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

“The important thing is the breakthrough,” Stryker tells me. “The quantifying can come later.”

“Go go go, keeds!” cries Helga, recovering the microphone and waltzing about in one place.

“Don’t fret, Kev.” Stryker tries to soothe the distraught chaplain. “We’ll have the film and there’ll be more sessions to collect data.”

“Tch!” The chaplain stamps his foot and rends his Commonweal . “I wish somebody would tell me why we’re paying these people!”

But Stryker is standing beside Helga, the two of them suddenly quiet as they watch the lovers.

“Wow,” says Stryker, lips parted.

“And how,” says Helga.

They look at each other.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asks Stryker, touching Helga’s elbow.

“The chicken room?” asks Helga softly, her eyes radiant. She pronounces it zhicken .

Linking arms, they disappear through the doorway of the Observer Stimulation Overflow Area.

But wait! That’s where the cello is!

It’s too late. The door closes. Father Kev Kevin and I watch in dismay.

“I have to get a cello out of there,” I tell the chaplain for lack of anything better to say.

“What are we going to do?” asks the chaplain frantically, wringing his hands, starting now for his console, now for the chicken room. He is sweating profusely.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to get that cello.”

“Oh dear!” cries Father Kev Kevin. “If there was ever an existential decision—! Kenneth, how could you!” He groans aloud and, thrusting me aside, disappears into the cubicle.

After a moment of indecision, I rush after him.

Despite the urgency, I find myself knocking politely at the door. No response. Try the knob. It is unlocked. Hm, nothing for it but to slip in, find the cello, and slip out with as little fuss as possible.

I do so, trying as best I can to pretend nothing is out of the way, but the cello is propped in the far corner and I have to bend over the cot to reach it.

“Pardon,” I murmur, eyes rolled up into eyebrows.

But there is no not seeing a large rosy buttock. Stryker is at Helga, Father Kev Kevin is at Stryker, but Helga is also patting the chaplain as if to reassure him lest he feel unwanted. The three embrace like lost children trying to keep warm.

The encased cello is as bulky as a sarcophagus. There is no purchase on it and there is the devil’s own time getting it over and across the populous cot without knocking the occupants.

“Pardon.”

Puffing and straining, I make it at last. Whew!

I rush through the observation room without bothering to look at the volunteer lovers. Wheels whir, pointers quiver, unattended.

Now to find Moira’s room, her Cupid’s Quiver and underwear, and I’m on my way!

It’s raining again when I return to the motel. No sign of Ely, the Bantu home guard. I store the cello in the Rotary dining room and go up through the bathroom window.

In my absence Moira has taken a shower and looks lovely, but she and Lola have fallen out. In their quarrel they hardly take notice of my return. Lola hardly acknowledges the news that her cello is safe and sound.

Ellen brings me a Spam sandwich and a glass of bitter hose water. Noticing her, Lola fixes me a gin fizz. I decide to drink the gin fizz before eating.

“Don’t think I don’t know what goes on in that so-called Love Clinic,” Lola is saying with an ironic smile.

“And what might that be?” asks Moira.

Both women are smiling and speaking to Ellen but really through Ellen to each other. They have reached that stage of a quarrel where both still smile but neither can stand the sight of the other.

“Everybody knows about the atheistic psychologists who encourage immorality under the guise of research,” Lola tells Moira through Ellen.

Moira is sitting cross-legged on the bed, doing her nails. She looks like a sorority girl. “At least there is no hypocrisy, which is more than I can say about the goings on in the so-called country-club set.”

“Such as?”

Now they’re looking at me!

“Well well, girls,” I tell them. “You’ll be glad to hear I brought everything you sent me for.”

“Such as what goes on at night on the golfing greens and the skinny-dipping in the pool,” Moira tells me with a wink.

“Sounds like someone’s been reading girlie magazines, Tom,” says Lola, to me.

“Yes. Well, to tell the truth”—I sip the gin fizz and close my eyes with every appearance of exhaustion—“you must excuse me. I can’t concentrate on such matters. I’m afraid the situation outside has deteriorated badly.” I relate the events of my excursion to the Center, omitting only some of the occurrences in Love. Disaster has its uses. “We may be here longer than you think. I’m afraid we’re in for a long evening.”

“How’s that, Chief?” asks Ellen seriously. She pulls up a chair and absently plucks beggar’s lice from my pants’ leg.

“If there is going to be a major outbreak of violence, it will occur, I calculate, sometime this evening. I suggest that we all take a nap and prepare for what might be a bad night.”

The grave news only partly mollifies Lola and Moira. Lola cants her pelvis and smolders, color high in her cheeks. Moira lies back on the bed, tucks her lip secretly, and holds up one pretty leg with both hands.

Ellen clears her throat and beckons me into the dressing room. “Chief, eat your sandwich!” she scolds and, as soon as we’re inside, whispers: “You better do something about that pair.”

“Yes,” I say, noticing that Ellen is enjoying herself for the first time.

“Do you know what they did while you were gone?” she asks, scraping more beggar’s lice from my sleeve. “They almost started scratching each other. I actually had to stand between them. They refused to stay in the same room, so what I did was fix up two other rooms. I had to! One’s in 204 and the other in 205. I found some sheets and some Gulf spray, so we sprayed the mattresses and made them up.”

“Then why are they back here?”

“Getting pillow cases!” Ellen nudges me. Her tone is the same she uses when she describes the antics of patients.

After a careful reconnoiter of the balcony, I tell the girls: “The coast is clear. Here’s what we’ll do. It’s cool now, so everyone can go to his or her room and take a nap. I’ll stand guard. Ellen, you keep this room.”

“And where might his room be?” Lola asks The Laughing Cavalier.

“Don’t worry, there are plenty of vacancies!” I say heartily.

“Then would you mind getting my cello?” asks Lola without looking at me.

“And I’ll take my sachet,” says Moira, stretching and yawning.

“Of course!” I say, laughing. Why am I laughing?

I take Moira and Lola to their rooms. The coast is clear. Ellen is agitated when I return. She paces the carpet.

“I didn’t tell you that I talked to Aunt Ellie — the last message before the Anser-Phone broke down and the operator left for Mississippi.”

“A fine woman, Miss Ellie.”

Miss Ellie Oglethorpe, who raised Ellen, is a fine woman. She looks like a buxom President Wilson with her horse face, pince-nez, and large bosom. A virtuous and hard-working woman, she supported herself as town librarian, raised and educated Ellen, and still sends money to the African mission where Ellen’s parents were killed by Nigerian tribesmen.

“She doesn’t want me to stay out here alone, Chief.”

“You’re not alone.”

“If I don’t come back tonight, she wants to come out here.”