Archangel (17 page)

When the drinks arrived, they were half gin and half tonic, served in tall condensation-beaded glasses. Mackenzie let the taste of juniper berries roll across his tongue and down his throat. He watched Madeleine take her first sip, wince at its strength and place the glass back on the table.

“Is everything all right?” he asked. He wanted her to like the place. Bringing Madeleine here was his way of showing he admired her, even if she was the enemy.

“Everything’s fine.” Madeleine breathed in the concentrated smell of men. Generations of men. Not the locker-room smell of old sweat, but the dry, honeyed reek of cigars and port and gin and roast beef and cream and coffee and the creaking hide of these chairs, left over from the days when there had been a kind of aristocracy in Abenaki Junction. She had wanted to be angry at Mackenzie, but the old man was impeccably polite. He was famous for his courtesy, particularly to women, even at the moments of his most ruthless hostility. There was no talk of business. He hadn’t played the trick of bulldozing through her with strong opinions and a loud voice. She could have fought well against that. But the way this man moved seemed to have no shape or direction. So she found herself wondering whether Mackenzie was in fact naïve, or whether he was making her dance like a puppet, politely giving way and making her advance until she no longer knew where she was.

The quiet of this room surrounded her. Madeleine sat under the stern gaze of the statesmen, who looked at her as much as to say, “What the hell are you doing here?” She found herself listening not to the noise but to the lack of it—the rustle of horsehair stuffing and of matches being struck as Mackenzie lit himself a cigarette. This half silence—it was peculiar to men. If this had been a club for women only, she thought, the quiet would be different.

Paul called them almost in a whisper to the dining room. Then he served them roast beef and boiled new potatoes with string beans. They drank 1968 Haut-Médoc from large crystal glasses. The table at which they sat was long and dark, weighed down with huge silver beakers of water and candleholders and platters of grapes, apples and pears. In the candlelight, these looked more like painted fruit than anything that could ever be tasted. All of the silver was engraved with the log-and-ax crest of the club. The idea of this long table, the only one at which dinner had been served, was that a person could come to the club and never have to worry about eating alone. Mackenzie had always admired this unspoken law, this table that had been built inside the room because it was too big to be brought in from outside. You did not complain here. You did not burden others with your
problems. You did not swear and you did not exclude anyone from the conversation. You never ridiculed another member of the club. That was why, in all the years when he had dined elbow to elbow with mill owners who were at war with one another, he had never seen an argument.

Instead of talking business, Mackenzie ran through his reservoir of memories of Madeleine growing up in Abenaki Junction. He did not leave out the recollections of her picketing his mill, or the speeches she had made against him in community meetings. He didn’t shy away from them. It was the only way he could think of diffusing any of the anger that had fed off the silence between them for so long.

Madeleine was surprised at how much he recalled, and how generously he brought the memories to life, speaking fondly of her even when she knew her actions had made him furious at the time. For a moment, as Paul placed a bowl of perfect raspberries in front of her, Madeleine forgot about the business of the evening, the olive branch Mackenzie had said he would be offering. She rested one of the berries on her tongue and crushed it against the roof of her mouth. The faint bittersweetness of the fruit snapped her back to a day years before when she had gone berry picking beside the railroad tracks. There were so many berries that she had filled her bucket and then had to collect them in her hat. It was on that day that she had looked down the tracks and seen a black bear rummaging through its own patch of raspberries. She saw the huge pads of its feet and the brown fur on its muzzle. The bear was only a hundred yards away, popping the berries off the bush with its tongue. Madeleine wasn’t afraid, although it went against her instincts. When the animal saw her, it also showed no fear. She watched the bear until it had eaten enough. Then it plodded off into the forest. She swallowed and the daydream disappeared.

When the meal was over, Madeleine walked with Mackenzie back into the front room and sat at the backgammon table. Mackenzie cleared his throat, as if to choke down everything that had been said until now. “I’d like to make you an offer that at first might seem a little crazy, but if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll see that we can both benefit.” He paused to let his words sink in. “I would like to buy the
Forest Sentinel
.”

“Oh, really?” Madeleine’s own laughter caught her off guard. The
worst she had imagined was that Mackenzie would request some kind of interview with her in which he would be guaranteed favorable coverage in the
Forest Sentinel
. But this! She waited for him to smile and show that he was joking.

“I mean to pay very well for it.” His words were measured and calm.

“But then what would you do with it?” She held her hands open, waiting for an explanation.

“I’d close it down.”

Madeleine nodded slowly and quietly. At least he was being honest. She picked up one of the backgammon pieces and pressed it between her palms. “Mr. Mackenzie.”

“Jonah.”

“All right. Jonah. You’ve known me all my life. And you know that for years now I’ve worked toward setting up an environmental newspaper. How do you expect me just to walk away from it?”

“I’m prepared to pay you thirty thousand dollars. All in cash. All immediately.”

The mention of so much money jolted her nerves like caffeine. “The paper’s not worth that. Let’s not even pretend.”

“I’m not pretending. I’m not paying for the paper. I’m paying for you to move it someplace else. That would be part of the agreement. You wouldn’t start up another paper within two hundred miles of here.” Mackenzie raised his hand as Madeleine’s mouth snapped open. “Please let me finish. This paper is worth about ten thousand dollars. Tops. That’s for everything. The rent on the building, the deposit, all the equipment. Not even ten. And I’m even happy to let you keep your equipment. You could start up another paper in a much bigger way with this money. You know that’s true. I know it must leave a bad taste in your mouth to have me buy you out. You might feel as if you are compromising your values. But it’s a compromise that can serve you much better in the long run than you are serving yourself at the moment. If you look at this realistically …” He let his words trail into silence. He had said what he had to say.

For Madeleine, everything took on the clumsy and ponderous movements of being chased in a nightmare. “You just want me out of your hair.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Jonah, I don’t mean to flatter myself, but what have I done to get in your hair so badly that you’d pay that kind of money to have me out? If you adopted some ecologically sound measures—sustainable yield, for example—I think my paper would actually help you, not hurt.”

“It’s just a chance I’m not prepared to take.” Mackenzie slapped his hands wearily on the arms of his chair. “Look around. I’m all that’s left. Why should I trust anything except my own instincts? And what about you, Madeleine? What do you trust except the world of your ideals?”

Madeleine was about to talk back, to say anything that would refute his point. But Mackenzie was right. Beyond the world of her ideals, everything was crooked with doubt.

“You see it all,” he said, “through the world of that camera you’re always carrying around. A neatly bracketed world which you only have to see the way you want to see. You can’t just live off ideals.”

Watch me, she wanted to say. “But what if I don’t accept?” she asked him. She waited for him to take off the gloves of his politeness. She gave him every opportunity.

What if? he thought. He looked at Madeleine and thought, I’ll sweep you away until every trace of you is gone, the same way I’ll do to that damn forest, whether you like it or not. Tabula rasa.

“What if I don’t accept?” Madeleine asked again, suspicious of Mackenzie’s silence and the menacing drowsiness that seemed to wash across his face while he sat there deep in thought.

“Well.” He rolled his neck as if there were a crick in his spine. “I hope it won’t come to that. It isn’t in my nature to offer compromises, but if we can handle this like civilized people, I’m all for that.”

“Yes.” Madeleine leaned across the table and tapped the backgammon chip in time with her words. “But what if I don’t sell? Just tell me that much.” She realized even as she said this that she might have to sell, if not to Mackenzie then to someone else. The
Forest Sentinel
had been so close to going under for so long now that Madeleine had forgotten what it was like to live any other way.

“If you don’t accept my offer, then you’ll probably save me some money.” Mackenzie was staring right at her and through her.

“That sounds like a threat.” Here it comes at last, she thought. The sweetness of the raspberries bubbled sickly and acidic into her throat.

“Not at all. Please don’t think me so clumsy. I say you’ll save me money because your newspaper will fold. You just aren’t printing enough copies. More important, people aren’t reading it. Sure, they take it home from the pile in the supermarket. Then they use it as kindling to start their fires. Madeleine, I have to speak bluntly. It’s not just the paper. It’s you. There’s nothing for you in Abenaki Junction.”

“It’s not true!” she snapped.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.” He did not believe her and he let his voice show it. “But you have to know when to quit.” Mackenzie saw a tired look come into Madeleine’s eyes. All evening, it seemed to him, they had been shining and now they were suddenly dull. This was when he knew that he would get what he wanted. Not now, perhaps. But the process had begun. He jammed his thumb against the brass nipple button on the table, as if to mark the last period on what he had to say.

When Paul arrived, Mackenzie ordered a coffee and a cigar. He knew Madeleine wouldn’t want one, so he didn’t bother to ask. The cigars were Cuban, Punch and Monte Cristos, smuggled into the country and sent to him each year by an old college acquaintance named Sal Ungaro, whose line of work kept changing and always seemed to go against the law. Mackenzie clipped the end of the cigar with a cigar cutter and then lit the cigar, rolling the end around through the match flame that Paul held out to him in order to get an even burn. Then he sat back and looked at Madeleine, the strong tobacco smoothing out his thoughts.

Madeleine felt the quiet that had suddenly come between them. It circled and was menacing, swimming like a shark from room to room.

Mackenzie broke the quiet. “Did you enjoy the roast beef?”

Madeleine could feel it in a knot in her stomach. She almost never ate red meat anymore. “I thought it was a little rare, actually.”

“Usually is.”

“I think I should be getting home, Jonah. Thank you for dinner.”

Mackenzie nodded slowly, puffing on the cigar. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up. My leg and all.”

“Of course. Will you be coming back to town now?”

“No,” Mackenzie held up his half-finished cigar. “Can’t rush one
of these. Paul will drive you home. I’ll just sit here until he gets back. I’ll keep that offer open for a while.”

“All right,” she said. “Thank you again for the dinner. I didn’t expect to enjoy myself, but I sort of did.” She shrugged. “I guess I couldn’t help myself.”

“Well, thank you for coming,” he told her. After she had gone, Mackenzie sat in his chair and smoked the cigar down almost to his fingers. Then he walked out of the hall and stood looking at the stars.

While the Range Rover drove through the dark, Madeleine noticed that the lights were on in the house Booker Lazarus was putting up for rent. She wondered who was new in town.

Mackenzie’s words tumbled in her head. She knew she would not sleep tonight. She leaned over and spoke quietly in Paul’s ear. “Would you mind dropping me off at my office just here? There’s some work I need to catch up on.”

“Yes, of course.” Paul stopped the car and let her out. He waited until she had opened the office door and turned and waved to him. Then he drove back to the lodge.

The
Forest Sentinel
was in a newly built, prefabricated structure near the center of town. The walls were thin and the building reminded Madeleine of a trailer put up on a construction site. It was all she could afford for now. The office was only two rooms, busy with computers and corkboards scaled with notes. The back room had cutting boards set out along the walls and a light table for viewing photo negatives. Even when the office was quiet, everything seemed to be in constant motion, down to the speckled pattern on the carpeting.

Madeleine sat at her desk and picked up a blue pencil. Then she began editing a piece she had written the day before about the interdependence between pine and white birch trees, and asking loggers to reseed areas with both species instead of just with pines. She had been working a few minutes when she heard a knock on the door.