by John Barth
"How she got my name and address, I can't imagine," Pete concludes to the hushed and attentive table. "If it was in some big general directory or academic Who's Who, how'd she get hold of it, and how many hundreds of these things did she write out by hand and mail?"
"And where'd she get paper and envelopes and deposit slips and postage stamps," Lisa Bergman wonders, "if they're so dirt poor?"
"And the time to scribble scribble scribble," Paul Ashton adds, "while they're managing the goats and pigs and doing all the scut-work?"
Opines Rob the Accountant, "It doesn't add up."
"It does seem questionable," Sandy Becker agrees.
"But if you could see the letter!" Debbie protests. "So earnest and articulate, but so unslick! Lines like 'We do not hope that our uncle will recover.' And 'I can't leave my siblings alone. We remained five and we should stick five.'"
Taking her hand in his again and using his free hand to make finger quotes, Pete adds, "And, quote, 'Life unbearable, we only pray hard to kind people to help us go back to school, because the most learnt here is more chance of getting good job,' end of quote."
"It's heartbreaking," Shirley Green acknowledges. "No wonder you-all have so much of it memorized!"
"But the bottom line is," Chuck Becker declares, "did you fall for it? Because, believe me, it's a goddamn scam."
"You really think so?" Dave Bergman asks.
"Of course it is! Some sharpster with seven wives and Internet access for tracking down addresses sets his harem to scribbling out ten copies per wife per day, carefully misspelling a few words and scratching out a few more, just to see who'll take the bait. Probably some midlevel manager at Barclays with a PC in his office and a fake account in one of his twelve daughters' names."
"How can you be so sure?" Lisa Bergman wants to know.
With the air of one accustomed to having his word taken, "Take my word for it, sweetie," their host replies. Down-table to his wife then, "Better get the crabcakes started, Sandy?" And to the Simpsons, "Please tell me you didn't send 'em a nickel."
"We didn't," Debbie assures him. "Not yet, anyhow. Because of course we're leery of the whole thing too. But just suppose, Chuck and everybody—just suppose it happens to be authentic? Imagine the courage and resourcefulness of a seventeen-year-old girl in that wretched situation, with all that traumatic stuff behind her and more of it waiting down the road, but she manages somehow to get hold of a bunch of American addresses and a pen and paper and stamps and deposit slips, and she scratches out this last-chance plea for a life ... Suppose it's for real?"
"And we-all sit here in our gated community," Lisa Bergman joins in, "with our Lexuses and golf carts and our parties and progressive dinners, and we turn up our noses and say, 'It's a scam; don't be suckered.'"
"So what should we do?" Paul Ashton mildly challenges her. "Bet a hundred bucks apiece on the very long shot that it's not a shyster?"
"I'm almost willing to," Shirley Green admits. Her husband shakes his head no.
"What we ought to do," Dave Bergman declares, "is go to some trouble to find out whether the thing's for real. A lot of trouble, if necessary. Like write back to her, telling her we'd like to help but we need more bona fides. Find out how she got Pete's name and address. Ask the American consulate in Kampala or wherever to check her story out. Is that in Uganda?"
"You mean," his wife wonders or suggests, "make a community project out of it?"
Asks Debbie, "Why not?"
"Because," Rob Green replies, "I, for one, don't have time for it. Got a full plate already." He checks his watch. "Or soon will have, won't we, Shirl?"
"Same here," Dave Bergman acknowledges. "I know I ought to make time for things like this, but I also know I won't. It's like demonstrating against the war in Iraq, the way so many of us did against the war in Vietnam? Or even like working to get out the vote on Election Day. My hat's off to people who act that strongly on their convictions, and I used to be one of them, but I've come to accept that I'm just not anymore. Morally lazy these days, I guess, but at least honest about it."
"And in this case," Chuck Becker says with ruddy-faced finality, "you're saving yourself a lot of wasted effort. Probably in those other cases too, but never mind that."
"Oh my goodness," his wife exclaims. "Look what time it is! I'll do the crabcakes, Chuck'll get the veggies, and Paul, would you mind refreshing everybody's drinks? Or we'll never get done before it's time to move on to Rob and Shirley's!"
3. Dessert
The Greens' place on Shoreside Drive, toward which all three dozen progressive diners now make their well-fed way from the several entrée houses to reassemble for the dessert course, is no more than a few blocks distant from the Becker and Simpson residences on Cattail Court—although the attractively winding streets of Heron Bay Estates aren't really measurable in blocks. Chuck and Sandy Becker, who had earlier walked from their house to Pete and Debbie Simpson's (practically next door) for the appetizer course, and then back to their own place to host the entrée, decide now to drive to the final course of the evening in their Cadillac Escalade. The Greens themselves, having left the Beckers' a quarter-hour earlier to make ready, drove also, retrieving their Honda van from where they'd parked it in front of the Simpsons'. The Ashtons, Paul and Peggy, walk only far enough to collect their Lexus from the Simpsons' driveway and then motor on. Of the five couples who did their entrée at 911 Cattail Court, only the Simpsons themselves and the Bergmans decide that the night air is too inviting not to stroll through it to Rob and Shirley's; they decline the proffered lifts in favor of savoring the mild westerly breeze, settling their crabcakes and vegetables a bit before tackling the dessert smorgasbord, and chatting among themselves en route.
"That Chuck, I swear," Lisa Bergman says as the Beckers' luxury SUV rolls by. "So sure he's right about everything! And Sandy just goes along with it."
"Maybe she agrees with him," Peter suggests. "Anyhow, they're good neighbors, even if Chuck can be borderline insufferable now and then."
"I'll second that," Dave Bergman grants. Not to walk four abreast down a nighttime street with no sidewalks, the two men drop back a bit to carry on their conversation while their wives, a few feet ahead, speak of other things. Charles Becker, David goes on, likes to describe himself as a self-made man, and in considerable measure he is: from humble beginnings as a small-town carpenter's son—
"Sounds sort of familiar," Peter can't help commenting, "except our Chuck's not about to let himself get crucified."
"Anyhow, served in the Navy during World War Two; came home and went to college on the G.I. Bill to study engineering; worked a few years for a suburban D.C. contractor in the postwar housing boom; then started his own business and did very well indeed, as he does not tire of letting his dentist and others know. No hand-scrawled Send Me Money letters for him: 'God helps those who help themselves,' et cetera."
"Right: the way he helped himself to free college tuition and other benefits not readily available to your average Ugandan orphan girl. Hey, look: Sure enough, there's Jeff Pitt's latest score."
Peter means the Sold sticker on the For Sale sign (with The Jeff Pitt Team lettered under it) in front of 1020 Shoreside Drive, the former residence of Richard and Susan Felton. The women, too, pause before it—their conversation having moved from the Beckers to the Bergmans' Philadelphia daughter's latest project for her parents: to establish a Jewish community organization in Stratford, in alliance with the College's modest Hillel club for it's handful of Jewish students. Lisa is interested; David isn't quite convinced that the old town is ready yet for that sort of thing.
"The Feltons," he says now, shaking his head. "I guess we'll never understand."
"What do you mean?" Debbie challenges him. "I think I understand it perfectly well."
"What do you mean?" David cordially challenges back. "They were both in good health, comfortably retired, no family problems that anybody knows of, well liked in the neighborhood—and wham, th
ey come home from the Hardisons' toga party and off themselves!"
"And," Peter adds, "their son and daughter not only get the news secondhand, with no advance warning and no note of explanation or apology, but then have to put their own lives on hold and fly in from wherever to dispose of their parents' bodies and house and belongings."
"What a thing to lay on your kids!" Lisa agrees. The four resume walking the short remaining distance to the Greens'. "And you think that's just fine, Deb?"
"Not 'just fine,'" Debbie counters: "understandable. And I agree that their kids deserved some explanation, if maybe not advance notice, since then they'd've done all they could to prevent it's happening." What she means, she explains, is simply that she quite understands how a couple at the Feltons' age and stage—near or in their seventies after a prevailingly happy, successful, and disaster-free life together, their children and grandkids grown and scattered, the family's relations reportedly affectionate but not especially close, the parents' careers behind them along with four decades of good marriage, nothing better to look forward to than the infirmities, losses, and burdensome care-taking of old age, and no religious prohibitions against self-termination—how such a couple might just decide, Hey, it's been a good life; we've been lucky to have had it and each other all these years; let's end it peacefully and painlessly before things go downhill, which is really the only way they can go from here.
"And let our friends and neighbors and children clean up the mess?" David presses her. "Would you and Pete do that to us?"
"Count me out," Peter declares. "For another couple decades anyhow, unless the world goes to hell even faster than it's going now."
"In our case," his wife reminds the Bergmans, "it's friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Don't think we haven't talked about it more than once since Julie's death. I've even checked it out on the Web, for when the time comes."
"On the Web?" Lisa takes her friend's arm.
Surprised, concerned, and a little embarrassed, "The things you learn about your mate at a progressive dinner!" Peter marvels to David, who then jokingly complains that he hasn't learned a single interesting thing so far about his mate.
"Don't give up on me," his wife says. "The party's not over."
"Right you are," Debbie agrees, "literally and figuratively. And here we are, and I'll try to shut up."
The Greens' house, brightly lit, with a dozen or more cars now parked before it, is a boxy two-story beige vinyl-clapboard-sided affair, unostentatious but commodious and well maintained, with fake-shuttered windows all around, and on it's creek side a large screened porch, open patio, pool, and small-boat dock. Shirley Green being active in the Heron Bay Estates Garden Club, the property is handsomely landscaped: The abundant rhododendrons, azaleas, and flowering trees have already finished blossoming for the season, but begonias, geraniums, daylilies, and roses abound along the front walk and driveway, around the foundation, and in numerous planters. As the foursome approach, the Bergmans tactfully walk a few paces ahead. Peter takes his wife's arm to comfort her.
"Sorry," Debbie apologizes again. "You know I wouldn't be thinking these things if we hadn't lost Julie." Her voice thickens. "She'd be fresh out of college now and headed for med school!" She can say no more.
"I know, I know." As indeed Peter does, having been painfully reminded of that circumstance as he helped preside over Stratford's recent commencement exercises instead of attending their daughter's at Johns Hopkins. Off to medical school she'd be preparing herself to go, for arduous but happy years of general training, then specialization, internship, and residency; no doubt she'd meet and bond with some fellow physician-in-training along the way, and Peter and Debbie would help plan the wedding with her and their prospective son-in-law and look forward to grandchildren down the line to brighten their elder years, instead of Googling "suicide" on the Web ...
Briefly but appreciatively she presses her forehead against his shoulder. Preceded by the Bergmans and followed now by other dessert-course arrivers, they make their way front-doorward to be greeted by eternally boyish Rob and ever-effervescent Shirley Green.
"Sweets are out on the porch, guys; wine and decaf in the kitchen. Beautiful evening, isn't it?"
"Better enjoy it while we can, I guess, before the hurricanes come."
"Yo there, Barneses! What do you think of your new neighborhood so far?"
"Totally awesome! Nothing like this in Blue Crab Bight."
"We can't wait to move in, ghosts or no ghosts. Our daughter Tiffany's off to France for six weeks, but it's the rest of the family's summer project."
"So enjoy every minute of it. Shall we check out the goodies, Deb?"
"Calories, here we come! Excuse us, people."
But over chocolate cheesecake and decaffeinated coffee on the torch-lit patio, Judy Barnes reapproaches Debbie to report that Marsha Pitt, their entrée hostess, told them the terrible news of the Simpsons' daughter's accident. "Joe and I are so sorry for you and Peter! We can't imagine ..."
All appetite gone, "Neither can we," Debbie assures her. "We've quit trying to."
And just a few minutes later, as the Simpsons are conferring on how soon they can leave without seeming rude, Paul and Peggy Ashton come over, each with a glass of pale sherry in one hand and a chocolate fudge brownie in the other, to announce their solution to that Ugandan orphan girl business.
"Can't wait to hear it," Peter says dryly. "Will Chuck Becker approve?"
"Chuck shmuck," says Paul, who has picked up a few Yiddishisms from the Bergmans. "The folks who brought you your dandy new mailboxes now propose a Rockfish Reach Ad Hoc Search and Rescue Committee. Tell 'em, Peg."
She does, emphasizing her points with a half-eaten brownie. The informal committee's initial members would be the three couples at dinner who seemed most sympathetic to Pete's story and to the possibility that the letter was authentic: themselves, the Bergmans, and of course the Simpsons. Peter would provide them with copies of the letter; Paul Ashton, whose legal expertise was at their service, would find out how they could go about verifying the thing's authenticity, as David Bergman had suggested at the Beckers'. If it turned out to be for real, they would then circulate an appeal through Rockfish Reach, maybe through all of Heron Bay Estates, to raise money toward the girl's rescue: not a blank check that her uncle and aunt might oblige her to cash for their benefit, but some sort of tuition fund that the committee could disburse, or at least oversee and authorize payments from.
"Maybe even a scholarship at Stratford?" Paul Ashton suggests to Peter. "I know you have a few foreign students from time to time, but none from equatorial Africa, I'll bet."
"Doesn't sound impossible, actually," Peter grants, warming to the idea while at the same time monitoring his wife's reaction. "If she's legit, and qualified. Our African-American student organization could take her in."
"And our Heron Bay Search and Rescue Squad could unofficially adopt her!" Lisa Bergman here joins in, whom the Ashtons have evidently briefed already on their proposal. "Having another teenager to keep out of trouble will make us all feel young again! Whatcha think, Deb?"
To give her time to consider, Peter reminds them that there remains the problem of the girl's younger siblings, whom she's resolved not to abandon: "We remained five and we should stick five," et cetera. Whereas if she "went to university" in Kampala for at least the first couple of years, say, she could see the youngsters into high school and then maybe come to Stratford for her junior or senior year ...
"Listen to us!" He laughs. "And we don't even know yet whether the girl's for real!"
"But we can find out," David Bergman declares. "And if we can make it happen, or make something like it happen, it'll be a credit to Heron Bay Estates. Make us feel a little better about our golf and tennis and progressive dinners. Okay, so it's only one kid out of millions, but at least it's one. I say let's do it."
"And then Pete and I officially adopt her as our daughter," Debbie says at last, in a tone that her
husband can't assess at all, "and we stop eating our hearts out about losing Julie, and everybody lives happily ever after."
"Deb?" Lisa puts an arm around her friend's shoulder.
"Alternatively," Debbie suggests to them then, "we could start a Dick and Susan Felton Let's Get It Over With Club, and borrow the Barneses' new garage for our first meeting. Meanwhile, let's enjoy the party, okay?" And she moves off toward where the Pitts, the Hardisons, and a few others are chatting beside the lighted pool. To their friends Peter turns up his palms, as best one can with a cup of decaf in one hand and it's saucer in the other, and follows after his wife, wondering and worrying what lies ahead for them—tonight, tomorrow, and in the days and years beyond. They have each other, their work, their colleagues and friends and neighbors, their not-all-that-close extended family (parents dead, no siblings on Debbie's side, one seven-years-older sister of Peter's out in Texas, from whom he's been more or less distanced for decades), their various pastimes and pleasures, their still prevailingly good health—for who knows how much longer? And then. And then. While over in Uganda and Darfur, and down in Haiti, and in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib and the world's multitudinous other hellholes ...