Recessional: A Novel (27 page)

With mixed feelings he turned his attention to the left-hand side of the entrance row, for although the Brazilian pests had been sawed off and rooted out, they had been replaced, through the generosity of Mr. Taggart, by a gorgeous line of nearly full-grown oleander shrubs that formed a sturdy hedge of dull-red flowers set among bright green leaves. “They’re curious,” Andy said as he checked their growth, finding each of them firmly rooted in the short time since the cutting of the Brazilians, “because they carry a deadly poison. There are stories galore of lost wanderers who slept under a growth of oleanders and died because the poison from their leaves dripped down on them. Probably an old wives’ tale, but we do know their leaves are poisonous to eat. Yet how beautiful!”

He also walked south of the buildings and saw with a pang of regret where the ruins of Judge Noble’s chair rusted at the edge of the channel. The big pool was in good condition and the walking path south had good footing. “The Palms is a sanctuary tucked within its own little paradise. I hope we can protect it.”

Indoors, he inspected first the health center and was pleased to observe the bright colors of the new paint in the hallways of Assisted Living and Extended Care. He shuddered when he passed Room 312, where Mrs. Carlson still survived amid her wonderland of tubes, insertions and electrical connections, but he had learned to keep his mouth shut about that medical aberration. He had been indoctrinated in the fact that neither he nor any other Palms employee had anything to do with that room. What happened there was determined by the courts of Florida.

When he reached Gateways he was gratified to see it was such a
treasure in the retirement system, clean, cheerful, well ordered and brightened with vases of flowers. But he was less happy when he reached the ground floor and telephoned the main desk to send him a key so that he could inspect the new hobby room. When Delia, the efficient receptionist, said: “I have strict orders. No one can go to that room without being escorted by one of the five men building the plane,” he asked: “Not even me? This is Dr. Zorn.”

“I recognized your voice, sir. No, not even you.” He asked Delia to roust out one of the team, and in time Maxim Lewandowski, the aged scientist, appeared. The accident that it was he who came to represent the tertulia of dreamers was unfortunate in that he seemed so terribly old and frail that to think of him building an airplane was, frankly, ridiculous. But once inside the crowded room he became a different person. Moving to his lathe, he pointed to a blueprint diagram that gave the specifications for the propeller; he was obligated to follow the specifications to the smallest fraction of an inch. The old fellow had mathematical measuring devices that enabled him to do this, and a handsome twist of laminated wood sanded to a micrometer smoothness and covered with a hard, luminous varnish glistened in the morning sunlight.

“How about that motor you men ordered?” Andy asked, and Lewandowski became once more the professor: “Dr. Zorn, the terms ‘motor’ and ‘engine’ are not synonymous. A
motor
is a device that runs on electricity provided by some outside force. Like the motor that operates the windshield wiper. An
engine
is a device that runs on the power it generates itself.” He paused, then used an illustration he had often used in his seminars: “Can you imagine how long the wires would have to be if you tried to power an airplane on a flight from New York to Tokyo using a motor? Or just as bad, how big the batteries would have to be to store that amount of electricity?” Patting the front end of the fuselage, he said: “To fly a plane, you need an engine. To operate this wiper, a little motor.” When Andy said he had it clear, Lewandowski said: “And where do we get the electricity to run this little motor? From a generator attached to the gasoline engine. On a big passenger plane it automatically generates enough electricity to light the cabin, air-condition it and operate all the instruments in the cockpit.”

When Andy left the old man and his shimmering propeller, he had a better understanding of what the tertulia was attempting, but when he returned to his desk he was overcome with apprehension:
“Good God! What if those old-timers do finish their plane, and take it out there and it gets into the air for eight or ten minutes and then crashes—with everyone watching—and maybe even television cameras? What a horrible mess. The story would make news across the nation. I wonder if I could persuade them to call this off. They’d object, of course—they’ve invested so much time—but I’d better try.”

He did, that evening, when he dropped by table four and asked if he might join them for dessert. “You can join us,” Senator Raborn grumbled, “but you can’t have dessert. The yogurt machine is on the blink.”

“We’ll get it fixed,” Andy said for the twentieth time. When he had the attention of the four men he asked, tentatively: “Have you ever thought of just building the plane, leaving out the engine and giving it maybe to some industrial arts school in Tampa?”

Ambassador St. Près stiffened as he had in central Africa when his second in command at the embassy had asked: “Mr. Ambassador, do you think it prudent to take up flying…at your age, I mean? Why couldn’t you rely—”

He had stared at the young man and growled: “That’s an asinine question. Schedule me for lessons on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

Now, with equal stiffness but softer language, he said: “Dr. Zorn, I appreciate why you might be apprehensive about us old men taking our plane into the air over your establishment, but I assure you that was fully our intention from the moment we started building
The Palms One
, which is what we shall christen her. And our determination has never wavered. I have renewed my license every year as an act of faith. And I believe the senator does, too.”

“Mine lapsed, but I can get it renewed,” Raborn said.

“So the plane will fly, Doctor, in capable hands.”

“I wish you well. I’ll be there to cheer you on.” But as he left the table he paused, looked back at the four elderly dreamers and made the wish: I pray that you clowns can keep it in the air, just this once.

Back in his office, he leaned back in his chair and juggled John Taggart’s imaginary blocks: This place is in great shape, Gateways is filled to capacity barring those two small rooms that Miss Foxworth likes to hold in reserve for unexpected visitors. Extended Care also filled to capacity. Then he smiled self-indulgently: But my best move was to bring good old boy Bedford Yancey and that wife of his, energetic Ella, down here. With their help we have Assisted Living under control and almost flourishing.

He considered for a brief moment whether he should write a report on his successes to Mr. Taggart, but his cautious nature warned him against premature boasting: “Play it cool, Andy my son,” he could hear his father saying. “Save the letters to Chicago until you have this place locked into the profit column.”

As he sat at his desk, a strange lethargy began to creep over him. For a long time he did nothing, just letting his thoughts drift aimlessly, but he slowly realized that although he was pleased by the apparent success of the initial period of his custodianship, there was a deep unhappiness within himself—a gnawing dissatisfaction with the state of his personal life. He disliked being introspective—he feared the danger of plumbing the depths—but now he was forced to ask himself: Why am I so restless? Why, at the very moment of having turned this place around, am I so damned…
unhappy
? The instant he acknowledged—almost involuntarily—that he was profoundly unhappy his defenses crumbled: I’ve lost everything that matters to me—my wife, my work in the clinic. I was meant to be a doctor…and I threw it all away…through cowardice. I allowed that damned lawyer to destroy my life.

At this moment his protracted soliloquy was interrupted by a committee of three women who were part of a group rehearsing for an amateur gala to be performed on Memorial Day. They were dressed in the costumes worn by little girls around 1910: short, frilly dresses, lace collars high at the neck and saucy little blue-and-white hats. Their spokesman explained: “Dr. Andy, we’ve added a new song to our number and we want you to be the first to hear it. Come along, business matters can wait till tomorrow,” and they dragged him off to the rehearsal room.

They were three from a group of seven, who, after apologizing for the fact that not all had memorized the new words, gathered about Andy and sang:

“Dr. Zorn, he’s a dandy

Hair not red but kinda sandy
.

He gives kids an extra candy

We feel safe to have him handy

Give the guy a shot of brandy.”

Muley Duggan, passing by on his way to his apartment after visiting with his afflicted wife in Assisted Living, heard the last line and scurried about to get a bottle of brandy and returned to pour Andy a
hefty portion. Normally, Andy was abstemious, having watched several doctor acquaintances of his washed down the tubes in a flood of alcohol—“I like a cold beer now and then, but that’s about it”—but this day had been so painful and the song such a vote of confidence that he guzzled the brandy with alacrity, grateful for its comforting heat passing through his veins.

Leaving the chorus and Muley, he returned to his office, where he began brooding again. Bitterly he asked himself: Is this to be the balance of my life? The respected director of a refuge where delightful elderly women idolize you and the long years drift by?…At this moment, unaccountably, an inner voice he did not recognize as his own spoke decisively: Get yourself back on the main track. Find someone to share a life with. And don’t postpone it till you’re fifty.

Suddenly lighthearted, he went to his apartment and, thanks to the brandy, was asleep in less than ten minutes.

Shortly after that emotionally wrenching night when he had had to sort out his personal long-range goals, he received a letter whose potential for ugliness made perspiration spring to his forehead. It came from Chattanooga and carried in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope the ominous name of Dr. Otto Zembright, M.D. Before daring to open it, Andy leaned back, visualizing the Tennessee doctor who had been so proficient and helpful that snowy New Year’s morning when the girl lost both her legs in the car crash.

He remembered Zembright’s cautionary counsel never to play the Good Samaritan: “I’d have got the hell out of there as soon as I could,” he had said. So it was unlikely that Zembright himself was about to bring any kind of action against him, but he might be warning him about someone who was. Memories of his days on the witness stand flooded back to him and he shuddered.

Unable to postpone opening the letter indefinitely, he gingerly slipped a desk knife into the fold at the top and took out the single sheet of paper. It contained only three sentences: “Father of girl is grateful. Nothing to fear. Please call me.”

Andy should have been relieved by the letter, but he was so afraid of yet another lawsuit of some kind that he sat numbly for several minutes. Finally he grabbed the phone nervously, found Zembright’s
number by calling information, and said, his voice trembling: “It’s Dr. Zorn. I received your letter. What does it mean?”

“What is says. Nothing to fear from this end.”

When Zorn sighed in relief, Zembright explained: “Oliver Cawthorn, Betsy’s father, is a first-class human being. One of God’s finest. He knows you saved his daughter’s life and wants to see you on a most important mission.”

“Like what?”

“Not over the phone.”

“Should I let him come?”

“Yes. I think highly of him, the way he’s behaved the past several months, and I want to come down with him.”

“Is it that important?”

“Yes.”

“In spite of the advice you gave me? To get the hell out if you interfere in a car wreck?”

“Conditions vary.”

Reluctantly Andy agreed that Zembright should fly down to Tampa right away and bring Oliver Cawthorn with him.

Still apprehensive about the purpose of the visit, Andy drove north to Tampa International and waited nervously for his guests to deplane, but as soon as he saw big, gruff Otto Zembright and his smiling face he began to relax, thinking: If he’s engaged in some conspiracy to do me in, then the whole world is rotten. And when Oliver Cawthorn stepped forward to be introduced, his anxiety vanished, for the man, who was lean, with sandy hair and sparkling eyes, had an obvious desire to be his friend: “Dr. Zorn! Our family owes you a tremendous debt, me more than the others. You gave me back my daughter.” He did not try to embrace Andy or shake his hand excessively, but his fervent tone conveyed his deep gratitude.

As Zorn sped them south along Route 78 and turned right on the cutoff to the Palms, the visitors saw the stately march of Washingtonias facing the brilliant oleanders and were impressed by the aesthetics of the place. When Andy took them briefly through Gateways and Health, they found much to admire there also.

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Zembright said, and Cawthorn agreed: “A person in this place wouldn’t feel she was in prison—or the morgue.”

“But could we see the rehab center?” Zembright asked. “That’s
why we’re here,” and when Andy showed them the spacious quarters with the most modern machines, the older doctor said to the other visitor: “Oliver, they definitely have the wherewithal. But do they have the experts?”

“We’ll see the man in charge later,” Andy said.

Discussion of their trip started immediately upon their return to Andy’s office: “Dr. Zorn, my daughter Betsy believes, and with good reason, that you saved her life. Dr. Zembright agrees. And we’re all most deeply grateful to you for your timely help. You didn’t have to do what you did, or stay with her at the hospital.” Cawthorn continued: “But her health…her recovery, it’s not going well. Primarily because she’s given up hope.” With tears starting to fill his eyes, he reached in his pocket for a series of photographs showing his legless daughter reclining languidly among pillows, her face ashen, her eyes listless.

Andy was interested to see that the girl in whose life he had played an important role was even more attractive than he remembered, but was saddened by her obvious loss of interest in life: “She was a more determined fighter that morning when I lifted her into the helicopter. Haven’t you started therapy?”