Cannibals and Missionaries

by Mary McCarthy

  “Was he alive?” shrieked Lily. Henk shook his head. “So you think a dead man has no blood in him?” Jeroen said, with a peculiar satisfied smile. “Then why have you done this terrible thing, Jeroen?” cried Frank in a voice of anger, which broke into wild sobs. Jeroen went on smiling. “The deputy has guessed, I think.” “You had bad news,” said Henk. “No pictures,” agreed Carey. “Well, that was to be foreseen.” He turned to the others. “They must have learned, first thing this morning, that Washington refused.” But the others still could not make a connection. “The application of force was indicated,” Carey dryly hinted. Henk nodded. Then Sophie saw. “You were going to shoot a hostage,” she told Jeroen. “Beautiful!” “And, my dears, they’ve done so, haven’t they?” fluted Charles. “Most economical of you, Jeroen. My compliments. You have seen the use of leftovers in your revolutionary broth.” That was a dreadful way of putting it, but at least all now understood. From their own point of view, callous as it sounded, it was providential that the Bishop had died during the night, allowing the revolutionaries to find a “use” for his body. It had saved them the work of having to shoot a live hostage. If he had waited to die until later in the day, one of the people in this room—which?—would already have been executed.

  Jeroen stood there listening, neither confirming nor denying. “You will now eat breakfast,” he commanded, as Denise entered with the usual “ontbijt” on the pastry-board she made do with for a tray. When he was gone, they found that they were hungry: it was well known that death quickened the appetite. While they ate, the television screen lit up. A spokesman from the Ministry of Justice was announcing that a message had been received from the hijackers: a first hostage had just been executed, and the assassins now called for a helicopter to come and pick up the body. It must arrive within a delay of no less than two hours and observe the same conditions as before. The execution was to be understood in the context of legitimate ransom demands accepted as such by the prisoners themselves that Washington had criminally rejected. The identity of the hostage was not known, the spokesman added. Then the Minister himself came on the screen, appealing to the hijackers to take no more lives while Her Majesty’s government continued its efforts to find a peaceful solution. No avenue leading in that direction would be left unexplored. That was all.

  It left a good deal to be mulled over in the long morning ahead. “No avenue will be left unexplored,” for instance—what did that signify? Henk thought it meant that Den Uyl was appealing to the Vatican and to the NATO allies to put pressure on Washington. The announcement that a hostage had been murdered would make his task easier.

  “It won’t wash,” predicted Johnnie. “An autopsy’s bound to show that poor Gus died of a cerebral incident.” “We don’t know that,” Frank pointed out. “It might have been a heart attack. He had a heart condition, you know.” Johnnie kept his patience. “Whatever he died of, it’ll be easy enough for the experts to establish that the bullet wounds were sustained after death.” “Not so easy,” said Harold. “Rigor mortis hadn’t set in, you notice. So there’ll be no way of fixing the order of events prior to the onset of death. The cerebral accident or heart failure could have been a result of the bullet wounds or of just plain fear when he saw the Thompson aimed at him.” He sounded like quite a different person when he was in his own element. “He didn’t see it,” objected Henry. “Jeepers, man, we know that, but the medical examiners won’t. And the fact that we can sit here debating when we witnessed the whole thing shows what a free-for-all the pathologists’ll have with the autopsy. Hell, there are likely to be two autopsies, one here and one when they get him home. This is Dutch soil, no?” “There will be a lijkschouwing, certainly,” Henk agreed. “Before the body can be released. And the body may be held, in expectation of a trial, if the cause of death is in doubt. I am not sure of the law.” “Well, that’s your answer, Johnnie. Meanwhile there’s a corpse full of bullets, which will be all the prima facie evidence Gerry Ford needs to get his ass moving on the pictures.”

  “And yet we know better,” sighed Aileen. Others sighed with her. It would be maddening to watch the terrorists get away with their hoax—that was the only word for it—and be unable to speak out and expose the deception. And yet should one be anxious to expose them? As long as they succeeded in palming off the dead Bishop as a live hostage they had ruthlessly shot down, there would be no pressing need, surely, to select another candidate. Not till Washington refused again, and would it, with all those international pressures? It was only one’s feeling for the truth that objected.

  Frank’s missionary mind had been elsewhere. “Don’t you think that we should have grounds for rejoicing, as well as sorrow, in what we have witnessed? To me, the most interesting fact is that Jeroen and his comrades were unwilling to take human life.” “Unwilling or just kind of reluctant?” said Carey. “Loath,” suggested Aileen. But, whatever the shadings, Frank was basically right. There was no denying that Jeroen had chosen not to shoot one of their number. And if he was truly unwilling to kill a fellow-creature and kept finding excuses not to—why, after all, had they spared Helen?—then there was no great reason to be afraid of him, which should be cause for rejoicing in itself. Yet in fact it left one strangely uneasy.

  Frank might be glad, piously, for Jeroen’s immortal soul, but the general reaction—if one could judge by a few comments—was more complex. If they could be sure that this proclaimed revolutionary was incapable of killing anything more than a cat, they would be relieved for selfish reasons, but he would go down in their estimation. Over these days they had formed an “image” of him which they would have preferred to keep intact. He seemed so hard and resolute, yet fair in his own way—an enemy one could respect. And since one was in his power anyway, it was preferable to look up to him. As Margaret said, a Jeroen who was “loath” to take human life was too small for his boots. “Your class still has warrior values,” Henk commented, seeming amused. “I don’t see it that way, Maggie,” Harold objected. “Don’t you think we’ll have to hand it to him for getting away with murder if he pulls this stunt off?” That was the slick business man speaking, and “murder” was scarcely the appropriate word. Yet it was interesting that Harold, of all people, should come to appreciate a hijacker and precisely for qualities valued in the business world. Of course Jeroen was bright as a button.

  It was interesting, too, to learn that one had warrior values. Captivity was bringing out new facets in everyone. On the sad side, Helen, with her poor weak kidneys, had turned into something pathetic and repulsive, like an animal clawing at the door to “go out.” The admiration she had won for her willingness to die for her “Girl” had evaporated when Jeroen denied her the privilege. To be fair, that was clever of him. Now even Lily’s exquisite manners were finding Helen rather hard to take. In the end, Jeroen would get the “Girl” anyway was the general prophecy.

  On the cheerful side, Lily was blooming: there was more to her mentally than had ever been suspected, least of all by Beryl. And Beryl herself was different. But, above all, there was the adventure of getting to know oneself, which was like making a new acquaintance. In the usual social round, there was so little time for that. Until deprivation showed them, they had not realized how many hours they spent changing their clothes, going to the hairdresser, the dressmaker, having the masseur or the masseuse in. Bathing twice a day, as the men did—in the morning and after squash—took up a good half-hour in itself. Not to speak of shaving and using the sun lamp—Johnnie. Then changing your books at the library or having your chauffeur do it: had anyone ever counted the hours consumed by that? Naturally they all fretted now over the absence of these time-takers and complained of being bored. Yet there was the compensation of having, for once, leisure—the last thing, come to think of it, that the so-called leisure class enjoyed—to contemplate one’s navel, study one’s reactions and those of one’s friends, probe into human psychology, which could be disappointing, embarrassing, but also plain fascina
ting.

  This morning, in addition, they could profit from the unusual quiet. With the Bishop dead, games, which tended to become noisy and argumentative, were of course not to be thought of, and Frank could not tune up on that instrument. Out of respect, even conversations were subdued—no shouting matches. And probably there was small prospect of being taken out for exercise, at least while the helicopter was expected.

  The Bishop’s body, they learned, was in the shed; quite soon, though, the guards would be taking it outside to be ready when the helicopter appeared. As the time drew near, Frank, brave man, asked if he could hold a funeral service. Surprisingly, the kapers raised no objection. They would allow Frank and the Senator to carry their friend’s body to the field, escorted by Jeroen and two guards. Frank could say the last rites over it, provided that he limited them to precisely five minutes; the mourners were not to attempt to linger but must return at once to the house. At Henk’s request, another concession was made: he and Charles could accompany the cortège too and remain for the service. But no one else need apply.

  A handful of hostages hurried into the parlor to watch from the window. Most of the first-class passengers, however, felt it more seemly to stay behind. “Eloise, sit down,” Harold ordered. “What makes you want to rubberneck?” But Lily, armed with a clean handkerchief and wearing her black cashmere over her shoulders, refused to be deterred. “I think we should all mourn for him. It was so sad about his faith. I’m sure he got it back, though, in the watches of the night.” Beryl raised her eyebrows but with a sigh she joined her mother, and gradually others followed till the gloomy little parlor was full.

  Frank had left the Book of Common Prayer, marked with a red place-ribbon, so that those who wanted could take part in the service. After “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,” he was going to use Psalm XXVII, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?”—very appropriate—and lastly some verses from the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, “In my Father’s house are many mansions”—very appropriate too. He had timed the selections, pacing up and down: three minutes. That would leave room for the Lord’s Prayer—some wondered about the tact of that—and the responses. He was fussed by not having his round collar and dickey with him for the occasion; they were at Schiphol still, in his suitcase.

  They watched as the procession came round the end of the house: Carey and Henk as pallbearers carrying the body on their shoulders, followed by Charles and his walking-stick, and with Frank in the lead. The three terrorists stood on the sidelines, their weapons lowered. Despite them or perhaps because of them, it was very moving. Cameron opened the window a crack, and the voices of Henk and Carey could be heard chanting in Latin as they marched along, keeping step: “Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine….” They had good strong voices, Henk’s a pure tenor and Carey’s a rich baritone. Then the voices faded. The body was set down on the open ground with not even a blanket to cover it; Frank made the sign of the cross and began to recite the Scriptures. He did not attempt to sing, and his voice was too broken to carry. But in the parlor they followed him, some looking on at the book and some reciting from memory. A few simply moved their lips or stood with bowed heads. They could tell when he came to the prayer because the group in the field knelt down by the body, but in the parlor, after a moment of indecision, everyone remained standing. In the doorway, Sophie—hesitant because of being Jewish, probably—finally joined in with the last “Amen.”

  When Cameron closed the window, most were in tears. Outside, the mourners were turning back to the house, no longer keeping step. Without the body to support and accompany, like an offering, their number seemed to dwindle, and they looked pathetic in those flat fields under the sad gray sky. The illusion they had given while the Bishop was with them of a band of early Christians chanting and professing their faith in the wilderness had vanished; the composition, so like a frieze, broke up, and they could be four hoboes, almost, unshaven, in unpressed suits, heading for shelter in a barn. It illustrated the value of ritual and the need for forms. There were no clods of earth to throw into the grave by way of farewell, because of course there was no grave. Frank had performed the regular burial service, which was the best he could do under the circumstances no doubt, but without grave or coffin this was like a mere sketch, a cartoon, of Christian burial.

  Those remaining at the window watched Jeroen stride back to the house and tried to make out what the Arabs left behind were doing. In fact, the pair of them were packing the Bishop for shipment; using what looked like two large potato sacks, they were stuffing the white head and the shoulders into one and the feet into the other. By shaking the Bishop down, they made the sacks meet in the middle, around his waist; then they used another sack to truss the package up and they finished with some rope. During the shaking down, the Bishop’s silver flask fell out and went into Yusuf’s pocket. Finally, they shouldered their weapons and waited, scanning the sky. The helicopter was strangely slow in coming. There was a general move out of the parlor. Few had the stomach to stay and press Frank’s hand, tell him “Very inspiring,” and so on, or to witness the Bishop’s ascent. Yet those who lingered at the window were rewarded in the end by a touching scene.

  It was Sophie who first noticed the big dark bird hovering in the air, almost directly above the Bishop’s remains. She grasped Henk’s arm. “What is it?” “A gull?” suggested Lily. Henk shook his head. “A buzzard, I think.” Carey crossed himself. “Not a vulture?” wondered Lily. “Only in zoos,” said Henk. “But it’s too soon,” argued Frank. Henk shrugged. “Maybe. Look!” Another big dark bird, of the same family, had joined the first, hanging motionless with wings outspread. “Buzzards, all right,” declared Cameron. “Twa corbies, eh? But it is too soon, man, for the creatures to sniff carrion.” “They’re waiting,” said Henk. “He bled, Archie,” Carey added. Johnnie reached for the field glasses. “Don’t look!” cried Sophie, covering her eyes. “I can’t bear it. They’re going to strike!”

  It must have appeared so to Ahmed, too, for, as they watched, he began to wave his short arms and thrash his body around to frighten the buzzards off. He was acting as a scarecrow to protect the Bishop. Except for the two motionless birds, the sky was empty. Below, far away, was the cordon of guardsmen. The only movement on the ground, as far as the eye could see, came from Ahmed, whirling and waving his arms. Yusuf stood by, doing nothing. Now the birds were turning in a circle above the body. Ahmed picked up a rock and threw it at them, then another. “Why in God’s name doesn’t he shoot them?” cried Frank. “Saving his ammo,” said Carey. Ahmed was aiming another rock upward, with a motion like a baseball pitcher’s, when the birds, as if coming to a decision, wheeled about and flew heavily away. The helicopter appeared. Perhaps it was the noise of its rotors and not the angelic Ahmed that had scared the buzzards off. Sophie burst into tears as though from relief and flung herself on Henk, fervently kissing him. Then, still crying, she kissed Jim and Lily. But it was sallow little Ahmed that they would have all liked to hug for showing simple respect for the dead. In their emotion, of course, they forgot the obvious fact that the Bishop would not be dead, bundled up in potato sacks and a prey to hideous scavengers, were it not for Ahmed and his ilk.

  Eleven

  HE WAS JUST AS glad, on the whole, not to figure in the batch of hostages scheduled for release today or tomorrow, depending. The Congress was still in recess; he had no wife waiting for him; the company here was congenial, and he was curious as to what would happen next. The release of the first lot hung on the delivery of the first consignment of paintings, which were presumably in transit, having left Dulles yesterday in the Dutch diplomatic pouch. Washington must have finally caved in, under the combined pressures of the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Quakers, sundry ambassadors, and the hostages’ well-heeled relatives. But nothing in this shifting world was certain; the “qualifying” hostages already eyeing their watches might
be counting their chickens too soon. An amusing wrinkle would be if the carrier winging toward them with their El Grecos et alii were hijacked by professional mobsters.

  Barring the unforeseen, however, a helicopter should arrive within the next twenty-four hours and unload the canvases. The hostages had already been warned that a careful inspection would follow, to determine that the paintings were genuine, corresponding anyway to attested photographs the relatives had been ordered to provide. If the inspection found nothing suspicious, the hostages would be permitted to embark. In short, an on-the-spot horse trade, transacted while the helicopter waited and the national guard looked on.

  To give himself credit, Jim had surmised, fairly early, that this was the plan. It made sense. The exchange of flesh-and-blood hostages for painted images, eidola, had a number of advantages that the strategic genius of Jeroen would perceive. In the first place, eidola did not have to be fed. They would take up less space than their owners were doing, and they did not ask questions or require watching. With reasonable care, they would not fall sick. More important, upon their arrival the polder farmhouse would become impregnable. Any thought of taking it by storm in a pre-dawn raid would become unthinkable to the Dutch authorities, who otherwise might accept the risk to innocent lives entailed. After all, in investing a target, civilian casualties were largely unavoidable, viz., “We had to destroy the hamlet in order to save it.” If a hostage or two got killed, it had to be seen in the perspective of the greater good of the greater number. But works of art were a different type of non-combatant, not to be touched with a ten-foot pole by any government respectful of “values.” It was in the nature of civilians to die sooner or later, by preference in bed, but also in car crashes, earthquakes, air raids, and so on, while works of art by their nature and in principle were imperishable. In addition, they were irreplaceable, which could not be said of their owners. Once the paintings were here, Jim reckoned, the farmhouse would be safe as a church. Guards could almost be dispensed with; all the authorities needed to know was that within the walls a man was standing ready to activate a fuse.