Recessional: A Novel (69 page)

“There need be no changes in our patterns of life, no radical alterations in our financial arrangements. It could be said to be a marriage of two like minds, clean and mutually productive.”

Reverend Quade was taken aback. This had developed far more quickly than she had anticipated. His reasoning was far more advanced than she could have expected, and she was not sure how she could reject such a sensible proposal, but since she had firmly decided not to marry before the conversation veered in that direction, she
now knew that she must make her position clear. To do otherwise would be unfair.

“Richard, we haven’t many years, you and I. We’ve organized our lives in rewarding patterns and I don’t think we should disrupt them by an action which might have been eminently sensible sixty—even twenty—years ago but which would lack any real justification now. Mentally, in our attitudes toward society, in our behavior toward our associates, we’re already married. I think we should let it go at that.”

“But you sidestep the fact that I’ve grown to love you, that I need your companionship. The fact that I’m nearly eighty makes my desire to get my life properly organized even more pressing. I would dearly love to spend with you what years remain.”

“And so you shall. Right here where we are. We can dine together any evening you wish. We can take walks like this any day. We can pass into our eighties as dear, close friends. I see no pressing need for change.”

Not trying to hide his dejection, he asked almost pleadingly: “Are you saying No?” and she clasped his hands, smiled warmly and said: “I am, and I know I’ll regret it many times. But no. I think that for us to marry would be wrong and unnecessary.”

He sighed, rose, moved away from the Emerald Pool and said: “You’d have been the ideal wife for an ambassador in a beleaguered African nation. So much to do, so many lives to shape.”

“I’m still striving to achieve those same worthy ends, and so are you, but in these autumnal days we spend our efforts with those who are leaving life, not entering it,” and she caught his hand, used it to pull herself to her feet, and embraced him.

On their slow walk back to Gateways St. Près said: “There are times when it’s not entirely advantageous to stand eighty–twenty in your diagram. If I were ninety-five–five I’d not have talked so much. I’d have stated my position, knocked you on the head with my club, and dragged you back to my cave.”

When she laughed at this alternative he said seriously: “And if you’d been ninety–ten, you’d have accepted me on the sensible grounds that every woman should have a husband—as proof of her ability to capture one.”

She reflected on this, then said: “You may be right, Richard. I was certainly so motivated when I chased my young missionary, and landed him. But today…” She was going to say she had grown more
mature, but instead she said: “No matter how old we get, we never quite understand the basic drives that help determine our behavior.”

When he delivered her to her quarters and saw everything not only in place but conveniently located, he said ruefully: “No need for you to change, Helen. Modern society has rendered the husband superfluous,” and as she ushered him to the door she said: “But not the fellowship of a man I adore.”

“The standard escape clause: ‘Let’s be friends.’ The threnody of modern courtship,” he said, and she kissed him good-bye.

Three days after Christmas, as had been planned in April, the Raúl Jiménez tertulia, lacking its leader, laid their hands on the polished plane and pushed it into position for takeoff, with almost the entire population of Gateways standing by with their cameras while two television crews waited with theirs. As he had done on his earlier midnight flight, pilot St. Près carried out the traditional check of his craft and baffled some observers by dropping to his knees and opening the petcock to test the gasoline. A minute amount of condensation had occurred; he let it drain, smelled his fingers to be sure the remainder was gasoline, and all was ready. President Armitage and Senator Raborn helped him into the pilot’s seat, Max Lewandowski made a final check of the propeller, and then everyone stepped back. The starter soon had the engine coughing, then catching and finally almost roaring in the ears of those close at hand.

Since the cockpit had no doors—they were optional and could be added later—St. Près, proudly sitting up straight, was free to wave to the cheering crowd before turning to attend to his job. Obtaining takeoff clearance, he released the brakes, eased back on the wheel and started his plane down the runway. Pulling back the controls, he soared into the air as nearly two hundred residents and townspeople applauded. This time he did not fly out over the gulf but kept the plane in a confined area so that its progress could be followed both by those on the ground and by those watching excitedly from their Assisted Living windows at the Palms.

Then, as the plane circled in the sky, it alternated altitudes, sometimes flying close to the heads of the watchers, at other times climbing with a steepness that startled those who knew anything about flying, then leveling off through the cloudless winter sky.

As the plane demonstrated its capabilities—and they were awesome considering how it had been built—a collective consciousness of a mind-boggling phenomenon gripped the crowd. The average age of the five builders was 79.2 years, the probable average of the spectators from the Palms was seventy-four, but as the spectators saw the plane that they, in a sense, had built and realized that the pilot was one year short of eighty, a surge of enormous pride engulfed them. They had done it! These elderly men whom many outside the Palms would have deemed too old to accomplish much of anything, had built an airplane just as they said they would, and had flown it to celebrate the beginning of the new year.

This remarkable achievement buoyed up all the watchers. Look! He’s buzzing the field to salute us! And a roar went up—a carefully modulated roar, since the voices were so old and many of them cracked—and the crowd edged forward to see how the ambassador would end this historic flight, but he confused them by flying far to the south, turning in a big circle, taking another complete circle and then activating an ingenious device that Maxim Lewandowski had contrived. When St. Près released a catch, a long bundle trailed from the rear of the plane and unfolded in the wind to reveal a large white banner. As the plane dragged it overhead the spectators could read
RAÚL Y FELICITA
. This display brought no roar of approval, only the silent salute of the Jiménezes’ friends to mark their passing.

His job done, St. Près flew his aircraft to the far end of the field and checked the windsock, then landed it perfectly and taxied it back to the starting point while cheering people crowded forward to congratulate him. That evening when the tertulia, with Lewandowski as an honored guest, convened, the dominant question was: “What do we do with the plane now?” and President Armitage had a ready answer: “Let’s give it to one of the industrial high schools. The sooner their mechanics learn about planes the better.” The men investigated various schools till they found a junior college with a shop foreman who already had his small-plane license. In the months to come, the Palms residents would occasionally see the plane in the skies above the palm trees, and some would think of Ambassador St. Près and others of Raúl Jiménez.

On his last day at the Palms, Andy rose early, walked through all the corridors of all the buildings bidding farewell to the workers who
had supported him so energetically and who had seen the rooms filled to 96 percent occupancy. Together they had converted a marginal operation into a minor gold mine, and they were proud. He could see that although they restrained themselves they were sorry to see him go and angered by the reasons that had driven him away.

“Good luck in Tennessee!” some of the workers cried as he passed, and one or two gave him more sturdy encouragement: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” and at these words he reflected that this was the task of honorable men wherever they worked. There were adverse forces, some natural like hurricanes, some like Clarence Hasslebrook, whose job it was to oppose men and women of goodwill. No one escaped their pressure, but strong men and women found the courage to oppose them, no matter what the cost.

“If you run the new place the way you’ve run this,” one woman said, “it’ll be a shoo-in.”

“I want it to be,” Andy said as he left the building and walked outside into the crisp January air, and as he did, both his lungs and his spirit expanded, for now he was back in touch with nature. True, the savanna was badly scarred, but the new plantings along the proposed roads seemed to be doing nicely, and the four small lakes did have water in them, which moved from one to another by means of little streams that a child could jump over. The individual residential buildings that would complete the Palms and ensure its financial security were nearing completion, and they did not look entirely deplorable: “With people in them and green grass sprouting, I suppose it’ll be almost acceptable.” Then he laughed at himself: “My successor will never have seen the savanna or known what a splendid part of nature it had been. He’ll never miss it, but I’m glad that the Sheltering Hills will have trees and lakes and mountainsides that will last at least for our lifetimes. Thank you, God, for that national park and our thirteen hundred acres. If we mess that up we should be ashamed of ourselves.”

His throat choked as he came to the ruins of Judge Noble’s empty chair, rooted in concrete, and he sat on it awhile, visualizing the judge and his birds. Of course the gulls came, screaming abuse at him for not bringing food, and the white egrets and blue herons strutted by to check whether he intended fishing, then moved on in disgust. Pelicans dived in the channel, and to his delight, a late-arriving manatee moved lazily up the warm current to his regular haven.

“I had a good year here, thanks to the birds and manatees. My
regards,” and he thought with regret: Farewell, old friends. None like you in Tennessee, and he wondered what he would find there. With those woods and mountains he was sure there would be wildlife he would find just as wonderful as the pelicans and manatees.

A short turn to the left brought him to the neglected Emerald Pool, which had so captivated him in his first days at the Palms, and here he stopped to rest on a grassy hummock overlooking the limpid water and prepared himself for the two difficult interviews he must conduct before making his departure. Feeling little hope that he could bring these matters to a successful conclusion, he rose, squared his shoulders and marched back to his office.

The first interview was with Helen Quade, and when this stately woman with a touch of grace in all she did joined him, he said pleadingly: “Helen, I hope you’ve reconsidered your refusal to join our team in Tennessee.”

She smiled as if she were a teacher and he a pupil, then said with quiet firmness: “No, Andy. I can’t go with you.”

“Why not?” he begged, and she said: “In these last few days since you proposed such a move, and with a salary attached, I’ve had to study what I believe in as a human being, not as a clergywoman, and I realize that I’m like all the others living here. I came here to organize a spiritually satisfying end to a life that has been mainly beautiful and which I shall fight like Berta Umlauf to keep that way. I trust I will have better luck than she did. But I’m like precious Raúl Jiménez, gunned down by his perpetual enemies. Or like dear Muley Duggan, caring for his wife to the end. And I’m like all the wise widows who come here quietly to assuage their grief over the loss of their husbands. Andy, I’m one of this decent, self-respecting congregation, a vital part of it, and I doubt that I could find anything as meaningful in Tennessee.” She stopped, looked at him with tears in her eyes and said: “I’m in my mid-seventies, Andy, and I don’t have the energy to build a new congregation.” She waved her hands as if erasing the unworthy thought of giving up. “Of course I have the energy. I’ll have the energy till the day I die, but I’ve invested years of my life in building a haven here, and here I will remain among my friends as each day we grow older and each month some of us falter, and each year some of us die. That was the great adventure I entered into years ago and with which I am now content.”

She rose, said something about wishing him and Betsy well in
their new home, then asked: “Andy, would you allow me to say a prayer for both of us?”

“Please.”

“Dear God, Andy and I have been partners in striving to bring decency and order into this special place. We’ve had triumphs and disasters, moments of great joy and tragedy, but we have prospered. Please give us additional strength to continue to do Thy work in helping the lives of our friends wind down to a conclusion that Thou would approve of, he in his new obligation in Tennessee, I still in Florida.” As her final words passed like a whisper in the room, she took Andy’s hands, drew him to her and gave him the kiss of Christian charity. Then she slapped him soundly on the shoulder and cried: “Off with you. Your job here’s been completed, handsomely,” and she started to leave, but at the door she turned and broke into a roguish chuckle: “They tell me Clarence Hasslebrook has rented rooms in the village next to your new retirement center.” When Andy winced she added: “He is a fool, but remember, he’s also basically right. Life is sacred, and sometimes we need men like him to protect us old people.”

“But do they need to come in the likes of Hasslebrook?”

“God sometimes uses strange messengers to do His work. Tread softly,” and she raised her right hand to bestow blessings on Andy and his new ventures.

His next appointment was with Bedford Yancey, his genius rehabilitator, and when the lanky Georgian entered, Zorn went right to the point: “Yancey, we need you in Tennessee. And you’ll have so many advantages there. New buildings, a fine gymnasium, state-of-the-art exercise machines, and more money than you can make here. What do you say?”

“Like I said before, I can’t do it, Dr. Zorn.”

“I still don’t understand why,” Andy said, and he was shocked by the simplicity of the answer: “Tennessee may be all you say, but it has one real fault.”