The Eighth Day (26 page)

“Have you caught any rats lately, Mr. Bristow?”

“No ma'am, but a friend of mine caught a big one in Lima a few months ago.”

“Mr. Tolland, do you know what the ‘rat list' is?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“What's this story about Lima, Mr. Bristow?”

“Just my bad luck, Mrs. Wickersham. He'd have come south soon. I've been watching out for him for two years. He was vice president of a Kansas City bank—blue eyes, round face, pink complexion, about forty years old. He'd run off with several hundred thousand dollars and a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“What's the cauliflower?”

“There'll be four or five thousand from the bank and as much from the girl's family. It was the carbuncle scars on the back of his neck that gave him away. My friend put some pills in his liquor and pulled his scarf off.—They found the Bishop.”

“What Bishop was that?”

“They found him in Alaska where he was cooking in a hotel. Happy as an eel in a pie—that's what they said. He'd always wanted to cook. His wife wouldn't pay the cauliflower. She didn't want him back. She already had a cook, she said.”

“How many names are on your list now?”

“Oh, hundreds, Mrs. Wickersham. Some of them go back thirty years. We're only interested in the big prizes. It keeps you on your toes. Like the man who kidnaped Mrs. Beecham in ninety-nine. He was thirty years old, then, and looked like Pete Dondrue, the jockey, they said.”

“Any marks?”

“Just a little peculiarity I can't mention here, Mrs. Wickersham.”

“Well, you keep your eyes open. You'll pick up some cauliflower yet.”

Mr. Bristow was at his happiest at the card tables, and would have won his twenty dollars nightly but for the fact that he played neither for money nor for victory, but to circumvent the rules of the game. Ashley left it to the others to expose his cheating. Caught, Mr. Bristow would merely laugh—“I wondered if you'd see that!” All faces turned toward Mrs. Wickersham, the “dragon,” who would have sent any other guest flying from the house.

“Oh, he's a rascal! I've known it for years. Play the game correctly, Mr. Bristow, or out you go!”

Mr. Bristow took a decided fancy to Ashley, who liked him in the guarded and flattered way we often do those invested with qualities opposite to our own.

Four days later Wellington Bristow left on a brief trip up in the hills. He hoped to pick up some chinchilla pelts. He looked forward to passing an evening with his old friend Dr. MacKenzie at Rocas Verdes. A departure is a pretext for a party and there was drinking and storytelling in the bar after Mrs. Wickersham had gone to bed. Ashley had never heard such storytelling. They were true stories—all of them had befallen Mr. Bristow in various parts of the world. For the first hour they had to do with narrow escapes from death. They turned on wonders and coincidences. He had escaped drowning and burning houses; he had been rescued in the nick of time from murder at the hands of brigands. Ashley was the sole listener, for the others had fallen asleep—the nitrate merchant, the botanist, and Mrs. Hobbes-Jones (author of
A Child's Asia, A Child's Africa
, and so on).

Finally, Mr. Bristow asked him in a low voice, “Have you ever been close to death, Mr. Tolland?”

“No,” said Ashley, “I can't say I have.”

Bristow then went on to stories of deaths he had witnessed that arrived opportunely, at some right moment—deaths that beautifully crowned an enterprise or averted disgrace, or that lifted an intolerable burden. His eyes glowed, he appeared younger.

“Every death is a right death. We did not choose the day of our birth; we may not choose the day of leavetaking. They are chosen.”

Ashley had given little thought to death. He listened absorbedly—as his children had listened to him tell stories about Little Ib's adventures at the North Pole and Little Susanna's Trip to the Moon—and, like his children, he fell asleep.

The next morning when Bristow was leaving the Fonda, Mrs. Wickersham stopped him at the door.

“What were you doing in Mr. Tolland's room yesterday afternoon, Mr. Bristow?”

“I? I?—I don't even know where his room is!”

“I asked you what you were doing in his room.”

“Oh, I remember. Was that Tolland's room? I just wanted to borrow some ink.”

“What did you take from his room?”

“Nothing.”

“I was told you were there twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes! I wasn't there a second.”

“I don't like my guests disturbed.—How many days will you be away?”

“Five days, six at the most.”

She turned away without saying goodbye. As soon as he was gone she called Tomás. “Did Mr. Bristow leave some luggage in the storeroom?”

“Yes, Padrona.”

“I want to be sure it's safe. Put it upstairs in my room.”

It was not the first time Mrs. Wickersham had gone through Mr. Bristow's luggage. She found a copy of the rat list. On the last page there was an entry underscored by a red crayon.

Mrs. Wickersham leaned long over this material. She closed her eyes, as though overcome by a great weariness. It was not the first time she had asked herself the question to which she could furnish several answers—“Why are good men stupider than bad men?” During that hour she erased from her memory and her heart a speech that she had been preparing. She laid it away as some girl—hearing that her future husband had been killed—would carry a wedding dress to the attic. The speech had been shaped and embellished by many rehearsals. She had intended delivering it that night, beside the jug of rum on the roof of her hotel.

“
Mr. Tolland, leave Rocas Verdes and come to Manantiales to work for me. Help me with the Fonda and with my interests in the town. You're a blessing to the schools and hospitals already. We don't know how we'll get on without you. Besides, with you I could do a great many things I haven't had the time or the wits to do by myself. The water from the Santa Catalina spring has extraordinary properties. We could bottle it and sell it by the trainload. In addition, we could build a great sanatorium. People should come and bathe here. Manantiales could be a small city of healing and happy industry.
”

The speech went on, even more swelling, more visionary, at each rehearsal.

“
Since I've been here we've taught more than a thousand children. They marry; they have children; they open stores and inns and stables throughout the whole province. They farm. But that's not enough. What we need is a school to prepare teachers. The mixture of Spanish and Indian blood makes a very fine stock. By themselves, the Indians are crushed, resigned and suspicious, but they have a keen psychological intelligence and a readiness to help one another. The colonials are active, but they are vain and non-cooperative. Both are at their best
—
when they're mixed
—
in this climate and at this altitude. Come, Mr Tolland, let us make a college, a medical school, and a city of healing. Let us build for the future when Manantiales will be an example and a model for all the provinces in Chile and in the Andes.
”

That was the speech she never delivered.

Presently she rose, replaced the rat list in Mr. Bristow's luggage, ordered her horse to be brought to the door, put on her black Spanish hat, and pinned a red rose on her lapel. She rode into town and was closeted for an hour with Dr. Martínez of the hospital. She directed him to order a coffin generously designed for a man five feet and eight inches tall, to be placed in the farthest hut reserved for contagious patients. She had shaken off her air of weariness. Something hard and resolute had come into her voice and manner. From the doctor's office she went to that of the Mother Directress. From there she caught a glimpse of Ashley and his crew at work on the new laundry, but she stayed out of his field of vision. She had nothing, for the present, to say to him. Sister Geronima began describing to her how Don Jaime was raising the level of the troughs, “so the girls won't have back aches. And, Padrona, he lowered the desks of the lace makers. He has such a feeling for the right height!” But Mrs. Wickersham cut these praises short and talked of more important matters.

At the Fonda the guests were informed that dinner would be delayed until nine-thirty. Mrs. Wickersham dressed with more than her usual care. She wore her opal earrings and a dress which few of her guests had seen before. It was white. She had worn it on the occasion when the President of her country had conferred a decoration upon her. She wore the decoration. Her close friends (but what close friends had she? They were dead; her daughter was in India) would have known that this uncalled-for “dressing-up” was a sign of dejection—her wearing the decoration pointed to despair. She directed Ashley to sit opposite her at the foot of the table, between a Finnish botanist and his wife. Her eyes rested on him from time to time as from a great distance. At dessert the guests were served Mr. Bristow's champagne. She gave her attention intermittently to an eminent German geographer at her right. The conversation about the table became more animated. Ashley and his Finnish friends were enjoying themselves.

“What are you young people talking about down there?” she called.

“Mrs. Wickersham,” said Ashley, “Dr. and Mrs. Tihonen have some splendid ideas for the trees we should plant all up and down the valley. They're going to give me a list and a map.”

The table fell silent at this sound of jubilation.

“Yes, yes,” cried the German geographer, clapping his hands. “There are few satisfactions greater than the planting of trees.”

The Tihonens clapped their hands. Everyone clapped except Mrs. Wickersham.

Dr. von Strelow continued: “It is the planting of crops that separates man from the animal. The animal does not know there is a future; he does not know that he will die. We die, but the orchard survives. The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children. Dr. Tihonen, come with us tomorrow and show us those groves and forests we shall never see.”

Again the table applauded.

“But, Mrs. Wickersham, you should do more than plant trees in this beautiful valley. You should found a city.”

“What?”

“Five miles down the valley—a new town. My life study, gracious lady, is to describe the conditions favorable to man—to his body, his mind, and his industry. You have very little rain here, but you have all these hot and cold springs. There can never be a large city here; your agriculture will be limited; but you have a perfect environment for things of the mind. I can see a university here and a crown of hospitals and medical schools and hotels. I can see a concert hall and a theatre. The people from the cities on the coast will come up here to renew the spirit. There—five miles down the valley. I will show you the place tomorrow. You have done admirable things here in Manantiales, Mrs. Wickersham. Now you must do still more remarkable things
there.
”

The guests raised their glasses and shouted.

“What shall we call this town of light and healing? I fear that Mrs. Wickersham is too modest to let us call it by her name. Let us call it Athens—
Atenas.
I will bequeath my library to the university.”

“I will give it my collection of the plants of the Andes,” Dr. Tihonen called.

“I will give five thousand dollars to it right now,” said the mining engineer at Mrs. Wickersham's left.

Throughout this rhapsody Mrs. Wickersham had been clutching the edge of the table with tense fingers. She rose and said, unsmilingly, “We shall have coffee in the club room, ladies and gentlemen.”

The coldness in her voice deflated the company's elation. They looked into one another's faces like children rebuked. She led the way from the room with head high and lowered eyes. When coffee was passed she said to Ashley, “I must see you on the roof at midnight. There is something I must tell you.” After some struggle with herself she addressed her guests:

“I want to thank Dr. von Strelow and Dr. Tihonen for the beautiful plans they have made for the valley. And I want to thank you all for the good will you've brought to them.”

She had something further to say, but could not complete her speech.

On the roof by the jug of rum, they were silent for a time. Ashley knew that there was something weighty in the air.

“Mr. Tolland, are you a man the police are hunting for?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you on Mr. Bristow's rat list?”

“I suppose I am. I've never seen it.”

“You feel fairly certain that you will not be caught?”

“No. I take the risk. I'd rather take the risk than spend my life running. I'm not running from myself. I'm innocent of the charge that was brought against me.”

“Mr. Tolland, have you missed anything from your room lately?”

“Well, the fact is, I'm certain that someone stole some photographs I valued.”

“Has anything else unusual happened that might be connected with that?”

“Yes, I was wondering whether I should tell you about it. A few nights ago in the club room someone put some kind of drug in my drink. I'm a very light sleeper, but that night—hours later—I was wakened by someone in my room. I could hardly drag myself awake. Someone was pulling my beard. There was a light on—a man was moving around, maybe two men. All I knew was that I was struggling to get this man's hand off my chin. The man—or the men—were laughing. You might say, giggling. I struck back at him, but there was no strength in my arm. Then they went away. At first I thought it had been a nightmare. I could scarcely get out of bed to light the lamp. It was no nightmare. The furniture had been pushed about.”