Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (18 page)

 
          
It
had been a short engagement
—
Claire and Peter had met for the first time that December,
barely six weeks after Colin had sent Claire to Toller Hasloch's birthday
party. Those events seemed as if they'd taken place in another world, now.
Hasloch had disappeared almost immediately, not even staying to finish out the
semester. There'd been rumors and wild talk on campus, but without their
focus, the gossip and speculations had eventually died away, as those whose
lives Hasloch had touched found other
—
more wholesome
—
interests. The old white
Victorian still stood vacant with a FOR rent sign in its yard, its basement now
innocent and empty.

 
          
In
the pew behind Colin, Jonathan Ashwell shifted self-consciously. For a while,
he and Claire had seen a great deal of each other, but Claire had already been
seeing Peter, and Jonathan had realized almost as soon as Colin did that Claire
felt only a sisterly affection for him. Claire had made up her mind only a
little after Peter had, and now Colin wished them both all happiness.

 
          
Colin
returned his attention to the front of the church, where Peter slipped a
gleaming gold circlet on Claire's finger. A moment more, and the newly-weds
turned to face the small congregation, matching rings twinkling on both their
left hands.

 
          
It
was done. Claire and Peter were bonded eternally to one another, a spiritual decision
that man's laws, however gravely enacted, could not lightly set at naught. The
organist played the recessional, and the congregation stood.

 
          
Young
Mr. and Mrs. Moffat moved out of Colin's orbit for a time, but he was content
to have it so. His commitment to teaching increased, and he found fulfillment
in touching the lives of the children who passed through his care on their way
to adulthood. Around him the world changed only a little each day, the
gathering power of the events beneath the passage of the days invisible to
those who lived through them.

 
          
1963
was the year that police in
Birmingham
,
Alabama
, turned dogs loose on civil
rights marchers, just as their spiritual ancestors had unleashed them on the
inhabitants of the European ghettos. President Kennedy demanded civil rights
for all Americans in a speech before Congress, and, before the echoes of his
speech were stilled, a black man named Medgar Evers was slaughtered for sharing
the young president's dream, and would wait thirty years for justice. This was
the year in which prayer left the public schools, when Camelot came to
shadowed, still-divided
Berlin
, where President Kennedy
announced that he, along with all who prayed for freedom, was a Berliner. It
was the year that Martin Luther King had a dream.

 
          
And
118 days after Kennedy had stood unafraid in the
Berlin
sunlight and held out the
hope of an end to
Europe
's long nightmare, the news
came from
Dallas
.

 
          
What
happened then ended the morning of
America
more completely than civil
war and civil strife, two world wars, and half a dozen smaller brawls had ever
hoped to do. The invincible innocence that
America
had carried like a torch
into the postwar period was shattered forever. Like the Fisher King's unhealed
wound, the destruction of Camelot would taint the American soul forever more.

 
          
It
was November 1963.

 
          
It
was a little after ten in the morning on Friday, November 22. Colin had
finished his
nine A.M.
Introduction to Psychology
class, and he was
leaving Tol-man Hall to walk across the campus to his office when he heard
footsteps running through the corridor behind him. He turned around and saw
Sylvia Eshleman running toward him. Her mascara was smeared like clown-wings
across her cheeks; she was crying in an awful, gape-mouthed silence.

 
          
Dear
God,
Colin thought.
Someone has died.

 
          
"He's
been shot!" she sobbed, stopping in front of him. "The president's
been shot in
Dallas
."

           
It was as if the Armageddon they'd
all been braced for had come a year late. All through that terrible day and
into the night the dead glassy eye of the television showed the commentators in
Dallas and Washington, showed footage of
Dealey
Plaza
and of the stunned, silent
crowds. The president who had passed the torch to a new generation was dead
—
not in war, not by accident,
but by the thoughtless bullet of an assassin.

 
          
People
huddled together, not knowing what else to do. Everyone was stunned and
desperate for news, as if each new bulletin might be a reprieve from the
nightmare. Colin found himself in the Student Union, his face turned like all
the others to the television in the corner, wishing that this news weren't
true. Knowing that it was, and praying that the nation could find the strength
to face it.

 
          
Claire
found him there
—
he never afterward knew how
—
and came into his arms,
weeping as if her heart would break.

 
          
"They've
killed him," she repeated, over and over, as if no other words were
needed. "They've killed President Kennedy."

 
          
The
university canceled the rest of the day's classes an hour later. Colin knew
that there were people he should see, words of comfort that he could offer, but
first he had to see to Claire. He could feel her body shaking, resonating with
the emotions of the people around her, emotions that ranged from shock, to
disbelief, to grief, to rage.

 
          
"Let's
go home, Claire," Colin said gently. "There's nothing you can do
here."

 
          
They
drove to the small apartment on Telegraph where she and Peter had made their
first home. The phone was ringing as Claire let them in, and Colin crossed the
room in one long stride and scooped the receiver out of its cradle.

 
          
"Claire?
Claire?" Peter's voice was desperate.

 
          
"It's
Colin, Peter. Claire's right here." He handed her the telephone and walked
into the kitchen. Behind him he could hear the sound of Claire's responses,
her voice hoarse but composed.

 
          
Where
was the kettle? Colin puttered around the kitchen, letting the very normalcy of
what he was doing soothe his frayed nerves. Here was the kettle, and the pot,
and the sugar
—
but where was the tea?

 
          
"Let
me do that." Claire came into the kitchen and took the kettle away from
him. "Poor Peter
—
he's been trying to reach me all day. I left him a message,
but I guess he didn't get it. We hardly see each other these days; he's working
days and I'm working nights, but I'm sure everything will sort itself out soon
—
"

 
          
She
rattled on, talking much as she would to calm a troubled patient, as she filled
the kettle and set it on the stove and took down the canister of loose tea.

 
          
"Peter's
such a coffee hound that I've switched to bags; there's no point in brewing up
a whole pot when there's only me to drink it. I think there's some cake in the
icebox
—
good
heavens, look at the time; are you sure you wouldn't rather have lunch?"
She rubbed her eyes, and her shoulders sagged.

           
"I'm so tired. And I work again
tonight, and after this, I know the Emergency Room's going to be a 200. . .
." Her voice trailed off. "Oh, dear God . . ."

 
          
"Claire."
Colin took her gently by the shoulders. "You have the strength to face
this. It's a shock, but we'll all survive. There'll be a peaceful transfer of
power
—
that's
what this country's all about
—
Johnson will be sworn in as president."

 
          
Claire
sighed, and smiled wanly. "I just want to know 'why?' That's what
everybody wants to know, I guess. Why would anybody do something this horrible?
What can they gain?"

 
          
Chaos.
Chaos, and destruction, and ruin. . . .

 
          
And
for just an instant Colin was elsewhere; in the vaults of memory, where the
sword-bright image of Toller Hasloch smiled in confident cruelty.
We reshape
the Inner Planes by reshaping the outer. . . .

 
          
Had
Hasloch been a member of a greater organization than he'd suspected?

 
          
1964
began with the new president's state of the union speech. Lyndon Baines Johnson
declared a war on poverty
—
to distract the electorate, some said, from all the wars
they were losing. More and more these days the evening news programs were
talking about a war in
Vietnam
, a war that
—
if
America
lost it
—
would give Communism free
reign over half the globe.

 
          
In
Cuba
, the American naval base at
Guantanamo
grew steadily more isolated;
Fidel Castro had gone from cipher to clown to monster in the public mind, his
scruffy, cigar-smoking image was iconized until it became nearly a trademark
for Banana Republic Communism.

 
          
As
if to divert
America
's attention from the
dimming light of the American Dream, in February four English boys arrived in
New York
—
a singing group called The
Beatles. The teenagers who had bought 45s titled "Love Me Do" and
"Please Please Me" flocked to the airport to meet the Fab Four in
screaming thousands, and for the first time their parents heard the voices that
would take six short years to blend the worlds of music and world events in a
fashion from which neither would ever recover. Two days later
America
saw the faces that went
with the voices on the
Ed Sullivan Show,
in a scene that would become an
icon for a generation.

 
          
And
as spring ripened into summer, the battle lines were drawn for a new war, this
time between the generations. At last the dream of the protest singers had come
true: music was politics. The children of the soldiers in the Last Good War,
the generation that had been orphaned in
Dallas
, had identified their own
generation's enemy, and this time the enemy was not over the sea or across a
national border. This time the enemy lived in their own homes.

 
          
In
California
, 1964 was the first Endless
Summer
—
in
Mississippi
it was Freedom Summer. And
in the sultry days of summer a resolution was proposed in
Washington
by a president whose
greatest offense was that he had survived
—
a resolution that was passed
by Congress and began spreading its power through the fabric of American life
as if it were a conscious retaliation against the brief hopeful candles of the
idealistic Youthquake. The
Gulf
of
Tonkin Resolution
called for more troops to
fight in the jungles of
Southeast Asia
, more troops to be committed to an unwinnable fight whose
existence the American government would only admit to after another year had
passed.