Read Democracy for Free Online
Authors: Joan Didion
you’d had shock treatment.”
“I see. ‘Lose track’ of what exactly?”
“Of what happened.”
“I see.”
“Of what you said. And didn’t say.”
“I see. Yes. During the campaign.”
“Well, no. During your—” Inez looked at me for help. I pretended to be absorbed in the Miami Herald . Inez emptied a dirty ashtray into the lid of a film can and sat down again. “During your whole life.”
“You mentioned shock treatment. You haven’t personally—”
“I said no. Didn’t I say no? I said ‘as if.’ I said ‘something like.’ I meant you drop fuel. You jettison cargo. Eject the crew. You lose track. ”
There was a silence. Billy Dillon cradled the telephone against his shoulder and mimed a backhand volley. “It’s a game, Inez, it’s tennis,” Billy Dillon always said to Inez about interviews. It was a routine between them. I had seen him do it that morning, when Inez said that since I had come especially to see her she did not want to do the AP interview. “Sure you do,” Billy Dillon had said. “It’s only going to last x minutes. Finite time. For those x minutes you’re here to play. You’re going to place the ball”—here Billy Dillon had paused, and executed a shadow serve—“inside the lines. The major cost of public life is privacy, Inez, that’s an easy shot. The hardest part about Washington life is finding a sitter for the Gridiron Dinner. The fun part about Washington life is taking friends from home to the Senate cafeteria for navy-bean soup. You’ve tried the recipe at home but it never tastes the same. Yes, you do collect recipes. Yes, you do worry about the rising cost of feeding a family. Ninety-nine per cent of the people you know in Washington are basically concerned with the rising cost of feeding a family. Schools. Mortgages. Programs. You’ve always viewed victory as a mandate not for a man but for his programs. Now: you view defeat with mixed emotions. Why: because you’ve learned to treasure the private moments.”
“ Private moments ,” Billy Dillon mouthed silently in the suite at the Hotel Doral.
Inez looked deliberately away from Billy Dillon.
“Here’s an example.” She lit a match, watched it burn, and blew it out. “You looked up the clips on me before you came here.”
“I did a little homework, yes.” The woman’s finger hovered over the stop button on her tape recorder. Now it was she who looked to me for help. I looked out the window. “Naturally. That’s my business. We all do.”
“That’s my point.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite—”
“Things that might or might not be true get repeated in the clips until you can’t tell the difference.”
“But that’s why I’m here. I’m not writing a piece from the clips. I’m writing a piece based on what you tell me.”
“You might as well write it from the clips,” Inez said. Her voice was reasonable. “Because I’ve lost track. Which is what I said in the first place.”
INEZ VICTOR CLAIMS SHE IS OFTEN MISQUOTED , is the way that went out on the Associated Press wire. “Somebody up there likes you, it doesn’t say INEZ VICTOR DENIES SHOCK TREATMENT ,” Billy Dillon said when he read it.
8
I HAVE never been sure what Inez thought about how her days were passed during those years she spent in Washington and New York. The idea of “expressing” herself seems not to have occurred to her. She held the occasional job but pursued no particular work. Even the details of running a household did not engage her unduly. Her houses were professionally kept and, for all the framed snapshots and studied clutter, entirely impersonal, expressive not of some individual style but only of the conventions then current among the people she saw. Nothing of the remote world in which she had grown up intruded on the world in which she later found herself: the Christians, like many island families, had surrounded themselves with the mementos of their accomplishments, with water
“I see. ‘Lose track’ of what exactly?”
“Of what happened.”
“I see.”
“Of what you said. And didn’t say.”
“I see. Yes. During the campaign.”
“Well, no. During your—” Inez looked at me for help. I pretended to be absorbed in the Miami Herald . Inez emptied a dirty ashtray into the lid of a film can and sat down again. “During your whole life.”
“You mentioned shock treatment. You haven’t personally—”
“I said no. Didn’t I say no? I said ‘as if.’ I said ‘something like.’ I meant you drop fuel. You jettison cargo. Eject the crew. You lose track. ”
There was a silence. Billy Dillon cradled the telephone against his shoulder and mimed a backhand volley. “It’s a game, Inez, it’s tennis,” Billy Dillon always said to Inez about interviews. It was a routine between them. I had seen him do it that morning, when Inez said that since I had come especially to see her she did not want to do the AP interview. “Sure you do,” Billy Dillon had said. “It’s only going to last x minutes. Finite time. For those x minutes you’re here to play. You’re going to place the ball”—here Billy Dillon had paused, and executed a shadow serve—“inside the lines. The major cost of public life is privacy, Inez, that’s an easy shot. The hardest part about Washington life is finding a sitter for the Gridiron Dinner. The fun part about Washington life is taking friends from home to the Senate cafeteria for navy-bean soup. You’ve tried the recipe at home but it never tastes the same. Yes, you do collect recipes. Yes, you do worry about the rising cost of feeding a family. Ninety-nine per cent of the people you know in Washington are basically concerned with the rising cost of feeding a family. Schools. Mortgages. Programs. You’ve always viewed victory as a mandate not for a man but for his programs. Now: you view defeat with mixed emotions. Why: because you’ve learned to treasure the private moments.”
“ Private moments ,” Billy Dillon mouthed silently in the suite at the Hotel Doral.
Inez looked deliberately away from Billy Dillon.
“Here’s an example.” She lit a match, watched it burn, and blew it out. “You looked up the clips on me before you came here.”
“I did a little homework, yes.” The woman’s finger hovered over the stop button on her tape recorder. Now it was she who looked to me for help. I looked out the window. “Naturally. That’s my business. We all do.”
“That’s my point.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite—”
“Things that might or might not be true get repeated in the clips until you can’t tell the difference.”
“But that’s why I’m here. I’m not writing a piece from the clips. I’m writing a piece based on what you tell me.”
“You might as well write it from the clips,” Inez said. Her voice was reasonable. “Because I’ve lost track. Which is what I said in the first place.”
INEZ VICTOR CLAIMS SHE IS OFTEN MISQUOTED , is the way that went out on the Associated Press wire. “Somebody up there likes you, it doesn’t say INEZ VICTOR DENIES SHOCK TREATMENT ,” Billy Dillon said when he read it.
8
I HAVE never been sure what Inez thought about how her days were passed during those years she spent in Washington and New York. The idea of “expressing” herself seems not to have occurred to her. She held the occasional job but pursued no particular work. Even the details of running a household did not engage her unduly. Her houses were professionally kept and, for all the framed snapshots and studied clutter, entirely impersonal, expressive not of some individual style but only of the conventions then current among the people she saw. Nothing of the remote world in which she had grown up intruded on the world in which she later found herself: the Christians, like many island families, had surrounded themselves with the mementos of their accomplishments, with water
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