Recessional: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘Aren’t there laws to protect them?’ a man asked and Noble said: ‘Yes. And loyal officials to enforce them. Powerboats are to slow down and stay clear, but look!’

  As he spoke, two boats in an early morning race to test their motors, zoomed in from the south, roared past and headed right for the lumbering creatures ahead. It was obvious that if they maintained their speed they must crash into the animals and chop them up savagely with the razor-sharp blades of their whirling propellers.

  ‘Slow down!’ the judge shouted impotently at the roaring boats as they sped by, and, sure enough, the lead boat rammed into the big animals, sliced one of them badly and veered off.

  To prevent such disasters, Judge Noble used his handkerchief and two borrowed from the other watchers to make a banner to alert the passing boats to the presence of manatees. When the drivers saw him waving frantically at them, most tended to slow down and even come closer to shore to see if an accident of some kind had happened. When he shouted: ‘Manatees ahead!’ they tended to go even slower and obey the law, but a minority accepted the news as a kind of challenge and actually revved up their motors to roar upstream and try to be first to run down a manatee.

  This so infuriated the judge that he told listeners: ‘Wish I had an Uzi. I’d blast those criminals out of the water,’ and when a man asked: ‘How do you know about the Israeli killer-guns?’ he said: ‘When you’re a federal judge these days you learn a lot about Uzis.’

  Dr. Zorn, who had watched the judge’s futile attempts to stop the lawbreakers, brought to the chair a used pool cue to which he had attached a big red tablecloth and a small portable long-distance radio that he had tuned to the frequency used by the Tampa Harbor Patrol. Now the judge had both a very large visual signal to warn the boats, and a radio signal to inform the police ahead: ‘Judge Noble at the Palms. Two Boston Whalers, one white, one green, passed here at thirty knots and going faster to overtake manatees.’

  During the spells when there were neither manatees nor pursuing boats, he shared his knowledge of these creatures with the residents gathered around him: ‘Sailors as far back as Roman times saw an occasional manatee and mistook it for a human being with the body of a whale, and the men concluded that if there were these men, there also had to be women, and of course, they had to be beautiful. Hence the invention of the mermaid.’

  As the lovely day drew to a close, Dr. Zorn returned to express his appreciation: ‘You made a lot of people happy today, Judge—they learned a lot from you. Thank you.’

  ‘Sit for a while,’ he said, offering the doctor his chair. ‘I’ve been sitting all day and would enjoy moving about a bit, casting my bait out farther might catch me some fish.’

  ‘Have you ever figured out why people get so excited about the manatees? They’re not the world’s most attractive water animals.’

  ‘I’ve often thought about it, especially today. I think it comes down to the problem of beauty.’

  ‘That’s a word you can’t use for those creatures.’

  ‘Yes. And that’s the precise problem. Why did our people crowd down here to watch the manatees? They’re probably the ugliest creatures on earth, but more compelling than a fish of elegant design. Is it something primordial that attracts, as with an elephant, for example? No way can the elephant be called beautiful, but he’s so commanding. Magnitude also counts. And so, too, God forgive me for admitting it, does color.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘If you’d been here today you’d have heard them. Whenever one of those stately white egrets came to stand by me, hoping for a fish, the folks cried: “Isn’t that bird the most beautiful thing?” But let a blue heron stop by, an infinitely better-engineered bird, and no one comments on his beauty, because he’s the wrong color. What did Muley Duggan call that masterful fellow from our Heronry over there? “A village policeman on stilts.” A dark blue heron has got to be as valuable to God in His animal kingdom as any white egret, yet we refuse to admit it.’

  ‘Do you mean to say that being black affects even a man of superior qualities like you?’

  ‘Every day. And I think it comes back to that word beauty and people’s reluctance to term a bird with black coloring beautiful.’

  ‘By the way, how did you become a federal judge?’

  ‘It goes way back to when I was a draftee in the navy in World War Two, eighteen years old and stuck away in the South Pacific serving on an ammunition boat. The white Southern officers of the navy refused to believe we colored could fight, or that decent southern white boys who made up so much of the navy would ever serve with us. So we manned the ammunition boats, and one after another of those dreadful ships exploded, killing us in the hundreds and thousands. If we were lucky, we might land a job as waiter in an officers’ mess.

  ‘Somebody told me years later that I ought to go see that new musical South Pacific, and I did, but I walked out. That wasn’t the South Pacific I saw. I was belowdecks hoisting ammo and wondering when ours was going to blow sky-high.’

  ‘You mean that’s all you did, work on ammo ships or in an officers’ mess?’

  ‘Yes, the big brass had decided that’s all we could be used for—the limit of our capacities.’

  ‘How did that lead to a federal judgeship?’

  Noble was diverted for a moment by his pelican Rowdy as he dived for a fish. When the bird came up with a big one, the judge called out: ‘Go to it, Rowdy!’ Then he returned to Dr. Zorn: ‘My redemption started when I began going to the chaplain’s office, the black chaplain that is, to see the weekly New York Times Sunday edition, flown in a month late. Officers who saw me checking out the Times thought: That guy Noble is trying to make something of himself, but what they didn’t know was that I was there to grab the magazine section before the other guys tore it apart. We all wanted to see those gorgeous long-legged blond girls nearly naked in their lingerie ads. One sailor joked: “The white kids all rush for the National Geographic to see what naked black girls look like, but we rush for the Times to see the white girls.” ’

  Then, as a trailing manatee wallowed by, he said almost bitterly: ‘The cruel fact of life, Dr. Zorn, is that most of the girls in the world are not beautiful. They’re not tall, and leggy, and blond, just as the manatee out there is not beautiful. But society conspires to force on us the concept that white is beautiful and black is something else. Damn it, if even today I want to visualize a really beautiful girl I go back to the lingerie ads in the Times.’

  At this point, when the manatees had completed their ponderous parade, he caught a fish on his line, so a group of ever-watchful egrets and herons flew in to demand their share of the bounty. As the judge took out his penknife to cut portions for the benefit of all, he gasped: ‘My God, Zorn! Isn’t that egret magnificent with the sun on her white feathers, turning them to silver! And isn’t that black heron at a terrible disadvantage?’ Reflecting on this, he savagely cut his fish in two, throwing the larger half to the heron, the smaller to the egret, and when Rowdy came blustering in and landing in the water with a big splash like a damaged floatplane, the judge snarled at him: ‘And you, you clumsy oaf, you don’t even qualify.’

  ‘Can I help you carry some of that gear back to your room?’ Zorn asked, and he picked up the binoculars and the shortwave radio, leaving the judge to handle his fishing pole, one he had acquired forty years ago and had used in many streams. As they walked toward Gateways, Zorn said: ‘You still haven’t told me how your duty in the ammo ships in the South Pacific led to the federal bench.’

  ‘In a very roundabout way. When some of us blacks got fed up with running the risk, day after day in those steaming ports, of being blown up, we protested what we saw as unfair treatment. White officers from the South who hadn’t wanted to be assigned to the ships, either, charged us with mutiny, and they might have made it stick, except that a young white lawyer who had also been drafted and who came by the office to read The New York Times and knew me to be a decent man, asked to
defend me at the court-martial. He argued so beautifully, so persuasively that when the case ended, with me set free, I told him: “Come peace, I want to be a lawyer like you,” and he said: “With the recent GI Bill providing a free education when this is over, you can do it.” We kept in touch, and years later he brought me to the attention of Lyndon Johnson, who appointed me to be one of his federal judges.’

  As the judge finished his explanation, Zorn felt the urge to ask him why he had left the federal bench. Zorn had heard whispers that there had been some sort of scandal, and when he looked into Noble’s eyes, he thought he saw signs of profound regret, as if the judge were still under a heavy burden, but Zorn refrained from questioning him. It’s strange, Zorn thought, other federal judges, when they retire from duty fifty-two weeks a year, elect to remain on the available list, and from time to time they are summoned to places where the backload of cases is immense and they provide valued assistance, but Judge Noble never seems to be called—I wonder why.

  Darkness had now settled and as he and Noble looked at the outline of the Palms in the late glow, he said: ‘Thanks to your work today, Judge, the people in there are a little more aware that they must respect the natural world. Thanks.’

  As they went indoors to prepare for dinner, the birds flew off to their nests and the manatees moved ever closer to the warm waters in which they would spend the winter.

  In early October, when Berta Umlauf turned eighty-one, it seemed as if the accumulated burdens she had assumed during the three prolonged deaths in the Umlauf family came roaring back for a delayed attack on her general health, her teeth, her eyes and her nervous system. Of course, prudent woman that she had always been and now a wealthy one, too, she took care of herself. She consulted an ophthalmologist, who gave her good news: ‘Strong eyes, no glaucoma, no cataracts, no detached retinas, but tired nerves. While there’s no danger of your going blind, you will never again see as well as you used to, but with better glasses you’ll be more than able to function.’

  She also went to see Dr. Velenius, the skilled dentist in the village east of Tampa. Learning from his allies in the Palms that she was truly a wealthy widow, he did some basic work for her and charged her outrageously, but she was inattentive and paid it. When Andy learned that she had become a patient of Velenius he did an imprudent thing: ‘Am I being too nosy, Mrs. Umlauf, if I asked what your dentist charged for his services?’ and she thought so little of the inquiry that she showed him the bill. For routine services that would have cost, at most, two hundred dollars in Chicago, he had charged eight hundred, convincing her that she was on the verge of losing important teeth, which had been her suspicion all along and the reason she had gone to him in the first place. Had he been asked about his fee he would have said: ‘Giving her reassurance and eliminating certain real dangers was worth every penny she paid.’

  But the danger to her nervous system was real. She suffered dizzy spells, unsteadiness in her legs and flashing spots before her eyes that did not arise from ocular problems. On two occasions she fainted in her room without having received even the slightest warning of such a collapse. In fact, she scarcely knew that she had fainted, and had she not found herself on the floor she would have been unaware of it.

  She was frightened and consulted immediately with Dr. Farquhar. As always he was thorough, perceptive and helpful: Berta, since that day you visited me when your life seemed an overwhelming tangle, I’ve been aware that you were susceptible to nervous exhaustion. You push yourself too hard, and your two fainting spells alert me to the fact that you may be pumping an inadequate supply of blood to your brain. If that’s true, and you persist, you could be a candidate for a stroke. I’m going to give you the full battery of tests starting tomorrow. First the stress test, to see if it’s coronary in cause. Then a standard EKG to check your heart. Then I want you to go into Tampa for a test of your carotid arteries, to be sure you’re getting enough blood upstairs to the head. After that, and we hope those signs will all be satisfactory, I want you to have an MRI scan of your brain to check on any obvious problems, and again I feel confident we’ll find nothing grievous.’

  ‘Is that the one where Ludwig tore the place apart?’

  ‘No. The CAT scan isn’t as sophisticated. The MRI is a very advanced test that produces excellent, clear images of the brain. It isn’t as easy a test to take, but we have highly skilled technicians who make the experience quite tolerable.’ He reflected for a moment and added: ‘Of course, if you are subject to claustrophobia, tell us now, because you’ll never be able to endure the locked-in feeling. No shame to beg off. Are you susceptible?’

  She laughed: ‘What I’m susceptible to is Brussels sprouts,’ and the regimen of tests was scheduled, but before it could be half completed she awoke one night in a sweating, gasping panic, for she seemed unable to breathe. Obviously oxygen was getting through to her lungs, for she did not faint or collapse, but the sensation of strangulation continued, making continued sleep impossible. By frantic experimentation she learned that she could resist the attack by propping pillows behind her back and head and sleeping with her torso in an upright position. As a woman used to facing crises, she did not tug on the alarm cord, which would have summoned help from the main desk.

  She did, however, go next morning to consult again with Dr. Farquhar and realized anew what a difference a good doctor can make. After much thumping and listening, he told her: ‘I hear liquid in your lungs, not such a vast amount as to scare us, but there it is, and it’s got to be driven out or real complications will set in,’ and it was only then that both the doctor and the patient discovered her ankles were badly swollen.

  ‘That confirms it, Berta. Congestive heart failure,’ but before these ugly words could frighten her he added, almost with a chuckle: ‘Horrible name for a very common ailment. We have drugs to drive the excess liquid out of your body and another medication to calm your heart. I have patients who’ve had congestive failure for thirty years.’ When he handed her the two prescriptions he warned: ‘There’s one danger in the diuretic I’m giving you, that’s the liquid expellant. It carries away not only the excess liquid but also the body’s supply of potassium. So you must supplement your diet with BOB—plenty of bananas, oranges and beans—especially bananas.’

  ‘No problem. I like them all,’ and when the swelling in her ankles subsided and the accumulation of liquid left her lungs, her spells of constricted breathing vanished and she had no more midnight bouts of terror.

  But her hard life and her continued assistance to others had depleted her physical reserves, and controlling her treatments could not attack her basic problem: that her genetic clock, which had been set at birth to allow some eighty years of arduous exertion, was sending signals that it was about to run down. Curiously, it was she and not Dr. Farquhar who interpreted these signals properly. So when Noel and his wife, Gretchen, paid their regular visit to the Palms, she told them, with no dramatics: ‘I feel the power supply is draining away. Too many demands in too many areas.’

  ‘Mom!’ Noel protested, ‘you’re the type who begins to slow down in her late nineties.’

  ‘But if I’m reading the signals correctly, I’ll be moving in the not-too-distant future to the second floor over there, Assisted Living, and when that time comes I want you to dispose of this fine apartment. No regrets. I’ve had a damned good time here, it owes me nothing.’

  ‘Mother,’ Gretchen cried, ‘you’ll be living here till you’re ninety-five. Remember I said so.’

  ‘No, I’ve observed that movement from Gateways to Assisted Living is usually irreversible. Dr. Zorn and Mr. Krenek deny that. They always say when a resident moves over: “This is temporary. We’ll hold your apartment.” But they know and we know that the movement is always in the other direction. We don’t return here. We move upstairs to Extended Care.’

  ‘Mother, don’t talk so fatalistically. You’re decades removed from the third floor.’

  ‘No, Gretchen, I’ve w
orked there. I know the probabilities,’ and four days after Noel and Gretchen left, she had a major setback, which made continued living in Gateways, with no assistance at night, impractical. The ominous first step in the long retreat from life had become inescapable, but she did not grieve when two male helpers from the main desk arrived at her apartment with a stretcher to transport her to the Health building. She laughed and told them firmly: ‘I refuse to ride in your carriage through the buildings. It would depress my friends,’ and she insisted that they take the stretcher away. Assisted by only one of the men, she walked with a steady step to the elevator on her floor, then along the length of the corridor leading to the Health building and into the elevator that would take her to her future home, a nicely furnished two-room suite in Assisted Living. Had she disposed of her apartment in Gateways, she could have made the switch from normal to Assisted at minimal additional cost, but her family had adamantly refused to let her abandon her quarters: ‘You’ll be back here,’ they had argued, and since she could afford the double cost, she did not demur, but she did resolve to get rid of that apartment as soon as they were not looking.

  It was when she settled into the routines of Assisted Living that she appreciated what this halfway house had to offer, and one morning when she watched the trained nurses perform their functions so effortlessly, caring for the needs of a dozen patients, she burst into tears.

  ‘Mrs. Umlauf! What’s happened? Sudden pain?’

  She reached out and grasped a nurse’s hand, pressed it to her lips: ‘I was thinking of the needless agony I suffered in that house over there on Island Five, the one by the water with the red roof.’ As other nurses gathered at the window to see the old Umlauf house, Berta said: ‘I went through hell in that little paradise, helping two miserable people die, with me their only aid, responsible for everything, when all the time this facility was over here, just waiting to be used.’ She shook her head: ‘It was as if you young women were screaming in the night air: “Hey, dummy! Here we are, eager to ease your burden.” ’