Mortals

Ah yes, and just before that, Leonard, the old man, has broken his walking staff in fury at the younger man’s pessimism… and then came the conclusion to the whole thing with that blast in the slate quarry, for emphasis, how great!… Now tell me literature is dead… Look around!… The true voice of feeling, exhilarating!… Okay it was Victorian, but in the best way… Splendid man, and I rest my case, and Boyle must have seen it, he had to see it, how could he not see it? Victorian, but fine stuff… the best kind of Victorian, here by time machine… You’re a better man than I am, Kerekang… So bravo, that’s all.

And then, crowning the already perfect climax, Kerekang had turned to his tatterdemalions and, like a maestro, summoned from them a great shout of, of what, of defiance, the shout standing for the quarry blast, Ray supposed. The poem had described it and the children had embodied it. And the shout had expressed farewell, too, as the children had raised their right arms in a mass salute aimed at Wemberg, the fascist salute actually, although that was obviously a completely accidental resemblance not affecting the impact of the thing. He thought, Anyway the fact is that there are a limited number of physical gestures available for the expression of the emotion of solidarity, which is why dance, thanks to the limitations of the silent, lumbering body as a means of articulating anything, constitutes the lowest rung on the ladder of art, in his humble opinion, dance with its grabbing motions to signify desire and its pushing motions to signify aversion and its grabbing then pushing then grabbing again to show ambivalence, for crying out loud. Iris missed the ballet. He didn’t. The cry of the children had been the perfect opposite of the pinched, supplicating noise of the Anglican girls’ choir.

And then there had come the terrible, perfect conclusion, the answering cry of sorrow and ruin their act had torn from Wemberg, at the end.

Iris was gone. She had been affected too. He shouldn’t have been annoyed with her over Milton. He was too selfish. If God were a reader he would have brought the shade of Tennyson back for this moment. But it was time to find Iris.

He hesitated. He would find Iris shortly. But he wanted to say something personal to Wemberg, not that he had any particular history with him, but the impulse was there. What he wanted to say came down to something like We’re all dying, don’t worry, an impossibility, but something. It wasn’t just a cliche about universal mortality he wanted to impart. What he wanted to do was acknowledge that something he feared himself, dying in Africa and leaving a mate to figure everything out, had somehow cruelly happened to this unfortunate man, in spades. It was the fear of being left alone in Africa, where nobody loved you. Iris was afraid of it too. And she was going to leave him in Africa so she could visit her sister, not the same thing but it had a certain relationship to the real thing. She was definitely going. She had her ticket. He was divided. He also wanted to say something to Kerekang, pat those children, register something, which was not a good idea because he knew better than to give Boyle any opening to think of him as aligned with Kerekang. The crowd bulged toward the buffet.

Wemberg seemed to be gone. Ray couldn’t find him.

More late arrivers were appearing. It appeared that the embassy had lost control of the gate long enough for this to happen. The strong cooking smells that had afflicted the end of the ceremony had come from frantic lastminute deep-fat frying of extra samoosas, as he had conjectured.

Someone had compiled a tape loop of various largo movements from the classical symphonic repertoire. Between repeats of the loop the Moldau played. The sound coming through the public- address system was too loud, but no one was paying attention. It was the kind of thing Iris would take care of, but where was she?

When he found Iris letting herself out of one of the Portosans set up in the back drive her eyes were red.

This was bad. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Come look at this. Someone urinated on the wall of the Portosan while I was in there, can you believe it? I guess the same guy who tried so hard to get the door open while I was in there. I was terrified. He went around to the back and peed on the Portosan. I heard every drop.”

“That’s disgusting. But that’s not why you’re upset.”

“Nothing is organized here. They should have the toilets gendered, but they just set them up and it’s a free-for-all.”

“I know. But what’s wrong? Do we need to leave?”

“This will go away if you stop asking me about it. Can you do that?”

She was never like this.

She relented. “I guess it’s nothing. I was very moved and then… then just stupidly started thinking about, this is so stupid, my own death. But not even that. My own funeral service or memorial or whatever I get when I die, what that would be like.”

He guided her to a more private spot beside the garage.

She was continuing. “And what I was thinking was what a joke it’s going to be. I have done nothing. There will be absolutely nothing to say. Nothing.

“But of course people will say things. They have no choice. But it will be lies and it will be nothing like what that man just did, that wonderful thing we just saw for Alice Wemberg. No one will feel that way and why should they, for God’s sake?

“Everything will be lies except for what you have to say.

“This is pointless. I can’t be doing this. It’s idiotic.”

“My darling girl, everyone has something like this at memorial services.”

Something was making it worse for her. She was distraught. She was weeping and not trying to contain it, now.

She said, “And look at you. Half of everything you do is secret…”

He shook her lightly, alarmed. He pointed back in the direction of the Portosans, to remind her that she had to quiet down, that there might be listeners.

“I know. But what would I say about you? I only know half of your life. Even I don’t know about your other involvements, your what, your other accomplishments, Ray. I’m sorry…”

“Maybe we should go home.”

“No.” She was vehement. He reached out to hold her, but she stood away from him. She fought to compose herself.

“We don’t have to stay beyond this,” he said.

She was adamant. “No, I want you to meet my doctor, meet Davis, like a normal human being, like my normal husband.”

He groaned. “Is this the best moment, Iris? My God.”

“I’m fine,” she said. She was recovering. It was okay if she looked like she had been crying here. The rapidity with which women could recompose themselves was something.

“You know nothing about him, Ray.”

“I’m happy to meet him,” he made himself say. Look bright, he thought.

She said, “I want you to be normal when you meet him. Don’t be formal. Don’t be frozen, the way you can.”

“I hear and obey,” he said, not as lightly as he’d meant to.

They found Morel standing under a silver oak, his back against its spindly trunk, batting now and then at the parched dead leaves that occasionally drifted down past him. Feet spread apart, he was truculently posed, Ray thought. Morel folded his arms across his chest as Ray and Iris came up. He was undergoing a harangue, but managing to radiate goodnatured skepticism for the benefit of the small miscellaneous crowd loosely gathered around him.

Morel was jaunty, which for some reason surprised Ray. And he was definitely in the handsome dog category, alas. His safari suit, which was black, with a shortsleeved jacket-shirt, was custom-tailored and clearly expensive. His arms-folded pose nicely presented his cultivated biceps and the ponderous wristwatch he wore. The man looked solid as a horse. He had the kind of overdone upper body development paraplegics determined to overcome their disabilities have, and undoubtedly the motive for it was to compensate for his short-leg condition,