while and we became lost in a sea of names and interlocking events that meant little to us but were obviously great for Anna, who became so immersed in questioning that presently she even lapsed into a little rusty Polish, which brought cheers and applause from everybody. By now she was truly home.

Sometime in the early dusk somebody shouted in English, “Evening star!—” and then, “Wigilia!” which we guessed meant “Vigil.” Mother Kowalczek clapped her hands together solemnly; everybody moved toward the tables that had been set up in the dining room, the living room and the tiny den. There were three, each with twelve place settings—eleven for the family, one of the brothers explained to me, the twelfth for a stranger—in the old country in the old days, it might be left vacant for Christ Himself.

“This time it’s you guys,” he said with an amiable chuckle. “None of you looks very holy, but we’re sure glad to have you.” So, one at each table, Bess, Tal and I led the way and the family followed, pausing only for the opłatek ceremony before sitting down.

The older kids, who were doing the serving, passed opłatki, unleavened flour wafers stamped with figures of Christ and angels. We were instructed to break them into little pieces and pass them around the tables as far as they would go, everybody wishing everybody else health, happiness and prosperity, the loudest of all being Mother and Father Kowalczek, who jointly presented a piece to Anna and in determined little voices cried, “Dear Anna, happiness!” Which of course brought on another tight moment. But she managed—a little better, I think, than Bessie, Tal and I did, right then.

Then we sat down, Kate, LeRoy and I at Anna’s table, while the kids brought on the nine-course meal, which, since Christmas Eve is traditionally a fast day, contained no meat. We dined on barszcz, a soup made from sour oatmeal containing, so the sister on my right explained to me, spoonfuls of grzyby, mushrooms, and ziemiaki, mashed potatoes.

This was followed by a course of ryba, or fish (and plenty of wine, which made things even merrier), and then by platters of pierogi, boiled dough turnovers filled with kapusta, sauerkraut, and śliwki, prunes.

After a couple of hours of this, thoroughly awash in food, wine, harmony and contentment, we sat back while one of Anna’s nephews played the piano and everybody sang kolędy, Polish carols in which the three of us and Kate and LeRoy joined with some determined humming that won us an amused round of applause at the end. Then suddenly it was eleven and everybody was bustling about stacking dishes, gathering coats, going to the bathroom, making last-minute repairs before leaving for midnight mass.

Anna had long since strayed from the Church; Bessie, Tal and I were Protestants of no particular persuasion; Kate and LeRoy were real, old-fashioned, down-South Southern Baptists; but as Anna said, “It won’t hurt any of us to be prayed over, no matter who does it.” So in a few minutes the party was walking amicably along toward the local church, which was only six or seven blocks from the elder Kowalczek’s home.

We walked slowly, Anna and two of her brothers in the lead, the rest of us straggling along in no particular order. There came a moment when I was alone. I became aware that I was being overtaken. Mother and Father Kowalczek, trotting along like two determined little bundled-up chipmunks, appeared puffing and twinkling at my side.

“That Anna,” her father said presently after catching his breath, voice lowered so the others would not hear. “She is very famous.”

“Very,” I agreed.

“She has much power in great places.”

“Yes, much.”

“Is she happy?”

I turned and looked down into their earnest faces, shadowed with worry for this awesome and, I am sure to them (and hell, not only to them, of course), unknowable child, and decided there would be no point in lying.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I don’t think she is, really. But she manages.”

“Yes,” her father said heavily. “We all manage. But we had hoped for something better for our Anna, when she became so famous.”

“She has what she wants,” I said.

“She doesn’t have what her brothers and sisters have,” her mother said. “She doesn’t have family.”

“No,” I agreed. “They’ve gone away. But they may come back.”

“I don’t think so,” her mother said. “I worry for my Anna.”

“Don’t you think her old friends do?”

“I know,” she said, placing a light little hand on my arm. “I know, I’m sorry. We are very grateful for what you three have done for Anna, all these years. Sometimes we think about her and you are our only hope.”

“We try to help her.”

“Can anybody?” her father asked heavily. “Is it possible?”

“I don’t know,” I said soberly, “but I know we three are going to keep right on trying.”

 

And so we have, and so we do, and so we always will, as the years march on for the Old Team and we draw further and further away from those wonderful, bright, untarnished years of the Senate and R Street and youth and idealism and corridor-tramping together for news stories on the Hill. The four brave ghosts are with us still—somewhere. And brightest of them all is Anna’s—somewhere.

The kids, to date, have not come back, and there is very little sign that they will. Gordie has dropped college and gone home to run the Circle H: he loves it. Lisa has decided to finish at Smith and then go into decorating: she loves that, too, and she is very good at it. Every couple of months they meet here in Washington, and then Bess and I get a phone call, and we take them out to lunch or dinner. They ask after Anna, though they never go near the house and we never tell her they have been here; and usually they both wind up crying, and we cry too, and nothing resolves itself and we all part with bittersweet farewells and the earnest promise that maybe next time—but next time doesn’t come. And we see Anna quite often, for she calls us frequently to the paper for advice as in the old days, and on quite frequent occasions we will have a meal with her and a chance to really talk. And she almost—almost—cries too, although the other day at Sans Souci when I accused her of it, she dashed her hand across her eyes, gave me a defiant look and said vigorously:

“Nonsense! I won’t cry! Anna Hastings doesn’t cry!”

“We’ve known a few times when you did,” Bessie said.

“Yes,” she conceded. “But not ever again. For anything or anybody.”

And so it goes on, all three unfortunately being possessed more of her iron than of Gordon’s placid amicability.

Professionally, the Inquirer and Hastings Communications continue to flourish. So does their owner. She remains one of Washington’s great hostesses, and in her profession by now she has received so many awards, so many kudos, so many flattering articles, respectful interviews, worshipful references, that there is probably no woman in America, probably in the world, who is better known or better liked by the public than Anna Hastings. She alternates with the Queen for No. 1 on “World’s Most Admired Woman” lists and never lacks for praise.

Politically, she is, as she puts it, “in reserve.” Her relations with the White House are close again—I think the candidate regrets his burbling convention statement that after November he would “look to you to help and guide me in all I do,” because she does, via column, editorial and frequent telephone call. There has been talk from time to time that he would appoint her to something—Ambassador to the Court of Saint James was one firm offer, but she turned him down, much to his secret chagrin. He had thought Grosvenor Square would be far enough away so he couldn’t be bothered: she preferred to remain on H Street, next to typewriter and telephone.

“I still may run for something,” she says dreamily once in a while. “I still may.”

But I don’t really think she will. She has too much clout where she is.

Bessie, Tal and I go along about the same. Anna had Bess help her rush out her autobiography immediately after the Vice Presidential caper, “just to lay the groundwork,” as she put it to us with a chuckle, and since then Bess has been occupied with more of her inside books on the offbeat side of official Washington. They sell very well (Anna’s of course was the best: it’s already hit 250,000 in hardback, the paperback has just begun to roll, and the movie is going to give it an extra zap for a while) and Bessie seems quite content. She still tries to diet occasionally, but it’s a lost cause and she knows it.

“Damn it, Bess,” Tal said impatiently last time we were all together and she was debating a hot fudge sundae, “go ahead and have it. What’s a pound to you, for Christ’s sake?”

“A girl still has her illusions,” she agreed cheerfully as she ordered it, “but I don’t let mine stand in the way of my appetite.”

Tal is still running the news side of the Inquirer pretty much as he pleases, aside from the occasional cautionary interferences from Anna, and probably will until he retires. He has never referred to our conflict at the hearing, nor have I. We still have lunch together from time to time and I suppose there are still colleagues in Washington who are puzzled by this, as I think perhaps some of them have always been puzzled by our rather odd but enduring foursome.

It seems odd to me sometimes, too, but then something will happen such as happened to me the other day when I was on the Hill attending a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on SALT II. It turned out to be dull, without much real column material. I left early and started walking back through the office buildings to the Senate side of the Capitol.

Far down the hall I saw three youngsters, two boys and a girl. (How they would have been insulted by those terms!—they were probably at least twenty-two.) They were carrying pads and ball-point pens, a clutch of press releases, frayed copies of the day’s Inquirer and Post. They possessed an earnest and harried air.

They started toward me, then stopped suddenly to debate something. As I came nearer they looked at each other, walked a few steps, came to a big oaken door, turned abruptly and went in. “MR. BAKER, TENNESSEE,” it said. I hope they got the story they were after.

That’s why we’re still together, I think: that and the general interest and excitement of being around Anna.

As Seab predicted so long ago, bless his heart, it’s been quite a skeerazzle.

Yes, sir.

Quite a skeerazzle.

 

May-August, 1976