Mortals

by Norman Rush

  Humanly, he felt for Morel. Doctors hated to be sick. A holistic doctor would hate to be constipated. No, he couldn’t sing. That was out. But he could recite something. Almost anything would do.

  “I can’t sing, but I’ll recite something. I don’t feel like singing.”

  Morel grunted something Ray chose to take as positive.

  “I’m not going to sing. But you might be interested to know that her choice for the most beautiful song of all time is ‘Amazing Grace.’ We love that song. It might be the kind of thing you want to know, for the future. Anyway.”

  He cleared his throat and waited for the right piece to recite to suggest itself. It should be one of her favorites. In fact, it should be her all-time favorite, “Dover Beach.” The poem could still move her toward tears. Or at least it had, the last time he had read it to her, which had been when? It had been pretty long ago, maybe as long ago as their vacation in the San Juans. “Dover Beach” was the perfect choice.

  He began. “ ‘Dover Beach.’

  “The sea is calm tonight,

  The tide is full, the moon lies fair

  Upon the straits … on the French coast the light

  Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

  Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

  Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

  Only, from the long line of spray

  Where the ebb meets the moon-blanch’d sand,

  Listen! you hear the grating roar

  Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling,

  At their return, up the high strand,

  Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

  With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

  The eternal note of sadness in.”

  He paused. He was shaky on the next segments. He plunged through them anyway, raising his voice even higher. There had been errors. He didn’t care.

  This last part he knew cold. He would make it as close to song as he could. He had tears in his eyes, he was interested to note. He wondered if this poem had ever been set to music. Take this, he thought.

  “Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! For the world, which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

  Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

  And we are here as on a darkling plain

  Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

  Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

  That was it. That was it. That was her favorite poem and what had she done and what had he, the man at stool, to use a good English Literature archaism, done, and what was that man thinking right now, this minute? Ray thanked English Literature for what, for being or giving him a weapon.

  Now, stupidly, he wanted something from Morel.

  He said, “That was her favorite poem.”

  Morel said something indeterminate.

  “Still is, I assume,” Ray said.

  There was an outburst, Morel saying, “Oh shut the fuck up. You’re an idiot. Would you consider shutting up?”

  Ray knew why it was happening. “Dover Beach” was about fidelity. So reciting it had been a form of rubbing it in. Still, it was what had come to him and in fact it was her favorite poem.

  “Sorry. I was trying to be helpful.”

  “You never shut up, is the problem. You’re an idiot.”

  This would pass. Morel was forgetting who was the injured party and who wasn’t.

  Ray waited while Morel finished up and reorganized himself.

  “I only used half the paper,” Morel said, pushing the unused paper into its previous crack in the wall.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re not an idiot. I’m sorry.”

  “I am an idiot. I beg to differ.”

  “And by the way, My Bowels shall sound as an Harp isn’t Coleridge.”

  “Yes it is. It’s in the Notebooks.”

  “It may be, but it comes from the Bible. Isaiah. That’s where he got it.”

  It was a small thing, but Ray hated it anyway. He felt shown-up at the professional level. He was an idiot.

  “I won’t argue with you.”

  “I’m right, believe me.”

  Sounds of glass breaking came from the direction of the main building. It was possible it meant nothing. There was no sequel.

  Morel placed himself against the wall, leaning on it a little, his arms crossed on his chest. Ray sat against the opposite wall, on his pallet. He wanted to be in a standing position for what was coming, but the prospect of finally getting the truth had made his knees weak, as in the cliché. He would get up when he could.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Morel said, gesturing toward the bucket. There was no need. It was the way it was.

  Morel said, “One way we could go with this would be for you to tell me just how you know about Iris and me. You say you already know. That would save a lot of time. And I’d be interested.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “I see. And why would that be? Because it would reveal, what do you call it, ‘sources and methods’?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because I was lying. I knew you’d think I had tapes or videos. That’s why I said it. I sort of regret it. But when I said I knew, it wasn’t that. It was signs and indicators I kept trying to put together to mean anything else and they didn’t, I couldn’t. It was partly a literary exercise, in a way. The only story that made sense was the painful one. I don’t know what to say to you. I had a premonition about this and she agreed to an insane compact with me. She was going to tell me if she was going to cheat, or if she was tempted, warn me so I could do what, something. But the horse was halfway out of the barn by then and when she agreed to it she was already halfway into being in bed with you, dreaming in that direction anyway. But she thought she was in good faith, I don’t doubt it for a minute. She was in the rapids and she didn’t know it.”

  He had to stop. His eyes were filling with tears. It was unusual. It was philosophical. It was a generic sorrow for human beings caught in situations like theirs, the three of them, humans making declarations they meant at the time and that got undone and swept away by perverse events, the perversity of the future as it arrived so clumsily, giantly, smashing things. That was what it was. Except for the part that was about self-pity, that was what it was.

  He said, “Say something.”

  “I can’t.” Morel was barely audible.

  Ray said, “Look at it from my standpoint. I know the truth. You know I know. Do me the favor of letting me live in the world I have to face, once we get back, assuming we do. I am going to have to deal with this in detail. I need help to prepare. Because there is going to be an ending, a … what … an uprooting worse than anything I ever dreamed could happen to me. Arm me for that. Or if I die let me die in possession of the truth, in reality, as I go. Not to be too dramatic about it, but you see my point.

  “And look, if you think I’m going to try to torture every minute particular out of you, don’t think it. All I need from you is confirmation that I’m in my right mind, so I can proceed. We all need to be in our right minds, am I correct? That’s your motto. People are drowning in false narratives, thus empire thus the papacy thus this and that, world wars, evil empires good empires, all the shit of history.

  “Because I’ll tell you, the details are unimportant in comparison to the general fact of the thing and what that means. The details can’t make it worse.

  “And also I’ll tell you this, I know the situation you’re in. I know what she told you. Don’t tell him, in the name of God, don’t. I can hear her. She said that whatever you do don’t tell him, it will kill him. I know what she said. She said she had to be the one to handle it, it was her right to handle it. She was fierce. I know her. I know how she would put it.


  “Of course her problem was that she was giving a lying task to the wrong person, tasking someone to lie who wouldn’t lie. We both understand why she had no choice but to send you, but of course she was working from a bad model, myself, the person she formerly loved, a liar in several ways, a model that led her to expect something from you that shouldn’t have been expected. Because I was involved in an established lie, occupationally, my work, part of my work, and of course from that flowed other lies, white lies, which is probably what we should call them, in Africa. But that’s another story, another part of the forest …

  “So, no of course she wanted to manage this with me herself. I would too. You would. And she’ll be furious for a while when she finds out. But she’ll get over it and forgive. She forgives people she loves. She forgave me for years. She forgave me as long as she could, which is all we should ask for, am I right?

  “Don’t make my life impossible.”

  Ray was thinking how impossible it would be, say, if he confronted Iris and she denied it and he had gotten nothing concrete out of Morel except his circumstantial silence. Where would he be then? Or, supposing for the sake of argument that she had done it with Morel and since then changed her mind and decided to creep back and reinstate with him because, because … for any reason, something unsatisfactory in the doctor, old acquaintance, fear of the less known, remorse, any old thing. And he would be in his normal position, weak, weak before her, unarmed, because of utter love, alas.

  He had no regrets about his love for her up to now. She was on the verge of the change of life. So the idea that she was going for Morel so she could have a shot at motherhood was unlikely, taking a shot at his medical powers giving her motherhood. He was creating things in his mind that meant nothing. He had to stop. It was adieu.

  He felt he had enough strength in his legs to stand up, even though his knee was still throbbing. He had to be upright for the finishing kick.

  I will get my unholy grail, he thought.

  He said, “Tell me now. Be me. Be me, asking.” He was willing the truth to come out of Morel.

  He could feel Morel composing himself.

  Morel said, “Okay then. It’s true, I love her. We are lovers, yes. So okay.” It was clear he had spoken slowly to keep his tone under control.

  “I can’t believe it,” Ray heard himself say. He would have to explain why he had said it. It had to sound bad to Davis. It sounded bad to him. It made him sound to himself as though he had made everything up and then used it to trick Morel. But it wasn’t that way. It had been an expression about the point they had come to. He didn’t want to be misunderstood.

  There was a feeling of hollowness around him. His voice rang oddly. He had the fleeting conviction that elements of his surroundings, the walls, the floor, were hollow.

  Morel said, “She’ll hate me for this. She wanted to tell you herself. She insisted that that was the way it had to be. I agreed with her. She may never forgive me.”

  “Yes she will.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She forgives you if she loves you. Don’t worry. I’ll explain why it happened.”

  Morel was worried. It was ridiculous, but he didn’t want him to worry.

  “Don’t worry about it. I said I’d explain it.”

  “You’re lovers, that’s all I have to know. I’m satisfied. I don’t care who moved first or any of that. I told you.

  “That’s all. I guess my last question is about your intentions, going forward from here. Well, and her intentions, which she’ll tell me. She’s not here to speak, so …

  “No, but your intentions. I mean, you want to have her, take her. That is, you’re looking at this as serious, a permanent thing.”

  “That’s what I want,” Morel said.

  It was difficult to keep talking. He made himself go on.

  “You’d marry her, you’d like to. Once I’m on the other side of the horizon.”

  “You know, we haven’t advanced to that. I don’t want to flatter myself and say I know more about what she wants than I really do. But, yes, of course I would, of course.”

  “So you don’t have philosophical objections to marriage.”

  “I thought I did. I thought I wouldn’t ever marry again and I thought I’d, I don’t know, reached conclusions about marriage, coming out of that. Let’s put it this way. I’m prepared to be inconsistent. I want to marry her. I think she has more questions about marriage as a concept than I do, at this point, to tell you the absolute truth.”

  That hurts, Ray thought. He wanted the sickly lightness afflicting him to go away. Certain remarks of Morel’s seemed to make it worse.

  Morel said, “I do have to say to you that I absolutely love your wife. It’s like nothing ever before, with me.”

  Ray said, “So, well, good. This is what it is, I guess.”

  Morel said, “I’m sorry.”

  Ray said, “I don’t want to discuss this, the three of us sitting around a table, ever, please. It has to be between me and Iris, and then, if we need to, between you and me.”

  “That’s fine,” Morel said.

  The feeling of lightness was prompting Ray to swallow repeatedly, as though through swallowing he would ingest something from the air that would restore his normal solidity or center of gravity, whichever it was that needed restoring.

  “I’m sorry,” Morel said again.

  “Don’t mention it,” Ray answered.

  “No. I am.”

  “Of course you are. Don’t mention it.” What Ray didn’t like in Morel’s apology was even the merest shadow of the notion that his regret extended to having gotten involved, which suggested the specter of impermanence, which could mean Iris ending up out on a limb. He didn’t want that for her. And he wasn’t going to be around to rescue anybody, like the rejected lovers in teenage songs, waiting around forever. He was not going to hang around Gaborone. He would be gone. And there was nothing he could do to predetermine the future she would have with Morel, her happiness.

  The sound of breaking glass resumed. This time it was clear that they were hearing a deliberate, punctuated process.

  Morel said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? In westerns when the Indians or outlaws are coming and you’re holed up in a cabin …”

  “You knock out the windows so you can shoot freely, right. I’m way ahead of you.”

  The glass-breaking came to an end. Others were acting. We’re too passive, Ray thought. He had to refine his tasks, reduce them to the essential two or three. And then he had to find a way to complete them. One was his shoes, he had to get his shoes, or some shoes. Two was Strange News, which he had to get hold of and not let go of again. And the third task was to be sure, be sure, Morel survived the storm that was rolling in. It was obvious. If anything happened to Morel it would be Ray’s fault. Iris would spend the rest of her life counting the ways her husband had been responsible directly and otherwise for the rising new love of her life’s death, an impossibility that would lead to hell. There would always be the suspicion that he had eased Morel’s way into death. His strength had to go into protecting his rival, the victor, like it or not.

  Morel looked depressed.

  Ray said, “If anything happens to me I want to be cremated. I just realized I don’t think I ever discussed it with Iris. I think it was just assumed. But let me get on the record with you anyway.”

  “You may get your wish,” Morel said. A strong odor of smoke was in the air, stronger than the occasional smoke from cooking fires they were used to, and with a chemical taint to it.

  They both laughed.

  The smell of burning passed. They had nothing to say to one another. Sounds of groups of men, heavily shod men, running, occupied them. But that too came to an end. There was more waiting to do.

  34. Escaping from the Enemy’s Hand into the Enemy’s Vast Domain

  A metallic crackling commenced. There were two episodes and then a continuing, spaced-out manifestation. It was th
e first gunfire. It was faint and sporadic but there was no question what it was. It was originating at a good distance, from the north, in the direction of the pan. It occurred to Ray that the ridge constituting the high side of the pan would provide a logical parapet for an attacking force to make use of. The elevation would be favorable and they would have superior fire zones.

  Morel heard it and fell silent. He had been talking, lecturing really, mainly to himself. Ray resented having been told that he was the one who never seemed to shut up. Morel had been droning on about a writing project he had put off completing, which he now regretted, because, as Ray understood it, he had been planning to popularize a term for religious belief, immaterialism, that he had come up with and liked. Before that there had been a muttered discourse about how various false narratives, most of them religious in nature, had been to blame for the confluence of events, however he had put it, that had led to their being in the present fix. He’s a bigger pedant than I am, Ray thought. Iris was going to be in for some surprises. Ray had pretended to be an interested hearer out of pity for the man. It was necessary for Morel to be doing something. He had a low tolerance for inaction, obviously. It had sent Morel into the monologue that was just mercifully coming to an end. They had to be quiet now. They had to concentrate, to follow, to scry out as much as they could of what was happening outside, because sooner or later it was going to come inside and get them. It was that simple.

  Ray was thinking ahead. He said, “Do you know where they put my boots?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Just asking in case you noticed anything about them when you were out.”

  “I have no idea where they put them. I didn’t see them.”

  “I have to get them.”

  “I completely understand.”

  “I have another couple of pair in the Land Cruiser. Did you see where they parked my Land Cruiser, blue Land Cruiser?”

  “I didn’t. I was looking for my Land Rover and didn’t see that anywhere. But I think they have all the vehicles on the far side of the main building. That’s my guess. That’s gunfire we hear.”