Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [266]
At first, nothing caught my eye. Most of the rooms had a certain formal, unlived-in quality, rather like an expensive hotel suite or, more to the point, the White House. The unlived-in feeling apparently extended to Nixon: He didn’t seem familiar with the layout of the house himself. At one point, he opened a closet door, apparently thinking that it was the door to his study, then slammed it shut hastily, with a muttered oath. Like people lost in a museum, we circled aimlessly, it seemed to me, for some time, searching for a particular piece of art he wanted to show his guests, until he finally said, “Here it is!”—as if somebody had moved it, which was unlikely, since it was fastened elaborately to the wall, with a plaque underneath. As it happened, the piece was undoubtedly worth finding—a magnificent silk tapestry of a cat playing, a gift from Mao to Nixon. The Chinese seemed to me more interested in the plaque, on which Mao’s name appeared, than in the tapestry itself.
Nixon did not seem particularly interested in his collection. Perhaps he had shown it to visitors too many times before: the screen from the Japanese government, the Philippine folk art from President Marcos, the endless ceremonial gifts that are among the perks of being a head of state. With considerably more animation, Nixon flung open the door of his study—lucky on the second try—and ushered us in. “This,” he said solemnly in the third person, “is where Nixon works.”
The Chinese assumed a reverential expression—one they had perfected, presumably, for the display of any of Mao’s artifacts. All the same, it was difficult to imagine any work being done in this unused room: It had something of the quality of a stage set furnished with expensive new props. No doubt Nixon was a clean-desk man, but this particular desk, shoved uncomfortably into a corner, showed no sign at all of use. There was not a paper in sight, and the desktop, like everything else in the room, was polished, spotless, and apparently brand-new. The desk chair showed no signs that Nixon had ever sat in it. “This is the desk at which Nixon wrote all his books,” Nixon said. He patted its shiny leather top affectionately, as if it were a horse.
I looked around the room, searching for a single sign of Nixon’s occupancy, for a single personal possession. There was none to be seen. We stood uncomfortably around the empty desk, and then Nixon told Han Xu that he wanted him to have a souvenir of this visit—something that would convey some part of the American spirit. There was a man in the forties and fifties, he said, whom Nixon had always respected as a true patriot—a prophet without honor in his own country, a man who had made great sacrifices for the truth and had been martyred for his pains but had lived long enough to play an important part in Nixon’s own career. That man wrote a book, Nixon continued, one of the most important books of the twentieth century, a book that every American ought to read, and not just Americans, either, for his message was universal.
We stood around Nixon, spellbound by his emotion, for he was speaking, it was apparent, from the heart, and his eyes, normally piercing, were humid. I racked my brain trying to think who this great American might be. Eisenhower seemed all wrong, and anyway I knew that the Nixons harbored a certain resentment toward Ike and Mamie, who seldom, if ever, invited them to a private dinner, just the four of them, during the eight years of the Eisenhower presidency. John Foster Dulles crossed my mind, but it seemed unlikely that his views on China would commend themselves to Han Xu. Then it came to me. Of course! Nixon was talking about J. Edgar Hoover. Probably nobody had