The Last Western

by Thomas S. Klise

He had made a complete circle of the town and had said many prayers, though he did not believe in God, and had done much listening, though he did not believe there was anyone speaking, and then he had seen the sun shy up over the palm trees and he had seen how the blue mountains took a fine, definite shape when the sun moved up higher in the sky and he had stood in a field watching golden flowers swaying to and fro in the slight breeze.

  Then he saw many soldiers entering a grove of lemon trees at the edge of the flower field and the soldiers were forcing other soldiers to walk before them and the other soldiers were made to stand in a line and while they stood there, some of them raising their hands to the heavens, they were shot. He saw how they flew back as if hit by invisible hammers that drove them back suddenly in the air.

  He had gone into shock and had walked back to the hotel, still in shock, and through the day he kept seeing the men being driven back by the invisible hammers and he saw the newspaper that day and he saw the faces of the men in the photographs of the newspaper and he knew then what had happened, but knowing what had happened did not take the shock away.

  Truman’s natural state was shock and had been so for many years. Still this was a more perfect shock that was not getting any better, and every so often his body would jerk suddenly, as if electric wires were attached to his arms and legs sending a current through him.

  He tried not to let these jolts interfere with the handling of the plane but in this he was not entirely successful, and once, when the hammers slammed swiftly through the air, the plane jerked downward and Willie and Herman Felder and Joto glanced out the window to see how near the storm was.

  Chapter five

  In the model nation of Etherea, twenty-nine days old and the youngest country in the world, 1,000 people were starving to death every twenty-four hours.

  All men were free in Etherea; all men had dignity; all that was missing was food.

  Etherea was a country shaped like an exclamation point in the east central interior of the continent of Africa.

  When people saw the new editions of the world map and saw that bright mark of gold, their hearts beat faster. Etherea proved self-determination did work after all, and men remembered their own best dreams of themselves.

  In Etherea itself hearts were not beating so fast except in the breasts of the men who had created Etherea a month before.

  “We have overthrown the forces of imperialism, colonialism and tyranny,” said President Lirithi. “After 500 years, we have come into our own.”

  “But the people!” Willie cried as they toured the capital city, recently named Lirithiville. “The people.”

  Everywhere the long, grand car went, there were the thin arms and bloated stomachs of kwashiorkor.

  Everywhere the unnaturally large eyes of the children, who were already part of the old professor’s lesson, with the life drifting out of them as they sat dumbly on the curbstones.

  Everywhere the bodies in the streets, some of them old and some of them young, but all of them now beyond any age.

  And the rats that were like rabbits, tamed and well-fed, and walking about Lirithiville in broad daylight, with an air of rat boredom.

  “The people,” said Willie again, sickened and disbelieving and shocked and angry all at once.

  “Ah, the starvation,” said President Lirithi, at last getting Willie’s point. “Without doubt, it is unfortunate.”

  “But better to starve in freedom than feast in chains,” said the vice-president, as if reciting a slogan from a speech, which he was. “Soon we will eliminate all this.”

  “The people will be eliminated first,” said Willie. “You have to get help. Fast.”

  “Etherea needs no help from imperialistic nations,” said President Lirithi. “Etherea can handle her own problems.”

  “The people are starving!” said Willie. He spoke like a man trying to tell a neighbor that his house was on fire when the neighbor could not see or hear.

  “His Excellency must read this,” said the vice-president, handing Willie a gold-framed parchment. “Our constitution. We think it a masterpiece of political philosophy and a literary document of great value as well.”

  “But the people,” Willie said once more, pointing now to a row of corpses that lay under a banner saying, THE FUTURE OF ETHEREA IS IN THE HANDS OF ETHEREALISTS!

  “Why do you concern yourself with these momentary sufferings?” said the president. “After all, there was suffering before. So then we came and made the change. And in all change there is hardship. These people suffer for a greater good.”

  Willie’s mouth went dry. He felt he had come to a death resort.

  At the Hotel Saint Mark, President Lirithi, resplendent in a shiny black uniform, showed Willie architectural drawings of the new capital.

  “My own residence will be black marble. Black to symbolize the dignity and beauty of the black people of the world. Marble to symbolize our strength.”

  The president stood before a large, open window. Willie could see a shuffling line of refugees over the shiny black shoulders and he could see the people who had once been refugees and had gone to the final refuge and were lying in the streets. It was a grim procession that began somewhere beyond the city and continued through the main street of the city and stretched on out of sight.

  “In our country,” said the president, “everyone owns everything. That is written into our constitution and that is why we are a model nation, neither monist nor capitalist nor communist. We are a family here.”

  Herman Felder gazed down at the streets and said, “What do they own?”

  “You too are a sentimentalist?” said the vice-president.

  Felder turned away slowly, went to the telephone and asked the operator to put him through to the nearest Red Cross station.

  The vice-president took the telephone from Felder’s hand.

  “We do not need the help of fascist groups,” said the vice-president.

  “So they starve?” said Felder.

  “If they starve, it is the business of Etherea,” said the vice-president.

  “It would appear to be the biggest business in the country,” said Felder.

  Truman and Joto made signs to Willie, asking what should be done. The minister of protocol noticed the signs and saw the scowl on Felder’s face. The president opened a bottle of champagne and offered drinks to all.

  “I wouldn’t drink your booze if I was getting the DTs,” said Felder. Then he opened his own flask and drank of the blue liquid.

  “Mr. Felder is a jokester,” said the president.

  “Does not like see people die for stupid ideas,” said Joto. “Very big jokester.”

  “Gentlemen,” said the minister of protocol, “this is to be a short, peaceful, amicable visit. The Holy See informed us that you could give our people a certain—should we say, solace?—during the present crisis. Though we of the People’s Government of Etherea, hope of the world, do not need religion and in fact regard religious institutions as reactionary, still we are sensitive to the value of poetry. Men always need dreams.”

  Felder, taking another swig from his flask, moved to the window. He whispered something into the afternoon air, then solemnly blessed the refugees.

  An aged priest was brought into the room.

  “This is Father Angelicus, who has been a missionary in these parts for forty-seven years,” said President Lirithi. “Once he taught me catechism. Say something, Father Angelicus.”

  The old man looked about confusedly, then approached Willie.

  “O liri mega wita mogo soo,” he said.

  “Father Angelicus,” President Lirithi said. “Why did God make man?”

  “Kimi o mogo soo orithi mora danzi luma,” the old man said, looking at his former pupil.

  Willie took the old man’s hands, which were very cold, and said, “I hope you are happy, Father Angelicus.”

  The old priest looked at Willie as if he were not a person but something written on a page in
very small writing.

  “O liri mega soo.”

  “His Excellency will no doubt preach a similar message on television tonight?” asked the president.

  “I do not speak in tongues,” said Willie.

  Truman came up to the old man and studied his face, and then he too took the old man’s hands and tried to comfort him. But the comfort was very strange, even the old man knew, since Truman was still numbed and still whimpering without making any sound as he had been on the plane.

  Felder swung away from the window and, coming up to the old man, offered him the flask.

  “Herman, please,” said Willie, taking the flask from his hands.

  Felder snatched the flask away and said, “Legates of de ape.”

  Willie spoke to Joto with his eyes, and Joto led Felder into a bedroom for whatever medicine Joto had left in his black bag.

  “Mr. Felder is a very odd man,” said the president. The vice-president and the minister of protocol laughed.

  “Miku soo logo rithi?” cried the old man and laughed with them.

  Truman was sobbing all the time without making tears or without making sobbing sounds.

  Willie asked him in sign what was wrong, but Truman, instead of answering, went into the bedroom where Joto was trying to find the medicine.

  Willie said, “Father Angelicus has been working here?”

  The men were still laughing. President Lirithi, lighting a cigar, said, “He has been selling his magic up and down the river to anyone who still buys such things. The tribes, you see, still revere the medicine men of old.”

  The old man thought he was at a grand feast, like his fiftieth ordination anniversary, which had been celebrated three years ago, when he had first begun to speak exclusively in the spirit tongue.

  His brother priests, who were dead now, had thought Father Angelicus had come down with a bad nervous illness, but all that had happened to him was that he had lived long enough to see the children he had baptized grow up to cut off the genitals of other children he had baptized.

  President Lirithi gave the old man a glass of champagne, then poured a glass for himself and raised it to Willie.

  “To the success of the telecast.”

  “That is all I am to do here, go on television?”

  “That is all the Holy See stated and that is all we require,” said the president.

  “What about the people?”

  “The people? We take care of the people,”

  “The people have TV?” Willie asked.

  “We are a progressive technological society,” said the president. “Many of our people have television.” He went to the chair and picked up Felder’s camera. “Soon our people will have great conveniences—advanced things that make life easier.”

  “They do not have food,” said Willie.

  “Man does not live by bread alone,” said the president, examining the camera. “Besides, the shortage is temporary.”

  Willie said, “I will speak to the people only if you permit representatives of the United Nations and the Red Cross to come here and to bring food and medicine and whatever else is needed.”

  The leaders began arguing among themselves in a language Willie could not understand. Father Angelicus kept speaking in tongues.

  The director of information said finally, “His Excellency does not understand the political impracticality of his request. Etherea is a model nation.”

  The president said, “We are a sign to the oppressed people of the world. If it becomes known our people are starving, we cease being a sign.”

  “You must make your choice,” said Willie.

  “One moment please,” said the president. “We were given a firm guarantee by a very high representative of the Holy See that you would offer our people a message of hope and consolation. That is all. It was understood that you would not interfere in the affairs of our country or speak of conditions here to people outside the land. We have a news freeze concerning the shortage of food, and we have made this fact known to the Holy See.”

  “To whom did you speak in the Holy See?”

  “Cardinal Goldenblade.”

  “Cardinal Goldenblade is an American. He cannot speak for the Holy See.”

  “Still he is a high official of the church,” the president said.

  “I do not know Cardinal Goldenblade very well, but I am sure if he knew the conditions here, he would want to get help,” Willie told the president. “In any case, I won’t talk to the people on TV unless you promise that you will get help.”

  The officials of the model government began arguing among themselves. While they spoke, Father Angelicus sang in tongues. Willie stepped into the next room, where Felder was groaning on the bed.

  “Much worse,” said Joto.

  Willie touched Felder’s forehead; it was burning with fever.

  “Something happen just now,” said Joto, “while I fix medicine. Truman signify something to Brother Herman and Brother Herman nod. Then he ask Truman question I do not hear. Then Truman give many sign and Brother Herman empty this.” Joto held up a pint of the blue liquid.

  “Where is Truman?”

  “Went out a minute ago, down to street, I don’t know.”

  Joto gave Felder a shot of the special medicine he thought would keep away the delirium. Felder lapsed into unconsciousness.

  Willie rejoined the officials of the model nation in the next room.

  “You have made a decision?”

  The president answered. “We will allow the emissaries of the Red Cross to parachute supplies into the country. But we will allow no outsider to come in with cameras, no newsmen or reporters, no one, not even Red Cross personnel, only the supplies.”

  “You need doctors,” said Willie. “Nurses, other medical people.”

  A brief and even more impassioned discussion broke out among the officials.

  “All right,” President Lirithi said finally. “We will allow a dozen medical personnel.”

  “Two hundred are needed,” said Willie.

  More argument. This time the president listened carefully to the minister of information.

  “Two hundred,” the president said at last.

  “I can tell this to the people?”

  “Yes,” said the president.

  “Good,” said Willie. “And I expect that by tomorrow the supplies and the medical people will begin to arrive.”

  “We will attend to it immediately,” said the minister of information.

  The night began to come down on the land of Etherea and the trees sighed a little and the locusts sang in the trees, and Willie spoke to the people of the nation.

  He congratulated them on their beginning a new country.

  He said that he was sorry that so many people were starving, but that help was on the way.

  He said that he hoped the new nation would always be a peaceful nation and not one that went in for making trouble with others.

  “If you do not love peace,” said Willie, “you are not a new nation but one of the oldest in the world.”

  Then Willie spoke of the love the people should strive to have for one another.

  The officials of the government in their shiny black uniforms stood behind glass windows and watched Willie, smiling and now and then whispering among themselves.

  They had written many wonderful documents after they had taken control of the nation, and they had come to power in the usual way and there were many dead along the trails behind them, and so they smiled as the black-gold-brown-red bishop spoke and the minister of education called him a romantic.

  After the speech, as in Angola, they crowded around him, opening bottles and speaking words of congratulations.

  “Even in the model state, there is room for poetry,” said President Lirithi.

  “Perhaps we should consider introducing some of the better literature of the Bible into the next edition of Lirithi Speaks,” said the minister of education. “Job, for instance.”

&
nbsp; “I should not go quite that far,” the president replied. “But perhaps one or two days a year the people should be allowed their little feasts of superstition.”

  He turned to offer a toast to Willie, but Willie had left the studio and had gone out to the dark streets to look for Truman.

  Two blocks from the Hotel Saint Mark there was a bank building that had once contained many lock boxes laden with gems and treasures. When General Lirithi and his men had laid siege to the city during their long campaign to overthrow the old government, they had often had their men train the largest gun they owned on this bank. The gunners had learned to hit it after a while, though there had been many misses, and after they hit it once, they continued to hit it, thinking of the bank as the capital building of the old regime, and each time they hit it, they imagined they were killing millionaires and they cheered and praised Lirithi with each successful shot.

  Nothing of the superstructure of the bank now remained, but the floor was still there, and under the rubble of bricks and timber, the squares of blue and white marble were still quite beautiful, though some of them had been cracked. Under this floor there were two basements cased in steel, where the old government had once kept its money, and these basements also were intact and now served as a residence for many children who were about to die and for many old people who were also about to die. At the moment this bank basement was the only hospital Lirithiville had, and it was here that Willie found Truman, walking from dying child to dying child whimpering and moaning, his crying at last having found a sort of voice.

  The children, tiny and black, were already half out of the world, but there was still enough life in some of them that they could turn their enormous eyes to Truman and see him as a giant from a strange land, a marvelous being out of a story they had heard somewhere.

  Truman himself must also have thought of it this way, for when Willie found him he was moving oddly on his feet, making a little pantomime for the dying children, thinking perhaps that before they died they would see one funny thing in their lives and close their eyes believing there was joy to be found somewhere, perhaps in their sleep.

  The solemnity of the dance froze Willie. It was like a dream or a story from a nursery book—the giant or the bear at play with the children. But when Truman turned in his slow, terrible ballet, Willie saw that his face was sadder and more terrible than anything he could invent for a mask, and it was not at all like the face of a giant from a nursery tale who would turn out to be friendly at the end, but only the face of a man whom the world had killed not once but a hundred times and would keep on killing until it became bored or found some other man made out of the same material.