Pilgrims

by Garrison Keillor

  She glanced at the sheet his publicist had sent, which mentioned New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, cities he’d performed in, colleges that gave him honorary doctorates, magazines who had published the drip-drip-drip of his pen. The career did not line up somehow with the spooky teenager he was at LWHS who would walk up to girls and say, “Do you think that life is real or is it only a dream and if so am I in your dream or are you in mine and if you suddenly woke up would I disappear or would I go into somebody else’s?” Seeing him, waiting for his moment to shine, she had an urge to counsel him. (“Take a year off. Two years. Find out who you are. Get reacquainted with your friends. Plant a garden. Find some hobbies.”) And then she felt a burst of resolve. Go up there and steal his thunder. Blow this dude away. Show him he is dealing with serious people, not flibbertigibbets.

  She stood, gripped the lectern, and her carefully memorized introduction (“It’s my honor to introduce a man who literally needs no introduction …”) went up in smoke, poof, and she was left speechless—a sudden sideswipe of the brain that left her afloat in emptiness like a hawk on an updraft from which she saw them with terrible hawklike clarity. Myrtle turning away to dredge up a Kleenex out of her coat pocket. Eloise staring forward, her mind a million miles away. Judy Ingqvist smiling the professional encouraging smile of a pastor’s wife. Margie’s sister Elaine examining her cell phone. Cindy Hedlund on the verge of an enormous yawn. Arlene Bunsen squinting, her finger exploring a small red pustule under her eye. Irene Bunsen, hands folded so she could look down at her watch. Marilyn Tollerud looking as if she were on the verge of flight, Dorothy sitting placid and content and Darlene next to her brooding over her lonely life. And then Margie let go of the lectern and she said, “Before I introduce today’s speaker, I want to talk about something very close to my heart.” And stopped. And the room was utterly still.

  “Sixty-some years ago a fine young man named August Norlander left Lake Wobegon and joined the U.S. Army and went off to North Africa and then to Italy in the winter of ’43. Many of you know the story of how he charged a German machine-gun nest single-handed and lost his life and thereby saved his battalion from getting wiped out. As it says in Scripture, ‘No greater love hath a man than he will lay down his life for his friends.’ He grew up among us, on a farm just north of here, he enjoyed a happy childhood, rode his bike on our roads, played football for the Leonards, was in the senior class play, and then on a fall day in 1942, he got on a bus and never came back. His old mother grieved for him and it was her fondest dream to go to Rome where Gussie is buried and place a picture of him on his tombstone. As you know, that is an old German custom, and a way of honoring the dead and showing that we remember them. She couldn’t make it to Rome, so she asked her son Norbert to do it, and now he’s too old to go, and so, in April, Carl and I are going to Rome to finally honor August Norlander as his mother wished. And I hope that some of you will want to come with.”

  And people started to clap, and then some of the women jumped to their feet, and Mr. Keillor rose to his feet and clapped, which startled Margie and she stepped modestly away from the podium just as Eloise came galloping up to the front to grab a leadership role. People were standing and applauding, and she stepped up as if the applause were for her!

  “Count me in!” she cried. “If you don’t mind traveling with your sister-in-law, I’m with you, count me in!” And Myrtle hollered, “I’m with you!” And there were other shouts from women to count them in. Margie held up her hands for silence. “Thank you for your support. And now here is our main speaker, Mr. Gary Keillor.”

  Mr. Keillor hesitated. He had been expecting something fuller and richer. He smiled at her as if to encourage her to go on and tell about his books, his radio show, and so forth. Whispers of “Italy” rippled through the room like rain on a roof. He looked uneasy but then he always had: the man was born furtive. He lumbered to the podium as the room buzzed like summer cicadas crying ItalyItalyItalyItalyItalyItalyRomeItalyItalyItaly. He stood smiling his odd half smile and listened to the birdsong around the room ItalyItalyItalyItalyItalyItaly and he said what an honor it was to be there talking to the women of Lake Wobegon and how women were the most important people in his life and everything good he had done in his life was done in hopes of the approval of women and that he was personally thrilled by the introduction—how about a big hand for Margie Krebsbach? (APPLAUSE)—and how August Norlander deserved to be remembered and how he couldn’t help but be reminded of Memorial Day services up at the cemetery where the bugler sat in the old oak tree to play “Taps” and the VFW honor guard fired a rifle salute and how he, as a Boy Scout, had stood and recited:

  In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

  Between the crosses row on row,

  That mark our place; and in the sky

  The larks, still bravely singing, fly

  Scarce heard amid the guns below.

  And just then came a crash from the kitchen, as if the refrigerator had fallen over—he jumped back, but recovered, and bravely continued:

  The boy stood on the burning wreck,

  My Captain lying on the deck,

  And O the bleeding drops of red—

  “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,

  But curfew must not ring tonight!”

  Cannons to the left and right

  And theirs not to reason why

  Under the wide and starry sky,

  Under the spreading chestnut tree—

  “One if by land and two if by sea!”

  So gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

  For today may be our dying day

  And when the summons comes to go

  Rejoin the ones we used to know,

  May we with our forefathers say,

  As they ascended yon mountainside,

  “Excelsior!” and the maiden cried,

  “Turn back!” and the youth replied

  That he would not til he had tried,

  He had miles to go before he slept

  And promises that must be kept

  And thoughts that lie too deep for tears.

  Oh yes, too deep for tears. Too deep.

  Just like those brave men who sleep

  In Flanders Fields.

  The audience sat in silence. Was that how the poem went? He held out his arms and said that he had been gone from their midst for too long, that he was always refreshed by their company, and that he wanted to say right here and now that if the good people of Lake Wobegon organized a trip to Rome to honor our war dead, he intended to go with them.

  Or that was what he meant to say. I want to be a part of your trip to Rome. Or I just want to say—let’s all go to Rome.

  But what he actually said was: “I want to pay for everyone who wants to go to Rome.”

  Pay. He offered to pay. It was like striking a match to dry tinder.

  “Let me just clarify—” he said, but already the women were rising to their feet. Another standing ovation. They stood, old classmates, neighbors, babysitters, red-faced, cheering, pounding their mitts, pumping their fists. He stepped away, his face flushed, and Eloise Krebsbach yelled into the mike, “Isn’t he something? Let’s hear it for Gary Keillor. I speak for everyone in Lake Wobegon, Mr. Keillor, when I say, ‘All is forgiven!’” A pained look on his face and a big laugh from the crowd. And she led them in a cheer, hip-hip-HOORAY hip-hip-HOORAY. Eloise threw her arms around him and said, “You can come speak at Thanatopsis anytime!” and he murmured something about having to check with his accountant, and of course it would need to be a registered nonprofit with an educational purpose. “Oh we can come up with an educational purpose,” she said. “We’ll call it the Norlander Memorial Fund. I’ll have it registered tomorrow. We’ll file the papers.”

  He didn’t have his checkbook on him, he said. “You can write a promissory note out on a blank piece of paper,” she said. “Works just as good.” He demurred. He checked his cell phone for the time. He had to run. “We’ll talk,” he
said, as he put on his coat.

  “We trust you,” she said, following him outside, into the wintery blast, the sky darkening in late afternoon. “But how about a phone number?” He handed her a business card.

  GARY E. KEILLOR

  Radio Host & Creative Consultant

  Available for Public Speaking

  Graduations, Motivational Award Dinners, Memorials

  1. “The Road Not Taken” 15 min.

  2. “God, I’m Hungry!” 20 min.

  3. “The Life Well-Lived” 10 min.

  OTHERS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.

  RATES VARIABLE, 10% DISCOUNT FOR FIRST-TIMERS.

  “What do we want him for?” said Irene. “He just wants to latch onto this and get some publicity for himself.”

  “He offered to pay for whoever wants to go.”

  “Ha. Fat chance.” The room was emptying, the word “Italy” still on people’s tongues. Margie and Eloise were the last ones left.

  “Sorry I got carried away,” said Eloise. “Should’ve kept my big yap shut.”

  “It’ll be an adventure, whatever it is,” said Margie.

  “Can I still come with?”

  “Of course. But don’t invite any more people.”

  THE ALLIED CAMPAIGN

  That was the night Margie was fully intending to tell Carl about the Norlander bequest of $150,000, but now with the hoo-ha about Keillor’s offer, she didn’t need to. It could remain her own secret. What a beautiful secret. The money could sit in the bank accruing interest, awaiting some fine purpose, a trip around the world, maybe. She wanted to tell him. As soon as she got things figured out. Really she did. But it wasn’t the right time. It was her money after all.

  “So you’re serious about going to Rome,” he said. “I heard about what you said at the luncheon. Eloise is all up in flames about it. Calling people left and right. You’re going to have a planeload. I’ll bet you’ll get three hundred people now.” She put an arm around his shoulder and said, “If there were three thousand people, I wouldn’t notice, so long as you came with me. This is for me and you. That’s the only reason I want to go. I love you and I think we need to do something nice for ourselves.”

  Carl looked away. He didn’t always respond well to pure feeling, especially loving sentiments, and that was why she so seldom expressed them.

  “I dunno,” he said. “It’s expensive.”

  “You can’t let your life be ruled by a stupid bat,” she said.

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s the Ladderman house. That jerk is going to default on the whole thing and leave me holding a quarter million dollars of half-built house that nobody wants, least of all me. I trusted the guy and now I’ve got to pay. Ignorance comes with a high price. And then there’s Cheryl… .”

  He’d dropped in on Cheryl in Minneapolis and there amid the squalor was a stack of pamphlets about something called the Church of the Unified Mind. And there was a ring in her lower lip. Hard to ignore. She looked like a walleye who’d broken the line. And there was a boy named Andrew, with a wispy beard, his pants hanging low like he had a load in there, and when Carl asked him what he was up to, the kid shrugged and said, “Hey. Whatever.” Cheryl was Daddy’s girl. He never had the fights with her that Margie did. It killed him that she was sleeping with a loser.

  Margie had been jousting with Cheryl since forever (“You’re not going to wear that to the Prom. Get real. Hello? Sweetheart, the secret of attraction is mystery. You don’t put it out there like fruit on a plate and have boys standing around staring at your rib cage.” “Okay then, I’ll wear a burka to Prom. I won’t dance with anybody, I’ll sit behind a screen. Will that make you happy?” “Honey, if you want, I can make something for you out of cheesecloth, Saran wrap, and some fishing line.” Etcetera, etcetera.) but Carl was new to the game so he was shocked by little things like a no-good boyfriend. And then he saw the lurid tattoo that covered her entire left shoulder including her armpit! When she raised her arm, a cougar snarled at you from a cave. Margie had dealt with the tattoo at Christmas (Darling, that is permanent. Maybe it’s cool now, but ten years from now, I don’t think so. I had an uncle Harry who had a big tattoo on his belly of an American eagle holding Adolf Hitler in its talons. It blurred over time until it came to look like two chickens doing something dirty. Uncle Harry was a very nice man, but if he took off his shirt, people felt sorry for him. A word to the wise.) and Carl found it nearly unbearable. His little girl, disfigured.

  He came home from Minneapolis, his eyes red, holding a fifth of Scotch in a paper bag. He’d bought it down there and he’d been nipping at it en route. He said that he now knew that he knew less about life than the average ten-year-old. It was just too overwhelming. He was thinking about pulling up stakes, selling the house, making a new life out West. His old navy buddy Earl had offered him a partnership in his cabinet shop in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, on a hill looking out at the Pacific Ocean. Lots of work, good money, beautiful climate.

  “So I don’t think I can go to Rome,” he said.

  “It’s the bat,” she said. He shook his head. But she’d heard him one night cry out in his sleep across the hall, “Take her down, Jack. Secure the overheads.” And woke up dripping sweat.

  “Come with me to Rome, darling,” she said.

  “Well, let me think about it,” he said. Which was his way of saying yes.

  Dear Carl. He would need a powerful sedative. You could get this stuff online now, shipped out of Antigua air express in plain brown packages. Placidô worked beautifully. It was good for the heebie-jeebies, the jimjams, the fantods, and much more. Calmed you right down. You didn’t want to look at the brochure that came with it, listing the possible complications—

  angina, baldness, colitis, convulsions, collapsed lungs, diarrhea, eruptions, fatigue, fainting, facial tics, fibrillations, gastritis, hearing loss, indigestion, jumpiness, kleptomania, lethargy, mumps, neurosis, open sores, pinkeye, quaking, redness, shingles, tension, upset stomach, varicose veins, whooping cough, eczema, yellow jaundice, and zenophobia.

  She ordered 180 tablets for $310. The pills would dissolve nicely in coffee. Give the man a tall latte and his troubles would be over.

  She bought him a new billfold for the trip. His old one was moldy and torn and the bucking bronco was worn off.

  And two days later by express mail, a manila envelope arrived, postmarked Tulsa, with n. norlander in big black letters scrawled by an old man on heavy medication, and inside a note to her in his almost unreadable hand.

  Dear Margie (if I may),

  Ever since you said you’d go to Rome for me, a total stranger, and fulfil my promise to my late Mother I have been crying like a baby for sheer gratitude. I thank you. You are bringing me Peace of Mind, such as I have not known since Mother passed away. I’m sure she is smiling down from Heaven.

  My brother August (Gussie) was a true original and had he not died tragically in the bloom of youth I do believe he might’ve gone on to do great things, maybe in the movies. Don’t laugh. He had a way about him that reminded me of Gary Cooper if you remember him. I’ll bet you those wops thought he was from New York or California, not a hayseed from Minnesota. They probably took him for a playboy. Everywhere he wanted to go, he was in like Flynn. He came out of basic training a plain old PFC and within three months he’d become an Army combat librarian, a nice piece of work, dispensing reading material to the boys in foxholes. Then he attached himself to this Brigadier and made himself indispensable, stealing whiskey for him, spying, covering for his sorry butt. He wrote me the whole story. He was no fool, my brother. I thought you should know more about him, so have photocopied letters.

  There are more, if you want more. Gussie had a lot to say.

  Cordially, in your debt,

  Norbert

  Paper-clipped to it were six letters in faint typescript on yellowish onionskin paper, letters from Gussie in Italy, 1943–44. She carried them gingerly into the living room and s
ettled down in the deep green easy chair and began to read.

  12/31/1943

  Dear Lille Bror,

  Well, we are making our way slowly toward Rome, shooting at the Germans and trying to keep the Italians from stealing our shoes. You have to chain your Jeep to a lamppost and even so they’ll siphon the gas and strip it of tires and spare parts and leave you the skeleton, all in about thirty minutes. Italians don’t want us here and I don’t blame them. The Germans liked to get drunk and walk arm in arm down the street singing their old college songs whereas Americans split up and go off in search of Italian girls. So they steal our transport to protect their women. The only Americans who get drunk are the married guys. Single men buy some wine and cigarettes and go around hoping to share it with someone. But not me. I’m a Minnesota boy and very careful about the opposite sex so I stay in my billet and read. They just delivered a trunkful of donated books including ten volumes of Mark Twain so here I sit, bombers overhead, reading Innocents Abroad.