by Belva Plain
“You’re going far beyond social justice, Will. You’re making it all so simple, aren’t you? Ask the thousands who are fleeing Cuba; ask why they’ve had to build a mine field at the Berlin Wall to keep workers from quitting the workers’ paradise. Yes, too simple, Will! And what’s more, you’re entering an area of confrontation with a country which, for all that some like to say about it, has been the greatest force for human rights and freedom that the world has ever know. Ever. Yes, I’m talking about the United States,” he’d said and thumped the table. But his words had petered out to empty air.
So we moved again toward violence, he thought as he looked down upon the drowsy little town. It hasn’t erupted yet, not fully; contained, it merely smolders. But if the high winds come, then—
He went back to the desk. Yes, tell about that, too. No sense writing a cheery message full of halftruths and clichés. Tell it all. And end with a good, strong peroration about having faith in ourselves, in our courage and abilities, something like that. An upbeat ending is what’s needed.
Maybe he ought to take the rough draft to Francis for an opinion. This was an important speech, after all. But the real reason was his compelling wish to see Francis. Now. Tonight. Several times since-his return from the visit to Agnes, he had got into the car and started toward Eleuthera, then as abruptly turned around and come back. It was as if he were afraid to face Francis, afraid that his excitement, and yes, his love, would show. But tonight, now, he would go. The speech was a good excuse.
The yellow two-seater sports car, an expensive toy, was the one that had belonged to Doris Mebane. Hasty flight had caused it to be left behind. It had, then, become public property and the council had offered it for sale. When no one bought it, they had sold it to Désirée for a nominal sum.
“Far too conspicuous,” Patrick argued, but Désirée had some savings of her own and she was in love with it. Patrick had never ridden in it.
What foolish impulse made me want to try this thing out? he wondered, as he rolled along the coast road. A flash of lost youth, maybe? He’d never desired flashy things and still didn’t, yet this was fun. The motor made a rich sound, the husky throat sound of a passionate woman.
At the Point he stopped the car. This was a sight not to be missed. The sun rested now on the rim of the sea, streaming a mauve and turquoise radiance across the lower sky. Oh, how we buzz and buzz our lives away! First school, then business, politics and money and God only knows what else. But all the time there is this, too.
Along the beach at the water’s edge two small boys came trotting on spidery legs. All of a sudden they stopped and threw themselves at the face of an incoming wave. When it swallowed them, shattering itself into spume and foam, it released and threw them back onto the sand. Again and again they went, waiting for the rise of the wave, the glossy dark green curve, slick as glass; over and over they hurled themselves and were hurled back. Their shrieking laughter carried down the beach.
Life in essence! The elementais: the salt water out of which we all came, and the sun in which we lie, drinking the heat of it. Take away everything that man has made and done and this is what’s left. How good, how joyous, to see those two thoughtless kids coming out of the sea! Life from the sea! A mystery. All, all a mystery….
And love for the world overwhelmed him. Here we are, and at the moment of our deepest love and understanding, we depart. All this delight! Stretch out your hand to reach the sun ray or moonbeam. Touch it! It’s gone! You can only hold it for a moment.
Releasing the brake, he turned the little car back toward the hills.
Eleuthera came into sight above the trees like a classic columned temple. It would be good to see Greece one day, he reflected, to travel with Désirée at last when his work was finished here. How she would love it!
Francis and Marjorie were reading on the veranda. He stood.
“Prime minister,” he said, smiling.
“I’ve brought my speech,” Patrick said, feeling suddenly awkward. “I thought you might be good enough to look it over.”
“Thank you, I’m honored.
Marjorie gave greeting and got up. “I’m going to bed early, I’ll leave you to your talk.”
Her heel tap sounded briskly in the hall and clicked up the stairs.
“She has a cold coming on,” Francis explained, after a moment’s silence.
“Please, am I intruding?”
“You are not,” Francis said with firmness.
Again silence fell. The night was so still that the neighing of a horse three fields away caused them to start.
Francis spoke softly. “Nine years! That’s how long it’s been since the day I met you in the schoolhouse. What a storm that was!”
“I don’t know where the time’s gone, as the old folks always say. Mostly I feel very young; I guess you’d say I still am, but sometimes I’m brought up short, to count the years that are left.”
“Yes. Everything becomes sharper when you think about time. You walk out in the morning and suddenly you’ve never seen a fresher green. You’ve never smelled such fragrant coffee. Yes.”
So they sat for a while, talking of the speech, talking of this and that, until abruptly, darkness fell. In northern places it approached slowly, Patrick remembered now, but not here.
A calf lowed in the barn nearby. “I don’t remember your barns being so close to the house,” he remarked.
“They weren’t always. I guess this is the only place around that has the barns this near. But I’ve always liked the sound of animals. I had them build a cowshed at the same time they rebuilt the wing, after the fire.”
He can speak of it now, Patrick thought. It’s not between us anymore. And he said, “I used to like hearing the hens settle down at night when I was a kid. I kind of miss those last contented clucks.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that our tastes are very much alike, yours and mine?”
“Alike?”
“Oh, I think so. Kate always says—said so.”
For an instant it seemed as though Francis were going to say more; there was a pause while his fingers drummed on the chair arm, but apparently he changed his mind, for the silence lengthened.
It became necessary to fill the silence. “At least,” Patrick said lightly, “you’re not a politician!”
“You want to know something? I don’t think you really are either. I don’t mean you’re not doing a good job, I mean that I don’t think it’s your first choice. I think you’d rather be standing up before a class, teaching.”
“Yes, but there still are moments when I like what I’m doing, I have to admit. The cheers, you know, and the praise. Well, we’re all human, and there’ve been great days, like the day our flag went up and we became a nation.”
“Ah, yes. For a place you can drive across in an hour’s time, this nation has some pretty large problems.”
When Patrick didn’t answer, Francis apologized. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it might have sounded.”
“I understand, and you’re right. We’re on the brink of worldwide decisions here, in a strategic place. You have only to read the newspapers and look at a few maps.” A figure came suddenly to mind. “Russia gives Cuba a million dollars a day in aid. The whole world’s being terrorized.”
“Yes. Undermined. The object is to make chaos. Undo whatever we do as fast as we do it.”
There’s Kate talking, Patrick thought, and answered, “You ought to get together with my new son-in-law, my soon-to-be. You know, he’s one of the best things that’s happened in my life. Not just that he’s marrying Laurine, but knowing he could take over for me if need be.”
“I’ve heard you say that before, and I don’t know why you talk that way.”
“Don’t worry, I plan to be around a long time! But it’s a good feeling all the same. My other son-in-law, Maisie’s young man—well, he’s a disappointment. He’s leaving the country, going to Canada. Taking Maisie, naturally.” And as Francis made no
comment, Patrick went on fretfully, “Some of our best people are leaving. Dr. Sparrow has already gone and Dr. Maynard’s going. Talk about a brain drain! When what we need is more people like them coming in, not going out.”
“Well, they feel there’s better opportunity elsewhere. You can’t blame them, I suppose.”
“You can blame them! Don’t they know or care that it takes time to build a country? And how are we going to do it with them deserting us and the enemy almost within the gates? Oh, I lie awake thinking and thinking. I get so mad sometimes I can’t think clearly anymore.”
“But you’ve made a very fine beginning, Patrick, in your short time.”
“I’ve done what I could. One thing is that nobody here need be afraid of the government. We have no political prisoners. You can think and say what you want as long as you keep the peace. Nobody’s beaten up in our jails. That stuff’s over and done with.”
Francis hesitated a moment. Then, not looking at Patrick, he spoke. “I haven’t ever told you…. I’m ashamed of myself. When Nicholas was here and there were rumors of those things going on, even a rumor about a ravine where the bodies were thrown, I didn’t believe them even when Osborne told me where the place was.”
“You could have gone to see for yourself.”
“I didn’t take it seriously.”
“I understand.”
“I suppose I felt that if I found it was true, I’d have to involve myself—”
“Are you still up, Francis?” Marjorie spoke from the doorway, then, seeing Patrick, clutched the frill of her dressing gown about her throat. “Oh, excuse me, I didn’t know you were still here.”
Patrick stood. “My fault. I’ve kept him talking too late.”
“Oh, talk as long as you like,” she replied.
The two men went down the steps to the car.
“I’m sorry you’re going to leave us, Francis,” Patrick said.
Francis nodded. The light from the veranda revealed the face of an aristocrat. Not in any narrow sense, Patrick thought, but as the inheritor of an excellent body, of intelligence, and basic honor, this was an aristocrat
“I hope things won’t be too hard,” he said next, “not for you nor for anyone.”
Francis took his meaning. “You’ll look out for her, will you? Don’t let her do anything foolish.”
“I won’t.” He didn’t know when he had been so moved. And he put his hands to his mouth as though to stop the words that were in his head: Trust me, Francis, because you and I are—
Francis put out his hand in dismissal. It was the gentle dismissal of a man who is asking for privacy and a relief from tension.
“We pin our hopes on you, Prime Minister. And on men like you all over the world,” he said rather formally.
“Thank you, Francis. I sometimes think—there’s something I’d like to say—” He stopped. Not now! The words had come out without his willing them to.
“Say what?”
“Nothing. Nothing important. It’s too late tonight. What do you think of this car? Isn’t it outrageous?”
“Not at all. It’s a gem. Come back again, will you, before we leave?”
“I will.”
When he reached the end of the driveway he looked back through the rearview mirror. Francis was still standing with his arm upraised in a wave. An impulse grasped Patrick, so that for an instant he made to swerve and go back. But in the second instant it released him and he was able to steady himself and head the car toward home.
Francis watched the taillights, two red fox eyes, vanish at the turn. He stood until, in a little while, headlights flashed a white path through a gap in the trees far down the hill road.
How much had moved and changed since he had first come to know this good and decent man on that stormy afternoon nine years before! God go with him. He was fighting the good fight, as the saying went. God go with us all. Shelter helpless Megan, please. Let Kate laugh again, let her be warm and loved. He felt a choking in his throat.
A small wind was blowing off Morne Bleue, agitating the wind bells into a clatter of chimes. And he waited on the steps, unwilling to go inside, almost mesmerized by the sound, by his own emotions and by the flawless night.
Oh, this must be one of the most beautiful places on earth! Human pain was so piercingly incongruous here; to suffer in bleak deserts and on raw northern tundras was comprehensible, but not here in this soft air, under this white moon, with the grass so sweet.
At last he went in to take a handful of cookies and a glass of warm milk, for he hadn’t been sleeping well. In Megan’s room he adjusted the coverlet and moved the teddy bear from where it had fallen on her. He listened to her tiny breath and tiny stirrings. What dreams would flit through that poor brain? And again there was that choking sensation in his throat.
In his own room a new magazine lay on the bedside table; the combination of milk and reading might quiet his racing heart, he hoped, and send him the peace of sleep.
It was eleven on the dashboard clock when Patrick’s little car slid between fragrant hedges down the last moonlit mile and turned in at the great gates.
The shot crashed through the windshield and struck him in the forehead. The car plunged, screeching, into a granite pillar, then burst into flames and, in a few searing moments, was consumed on the lawn in front of the Government House.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Now once again the island shuddered and thrashed like some great wounded creature of the sea. For three days it struggled and bled.
The international news services made these reports in succession:
As leftist groups and rightist adherents, left over from the Mebane regime, lay blame upon each other for the assassination of Prime Minister Patrick Courzon, St. Felice bows beneath another wave of violence. An attempt to seize the radio station was repelled yesterday by forces loyal to the government, but in other areas key installations have changed hands three or four times during the last forty-eight hours. Two army barracks have already gone up in flames. Government forces have uncovered quantities of arms belonging to dissident elements of several persuasions. Among the caches were Molotov cocktails, gelignite, and several types of small arms.
Looting and vandalism in Covetown are gradually being brought under control. Banks and shops are still boarded with plywood and a six-to-six curfew has been set by Mr. Franklin Parrish, the acting head of government.
On the third night after the assassination calm has been restored to St. Felice. The dead number fifteen to twenty, with as many wounded. Over one hundred arrests have been made, ring leaders rounded up and the curfew lifted. Correspondents report remarkable cooperation on the part of the citizenry, which is weary of conflict and shaken by the tragedy.
On the fourth morning Patrick Courzon was buried. The cathedral in Covetown was filled; crowds teetered on the steps and filled the street outside.
“He was a man of the middle, without hatreds,” Father Baker began, in the dry voice of an old man, straining. “His political ambitions were small. There were others far more ambitious and far more skilled in the art of politics. But what he possessed was infinitely precious and rare, an innate goodness and the will to persevere on a rational course.” For an instant the old voice broke, then resumed: “Who did this to him? That is the question which absorbs us, and will continue to absorb us.”
In essence, Francis thought, the ones who did it were the ones he loved most: Nicholas and Will. And he looked down at the front pew where Will, who had just flown in a few hours before from wherever he had been when Patrick died, was sitting with Désirée and the daughters, all in deep black, and with Clarence, who was weeping.
“Both sides had their reasons for eliminating a man who stood so firmly, so honorably, in the way of their desires, a man who believed so passionately in the worth of the individual and in peaceful solutions.”
“Thank God we’re leaving this crazy place,” Marjorie murmured in Francis’ ear.
He did n
ot answer. Suddenly he was washed by a wave of sickness. His own emotion, combined with the heat of bodies closely jammed, overwhelmed him. Seated in the path of the sun as it streamed through pastel stained glass, he was dizzied by spots of lavender moving on his knees.
And it seemed to him that heat was rising everywhere; he imagined he felt the presence of fire, just as, waking in the night, one can imagine the acrid fumes of smoke—so it must have been on that other night. Now, though, it was not only a house that was on fire, it was the planet; the skies of every continent were ominous; the very air, the very flowers, burned.
He must have made a sound, for Marjorie turned to him with an expression of curiosity and alarm.
“Don’t you feel well?”
“So hot in here.”
“It’s almost over, thank heaven. Look, look who’s over there, will you?”
And he saw that Kate was sitting a few rows down across the aisle. She was wearing a little round straw hat. Her funeral hat, she called it, because it went with anything and was suitably decorous. She kept it in a clear plastic box on the top shelf of the closet with her tennis racket and a red-striped sweater. Yes.
He hadn’t seen her in two weeks and he would never see her again. He would never have time to know her entirely. It was strange to think that actually he knew Marjorie so much better! Marjorie existed in familiar territory; he was not at home in her territory, but at least he could find his way around in it. Marjorie was always predictable; you could never predict what Kate would do. One thing, though, you could say and never be wrong. A tag of Latin from years ago repeated itself in his head: Nihil humanum mihi alienum. Nothing human is alien to me. Or nothing animal, either. And he had to smile, watching the little straw hat, remembering her dogs and her birds, her stray cats and her indignations.
They were standing now, and the nausea receded. While the organ recessional poured overhead, the coffin was borne out. The crowd on the street had been forced back to let it pass. From the high steps Francis looked down upon what is always described as a sea of faces, an apt enough description, to be modified here, he thought, to a sea of young faces. How many of them there were! The island, the whole earth, was bursting with impatient, restless young.
