THE TAXI RIDE

THE TAXI RIDE

I watched through the pouring rain as the line at the taxi stand got shorter and shorter. There had been a string of taxis waiting for fares when I first left the terminal, but now there was only the one that had just arrived as the line whittled down to me and the couple in front of me. The cabbie jumped out with a big black golf umbrella and said “Where to?” to the couple.
“Dupont Circle. Dupont Plaza Hotel.”
“That’s where I’m going, too,” I said quickly.
The cab driver looked at the couple with a questioning glance, and the man said, “Want to share a cab?”
“Thanks so much” I said, sliding into the front passenger seat while the two of them got into the back.
I’d been calling them a couple to myself, but now as I got a better look at their reflections in the vanity mirror on the sun visor in front of me, I noticed that they weren’t at all the same in age. He looked to be in his late 60’s—hair mostly gray, cut conservatively, Varilux bifocal glasses, neatly trimmed mustache, a few deep wrinkles around the mouth. She looked young enough to be his daughter—perhaps 30, maybe 40. A good haircut and coloring job, like a TV anchorwoman might have. Honey blond streaks in brownish, medium length hair. Good tan, good jewelry, circumspect blouse and jacket. His daughter? His colleague? His wife? His lover?
For once, the cabbie didn’t have the car radio blaring to a DC shock talk jockey, or a Top 40 country music station, or a hip-hop DJ, or a football game with crowds and commentators screaming. And the driver wasn’t talking either, actually hardly moving except to look back over his shoulder before changing lanes. The ride was strangely quiet. Often when I’m in DC I strike up a conversation with the driver, trying to hear the inevitable accent and trying to guess what country the driver immigrated from. I don’t think I’ve ever had a native born American cab driver, certainly not in DC.
Anyhow, in the absence of noise or conversation, I was paying attention to the sights of Washington as we made our way through town to Dupont Circle. The tidal basin, the Lincoln memorial, Georgetown University.
Suddenly the woman spoke, but not in English. The cab driver replied, also not in English. Did they know each other? Had she correctly guessed at his nationality? Was she also from there? I looked at her again in the mirror. Clearly Caucasian, could certainly pass as an American, or maybe European. The driver, dark skin, dark hair. Maybe Northern Africa? Or Middle Eastern?
The woman laughed at what the cab driver said. Feeling a little left out, but also a little silly, because this was just a cab ride, for God’s sake, I said, “What language are you speaking, if I may ask?”
They stopped laughing abruptly and I could feel the two in the back really noticing me for the first time, and sensed that the cabbie’s eyes were on me.
“It’s Swahili,” the woman said in as American accent as you’ll ever hear. But she didn’t continue.
“Oh, REALLY?” I said. “Isn’t that African?”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
“I’m confused,” I said. “None of you looks African.”
“I’m American,” she said, “but I learned Swahili during the two years I was in the Peace Corps in eastern Africa.”
“How interesting,” I said, wondering whether to just barrel ahead asking the questions flooding my mind or to try to gracefully get out of this intrusion I’d made. Ignoring the conventions of courtesy and restraint, I lied and said,” I hope you don’t think I’m too intrusive, but I’m a reporter for the Washington Post and I’m afraid I have a bad habit of asking questions of people I find interesting.”
“Is that so?” she said. The man looked amused. “You don’t by chance know my good friend Carl Bernstein at the Post, do you?”
Damn! Why did I make up that stupid story? Now how was I going to get out of this?
“Not really,” I said. “He’s much higher on the ladder than I am. But I have great admiration for his work, especially the Watergate coverage. I’ve always been curious about his secret source, the one he called Deep Throat. How do you happen to know Bernstein?”
“Well,” she said. “It’s really my father….” And she looked over at the man . “….who knows him. They worked on a project together years ago.”
Turning to the cabbie, I said, “So are you originally from east Africa?”
“Yes and no,” he said. “My parents took me from western India to Uganda when I was a small boy. When I was a teenager, when Nixon was President, I came to this country, this wonderful city, and here I became a cab driver and then a cab owner, and have put all my four children through college.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said, “but (speaking to the woman) how did you know to speak to the driver in Swahili?”
“I’ve ridden in his cab before, many times, beginning when I was a small child and he had just arrived here.”
“This is getting more and more interesting,” I said. “Why did you ride in his cab?”
“My father trusted him. He would always call for this cab driver when he was going to meet Bernstein. Later on, after I did my Peace Corps stint, I could practice my Swahili with him, so I’d call him when I needed a cab.”
“So you must have called him specially to pick you up at the airport?”
“Yes, we did, but it’s OK. We don’t mind sharing.”
I sat back and watched as the cab navigated the traffic circle at Dupont Circle and pulled up to the entrance of the Dupont Plaza. The two of them paid the driver, the woman said a few words in Swahili and the man in English, and they walked inside.
I followed as soon as I had also paid the driver and retrieved my luggage. As I came into the small, almost shabby lobby of the less-than-elegant hotel, I spied the couple again, standing and chatting with another man, about the same age as “my” gentleman. Just as the elevator doors opened to take me up to my room, I turned to look at them again. This time their companion was looking straight at me.
It was Carl Bernstein.
As the doors closed behind me, my mind was furiously putting the pieces together. Bernstein, Nixon, frequent meetings at places arrived at by cab, a trusted cab driver, a small girl as “cover.”

Had I just ridden from Reagan International Airport to Dupont Plaza Hotel with DEEP THROAT?