Ричард Стерн - The Tower

The governor’s smile was sad. “You’re never there” he said. “There’s always something just over the next hill, and the next. And when you reach it, it has changed too.” He spread his hands in a gesture of dissolution. “What looked so bright and shiny from a distance up close is just sunlight on smoke.”

“And so you wonder,” the senator said, “just when you’re going to make the final step that puts you where you’ve always wanted to be so you can relax and enjoy it and know that you’ve fought the good fight, done the job well, earned your rest’ and your place in the sun, lived out whatever crappy platitude you choose.” He shook his head. “The answer is—never. That’s why they don’t retire, those old men in Washington and other places. They keep hoping that the time is going to come when they’ve done it all and they can rest content. And it isn’t going to come ever, but you don’t realize that until you face something like—this. And then suddenly you wonder why you ran so hard all your life, chasing something that never existed. Don Quixote, Galahad chasing the Grail—it’s so damn futile!”

“But fun,” the governor said. “Admit that, Jake. You’ve had just a hell of a time outsmarting, outarguing, outstaying the rascals who got in your way. Would you change it?”

“Probably not. And that’s the stupidest part of all. We don’t even learn.”

The governor leaned back in his chair and laughed. “What’s so damn funny?”

“Your lament,” the governor said. “It tucks its tail in its mouth and rolls like a hoop. Of course you’d do it all the same way. Because you’re you, Jake Peters, sui generis . You fought and scrambled and bit, yes, and butted in the clinches when it was necessary—as I did—and you enjoyed every minute of it, wins, losses, and draws. You’ve been your own man, and how many can say that?”

“He wrote fiction in college,” the senator said to Beth. “Bad fiction.”

“And,” the governor said, “you have the gall to admit that you enjoyed it all, but still find it futile? What more can a man ask than to be able to look back and say it was fun?” The governor paused. “You’ve probably left some things undone. We all have. But when you leave the restaurant filled to the brim with a good meal, do you spend your time regretting that you couldn’t eat everything?”

“That,” the senator said to Beth, “has always been his special touch: the homely analogy.” He stood up. “As a philosopher, Bent,” he said looking down at the governor, “you’re no Santayana, but you may have made I a point or two worth considering. I’ll ponder them outside.” He paused in the doorway to flip his hand in a vague gesture. “By the way, number twenty-one just went off.” He spoke directly to Beth. “It was the naked chick. She thought—”

“I’m number forty-nine,” Beth said, and made herself smile.

The senator hesitated, and then waved again as he walked out.

“And that,” the governor said, “leaves us alone again , for a moment at least. He smiled up at Beth. “So pensive?”

“All the things you said to him,” Beth said slowly, I “could apply as well to you, couldn’t they?”

“Probably.” The governor smiled again. “But the difference is that when you say them-to yourself, you don’t necessarily believe them.”

“I think I understand, Bent.” She was smiling too. “I hope I do.”

“There have been times,” the governor said, “when I have done things I am not particularly proud of, or allowed them to be done, which is the same thing, in order to achieve an end I thought worth the compromise. I know I am capable of deluding myself—at least temporarily. I think everyone is, and some not temporarily.”

“I think you are a good man, Bent, in the best sense of the word.”

“Thank you.”

“I think you are a better, stronger man even than you believe. You are the one they come to. You are the one they listen to.”

“Easy on that buildup, even if I love it.”

Beth shook her head. “He said it, the senator. He said ‘until you face something like this’ you keep on—fooling yourself.” She paused. “I am not fooling myself any longer. I hate what’s happening. I don’t want to die.” The governor took her hand. “Fair enough,” he said. He was smiling gently. “Now tell me: what number did you draw? Was it twenty-one?”

To the west the sky had darkened and evening thunder-heads were beginning to build. Giddings stood in the doorway of the trailer, watching. “A cloudburst now,” he said. He looked over his shoulder at Brown, and shrugged. “A miracle? The Red Sea rolling back?” He shook his head and wiped the back of his hand wearily across his forehead. It left a black smear.

One by one Chief Oliver had called down the names of those safely across, and Patty had found them on the listings and checked them off.

Now, “This one,” the chief’s voice said on the walkie-talkie “doesn’t know who she is, and I sure as hell don’t.” Nat said, “Doesn’t she have identification in her purse?”

“Purse?” The chiefs voice was a roar. “She doesn’t even have any clothes on!” Then more gently in an aside. “All right, sister, it’s all over now. You go with these cops. They’ll take care of you.” And to the trailer again. “We’ll get you a name somehow.” The walkie-talkie was silent.

Patty said, “Whoever she is, she’s number twenty-one.’ She smiled up at Nat. “Thanks to you.”

Nat pushed himself away from the desk suddenly and walked to the doorway to look up at the tops of the great buildings. Squinting, he could make out the breeches buoy, filled again, on its catenary journey down to the Trade Center roof.

Inside the Tower Room, he knew, three or four men would be cautiously paying out the guiding line lest the canvas bag careen madly down the slope, frightening its passenger even more than it now did, perhaps even throwing one clear to fall screaming the quarter of a mile to the plaza. Idly he wondered who was in the breeches buoy on this trip.

He turned and walked back’ inside to stand again near Patty. “How long do we have?” he said. “That’s the question. How many are we going to have time to get out?”

“Maybe all of them,” Patty said. She paused. “I hope.’ She paused again, studying Nat’s face. “You don’t think so?”

Nat shook his head in silence. He said at last, “I wish I knew what was happening. Up there in the Tower Room.” He gestured suddenly. “Inside the core of the building. When it’s all over, we’ll study what’s left, and we’ll try to figure out just what happened.” He shook his head again. “But that is no substitute for knowing at the time. That’s why they put automatic recorders in commercial airplanes. If there’s a crash and the recorder survives, it shows exactly what certain flight conditions were right up to the moment of impact.” He paused contemplatively. “Maybe the computer control ought to be located well outside the building for the same reason.’ Something to think about. He was silent, thinking about it.

Patty watched and listened, the here-and-now part of herself smiling inside. Daddy had never been very far away from his work either; she doubted that the good ones ever were. She said nothing lest she interrupt Nat’s train of thought.

“This—mess,” he said at last, “is going to change a lot of thinking. We’ve gone on blithely assuming that tolerances, mistakes would automatically cancel themselves out. This time they haven’t. They’ve compounded themselves instead, and this is the result.” He paused. “Think of the Titanic”