HE WANTED TO MEET AGAIN at the end of the week, following his return from Washington. There was a book he was writing for Random House, currently titled Congress and the Constitution, and a possible memoir. He’d be lunching at the Faculty Club Friday but would have an hour free in the afternoon. Let’s meet for coffee, he said. I asked him where and with a challenge in his eye he told me to choose the place. My first test.
Café Pamplona wasn’t at all the sort of place to take someone like Davis; not if you wanted to impress; not if you had an ounce of sense. It was a hangout for Euros and would-be Euros dressed in black. A certain Left Bank cool, not power, was the currency there. He would hate it on sight.
I arrived an hour early. A Spanish-style café vaguely Moorish in decoration, low-ceilinged and cramped, down a few steps from the street. The narrow ground-level windows were all sealed shut and the air was thick with cigarette smoke. The round marble-topped tables were occupied by dark-clothed bodies and pale faces, Claire’s not among them. For three days I’d been unable to stop thinking about her. Now I found a spot in the corner, ordered a cappuccino, and sat watching the entrance, vividly imagining the moment when she might walk through the door and see me and break into a huge smile. Ridiculous, of course. Foolish, idiotic … still, I sat watching.
There was plenty of time. Time to study an odd kidney-shaped puddle of water left on my table by the previous occupant; time to consider the question of my dissertation and how I should present myself to Davis.
He arrived promptly on the hour. His entrance made the café smaller. It was his legacy to leave others with a diminished personal landscape yet still with some unarticulated sense of the heightened possibility of their lives. Today his suit was navy blue and his tie yellow. He might have been a CEO or even the Gipper himself. He approached my table refusing to bow to the architecture, his head passing just inches beneath the nicotine-stained ceiling. Handing me a legal folder of impressive girth, he declared, “My manuscript,” and eased himself into a chair.
“Fifty percent done. I thought you should read what’s there before we move ahead.”
The waiter sidled over. Davis ordered a double espresso and requested that the table be cleaned; with a swipe of cloth, the puddle disappeared.
He took a look around. “Quite a little hellhole you’ve got here,” he said amicably.
I grinned with relief.
He told me more about the book he was writing. Even by historical standards, he argued, the Democrat-controlled Congress was overreaching in its attempts to thwart the president. All this smoke-and-mirrors bullshit about Iran-Contra was nothing but an excuse, he declared. A certain amount of partisanship was fine and expected, a product of human nature; but there was this slip of paper called the Constitution. We finally had a man in the White House who honored it and understood the ways in which it was designed to keep America strong. The current Congress wasn’t simply against Ronald Reagan, it was intent on distorting the literal words and institutional prerogatives expressed in the Constitution in order to bring him to his knees. His book, Davis claimed, contained a timely historical analysis of such irresponsible legislative gamesmanship and a powerful argument against it.
He sat back, his face etched with certainty. I finished my cappuccino and dabbed at my mouth with a paper napkin. I was seeing, far more clearly than I had at our first meeting, the huge gulf that separated our political beliefs and our views of the world.
He seemed to be waiting for me to comment and so I did.
“One could also argue that it’s the president and his self-aggrandized view of executive power that’s out to bring Congress to its knees,” I said.
Davis stared at me until a willowy flutter of doubt ran up my insides.
“Now listen,” he snapped. “We don’t have to agree on all the details. But we have to come together on the basic principles. My principles, to be precise. Otherwise, you understand, the deal’s off.”
“I understand.”
“And do we agree on those principles, Julian?”
I hesitated. Looking at him, weighing the possibilities. Envisioning my father’s disappointment had he been witness to this moment. Disappointment not at the squandering of professional opportunity but rather at the unseemly desire to sell out. Though with characteristic reticence he would have abstained from passing explicit judgment on me.
Then I told my new mentor what he wanted to hear.
“Good.” Davis swallowed the last of his espresso and checked his watch. “So tell me a little about yourself.”
I looked away. Through the closed windows I saw the disembodied legs of people walking in both directions. I thought how badly I’d wanted Claire to witness my collegial meeting with Professor Carl Davis of Harvard and Washington, and a mist of shame briefly clouded the bright vision of my future.
“I’m from New York,” I said. “After Columbia I spent two years working at the Council on Foreign Relations. Then I came here.”
“Right. Dixon told me.” Davis’ tone had turned buoyant; he seemed relieved to have gotten through the preliminaries and was eager now to close any gaps between us. “You must have studied with Gordon Klein at Columbia,” he said.
“He was my thesis advisor. And I took his course ‘Legislating Freedom.’ ”
“Gordon and I go back thirty years. He’s my son Peter’s godfather.” Davis’ expression was confidential. This minor personal connection we happened to share was significant to him. In an easier, more welcoming tone of voice he inquired, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Peter’s a bit younger.” He paused, regarding me with an almost paternal eye. “The other day in my office you mentioned your dissertation.”
I nodded.
“Tell me about it.”
I cleared my throat. “I intend to deal with various incarnations of the Progressive Party, their consequences and significance,” I began. “The elections of 1912, ‘24, and ‘48. Especially ‘48, with Wallace running for president—this time challenging the Democrats, not the Republicans. He gets endorsed by the Communists and the American Labor Party, attacks Truman for not working with the Soviets to end the Cold War, argues for repeal of Taft-Hartley and the reestablishment of wartime price controls. Political suicide, right? Still, a million votes in the general election made clear that without the Progressives there was no way in the world Truman would’ve made it by Dewey. Then the whole thing went bust. The Progressive Party more or less evaporated. Where’d the voters go? That’s what I want to get at. A million people isn’t small change. Professor Davis, I want to write about the continuing presence of a legitimate third-party political movement in America, an invisible, shifting group of voters that’s been waiting in the wings for forty years, looking for a viable option. The spring below the surface. I want to shine a light on that force and its long-term political consequences.”
I sat back, breathing hard.
“Interesting,” said Davis. “I think you might be onto something….”
His tone seemed truly encouraging; a prospective protégé could have hoped for nothing more. It was his attention I’d lost, perhaps some time ago. He was staring past me, toward the entrance, and he was utterly absorbed in what he saw. I turned to follow his gaze. And so I discovered that while I’d been talking Claire Marvel had entered the café and stood, now, just inside the door.