The Last Stoic
Page 19
He’s mad.
The man neither drooled nor twitched. He didn’t jabber. He wasn’t pitching his own faeces around the cage. Sebastianus, with all of his rocking and chanting and shrieking could have been reasonably judged to be mad. But this old man? He gave the opposite impression. A light emanated from his clear blue eyes, watery and twinkling under the harsh, white rays of midday, that indicated a concentrated, distilled power. Marcus looked again. What if he’s lying? Maybe he’s working for the magistrate, infiltrating, tricking me into incriminating myself. Wouldn’t the furtive spy be more plausible than the jolly seven year prisoner?
“Who are you really?” Marcus asked, finally.
The old man chuckled amiably. “I already told you. Sextus Condianus.”
Marcus shook his head resolutely.
“I’ve heard the story of Sextus Condianus. He was older than my grandfather.”
“Look at me Marcus.”
“Yes, you’re old enough. But Sextus has been caught and executed, publicly.”
“Six times.”
Marcus paused. “If you’re Sextus Condianus, why do they keep you here? Why aren’t you in Rome, on public display? Why haven’t they executed you properly?”
“I don’t know the mind of the emperor.”
“How have you survived? You’re…, with respect, you’re a very old man. I was ready,” Marcus gestured toward the smoker, “I was prepared to take my own life. I’ve been here only eleven days.”
“Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.”
Marcus stared.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing happens to anybody which…”
“I heard you!” Marcus winced at the flash behind his eyes.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Is that supposed to be amusing? I’ve been beaten, dehydrated, drowned, roasted, starved, and sleep-deprived until I’m suicidal. A platitude? That’s not amusing at all. Clearly you haven’t been here for two years. Jupiter!” Marcus spat across his cage at the old man, as a way of punctuating his speech. “Is it a trifle what I’ve endured? It’s an insult. It’s absurd.”
“My apologies, young lad. I meant no offence.”
Marcus turned away.
“I assure you the statement is not empty; there is much power in it.”
Silence.
Sextus Condianus tilted his head to the side, ready to snooze, drifting almost immediately. Marcus’ anger soon faded, replaced with ever-present fatigue. He lay his head against the bars and slept uncomfortably but deeply, dreaming of home. Sleep was brief. Soldiers returned to fetch Marcus to the magistrate. He cast a resentful eye at the dozy old prisoner lounging as though on a mattress of down and crisp linen.
Fool! It must be some comfort to be mad in a place like this.
TWENTY NINE
With the permission of Paul Cornelius, Paulina and Vincent interviewed every employee of the firm. They contacted Mark’s colleagues who had moved on and were now in different states or different countries. They met with his erstwhile neighbours and the superintendent of his building. They questioned those at nearby grocery stores, convenience stores, and book stores. Daily they phoned area hospitals, newspapers, radio stations, and the police station. It had been five days. No leads.
Vincent arrived at the Super Shepherd Ministries holding a new Bridge Over the River Kwai DVD and a copy of The Meditations, the gift to Mark, under his arm.
“Oh, hello. You again,” Patrick said when he opened the door to his apartment and saw the old man there. “What can I do for you?”
Vincent noticed that Patrick was still wearing the trousers that Paulina had identified as his grandson’s.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Patrick looked at him doubtfully.
“I haven’t seen Mark, if that’s why you’re here.”
“No word from him, eh?”
“No.”
“That’s disappointing. Very disappointing indeed.”
Patrick said nothing.
“Well, yes, that’s partly why I came by. But not the only reason.” Vincent gestured inside. “May I?”
Patrick sighed. He led Vincent through a compact kitchenette and into an adjacent sitting area where he had a rollout couch and an armless, padded chair. Patrick sat down on one end of the couch, furthest away from the chair, and motioned to Vincent to sit. Vincent declined.
“So. What is it?”
“Sorry?”
“What’s the other reason?” Patrick asked. “That you’re here.”
“Oh yes!” Vincent handed him the DVD. “I brought you this.”
“A Bridge Over The River Kwai? What for?”
“The other day when we met you at Mark’s apartment you said you had come by for it.”
“I did?”
“Yes, don’t you remember?”
“Oh wait! Yes, that’s right, I did want to borrow it, you’re right.”
“I couldn’t find it in Mark’s collection, so I picked up a copy for you from the store.”
Patrick shifted on the sofa.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“My pleasure. You are a friend of Mark’s. You are a friend of ours.”
“Mark and I were just acquaintances.”
Vincent scanned Patrick’s eyes.
“We were,” Patrick said defensively, “just acquaintances. I didn’t actually know him that well.”
“That’s fine son,” Vincent said. “Tell me, where are you from?”
“Where am I from?”
“Yes, where were you raised?”
“Why does that matter?”
Vincent picked up a die-cast model of a military jeep sitting on a shelf and looked at it absently.
“It doesn’t matter. Just being friendly. I like to know Mark’s pals.”
“Acquaintances. I barely knew him.”
“Knew him?”
“What?”
Vincent put the jeep back down. Patrick stood and turned it so that it faced the other way.
“Past tense. Why did you use the past tense? You said, ‘knew him’.”
“I don’t know. Bad grammar. No reason.”
Patrick sat again and looked out the window, pushing back the curtain.
“Something has happened to him?”
“No. I’ve already told you I have no idea.”
“Ok, fair enough. So, you’re from here?”
Vincent now crossed the room to take a seat in the chair, but Patrick intervened.
“No,” he said, sighing again, “New Ravenna. Ohio. Well, thanks for the movie, thanks for stopping by, I guess you have a lot to do. I hope Mark returns soon.”
Vincent did not let Patrick take his elbow. He sat instead.
“New Ravenna! No kidding. I have family there, or I used to.”
“Really?”
“Yes, an uncle moved out that way when I was just a youngster, during the Depression. I can still remember taking the train to visit him. He worked in a huge shoe factory. I think half the town worked there. I can still remember the smell of the leather.”
“Constantine Shoes?”
“Yes, bless me, I think that was it.”
“My great-great-uncle owned that shoe factory!”
“You don’t say!” Vincent said. “My but this world is small, is it not? Are you a Constantine of Constantine Shoes?”
Patrick nodded warily and he looked anew at the old man. He was unsettled by this sudden intrusion of coincidence into the conversation. He looked carefully at Vincent, measuring him again. Is he for real?
“Remarkable! If my memory serves, I believe that my uncle married a young woman there who worked in the administrative offices, helping with payroll and what not. It was a very plum job for those times.”
“Yes? What of it?”
Vincent continued. He recalled his uncle saying the woman’s grandfather’s cousin was the owner of the plant, that her maiden
name may have been Constantine, and that his uncle liked to joke that he’d married up.
“Unfortunately, the factory eventually went under, like so many others at the time.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Can you imagine that? We might be related! Distantly, of course. You and Mark might be distantly related. Maybe fourth or fifth cousins. What are the chances?”
Patrick eyed Vincent critically. A trick? He’s not that clever.
“Aren’t you glad I asked? We might never have known.”
Patrick wasn’t convinced. It was his turn to interrogate.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Originally?”
Patrick nodded.
“I grew up in Brooklyn.”
“And then?”
“Eventually we moved.”
“Where?”
“Canada.”
“Why?”
“Are you sure you’re really interested?”
When Vincent first arrived, Patrick wanted him to leave immediately. Why was he still sniffing around? What did he suspect? But as they talked, as Patrick probed, as the genial old man smiled and replied, curiosity replaced his fading reticence. Could this eccentric geezer really be family?
“I suppose,” he said, “are you in a rush?”
Patrick hadn’t spoken to anyone in two days. He hadn’t even been outside in that time. He wasn’t aware of just how much he had missed human contact. Having a visitor in the apartment, even if it was this strange old man, was unexpectedly comforting.
“I had the sense that maybe you were.” Vincent stood up as if to leave. “I feel like maybe I’ve been imposing. I don’t want to interrupt, you’re probably quite busy.”
Patrick now decided he wouldn’t let him go. Not yet.
“No, that’s fine, you’re not imposing.” Patrick waved his hands downward, motioning Vincent to sit.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Would you like a drink?”
“Thank you, most kind.” Vincent sat again. “A glass of water would be excellent.”
Patrick went to the kitchenette, pulled out a bottle from the fridge, poured a soda for himself and filled another glass from the tap.
“Now, what was I saying?” Vincent asked, as he took the glass.
“You were telling me why you moved.”
“Yes. I had a great position in New York with a top engineering lab. We were doing exciting work, with speech recognition and robotics, way ahead of our time…but we had to leave. In 1969. It wasn’t easy.”
“What happened?” Patrick asked.
“The war. Vietnam. It was excellent for business. Investment in our firm quadrupled. But not so good personally.”
“Why not?”
“My son, Luke, who was 18 at the time, got drafted.”
“My dad enlisted.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah. It fucked him up.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t know if ‘Nam fucked him up. The Gulf fucked him up.”
Vincent sipped from his glass.
“Sorry,” Patrick said, “Pardon my language. Continue.”
Vincent explained that Luke, Mark’s father, became a conscientious objector. A Buddhist.
“I was skeptical. I thought that maybe he was just afraid. But he and his mother convinced me that the war was unnecessary and unjust. And once I saw the irrationality of the war, I realized that my work at the lab, as fascinating as it was, as enthralling as it was, as lucrative as it was, it too was immoral, making killing more efficient. So I quit. Still we worried that the army was coming for Luke, regardless of our beliefs. We left everything and everybody and moved to Canada.”
Patrick thought about his own father, Patrick Constantine Sr., and how impossible it would be for his old man to consider that he, Patrick Constantine Jr., might not follow in his footsteps and join the Army.
“So what are you doing so far from home? What drew you away?”
The prescience of the question startled Patrick.
“Me? I don’t know, small town, no prospects. Got sick of it I guess.”
Patrick looked away and they were quiet for a moment.
“It’s funny isn’t it?” Vincent said.
“What’s that?”
“For the longest time we were told that there would never be another ‘Vietnam’. Here we are, only a generation later, stuck in the middle of another catastrophe of our own making, with the same arguments for and against, in some cases made by the very same men.”
Vincent held up the copy of The Meditations he had been holding since he arrived.
“It has been said, and it will be said again, ‘All the cycles of creation since the beginning of time exhibit the same recurring pattern, so that it can make no difference whether you watch the identical spectacle for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or for ever’.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
They were silent again.
“I should be there.” Patrick said.
“Where?”
“Overseas. Fighting. If my old man had his way, anyway.”
“I see.”
Patrick’s paranoia returned. What is this guy doing here? Why is he asking so many questions? Does he knows more about me than he lets on? CIA? Digging deeper into the assassination attempt? A private investigator? Hired by my father?
“Who are you really?” Patrick asked out loud.
Vincent laughed. “Vincent, Mark’s grandfather.”
“What about all this business of having an uncle in New Ravenna?”
“It’s quite a coincidence,” Vincent said, “but it’s absolutely true. We might be related. Everything is possible under the sun.”
“What is that?” Patrick asked, gesturing toward Vincent’s book.
“It is a copy of The Meditations.”
Patrick looked back blankly.
“The writings of Marcus Aurelius. I gave it to my grandson as a goodbye gift, but in his haste he forgot it. I brought it down with me to give to him when we meet again. I thought I might lend it to you, his friend, until he gets back.”
Vincent handed him the book. Patrick chose not to remind the old man again that he and Mark were just acquaintances.
“It’s a book of observances. Almost two thousand years old. It has been indispensable to me. I like to open it at random, let the pages fall where they may, and read the first paragraph I see. It never disappoints.”
Patrick held the book, appraising it with his hands.
“Go ahead,” Vincent said, “Try it!”
Patrick looked at Vincent for a moment and then let the book fall open. He read the first sentence of the first paragraph that met his eyes. In all you do or say or think, recollect that at any time the power of withdrawal from life is in your own hands.
“Let me try again,” he said.
He closed the book and let it fall open again. Once more he started reading from the paragraph where his gaze landed.
“Read it out loud,” Vincent urged.
“Very soon you will be dead,” Patrick said. He considered closing the book and handing it back immediately, but Vincent looked on with expectation and interest. He felt compelled to continue. “But even yet you are not single-minded, nor above disquiet; not yet unapprehensive of harm from without; not yet charitable to all men, nor persuaded that to do justly is the only wisdom.”
“Ah!” Vincent exclaimed. “Marvellous. I tell you, that book has a way of summing it all up and wrapping it in a bow. It’s funny how it always seems so pertinent.”
Patrick closed the book again and sat staring at the old man a few feet away in the confined sitting room of his tiny living space. Vincent looked frail and weathered, but there was resilience underneath, like heartwood behind the bark. The man has lost his grandson, who obviously means a good deal to him, and yet he is still able to be friendly and generous to someone he has never met. And he might be family.
“Don’t go,” Patrick said suddenly, surprising both himself and his guest. Vincent, already halfway to the door, stopped and turned.
“I’m sorry son,” he said, “I need to rejoin my daughter-in-law, she is probably worried by my absence and, given everything, she is already beside herself. We need to continue the search. Perhaps we’ll meet again soon.”
Vincent moved toward the door.
“Stop,” Patrick said, this time with more force. “I know something about Mark’s disappearance.”
Vincent dropped his hand from the door knob.
“Come back in,” Patrick said, “stay a while. Tell me more about your uncle in New Ravenna. My great-uncle. I could make you some lunch.”
“Please Patrick,” he said, “tell me what you know.”
The two men stared hard at each other.
“He was taken away,” Patrick said at last, “by some men. CIA.”
Vincent’s face darkened. “Where?”
“From the rally, the president’s public address. They arrested Mark and one of his friends.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent was motionless. He held Patrick’s gaze.
“I think they suspected an assassination attempt,” Patrick continued, “at least that’s what I thought I heard one of them say. I happened to be nearby.”
Vincent swiveled and strode toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Patrick asked.
“I need to make some phone calls.”
“Stop!”
Vincent looked back to see Patrick standing in the kitchen holding a pistol at his side.
“Stay,” he said, waving the gun.
Vincent smiled.
“He who fears death either fears to lose all sensation,” he said, pleasantly, “or fears new sensations. In reality, you will either feel nothing at all and therefore nothing evil, or else, if you can feel any new sensations, you will be a new creature, and so will not have ceased to have life.”