Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

“You son of a bitch,” she snapped.

“That’s more like Greer.”

“You son of a bitch. If I had opened a single letter from you—if I had seen you in New York—Quinn, I opted not to spend my life baking cookies for the St. Patrick’s Day church supper. I’ve done what I set out to do.”

“Why are you so fucking happy, then?”

“I don’t know what happiness is supposed to mean. I love the money, I crave the power, I adore my Fifth Avenue apartment, I sweep in to chauffeured limos. But I don’t know what happy is. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“What is it you don’t know?”

“It ain’t your body that’s in my bed anymore, man, and I pay that bill every day of my life.”

It was getting to be vintage Quinn vs. Greer. Did they adore it or what?

“Did you nail Crowder?” Quinn asked.

“To the cross,” she answered. “He never had a chance. Nor could he dust me off like I was one of his bimbos.”

“Warren Crowder’s moll.”

A God In Ruins

“The one who came to stay, and let me tell you, buddy, he...

“Why, he’s just like a wee little hapless puppy if you peel back that veneer of crusted tycoon. He’s a little lost soul when he hasn’t gobbled up a competitor, closed down a factory. He’s destroyed and pained when the government doesn’t let him pull an end run around a monopoly.”

“He’s no puppy,” Greer said bluntly, “but neither is he some sort of latter-day phenomenon. He was in a toga in Roman times and led a Mongol horde across the steppes. Power men like Warren have been running the show since the beginning of time.”

A God In Ruins

“The two of you must set off volcanos.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right.”

“And you’ve got control of the monster.”

“I see a future in it.”

“Well, drop by again if you’re in the neighborhood.”

The bell gonged, and he went to his corner and she to hers, and they snarled across the ring at each other.

“It still hurts, baby,” he rasped at last.

“It still hurts,” she whispered. “Quinn, I flew here to talk over another matter with you. It’s about your father.”

Quinn reacted as she knew he would, in tight-lipped, tight jawed, teeth-clenched confusion.

“It’s been five years since you contacted them. Isn’t enough enough?”

“This is weird,” he answered, “Greer speaking on behalf of Dan O’Connell.”

“You haven’t been out of their sight. They read every letter you’ve sent Rita and Mal. They have spent enough tears to re star the universe. When you joined the Corps, I was a basket case. Dan came to New York and pleaded for me to give him forgiveness. He was wasted over the abortion. I forgave him. See? I’m not as stubborn as you. I forgave him.”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” Quinn said.

“Well, you’re in no condition now to impose your wishes, so you’re going to listen. Dan knew that you and I would never end up together, but he was extremely kind. He and your mother insisted on watching over my well-being, as though I was their child. I forgave him and, later, I accepted help. I went to a number of shrinks, but they all turned out to be mind fuckers. It was your dad, Dan O’Connell, who taught Greer to return to being Greer, and that I had to continue playing Greer’s game in life. The man grieves for you with a passion of kings. If there is such a thing as redemption, they have redeemed themselves.”

Quinn turned the wheels of his chair in a sightless circle, stood, and fished for the door.

“Let go of your rage, Quinn! God has punished them enough! Stop this goddamned silence of the Irish! Stop this goddamned Eugene O’Neill play!”

Quinn was unable to speak coherently under a deluge of bursting floodgates. She eased him back into the wheelchair. He attempted to stuff his agony back inside him.

“Quinn,” she said softly, “Dan has had a stroke. He needs you, buddy.”

“Oh, God!” Quinn cried and stuttered and mumbled, more tears coming under his bandaged eyes. Greer attended him until his trembling subsided.

“How bad’s Dan?”

“Half and half. It’s certainly not a full recovery, but he isn’t crippled. He has some trouble walking and talking. The pain is in his chest, just as it was in mine and yours.”

“Mom?”

“She’s also devastated by her sin to her church. And you are the only son she’ll ever have.”

They sat silently for ever so long until day turned to evening. “I have to go now,” she said. “Can I tell your parents to be expecting your call?”

(f\r 7)

Yes.

“And thus closes another chapter in the splendid adventure of Quinn and Greer,” she said.

“Baby .. .” he pleaded, “just once.”

“Please don’t ask me,” she cried.

“Baby .. . baby .. .”

Greer lifted her skirt and straddled his lap, facing him. He lifted her top. He knew she would wear her clothes that way. Those little breasts were just the same. One kiss, two. “Baby .. . baby ... go now,” he said.

Quinn O’Connell was empty, but filled. The anger was gone. So was the affair with Greer.

There were people who loved him fiercely, and he could love them again.

Yet can finality truly be final even so? There still lingered the

haunting of his birth mother’s name—and his father. Would this bloody nagging ever come to a close? He was beginning a process which might allow him to spend the rest of his life with the mystery. In doing so, then perhaps he could allow Dan and Siobhan to come in closer and for him to give what was due them.

He sensed the nurse entering to wheel him back to his room, then asked her if she would write a letter for him.

Wanting to be near Quinn as much as she could, Mandy took the letter, which was written to Mal. It didn’t reveal anything of the raid, because he’d have to remain silent until the presidential press conference.

And how was Rita? No lack of letters from her. Every year brought new batches of photographs. How old was she now? Twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. Every photograph lingered in his wallet until it was eventually replaced by a newer one. She was magnificent. Her letters to him were powerful in what was left unsaid.

Later, Dr. Llewellyn Comfort came with a small platoon of lesser physicians and interns trailing behind him. He nodded to Mandy to remove the bandage, and he hummed an unintelligible aria as she did his bidding.

The room was darkened as she rinsed his eyes with a solution that set them free. Quinn squinted, then saw a half dozen smiling faces arrayed behind Dr. Comfort.

“Bravo,” said one doctor.

“Lovely, lovely, lovely,” agreed Comfort.

Mandy was faint with Quinn’s beauty and power. She realized it was the end of her unrequited love, because he’d see her in daylight soon.

“So, that’s what you look like, doctor,” Quinn said. “Hi, Mandy.”

The doctor examined him, happy with the results.

“I like a man who loves his own handiwork,” Quinn said. “Can I have a look?”

Not much more than a thin line of the path of the shrapnel and a small mark where it had made its exit. “A dueling scar,” Quinn said, allowing his fright to bubble out of him.