Cannibals and Missionaries

by Mary McCarthy

  Yet even if the hijackers had somehow got wind of this tour of collectors, how could that serve their purposes? All those treasures were back in America, protected by the latest burglar-alarm systems and fully insured. Nobody traveled with their valuables these days. Years ago, Wintie Thorp, before he became a vegetable, used to take his Byzantine ivories with him on the steamer to Europe and set one up in his hotel dressing-room every morning on the shaving-stand, so that he could look at it while shaving, start the day right, but there were no old-fashioned steamers any more and no shaving-stands, unless maybe at Claridge’s, and Margaret had sold the collection—too portable. Today someone feeling the pinch and having been stung once too often at Sotheby Parke Bernet might hand-carry a little pair of icons or a Book of Hours to Christie’s in London for appraisal, but if the insurance company knew about it, the premiums would be prohibitive. Of the present group, only Charles, apparently, could not learn to move with the times; he insisted on wearing that intaglio ring—crystal, with “amor fati” incised in it—that he said had belonged to some Lord Acton, and if you turned out his pockets you would be bound to find a few of his “trinkets,” a rare Babylonian shekel or a sweet little Twelfth Dynasty Horus. At least his fabulous porcelains were safe with his couple on Mount Vernon Street. So that the collections should be the least of anybody’s worries now; there was no earthly reason to fear on their behalf.

  And yet she did, roared Margaret, and doubtless they all did in their hearts. The penalty of owning great works of art, or even itsy-bitsy ones, was that the minute anything out-of-the-way happened, your thoughts flew to them like a mother bird to the nest. Most of the time, unless you were showing the collection to visitors, you hardly saw the master works hanging on your walls or mounted in cases, the way you ceased to hear a clock ticking after awhile—it was something about the attention-span. That was why experts advised one to keep changing their positions. If Helen looked at her Vermeer more than once a week, it would be unusual; her maid, dusting the frame with a special soft brush, spent more time, probably, “communing” with it than she did. It was a privilege to be a domestic in a house like that, where practically every stick of furniture was signed by a great cabinet-maker; they said beauty was contagious if you were exposed to it long enough, but sometimes one wondered—look at Harold. In any case, rub off on you or not, beautiful things were a heavy responsibility. Worse than children, who eventually grew up and found their own way. Whenever you went off for a weekend, or even downtown to the hairdresser, a part of you stayed home with your treasures, and your first thought, on opening the door after an absence, was to make sure they were still there. They said you could store them in a vault, like your jewelry, when you went away, but what was the point of having beautiful things if you had to keep coming home to blank spaces on the walls and a constant traffic of bonded moving-men on the carpets? Then there was the burden of caring for them, seeing that they had the right temperature and humidity, protecting them from the sun, making certain that they were dusted, or not dusted, as the case might be. At least, unlike an animal, they did not have to be exercised.

  Lily, by the bye, had a funny story about this bolshie minister when he was a curate. She had had him to one of her musical teas—that was when she still had the house on Fifth Avenue—and in those days there was a little Augustus John in the morning-room that had come down to her from an aunt. People always asked to see it, because of the subject—Churchill’s beautiful American mother—though it was a flashy thing and she finally put it up for auction. Anyway, that day there was a new butler, and when this Reverend Mr. Barber turned up, just out of Divinity School, he asked him “Where is the John?” In an undertone, because the music had already started. So the butler said “Here, sir,” and showed him to the toilet. The curate was so mortified that he went in and did his business and turned tail and left. Lily only heard later, from the butler, what had happened. “He asked me for the john, madam, and I directed him.”

  “I don’t know why Mother insists on telling that story,” loudly complained Beryl, an overweight child in her late thirties who was always picking quarrels with Lily. For weeks, they gathered, she had been refusing to come on this tour and then, characteristically, changed her mind at the last minute—such a bother for Lily, who had to pull strings with the Iranian ambassador in Washington, so that the girl could have her visa in time. He could not have been more charming, and yet Beryl would not even write him a little note of thanks. Now she was tickled that they had been hijacked; it had “made” her winter, she announced. She would say anything of course to be different, but perhaps in a pitiful way it was true. Her life with Lily in that apartment was rather barren; she had so few interests of her own and refused to share in her mother’s: she had hated art from the cradle and had her own queer little collections of inartistic objects, such as antique false teeth and poison labels for medicine bottles—quite amusingly arranged, it had to be admitted; she had the family knack.

  If only she had not had that figure problem, which was not glands but plain over-eating—stuffing herself to fill an aching inner void—she could have been rather stunning. She had a real porcelain complexion (proof of perfect elimination, considering what she ate!), which she had to disfigure with big circus patches of rouge. Her hair was thick and naturally blond, and she wore it in a wide Dutch bang that came down to a point in the middle over the family nose—a twenties style called the “Sweetheart” that she had found in some cheap magazine. Her best feature was her eyes, bluer than Lily’s and glittering like sapphires, which too often she hid behind huge dark glasses, as though she thought she was Jacqueline Bouvier or a film star. And she would not let Lily dress her. Instead, she had a passion for “separates”—billowy skirts and assorted bright-colored blouses that recalled whole choruses of buxom villagers in an opera. Johnnie commented that Beryl’s outfits always looked as if she had bought each item in a different Thrift shop and then thrown them all together in a hopper. For the flight she had not wanted to wear her lovely long mink—Lily’s Christmas offering. Instead, there was a cherished junk-fur jacket dyed a brilliant blue that she had planned to put on over slacks. Lily had had to insist, and now, in this freezing cabin, Beryl could be grateful.

  Her trouble, of course, was that she dressed to get attention, from men, obviously (the idea that women dressed for other women certainly did not apply in her case), and she succeeded; that is, she made herself conspicuous, which was not hard, given her size. She might have taken a leaf from Margaret’s book, but Margaret was all in scale; her height and deep booming voice carried her weight, and the mannish tailleurs she wore (always Captain Molyneux) made her look redoubtable, like a monument, which would stand out naturally in a crowd. You could not call the Statue of Liberty conspicuous. And nice men, as anyone could have told Beryl, did not care to be seen with conspicuous women, while the other kind, who would have been attracted anyway by her inherited wealth, seemed to find her an embarrassment themselves in the long run. An heiress who looked like something out of the five-and-ten (there had been Woolworth money, be it said, on Joe’s side) and would not be caught dead in a smart supper club, only the lowest of low dives, must be a chore to run about with, even in Mother’s chauffeured old Rolls. At any rate her “pashes” were always letting her down, and she cried in her bedroom and had orders sent in from the drugstore, rejecting Lily’s trays. Naturally, as with the clothes she set her heart on, she was fatally drawn to men who were crude and common, men who were bound to hurt her. It would not be beyond Beryl to set her cap at one of the hijackers before this was over. The young Arab was rather interested; that was clear already. Mohammedans admired fat women, and that milk-white skin and yellow hair had an appeal for the dark-skinned races, as poor Lily had reason to know: a few years ago, there had been a Negro delivery boy who was learning to play the trumpet, but when Beryl had paid for enough lessons he had got a job with a band and skipped out. Even undesirables had their sticking-point—surprising
but true. And, however one viewed her appearance, Beryl could be impossibly rude and overbearing.

  Yet she could be a sweet child too. Johnnie, who liked to spar with her, was convinced that she was still a virgin. It was a case, he argued, of arrested adolescence; one of his wives had been the same—you could see it in their chubby upper arms. If she could just cut loose from Lily’s apron-strings, she would mature fast, he thought; as it was, her mind had developed, but her body had not kept pace with it. As proof that she had a head on her shoulders he would cite the fact that she had never played around with drugs; she was still in the milkshake stage and did not even like alcohol, except gin alexanders and sweet liqueurs. If Beryl’s sitting-room, as Lily maintained, had a permanent sweet reek of marijuana—damned hard to get out of the draperies, as Johnnie knew from his own progeny’s “dens”—it was only her friends smoking the weed. Milkshakes and crushes and a yen to be different from Mamma, that was all that was the matter with Beryl. She held it against Lily that they were rich (though Lily only had her widow’s portion); that seemed to be the chief grievance, which Johnnie said he could understand—he had faced the problem himself as a young man. She would have to learn to live with it, like everybody else, and stop feeling that it was a “curse” and her mother’s fault. No wonder, though, that she had got a kick out of being hijacked. “Serves us right,” she had repeated, back in the Air France jet, with a triumphant shake of her yellow locks. “C’est bien fait pour nous,” she had proceeded to translate, beaming up at the plump young Arab. “N’est-ce pas, monsieur?” But the wary youth had had the grace to be evasive. “Sais pas, madame.”

  Well, doubtless it was lucky that someone in the party, for whatever disloyal reason, was enjoying the experience. Beryl’s total fearlessness, you could say, was good for the general morale, which needed some bolstering now that the drinks had worn off. The little curator was shivering in his thin coat; if it had not been for that constant whirring noise, one could surely have heard his teeth chatter—the stewardess ought to have thought to bring some Air France blankets along. And the sun was rapidly setting. They watched it sink like a plummet off to the left of the “chopper,” as Harold called it. To the left and slightly astern. So they were heading northeast. In the glass bubble, beside the pilot, the big tow-headed Teutonic hijacker—they had decided to nickname him “Hans” and his girl friend “Gretel”—was leaning forward and scanning the ground. Were they nearing their destination? The pilot flew lower. He hovered. But below there was no sign of life, nothing to be seen but a ruler-straight highway running through flat unimproved land. No cars, no houses with lights in them, even though they had passed big pylons that must be for electricity. After a long pause, seemingly for inspection, the pilot continued on course, flying low above the empty highway. Far off to the left, where the sun had set, there was a gleam that was probably water, and on the right there appeared to be water too. They must be skimming over an island or a peninsula. Beside the road there were thick bushes and small, evenly planted leafless trees and what might be ditches for drainage or irrigation, but only an occasional shadowy structure that could be a house or a barn—in the gathering dusk, it was hard to tell. Yet there were no animals about, not a single cow or a sheep. “What the hell?” said Henry Potter, speaking his first word in several hours.

  All at once, some lights went on below—lanterns, probably, for they were moving back and forth, as though signaling. In reply, the pilot put on his landing-lights. The “chopper” came slowly down, grazing the tree-tops. It landed. Right in the middle of a four-lane concrete highway. And they were expected to get out. The side-doors opened. “Welcome to Flevoland!” said the cheerful fellow in the whipcord. He had jumped off first, without a by-your-leave, and stood helping the others to descend. He gave a hand to the creaky old Bishop and then aided Margaret Thorp, who managed to look majestic despite her vast circumference as she was hoisted by the steward and the stewardess into his extended arms. Beryl leapt off quite nimbly, like the equestrienne she had been in her teens, and turned back to assist her mother. The “wife” of the couple-Warren’s friends—helped the older “husband.”

  Meanwhile the team of hijackers stood by, grinning contemptuously at these simple displays of courtesy and doing nothing themselves to be useful. Beyond the bright circle made by the helicopter’s landing-lights, other figures could be seen, armed with rifles. Until everyone was out of the helicopter, they too merely watched, making no move. One had the impression they were counting the hostages. The crew, as was proper, stayed aboard till the last and occupied themselves with the hand baggage; impatient looks passed among the hijackers as overnight cases from Gucci and Hermès were carefully lowered. “Hans” snapped his thick fingers and shouted at the crew to hurry up, setting an example by seizing a Louis Vuitton case and hurling it to the pavement—in the stillness, you could distinctly hear the sound of breaking glass. Then the rest of the baggage tumbled out in a heap, followed by the steward and the stewardess and the co-pilot, who was in military uniform, like the pilot. This was a military aircraft, evidently, which helped explain the lack of amenities; Harold said it must be used to carry paratroopers. The pilot was taking his time, methodically collecting papers and checking the equipment; he passed a Red Cross kit down to the stewardess. “Hans” barked an order; the lights went out, and the pilot scrambled down.

  In the thick dusk, you could hardly make out anything. The lanterns of the reception committee had been shaded or doused. Impossible to tell where one was or how many of these lurking figures there were. All one knew was that one had been dumped without explanation on a highway that seemed to run through an absolute wilderness. Perhaps vehicles would appear to take them on the next lap of the dreadful journey—cars or, more likely, a truck. Yet, whichever way one looked, there was no faint beam of approaching headlights. They heard footsteps receding, twigs snapping, and the rustle of reeds or underbrush. Were they going to trek on foot with what was left of their worldly goods to some robbers’ den in the woods? Or could a motor boat be moored waiting to receive them? The water they had observed argued for that, but the thought of exchanging terra firma for still another unreliable element was more than reason was willing to entertain. They waited.

  At last Charles—bless him—took it on himself to confront the skulking gang, whose forms could barely be discerned in the murk. “Well, my dears,” he screeched, “I presume you don’t plan to keep us all night on this public thoroughfare. We’d be grateful if you’d show us promptly to our accommodations. This evening damp is most unhealthy; one could easily take a chill, you see, and you don’t want to turn your ‘hospitality room’ into an infirmary, do you?” He gave that crowing laugh. A soft, gurgling sound like a suppressed giggle came from the plump young Arab, who added a friendly nudge of his weapon at Beryl’s ribs. Gretel was unamused. “You will not move from this place till we tell you. Your comfort is of no interest to us at this time. You will remain here under guard of the Palestine Liberation Army.” In other words, Beryl’s friend, the fatted calf, whom they had named “Ahmed,” and the older one with the mustache, whom they had decided to call “Abdul.” Gretel’s harsh voice continued. “And if any of you is so foolish as to ‘try anything’ during our absence, one of your number will pay the price.” She strode through the group of captives, surveying them with a swiftly produced, pencil-sized flashlight, as though taking her pick. The choice fell on the Bishop. “He will come with us.” Whereupon she and Hans simply melted away into the shadows, along with their band of accomplices and the helpless old man, whom they had deprived of his brolly. They ignored the murmur of shock that rose from the hostages, and the rector’s loud pleas to be taken instead (the Bishop, it seemed, had a heart condition) got only a grunt from Gretel. “And no smoking!” Her “parting shot” was delivered from somewhere in the bushes with terrifying accuracy. “Put that pipe out!” A pipe rattled to the pavement. Dear Gretel must have eyes in the back of her head.

  Abs
urd of her, though, to think that anyone would try to escape. True, the two Arabs did not look very fit and might be overpowered by sheer force of numbers, but where did one take it from there? Quite apart from the horrid threat to shoot the Bishop—surely that was what she had implied?—at the slightest false move from the others, it would be madness to strike out into this unknown terrain in mid-January and with no proper footwear to boot. By now it was pitch-dark. The hostages’ eyes, still not adjusted to the blackness, could hardly distinguish the shape of the giant helicopter a few yards away. Tomorrow it might be another story. They would be able to see the lie of the land and take their bearings from the sun. Now fog was swirling in; no guiding stars were visible overhead, and not a glimmer of a rising moon. The most they could be sure of was that this sinister, deserted spot was somewhere near the sea. “Why, for all we know, it might be the Faroe Islands,” declared Lily. “My God, Mother!” Beryl chided. “Didn’t they give you any geography in that finishing school of yours?” “I was speaking figuratively,” said Lily. “And you know very well that Saint Tim’s is not a finishing school. It offers an excellent education.” Good marks for Lily! In these trying circumstances, she could have been forgiven if she had mentioned the string of schools and colleges that Beryl had been asked to leave.

  The luminous dial of Johnnie’s watch—the latest thing in digitals—showed 6:02. Unbelievable. It felt more like midnight. And a good half-hour anyway must have passed since they had been left standing here in a huddle like cattle, but there was no way of telling, as nobody had thought to check the time when they landed. Or had the pilot noted it in his log? In the stillness, they could hear the occasional toot of a foghorn and the cry of a night bird, hawk or kestrel. Then, in the distance, a rustling and skittering that was surely animals, squirrels or rabbits or weasels, depending on the latitude. Finally a few in the party with sharp ears became aware of another sound, dull and regular, as of far-off pistons. “Do you hear that?” Harold Chadwick whispered. His wife listened. “Yes. What on earth can it be, Chaddie?” He did not know. For some reason, that rhythmic mechanical sound, in the absence of any of the normal noises of civilization, was very unnerving, like the pulsing of an infernal engine. “Sounds like a pump,” said Henry. But as they all listened, it stopped, and the night became utterly silent. Then it resumed.