Bright Flows the River

by Taylor Caldwell

“Do you believe in premonitions?”

  “Yes. I have them regularly. And they’re always wrong. Why?”

  James told him of Emma’s call. His hearty face was shadowed and somehow thinner. Then Emil said, “I shouldn’t worry, if I were you, James. Women get whims.”

  “Not Emma. She never has whims.”

  “So, she called you, being lonely.”

  “It was her voice. Something—different, something not quite right.”

  “Well, she hadn’t slept much, she told you. That happens.”

  “I tell you, Emma isn’t like other women. She doesn’t do anything recklessly.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t worry. She’ll be calling you tonight, and will probably fly over to be with you.”

  “It was her saying that we’d had twenty happy years—”

  “The anniversary, she said. Your Emma may be different than other women, as you say, but all women are sentimental about anniversaries.”

  “Emma is the least sentimental of women. A pure realist.”

  Emil slapped his knee. “Get married here in Cranston. I’ll be your best man.”

  “She never considered marriage to me before.”

  “She probably knows we’re a puritanical country and openly frown on illicit love, though we engage in it all the time. We’re a lusty country.”

  But James said, “If anything—happened—to Emma, I couldn’t live.”

  There was a strong, almost passionate, movement in him as if someone had spoken to him in a stern admonishing voice, demanding something of him, and once again the malaise took him.

  Twenty joyful years. But memories are no good, no good at all, in days of sorrow, in spite of what the sentimental say. They only enhance anguish, those memories.

  “Cheer up,” said Emil. “I’ve got a premonition of my own now, and this time it’s coming true. Everything is all right.” He glanced at James quickly, and saw the pain on the large full profile, the beginnings of terror. He thought of his dead wife. So he must have looked himself, when he knew that she was dying. He patted James’s knee again. “It’s going to be all right,” and hoped to God it was a fact. He had become quite fond of Dr. James Meyer.

  James was not in a mood to be very patient today. After all, he thought, psychiatrists are only human, too, though sometimes I doubt that. His encounter with Beth Turner of last night, and his tender compassion for her, and his new anxiety, made him irascible. He felt no urgent friendliness for Guy Jerald as he sat near the stricken man. He saw that the draperies had been drawn to shut out the white fire of the sun on the snow, and he got up and pulled the cloths aside, exclaiming, “For God’s sake, man, you may live in a tomb of your own but don’t try to shut everyone else in with you!”

  Guy looked at him dully, then winced as the light struck his own face. He put up his hand as if to hide. “Why don’t you go home, Jimmy? You’re not doing me any good, if that was your intention, and I’m not doing you any good, either. You look like hell.”

  “Thank you. And you look worse. Well, at least you’re talking, even if you don’t make any sense at all. And you are beginning to notice others besides yourself.”

  “Why don’t you let me alone, Jimmy? It’s my life, you know.”

  “Such as it is, and it isn’t much.” But James found himself smiling, and with the smile some of his malaise lifted. Guy turned his head aside, to hide from both the sun and the eyes of his friend. James settled in his chair. He began to feel concern for his friend again. So he went on with the conversation.

  “Every man comes to a point in his life when he must jump, or not jump. Jump to save his life, or jump to destroy it. You’ve reached that point, Jerry. No one can help you make that decision.” He stopped, for Guy had uttered a cry, harsh and somewhat terrible, and he was staring in the distance again as if seeing something appalling, or remembering it.

  “He had two choices, jump or not jump,” said Tom Jerald to his son, fourteen years old, on a hot and dusty day in July. “We all have. And it’s usually irrevocable. But it’s better than sitting on a ledge, suffering the inevitable over and over again, before it happens.”

  But that was later. They were on their way, just now, in Tom’s ancient car to a distant farm notable for its fine Rhode Island Reds, for Tom’s young chickens had died of what he called “the roop,” and needed to be replaced. The car kicked up small whirlwinds of hot yellow dust, and it clanked. The road was a secondary one and wound in its narrow way about farms, farmhouses and silos, meadows and hedges and small streams of water. The silos shone scarlet in the sun, and the sky was pale with heat and the far mountains were purple shadows against it. Cattle lay sluggishly under the shade of trees, munching on their cuds. Noisy dogs chased the car, exerting their authority. Here and there old barns had the hex sign upon them, which made Tom chuckle. “As good a superstition as any other,” he said. “And who knows? Maybe there’s something to it after all. Magic.”

  They had been discussing Mary, Guy’s mother, and her increasing obsession with money, which she did not think contradicted her religion. This had led to another discussion about the Ten Commandments. “Don’t you believe Moses really did bring the tablets down from the mountain?” asked Guy.

  “Of course I don’t! Maybe something or other inspired them, but they’re pure man-made, son. You’ll notice they are all directed at the male sex. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,’ or his maidservant, et cetera. Nothing warning the ladies not to covet their neighbors’ husbands. Guess the good Lord knew better than to try to restrain women. Nobody can. Maybe that’s a good thing, too. It’s men who invented all the taboos and the moral laws, which they hoped, poor bastards, would keep the girls in check. They never did. Fortunately. What would the world be without female sins? Damned dull and mean and colorless. They make things lively for both God and man. The Bible says God made man in His image, and from the dust of the earth, but it don’t say He did that with women. The girls ain’t in God’s image, but they didn’t come from the dust of the earth, either. They come, it says, from Adam’s rib. Nice symbolism. No wonder Adam’s had an ache in his ass ever since woman was created.” Tom chuckled again. “God bless the girls, anyway.”

  His satyr’s face shone with sweat and good humor. He had not as yet acquired Sal, but the nice, stupid, red-cheeked farm girl in his house was a comfort. She was also strong and amiable, and that was all Tom desired of her, in bed or out of it. Once a sheriff’s deputy had come to the derelict farm and had sternly asked Molly if she was “cohabiting” with Tom Jerald. The girl had looked at him earnestly and had said, “No, sir, I ain’t got no bad habits!” That had satisfied the sheriff’s deputy and had made Tom roar with laughter, to Molly’s bewilderment. He repeated Molly’s reply to Guy now, and they both laughed, though Guy had become somewhat uneasy lately over his father’s happy liaisons. “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” his mother often said, in reference to her husband. As if Guy had spoken loud, quoting Mary, Tom said, “Now, if the boys hadn’t made sex sinful outside of marriage, where would be the fun? You’ve got to feel guilty to really enjoy yourself in bed. If you didn’t, you’d just be one with the other beasts, a casual mating, without God’s alleged disapproval. It’s knowing you’ve broken a taboo that gives zest to it, and romance, too, by God! And all the other beautiful things. Never heard of a Puritan composing a symphony or an opera or painting a lovely picture or carving a noble statue. Love—and sex—are behind it all, and sometimes only sex, if it’s good enough. Marriage, they say, is often the death of love and the death of real sex, too, and when they die something heroic passes from a man’s life. I’ve seen all the great galleries of the world, filled with the works of men, and rarely if ever did they use their wives as models.”

  The road was almost empty except for themselves or an occasional clanking farm truck. The sun grew hotter, the dust thicker. Then, to Tom’s surprise, other cars appeared going in their direction, overtaking them, and filled with the bobbin
g heads of children and women with baskets on their knees. As they passed Tom’s car a sound of excited twittering came from them, twitters filled with anticipation. “Looks like a picnic’s in progress,” said Tom. More and more cars appeared, some pouring out of narrow side roads, and now the road they were on became suddenly hilly and Tom had to put his car into groaning second gear in going up and down. He and Guy began to cough in the haze of blazing yellow dust. An open truck pounded past them, and this also contained, besides farmers, masses of women and children, their faces fixed in excitement and strained ahead.

  “Looks like a hanging going on somewhere,” said Tom. “They’ve got that damned ghoulish look on their silly faces. You never see a mob going anywheres to do any good.”

  “They’ve got baskets of food with them,” said Guy.

  “Reminds me of the ladies knitting around the guillotine, and eating, during the French Revolution,” said his father. “Nothing like the sight of murder to stimulate the appetite. The ladies are real bloodthirsty creatures, always were.”

  His straggly red beard was becoming dusty. He pulled his straw hat down closer to his eyes. Now he was becoming curious. The hills were steeper as they went on. No car seemed to be going in the other direction. Then the traffic slowed down until it came to a standstill, the road teeming with trucks and old cars. Tom leaned out of his car’s window and spoke to a man in another. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Wreck somewheres?”

  “Naw,” said the farmer, impatiently sounding his horn. “Just heard, on the radio, that a feller’s up there on that there cliff, mile down this road, gettin’ ready to jump. Po-leece are out, too.”

  “Good God,” said Tom. His antic face had become quite grave. “What the hell would a man want to do that for? See? What I told you? Ghouls, hoping the poor bastard will jump to his death, and taking their kids along, and their food, to watch the fun.” He uttered a sick obscenity and stared ahead with a grimness Guy had never seen on his father’s face before. Tom began to look for a turnoff, but he was surrounded by cars and had to move on when traffic started again. The twitterings and shouts and laughter from the other cars and trucks sounded, to Guy, as if devils were in eager spirits, hoping for a holocaust.

  “People,” said Tom. The word was an expletive. “It’s studying people that’s made me an atheist.” It was as if he had uttered a desperate curse out of some old grief, and Guy felt a dim pain like an echo.

  They came on the abrupt cliff down the road, jutting up like a monument against the hot sky, emerging from a lower hill. A long narrow blade of stone plunged out from the cliff and on it Guy could see the high figure of a man on that blade. He was standing absolutely still, and looking down. There was a large grassy area about the cliff and this was choked with cars, gleaming dully under a coating of dust. People were running everywhere, dragging children, trying to get as close to the cliff as possible. The police were helpless, though they shouted and gestured and warned that if the man jumped he might kill “someone.” The noise was a primal jungle noise, feral, predatory, hungry, as it rose from hundreds of hoarse throats. For the first time Guy saw raw hatred on his father’s face, and a lust to kill. “Why can’t they let him alone to make up his mind?” Tom muttered. “But no. They want him to jump and die, so they can crowd around him thirstily, drinking his blood. God damn ’em.”

  It was a carnival of horror, leaping, jumping, grinning, and howling children, and running and laughing and shouting men and women. Some of the women had already spread coarse cloths on the grass and were evacuating fried chicken, milk, potato salad, beans, cakes, and sundry other victuals from the baskets. The sun poured down on it all, and Guy thought of hell. He saw that a tall ladder had been placed against the face of the cliff, and that several policemen stood on it, gesticulating, speaking. But their voices were drowned out by the riotous clamor below them; that slavering, ravenous clamor.

  Above them, closer now—for Tom’s car had been forced on—stood that silent figure of a man, still as stone itself, and faceless. Guy saw that he was handsomely dressed, and that he was apparently young, for his body seemed at ease in its stillness. His hands were in his coat pockets. He was now looking at the sky, as if he were all alone and there were no human yelping animals below him. There was something at once tragically lonely about him, and brave. And helpless.

  “Might as well get out,” said Tom. “Maybe there’s something—”

  Father and son got out of the car and forced their way between sitting and devouring groups and standing men and women and children. Never had it seemed so hot to Guy, so eerie, so unreal. Then Tom said, “Don’t go on, Jerry. I’ll go alone.”

  Guy, who was taller than the average, saw his father’s sparrowy figure moving quickly and lithely through the mobs, his antic face intent. He ignored those about him, and there was something about his movements, something authoritative, which made grumblers let him through. Now a long shout was rising up into the dust-thick heated air. “Jump, jump, jump!” It was a chant of glee and hope. The police made threatening gestures down at the mob and were booed, as if the beasts were angered that the policemen were trying to rob them of a colorful spectacle. They milled sweatily.

  “Jump, jump, jump!” shrieked the women, yelped the children, shouted the men. Guy wanted to turn and leave, but the press was all about him. Some dogs had gathered, barking. The din was becoming tremendous. And the man on the protruding blade of stone seemed unaware of anything but his own contemplation of the sky. He was wrapped in his own awful silence, and the sky was silent also, serene and uncaring and aloof.

  Then Guy, amazed, saw that the police were descending the ladder and that his father was climbing it, as quick and as sure as a monkey. The din lessened somewhat, and hundreds of faces gaped upwards, watching the assent of that meager figure. The top of the ladder ended six feet to the right of the man on the blade of stone, and Tom stood there, evidently talking. At length the man turned his head to him, listening. The crowd became ominously silent, and alert. Then a man near Guy said, his face black and contorted with anger, “What’s the old man trying to do? Why don’t he let him jump, instead of talking?”

  “Yes, yes!” cried his neighbors, wrathfully.

  It wouldn’t do any good to hit a few of them, Guy thought. He heard the timbre of his father’s voice, but not the words. Then the man was speaking to Tom, and Tom was listening. “Get back,” the police implored the watchers, and were ignored, but a couple of men made enraged gestures of dismissal, their blue shirt sleeves uprolled, their overalls stained. The women’s voices rose in shrill protest at the police. They were not going to be robbed of the death.

  The conversation between the young man and Tom continued, as if they were alone. Tom nodded occasionally. The young man lit a cigarette and the thin blue smoke coiled upwards in the shining air. Once or twice he made a slight gesture when speaking. Guy saw his father rub his face with the back of his hand.

  “Get the old tramp down!” shouted a man, and assenting shouts answered him. “Is he goin’ to stop him from jumping?” a woman’s infantile voice demanded. Children were beginning to feel frustrated. A few began to whine and cry. Guy could smell the sickening odor of the food all about him. Some people were standing, chewing chicken legs, and avidly waiting. A little dog ran between his legs. Two little boys shoved him. Guy glanced at their dusty faces, and hated them, and there was something in his expression that affrighted them, for they ran blubbering to their mothers, who stared at him savagely, muttering. They had eyes like tigers. Guy saw the glimmer of their bared teeth. The stench of sweat became keener, sharper, as if it came from felines preparing to charge.

  Then Tom lifted his hand as if in salute, or farewell, and slowly descended the ladder. The crowd laughed its delight, and jeered at Tom as he pushed his way through them. He came to Guy, and his face, wrinkled with dry laughter lines, was somber. He said, “Son, let’s get out of here.”

  The man on the blade of stone wave
d to Tom, and Tom waved back. He took Guy’s arm and somehow they were free of the crowd and they got in their car.

  A great and terrible roar sounded from the mob. Guy looked back. Silhouetted against the sky was the falling and tumbling body of the young man. Guy closed his eyes. He heard shrieks of terror and pain. “I hope to God,” Tom said, “that he hit a few of them. And killed them.” Guy hoped so also. He had heard a nauseating thump, but he did not look back. The crowds were milling forward, pushing each other, struggling with each other, panting, cursing, screaming, even fighting to get closer to the scene of death.

  They went on towards their destination, silent. Tom sighed over and over. For the first and last time in his life Guy saw tears on his father’s face. He waited for Tom to speak, but he did not speak for many long minutes. Then he said, “He had two choices, jump or not jump. We all have—”

  He finally told Guy the tragic tale of the young man who had leapt to his death. But Tom did not feel it was tragic; he felt it was only sad. The young man was from Pittsburgh, and of a rich and well-known family. He was socially prominent, married, and with two small children. Nothing had ever been denied him in all his life; he was a member of his father’s famous law firm.

  “He told me,” said Tom, “that he had been everywhere in the world, traveling with his parents since he had been a child. An only child. Everything had been planned for him; life was lovely and easy. There it was: Lovely. The lovely life. Fine home, fine wife, fine children. Everything he wanted—it was given. Love, adoration, health, fortune: He had it all.”

  But he had nothing, Tom added. He had never had to struggle, to compete, to work. He had never been frustrated. But that was not the worst of it. He had traveled all over the world many times. But he had not seen a single thing in it. It was as if he had been blind. He had seen no glory, no splendor, no heroism, no majesty, no beauty, no light. It was as if he had been blind.

  “He was bored to death, satiated,” said Tom. “There was nothing he desired, for everything had been given him before he could even ask for it. He was bored. He saw no reason to live any longer in a world that was empty for him. So he was desperate. He just wanted to—sleep. To be rid of the boredom. To be rid of the lovely life, which was meaningless to him, and only two-dimensioned. The tragedy is not that he killed himself, but that he never saw what is all around us to be seen—the grandeur that is God.”