Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins - The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World

It is Ellen, of course, in uniform, with the wind up, color high in her cheeks, head reared a little so that the curve of her cheek narrows her eyes, which are icy-Lake-Geneva blue. It is hotter than ever, but a purple thunderhead towers behind her. Her uniform is crisp. The only sign of the heat is the sparkle of perspiration in the dark down of her lip.

“Come in come in come in.”

She’s all business and a-bustle, starch whistling as if she were paying a house call. When she sets down her bag, I notice her hands are trembling.

“What’s the matter?”

“Somebody shot at me,” she says, leafing nervously through the Gideon, unseeing.

“Where?”

“Coming past the church.”

“Maybe it was firecrackers.”

She slams the Bible shut “Why didn’t you answer the Anser-Phone?”

“I guess I turned it off.”

Ellen, still blinded by the sunlight, gazes uncertainly at the dim fogbanks rolling around the room. I guide her to the foot of the bed. I sit on the opposite bed.

“Chief, I think you better come back to the office.”

“Why?”

“Dr. Immelman found the box of lapsometers.”

“I know.”

“You know? How?”

“Moira told me she saw him.”

“Oh. Chief, he’s been handing them out to people.”

“What sort of people?”

“Some very strange people.”

“Yes, hm.” I am eyeing the dressing room nervously. Moira is stirring about but Ellen pays no attention.

“I heard him send one man to NASA, another to Boeing.”

“It sounds serious.”

“When the fight started, I left.”

“What fight?”

“Between Mr. Tennis and Mr. Ledbetter.”

“Is that Ted Tennis, Chico?” cries Moira, bursting out of the dressing room. “Oh hello there!” She smiles brilliantly at Ellen and strides about the room, hands thrust deep in the pockets of the blue linen long-shorts I bought for her. They fit. “These really fit, Chico,” she says, wheeling about.

Chico? Where did she get that? Then I remember. When we stayed in the small hotel with the wishing well in Merida, she called me Chico a couple of times.

“Yes. Ah, do you girls know each other?”

“Oh yes!”

“Yes indeed!”

Ellen then goes on talking to me as if Moira had not come in.

“And that’s not the worst, Chief.”

“It isn’t?”

Ellen and I are still sitting at the foot of separate beds. Moira stretches out behind me. Both girls are making me nervous.

“I heard him tell the same two men that five o’clock was the deadline.”

“Deadline?”

“I didn’t know what he meant either. When I asked him, he said that was the time when we’d know which way our great experiment would go. What did he mean by that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“He said you’d know. He said if worst came to worst, you had the means of protecting us and that you would know what he meant.”

“I see.”

“What do you suppose that means, Chico?” asks Moira, giving me a nudge in the back with her toe. I wish she wouldn’t do that. “Is that why we have to stay here?”

“Ahem, it may have something to do with that.”

“Give me a quarter.”

“O.K.,” I say absently.

Moira puts the quarter into the slot. The Slepe-Eze begins to vibrate under me. I jump up.

Ellen manages to ignore the vibrating bed.

“Chief, he said you would know what to look for at five o’clock.”

“Right,” I say eagerly. The prospect of a catastrophe is welcome. “Three things are possible: a guerrilla attack, a chain reaction, and a political disturbance at the speech-making.”

“Pshaw,” says Moira, gazing at the ceiling. “I don’t think anything is going to happen. Idle rumors.”

My eyes roll up. Never in her life has Moira said pshaw before — pronounced with a p . She read it somewhere.

“That was no rumor that took a shot at me,” says Ellen, looking at me blinkered as if I had said it. She hasn’t yet looked at Moira.

“I imagine not,” I say, frowning. I wish the mattress would stop vibrating. I find myself headed for the door. “I better take a look around. I’ll bring y’all a Dr. Pepper.”

“Wait, Chico.” Moira takes my hand. “I’ll go with you. Don’t forget you promised me a tour of the ruins, the ice-cream parlor, the convention room where all the salesmen used to glad-hand each other.” She swings around. “It’s been nice seeing you again, Miss Ah—”

“I’ll be running on,” says Ellen, reaching the door ahead of us.

“No, Ellen.” I take her arm. “I’m afraid you can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“I want to make sure the coast is clear.”

“Very well, Chief.”

To my surprise, Ellen shrugs and perches herself — on the still-humming bed!

“You want to come with us?”

“No no. You kids run along. I’ll hold the fort. I see you have food. I’ll fix some sandwiches while you’re gone.”

“Let me show you where everything is, honey,” says Moira. The two huddle over the picnic basket.

Oh, they’re grand girls, though. Whew. What a relief to see them get along! There’s no sight more reassuring than two women working over food. Women needn’t be catty! Perhaps we three could be happy here.

“We’ll be back, Ellen!” cries Moira, yanking me after her. “If things get slow, there’s always the Gideon.”

Now why did she have to say that?

“You mean you didn’t bring your manual from Love?” laughs Ellen, waving us on our way.

“Ha ha, very good, girls,” I say, laughing immoderately. They are great girls, though. Whew. A relief nevertheless to close the door between the two of them and be on our way.

Moira was never more loving or lovable. By turns playful, affectionate, mournful, prattling, hushed, she darts ahead like a honeybee tasting the modest delights of this modest ruin.

“Do you think there’s any danger, Chico?” she calls back.

“I doubt if there’s anyone around.”

“What about Ellen’s sniper?”

“Well—”

“She spooks easy, huh?”

“No. On the contrary.”

“Do you like her?”

“She’s a fine nurse.”

“But do you like her?”

“Like?”

“Or as you say, fancy.”

“No. I fancy you.”

We’re behind the registration desk reading the names of long-departed guests, not salesmen, I notice, but families, mom and pop and the kids bound for the Gulf Coast or the Smokies or Seven Flags.

Now we’re under the moldering Rotary banner in the dark banquet room arm in arm and as silent as we were last summer at Ghost Town, U.S.A. Moira reads the banner.

Is it the Truth?

Is it fair to all concerned?

I squeeze her pliant belted rough-linened waist. The linen reminds me of Doris. Was that why I got it?

“Let’s stay here a while.” I draw her behind the banner. What an odd thing to be forty-five and in love and with exactly the same pang of longing in the heart as at age sixteen.

Moira laughs. “Let’s go get a Dr. Pepper.”

In the arcade, dim and cool as a catacomb, she skips along the bank of vending machines pulling Baby Ruth levers. Pausing in her ballet, she stoops and mock-drinks at a rusted-out watercooler.

I stoop over her, covering her, wondering why God gave man such an ache in his heart.

“You’re a lovely girl,” I say.

CoooooorangEEEEEEEE. The cinderblock at my ear explodes and goes singing off down the arcade. It seems I am blinking and looking at the gouge in the block and feeling my cheek, which has been stung by twenty mosquitoes.

CooooooRUNK. The block doesn’t sing. But I notice that a hole has appeared in the lip of the basin where the metal is bent double in a flange. I fall down on Moira, jamming her into the space between the cooler and ice machine.