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cases, grandchildren. They have no interest in people like us.
    But they did know things about the texture of life in the capital. Alec had overheard one of the young reporters complain about Washington's cab drivers, slow to the point of inertia, cabs habitually lagging behind general traffic. Negroes especially did not understand the concept of promptness, moving customers with dispatch from point A to point B. Time had no meaning for them because they were fundamentally lazy. Horseshit, one of the seen-everything faces said. They're slow because they're cautious, and they're cautious because they're scared. Cop pulls them over if they're doing one mile over the speed limit. That's a fifty-dollar fine and maybe a trip to the station house, where the paperwork is lost and they spend a night in the can, probably slapped around a little. Maybe you've noticed and if you haven't you should. In this town all the cops are white and the cabbies are black. And that's why they take their time motoring up Pennsylvania Avenue.
    That's a terrible story, Lucia said. Can't something be done?
    Not so far, Alec said.
    Your father—
    Alec laughed. No, no. He's involved in the Defense Department supplemental.

    The garden had been allowed to decay, a matter of simple indifference on the part of the previous owners, but Alec and Lucia soon put it right. In the spring and summer the roses seemed to grow as they watched. In early evening, the garden in deep shadow, the rose petals seemed to Alec to assume fantastic shapes, harelips, cleft palates, divided faces, faces divided against themselves. Alec made shot after shot of the divided faces but was never able to capture on film what he saw with his own eyes. He liked to shoot at twilight, the buzz of the neighborhood all around him, the whir of air conditioners and the slippery sound of automobiles on the soft tarmac of the street, show tunes from Admiral Honeycutt's vintage phonograph. Then, round about six-thirty, they heard one voice and then another, a gathering chorus reminiscent of the chattering of songbirds at sunrise. Cocktail time had begun, latish because the upper bureaucracy worked late. Often the men didn't arrive home until well after seven, usually carrying a heavy briefcase. A briefcase and a frown, according to Lucia.
    The brick house next to theirs, very grand, had a wide and deep back yard with a towering cedar at its center and benches and wrought-iron tables placed at intervals as in a park. A fountain splashed all day and all night, always the sound of falling water. Lucia called the neighbors' house the Alhambra. Each evening Charles, the Japanese butler, brought a tray to the garden. Alec and Lucia could hear the creak of his starched shirt and the clink of glasses and his murmured announcement that drinks were served, your excellency and madame—and in a moment the count and countess arrived and helped themselves to champagne, thank you Charles, no need to detain yourself. On his way out Charles lit the torchères that bathed the garden in yellow light. And not long after that, guests arrived speaking a variety of languages, settling into the events of the day, always so puzzling to foreigners, the interplay of the legislature, the courts, and the White House—called, not entirely with sarcasm, the Palace—all of it overseen by an amiable yet reckless press forever seeking accommodation when accommodation was the least desirable of the many, many opportunities open to democracies. The truth was, since the triumph of the Cuban missile crisis—a miracle of statecraft—America had lost its nerve. America had turned its back on victory. The Palace had settled for stalemate, and that was the true meaning of fear breeding fear, Munich turned on its head. Kennedy and his people had refused to go the last inch.
    Alec was often late, so Lucia sat alone in their garden, shamelessly eavesdropping, listening to heavy accents that ranged from indignation to