Recessional: A Novel (30 page)

“Say what you were going to say, Raúl.”

“You’ve ruined the ambience. Wouldn’t make any sense now.”

“Raúl!” his wife cried. “You’re being petulant. Now just carry on like a good little boy.”

When he proved unable to do so, for the spirit of the discussion had been shattered for him, President Armitage took over: “The rainy day reminded Raúl of an experience in Colombia, when he saw for the first time the imperial dignity of Spain in the shape of the Spanish ambassador with his medals. He was sixteen at the time, if I remember.”

“Fifteen,” Raúl said. “It was an explosive moment. Spain became a real place to me, home of my ancestors.”

“Stanley had his flash of insight in the Himalayas. Saw the great battle of wills between Russia and England.”

“In the church,” Mrs. Quade said, “we call such moments ‘epiphanies,’ when the vision of Christ or the godhead becomes clear. In the nature of my work I’ve had several. The first was when I saw that women could become priests, that
this
woman could do it. And the second when I saw that neither this woman nor any other in our day was going to get very far, even if we did get in.”

This observation was so personal that none of the men wished to comment, so Mrs. Raborn said: “I had a true epiphany. Raised in a liberal eastern family, I began to fall in love with this western cowboy here, as conservative as they come, and I appreciated the pickle I was in. Stanley and my father had violent arguments and, with more gentility, so did my mother and Stan. All three of us considered him quite hopeless, but one day my mother made a simple observation: ‘I’ll say this for your Neanderthal, Marcia. Sometimes in the kitchen it’s better to have a bristly scrub brush than a limp dishrag. Your young man has the courage to say what he thinks,’ and in a flash it became clear. Better a hardhitting, hard-working conservative than a liberal wimp who vaguely wants to get things done. On the basis of
my mother’s comment, I married this bristly cowboy and have never regretted it.”

Señora Jiménez said, in her excitable way: “I had a vision, but it came late. When Raúl received so many death threats that getting out of Colombia seemed the only sensible thing for him to do, I faced a terrible problem. I came from a large family, so many aunts and uncles, people of substance, important people, some of them. I did not want to leave all my friends, my family. But one day as I looked at Raúl in our garden in Bogotá, the sun shone on him in a certain way and I saw him as something bigger than I had realized, and the thought came to me: This one is worth keeping alive, and that week we flew to safety in your country.” Deeply moved by this recollection, she seemed about to break into tears: “Now we are alone, no aunts and nieces, but we are free and we are alive.”

No one spoke, then Raúl said: “When people move into the Palms they spend the first period as new arrivals, listening and learning. Then, when we feel safe and feel at ease, we engage in an exploration of our own ideas and those of others. That’s the stage we’re in now. That’s why we talk so much. And then, gradually, subtly, without ever being aware of it, we prepare ourselves mentally and emotionally to make our departures. It’s on rainy nights like this, when the air and the world are heavy, that we see the progression so clearly. I like your word, Helen.
Epiphany
, the moment when we
see
things.”

Muley Duggan took delight in telling a mixed audience at the Palms: “The two sorriest days in a man’s life in this joint is when his wife dies and when he has to give up his driver’s license. Not necessarily in that order.” When Dr. Zorn asked why men of good judgment made such a fuss about surrendering their driver’s license, Krenek explained: “When you’re here awhile you’ll get used to the trauma men experience when that fateful day arrives. In their early eighties they begin to wonder: Should I quit driving? And if their wives cry out at a traffic light: ‘You drove right through that red light. You’ll get us killed!’ they resent her interference, but when they’re off by themselves they admit: That was a near one! and they begin to think seriously about giving up driving. Some of our men have told me that’s how it works.”

“Who makes the decision?” Zorn asked. “Us? The wife? The doctors? Or is there a government agency that tracks these things?”

“For sure we don’t. We’d have a revolution on our hands. And the
government is very lax. None of their people want the hassle, so the old folks keep driving until you read about it in the paper:
WOMAN EIGHTY-SEVEN KILLS THREE ON SIDEWALK
.”

“Well, somebody makes the decision.”

“It’s cumulative. A close call—the wife says nothing at the time. Later she points out to her husband that a friend on the first floor has given up driving. The husband makes no response. Then somebody on the second floor surrenders her license. The husband still refuses to follow suit. So the next week he has a real close call, and the wife comes to me: ‘Please beg him to stop driving,’ and I have to do it.

“From here on it’ll be your duty. It’ll be tough, and when you find you’re having no success, you have to quietly inform the medic that the old man has about had it. And the doctor will try to convince him that the old eyes and reflexes just aren’t up to driving. If he still won’t budge, you have to call the Florida Driver’s License Division (you can do it anonymously), and they’ll launch an investigation. And then the anguish begins.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Andy, if you told me right now that I couldn’t drive any longer, I do believe I’d go nuts. I’d feel my manhood had been attacked. The force that keeps me going would have been depreciated. I’m damned if I know what I’d do.”

“But you’re just in your early fifties. To you it would be important.”

“When I’m in my eighties it will be twice as important. At that time things are slowing down. A muscle here, a tooth there, stronger glasses. And there’s the overriding knowledge that death is growing closer. Our old men, God bless ’em, they never admit that, and hiding it is also a burden. Judicious men don’t brood about death, but it does creep into their thoughts. Especially when the obituary page contains ten men in their sixties or seventies: My God! I’m fifteen years older than those guys, they think. And then comes the inescapable shock, an outside judgment that can’t be ignored. The license taken away. That’s too much to bear.”

Andy smiled at his assistant: “They taught you something at NYU. You planning to write a book?”

“The men here write it for us, every week.”

“Looks as if we may have to crank up the machinery to persuade Chris Mallory to give up his license. Several people have complained to me about his driving.”

“The dancing man! It’d kill him, he’s so proud of his ability to keep going.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Let me ask around. Has his wife spoken to you?”

“No. She seems to be the kind that would rally around to defend her husband.”

“What kind of car does he drive? That sometimes makes a difference. I’ve noticed that a man will surrender his Ford but fight like a fiend to keep his Cadillac.” His prediction proved accurate, for when Andy took Mrs. Mallory aside and asked: “Do you think the time may be coming when Chris should consider stopping driving? He is ninety, you know,” she replied: “He’ll want to drive our cars as long as he can use his legs to work the brakes. Besides, I’m eighty-seven and I can drive now as well as I ever did. So forget it.” Since Andy knew her to be what his mother had called “a well-bred lady,” he recognized that in rebuffing him so forcefully she must have thought his inquiry was either intrusive or insulting, and he expected no help from her.

A few days later, however, while Mr. Mallory and his wife were driving back from the mall on Route 41, he made a last-minute left turn onto 117th Street that forced a traffic cop coming the other way to veer sharply to his left to avoid hitting the Cadillic. This sudden swing placed the officer in jeopardy from cars coming in the other direction, because it thrust him into their lanes. Only his skilled driving enabled him to avoid a crash, and when he was able to turn around and pursue the Cadillac, Mr. Mallory was carefully parking it at the Palms, unaware, like his wife, that he had done anything wrong.

The officer overtook the Mallorys just as they were about to walk into Gateways, and when he saw how old they were he refrained from yelling at them. Quietly he asked: “Sir, may I please see your driver’s license?” Chris, who took pride in always carrying it in a special leather case, presented it with the innocent question “Did I do something wrong?” and the officer was astounded to see that neither Chris nor his wife realized how close they had been to causing a major pileup.

“I think we’d better step inside,” the officer said, and as the three entered the reception area Mr. Mallory asked in true bewilderment: “What’s this about?” and the officer said: “I think we’d better speak to the manager.”

When they were in Dr. Zorn’s office, the policeman said very carefully: “I’m afraid, Doctor, that your man here ought to be warned against driving—at his age. How old is he?” and Mrs. Mallory snapped: “Ninety and perfectly competent.”

“We can let the License Division decide that.”

“You mean, you’re arresting him?” Mrs. Mallory asked. “He did nothing wrong.”

“He made a left turn off Route 41 that drove me into the oncoming traffic. Could have been a huge smashup.”

“You must have been driving carelessly,” she said, for she was sure that he was lying.

“Doctor, it would be easiest if you can persuade this gentleman to surrender his driver’s license without me having to alert the License Division to launch an investigation. As a favor to everyone, I’ll be back tomorrow to, I hope, pick it up.”

When Dr. Zorn was left alone with the Mallorys he observed that Mr. Mallory, abetted vigorously by his wife, was not going to surrender his license: “Unthinkable! I’m as good a driver as I ever was,” and his wife agreed.

So Zorn, rather cravenly he knew, turned the matter over to Mr. Krenek, who was certain that the traffic cop had made a proper intervention, one that could in the long run save lives: “Mr. Mallory, it really is time you considered seriously turning in your license. Many men have to face that decision. Your friends know that your reflexes, and maybe your eyes too, have slowed down. It’s for his sake, Mrs. Mallory, please help us convince him.” When she dismissed that suggestion with a wave of her hand, he called Dr. Zorn on the phone: “Did the officer say he’d be back tomorrow? Well, that sort of solves it, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. Mallory, who could deduce the tenor of Zorn’s reply, said: “It solves nothing. That officer can’t simply take Chris’s license, not without a full investigation, which Chris would pass with flying colors.”

Krenek attacked the problem with a tactic that had proved helpful in other cases. He invited two other couples whose husbands had been forced to give up their licenses. Both of the men were much younger than Mallory, so that when they testified that it had been the proper decision he had to listen, and the wives assured Esther Mallory that she would not regret what all four of them now knew—that it had been the proper decision.

That night Andy saw that Mr. Mallory was listless at dinner and that he walked with a slow tread and downcast eyes as he left the dining area. What Zorn could not see was that when the former executive reached his quarters, he took from his safety pocket his leather case with its driver’s license and placed it on a table where he could see it. That night he did not watch the
MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour
and the eleven o’clock news, and when he went off to bed he mumbled: “When you grow old, they do cruel things to you.”

Surprisingly soon after he had taken careful measurements, the orthopedic technician was back with a pair of temporary legs for Betsy. Each consisted of three parts. At the top was the plastic socket into which the stump would fit: “It’ll fit more precisely next week after we take casts of your stumps, but it’s already close enough to get you started.” At the bottom was a large, flat-soled shoe. And in the middle came the more important part, the mechanical leg itself, and this would be permanent, regardless of what form the perfected socket took. “This is the heart of your recovery, just the raw metal substructure for the moment. The imitation flesh to enclose it and make it look like a leg comes only when we’re sure everything’s working.” The mechanic adjusted the fitting of the remarkable skeleton leg to the socket and explained its marvels: “It’s called a Blatchford Leg, after the company in England that makes them. It doesn’t weigh much, but it contains a score of control points that enable you to do almost everything you did before. The bottom will last you a lifetime, but the upper socket changes month by month, year by year, as your leg and its stump change.”

While Betsy was fitting this new companion to the remnants of her leg, Yancey left the room and returned with the couple that Betsy had dined with that first night, the dancing Mallorys. She supposed that they had come to watch, but that was not the case, for Yancey announced: “The Mallorys volunteered to bring some friends they met at the dances in town.” Mrs. Mallory signaled in the direction of the door, whereupon a fine-looking, athletic, gray-haired woman in her fifties appeared, took Mr. Mallory by the arm, and as a pair they executed a series of professional-quality dance routines.

Betsy was bewildered, could make no sense of such an exhibition, until the woman suddenly stopped, held on to Mr. Mallory’s arm, pulled up her skirt and showed that she had one mechanical leg,
which she could move about as if it were actually flesh and bone. “We wanted you to see what can be done,” Yancey explained.

“But she has one good leg,” Betsy pointed out, and Yancey said: “But this one hasn’t,” and he signaled for Mr. Mallory to bring in a marine veteran he and his wife had also met on their dancing outings. He was in his early forties, a lean, tough-muscled man who walked up to the gray-haired dancer, took her by the hands and swung her into position beside him so they could do a soft-shoe routine as he whistled the old tune “While Strolling Through the Park One Day.” At the end of their performance he reached down and pulled two zippers at the bottom of his trousers to reveal two Blatchford legs, exact duplicates of the ones leaning beside Betsy’s chair.