by Mark Helprin
It was five o’clock, not too long before dark. They smelled roasting meat and plantain. Lucius felt as if his small force were part of his strong arm and fist. They stayed in the tree until an hour before nightfall. Then they attacked.
They had rehearsed it at Rica Vista on at least a dozen occasions. Each time, Marshall had assumed that he would have to overcome great fear in the real situation. But, to his surprise, he was not at all frightened. In fact, he had the same pulse and drive as in the many school soccer games he had played against superior force (mainly military schools full of the violent, rejected, and disturbed), when fear vanished at the instant of kickoff and primal forces directed even the soft, small, Eagle Bay boys in their faded striped shirts and maroon shorts.
They had expected that the leader would live in conspicuous fashion. In the first confusions, Farrell and Lucius were to have crawled up to his hut and taken him. But his house was indistinguishable. Then, in a charged moment, Lucius caught him in the glass circle of his telescope. He was sitting in a little booth in front of which was a table covered with beer bottles, cameras, pistols, and transistor radios. It was absurd, but he was playing with them as if he were a child with toys.
They decided to capture Big Tub in a somewhat different manner than they had planned. Lucius climbed a tree and, when every thing was ready to go, shot Big Tub in the leg. Big Tub bounded forward, knocking over his table of treasures. With the first shot as a signal, Marshall began to drop shells into the mortar. Soon enormous explosions and clouds of phosphor smoke filled an area on the other side of the village. Those inside began to shoot wildly at the smoke and noise, as if an army were attacking from the north, whereas Marshall and the others were on high ground in the south, completely unobserved. The half a hundred defenders looked and fired northward to a man. Shrapnel from the mortar shells, clouds of smoke, and falling leaves and branches (cut mainly by the Rasta bullets) gave them many targets and they fired in panic, increasing their own confusion.
Marshall dropped mortar shells steadily, one every ten seconds by his watch, changing elevation and bearing occasionally. There were twenty-four shells—the main reason for agony on the mountain—and his barrage lasted exactly four minutes. After two of these minutes, Farrell and Peter (who had crept up to the perimeter) rushed into the camp toward Big Tub, who rolled in pain over his cameras and radios. Covered at close range by Stanhope and Nielson, they were armed only with pistols hanging on lanyards. They reached Big Tub, hit him over the head, picked him up, and carried him out. Lucius was in the tree, ready to shoot anyone happening upon the scene. But no one came, and they began their retreat, dragging the mortar and Big Tub to the cliff over the river.
By the time they reached the cliff they could hear dogs howling and scores of men rushing through the bushes. Everyone except Nielson and Farrell was in near-panic. Farrell picked up the mortar and swung it like a hammer, letting go. It sailed in a heavy curve into a deep pool, where it crashed inaudibly. They lowered Big Tub to the base of the cliff. He weighed at least 300 pounds. Farrell and Peter were amazed that they had carried him so lightly. Marshall descended, followed by Peter, Stanhope, and Lucius. Farrell and Nielson had started to return the fire which by then came heavily from the brush. They had plenty of ammunition and the noise from the cliff top was almost as loud as the river.
When the flotation gear was set and Big Tub lashed in, Nielson climbed down the rope. Farrell remained, shooting. They pushed off, expecting Farrell suddenly to rush down the rope, or even to jump into the pool. They waited nervously, aware that the current was carrying them away from the landing place. Farrell never appeared. Above the sound of the water Nielson said, “He told me to go to hell. I don’t think we’ll see him again.” And they didn’t.
14
THEY RODE down the White Water. Because Marshall had been first on the rope he found himself in the same raft as Big Tub. With two of them, one extremely heavy, they sank low in the water and moved more slowly than the others, who quickly vanished downstream. Tub was still out when they passed the village. There, two riflemen waited on the cliff, but Marshall saw them from upriver. There was nothing he could do, and he watched as they sighted him in. He thought of going into the water, but was sure that the rapids would drown him. Besides, he did not want to lose his prisoner.
As he got closer and they began to fire, he took out his pistol, thinking that he could try at least to drive them to cover. Bullets slammed into the water. Then he felt a shock in his right leg. His calf had been split down its length and it shot blood into the river. He screamed a shrill scream like that of a small child and fell back against the raft, only to feel a bullet graze his head and the blood pour down. As if this were not enough, his companion began to stir.
Big Tub was so big that he could have crushed Marshall with his fist. Marshall felt as if he approached his end. Then he became clear-headed and resolute, and angry. He raised his pistol in two hands and, to counter the motion of the river, moved it as in trap shooting, and let off a shot which dropped one of his attackers. The other promptly disappeared. On another bluff some more men stood with rifles. As Marshall went by he placed three good shots in their vicinity, driving them back. They too fired, and missed.
With his prisoner awake, his blood pouring from him, and the raft careening without control, Marshall found himself looking into a fierce, experienced, angry face. The man adjusted himself on the raft and began to move toward Marshall, who raised his pistol and pointed it straight at him. He saw a hideous smile, indicating that he was not believed.
Marshall set his teeth and drew back the hammer on the pistol; the click was heard above the waters. For an hour and a half they went down the rapids and then drifted on the big river—sometimes turning slowly, sometimes being submerged under a wave, sometimes being tossed like a chip down a patterned flume. All the while, Marshall kept his finger on the trigger. His adversary did not move an inch.
In darkness they approached a landing where the others were waiting and a purring diesel truck was ready to go. Nielson swam out and pulled in the raft. He and Peter had been grazed in the ambush, but not as badly as Marshall, who could not let go of his pistol. Nielson squeezed the trigger, firing a shot in the air, and then pulled the gun from Marshall’s hand. They sped away toward Rica Vista.
15
IT SEEMED to Marshall as if he were in an Eakins painting of a nineteenth-century operating theater. The light was exquisitely beige. All around were the grave mustachioed faces of serious young gentlemen. The white-haired doctor was English. It was night, and a full moon, or nearly so, shone in the window from over the mountains. Dash and Mrs. Pringle were there. Lucius and Stanhope held down Marshall’s shoulders. Marshall remembered what had happened. He had been given chloroform, to which he had proved allergic, and he had then suffered convulsions and unconsciousness. When he awoke the doctor had said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Marshall was rather weak and could only answer, “You didn’t ask.”
They brought a bottle of brandy which Lucius had stolen from BOAC, and they began to feed it to Marshall. It was painful to drink the stuff, and he threw up. “Drink it,” said the doctor. “I haven’t any local anesthetics, I’m going to have to go in almost to the bone, and it’s good French brandy.”
Marshall drank. After a little while, when he began to say half words about rowing on a hot painted river in the summer in Philadelphia—next to a coffer dam with water flowing over and through it like flax on a comb—the doctor made the first thrust with his long curved needle, coming down deep and hard into the muscle. Despite half a bottle of brandy and the company of Eakins, Marshall screamed and tensed explosively, locking up like iron. Then it was repeated over and over again. He was sweating so hard that he could not tell the difference between the sweat and the blood running down his face from the newly opened head wound, on which Mrs. Pringle held a thick red-soaked gauze pad.
Sixty stitches were placed one by one until th
e moon shone in the opposite window and the servants stopped their wailing outside because they had become hoarse, tired, and sleepy. Marshall lost his voice on stitch ten, and then could only gag and move in pain. He fainted every now and then, and revived. He began to think that he was Eakins, and then he thought that Eakins was cutting him open to get color with which to paint. In moments of relief he would catch Dash’s eye and smile. He knew that if he lived (at every thrust the doctor said, “He’ll live, he’ll live”) he would finally get to sleep with her.
Dash, the moon, Eakins, a hot river in Philadelphia, the sharp needles, the three-star peach brandy, the blood and sweat on his face, the servant girls in customary wailing, the crickets, the whitehaired doctor, Rica Vista finally safe like a jewel in the night, the cold currents of the White Water, the room’s beige lantern light, the dark colors swirling from a century back, the water flooding like flax through a comb—delighted him despite the pain. For despite the pain, or perhaps because of it, he felt the world coming fully thick and lovely fast.
16
HOW CLOSE it had been. With Big Tub in jail, the government would realize that the Rastas were not invulnerable. More important, the Rastas themselves would see it. Most important, the country people would be encouraged to go back to their lands. Lucius returned from Kingston with reports that the constabulary were considering an expedition against the newly leaderless Rastas in the White Water region.
On his last day at Rica Vista Marshall went with Dash to the reef. Because the reef was so different from the summit views he had seen, and because he had paid dearly for his elation about the West, he wondered if he had not in fact suffered illusions at high altitudes. Perhaps, he thought, his idea of the nineteenth century was far from the truth—a purified miniature. Perhaps the Empire was in its order only dull, in form conventional, in justice not blind. But to remember those days on the mountain, on the river, and at the encampment as anything but what they were would be to err oppositely. They did do a great thing, and there was a time when great things were better understood. Marshall remembered his origins, raising barriers against the love he had felt on the peak for the British and their Empire. Like the stitches which had been painlessly pulled, those illusions gave way to the kaleidoscopic color of the reef and the days and days of dolphinlike abandon that he had spent with Dash, who was all the more beautiful as a result of the victory. They lost themselves in swimming, and copulated with the ease of water creatures, not knowing how to feel apart from the waves and the driven coral.
In the evening there was to be a special dinner. Lamb was roasting in the ovens and people ran back and forth on the drive of cracked white shells, which made a noise that seemed to stay after they had left. The table was decked with bougainvillea and hibiscus; candles burned in tall pewter sticks. It was a dinner not only for Marshall’s departure, but for his recovery, and for the victory. They had a wonderful time. Lucius made not a few stupid jokes about Marshall’s desire to eat only dehydrated foods, and the table was cradled in ease and happiness. They spoke of the questions Marshall considered, and Mrs. Pringle corrected him when he assumed that, to have dominated the world, the English must have been extraordinarily intelligent and sharp.
“Oh no no no,” said Mrs. Pringle. “The reason the British conquered the world was not (as many think) that they were clever, but rather because everyone else was clever and the British were the only simpletons. Into the midst of prolix orientalism came the British singing four-line ditties and arising to take cold baths. Being simpletons, they went where no one dared to go, and fought against madmen’s odds. Few could resist their clean-facedness, and they moved through intricate layers of opposition like a lance through a honeycomb.”
She might well have continued, except that a car pulled up outside—unusual for that hour, since no one but the constable traveled at night in their section and, to be truthful, even he was afraid. It was the constable, and he entered the dining room with pith helmet in hand. His blue shirt was so well pressed and so airy that he looked like a piece of Dutch sky. Mrs. Pringle invited him to have a seat and partake of dessert.
“No thank you, Mistress,” he said, looking at the festive table. “I have to say something very bad. They took him to the Ewarton Jail. Tonight the jail burned down. They had to let the prisoners go. He ran off into the bush and no one can find him.”
Dash began to cry silent tears. Lucius was immobile. Nielson smiled. Peter, Stanhope, Mrs. Pringle, and the constable were frozen, not knowing what to think, although Mrs. Pringle knew that her daughter was crying for Farrell. Marshall looked at them and at the beautiful room and its dark Jamaican woods, as if it were a dream. Someone in the kitchen turned on a radio, and music could be heard faintly over the occasional clatter of dishes. The dining room was silent and the constable remained standing. Feeling awkward, as if he had intruded upon a family in mourning, he fixed his gaze on the beautiful burning candles.
V. YORKVILLE
1
EVEN IN May, the wind above the East River was cold and strong. Marshall and his friend Alexander had gone to the Brooklyn Bridge; over their own reddened hands resting like talons on the railing, they looked northward up the great river filled with traffic and refractive waves. The day was blue and busy; tangled in sunlight, snapping flags, and people bobbing up and down long avenues compressed to see; its prospect like the shining side of a cool porcelain vase rich with running colors. The city before him resembled his image of Canton—ships in the harbor and merchants unloading wares at the foot of green hills covered with terraces, gardens, and trees which bent like centenarians.
Upon his return from Jamaica the previous spring, Marshall had found himself in a much-changed Eagle Bay School. The once lighthearted and eccentric students had been transformed by a race for prestigious colleges; they vulgarized their studies by ceaseless competition and flattered the teachers excessively. Marshall refused to participate, and was quickly drawn into an altercation with a bash-faced young biology instructor who made the mistake of grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him against a wall when Marshall had refused to call him sir. Marshall fought a lively fight, driving the teacher outdoors, across the parking lot, through the nerve garden (worms were bred there for experiments upon their plexii), and backward into the lily pond. After being expelled, Marshall was sent to a private school in Manhattan, where he began to study in earnest. He often took the train upriver to see the Livingstons, to ride through the woods on the black horse, to ski on his old wooden skis down the long windy hill in front of the house. But when he arrived at Eagle Bay he was usually dressed in a dark suit, as if he were much older. Residence in Yorkville changed him as much as had his stay at Rica Vista. He could not go backward, and did not try. Although he had been familiar with the city, and although Eagle Bay was less than 100 miles distant, Marshall felt as if he had in fact been sent to China.
He lived with the family Pascaleo, of which Alexander, his classmate, was the eldest son. Alexa—a radiant beauty—was Alexanders twin sister, and Paolo was the youngest, an eager gardener of seven, who farmed a small plot in the park and brought home vegetables which were stunted, malformed, and delicious. Signora Pascaleo worked as a loan officer in the foreign department of Semple, Peascod, & Bovina; and Signor Pascaleo (an urban historian, expert on Florence) had somehow gotten to be New York City Commissioner of Public Works. Shocked by the sudden appointment (it was in the time of the tall mad mayor), his own family had questioned his suitability to the task. “What do I care?” he had said, shrugging his shoulders. “A sewer is a sewer, a pipe is a pipe, a light is a light.” They had an enormous apartment high above Park Avenue, well, a little off Park Avenue, in Yorkville. They spoke mostly in Italian, and they kept a milk-white goat called Boofin. His hooves and horns were black as jet, because Paolo buffed them with shoe polish until they shined. It was his main delight, and often Marshall came in the door to see the goat perched on a big leather chair, Paolo hard at work shining t
he hooves. They loved to hear Boofin prance across the hard floors. He sounded like a team of tap dancers. When he got excited and could not restrain himself, it was like hail on a tin roof. He was a frightened, gentle goat. Petrified of dogs, he would not leave the apartment, but spent days staring out the window, his forelegs on the sill.
Marshall and A1 were going to Harvard in the fall, and Alexa was going to the University of Rome. Mainly to her chagrin, her father had persuaded her to attend the semiannual Gotham Ball that June at the Plaza. She was so beautiful—tall and blue-eyed with shining blond hair—that she mainly got her way, and she had resolved upon wearing a black velvet gown and bracelets and necklaces of white gold. Though everyone had been instructed to wear white, she would not. Marshall, Alexa, and A1 didn’t quite fit into that stuff (Marshall certainly didn’t), and they never knew exactly what to do about all the social events to which they were invited because Signor Pascaleo was a commissioner.