Recessional: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘So why did they leave the second time?’

  ‘They told me that they both agreed that they were too young for the long rest. They wanted their own small apartment, their own eating hours, their Cadillac and their dancing. This time you should say no. Because, sure as blazes, six months from now they’ll want out again. Too much wear and tear on the system.’

  ‘But Miss Foxworth, you say bring them back in?’

  ‘I do. They want their big apartment back, and I believe I can negotiate a hefty buy-in. They’re loaded, and I think they’ll go for it.’

  ‘Don’t they have any children to express an interest in what they do?’ Zorn asked, and Miss Foxworth said: ‘The children, in their fifties, are a messy lot. They signed the contracts the first two times and I found them detestable. They haggled over every penny. The good part about the proposed deal this time is that the children are not involved. The old folks told me: “This will probably be our last home. We’ll engineer it ourselves,” and they’re ready to sign.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘It’s a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar buy-in, so that, plus the monthly fee, would represent a lot of income. If I can’t negotiate with them I know you could. They told me one of the reasons why they wanted to come back was that you gave the place class. They were never happy with Mr. Krenek.’

  ‘Nor I with them,’ Ken said. ‘And I warn you, Andy, if you do allow them in, you’ll face a messy situation before long. They’ll want out and their money back.’

  Zorn, feeling that he understood the facts and the sensible, though contradictory, opinions of Krenek and Foxworth, asked Nurse Varney to call the Mallorys back into the meeting. When he saw the cheerful pair, totally unaware that they had been behaving foolishly, he had to smile, for he liked them and felt sure there was a place for them in the Palms, if only they would behave reasonably.

  As if he were a benevolent schoolmaster consulting with high school students who had been temporarily suspended, he opened the session with a conciliatory question: ‘Why would you good people want to come back a third time? When you left us before in such disdain?’

  Mr. Mallory spoke: ‘We realized that all our real friends are here. When you reach ninety there aren’t too many left out there.’

  ‘And you think that this time you might make it stick?’

  She spoke: ‘In here you can always find a bridge game, and that’s not so easy out there.’

  ‘You brought your Cadillac with you?’

  ‘Never be without that,’ she said. ‘And Chris still has his little Pontiac. Think how tied down you’d be without your car when you grow sick of the place and want to drift off.’

  ‘So even as you apply for readmission,’ Zorn said, ‘you confess that one of these days you’ll want to drift off again?’

  ‘I meant on a day-to-day basis. For the long haul, I don’t see how we can do much better than right here.’

  Mrs. Mallory said: ‘The truth is, Dr. Zorn, he became worried about how he could celebrate his ninetieth birthday out there. Who would come? All our friends are here, built in, can’t escape.’

  ‘I understand you have children, grandchildren. Certainly they’d be on hand. Ninety years, remarkable.’

  Chris Mallory answered sadly: ‘They are not the kind of people one would elect to have at one’s celebration. They’re shocked and say so, repeatedly, that we still go dancing. To tell you the truth, Dr. Zorn, we were drawn back here as if huge magnets were pulling at us.’

  Mrs. Mallory looked at Krenek, and laughed: ‘Let’s confess it, Chris. The trouble the other two times was that we were too young to appreciate the good things we had here. Now that we’re older, and I must say, wiser, the place looks much more attractive than it did last time. Am I to understand, Miss Foxworth, that we might have that fine set of rooms with the big windows we had before?’

  ‘That’s up to the management. Your record here isn’t very good, you know.’

  ‘We’re talking with the management, aren’t we?’ Mrs. Mallory asked, staring brightly at Dr. Zorn. Her husband said: ‘We know Mr. Krenek’s against us, but Miss Foxworth knows that we pay on time, and handsomely, so isn’t it up to you, Doctor?’

  Zorn found it easy to reach a decision. Turning to the Mallorys, he said: ‘I like your style. A place like ours profits from your presence. You inspire our older members and, quite frankly, you inspire me. But this time you have to stay put. We want two full years’ fees in advance.’ Then, with everyone smiling, he added: ‘You two really are a pair of yo-yos, but now you have to settle down.’

  ‘Done!’ Mallory said. ‘Miss Foxworth, prepare the papers, and this time it’s for keeps.’

  ‘That’s good of you, Mr. Mallory,’ Miss Foxworth said, ‘but it’s the first part that will be of greater importance to us, two years’ guaranteed occupancy by you, with fees paid in advance. Those who don’t call you the Yo-yos call you the Dancing Mallorys, and we don’t want you dancing out of here as soon as something displeases you.’

  ‘As we grow older,’ Mallory said, ‘we grow more tolerant. And with three experts like you to keep this place in good condition, you’ll find us helpful, too.’

  With gracious smiles they shook hands all around. ‘Can we move our furniture in this afternoon?’ Mrs. Mallory asked. ‘Since the pieces have been here twice before, we know they’ll fit,’ and Mr. Mallory asked if the office machine could run off fifty copies of their announcement of a welcome-home party to be given in their apartment the next afternoon at three. ‘Inviting our neighbors back to resume the good old days.’

  When they were gone, Zorn told his colleagues: ‘I’m sort of dizzy. You’ve really had to swing and sway with that pair, Ken, haven’t you?’

  The welcome-home party the next afternoon turned out to be a raucous affair. Because too many residents wanted to attend what they knew would be a first-class bash, it had to be moved from the Mallorys’ apartment to the recreation area, where two waiters serving as bartenders dispensed so many alcoholic drinks that an observer might have thought he was attending a bacchanalia.

  The highlight of the party came when Ken Krenek appeared in a chef’s costume to supervise the serving of an excellent pizza, Buffalo wings, Vietnamese egg rolls with paper-thin crust, and skewers of chicken liver and Indonesian saté. Zorn, watching his well-to-do residents devour the food and guzzle the booze, thought: How nice we’re having our own little saturnalia. But his mood darkened a bit when he saw that the widows, living on retirement funds more restricted than the Mallorys’, were not drinking but were choosing with care the most healthful food items: ‘They’re getting a free feast, so they won’t have to pay some restaurant for that day’s second meal,’ and he smiled indulgently as many of them slyly slipped extra servings of meat into their handbags to eat later. He felt pleased that his center could accommodate both the wealthy and those of more moderate means.

  When Dr. Zorn had made his initial tours of his new command, he had quickly learned that Gateways, the retirement area of the Palms, had two focal points around which life revolved.

  First was the main reception desk inside the main entrance where messages, mail and telephone calls were distributed to their proper recipients. An African-American woman with an IQ of nearly 200 and an unflappable disposition masterminded this battle station and exerted iron control over postmen, parcel-delivery people and inhabitants. Her name was Delia, and both Dr. Zorn and Mr. Krenek deferred to her when the orderly administration of traffic into and out of Gateways was involved. She handled about fifty crises an hour and was able to resolve most of them without losing her temper.

  The other focus was the dining room, a spacious, well-organized area containing thirty commodious tables and big windows overlooking both the pool to the south and the channel to the west. Carpeted and with its ceiling lined by soundproofing material, it was a quiet room, decorated in equally quiet pastel colors and filled with sturdy oaken tables, each with four armchairs. Sinc
e a table could hold only four diners, the room could obviously seat no more than a hundred and twenty; a long table near the door could seat ten more. But since the Palms had accommodation in Gateways for several hundred residents, there had to be an additional dining room, but it was a small affair frequented by residents who wanted to dine early at five o’clock or even four-thirty.

  The master dining room opened at half past five, an hour that almost every newcomer protested but to which he or she quickly adjusted, forgetting that in civilized society one dined at seven or even eight. One dined early at the Palms or one ate in one’s room. Breakfast and lunch were also served, of course, but since monthly fees covered only one meal a day, almost everyone opted for dinner, so that the main room was usually filled to capacity in the evening.

  The room came to life at a quarter past five each weekday night when hungry inhabitants lined up early to assure themselves of choice seating and hot food. By ten minutes to six, the room was buzzing. In addition to its tasteful decorations based on a Mediterranean theme, the room was filled, as one elderly woman said, ‘with those adorable high school girls, and the boys, too, who wait tables.’ As Zorn learned, the Palms had an arrangement with two nearby high schools whereby seniors in training for food-service occupations would work six evenings a week as waiters and waitresses and earn a wage, which, if saved, could pay much of their first-year tuition at one of the nearby junior colleges. They were a handsome lot, seventeen and eighteen years old and well trained by the Palms staff. With surprising speed these youngsters memorized the names of many of the residents, who in turn mastered the names of the young people so that the room resembled more a family gathering place than a restaurant.

  Residents were not assigned specific tables; they were expected to drift in as they wished and sit at a different table each night, which meant that one dined with someone different most nights of the week. Usually two married couples occupied a table, but since there were many widows and widowers, some tables might be composed of four unmarried persons, and they did not have to be two men and two women. They could be any mix, which made for warm socializing. There was also that one long table at the western door, and here lone people were invited to dine together in general camaraderie.

  ‘The room looks so civilized,’ Zorn told Krenek after his third inspection, ‘that we ought to have flowers on different tables throughout the week.’ Ken objected: ‘That would cost money,’ to which Zorn replied: ‘Take it out of my floating fund,’ and in the following weeks the room looked even more inviting.

  When Andy first circulated through the hall he had noticed an anomaly. All the tables were either small squares seating four, and the long, rectangular No. 29 seating ten, except for one round table, No. 4, in the extreme southeast corner. He tried to deduce its purpose. It could seat five, but on most nights it held only four occupants who appeared to be, like those at the other tables, a mixed lot. On some nights, however, the same four men occupied the table, apparently in deep conversation.

  Unable to decipher the pattern of occupancy, Zorn finally asked Krenek as they stood at a vantage point from which they would probably not be seen: ‘What’s the story on number four?’ and the administrator chuckled: ‘You might call that the pride of the Palms. The four men who often sit there are our tertulia.’

  ‘Our what?’

  ‘Spanish word. The tall, distinguished-looking man who always sits in the corner leading the discussion is the Colombian gentleman I told you about, Raúl Jiménez. Very capable newspaper editor in Bogotá. Won medals and such, internationally, too.’ Zorn studied the very thin, austere-looking foreigner, a courtly gentleman with a finely pointed goatee. He could have been painted by Velázquez, so essentially Spanish he appeared, and so like a grandee of the royal court, for he held himself stiff and proper.

  ‘Why did he come to the U.S.?’ Zorn asked and Krenek whispered: ‘Exile. When he was run out of Colombia, Harvard University gave him a position teaching Hispanic culture. His lovely wife, Felícita, came with him when he retired. They usually dine together except when he convenes the tertulia.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘An old Spanish word meaning an informal club that meets in the corner of some restaurant or bar. Eight, ten men of some local importance who like to discuss politics, poetry, philosophy. The heady topics!’

  ‘The other men? Are they regulars?’

  ‘Yes, and you might say they’re the brains of our establishment, the ones with reputations that have spread beyond Florida.’

  ‘For example?’

  ‘Going counterclockwise, the big muscular man with the shock of gray hair, that’s Senator Stanley Raborn, the Silver Fox of the Prairie. Nebraska Republican, powerful orator like the old William Jennings Bryan, also from Nebraska. He’s frequently summoned to policy meetings in Washington or cities like Chicago or L.A. His name was placed in nomination three times for vice president. He would have run as Goldwater’s VP but they felt they needed a geographically balanced ticket, and Barry took that congressman from New York. A bad mistake in my opinion.’

  ‘He looks to be a toughie.’

  ‘That he is. But he can also be deceptively gracious, especially when he’s about to do you in. Don’t take the senator lightly.’

  ‘I’ll be on guard.’

  ‘The handsome, bald-headed man to his right, the one who looks like an English duke or the colonel in charge of a Scottish regiment, that’s Ambassador Richard St. Près, pronounced Pray but spelled Près. He served in many countries, but made a name for himself in Africa. I forget what he did, but there’ve been articles about him. Very courageous. He’s important but now retired.’

  Zorn whispered: ‘It would be interesting to hear his stories of diplomatic intrigue.’

  ‘The last one is the man everybody loves. President Henry Armitage from a small college in Iowa. Treats us all as if we were his students and isn’t at ease until he’s satisfied we’re all OK and out of trouble.’

  Zorn said: ‘He looks like Edmund Gwenn in that Christmas movie about Macy’s,’ and Krenek said: ‘Not strange you should say that. He serves as our Santa Claus each year, here and in one of the elementary schools.’

  Inspired by the jovial president, Zorn himself became protective of his charges: ‘Dining alone that way? Don’t they have wives?’

  ‘Jiménez and the senator do. St. Près and the college president don’t. But I understand the wives encourage their husbands to attend the tertulia. They say their men need academic discussion to retain their smarts.’

  ‘Do they discuss set topics?’

  ‘Heavens, no! Their table seats five. That’s so they can invite an interesting visitor or other residents who might have something sharp to contribute. You’d be welcome to join them. I’ll fetch a chair.’

  And in that easy way, Dr. Zorn joined the tertulia, sitting between President Armitage and Raúl Jiménez. The topic they were discussing was one they’d been considering for a large part of the year, returning to it again and again, for it was a subject of intense interest to men of their advanced ages, each well past seventy.

  ‘We’ve been wrestling with that ugly word “triage,” ’ the senator explained. ‘Can we afford to provide first-class medical services to everyone in the nation who wants them, or will we be forced to ration the costly new machines like the MRI and expensive treatments like coronary bypasses?’

  Before Zorn could respond, Jiménez said: ‘They tell us you’re a doctor. Your opinion would be valuable.’

  ‘I’m not licensed to practice here in Florida, you know. But I certainly was a doctor in Chicago, an obstetrician, and the problem you just defined came up constantly—at the beginning of life, not at the end, where we know about the costly procedures.’

  ‘What could have been a situation in which a baby doctor faced the problem of triage?’ President Armitage asked, and Zorn explained: ‘I faced it almost every day. Let’s say a baby is born to an unmarried sixteen-year-old
girl already infected with AIDS, and an alcoholic to boot. The baby girl is premature, I’ve seen scores of them. The child is doubly at risk, for AIDS and alcoholism, and she has only a slim chance of surviving or amounting to a real human being if she does survive. But we spend maybe two hundred thousand taxpayers’ dollars to keep her alive, knowing she’ll probably be dead by the time she’s eleven. Does that make sense?’

  Eagerly the men started to dissect this new information, for hitherto they had focused mainly on choices facing the aged. President Armitage observed: ‘That deplorable case is easy to decide. You don’t hesitate. The fetus is surrendered before birth.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ Zorn said, entering the spirit of the tertulia, where opinions could be shared, defended and rebutted without giving offense. ‘The decision can become very dicey if the evidence is not clear.’

  ‘But it seems so open and closed,’ Armitage insisted. ‘The baby is doomed—can never enjoy a normal life,’ and Zorn replied: ‘But obstetricians know that even an infected mother can sometimes give birth to a normal child, whom we can save in our prenatal units. You never terminate a life casually.’

  ‘Indeed you do not,’ Jiménez said. ‘Doctor, I applaud you for your common sense.’

  President Armitage, determined to keep the argument focused on alternatives faced by ordinary people in their real lives, said: ‘Surely you must have had, in your practice, situations in which normal people faced decisions that produced anxiety. Share one with us.’

  Zorn reflected for a moment, then asked: ‘I suppose you know about the miracle of amniocentesis?’

  ‘Yes,’ Raborn said. ‘We had a Senate hearing on procedures like that. You can extract fluid from the womb and detect genetic abnormalities in the unborn fetus. Extraordinary.’

  ‘Correct. Now I want you to imagine yourself as a young husband whose wife is pregnant for the first time. But there’s a suspicious record in her family of irregular births. So to be safe we run the test and find that the fetus seems to have an extra Chromosome twenty-one. Down’s syndrome. A baby like that can produce agony in a family.’