The Eastern Shore

by Ward Just

  Fact is, Susan said, Milo’s a puzzle. Probably a good idea not to probe too deeply. Milo wouldn’t like it. He’d clam up. When you’re talking to Milo you’re pretty much talking on his terms.

  He took his privacy seriously, did Milo. Susan Griffin thought a moment and added, Probably the better word is anonymity. But, that aside, he and Lana were wonderful to be with. But I would never have cast Milo as a newspaper proprietor, never in a million years. Odd thing is, he’s inquisitive. Lana, too. Spanish indifference was especially appealing to a certain kind of American, the American who wanted nothing more than to be left alone. He liked it that the Spanish had no discernible foreign policy. They had let Gibraltar go its own way. Gibraltar and its adorable apes. They just—let it go.

  The Passarel villa was nicely situated in the foothills of the high sierra above the Alhambra. In the late afternoon Milo watched the westering sun and the fantastic shadows cast on the Alhambra, the all-but-last stand of the Moors at Granada. Milo believed that Spain would be forever divided owing to the defeat of the Moors on the Iberian Peninsula and that Spain would be forever alienated from Europe owing to the Muslim question. Spain was mired in the Middle Ages without knowing it. Despite the many foreigners among them, the Spanish looked inward, tight-lipped.

  Milo Passarel and his family had spent twenty years in the villa on the slopes above the Alhambra and never had a conversation with Spanish friends about their civil war. The war was a chasm in their memory, visible, all but tangible, but never discussed. Milo had a theory that the Spanish were horrified at what they had done to one another, savagery beyond comprehension, both sides, a war that arrived from deep in their hearts, in some respects a reenactment of the Inquisition that flourished in the fifteenth century but had its roots in a much earlier time. A question of heretics. The Inquisition was everywhere in Europe, but the Spanish had a special taste for death by burning, books part of the bonfire. Heretical books. Blasphemous books. That was another of Milo’s gloomy observations. Not widely shared, it had to be said. So Franco won his war and a great sullen silence was the result. To his countrymen, the generalissimo said in effect, I will give you peace, and the price you will pay is silence. He meant obedience, and so the Spanish fell into a kind of time warp, the chasm. But the warp had its beneficial aspects. It saved them from the carnage of the Second World War, Spain remaining neutral and leaning in the direction of Berlin, but never too far in that direction, Franco being smarter than he looked or sounded. The nation was frightened and exhausted after its own struggle. This was no small gift. Having avoided the First World War as well, Spain remained on the margins of European history, singular and ignored except for the hordes of tourists when the weather turned cold in the north. It was also true that for many years the ground yielded corpses, some buried en masse; merchants in one space, laboring men in another. Also women of both castes. In that way the legacy of the Spanish war was never-ending. The silence that Franco sought was the silence of the grave. In time, naturally, the younger generation came of age. Hard to know what to make of that generation. They did love futbol.

  Milo was fascinated by all this, Susan said that night in Washington. Milo believed that everything of significance in Spain happened out of sight. At some level, perhaps the Spanish people did not want to know. They were content not knowing. Knowing, a citizen became an accomplice, and Franco more or less forbade that. He was dead but his spirit was in the fabric of life, the way Hitler and Stalin were part of the fabric of Germany and the Soviet Union. But this, too: they were an attractive people, a people with depth, reticent, dark-souled, people for the most part without envy. A people who understood the value of silence. Circumspection.

  What I never understood, Susan said, was Milo’s attraction to the Spanish condition. He was in thrall to it as if he owned a piece of it. Or was entitled to a piece of it. So it was interesting—no, weird—listening to Milo when he would have the neighbors to dinner along with Harold and me. There was Don Carlos and Don Fernando and their quiet wives, and Milo would keep edging closer to the Spanish labyrinth. He would deliver a few thoughtful remarks about the American press and then urge his guests to say a word about their own newspapers, the Madrid press and the others. His guests looked up, baffled. Don Carlos said he never read the papers, trusting instead to friends, some of whom were in the government or industries close to the government. Don Carlos gave the impression that excellent things were happening. They were not public for the moment, but they were there, and all the Spanish people required was some patience—

  And Milo pounced, Susan said. Which you have in abundance, Milo said with a smile.

  Yes, we are a patient people.

  The opposite of Americans, Milo said, who are impatient, volatile, frequently corrupt. All this said with a smile, whereupon Don Carlos changed the subject, sensing turbulence ahead.

  Susan said, One night Milo had too much to drink, rare for him. He began to talk about the Alhambra and the spell it cast. Its great rooms and towering ceilings, Muslim decoration—not a human face or form to be found on its walls. Its vast silence, its mystery, its many secrets, its ghosts from a medieval past. He went on and on as we all sat and listened. For the life of me, Susan said, I cannot figure how he reconciled his two domains, Andalusia and Washington. For certain he had concocted a mythical Spain, the Spain of centuries past. The time Spain ruled the known world. But he was not entirely wrong about the Spanish situation today. Thank God for the king, despite his lapses.

  He thought about privacy, too, Susan Griffen went on. How much of it you were owed, or if you were owed anything. And how much governments were owed. I ventured the thought that one could be suffocated by secrets and the ghosts that held them. No, Milo said. Definitely not. Secrets were a necessity, for people and governments both. When everything is known, nothing is safe.

  Did he say that? Ned Ayres asked. Really?

  Really. He was quite convinced.

  This business about being owed—

  But Susan only laughed. She said, Of course he was seduced by Goya, who he thought had a great heart. His solution to the seduction was to buy six prints of the master’s Disasters of War series and hang them in the living room of his villa overlooking the Alhambra.

  Milo Passarel and his wife were especially close, rarely out of each other’s sight, a nation of two. They were both great readers, always a book in their hands. Lana always came to Spain with a project, one summer reading Proust, the next learning German. I think I am not telling a tale, Susan Griffin said, but I never saw her read a newspaper, even her husband’s paper, which was pouched daily from Washington. She is not quite of this world, Lana Passarel. Perhaps neither of them is. But they are wonderful to be around so long as you appreciate the rhythms of the nineteenth century. Milo had projects of his own, gardening, rereading Homer. They were highly concentrated, both of them, but good to be around. All this time I wondered how Milo managed the chore of publishing a newspaper. Still, I always looked forward to their visits, Susan said, as I believe they looked forward to mine. They certainly didn’t treat me as an employee, more an expatriate relative.

  So you know, Susan said, I heard him once describe the paper’s content as “clutter.” So much of it that the reader could not concentrate. Milo sought focus. He thought the reader should seek focus. He had the idea that the paper was, at its essence, chaotic. The train wreck and the tax bill side by side on page one. I objected, in a mild sort of way. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not joking.

  Not joking, Ned said.

  In some strange sense he wanted to follow the physician’s creed. Do no harm. Can you imagine?

  Ned smiled. It’s so—off the point.

  I asked him once about his father, Susan said. What kind of man he was.

  Milo said, Not a quality man.

  I was taken aback but I did press on. I laughed and asked what he meant. What qualities exactly?

  Milo waited a moment before answering. I think h
e wanted to change the subject but a reply was irresistible. My father was a pseudo-politician, Milo said at last. All politics. Morning, noon, and night, politics. The old man was in politics up to his ears, couldn’t get enough of politics. Congressional politics, ideological politics. Kingmaking, he called it. He lived for election years, which states were in play and which weren’t. Where the smart money was and where it was going. He commissioned polls and ran them in the newspaper. Father was always looking for a candidate who fit the times, an attitude that allowed him to define the times and the man, both. He was a tiresome man, a one-note father. He liked to entertain his political friends in the company dining room, plenty to eat and drink. Lunches could last until four, five in the afternoon. He claimed to have elected three presidents by fair means and foul. Father set a high bar, or thought he did. Also, he was a gambler, cards mostly. I don’t know, Milo said, precisely what that added to his personality, but it added something.

  I couldn’t think of what to reply, Susan said, so I said, I’m sorry. Inane, no? But that was what came to mind.

  Ned’s memory stirred. He had lost the thread. He said, Tell me more about the “Do no harm.” Did he explain how you went about that?

  That was my idea, Susan said. My inference, I should say.

  I wonder how that goal could be achieved.

  Through caution, Susan said, and laughed.

  A cautious newspaper, Ned said.

  I suppose a newspaper with a conscience, Susan said. A newspaper that did not throw its weight around.

  They were having a drink in Ned’s apartment near Dupont Circle, and when silence fell neither of them seemed to mind. The silence was companionable. Dusk gathered and Ned moved to switch on the standing lamps, but darkness prevailed. Susan said something about liking his apartment, so open and close to the office, a quiet place. Susan stole a look at her watch. She was due at the Passarels’ in thirty minutes and returning to Spain in the morning. Harold had the flu. The weather in Madrid was wretched, an inversion that dirtied the air. Susan was eager to go home, but she hated the inversions. Ned Ayres was lost in thought, but at last he said, Probably the word we’re seeking is modesty. Not helpful, is it? Not applicable. Not the solution. Maybe not even the question. Susan Griffin finished her glass and looked up. Ned’s face was in shadow. She wondered why he had never married. Well, he was married to the newspaper. That was clear enough. She glanced once again at her wristwatch and stood, stretching. In a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, she said that there could be a lesson in music, the composition of it, harmony, melody, and rhythm. In Western music the first two are dominant, with rhythm a kind of decoration. In Indian music melody and rhythm control the piece, with harmony irrelevant or an afterthought. Philip Glass’s observation, and it sounds right to me. Apply this to a newspaper and harmony is absent also. In fact harmony would be seen as slant. A romantic virtue. That’s why to the untrained ear Indian music is difficult. It’s a closed door. Could it be that what is sought in a newspaper is harmony? What do you think?

  Ned Ayres had no idea what to think. He said unconvincingly, Huh.

  Indian music is unfulfilled. Painful for the most part unless you are of the cognoscenti, like Glass.

  Well, she said. Never mind.

  Ned said, You’re on to something. I don’t know what.

  By the way, Susan said, Milo called his father a shrimp.

  Ned was now in another place altogether and did not reply.

  Definitely a shrimp with a Napoleonic complex.

  In spades, Ned said.

  In a tricorn hat, said Susan.

  I’ll tell you this, she went on. She had collected her coat and her hand was on the doorknob. We were sitting on the porch of Milo’s villa. The temperature was in the nineties, everyone slick with sweat. Mosquitoes abounded. The Alhambra below us simmered in the heat, waves of it rising. The Alhambra had the aspect of a mirage. Tourists were crawling all over the building, the people tiny as ants. Milo was staring at the Alhambra, deep in thought. He abruptly turned his head to look at the summit of the sierra. He said something about how the snow was white as milk. I had one last question.

  And his father, your grandfather. What was he like?

  He liked music, Milo said.

  From the hammock, Lana said in her quiet way, Basta with the genealogy.

  Milo smiled and held up the magazine he had been reading. I think it was Dædalus. And replied, Did you know that the world was running out of food?

  So much gossip in our business, more than any other business, because reporters and editors are trained snoops. That’s what we do, Susan said, snoop where we can and share the results, and all the better if the results are combustible. Revelatory. I suppose you could say that we set the bar. But as I’m sure you noticed, Ned, we never share the Milo results with our readers. Or our competition. That’s out of bounds. It’s in-house. Milo Passarel has our fate in his hands and so we protect him. Protect his wife, if it comes to that. So the playing field is a little bit uneven. His privacy is our privacy, don’t you see? One of those things . . . well, we don’t inquire too closely.

  It was obvious that Milo Passarel was miscast as a newspaper publisher—not that his father was a model either. But the father’s ambitions were normal for the times. He published the paper to have an influence on things, the occupant of the White House, the provisions of the new tax bill, the vacancy on the Supreme Court. In any case, if there was a top table in sight, Milo’s father intended to be seated at it. Milo was far from that. Milo had no feel for the meaning of newspaper publishing. Milo was an artist with no instinct for perspective. A myopic artist with no grasp of where one thing fit into another thing and sooner or later you had a policy. He was unable to lose himself in it. He truly didn’t like the business. It was a chore for him, a duty dance. But his inheritance was a fact of life, like the dimple on his chin. Nothing to be done about it. Milo did have an almost mystical faith in his Harvard spreadsheets, but that was all he had, no seat-of-the-pants understanding of the nature of the business and its importance to the civic life of the nation. A newspaper, after all, is presenting its version of a song, that day’s melody. What the world looked like that day and what it might look like tomorrow so that the reader had some idea where he fit in. The paper was a species of seismology, where things were safe and where they weren’t safe, never omitting the trivial: the National League standings or the saga of the senator and the page boy. Of course all that could be gathered at the touch of a fingernail on a cell phone. Perhaps not the seismology. Seismology required a paragraph or better.

  Susan Griffin thought that when Milo looked at the Alhambra, its graceful lines, its great age and specific mystique, he saw his newspaper at the threshold of a long and certain decline, an artifact for anyone interested in past time, its manners, its morals, its aspirations and discipline, its deceits and its triumphs. Legends. Milo Passarel was a man who noticed things, and what he noticed from the porch of his villa were the crowds, so many of them Asian—who took pictures of themselves. They were not bewitched. They did not even seem interested. Well, it was only a building. One needed nothing special to enjoy it or draw a lesson from it. No need to know the code, the password, the special key, or the secret handshake. It did help to know the history. Milo did think that in certain respects the Alhambra mirrored the newspaper business. Yet he was not the ideal witness. Milo listened to the faint rhythms of the guitars and scrutinized the inner and outer Alhambra and did not believe one inch of it.

  It was sublime once, he said. Now it’s a picture gallery.

  Susan Griffin said, You can’t believe that.

  But I do. It’s in decline and has been for centuries. It is now a place where Asian peoples come to take pictures of themselves. Americans and European peoples, too, as if the Alhambra were a great mirror. In fact it is the very epitome of decline. Not a tomb, not a place of worship, not even a simple memorial. But even so, Milo conceded, it is durable and han
dsome in its own fashion. The Alhambra has lasted a very long time. Wouldn’t you say there’s something stealthy about it? Perhaps it will last another eleven centuries, a conundrum to ponder. The astrologers believe that to be the case and they are not always wrong.

  There are very many surprising things in the world, Milo said, and the humanist’s great task is to stay surprised, even with what is forbidden.

  Over the years, decades now, Lana Passarel and Susan Griffin became great friends. Lana’s natural reserve fell away in the Spanish heat. They lunched often together, either in Madrid or in Granada, sitting outside under an awning or an umbrella. Milo and Harold would be off somewhere, lunching with one or another of Harold’s sources, a Treasury official or one of the curators at the Prado. Lana was curious about Susan’s professional life, the stories she liked and the ones she didn’t. She made frequent trips to Morocco and Tunisia, her “patches,” as she called them. Susan always had a fresh anecdote concerning the beastly way the North Africans treated women—though, on the whole, better than the Arabs farther to the east. Lana had a few Washington stories, not very interesting, at least to her. Susan ate them up. Washington had always been a mystery to her, and the longer she stayed away from the United States the more mysterious it became. Halfway through lunch they began to talk about their husbands, the state of their health, their moodiness and irritability. Lana confided that Milo had had some heart trouble and was on a diet. He had lost weight, particularly around the middle, and none of his trousers fit properly. Susan gave Lana the name of Harold’s tailor in Madrid. And Harold, too, was troubled by lazy bowel syndrome. He had medication for it but the medication wasn’t working. Isn’t it terrible to see them grow old? And then, their voices lowered, they would speak of their own complaints, a breast cancer scare for Lana, spells of depression for Susan. She had pills for it but they worked only marginally. Pills are useless for something so deep down; it’s like having three thumbs or one eye out of whack. Oh, my dear, Lana said, we’re getting old! Susan refused to hear of it, aging and illness, and proposed a visit to the bullfights, some entertainment a las cinco de la tarde.