A Place We Knew Well (20 page)

On television, America's Adlai Stevenson abruptly set down his earphones, swept off his glasses, and shot the Soviet representative an angry glare. His voice, when he spoke, rang out with simmering indignation.

“I want to say to you, Mr. Zorin, that I don't have your talent for obfuscation, for distortion, for confusing language, and for doubletalk. And I must confess to you that I'm glad I don't.”

Steve's look queried Avery. “He just call that suckbag a liar?”

“Yup.”

Stevenson continued.
“But if I understood what you said, you said that my position had changed, that today I was defensive because we didn't have the evidence to prove our assertions that your Government had installed long-range missiles in Cuba. Well, let me say something to you, Mr. Ambassador—we
do
have the evidence. We have it, and it's clear and incontrovertible. And let me say something else—those weapons
must
be taken out of Cuba.”

“Damn straight,” Steve agreed.

At the double
ding
of the gas bell, both men turned to check the pumps. It was Father Thomas, driving through to deliver Emilio. He waved from behind the wheel as Emilio sprinted in.

Steve stood up, offered Emilio the stool.

Emilio hesitated, torn between the desire to watch and the need to change into his uniform.

“Sit,” Avery said. “This is important.”

Stevenson had quickened his pace.
“…while we're asking questions, let me ask
you
”
—he jabbed a finger in Zorin's direction—
“
why
your Government—
your
Foreign Minister—deliberately, cynically deceived us about the nuclear build-up in Cuba.

“The other day, Mr. Zorin, I remind you that you didn't
deny
the existence of these weapons. Instead, we heard that they had suddenly become
defensive
weapons. But today—again, if I heard you correctly—you now say they don't
exist,
or that we haven't
proved
they exist?

“All right, sir. Let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no?”

Avery heard Emilio's quick intake of breath. He felt his own anger rise at Zorin's infuriating grin, his dramatic fumbling for his earphones.

Stevenson bore in like an auger.
“Don't wait for the translation.
Yes
or
no
?”

The council chambers erupted in nervous laughter. Zorin grasped his microphone, yammering in Russian. A translator spoke over him:
“I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and therefore I do not wish to answer a question that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor does. In due course, sir, you will have your reply. Do not worry.”

Avery felt Stevenson's fury.
“You are in the court of world opinion right
now
and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist. I want to know if you—if this—if I've understood you correctly.”

Zorin grumbled in Russian, his tone chiding. Tense seconds later, the translator explained,
“Sir, will you please continue your statement. You will have your answer in due course.”

The Security Council chairman intervened,
“Mr. Stevenson, would you continue your statement, please? You will receive the answer in due course.”

Avery held his breath. Don't let this SOB off the hook!

Stevenson reared back.
“I am prepared to wait for my answer until
hell
freezes
over,
if that's your decision! And I'm also prepared to present the evidence in this room!”

“Yes!” Steve hissed, punching his fist into his open palm.

Emilio frowned, looked to Avery. “Hell freezes over? What does that mean?”

“As long as it takes,” Avery translated.

On screen, Stevenson signaled an aide, who produced two large easels and a stack of poster-boarded photographs.

“…in view of his statements and the statements of the Soviet Government,”
Stevenson was saying,
“…denying the existence or any intention of installing such weapons in Cuba, I am going to make a portion of the evidence available right now.”

The gas bell, the arrival of a gray Renault, made Emilio jump.

“Stay,” Steve ordered. “I'll get 'em,” he added, striding out.

“The first of these exhibits,”
Stevenson continued,
“shows an area north of the village of Candelaria, near San Cristóbal…”

“San Cristóbal!” Emilio shot to his feet.

“…The first photograph shows the area in late August 1962. It was
then,
if you can see from where you are sitting, only a peaceful countryside.”

“My grandfather's farm!” Emilio exclaimed, pointing to the top left of the picture. But just then, the camera zoomed in and shifted right. The teenager turned to Avery, wild-eyed, then snapped back to Stevenson's explanation.

“The second photograph shows the same area one day last week. A few tents and vehicles had come into the area, new spur roads had appeared, the main road had been improved. The third photograph, taken
only twenty-four hours later,
shows facilities for a medium-range missile battalion installed. There are tents for four or five hundred men. At the end of the new spur road, there are seven 1,000-mile missile trailers. There are four launcher-erector mechanisms for placing these missiles in erect firing position. This missile is a mobile weapon, which can be moved rapidly from one place to another. It is identical with the 1,000-mile missiles which have been displayed in Moscow parades. All of this, I remind you, took place in
twenty-four hours.

“The second exhibit shows three successive photographic enlargements of another missile base of the same type in the area of San Cristóbal. These enlarged photographs clearly show six of these missiles on trailers and three erectors.”

Abruptly, Emilio slumped back down onto the stool.

Avery searched for something to say—some word of comfort, an expression of hope or confidence—but his mind was blank. He reached out and laid a steadying hand on the youth's shoulder. Together they watched in silence as Stevenson moved through the rest of his exhibits. There were an unlucky thirteen Soviet sites in Cuba. So far.

“We now know the
facts,
and so do you, sir, and we are ready to talk about them. Our job here is not to score debating points. Our job, Mr. Zorin, is to save the peace. And if you are ready to try, we are.”

Emilio, Avery noticed, had sweated through the white shirt of his school uniform. The boy rose unsteadily to his feet, his face ashen. “I'll change now,” he said, his voice ragged with emotion.

At the bench, Steve was packing up to go. He turned to Avery, moved his mouth around his thoughts, but said nothing. Avery understood. Neither one of them had believed that Stevenson had it in him. But the old man had acquitted himself superbly.

Hope, like a spidery filament, hung in the air between them, too fragile for words.

T
HROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON,
business was brisk.

“More work means less time to think,” Emilio said stoically. Still, the worry rimming his eyes and the weighted slope of his slim shoulders belied his words.

Out front, Avery queried longtime customer Clyde Williams, “You hear Stevenson at the UN?”

“Pretty good job, considerin' Adlai's an appeaser from way back,” Williams pronounced. “Castro ain't nothin' but a Minnie the Moocher, and an ungrateful one at that! And Khrushchev needs to learn you don't play possum with the US of A. All this pussyfootin' around. If we know where they've got those missiles, I say, Bombs away! Let's go get 'em! Then send in the marines to mop up. It'd be all-over-but-the-shoutin' by middle of next week.”

“But…” Avery was dumbstruck. He felt himself flush red. “What about the local Cubans? The ones who are still there, stuck with Castro's boot on their neck? And what if our bombers miss one of the sites and one of their missiles gets through? What then?”

Williams narrowed his eyes. “FUBAR,” he said softly. His look was that of a man who'd calculated the risks and judged them acceptable. Avery resisted the sudden, savage urge to put a fist upside Williams's fat, idiotic head.

He was still mulling over the exchange, wondering how many others in high and low places felt the same way Williams did, when the phone next to the register rang.

“Orange Town Texaco. Wes speaking.”

“Dad?”

“Hey, kiddo. What's up? Why are you whispering?”

“You think Mom's all right?”

Avery bowed his head and softened his tone. “She still in bed?”

“Yeah. Says she's too tired to get up. How can she be tired when she's been in bed all day?”

“I don't know, Kitten. I was thinking, if she wasn't better by tonight, I'd give Doc Mike a call.”

“I don't think you should wait, Dad.”

B
Y THE TIME
M
IKE
M
ARTELL
arrived at the front door, the homecoming bonfire had been lit across the lake. Its flames, mirrored at the water's edge, seemed to pulse in time with the urgent thrum of the Eagles' fight song. Avery had asked Sarah if she'd like to join him on the back porch to watch. But, wearily, she'd declined.
Prefer the dark,
she'd mouthed.

“Evening, Doc,” Avery said, stepping aside, inviting Martell in. Like Charlotte earlier, he found himself whispering, conscious of not wanting to disturb Sarah. “Really appreciate your coming.”

“No problem.” Martell waved off his thanks with a finely trimmed hand; his deep-set eyes scanned the living room for his patient. “Still in bed then?”

“Yes.”

“Since…”

“Yesterday noon.”

“With no sleep?”

“That's what she says.”

“Don't mind, like to talk to her alone first.”

“Of course.” Avery led him into the hall. At the middle room's entrance, he knocked softly.

“Sarah?” He saw her wince at the shaft of light falling across the bed. “Mike's here.”

Inside, Martell turned on the overhead light, and Sarah moaned.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “but I can't examine you in the dark.”

Martell moved a folding metal chair to the side of the bed, sat down, put his leather bag on the floor, and took her wrist. As Avery retreated, he heard Martell ask, “So tell me, Sarah, what's going on?”

Eager for an explanation, Avery lingered in the hallway.

“My headache,” he heard her say. “It seems a bit better but…somehow I feel worse. And I haven't slept in…I don't know how long.”

“Can you sit up?” There were the sounds of Martell opening his bag, removing small instruments, and instructing her to “Look here,” “Now your ears,” and “Say ahhh.”

After a moment, Martell said, “Check your glands?” and “Is the pain any different? A different place?”

“Not so much pain anymore as a kind of heavy…sadness. Sorrow, really.”

Avery heard him pick up something else—a stethoscope, he guessed—and ask her to cough. “Again, please…and once more.”

“I've been lying here thinking…wondering…”

“About?”

“Well, I need to ask you something…” Her voice quavered. Avery strained to hear. “…about the hysterectomy?”

“What about it?”

“I never understood….Nobody ever explained to me why…why, when the ectopic pregnancy was on one side, in one tube, right?”

“Yes,” Martell said.

“Why not…well, why not just take out that one tube and leave the other? Why take out both plus everything else?”

“Well…” The metal chair creaked as the doctor sat back.

“It doesn't make any sense to me.”

“Well.” Martell cleared his throat. “As I recall, you'd been through all those—was it four?—miscarriages.”

“Five.”

“Okay, five, plus the ectopic. You were hemorrhaging badly and in so much pain—and you did have a healthy child at home—it just seemed like the right thing….”

“But what if…” Sarah was pressing him, her tone increasingly urgent. “You
knew
I wanted another child. Wes wanted a son. So why not…?”

“Well…uhmm.” Martell began to quibble but abruptly stopped. Avery could only imagine Sarah's look—the one that said she was not about to be put off. “We did consider saving the other side, but with your history…”

“Did you…did you discuss it with Wes?”

“Not as I recall,” Martell said. “The surgeon and I talked and, well, it was sort of an executive operating room decision.”

“For
you
…,” she said suddenly, hotly. “For you, it was an
executive
decision? For me…” Avery stiffened at her muffled sob. “For me…,” she said in a pained whisper, “it was the death of hope.”

“Oh, Sarah…”

“And I ask you,” she pressed. “How am I to go on? How am I to live…without hope?”

Avery heard a movement. Was the doctor taking her hand? “Are you sure…,” Martell asked, “this isn't about Charlotte, her getting ready to go off to college? It's a common malady these days. ‘Empty nest syndrome,' they call it.”

For a long moment, Avery heard nothing. Then his wife sighed, and said, “I am too”—something—“for this world.”

“Oh, now, that's no way to talk,” Martell replied quickly. “Obviously, you're overtired, and in need of some serious sleep. I have something for that.”

As the doctor rummaged through his bag, Avery stepped away, into the living room, then out onto the back porch. Across the lake, the high school's bonfire was raging at the water's edge. He could just make out the band in neat concert positions off to one side; the cheerleaders whirling in formation on the other; with the football team, in red-and-white jerseys, assembled in between.