Recessional: A Novel (71 page)

So on this morning of reflection and evaluation, Richard was traversing meaningful ground. Somewhat to the south of where he had
entered the barren ground now completely restructured by bulldozers, he could see areas that had not been totally denuded and he made his way toward them, thinking as he went. This really could be Africa. Those low shrubs ahead. The Brazilian pepper trees. That vagrant tree here and there, short but growing. I’m homesick. They say that every foreign officer remembers most clearly the spot where the going was the roughest. I remember Africa ten times more often than I do the glamorous nights in Vienna.

But as soon as he had said this, he recalled those wonderful nights in the Austrian capital and that glorious opera hall, romantic in its wartime near-ruin, resplendent in its postwar resurrection, where the great singers of the world gave performances of
Die Meistersinger
,
Lohengrin
and
Aida
: that was living, with celebrations at Demel’s and the Bristol. What glorious variety I’ve had. Suicide bombers at Okinawa to test whether I was a man or not. The tour in Africa to prove that I could run an isolated mission, and Vienna to prove that I could operate a full-scale embassy, too.

Tears came to his eyes as he remembered the loss of his wife, but quickly he brushed them away: I’m ashamed of myself. The doubts this morning. The hesitations. Of course I’m growing older, but for God’s sake, Richard, let’s do it with some class. Get your damned eye fixed. Write to your old companions. Invite that Englishman who behaved so well in Africa over to visit for a while. Get on with it, man. End it in style. Remember what the scoutmaster taught you: “Never tie a granny knot that comes undone. Tie a square one that can’t be pulled apart by wild horses.”

At this point in his wandering he saw that he was close to the spot where the Emerald Pool nestled among the low trees and shrubs: “They did leave a few growing things about,” and as he approached the spot he saw that remnants were prospering despite the carnage about them. As he moved closer to the spot to which he had become attached in his explorations of the savanna, he became almost afraid of what he would see: the deterioration of the pool itself, the denuding of the surrounding landscape, the absence of wildlife, but as he neared it he saw that something, at least, had been salvaged. There was the body of water, still with its emerald cover, and there were a few shrubs about the edges and a frayed patch of grass.

As he studied the deterioration of what had been a thriving oasis he thought of the massive changes he had witnessed in his life: the
wild adjustments in the map of Africa, the demise of Communism throughout the world, the quiet gaining of power by China, the rise of Japan and Germany as major competitors of the United States, and the sad decline of our own productive capacity with its concomitant loss of national leadership. “It’s been a rocky ride,” he said aloud, “but I wouldn’t have missed it.”

As his words echoed heavily in the silent air, he was heard by a longtime resident of the area about the pool, and this one took immediate fright at the unexpected noise. It was Rattler, who had found the recent months most disturbing. He’d been repelled by the big blue heron when he tried to steal her chicks, and had been repeatedly attacked by her mate when he tried to retreat. He had spent weeks without catching a mouse or a rabbit, and those dreadful machines that tore up the earth had come perilously close to where he had lived for so many years of his life.

The various commotions and defeats had put him in an ill temper, so as he watched this new intrusion with hooded eyes, one of the man-things he had been watching through the years and ignoring if they passed him by and allowed him to rest, he followed the approaching footsteps with added care. In preparation for defense, he twisted himself into a tight coil from which he could spring with tripled force if he felt he must attack before the moving object attacked him. In this posture, scarcely breathing lest he move a twig that might alert the intruder, he waited.

Closer and closer came the heavy, steel-toed boots. It seemed as if the next steps must strike the area where Rattler waited, and when one of the huge feet did rise as if it were going to hit the snake, the snake activated his warning rattles and with a mighty thrust of his coiled body leaped forward in the air, fangs at the ready and bullet head directed right at the upper leg of the invader. In a flash during which morning sunlight illuminated the long, thick body of the snake, Rattler’s potent fangs sank deeply into the calf just above St. Près’s bush shoe, delivered their deadly poison and withdrew.

St. Près caught only a fleeting glimpse of the snake as it came flying at him through the air, but he did see the head strike his leg, and he was aware that the fangs had plunged deeply and hung there for a long moment. And he saw the snake retreat as a strange sensation throbbed in his leg and seemed to course upward in some artery or vein.

Clutching his left leg and pressing upon the stricken area as if to limit the effect of the venom, he fell backward upon a matted tuft of grass growing from a mound that now formed a kind of chair. “Is this how it’s to end?” he asked himself quietly as he watched the grasses move slightly as the rattlesnake slithered away, and he had the courage to answer: “So far from the hospital! I doubt I’d reach there.” Then, scientist that he had always been, even if only an enthusiastic amateur, he reasoned: He seemed very big. Thick as my arm. He must have delivered—

He did not finish the thought, for the poison the great snake had injected was already coursing toward the heart, inducing a faintness as it sped along, blocking the passage of oxygen. He knew the attack was fatal, he could feel the numbness growing throughout his body. Then he looked away, across the devastated savanna toward the Palms: “We had a decent life there. I hope Zorn’s successor and Helen Quade—”

A powerful pain overwhelmed him as the major burden of the poison reached his heart, but he was strong and in reasonably good condition, so he did not lose consciousness at once. Instead, he gripped the area about his heart, steadied himself and looked northward to where the gulls, frenzied by some newcomer bringing no food, wheeled in the sky and became Zero fighters over Okinawa. The enemy planes exploded and again he saluted, his right arm so heavy he could barely raise it.

Adjusting his body to alleviate the pain, he suddenly cried a mighty “Ugh!” and fell backward toward the watching snake. Looking up at the sky, he saw the flash of the medals he had rightly won, and with a last cry he shouted “Margaret!” the name of his wife, who had died too soon.

There was no reason why anyone should have missed the ambassador at noontime, since residents did not take lunch together, nor was he expected at any afternoon meetings. But toward three in the afternoon Reverend Quade called his room several times to inquire about some papers he was supposed to give her regarding a scholarship for one of the waitresses who was applying to Duke University. When she failed three times to reach him, she experienced a powerful premonition that some accident might have occurred, a premonition rooted in unhappy experience.

In her work at the three levels of care at the Palms she had formed a habit of looking directly and intensely into the eyes of the residents, and had discovered that there was a different look in the eyes of those older people who had begun to resign themselves to the inevitability of death: “They seem to flash signals to those who care. Time’s running out. I’ve served my enlistment on the battlefields of life and it’s time to make an orderly retreat.” She had noticed that people who sent such messages were satisfied that their sons had found a secure place for themselves in life and that their daughters were safely married. Their grandchildren were doing moderately well, no drugs or premature pregnancies, scholarships to the respected colleges.

“I do not see surrender in their eyes,” she had told St. Près one evening at the tertulia, “rather a sense of reassuring completeness. The race is over, a modest victory has been won.” She realized now that in the last few days she’d seen such a look in Richard’s eyes as he neared his eightieth birthday, but in his case it was a look of bewildered resignation, not triumph, and it was her recollection of that look that now sent her to the main office: “I’m worried about the ambassador. He was supposed to call me at three, and there’s been no word.”

“I’ll call again,” said the switchboard operator and still no response. “Do you want us to look in his room? He hasn’t rung for help.”

“No. That would be intrusive.” A slight blush crept over her composed face. “I’ve no right to be checking on him.” So the forced entry to his room was not made.

But as she left the main desk she was not at ease. Richard St. Près had been signaling for help, of that she was convinced, and as she started inquiring whether anyone had seen him since breakfast she learned that he had forgone the morning meeting and headed for the savanna. “I saw him being bombarded by the gulls when he brought no food,” Laura Oliphant reported, and someone else had seen him striding in the general direction of the Emerald Pool.

“Did anyone see him come back?”

“No.”

She did not confide in the others that she was going to wander through the savanna in case he might have fallen into some kind of disabling trouble, but that is what she did, and she, too, had to fight off the protesting gulls.

Freed of them, she cut across the barren ground that had once been so filled with growing things and small animals and headed for the Emerald Pool, recalling the afternoon when Richard had first taken her to see this secluded gem, green and glistening in sunlight, and the recent visit when he had proposed to her. She half expected to see him sitting on some hummock and either reading or studying the signs of life still existing about the edges of the pool.

As she drew closer she saw that he was not there and experienced a sense of dread, for if he had wandered farther afield and was incapacitated, it might prove difficult to find him. Then, as she was about to turn away she saw him—fallen face upward from the slight rise on which he must have been perched when death came.

She did not cry out, nor did she shrink away in horror. Methodically, as if he were some stricken child, she bent down, studied his ashen face and felt for the heart that had long since ceased functioning. That he was dead, and had been for some hours, was obvious, and this realization fixed her to the spot as she contemplated what to do.

Dinner would be starting in half an hour, the time it would take her to return to the Palms, and if she burst in with the news that the ambassador had died, there would be a commotion and a barrage of questions she could not answer. But what had he died of? Heart failure? Some massive stroke? It would never have occurred to her to examine his legs to see if a snake had struck him; indeed, she was not aware that Rattler lay coiled nearby watching with hooded eyes as this new stranger invaded his sanctuary.

The snake was not required to strike again, for Reverend Quade, her mind at ease as to what she must do, had begun to walk away from the pool. Not hurrying and showing no sign of distraction or despair, she walked solemnly across the barren savanna to the main building, where residents were already filing into the dining room. Avoiding them, she walked casually to Mr. Krenek’s office, greeted him formally, sat down and started to speak, but a flood of such emotion swept over her, the pent-up sorrow of having lost a noble friend, that she suddenly burst into tears.

“Reverend Quade! What is it?”

She continued sobbing for some moments, then controlled herself and, placing her right forefinger on her lips to indicate that Krenek must not react noisily and attract attention, she whispered: “Ambassador St. Près, your men will find him at the Emerald Pool.”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Natural causes, one supposes.”

“You saw him? You’re sure he was dead?”

“At the pool. They’ll find him there.”

“And you want us to keep it quiet? Till the body has been removed? And the doctors can give us an explanation?”

“Yes. There’s no need to create distress in there,” and she motioned toward the dining room, which was now filled.

“I’ll go out myself to fetch him,” Krenek said, and before Helen left the office, two strong workmen arrived to receive instructions: “A sad task, men. We have to do it in complete secrecy,” and the three set off for the Emerald Pool.

When Reverend Quade entered the dining room she paused at the door, studied the tables and said to herself: “These are my flock whom I have elected to serve till I die.” As she studied the familiar faces she realized how deeply she loved these serious people who had made their decisions relating to the last years of their lives. She wished each of them well, and many years of contentment.

At that moment it seemed to her that she could hear organ music she had known long ago. She was a young missionary in China and had been dispatched to a small branch church in the hinterlands to conduct a week of services in a ramshackle building, which contained a fine German organ. An elderly Chinese man had taught himself to play the simple tunes required, and at the end of each service, as she was leaving the pulpit, he played a splendid piece of music with obvious enthusiasm.

On the fourth night she lingered to ask him what the refrain was, and he had handed her a well-worn sheet of music with the heading “Recessional. To be played at the close of service.” It bore no publisher’s name, no date at which it was printed nor the name of the composer. It had no text, it was just a sheet of music dating far back in the history of Christianity, but it was a powerful accompaniment to the close of worship and the filing out of the faithful.

“Recessional,” she whispered softly to herself as she studied the dining room. “We’re all passing slowly, honorably away.”

Then her eyes drifted toward the round table in the corner, where the tertulia was now deprived of its second member. Whom would
they move into their circle to take the ambassador’s place? Perhaps Maxim Lewandowski. But did it have to be another man?