Quartet for the End of Time

 

Q
UARTET FOR THE
E
ND OF
T
IME

A
LSO BY

J
OHANNA
S
KIBSRUD

—

This Will Be Difficult to Explain and Other Stories

The Sentimentalists

CONTENTS

As a musician I studied rhythm. Rhythm is, in essence, alteration and division. To study alteration and division is to study Time. Time—measured, relative, physiological, psychological—is divided in a thousand ways, of which the most immediate for us is a perpetual conversion of the future into the past. In eternity, these things no longer exist. So many questions! I have posed these questions in my
Quartet for the End of Time.

— O
LIVIERMES
S
IAEN

Q
UARTET FOR THE
E
ND OF
T
IME

I.

Sutton

RIOT ON THE MALL. THE JUDGE
'
S HOUSE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURTHOUSE
,
CAMP MARKS, WASHINGTON
,
D.C., JUNE–JULY
,
1932—WITH A BRIEF DETOUR TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURTHOUSE
,
1928.

I
t was her mother who accompanied Sutton to her father's door. Who stood beside her, hand raised and trembling, before she finally brought it down: knocking, sharply, twice. Who, in response to her husband's voice, which echoed from inside, touched her daughter lightly on the shoulder, as though in sympathy for something that she couldn't name, then stepped aside to let her pass.

It was the afternoon following the riots; Alden had not yet returned, and the household had been thrown into turmoil of a rare sort—her mother's incursion beyond the limit of her own quarters was certain evidence of this. And now, inexplicably, the Judge wished to speak to
her.
She was to listen very carefully, her mother warned, and do as she was told. This was counsel that could, in itself, have hardly been deemed unusual—except that it went without saying in the Kelly house. When
the Judge spoke, there was never any choice but to listen. Of all people, it was her mother who should have known that. Sutton had, therefore, no idea what sort of man to expect in her father's room, now that the remarkable idea had been introduced—if in the negative—that her father was a man whom she conceivably
might not
listen to or obey.

What drew her attention immediately, however, upon first entering, was not anything out of the ordinary with her father himself (he appeared very much as he always had, sitting upright behind his desk in his straight-backed chair), but a hat. A man's hat. Rather sad and misshapen-looking, it sat, incongruously, on her father's desk. A hat on the table, as the Judge himself had taught her, was a very definite sign of bad luck. It was an old cowboy code, a tradition the Judge prided himself in having inherited—though, truth be told, the Kellys themselves had never been actual cowboys. They were wheat farmers from Indiana. The Judge kept an old riding whip anyway as proof of his midwestern pedigree. It lay coiled in his desk's thin middle drawer, and from time to time he would take it out and flick it back and forth with a repetitive twist of his wrist, making, as he did so, a swishing sound that could be heard through the house. They always knew when the Judge was in a meditative mood because of it. It never failed, he said—that particular rhythm, and the accompanying sound the whip made as it cut through the air—to soothe him, and help him to think. Perhaps, as he reflected on more than one occasion, it was due to being reminded through the object's weight and the steady rhythm of it in his hand, of its great and complicated history—which, by extension, was also his own. As a child, Sutton had marveled over the multitude of various conflicting details that surrounded the object, and it had taken her many years to realize what it meant that—on the subject of the whip—her father never told the same story twice.

N
OW, HOWEVER, THOUGH THE
Judge had taken the whip from its drawer, he merely fingered its rough leather absently. Only occasionally did he allow it to twitch, restlessly, as if more or less of its own accord, in his hand.

In any case, it was not her father's whip, but the hat, which held Sutton's attention as she entered her father's room.

Why on earth, she wondered, had he not only let it remain on the table, but seemed to have deliberately placed it there? It seemed quite pointless, she reflected (and she could only assume that, on this count, the Judge himself would agree—it was only according to his “code,” after all, that she considered the matter), to go about knowingly courting ill fortune in this or any other way—even if one was (as the Judge himself, despite any Romantic allusions, surely was) the very opposite of a superstitious man. Things
don't just happen
, he had told her and Alden on she didn't know how many countless occasions.
You make them happen
.

B
EHIND HIS DESK
, J
UDGE
K
ELLY
was sitting very upright, indeed. It was the same posture he assumed while marching in the parade every Fourth of July. (A former colonel, the Judge had been heavily decorated for his service—particularly during the Banana Wars, where he had helped to quell the March riots back in 1911.) As Sutton entered, he cleared his throat and sat more upright still.

He hoped—he said quickly, waving her toward the empty chair opposite his large, low desk, where she was to sit—she had not been too much disturbed by recent events.

Sutton sat. She shook her head.

No, she had not.

But the Judge had hardly paused long enough for a reply.

Now, look, he was saying. Your brother. He's gone ahead and gotten himself tangled up with all of this somehow. As usual with him, it's just a case of having found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time— something that's become almost like a habit with him. But see now, if we aren't careful in this particular case …

Here the Judge paused. He cleared his throat, and—distracted suddenly—looked up to where an empty chandelier hook, upon which nothing, as far as Sutton was aware, had ever hung, marked the exact center of the high ceiling. Almost absently, as he did so, he extended a
hand toward the hat. Then his eyes descended, meeting—for the briefest of moments—Sutton's own.

A great many things, he said, his eyes fixed firmly now on the hat between them (as though, indeed, it were to the hat, and not to his daughter, he spoke), are held in balance by a very few. This is something that may be difficult for someone of your age to understand—but that is not the most important thing. The more important thing now, he said (still as though to the hat), is to establish that you and I both have in this case … a certain …
responsibility.

He looked up now, flickeringly, this time without meeting his daughter's eye.

Let's go back, he said. To just around this time yesterday afternoon—

But Sutton's heart had begun to beat here so unnaturally fast that— though it was a very simple one—the Judge was forced to repeat his question twice before she heard.

Sutton, the Judge said again. I'm asking you. Where were you? Yesterday afternoon?

It was only according to a tremendous effort that she was able to reply.

Here, she said, finally. In a small voice, hardly her own.

I
T WAS TRUE.
As the noise had drifted from the Mall, Sutton had remained with her mother indoors—only once venturing out to the yard, where she heard the scream of sirens and exchanged a few words with the neighbor, who was just at that moment passing in front of their house to his own. Everything had just “gone wild,” Mr. Heller had said—taking unconcealed pleasure in being able to pass on the news. The veterans had stormed the White House, and he—Mr. Heller—would not be surprised if a Communist flag was flying there now. Anyone could have seen it coming, he concluded dolefully, shaking his head and continuing past.

Shortly after, the Judge telephoned. They shouldn't wait dinner, he said. But, no, no—everything was all right.

Sutton could hear his voice through the receiver, which her mother
held at an angle, away from her ear. Everything would be cleared up in no time now, he said. Look at it this way. This may be just the break we need. They've called in the Army. Now the whole thing is certain to be over and done with—and soon.

A pause, then: Where's Alden? With you?

Alden had not been seen since late morning, when, after rising late as usual, he had eaten breakfast alone, then—giving his mother a kiss on the forehead—headed for the door. He hadn't said where he was going; he never did.

No, Alden was not with them, Mary Kelly said, her voice rising. They hadn't seen him, she said, but here she paused. She could hardly think. Her eyes flitted nervously about the room. Since—when?

Sometime just before noon, Sutton said. Mary repeated the information. Stephen's voice came back sounding flat and mechanical through the line.

Well, not to worry, he said. The Mall's almost clear. Even if he made it down that far, he'll be home before long.