Cannibals and Missionaries (35 page)

“Let’s try to sort this out. Does it really matter which of us is more important to these young men and women who are holding us in captivity? We each have our own
kind
of importance. Maybe we’re symbols of things they don’t like in the world of today. That’s what I try to bear in mind. They don’t hate me as an individual, I tell myself. They want to change the system of which we’re all a part, like it or not. You and I, Aileen, as well as Henry. And I can’t say that I blame them, though I may question their methods. Even there we mustn’t be too sure. ‘I bring not peace but a sword,’ our Lord said. But the main fact to remember is that we’re all in this together. We don’t know why we’ve been chosen. Indeed, there is some mystery to it, I have to admit, as in God’s inscrutable ways. Not that I mean to compare the election that has fallen on us with a divine intervention, although to some of His prophets the Old Testament Jahveh may have seemed like a holy terror.”

“Oh, my God,” muttered Sophie. But the good man was under a strain. It was not easy to play the peacemaker among these heathen. As for the habit of punning, that must be a tic, like the preaching habit which it seemed to go along with and which was maybe uncontrollable too. The poor fellow had been deformed by an unnatural occupation. “Lordy,” he said, “there I go again. I can never resist a pun, my youngsters complain. Yes, but seriously, there may be food for thought there as to how these young folk conceive their mission, that Jeroen in particular. Strict Calvinist home, he confided in me when I was drawing him out. Well. Perhaps we shall eventually learn whether our carrier was singled out on account of the worldly goods of some of us or on account of the place some others of us occupy in the community. As we have been reminded, we have a bishop and a U.S. senator among us. Or chance, if there is such a thing—which as a Christian I’m taught to doubt—may have been responsible for our being gathered in this place together. Our captors may have struck at random, as the fisherman casts his net on the waters unwitting what the catch will be. Some passengers, as we have seen, were thrown back into the sea of ordinary daily life to go about their business like fish of no commercial value. And we have been retained. Whatever the reason behind that, we must look on our being here as a call. A call to deepen our faith and our brotherly love, which may be sorely tested. To extend our experience, launch our frail barks onto uncharted waters. Not everyone has the good fortune—yes, the good fortune—to be hijacked.”

He paused, as though prepared for a stir of dissent. But no one contested him. “To be shaken out of his complacency, dislodged from his daily unthinking rut. ‘As of old, Saint Andrew heard it, By the Galilean lake, Turned from home and toil and kindred, Leaving all for His dear sake.’ That is why I chose the dear old hymn just now. To show us that we have been given an opportunity. Through this unforeseen contact with our captors we can be enlarged.” “I like ‘unforeseen contact,’” murmured Henk. Sophie giggled. Yet there was merit in the minister’s thought, if only it could be freed from the clerical gaiters it wore.

“We will be bigger people for it, if we will only let ourselves. Let us not brood over the mystery that has assembled us in this place or compete for precedence one over the other in our captors’ eyes.” “Hear, hear!” said Henk, clapping. “Amen,” said the Bishop. But Frank had not finished. “Let us, rather, accept it as coming from God, whether we believe in a personal God or merely in some higher force. I am led to think of Jonah—”

“Excuse me, sir.” Denise was standing in the doorway. “I do not like to interrupt, but some passengers are wanted in the kitchen. First Mrs. Potter, please.” Helen rose and followed the stewardess. Her small pigeon-breasted figure appeared resolute. “‘The call,’” commented Aileen. Beryl grinned at Sophie. “Makes me think of being sent for to the headmistress’s office.” Sophie remembered. In the classroom, when the summons came, nobody ever supposed that the one sent for was going to hear anything good—the best hope was that it would be just a death in the family. It was the same here. Everybody avoided Henry Potter’s eye, as if an execution were already taking place. “It’ll be Ma’s turn next, want to bet?” said Beryl. The smell of pea soup heating in the kitchen provided some wan reassurance. If lunch was about to be served, nothing very terrible could be happening in there. “Maybe they’ve taken her outside,” muttered Beryl. “But why poor old Helen?” spoke up Henry. “Helen
first
,” emphasized Margaret. “Don’t worry, they’ll have the rest of us on the carpet before long. ‘Malefactors of great wealth.’ Remember? He was the start of all this. I was a girl then, but Father knew it.” “That doesn’t answer my question, Maggie. Why my wife first? Why not Johnnie?” “Maybe just because we ask that,” quietly said Sophie. “The aim of terror is to terrify, isn’t it, and the trick there is to be arbitrary,
above
the rules of reason. Logically they should have started with Mr. Ramsbotham. It makes sense because he’s the richest and a man. But if they acted logically, that would give us a handle on them.” Henk agreed. “Maybe they drew straws, and your wife’s was the short one. The point is for their actions to
defy
understanding. They’re answerable to nobody and nothing—not even, as Sophie says, to the laws of reason.”

“Quite,” said Cameron, his head again emerging. “Yet if your conjecture is right, then you
have
understood and even given a name to a principle governing their behavior. That it answers to the name of ‘arbitrary’ still means that one can subsume it under a general law, in other words conclude that by and large one can expect aleatory conduct from them.” “Well, I suppose that’s some comfort, Beryl,” Lily said cheerfully. Beryl laughed. “Can you define ‘aleatory’ by any chance, Mother? Dicey.” “‘
Alea jacta est
,’” supplied Henry, causing Margaret to shake her large head and sigh. “The ruin of a fine mind,” she pronounced in a carrying bass aside.

“To understand that there’s no understanding what they’re up to,” Lily mused. “And yet I have the funniest inkling. Maybe I’d better not say it. In case
they’re
listening.” “For heaven’s sake, how?” said Margaret. “These rooms could be ‘bugged,’” Lily retorted. “Quite true,” said Henk, before Beryl could contradict. “I have been thinking that too.” “Well, whisper it, then, Mother,” prompted Beryl. “Just a minute!” said Frank. “Let’s make assurance doubly sure.” He began to play chopsticks energetically on the harmonium. Lily spoke into her daughter’s ear. In turn Beryl whispered to Sophie: “The Vermeer.” By the time it reached Cameron, it had become “Fear more.” But most had understood. Though not as rich as Johnnie, Helen was the star collector: she owned a Vermeer.

The gravity of the first-class faces left no doubt as to the inference being drawn. It was as though Lily had voiced a collective thought that had lain too deep for words. The collectors sat with bowed heads, reflecting. Prompted by the naming of the Vermeer, each, evidently, was considering his own valuables. Even the outsiders were moved to sober reflection, like spectators watching a stranger’s coffin pass. “Is it an important Vermeer?” Simmons whispered and, on being assured that it was, fell to pondering. It was not the occasion to tell her that there were no unimportant Vermeers; the parlor was silent, as if it contained mourners. In the next room, the games came to a respectful halt as word of the “inkling” leaked. Sitting with folded hands, Sophie was led to think of the death of Sapphire, she was not sure why. What did Victor’s wickedly murdered pet have in common with a Vermeer of Delft except the color blue? Or—more to the point—that each was a rarity, a “pearl” of its kind? If Sapphire had been an alley cat, would she have got the same treatment?

Sophie had no idea of what might be in the rest of the collections, but the mere thought of works of art as legitimate prey for terrorists caused her sympathetic nervous system pain. If they could deliberately shoot a superb Persian cat—there had been
two
shots, she clearly remembered—there must be policy behind it. Sapphire had died as an advertisement of some unusual intention. That strange young man, Jeroen, might view himself and his band as apostles of “desacralization,” which would be terror in a pure state, she guessed. In comparison, treating the lives of adult human hostages as bargaining counters seemed like normal, “civilized” warfare.

To her surprise, Henk was winking at her. He tapped his head again. Unwillingly, she saw what he was trying to tell her. To a rational mind, he meant, this was a nutty example of group-think: these people had become
possessed
by the notion that their art treasures were in danger, without asking themselves how that could be or considering it aloud as an objective proposition. They “felt it in their bones,” and the feeling was so strong that it had gripped the whole body of hostages, not just the fraction that had personal cause for anxiety. Only Henk, a Dutch skeptic, seemed to be immune. To judge by the silence, everyone else was just as suggestible as Sophie herself.

The first sight of Helen removed any uncertainty. Their bones had been right. The tribunes of the people had decreed that she could have her freedom in exchange for the “Girl in a Blue Cap with a Guitar.” Henry’s freedom would cost her a Titian. They had wanted the little Bosch, too—hardly bigger than a postage stamp—but mercifully it was on show in Los Angeles; she had a clipping from
Time
to prove it. The group had tried her and passed sentence, payment in kind, from which there could be no appeal. She had begged them—on her knees, literally—to take her whole fortune in the place of the “Girl” but without any effect. Snuffling and wiping her pale eyes, rejecting Henry’s effort to quiet her and Denise’s smelling-salts, she now took the entire “family room” into her confidence. Around her an eager ring formed, curiosity proving stronger than pity. Ransoming Henry, she told them, would not be so very painful; the Titian was studio work mostly, and she had never cared for the subject. But she would almost rather die, she had decided, than see harm come to the precious Vermeer—in perfect condition, with its wonderful crackle; when its near-replica, “The Guitar Player,” had been seized from Kenwood House, she had suffered untold agonies, even though its “execution” by the vandals would have made her own unique. They had given her an hour to make up her mind.

Next Harold was tapped, then Johnnie, then Margaret, then Charles, and finally Lily. “Cheer up, Mother,” counseled Beryl. “The pecking order proves that they don’t know the value of ‘fine English water-colors.’” For a perhaps evident reason the “boys” from Antibes were not being summoned to the bar. “
‘Rien à déclarer.’
‘Nothing to declare,’” John, the younger, hazarded with a nervous giggle, as though apologizing for their luck. One by one, with increasing rapidity, the others rejoined their fellows: Harold was supported by the steward; Lily flew to Beryl’s arms. Unlike Helen, they were keeping their own confidence. Whatever sentence had been passed on them was not for general consumption. Disregarding the compassionate eyes turned on them, they bunched in desolate twos and threes, like stately crows in a flock of starlings. Helen was finally persuaded to go into the parlor, out of the melee.

If it had been possible, Sophie would have fled the scene. She did not like the position of onlooker. It was obscene, like sitting in perfect health in a surgeon’s waiting-room and watching the patients emerge. “They must resent us,” murmured Henk. “If they’re aware that we’re here,” said Carey. “Doesn’t look much like it.” In her own way, Simmons was respectful of their feelings. “We ought to go in and offer Helen our sympathy, don’t you think? I was kind of mean back then.” “You can try,” said Sophie, unwillingly tagging along. The trouble was, it was impossible to sympathize in the true meaning of the word. You could not put yourself in the place of someone who owned a Vermeer—it was not a universal experience. You might be able to feel with a millionaire who had lost all his money; on a smaller scale, it could happen to you. But here the best you could do was to sympathize with the innocent Vermeer itself. To
tell
Helen you were sorry only marked the distance between you and her. But “Thank you, my dear,” Helen answered. “I’m sure you mean it.”

Soon the service of lunch intervened, breaking up the knots of collectors and generally loosening tongues. Discussion of the predicament of the few spread to the many. The greatest puzzle, it was agreed, was how the hijackers could have learned what was in the collections. “
Attributed
to Titian,” they had said to Helen. Amazing. They were even up on the fact that she had arranged to give her Giorgione—pen-and-wash; unique—to the National Gallery. Most people thought it was hanging there on loan. That they knew about Johnnie’s sporting art was peculiar too, surely. Stubbs was a “name,” but how many hijackers had heard of Ben Marshall? Until a few minutes ago, Sophie had never heard of him herself. “Did you ask how they got their information?” The question was stupid; asking would have been a waste of breath. And not a word had been volunteered, naturally, that would give a clue. Jeroen, it seemed, had had lists in front of him which he consulted, leaving it up to the victim to affirm or deny. Poor Helen had begun by trying to disavow her Vermeer. “But it was all written down there—the size and the tiny restoration and the provenance.” A tear fell onto her paper plate. “She could see that he knew,” explained Henry.

“But what crime were you charged with?” interrupted Aileen. “I mean, specifically?” “Possession of art works ‘stolen’ from the people,” answered Johnnie with a short laugh. “What can you say to an arraignment like that? That you bought them or had them left to you? To this kangaroo court, that’s no defense. They shut you up by reading to you from the damn lists they’ve got—the evidence, as they see it. I must say, it’s uncanny, finding they have it all there in black and white. Shakes a fellow up, almost makes him feel guilty as charged. Especially if he tries to hold anything back. Just to give you an example, I thought they’d missed out on my Degas, and so naturally I didn’t call the oversight to their attention. Then damned if they didn’t come up with it. Accused me of lack of frankness.” Sophie nodded. It was cruel of them, she thought—a refinement of malice to let the collectors “prove” their guilt by denials and evasions and then face them with a full bill of particulars obtained from an unguessable quarter.