The Return of the Black Widowers (42 page)

"And there's Henry," said Gonzalo.

"Oh, right. Our most important member, Henry, our esteemed waiter, without whom no meeting could possibly be held."

Avalon said, in his startling baritone, "Would Mr. Rose care to repeat our names and thus, perhaps, affix them in his memory?"

Rose laughed. "I'd love to try, but I'd fail. It's all I can do to remember Roger's name. As the evening wears on, I may catch onto the names. Sometimes I do."

"I mean it," said Halsted. "He's got the world's worst memory. Whenever he goes somewhere, his wife has to pin his destination to his shirt so that passersby can help him when he gets lost."

"It's not that bad," said Rose.

David Rose made a rather startling appearance. He was nearly six feet tall, but gave the impression of stockiness. He had bright-red hair, center-parted, and a bright-red beard of moderate length. He had the freckles to go with it, and he wore tortoise-shell glasses that lent him a definitely old-fashioned air. He was clearly an amiable fellow, however, and didn't seem the least put out by Halsted's teasing.

Nor did he seem shy or withdrawn. The conversation returned to where it had been before he had arrived, and it consisted of the nearly inevitable discussion of the Persian Gulf crisis, and of Rubin's loud insistence that Saddam Hussein had to be wiped off the face of the ancient Land of the Two Rivers.*

Ed. Note:
This story was written shortly before the first Gulf War began.

Avalon rumbled, "Who would disagree with you, were it not that we must ask what the consequences would be? Macbeth says, 'If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.' The question is that when it is done, would it indeed be done in the sense that there would be no new problems arising that would be worse than the problem we thought we were solving?"

Rose said, "If we're going to quote Shakespeare, remember that Hamlet says that not knowing what lies ahead 'puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.'"

Avalon said, "It's not cowardly to consider war only as the last resort, or to pause and think things out very carefully before doing anything that may not prove retrievable."

Rubin said, "It's fight him now as he is, or fight him later when he's worked up nuclear weapons."

The argument grew more heated until Henry's quiet voice said, "Gentlemen, dinner is served."

It wasn't long after Thanksgiving and what the Black Widowers sat down to was the traditional feast. It began with melon and prosciutto, followed by a large bowl of lobster bisque, a salad, and then the inevitable roast turkey, with chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, and string beans, and pumpkin pie—or, for those who preferred it, strawberry shortcake. There were also several kinds of breads and rolls, together with generous pats of butter, plus coffee or tea ad libitum.

Roger Halsted, who knew what was coming, used host's privilege to put an end to the Persian Gulf discussion. He said, "We will, one and all of us, get indigestion if we argue out the thing while eating. Let's talk about something else."

And, of course, he had no sooner said that than a deadly silence fell on the table, as no one appeared able to think of a suitable topic.

David Rose grinned, his eyes glinting through his tortoiseshells. "Well, let me start then. This group meets every month, I take it."
"Absolutely. Right here in the Milano," said Avalon, "and we've done so for decades."

"And this is the full number of members? Or are some missing?"

"One or two have died," said Avalon, "or have moved far away from the city, and they have been replaced. We six, however, and Henry are the full number right now and our identity has remained unchanged now for twenty years, though we are one and all of us growing rather precariously old."

"It's delightful," said Rose. "I belong to a group that—"

Gonzalo raised his hand. "You can't talk about yourself during dinner, Mr. Rose. That's for afterward, when we grill you."

"Grill me?" For a moment he looked puzzled. Then he turned toward Halsted. "I remember now, Roger. You warned me about that."

Halsted smiled. "I'm amazed you do remember. But don't worry—it won't hurt."

"I'm not worried," said Rose.

Henry had cleared die table and was serving the concluding brandy when Halsted rattled his spoon against the water glass and said, "Gentlemen, the time has come for grilling our worthy guest. Mario, suppose you take over the task of grill-master."

"Sure," said Gonzalo. He turned to their guest. "We have your name, Mr. Rose, but what we'd like to know is what you do for a living."

Rose said, "I'm a printer. I make a pretty fair living out of it, but what really gives my life meaning is that I'm a book collector. Not an undiscriminating^ one, of course. No one would have enough room to collect books indiscriminately. What I collect are old books on chemistry, pre-Lavoisier."

Gonzalo looked puzzled at the final word, but said, "Does that mean you're a chemist, Mr. Rose?"

Rose shook his head. "Not at all. I just like those old books and their old woodcuts of chemical instruments, their old ways of describing chemical experiments and so on. I have a number of medieval books
on alchemy, too." He felt about his clothing. "I don't think I remembered to bring my card case, but you're welcome to visit my establishment and look at the books yourselves if you want to.—Come to think of it, wasn't one of you introduced as a retired chemist?"

Drake coughed through the smoke of his cigarette and said, "That was I. I'd love to look at your collection."

"Yes," said Halsted, "well, don't ask David where his shop is located, he probably doesn't remember. But I do and I'll write it down for you, Jim. It's really an interesting collection he has— you'll enjoy it."

Gonzalo looked impatient. He said, "I'm the grill master and I don't want to go any deeper into the collection right now. During the meal, Mr. Rose said he belonged to some group which I think he was going to compare to the Black Widowers."

"Well, yes, I was," said Rose.

"Good. You are now free to do so," said Gonzalo. "Go ahead."

"Thank you," said Rose. "I belong to a group called the Thursday Lunch and, as the name implies, we meet every Thursday for lunch—at the Arts Club, actually. It's a very nice group of slightly superannuated gentlemen—rather like yourselves. In fact, last Thursday I just happened to witness the simultaneous arrival of three of the more important of the Thursday Lunchers, each one with his cane, struggling up the stairs toward the front door. I couldn't help but think that the cane is our mark of distinction."

"How many attend the luncheon?" asked Gonzalo.

"Actually, anywhere from fifty to ninety, depending on the weather and on the nature of the speaker."

"You have speakers, then?"

"Oh, yes. We begin the meeting at noon and there's a half-hour cocktail period. At twelve-thirty sharp, luncheon is served. At one-fifteen P.M., our entertainer is introduced—someone who sings or plays an instrument—and at one-thirty we have our speaker. At two P.M., we break up. The whole thing lasts only two hours, but it's all very congenial and it's the high point of the week for most of us— certainly for me."
"How long have you been a member?" asked Trumbull suddenly.

"Nineteen years. The club was founded in nineteen-oh-five, so it has a longish history as such things go."

"What are the qualifications for entry?" asked Gonzalo.

"To start with, it was a group of newspapermen who met for lunch every Thursday, and for a while it was intended for newspapermen only. However, you know how these clubs tend to expand. We now consider ourselves a group of communicators. Anyone who is engaged in reaching the public with information of some sort or other qualifies. This means the group now includes writers of all sorts—editors, publishers, members of the visual media, artists, and so on. I qualify primarily because I'm a printer, though being a book collector also helps.

"As a matter of fact," Rose went on, "being a printer makes me a particularly useful TL-er, since we put out an annual book in connection with our annual banquet."

"What kind of book?" asked Avalon.

"Nothing elaborate. It lists all the members, with photographs of many of diem. It contains some essays—our president is a well-known writer and can be counted on to contribute—and artwork, photographs of all our guests, a list of those members who died in the past year, and so on. I print it without charge and, believe me, the money the club saves in this way is vital."

"But it's money you lose," said Drake.

"Well, money isn't everything, to coin a phrase. The pleasure I get out of the Thursday Lunch restores the balance to my favor and, to be absolutely truthful, the fact that they rather fawn on me for my free printing is also pleasant. But that's just among us, please."

Avalon said gravely, "I hope Roger assured you that anything said at a Black Widowers meeting is considered a privileged communication and never passes beyond these walls."

"So he did," said Rose.

By now, Gonzalo was twitching a little, and scowling. "Listen, Mr. Rose, is there anything about this club of yours that's upsetting you?"

"Upsetting me?" Rose looked surprised. "I can't say there is."

"No little mystery, no little puzzle, nothing that you can't quite explain."

Rose's expression of surprise deepened. "Not at all. Is there supposed to be?"

Avalon said soothingly, "Pay no attention to Mario, Mr. Rose. He's never happy unless there's a puzzle at hand. The rest of us don't require it. —Tell me, what kind of speakers does your club have?"

"It's always been difficult to find speakers. We don't pay, and the audience is less than a hundred and is, by and large, not composed of important and famous people, for all that we're communicators. However, we've had a very good and enthusiastic man in charge of entertainment over the last few years and he gets us some good people—mayors, senators, military men, industrialists, and so on. Actually—and this is something else I wouldn't want repeated—I find the list of speakers a little too much weighted toward the conservative side to suit me, but usually not offensively so. Some years ago, a public figure I found offensively to the right agreed to speak, and that was one of the few meetings I refused to attend."

"Are guests sometimes invited?"

"Oh, yes, that's important. Every guest has to be paid for, so that a good supply of guests not only fleshes out the attendance but the money intake. I once invited Roger to attend one of our luncheons—I'll leave it to him to tell you whether he enjoyed himself."

"I did," said Halsted. "They set a pretty good table."

"And if any of you others," said Rose, "would like to sample the club, it would be easy to arrange."

Trumbull grunted, as though unconvinced of the value of the offer. "Who's talking this coming Thursday?"

"Actually," said Rose, feeling in his suit coat pocket, "I don't remember. I have the speaker and the entertainment written down because by tomorrow morning I have to have it printed up, if we're going to send out the cards making the announcement in time."

He continued to feel in his pockets. "That's funny."
Gonzalo, who had been slumped in his chair scowling, sat up with sudden interest. "What's funny?"

"I can't find the card. That's troublesome."

"Why?" asked Gonzalo avidly.

"I won't be able to get the cards out if I don't find it." Rose stood up and began emptying his pants pockets.

The others watched until he sat down and said, with a sickly smile, "I don't seem to have it."

Halsted cleared his throat. "Does it matter, Dave?"

"Of course it matters," said Rose petulantly. "Do you think I really like all these jokes about my being absentminded? I don't, you know. Everyone thinks it's funny and I have to go along, but it's not. It's not."

"Actually," said Avalon, "although it may not be funny to those who suffer from the condition, it is associated with intelligence. Some of the brightest people in history were terribly absent-minded. They tell the story of the great mathematician, Norbert Wiener, who was walking along Memorial Drive in Cambridge and stopped to speak to a colleague. When they were done, Wiener said, 'Tell me, when we stopped to speak was I walking away from Mass Avenue or toward it?' His colleague said, 'Away from it.' 'Ah,' said Wiener with satisfaction, 'then I've had my lunch.' I met Wiener once and, I tell you, I believe that story."