The Tower

by Richard Martin Stern

  “Other people’s miseries have never made mine feel much better.”

  “Nor mine really,” the governor said. “On the other hand, when there is nothing you can do about it—”

  “I’ve made it a practice always to find something to do about it. So have you.”

  The governor nodded. He was smiling his public smile, but his voice held no hint of amusement. “But not this time, John. Not now.”

  “We just wait it out?”

  “For the moment,” the governor said, “that’s all there is to do.” He and Beth moved on.

  Mayor Ramsay came up, his wife with him. “Anything new?”

  “They’re trying an elevator. We’ll know about that soon.”

  “And the firemen coming up the stairs?”

  “Two of them,” the governor said, “will get here. I sent the other two back.”

  The mayor’s jaw muscles rippled. “Do you mind telling me why?”

  “Because, Bob, the two who will get here can’t go back. There is fire in the stairwell beneath them.”

  The mayor let his breath out in a sigh. “And that means the other stairwell isn’t safe either, is that it?”

  “I’m afraid that’s it.”

  Paula Ramsay said, “We telephoned Jill.” She was smiling at Beth. “She said to give you her best.” She paused. “You were always her favorite.” She paused. “Sometimes I thought you knew her better than I did and I resented it. I don’t any more.”

  More words never spoken until this moment, Beth thought. Why? “I didn’t know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. The resentment is all gone. Jill—” Paula shook her head.

  “She is young, Paula, so very young.”

  “And she’ll be on her own now.” She looked at the governor. “I’m not a noble woman, Bent. I’m an angry woman. Why are we here like this? Who is responsible? I asked Grover Frazee and—”

  “Grover,” the mayor said, “is both scared and drunk.” There was scorn in his voice. “In a gentlemanly way, of course. Very Fly Club. What he said was, ‘Now, now, my dear Paula, everything is going to be all right—I hope.’ Or words to that effect.”

  “I want someone punished for this,” Paula Ramsay said. “I am sick and tired of irresponsible, malicious people doing whatever they choose, calling it some kind of activism, and getting away with it. Whether those responsible for this are black or white, male or female, prominent pediatricians or university chaplains or priests or anything else, I want to see them punished.” She stopped. “No, I won’t see them punished, will I? But I want to know that they will be. Call me vindictive, if you will. Call me—”

  “I call you honest, Paula,” the governor said. “I’ll admit that this particular situation is changing my views on crime and punishment too.”

  “But it isn’t over yet,” the mayor said. “You said so yourself. The elevator—”

  “No,” the governor said, “it isn’t over yet.” He thought about the breeches buoy and decided against mentioning it and raising hopes prematurely. “I don’t like using football analogies,” he said. “They make me sound like—someone else. I don’t talk about game plans. But it isn’t over until the final gun goes off. In the meantime—”

  “A ladylike stiff upper lip,” Paula Ramsay said. Her eyes were angry. “I am tempted to use privy-wall words, Bent. I mean that.” And then, “Go carry on with your tour of reassurance.” She paused and looked at her husband. “And we’ll do the same. Can’t let the side down, can we?” There was scorn in her voice.

  The governor watched them walk away. The secretary general was approaching. “Between us,” the governor said quickly to Beth, “I feel exactly the same way Paula does. And if that were known, wouldn’t it just raise hell with my public image?” He smiled then at the secretary general, who carried a champagne glass in an easy practiced manner. “Walther, I don’t think I’ve apologized before for this—melodrama. I do now.”

  “But are you responsible?”

  “Only indirectly.” The governor left it there, without explanation.

  The secretary general said, “Have you noticed how quickly, how easily one’s perspective changes? Until only a little time ago I was concerned largely with such matters as budget, unrest in the Middle East, problems of Southeast Asia, the ruffled feathers of a score of delegates on a dozen different issues, world environment—” He paused, smiling apologetically. “It reminds me of another time when only the here and now were important.”

  “When was that?” Beth said.

  “During the war?” the governor said. “Is that when you mean, Walther?”

  “For some months we lived in a haystack outside Munich,” the secretary general said. “Our house had been—confiscated. I had been released from concentration camp—my wife had managed to arrange it. We were six. Two children, my wife’s mother, an aunt of mine, ourselves.” His voice was quiet. “Once there was a chicken, a whole chicken.” He shook his head gently. “I learned then what the here and now can mean. That chicken—” Again the gentle headshake. There was in his face, in his voice, compassion and understanding without censure. “It was for the children, but they had none of it.” He paused. “When my wife and I were looking elsewhere, the two old ladies ate it. All of it, the bones were clean. So it is when—survival is the problem.”

  “Maybe,” the governor said slowly, “if we could bring the squabbling sides of all your problems right here, now, put them in this situation, they would settle their differences in a hurry. What do you think of that as a solution?”

  “Yankee ingenuity.” The secretary general smiled. “I take it there is nothing new in our situation?” He nodded at what he saw in the governor’s face. “I thought not. A suggestion. Mr. J. Paul Norris is, shall we say, on the point of explosion. He is outraged”—again the smile—“well beyond my poor diplomatic powers to soothe.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” the governor said.

  J. Paul Norris, the tall gray-haired executive type, glowered at them. “If somebody doesn’t do something soon,” he said, “I am going to take matters into my own hands.”

  The governor nodded pleasantly. “And do what, Paul?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A splendid suggestion, entirely worthy of you.”

  Norris said slowly, “Now look here, Bent. I’ve had just about enough of you, in public and in private. You have a sharp tongue. You’ve always had it. And you use it to poke fun at all the things that have made this country great. You—”

  “Among them,” the governor said, “inherited wealth and position and what used to be known as privilege.” He nodded. “I saw your name on a list not long ago, Paul. Your income last year was not far short of one million dollars, but you paid no income tax.”

  “Perfectly legal.” A vein was beginning to show on Norris’s forehead. “Absolutely within regulations.”

  “I’m sure it was, but a little difficult for a man earning ten thousand dollars a year to understand when he pays perhaps a twenty-percent tax.”

  Beth watching, listening, wondered what in the world the governor was hoping to accomplish by deliberately antagonizing the man even if it was justified.

  “I don’t give a damn about the man earning ten thousand dollars a year,” Norris said. “He isn’t worth consideration.”

  Beth smiled to herself. I see it now, she thought: it is pure diversion, waving a red flag to distract the man from the major problem.

  “Do you know, Paul,” the governor was saying, “our hypothetical ten-thousand-dollar-a-year man doesn’t give a damn about you either, except as a source of annoyance. He thinks you and your kind ought to have been ploughed under years ago.”

  “You talk like a communist.”

  “It has been said before.”

  “You admit it then?”

  The governor smiled. “I consider the source of the accusation. Those with far-left leanings consider me very much a part of the Establishment—whic
h, together with your opinion and that of others like you, puts me just about where I want to be: very close to the middle.” He paused. “Ponder those intangibles for a time.” And then, his voice turning cold, “But don’t even think of creating a disturbance in this room, or I’ll have you tied up like a Christmas turkey with a gag in your mouth. Is that understood?”

  Norris took a deep breath. The vein in his forehead was very plain. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  The governor showed his teeth. “Don’t try me, Paul. I only bluff in poker.” He and Beth walked on.

  A waiter with a tray of drinks stopped in front of them. “Thank you, son,” the governor said. He handed a glass to Beth, took one for himself.

  “How about it, Governor?” the waiter said. He kept his voice low. “They’re saying, you know, that we’re stuck here. For good. They’re saying the fire isn’t even close to under control. They’re saying—”

  “There is always ‘they,’” the governor said, “and they are always crying doom.”

  “Yeah. I know. Like scuttlebutt in the Navy. But look, Governor, I got a wife and three kids, and what about them? I ask you, what about them?”

  “Boys,” the governor said, “or girls?”

  “What difference does that make?” And then, “Two boys and a girl.”

  “How old?”

  The waiter was frowning now. “One boy’s eleven. That’s Stevie. Bert’s nine. Becky’s just six. What’re you giving me, Governor?”

  “Becky is probably too young,” the governor said, “but why don’t you take both Stevie and Bert to the ball game Saturday?”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “So it is.” The governor was smiling gently. “I may see you there. If I do, I’ll buy you a beer, and a coke for each of the boys. How about that?”

  The waiter hesitated. He said at last, “I think you’re horse-shitting me, Governor—excuse the language, lady.” He paused. “But,” he said, “I’ll sure as hell take you up on it if I see you.” He turned away. He turned back. “I like the first baseline.” He was smiling as he walked off.

  “He understands, Bent,” Beth said.

  The governor nodded. “I was stationed in London during the Blitz.” He smiled. “You weren’t very old then.”

  Beth’s smile matched his. “Don’t try to pull years on me.”

  “When it came right down to the crunch,” the governor said, “the people took it. They didn’t like it, but they took it. They endured and they didn’t complain and they rarely panicked. People like that man. People Paul Norris isn’t fit to—live in the same room with.”

  “Or die in the same room with,” Beth said. “Yes. I agree.” Her eyelids stung. “Maybe in the end I’ll—panic.”

  “The end isn’t yet.” The governor’s voice was strong. “And even if it does come, you won’t panic.”

  “Don’t let me, Bent. Please.”

  The time was 5:23. An hour had passed since the explosion.

  20

  5:21P.M.-5:32P.M.

  In the trailer one of the telephones rang. Brown picked it up, spoke his name. He hesitated. “Yes,” he said, “she is here.” He handed the phone to Patty.

  “I thought you would be there, child,” her mother’s voice said. In her tone there was no hint of censure. “I am glad. Your father would have been glad.” Silence.

  Patty closed her eyes. She said slowly, hesitantly, “‘Would have been’? What does that mean?”

  The silence on the phone grew and stretched. Mary McGraw broke it at last in a calm voice without tears. “He is gone.” Merely that.

  Patty stared out through the windows at the scene of controlled confusion outside and took a deep unsteady breath. “And I was here,” she said.

  “You could have done nothing.” Mary’s voice was gentle. “I saw him for a few moments at the end. But he did not see me or even know that I was there.”

  Tears were close. Patty held them back. “I’ll come up.”

  “No. I am going home, child.”

  “I’ll come there.”

  “No.” The voice was strange, taut and yet controlled. “I am going to have a nice cup of tea. And a good cry. Then I’ll go to church. And you cannot help me with any of those.” Mary paused. “I don’t mean to turn away from you. It is just that right now, with your father gone, I want to be alone. He would have understood.”

  Hesitantly, “I understand too, Mother,” Patty said. We face our grief in our own ways, she thought; it was a new concept. There were many new concepts today.

  “And you?” the mother said.

  Patty looked around the trailer almost in bewilderment. And yet the answer was plain. “I will stay here.” With Daddy’s building.

  There was a long pause. “Not Paul?” Mary said.

  “Not Paul. That’s—finished.” Patty paused. “Daddy knew.” And here in the midst of grief came renewed anger. She forced it down.

  “Do as you think best, child.” Pause. “God bless you.”

  Patty hung up slowly. She was conscious that Brown and the two battalion chiefs tried not to watch her, waiting self-consciously for her to give them their cue. Strange, how easily she understood that; how easily she understood many things about men like these, men Daddy had always dealt with, men unlike Paul. But I have no business being here, she thought. “My father is dead.” She said it slowly, distinctly, and then stood up. “I’ll leave now.”

  “Sit down,” Brown said. His voice was harsh. In silence he got out his cigarettes, chose one, snapped it in half and almost threw the pieces into the ashtray. “Your father,” he said. “I am very sorry, Mrs. Simmons.” Through the fatigue and the strain he smiled, a gentle grimace. “He and I had our fights. We were bound to. He was a builder and by his lights I was a heckler, and we both had low flash points.” The smile spread. “But a better man never lived, and I am glad he is not around to see—this.”

  Patty said slowly, “Thank you. I—don’t want to be in the way.” But I have no place else to go, she thought suddenly, it is as simple as that. And at last the enormity of being alone, wholly alone, bore in upon her. In an unsteady voice, “Thank you,” she said again. “I’ll try to stay out of the way.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled. “We’re at the Tower Room floor, Chief.” Denis Howard’s voice, panting and dull with fatigue. “The smoke isn’t too bad yet. We’ll try to get the door cleared.”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “Oh Christ, Chief, how can things like this happen?” Almost a lament. “There’re big boxes, heavy boxes, some of them marked ‘Fragile, Electronic Equipment,’ and they’re jammed so the door can’t open from the inside. Where in hell were our people, letting anybody block a fire door like this?”

  The battalion chief closed his eyes. “I don’t know, Denis. I sure as hell don’t know. All I do know is that if there’s a wrong way to do something, somebody will find it. I’ve never known it to fail. And when all the wrong things happen at the same time—” He stopped. “Tear the goddam boxes apart.” His voice was savage. “Get out of that stairwell and inside! There’s your best chance.”

  Brown gestured wearily. The battalion chief handed him the walkie-talkie. “The governor has promised you a drink and some snacks,” Brown said. “That ought to make your day.”

  There was no reply. The batteries in Howard’s unit had failed from the mounting heat.

  Nat was down in the black bowels of the building, moving partly by feel and partly by the eerie light of firemen’s head-lamps, claustrophobic in his mask and afraid that each breath would somehow be the last, drenched by water from the big hoses and fighting through smoke almost as through a solid substance. Giddings and Joe Lewis and two men of a pickup electrical crew were somewhere near, but for the moment Nat had lost them.

  It was, he told himself, ridiculous that he should even be down here. Joe Lewis was the electrical engineer; Giddings knew as much about actual placement of panels and circuitry as anybody
, including Nat himself. And yet here he was, unable to wait outside or, like a proper little prototypical architect, back at his drawing board, pencil in hand, head filled with abstruse calculations.

  I don’t belong here, he thought, and by here he no longer meant simply beneath this great building, but anywhere in this complex compartmentalized right-hand-doesn’t-know-what-left-hand-is-doing megalopolis society where man was so far removed from actuality that a switch thrown miles away could cut off his light, his heat, his means of cooking or of keeping himself sane against constant din by playing the kind of music he could lose himself in. Or kill him by a radioactive mistake at some distant generator.

  Oh, that was exaggeration, of course, but not by much. Here—

  He was jostled suddenly by two firemen stumbling past in the murk, dragging a new hose. They seemed unaware that there had been any contact.

  And that was another thing: the crowding even under the best of circumstances. Big-city people were like turkeys in a pen. They seemed to prefer to be shoved and jostled and packed into impossibly small spaces. The subways at rush hour. The buses. The crowded ramps at Yankee Stadium. The Coney Island beaches. Times Square New Year’s Eve. A Madison Square rally . . . My God, they enjoy it!

  Thoughts flicked across the screen of his mind far faster than words could contain them.

  A nearby voice muffled through a mask said suddenly, “If the motherfucker will—there, you bastard! Okay. Give me a light, goddammit!” One of the electricians.

  Giddings was there, massive in the smoke. “If you can’t move it, let me in.” His voice too sounded unreal, distant and hollow.

  “Look, mac, keep your goddam meathooks off this panel. You don’t carry no union card.”

  Oh no! Nat thought. Not now! And yet it was so; ingrained, ineluctable. You staked out your own little territory and you defended it against all comers, friend or enemy. Why? Because that territory was you, manifestation of your essence; its violation assaulted your very soul. Shit. That was not how it ought to be. His anger had spread now to include the world in general.

  Joe Lewis, standing close, said hollowly, “Hurry it up.” He began to cough. “A man can only stand so much of this.”