The Fires of Spring (67 page)

David and Marcia Harper left the Meeting House. Of their free will and with their own words they had married, and ahead of them reached a prospect of endless worth. But when they reached Third Avenue, a newsboy was screaming his evening papers: “Hitler withdraws from the League of Nations!” David looked at the headlines casually and wondered what new wretchedness was afoot; but Marcia, who pondered these things, clutched David closely, and though the day was warm she drew herself beside him as if a cold wind had suddenly swept across the world.

J
AMES
A. M
ICHENER
, one of the world’s most popular writers, was the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning
Tales of the South Pacific
, the best-selling novels
Hawaii
,
Texas
,
Chesapeake
,
The Covenant
, and
Alaska
, and the memoir
The World Is My Home
. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.

Read on for an excerpt from

Centennial

A Novel

by James A. Michener

Available from Dial Press Trade Paperbacks

THE
COMMISSION

O
NLY ANOTHER WRITER, SOMEONE WHO
had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door.

‘New York’s trying to get you,’ he said with some excitement. ‘If I got the name right, it’s one of the editors of
US
.’

‘The magazine?’

‘I could be wrong. They’re holding in my office.’

As we hurried along the corridor he said, with obvious good will, ‘This could prove quite rewarding, Lewis.’

‘More likely they want to verify some fact in American history.’

‘You mean, they’d telephone from New York?’

‘They pride themselves on being accurate.’ I took perverse pleasure in posing as one familiar with publishing. After all, the editors of
Time
had called me once. Checking on the early settlements in Virginia.

Any sophistication I might have felt deserted me when I reached the telephone. Indeed, my hands were starting to sweat. The years had been long and fruitless, and a telephone call from editors in New York was agitating.

‘This Dr. Lewis Vernor?’ a no-nonsense voice asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Author of
Virginia Genesis?’

‘Yes.’

‘Had to be sure. Didn’t want to embarrass either of us.’ The voice dropped slightly, as if that part of the discussion were ended. Then with crisp authority it said, ‘Dr. Vernor, I’m James Ringold, managing editor here at
US.
Problem is simple. Can you catch a plane from Atlanta this afternoon and report at my office tomorrow morning at nine?’ Before I could even gasp, he added, ‘We cover expenses, of course.’ Then, when I hesitated because of my surprise, he said, ‘I think we may have something that would interest you … considerably.’ I grew more confused, which gave him time to add, ‘And before you leave for the airport, will you discuss schedules with your wife and your college? We shall very probably want to preempt your time from the end of semester right through Christmas.’

I placed my hand over the mouthpiece and made some meaningless gesture toward Dean Rivers. ‘Can I fly to New York on the late plane?’

‘Of course! Of course!’ he whispered with an enthusiasm as great as mine. ‘Something big?’

‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back. Then into the phone I said, ‘What was your name again?’ When he replied, I told him, ‘I’ll be there.’

In the next hour I called my wife, arranged for Professor Hisken to take my classes and then reported to the president’s office, where Dean Rivers had prepared the way with President Rexford by telling him that it sounded like the chance of a century for me and that he, Rivers, recommended that I be given the necessary leave.

Rexford, a tall southern gentleman who had accomplished wonders collecting funds for a college that badly needed them, was always pleased when one of his faculty received outside attention, because in subsequent meetings with businessmen he could allude to the fact that ‘we’re becoming better known all the time, something of a national force.’ He greeted me warmly and asked, ‘What’s this I hear about
US
wanting to borrow our finest history man for the autumn term?’

‘I really know nothing about it, sir,’ I replied honestly. ‘They want to interview me tomorrow morning, and if I pass muster, they want to offer me a job from term-end to Christmas.’

‘When’s your next sabbatical?’

‘I was planning to spend next spring quarter in the Oregon libraries.’

‘I remember. Settlement of the northwest. Mmmmm?’

‘I thought that having started in Virginia and then done my study on the Great Lakes, it might be natural for me to—’

‘Complete the cycle? Yes. Yes. You do that and you’ll be a very valuable man to us, Vernor. A lot of foundations are going to be looking for projects dealing with the American past, and if we could offer you as a man who has done his homework, Virginia to Oregon … well, I don’t have to tell you that I could generate a lot of interest in a man like that.’

‘So you think I should stay here and work on my Oregon project?’

‘I haven’t said what I think, Vernor. But I know for a fact …’ Here he rose and moved restlessly about his office, thrusting his arms out in bursts of energy. ‘I know that a lot of these foundations would just love to place a project in Georgia. Get them off the hook of appearing too provincial.’

‘Then I’ll tell the editors—’

‘You won’t tell them anything. Go. Listen. See what they have to sell. And if by chance it should fit into your grand design … How much do we pay you a quarter?’

‘Four thousand dollars.’

‘Let’s do it this way. If what they have to offer is completely wide of the mark—bears no relation to American settlement—turn ‘em down. Stay here the fall and winter quarters, then go out to Oregon in the spring.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But if it does fit in with your intellectual plans, say, something on the Dakotas. And’—he accented the word heavily—’if they’ll pay you four thousand or more, I’ll grant you fall quarter without pay, and you can take your sabbatical with pay spring quarter and head for Oregon.’

‘That’s generous,’ I said.

‘I’m thinking only of myself. Point is, it wouldn’t hurt with the foundations if I could say that our man Vernor had done that big writing job for
US.
Gives you a touch of professionalism. That and your two books. And believe me, it’s that professionalism that makes you eligible for the big grants.’ He stalked about the room, hungrily, then turned and said, ‘So you go ahead. Listen. And if it sounds good, call me from New York.’

At eight-thirty next morning I was walking down Avenue of the Americas, among those towering buildings of glass, marveling at how New York had changed since I knew it in 1957 when Alfred Knopf was publishing my first book on Virginia. I felt as if I had been away from America for a generation.

US
had offices north of the new CBS building; its glass tower was the most impressive on the avenue. I rode up to the forty-seventh floor and entered a walnut-paneled waiting room. ‘I’m early,’ I told the girl.

‘So am I,’ she said. ‘Coffee?’ She was as bright as the magazine for which she worked, and she put me at my ease. ‘If Ringold-san told you nine, nine it will be.’

At one minute after nine she ushered me into his office, where she introduced me to four attractive young editors. James Ringold was under forty and wore his hair combed straight forward, like Julius Caesar. Harry Leeds, his executive assistant, was something past thirty and wore an expensive double-knit in clashing colors. Bill Wright was obviously just a beginner. And Carol Endermann … well, I couldn’t begin to guess how old she was. She could have been one of my good-looking, leggy graduate students from a tobacco farm in the Carolinas, or just as easily, a self-directed thirty-three-year-old assistant professor at the University of Georgia. I felt I was in the hands of four dedicated people who knew what they were doing, and was sure I would enjoy watching them operate.

‘Let me get one thing straight, Vernor,’ Ringold said. ‘You published
Virginia Genesis
in 1957 with Knopf. How did it sell?’

‘Miserably.’

‘But they brought it out in paperback two years ago.’

‘Yes. It’s widely used in universities.’

‘Good. I hope you got back your investment on it.’

‘With paperbacks, yes.’

‘That book I know. Very favorably. Now tell me about your next one.’

‘
Great Lakes Ordeal
. Mostly iron and steel development. A lot on immigration, of course.’

‘Knopf do it, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Miserably?’

‘Yes, but it’s paying its way … in paperback.’

‘Delighted to hear it,’ Ringold said. ‘Harry, tell him how we got onto his name.’

‘With pleasure,’ young Leeds said. ‘Sometime ago we needed expertise of the highest caliber. On a project of some moment. We sent out calls to about thirty certified intellectuals for recommendations—and guess what?’ He pointed at me. ‘Abou Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!’

‘In the profession,’ Bill Wright said, ‘you have one hell of a reputation.’

‘Hence the phone call,’ Leeds said.

‘Your books may not sell, Vernor,’ Wright continued, ‘but the brains of this nation know a good man when they read his research.’

Ringold was slightly irritated by young Wright’s interruption and now resumed charge. ‘What we have in mind, Professor Vernor, is for you to make a research report for us in great depth, but also at great speed. If you devote your entire time from the end of May till Christmas, we feel sure that with your background you can do it. But our schedule is so tight, if you submit it one day late, it won’t be worth a damn to us—not one damn.’

‘Does that kind of schedule frighten you?’ Leeds asked.

‘I work on the quarter system,’ I said. Either they understood what this meant in way of planning and precise execution, or they didn’t. They did.

‘Good,’ Ringold said. He rose, walked about his desk and said, standing, ‘So now we’re down to the nitty-gritty. Carol?’

‘What we have in mind, Professor Vernor’—I noticed that she used the exact phraseology of her boss—’is to publish in late 1974 a double issue of
US
devoted entirely to an in-depth analysis of one American community. We want you to go to that community, study it from the inside, give us intimate research on whatever aspects of it interest you deeply.’

‘The ones that awaken a gut response,’ young Wright volunteered.

‘We’re already prepared to do a quick once-over job,’ Miss Endermann said, ‘but what we’re after is much deeper … nothing less than the soul of America … as seen in microcosm.’

I gripped the arms of my chair and breathed slowly. This seemed the kind of commission a man like me dreams of. It was what I had tried to do in Virginia after graduating from the university at Charlottesville and what I had followed up with at the Great Lakes when teaching at the University of Minnesota. I at least knew what the problem was.