For the women who have been attacked and not believed, even by the law-enforcement officers who should have protected them, the President was saying now. For the wives who have been made prisoners in their own home. For the daughters who have had to fear their own fathers. Each of them is a heroine and from today they will have the law on their side.
More applause as President Stephen Baker reached for the first of a set of pens fanned out on the desk before him. He signed his name, then reached for another pen to date the document, then several more to initial each page.
There, he said. Its done.
The guests were on their feet again, the cameras clacking noisily. The President had come around in front of his desk to shake hands with those who had come to witness the moment. There were double-clasps with the congressional leaders, a hand placed on the forearm to convey extra warmth, hugs with the leaders of the key national womens organizations and then a more hesitant, careful extension of the hand to the first of the victims carefully selected by the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Suddenly the cameras began to whirr more insistently so that the room was lit by the strobe of a hundred flashbulbs. Several journalists were on their feet, craning to see over the photographers. Maggie could only just glimpse the source of their interest. Christine Swenson had placed her arms around the Presidents shoulders and was resting her cheek on his chest. Tears flowed down her face. Thank you, she was saying, over and over. Thank you for believing me.
If that isnt leading Katie Couric tonight, Im David Duke. It was Tara MacDonald, hardly glancing up from her BlackBerry
Maggie couldnt take her eyes off Swenson, sobbing with gratitude. Only as an afterthought did she look at the President. He had placed his arm around the woman, enveloping her in a fatherly hug even though he was at least a decade younger than she was.
Eventually the embrace broke up, the President handing Swenson a handkerchief so that she could dry her eyes.
Now he was handing a pen each to Donna, Christine and the congressional bigwigs. It was a White House tradition, one of dozens to have acquired the status of a religious rite: the President would sign a bill with multiple pens, so that he would have at least a dozen to present as souvenirs. Each one could be said to be the very pen President Baker used to sign the
Aides were now beginning to nudge the President towards the lectern, to take questions from the press. He put out a restraining hand, signalling that he was not quite ready. He carried on speaking to the women who were huddled around him, one or two of them holding up camera-phones to get a snap of the man up close. He was standing, listening intently.
Maggie could hear the woman who had his attention. he took his belt off and began whipping my boy like he was a horse. What makes a man behave like that, Mr President? To his own son?
The President shook his head in weary disbelief. Phil, the body man, placed his hand on Bakers shoulder once again: the gesture that said, we really must wind this up. But the boss ignored him. Instead, he used his height to reach over the immediate circle of women who were surrounding him, searching for the hand of one of those who had held back. Maggie had noticed her already: unlike the others, she had been too shy to introduce herself. Ordinarily, those were the people who missed out; they never got their moment with the President. But Stephen Baker had noticed her, just as he always did.
It took Tara MacDonald to impose some discipline. She strode over to the huddle and addressed not the President but the women. Ladies, if you could all take your seats, she said in the kind of commanding voice used to bringing hush to a church. The President needs to take some questions.
This was an innovation, one that Baker himself had insisted upon. Traditionally, presidents made themselves available to the press only rarely, doing occasional, set-piece press conferences. The rest of the time, reporters might try to hurl a question but it would usually die in the air, victim to the Presidents selective deafness.
Baker promised to be different. If he did a public event, it would now end with a few minutes of light interrogation. The Washington punditocracy gave this fresh, transparent approach a life expectancy of about a fortnight: Baker would soon realize hed made a rod for his own back and quit.
Terry, what you got?
Mr President, congratulations on signing the Violence Against Women Act.
Thanks. He flashed the wide signature smile.
But some people are saying this might be the first and last legislative achievement of the Baker presidency. This was the one thing you and Congress could agree on. After this, isnt it going to be gridlock all the way?
No, Terry, and Ill tell you why.
Maggie watched as the President went into a now-familiar riff, explaining that though his majorities in the House and Senate were narrow, there were plenty of people of goodwill who wanted to make progress for the sake of the American people.
He then took another question, this time on diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. Maggie felt a surge of anxiety, a leftover from the election campaign when it had been her job to make sure he didnt stumble on the subject of foreign policy. No need for her to worry about that now.
Sanchez leaned in to say, This will be the last question.
Baker called on MSNBC.
Mr President, Im sorry to come to a subject that might be awkward. Did you deceive the American people during the election campaign, by failing to reveal a key aspect of your own medical history specifically the fact that you had once received treatment for a psychiatric disorder?
4
Washington, DC, Monday March 20, 09.24
There were perhaps two seconds of frozen silence as the question cut through the air, like a missile before impact.
Every head in the room swung around to look at Stephen Baker. His posture had remained the same, he had not collapsed in a heap, nor was he shaking his fist. But, Maggie saw, he was now gripping the lectern so tightly his knuckles had turned white. They matched the pallor spreading over his face as the blood drained from it.
He began to speak. Like every other candidate for this office, I released a medical statement during the campaign. From my doctor. That statement included all the details he- Baker paused, looking down at the lectern as if searching for a script that wasnt there. The pause, barely a second, seemed interminable. He looked up again. All the details he deemed to be relevant. And I think now is the time to attend to the business of the American people. With that, he turned on his feet and headed for the door, a long snake of aides at his heels leaving behind a loud chorus of Mr President! bellowed by every reporter with a follow-up question.
The staff scattered in every direction. Goldstein, Maggie noticed, headed straight across the corridor towards the Oval Office; MacDonald and Sanchez went in the opposite direction, to the press room. En route to her own office, one of several bunched together next to the Press Secretarys, she hesitated, standing in the doorway, looking in at those charged with handling the media: the scene was crazed, every person on a telephone, each one of them simultaneously hammering away at a computer. She could see MacDonald and Sanchez talking intensely: she lip-read Sanchez saying, The trouble is, he looked like shit out there.
Maggie felt both out of place and useless, like a sightseer at a fire station on full alert. With a start, she remembered her meeting with Magnus Longley that morning, his threat that her job hung by a thread. Soon she might indeed be no more than a sightseer here.
She turned to leave, taking one last glance at the TV screen. The Breaking News tag along the bottom conveyed a single, devastating sentence: Source tells MSNBC: President Baker received psychiatric treatment for depression.
No wonder Baker had turned the colour of ash. The word psychiatric reeked of political death. People might like to brag they were liberal and tolerant these days, but mental illness? Different story. Maybe if you were a celebrity, perched on Oprahs sofa, admitting to a few years of therapyBut psychiatric treatment: that sounded like electrodes, rubber rooms and men in white coats. It was One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
Besides, Stephen Baker was not a movie star who could weep a few confessional tears on daytime TV and make it go away. He was the President of the United States. Americans could tolerate all manner of weaknesses in each other especially if they were accompanied by contrition and redemption but not in a president. They needed their president to be above all that, to be stronger than they were. Few men ever met that impossible standard. But a nation that looked to its leader to be a kind of tribal father never stopped expecting.
Besides, Stephen Baker was not a movie star who could weep a few confessional tears on daytime TV and make it go away. He was the President of the United States. Americans could tolerate all manner of weaknesses in each other especially if they were accompanied by contrition and redemption but not in a president. They needed their president to be above all that, to be stronger than they were. Few men ever met that impossible standard. But a nation that looked to its leader to be a kind of tribal father never stopped expecting.
Voters would be rattled by this news, whoever was in the White House, Maggie knew that. But Stephen Baker had been lionized, ever since his campaign took off in the depths of the Iowa winter. Word had spread that, at last, a different kind of politician had arrived: one who really did seem to talk straight.
YouTube clips of him telling audiences what they didnt want to hear became cult viewing. He told farmers outside Sioux Falls that ethanol subsidies would have to stop: growing corn to make oil made as much sense as distilling the finest whisky then using it to clean out the drains. There had been some hecklers, but most of the crowd of farmers were slack-jawed. No candidate had ever dared to say such a thing, not to their face anyway. How come this guy wasnt pandering to them like everyone else had?