Page 371 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"I know you're not, you sweet, kind man."

"If you're not comfortable taking a weekend away, we won't do it."

"We won't do it." She found her panties and pulled them on, then reached for her bra.

"Then why are you getting dressed? We have another half hour at least."

"When we began doing this I swore I'd stop before it got serious."

"Listen! I'm sorry I wanted a weekend away with you. I'll never mention it again, I promise."

"That's not the problem."

"Then what is?"

"I want to go away with you. That's what bothers me. I want it more than you do."

He looked baffled. "Then . . . ?"

"So I have to choose. I can't love you both any longer." She zipped her dress and stepped into her shoes.

"Choose me," he pleaded. "You've given six long years to Bernd. Isn't that enough? How could he be dissatisfied?"

"I made a promise to him."

"Break it."

"A person who breaks a promise diminishes herself. It's like losing a finger. It's worse than being paralyzed, which is merely physical. Someone whose promises are worthless has a disabled soul."

He looked ashamed. "You're right."

"Thank you for loving me, Claus. I'll never forget a single second of our Monday evenings."

"I can't believe I'm losing you." He turned away.

She wanted to kiss him one more time, but she decided not to.

"Good-bye," she said, and she went out.

*

In the end, the election was nail-bitingly close.

In September Cam had been ecstatically confident that Richard Nixon would win. He was far ahead in the polls. The police riot in Democratic Chicago, fresh in the minds of television viewers, tainted his opponent, Hubert Humphrey. Then, through September and October, Cam learned that voters' memories were maddeningly short. To Cam's horror, Humphrey began to close the gap. On the Friday before the election, the Harris poll had Nixon ahead 40-37; on Monday, Gallup said Nixon 42-40; on election day, Harris put Humphrey ahead "by a nose."

On election night, Nixon checked into a suite in the Waldorf Towers in New York. Cam and other key volunteers gathered in a more modest room with a TV and a refrigerator full of beer. Cam looked around the room and wondered excitedly how many of them would get jobs in the White House if Nixon won tonight.

Cam had got to know a plain, serious girl called Stephanie Maple, and he was hoping she might go to bed with him, either to celebrate Nixon's victory or for consolation in defeat.

At half past eleven they

saw longtime Nixon press aide Herb Klein speaking from the cavernous press room several floors below them. "We still think we can win by three to five million, but it looks closer to three million at this point." Cam caught Stephanie's eye and raised his eyebrows. They knew Herb was bullshitting. By midnight Humphrey was ahead, in the votes already counted, by six hundred thousand. Then, at ten minutes past midnight, came news that deflated Cam's hopes: CBS reported that Humphrey had won New York--not by a whisker, but by half a million votes.

All eyes turned to California, where voting went on for three more hours after the polls closed in the East. But California went to Nixon, and it all came down to Illinois.

No one could predict the Illinois result. Mayor Daley's Democratic Party machine always cheated brazenly. But had Daley's power been diminished by the sight of his police bludgeoning kids on live television? Was his support of Humphrey even reliable? Humphrey had uttered the mildest of veiled criticism of Daley, saying: "Chicago last August was filled with pain," but bullies were thin-skinned, and there were rumors that Daley was so disgruntled that his backing for Humphrey was halfhearted.

Whatever the reason, in the end Daley did not deliver Illinois for Humphrey.

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