John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Mother is sitting on the bed, staring out into the air shaft, the letter lying folded beside her.

“They’ve killed him,” she says wearily, not turning to look at Jessie. “They’ve killed my son.”

“He’s gone,” says the messenger. “We need you now.”

Alexander must have had a similar moment, ungirded in his tent at the news of his father’s murder, or Marcus Antonius on the stabbing of Caesar, even poor hapless Andrew Johnson when word sped back from Ford’s Theatre. Some are born Great, but others—

But there is no time for reflection when a nation has been orphaned. The coach awaits below, the steeds restless in their traces as if they sense the urgency of their mission. The jehu flicks his persuader and they are off, careening pellmell through the labyrinthine passages of Greenwich Village, citizens clustered on each corner reacting to the announcement with shock and mourning. The tidings had been so propitious at first, medical experts present at the calamity, speedy intervention, clear sailing expected for the President. Then the first grudging qualifications — the bullet left imbedded, the rise in temperature, the threat of dreaded infection. But this — this was not to be imagined, it was unthinkable that he, of all men, should be hoisted so precipitously to the summit, that his hand should rest upon the tiller of the Ship of State—

“What will you say?” asks the messenger. The boy is pale, goose-necked, sweating, no doubt unnerved to play even a supporting role in history’s great drama.

“Words are of minor importance in times like these,” he replies. “What is paramount now is a display of strength and continuity, a reassurance that though their beloved captain has passed, we are not without rudder in the storm.”

The messenger looks out the window of the coach. “There’s going to be a storm?”

They considered him a joke at first, no better than fifth business. A buck-toothed little runt, an asthmatic four-eyes with a grating voice, the sort who came on after the sword-swallower or the skating chimpanzee. A meddler and a blue-nose, an overgrown boy playing with his toy boats in the bathtub. And then Cuba and his crowded hour and the public reassessed him. There was laughter still, yes, but with a tinge of respect. What will the little man do next?

On to the White House — but as an appendage. Second billing, a court jester employed to fill out the bill for the veterans and the crowd in the cheap seats, or worse, a “chaser,” meant to aid the ushers in clearing the auditorium. But he bore it with fortitude, as a man must, taking the national stage with the same brio that had made him a byword in New York. The campaign hat was somewhat battered, true, the uniform no longer à la mode , but they still cheered him in the hinterlands, some wag inevitably shouting “Take that blockhouse!” from the throng and the merriment that ensued was fond enough. That alone would have been career enough for some men, but to scale the heights yet never stand at the pinnacle—

The coach jolts to a stop and the doors are thrown open. Attendants are waiting, hustling him into the building, husky bodies shielding him from solace-seeking eyes.

There is a full house out front, he can sense it. Keith himself is waiting in the wings.

“The uniform!” the theater magnate exclaims, panic tightening his voice. “You’re not wearing the uniform!”

“The moment demands a statesman,” he demurs, “not a warrior.”

“One minute!” hisses the wizened caliph of the curtain. “Get him out there!”

As he steps out to his platform in the dark, as he has done so many times before, Goldoni is onstage massaging his tonsils. But tonight is different. Tonight is Destiny—

God of our fathers, known of old—

— sings Goldoni—

Lord of our far-flung battle line—

— singing with his hand over his heart, facing a bier with a coffin draped in the Flag upon it, a diapositive of the martyred McKinley’s profile shining on the flat behind him—

Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Behind, in the dark, he pulls the spectacles, clear glass, out from his vest pocket and adjusts them on his nose. The moustache, affixed with spirit gum in the early years, has grown with the man. And now for the role of a lifetime—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet

Lest we forget — lest we forget!

— Goldoni finishes and there is muted applause, sniffling from the stricken multitude.

“And so,” the tenor intones to the fervent throng, their yearning almost palpable, “we bid adieu to our trusted steward, our stalwart in peace and in war. O where, where shall we find a man to replace him?”

And then the spotlight rises on a stoic five feet and two inches of muscular Christianity, eyes fixed on glory—

Teethadore Resplendent.

And some , he thinks as the applause spreads like his lock-jawed grin, first one, then a dozen, then the entire house rising to their feet in thunderous ovation, some have Greatness thrust upon them .

They don’t have a shovel. Royal hacks and jabs at the rocky soil with a rusted bayonet, then tosses what comes loose out with his hands. The fever has passed but he is running with sweat and finally Bayani, the one who does most of the bossing, gets disgusted and jumps down with him, digging with his own knife. One of the rebels, who had been falling a lot as they climbed, didn’t wake up this morning. A couple of the other men are laid out and moaning, Royal surprised that they get just as sick as imported troops do.

When the hole is deep enough, about the size of a small bathtub, Bayani taps him and Royal crawls out, his hands bleeding. At first he just sits out of the way as they lay the body down, but then when the leader of the rebels, who speaks English and says to call him Teniente, starts to say what sounds like religion over it he stands to be respectful. One of them, the one with the beak of a nose, is crying as he holds his hat over his heart and looks down at his dead friend. There is some praying of the men together and then most of them help Royal cover the body with dirt and rocks. Somebody has made a cross from bolo-cut branches bound with a piece of harness and it takes a while to get it to stand straight. When they buried Junior in Las Ciegas, Kid Mabley played his bugle after, but these people are afraid to make noise.

“These mountains are full of danger,” says the Teniente, sitting beside Royal as he washes his hands clean. They’ve made a camp in a little bowl on the side of the mountain, a place where rainwater pools up and there are some trees high enough for shade. The Teniente won’t leave off him with the “ colored American soldier ” business, how he should be on their side against the white folks. But there’s nobody else he can understand, and the more they know you the harder you are to shoot.

“There are the Igorot who will cut off your head and maybe eat you after, and the Negrito , who are of your color but very small and will kill you with a dart that they blow from a tube, and a group of very religious people, the Guardians of the Virgin, santones , who you cannot predict what they will do. That is if you are not stung by a viper or die of hunger before they find you.”

Royal has no thoughts of trying to escape. The fever has passed and the rebels have very little to carry and he has no idea where he is. Nilda is still with them, helping to gather firewood and to cook when that is possible.

“It is dangerous even for us.”