A Tender Victory

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Are we?” asked Johnny. Now his eyes were full upon her, blue and fiery. “Who said so? Why, we did. We always do. Yet, we forget the atomic bomb dropped on two defenseless Japanese cities, two weeks after the Japanese government begged to surrender to us. Why did we do that? Because we are so kind, virtuous, et cetera? I tell you, Miss Summerfield, we are going to pay in blood for that crime against mankind, and for all the crimes we have committed against the world for half a century, just as other nations have paid in blood for their own crimes. There is only one way we, and all the rest of the world, can avert the consequences of our crimes, and that is through repentance and pennance.”

  “So you said this morning,” commented Lorry dryly. She glanced with humor at Dr. McManus, waiting for his returning grin of acknowledgment of her derision. But Dr. McManus, to her tremendous surprise, was staring gloomily at the bright-green rug on the floor. He said, “Well, yes, of course. Don’t know about God doing it, though. Don’t believe in Him, myself, as an actual personal force. Foolish idea. Just the law of retribution.”

  “And Who is the law of retribution?” asked Johnny, with sternness.

  “Oh, come,” said Lorry, discomfited and annoyed. “Let’s not get mystical, please. I’m a big girl now. Coming back to your sermon, Mr. Fletcher: think about the people in your congregation. Not a one who didn’t contribute something to what was gaily called the war effort. Red Cross, blood donations, overseas packages, ‘smokes for our boys,’ air-raid wardens, relief donations, extra work in factories, and so on and so on, to the end of tedium. Many of them lost sons or husbands or brothers in the war. Do you speak to them of comfort, and praise them for their patriotism, or tell these miserable souls that they have done a good job? No, you tell them they are sinners, that they must repent, and do penance! For God’s sake, Fletcher!”

  He just sat and looked at her with that silent sternness of his. And all at once a hot sensation as of deep blushing pulsated through Lorry’s body, a blushing of pain and nameless remorse, of profound sorrow. She could not understand it. She was shaken to the heart.

  She got to her feet as if leaping for flight. Her purse fell, and the contents spilled. Dr. McManus, grunting a little, stooped to retrieve it. He held it out to Lorry, but she was staring at the young minister as if struck and immobilized. Her expression had changed almost to complete distortion. And now, all at once, her eyes distended with horror.

  She said, in a fainting voice, “Does the name—Lowell, Barry Lowell, mean anything to you?”

  Johnny, taken aback by her inexplicable violence of movement, by the look in her eyes and the change in her voice, stood up. He thought for a moment. “No, Miss Summerfield. Should it?”

  “Barry Lowell’s her brother, publisher in New York,” said Dr. McManus with deep interest. “Was in that war. Ever meet him?”

  Johnny, in spite of his weariness and despondency, tried to concentrate. “Lowell? Not that I remember. But I met thousands of our troops. I was all over, as chaplain. Where was your brother?”

  But Lorry had turned swiftly to confront Dr. McManus and he had turned to her, and Lorry smiled at him, a wild, white smile, and nodded. “Well,” said Dr. McManus, “there must have been hundreds like Barry for him, and so he can’t remember them all, or possibly none of them.”

  Lorry’s eyes filled with tears. She regarded Johnny humbly, struggled to speak. Dr. McManus took her arm gently. “No, Lorry. Let’s not talk about it. It wouldn’t mean anything to our parson. Just in the day’s work. He’s that kind. Don’t get emotional.”

  “Take me home, Uncle Al,” she said brokenly, and turned away. Johnny was mystified. He came from behind his desk, not knowing what to say. Dr. McManus grinned at him somberly, patted his shoulder, and said, “Let’s go, Lorry. Time for my dinner, anyway.”

  “Is there something I can do?” asked Johnny, bewildered. “Miss Summerfield doesn’t look well.”

  Dr. McManus paused, and fixed his concrete-colored eyes on the young minister. “Son,” he said, “you’re the parson. Remember Lazarus?” He smiled at Johnny’s increasing bewilderment. “Never mind, boy. I just want to say, though, that that was a damn fine sermon, though I don’t expect it’ll do any good. And you might tell Mrs. Burnsdale that I’ll consider that deep freezer for her.”

  He took Lorry out to his own limousine, and asked a young man he knew who was passing by to drive Lorry’s car home. He helped the girl to seat herself. She seemed completely flaccid, as if she had received a tremendous shock. As the limousine rolled away she burst into dry sobs, her breast heaving, her hands clenched on her knees. “Relax, honey,” said the doctor. “This ain’t like you. Y’know, I’m getting land of mystical myself. I kind of think that boy didn’t come here by accident.”

  She whispered through dry lips, still staring ahead as if she had not heard him, “I knew there was something familiar about his name, and the fact that he was a chaplain. I tried to remember. And then, while I was talking to him, I did remember—Barry’s letters—I must call Barry at once, and tell him.”

  Dr. McManus considered this, pursing his lips. Then he shook his head. “I wouldn’t, Lorry. Not yet. Don’t tell your dad, either. I have a sort of feeling that what we know is going to come in handy for our parson—one of these days. Keep him as our ace in the hole.”

  Mr. Summerfield wrote his own editorial on Monday night, and it was skillful. “We have won the war againt Nazism, and now we, with our allies, must win the peace. Complete world disarmament—bring the boys home immediatey—era of good will, new hope for the world—Russia’s magnificent contribution to the fight for freedom—extension of democracy throughout the world—last enemies of mankind, hunger, disease, unemployment, must be eradicated just as we hope to eradicate war—great new hope for the world—win the peace, win the peace—”

  Lorry read the editorial over and over, and so did many others who were well enlightened. These were all noble and heroic words; they were the craving of all mankind, the hope of all nations. There was nothing wrong with them at all, thought Lorry. Except that they were being used by the wrong people, for evil ends.

  12

  All the children trooped out to the ancient car with Johnny this wan, gray Monday morning. Heat pressed down over the city, filled with the nauseous gases from mill and factory trapped under the lowering skies. Little Emilie coughed, her frail face paling. Johnny lifted her anxiously in his arms. The other children coughed, but Johnny’s attention was on the small girl. Was it his imagination, or was she more fragile than usual, more dwindled? Well, they would soon see. He and the children were accompanying Jean, now a very important person, to the hospital, where his operation was to take place that afternoon. At Dr. McManus’s insistence, the others were to be given a thorough examination—partly, Johnny knew, to divert their anxiety from Jean, and partly for necessary reasons.

  Jean had not been permitted breakfast. The children had regarded him with awe. He spoke of God and the mending of his arm and leg, and they nodded in silent agreement. Their confidence made Johnny’s apprehension even worse. He knew how severe this operation would be; he knew all the hazards. What if Jean were to die during that long ordeal? What if there would be no success?

  Because Jean was who he was, Dr. McManus had not insisted that the boy spend the last night in the hospital, in preparation for the operation. “Might be traumatic for him,” he had told Johnny. “Bring the kids along, to give him moral support, and make it kind of a holiday for him and them.”

  Johnny wished the day were more cheerful, a gala day. But a gaunt light lay over the clouded city, hung starkly along the sides of the houses and made hollows of loneliness under the trees. A few leaves were already falling; they scratched the sidewalks like elfin fingers as the slight breeze moved them. The children were oppressed; Johnny could see that, as they went down the short walk to the car at the curb. He gave Max a quick glance. The boy, weakened though he was, and with his throat and chin still bandaged, had in
sisted on joining the troupe. He clung to Kathy’s sturdy arm, and she held her arm straight and strong to support him.

  “Be good!” called Mrs. Burnsdale from the doorway, her hands wrapped in her apron. The children waved to her. She smiled, though her eyes were as worried as Johnny’s. She prayed in herself, and looked with compassion at johnny’s tall figure in its clerical black. He walked surely, with Emilie in his arms, but she knew his sadness, his discouragement, his sorrow. It was not that; most of the congregation had been silently hostile toward him yesterday that had overcome him, though it had played a considerable part. He had been melancholy since the attack on Max; she had watched him brooding at his desk, playing emptily with his pen. Some remoteness had clothed him, which no one could penetrate. He seemed lost in thoughts so burdensome, so distant, that there was no approaching him. Even the children had sensed it. They rarely approached him voluntarily, but during these past few days they had wandered silently into the parlor, pressing briefly against his shoulder, touching him shyly, then running off .

  “You’d think,” Mrs. Burnsdale had told Dr. McManus with passionate indignation, “that the congregation would’ve been ashamed, after Max. But they wasn’t. They just sat and stared at the poor minister, while he spoke to them of their sins and their repentance, and their faces just went lumpier and lumpier, in spite of the board and the board’s wives, rooting for him down in the first pews. I never did think much of people; know too much about ’em. But I did think they’d be decent for once, considering.”

  “Why did you expect that, now?” Dr. McManus had squeaked, marveling. “They’re just people.”

  Johnny had reached the car. He was about to open the door when he stopped suddenly. He was staring at the wheels. Something in his abrupt motionlessness alarmed Mrs. Burnsdale. She ran heavily down to the curb. Seeing her, Johnny pointed to the wheels. Every tire had been expertly and thoroughly slashed, and the wheels sagged. This was not the work of children. The rubber had been strongly cut, over and over, not only through the casings but through the inner tubes.

  Mrs. Burnsdale put her hand over her mouth. The children were already climbing into the car, and Kathy was assisting Max. Jean, as the oldest, waited for the younger children to find places and seat themselves. He was about to enter the vehicle when his sharp intuition, born of old terror and agony, was struck by something in the air. He looked up, altertly, at Johnny and Mrs. Burnsdale, and his narrow eyes tightened at the corners.

  “Something?” he murmured.

  There was something in his voice which immediately caught Johnny’s stricken attention. He put Emilie carefully on the ground. This was a serious day; Jean’s life depended on what the day would bring. Johnny’s first thought was to smile, to say, lightly: “It’s the car. Something’s happened to it. We’ll have to take a cab.”

  And then he knew that evasions were wrong, with Jean. He put his hand on Jean’s shoulder and said quietly, “Jean, I’ve told you there was law in this country. You found that out. The police arrested the boy who attacked Max; he’s to be put away for a long time in a kind of school, because his mind is sick. That’s the law. And now another thing has happened. The tires on this car have been cut by some wicked person, who hates me.”

  Jean stared at the minister’s sad white face for a long moment. Then he stooped painfully and examined the tires. He nodded, over and over, to himself. He straightened, and again stared at Johnny. Then his wise old face broke into an understanding, wry smile. “A man, Papa? Yes, a man. There are always men, non?”

  “Yes,” said Johnny.

  The children were peering inquisitively through the car windows at the group on the sidewalk. Pietro’s lively face was squashed against the glass. “Come, come!” he cried. Jean thoughtfully considered his fellows; he could see the shadow of Max’s shrunken face. He limped closer to the car, and said, “Out. The car, she is no good. Cannot run. We must have cab.”

  “No, no!” shrilled Pietro, who loved the car. Jean opened the door, seized the little boy’s arm, and pulled him out. “Pietro is fool,” he said severely. The other children followed Pietro in wonderment. They waited for Jean to speak again. “Cab,” he repeated. “Mama Burnsdale will call a cab for us. Pietro, shut up.”

  “Why not the car run?” demanded Kathy, as Mrs. Burnsdale, turning to hide her tears, hurried into the house.

  Jean warned Johnny with a swift glance. “Papa says it will not run. So it will not run. Cars do not always run. We wait for cab.”

  “Oh. Oh.” The children mourned in disappointment. They gave the car rebuking looks. The condition of the tires escaped their notice. “Bad car,” said Emilie.

  Johnny was full of gratitude and pain. He put his arm about Jean’s shoulders, speechlessly. Then his heart inexplicably lightened, and he was remorseful. He, a man, a minister, had been despondent and discouraged. His prayers had been lifeless these past few days. He had felt that something had broken in him. Yet here was a boy, a child, who had suffered unspeakable anguish and despair and hopelessness, and yet, under monstrous circumstances, could rise to ease another’s suffering, selflessly, to retain his faith. He had accepted the evil of men, but had lost his terror of it at last.

  “While we wait,” said Johnny, and his voice rang with its old gaiety, “I’ll tell you a story.” The children eagerly pressed about him. “When the Mother of the Christ child, and Joseph, left their own country with Him, to hide Him from the soldiers of the wicked king who wanted to kill Him, they were very frightened. They had come a long way, on a lonely road to Egypt. But before they reached Egypt an angel warned them that the soldiers, on horseback, were close behind them. So they found a cave in which to hide.”

  “Cave,” said Jean. Kathy and Max and Pietro nodded solemnly. They knew caves very well. They knew the darkness and dankness of them, the rubbly floors, the fear, the rapid heartbeat of fright, the silence, the crouching in the dark. And the listening, always the listening, for the pursuing feet of the soldiers.

  “The soldiers, on the road, searched every bush and every cave and looked behind every big rock. And now they were very near this cave where the Mother and the Child and Joseph were hiding. Joseph had tied up the donkey behind some trees. He prayed that the donkey would make no sound when the soldiers approached. The Mother sat in the darkness at the back of the cave with her Child tight against her breast, the young Mother with her Baby. And then they heard the hoofbeats of the horses ringing down the road, and the shouts of the soldiers.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the children, remembering.

  “Poor Joseph could only think that the soldiers would search this cave too. He closed his eyes, and the tears ran down his cheeks, even while he prayed. And then when he looked up he saw that a very strange thing had happened, in only a few moments.”

  “What, what?” cried the children loudly. Pietro danced with uncontrollable impatience. Johnny smiled at them triumphantly. “A big spider had spun her web, in just those few moments over the door of the cave! A thick web, which would usually take a whole night to spin!”

  “Oh,” said the children, in a soft, awed chorus.

  “And when the soldiers reached the cave they wanted to search it. But the leader pointed to the web and said it would be impossible that the Family was in the cave, for the web was not broken. So the soldiers rode on, down the hot white road, and after a long time the Family left the cave, and went on their way, on another road.”

  The children were silent, their faces shining. The dim light under the gray clouds seemed less drab than before. Then Jean said, “God spins many webs, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Johnny. A cab came rapidly around the corner. “Here we are,” said Johnny cheerfully. He helped the children into the cab, while the driver watched curiously. Then a quiet black car rolled softly toward them, and stopped. Jean looked at it, alertly. He smiled at Johnny. “The police,” he murmured, and for the first time he said that word with confidence and satisfaction, without his old
intonation of terror. Mrs. Burnsdale came down the walk, and Johnny shook his head at her and furtively pointed to the police car, and she went to it at once, for she had called the nearest station. The cab passed the official car, and Jean acknowledged the young officers inside with a wave of his hand, to which they responded.

  “Who, who?” asked Pietro, who always noticed everything.

  Jean said, “Our friends.”

  The cab rolled through the silent streets. The children of the city were already in school. Now the light became gaunter, and the stench of the industrial gases more stifling. The cab wheels gritted on the thick cinders of the pavement. Here and there a flash of sulfurous yellow or poisonous green pierced the misty sky. Once or twice Johnny could hear a faint grumbling in the earth, and he knew, with uneasiness, that it came from the mines under the city. His oppression returned, and his fear for Jean. The boy sat so quietly beside him, thoughtfully looking at the streets, and his pale profile was the profile of a man who had suffered much, and remembered.

  They reached the hospital, of which Dr. McManus was chief of staff. Johnny understood that it was comparatively hew, hardly six years old, but its original light granite was stained and darkened, as if some leprous mildew had attacked it. Men washed cloudy windows, which would be dirty again tomorrow. Had it not been for the modern design of the building, its glass and aluminum doors, Johnny would have guessed its age to be at least a quarter of a century. However, complete air conditioning had been installed, and the interior was all rubber tile, black and white, aluminum, cleanliness and quiet. “A nice place,” said Johnny to the children, who walked too closely to him in their familiar huddling. Little Emilie began to cry as a brisk white nurse passed her; she was remembering the needles which had thrown her into convulsions, and Johnny swept her up into his arms. She hid her face on his black shoulder, and panted.