by Pat Conroy
“Do you want to be alone with him?” I asked.
“Not yet,” the general said. “Please stay. At least until we get the matter of introductions over with.”
“You don’t need any introduction,” I said. “It’s your son.”
As the priest approached us, he pulled back his cowl revealing a head of thick dark curls. The general reached out to shake hands with his son and there was a sudden movement in the bar behind us as three men burst out of the interior of Dal Bolognese. The general held his son’s hand fiercely as an undercover agent from Interpol expertly placed handcuffs on the priest. Every entrance into the Piazza del Popolo was suddenly blocked by blue Fiats with their swirling azure lights and their irritating sirens.
“I told you it was amateur hour, Jack,” the general said. “They fitted me with a device. They’ve followed us every step of the way.”
“Jordan wanted me to give you a message if it turned out this way, General,” I said, watching as two agents roughly dragged Ledare toward us. “He made it simple. You didn’t surprise him at all.”
“Let him deliver the message himself,” the general said, staring at his son.
“Now will you tell me my part in this silly charade, Jack, me boy?” the priest said to me in an Irish accent so thick that even the Italian policemen knew this was no American. He also removed a pair of dark sunglasses.
“Where is my son, Jordan Elliott?” the general demanded of the Irish priest.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the priest said affably, enjoying the excitement and the crowd that had gathered around them.
For hours they questioned me at Interpol’s headquarters about my relationship with Jordan Elliott and I answered all their questions forthrightly. I could tell them nothing about this priest’s daily existence in Rome. I had no idea what order Jordan belonged to or where he slept at night or where he celebrated Mass. But I gladly provided a list of churches in which we had passed letters to each other and I offered the detail that he wore the habits of several different orders.
Celestine Elliott also underwent a grueling interrogation about her knowledge of her son’s underground activities, but Jordan had protected her with the same shroud of ignorance he had me. Celestine answered her interrogators with a blind unclassifiable fury, but offered no information not required by the questions.
Ledare was released after being questioned for less than an hour. She was a minor player by her own admission, had not seen Jordan since she was in college, and only talked to someone claiming to be Jordan through a confessional screen. When released, she went back to my apartment on the Piazza Farnese and with the help of Maria began to pack Leah’s bags for a long stay in America.
Jordan later reported to me that while his father stood in the Piazza del Popolo watching the Irish Franciscan coming toward him, Jordan himself stood on a terrace above the Red Lion Bookshop observing his father’s exercise in bad faith unfold. Treachery and misunderstanding had been the only constants in their lives together. He could forgive his father for venality, but not for treachery, not again. Jordan had stayed long enough to see his father’s confusion the moment he realized that his trap had been avoided and he had fallen prey, instead, to one set for him. But there was such anguish on his father’s face that Jordan had felt for a moment a dormant pity. Jordan had watched as his father spun in a circle looking at doorways and rooftops and the ramparts of the Borghese Gardens, knowing that Jordan was watching him and realizing that he had been outmaneuvered and outsoldiered by a son who had never led men into battle. By this action, the general also knew he had driven a stake through the heart of his marriage.
That night after I was released and was back home I stood at the far window looking out toward the bell tower of St. Thomas of Canterbury and saw only blackness. Ledare and I had gone over the events of the past day. Since the scene in the Piazza del Popolo, neither of us had heard from Jordan, Celestine, or the general. That evening, when she went to bed, I told Leah the whole story of my friendship with Jordan Elliott. All life connects, I told Leah. Nothing happens that is meaningless.
After turning out Leah’s light, I returned to the living room and poured both Ledare and myself a glass of Gavi dei Gavi, which I had chilled in a bucket of ice. We toasted each other halfheartedly and drank in silence before Ledare said, “How’re you feeling, Jack? You’re still recovering, and must be exhausted.”
I put my hand to my head and then to my chest.
“In all the excitement, I forgot that I was hurt,” I said.
“Has your eye cleared up?” she asked. “Is it still blurry?”
I put my hand over my right eye and stared at her with my left, then said, “The guy in the projection room still needs to adjust the knob … but just a little bit. It’s getting better.”
“I called Mike and told him that the general had issued the warning to Interpol,” Ledare said. “He was relieved. I think he suspected that Capers might have done it.”
“The project limps on,” I said.
“Mike liked this part,” she said. “He liked the general betraying the son a second time. He said it was biblical.”
I said, “It’s scary. Nothing bad can happen to any of us that won’t be great for Mike’s film.”
I looked up at the window, saw something, then rushed into the vestibule of the front hall, flicked on the light, and stood framed in the window that had the apartment’s only view of St. Peter’s. Someone was sending signals from the bell tower but if it was Jordan it was an hour after our appointed time. Whoever was handling the flashlight was an amateur at Morse Code and it took three times before I could decipher any message at all.
“Jordan is safe,” the first message said.
“God bless you,” said the second.
“Where do you think Jordan is tonight?” Ledare asked.
“I don’t know, Ledare. I’ve never known.”
“How’ll he get back in touch with you?”
I was about to answer when I saw a figure making its way across the piazza and heading straight for my apartment. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Tell me my shot-out eye is deceiving me.”
Down below, General Elliott was moving toward my building as though he were being reeled in by a line.
“Do you have a rifle?” Ledare said. “The kindest thing to do would be to shoot him before he reached the door.”
The buzzer sounded its ugly raspberry cheer, and Ledare kissed me on the cheek and said good night. She had endured all the psychodrama of which she was capable in a twenty-four-hour period.
I walked to the speakerphone in an unlit hallway and then picked up the receiver.
“Chi è?” I asked.
“Jack,” the general said. “It’s me. General Elliott. I’d like to see you. Please, Jack.”
I thought about it for almost a full minute before I pressed the button that unlocked the two immense doors that led into the palazzo. I waited for the elevator to make its slow, whirring ascent to the fifth floor and I led General Elliott into the living room, and without asking, poured him a drink, mixing a martini of Bombay gin and a twist of lemon straight up in a flaring, bird-bath-shaped glass. As I handed the general the martini, he said, “If I were you, I’d never have let me into your apartment.”
“I considered that tack. But my natural-born saintliness always takes precedence over my darker, more uncharitable habits,” I said, not even attempting to hide the mockery in my voice. “Also, I’m curious about why you are here. I thought I’d never see you again and I cherished the thought.”
“My wife was not at the hotel when I returned,” the general said, and I could tell it was a painful admission for him. “She’d checked out of the room and left me a note. She’s leaving me.”
“Imagine. Celestine coming to her senses after all these years,” I said.
“She left me without resources. Little money. No passport. No ticket. No clothes,” the general said, taking a tentative sip
from his glass.
“Use your credit card to buy tickets and clothes,” I told him. “Go to the embassy tomorrow to arrange for a new passport.”
“I don’t have a credit card,” the general said, embarrassed. “Celestine took care of all the details of our lives. I don’t carry a wallet. The lump it made in the back of the trousers always seemed unmilitary to me.”
“I’ll help you get back to the States, General,” I said.
“I’m afraid I trusted her for all the details of the marriage,” the man said. “But I think I lost her today.”
“You took me by surprise,” I admitted. “I certainly thought Jordan was erring on the side of caution.”
“I made a mistake with my son. I thought he had no gift for strategy or thinking on his feet. He surprised me. First in college. Then today.”
“By surprising you, he ruined his life,” I said.
“And my wife’s, and my own.”
I tried to take the measure of the man sitting before me, but his tenseness made any casual study uncomfortable. Though controlled and disciplined even now, something rumbled just below the surface, bottled like a mean-spirited genie, ready for a turn toward malevolence. Even though he was dressed in civilian clothes, a general’s face shone hard as a diamond above his Brooks Brothers shirt. I knew that generalship was an art and a calling and an incurable illness. Arrogance is its natural resource and its favorite vacation is a fifteen-minute retreat to a full-length mirror.
“About today,” the general said.
“Yes. Start with today.”
“Capers came to me some time ago with the plan for a presidential pardon for Jordan,” the general said. “This surprised me because, despite the rumors, I had thought Jordan had died. I believed in his suicide, or I convinced myself I did. But Capers showed me the pictures of Jordan leaving the confessional.
“Those were unbearable times for all of us. I’ve never hated a generation of young men and women as I hated yours and Jordan’s. Nor was I alone in my feelings.”
“You weren’t uppermost in our prayers either.”
“A Marine was killed by Jordan. So was a daughter of a Marine. As a man of honor, my complete fealty belongs with the murdered Marine. I can’t help that, Jack. That’s the kind of man I am.”
“You’ve been true to your nature,” I said. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.”
“I can’t change. I’m a Marine before I’m a father, a husband, or even an American. If the Commandant of the Marine Corps ever decided that the President was a threat to our nation, I’d lead a battalion of Marines across Memorial Bridge for an open assault on the White House.”
I could detect no bravado in this boast and the words stood out strong, in relief.
“How far would you and your Marines get?” I asked, out of curiosity.
“With the element of surprise and the right Marines and a half-hour head start, I’d hand you the head of that President that night.”
“Like a chocolate mint on my pillow,” I said.
“I chose the profession of arms,” he said. “I chose a difficult century in which to practice it.”
“General, you do understand that the young Marine in question and the Marine’s daughter he was with … they were killed by accident.”
“That is what my wife claims to be true. If we’d taken Jordan today, he’d have been put on trial and the truth could’ve finally come out. The legal people I talked to assured me that with Jordan becoming a priest and his sense of remorse, there was a chance that Jordan wouldn’t serve a single day of a prison sentence. But I owed that Marine and his girlfriend that trial of my son. If they could die, then he could take the witness stand and explain his actions that led up to their deaths.”
“He might’ve agreed with you,” I said. “But you didn’t have the decency to wait and ask him yourself.”
“Decency,” the general said. “I think my son committed treason during the Vietnam War.”
“I think he probably did too.”
“But my wife tells me you helped him to escape.”
“He committed treason on purpose,” I said, bothered that Celestine had confided such incriminating evidence to her husband. “He didn’t mean to commit murder.”
“You’d help a person who betrayed his country,” the general sneered. “What kind of an American are you?”
“The kind who wouldn’t hand you the head of my President,” I responded sharply. “But back to your son: I’d help Jordan anytime he needed help and I’ve proven that.”
“Even if it trampled on your country’s flag,” the general said, rising out of his seat and pacing across the marble floor. Before I answered, I carefully considered the question in all its troubling parts. During my whole life, I had been too quick with my answers. Glibness was simply a method to fend people off when they came too close.
“For the love of your son,” I answered, finally. “Yes, sir. I’d trample on my flag.”
“You and my son do not have the stuff that made our nation great,” the general shouted, his voice echoing down the wide hallways.
“Not all of it, general,” I agreed. “But we’ve got some of it.”
“You didn’t fight for your country,” he sneered at me.
“Yeh, we did,” I said. “That’s the part you’re not getting.”
“How dare you even imply that?” the general said. “I saw a lot of the finest young men who ever lived die over there, fighting in my division.”
“They were wonderful young men,” I agreed. “War always kills terrific young men. This is a fairly well known fact, General.”
The general said, “There’s a beauty in dying for one’s country that you’ll never know.”
I replied, “Neither will you, General. I hate to bring this up, but you survived all your country’s wars.”
“What do you believe in, Jack?” the general asked, tauntingly. “Is there some belief so sacred you carry around inside you that you’d let no force on earth defile it?”
Again I thought before I answered. Several moments passed before I said, “Yes. One. I’d never betray my child.”
General Elliott stepped back as though I had thrown carbolic acid in his face. “Semper Fidelis,” the general whispered. “They’re the two strongest words in my heart. They just are. Nothing else explains today. The loss of my wife. My son. Semper Fidelis.”
“This is the city where those two words were coined, General,” I said. “Do you have any money? A place to stay? You eaten anything?”
The general shook his head.
I put my arm around his shoulders and led him out toward the hallway. “General, I never led a squad of Marines in a raid in Cambodia. But I can cook like a son of a bitch. I have got a wallet full of money, and a spare room with a view. It may not last long, but tonight you’re going to like me better than you like Chesty Puller.”
“Why are you doing this?” the general asked suspiciously. “You should hate me more than anyone.”
I laughed as I led him to the kitchen and then said as I rummaged in the pantry for a box of dried pasta, “I cheerfully loathe you, General. But you’re my best friend’s father and I don’t want you sleeping on a bench near the Tiber. Also, this gives me a chance to prove the natural superiority of liberals to Nazis. Those chances come rarely during one lifetime.”
So, on a cold Roman night, General Elliott sat on a stool in my kitchen as a wind roared out of the Apennines and rimmed the lips of the smallest fountains with a thin windowing of ice and we two enemies talked to each other man to man for the first time in our bristling, ungiving history together. My coming so close to death had opened something up in me that I thought had closed forever. The general had spent a day in agony. The sheer loneliness of the words Semper Fidelis withered on his tongue when he considered the trap he had set for his son with all the brightest intentions.
We talked carefully, avoiding the center of things, all the explosive subjects that b
oth trapped and entwined us and had led us to the dispiriting events of the day. For me the South had taken the general prisoner at birth, secured the cells of his character, and never granted him furlough or early release. He also had the easy flow of charm that was indispensable to any man who wished to rise fast in the military service. The general displayed this charm as I cooked for him and refreshed his drink. He told stories about his own childhood, stories about my grandfather and the Great Jew, the coming of Shyla’s parents, and the general’s own years attending the Citadel.
By the time I showed him to his room, each of us had seen the other in a way we never had before. We had conversed as gentlemen. The abundance of our grievances and fury lay between us like mines, but we stepped gingerly over and around them, choosing dignity to get us through the difficult evening.
And I admired the courage it took for Elliott to present himself at the doorway of his enemy, and the general seemed grateful that I had opened that door.
When I had given the general his towels and a spare toothbrush, he asked me, “Is Jordan a good priest? Or is it just part of his disguise? A game he’s playing?”
I thought about it and said, “Your son’s a man of God.”
The general shook his head in disbelief and said, “Doesn’t that surprise you? Was I so wrong about my son? Wasn’t he a little bit on the wild side?”
I laughed quietly, remembering, then said, “Jordan Elliott was the wildest son of a bitch I ever met in my life—bar none.”
Chapter Twenty-one
From the day he arrived in Waterford, Jordan Elliott was known as the “California boy.” To South Carolinians, California was the point where the American dream had started to turn in the sun and go terribly wrong. It was a forbidden country where all human passions were venerated to excess and all restraint pushed to its ineffable limits.
The time was known as the Jordan Summer. No one had ever seen anything like him. His blond hair grew down to his shoulders and he glowed with a radiant, God-given health. Though not conventionally handsome, he wore the hard-cast face of a long-distance runner. He had fearless but broken eyes, and they were breathtaking. Waterford would discover immediately that Jordan Elliott lived life as though it were a free fall from a high-flying plane. He brought revolutionary ideas with him from California and dispensed them freely.