Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

“I’ve done my little bit, made my small contribution,” he would say as his eyes misted to the students of mixed gender.

“As Pearl, Pearl Buck, God rest her, said just before she passed on upstairs, “Christopher,” she said, ‘keep the flame.””

As he stared at the new students, some of whom had long since ripened, he wondered which of them, male or female, would become his bed mate for the summer.

“It is time to pass the torch,” Christopher whispered.

Rita Maldonado realized in less than two weeks that she had bought an ultimate con. Or she faced an ultimate reality about her writing. No one can teach writing sitting in a happy circle barbecuing each other’s writings. The criticism sessions could have killed a budding Shakespeare. Christopher drooled and dozed as his students had at it.

Rita was packing to leave when Quinn held up the brass knocker on the Jack London cabin. He was suddenly stricken with a notion that Rita might be in the middle of ... well, a scene.

He used the knocker and took a step backward.

Rita opened the door and squinted through the screen.

“I’ve come to see you,” he said.

The screen door squealed open, and he inched into the cabin. She was so beautiful he had to lower his eyes for fear of blushing. Rita took his hand to her lips and kissed the joint of one finger at least a dozen times. Then she reached behind him and slid the bolt.

Their foreheads came together gently. She began to tremble.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” Quinn said, “but I feel like .. . this here, now is the great beyond .. . and we’re floating . Rita, I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

She brought Quinn’s hand to her blouse and unbuttoned the top button with him, never taking her eyes from his, button by button.

“I love you, Rita.”

“Yes! Yes!”

She wore no bra.

“God, you’re beautiful. I’ve been a real fool.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m worried that—“ She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t worry.

Quinn, you’re never going to want to leave me.”

“I think you’re right,” Quinn said

“Shall we be lovers?”

“I want you so bad.”

“Bad or badly?”

“Both,” he said.

She turned from him and went to a big armchair. “Just enjoy,” she said, “I want to undress for you.” There wasn’t all that much to disrobe, jeans and panties. She did it deliberately, as she must have practiced the moment a hundred times in her fantasies.

Rita sat on the big arm of the chair and struck a pose, handed him her panties. Quinn rubbed it against his cheek, then tried to eat it, drink it, bite it.

The dinner gong sounded for those for whom the gong rang.

TROUBLESOME MESA—EARLY 1980s

Events, both sorrowful and joyous, befell Troublesome Mesa. Father Scan Logan, the gentle priest, passed away. He had never forgiven himself for his counseling an abortion for Quinn’s sweetheart; nor had he fully accepted the vows that imposed secrecy in the matter of Quinn’s biological parents.

Siobhan O’Connell, a church functionary with high midlevel contacts, began a quiet probe at Sean’s funeral about locating the mysterious Monsignor Gallico. It was fruitless. He had disappeared, leaving no footprints.

A few months later, Daniel O’Connell had another more devastating stroke that almost totally debilitated him.

A moment of unabashed bliss happened for the wedding of Quinn and Rita. Over three hundred people from all over the state gathered to celebrate. The wedding vows were performed at Dan’s bedside. Dan died shortly after with his wife holding one hand and his son holding the other.

So let it be. A bombastic wedding celebration and wake took place together with a party that Troublesome Mesa would never forget.

Quinn grieved for Dan in his long walk through the darkness. For all

their being at odds, for all the mistakes, he and his father had ended up on the same road. Quinn realized that he and his father had been cemented by the same sense of honor and love developed in the Marine Corps. No matter Dan’s flaws, these were overwhelmed by loyalty and honesty and courage.

After three months of intense mourning, Siobhan said, at the end of a meal one night, “We have to go on with life. I’m going to make an offer you can’t turn down. Why don’t you and Rita take a few months off just, just to follow your bliss? Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ll take care of everything.”

Their bliss led them to Venice. They arrived just a pinch before dawn and boarded the only gondola to be seen on the Grand Canal as a feeble sun arose, casting pastel glows mixed with foggy dew as in an Impressionist painting.

The honeymoon had been worth waiting for.

Glide, glide, glide skimmed the ornate boat; splish-splash whispered the gondolier’s rudder.

Under the little footbridges, click, click, click sounded the women’s heels.

The luring alleyways twisting and trapping as in a maze.

And not to forget the pigeons of San Marco Square.

Their corner suite of the Gritti Palace was mellowed by the smooth music of the Italian jazz saxophones and tapes of the San Remo Festival .. . and Pavarotti!

They did their initiation to Venice by making great love in a gondola. The rest of it was powerful, so powerful they seemed drugged and weary by daylight until the great blinds were opened and the sounds and light of that fairyland out there reached them.

At the end of a week, Quinn realized he had not thought of Greer Little since they arrived. Rita, him, Venice. A lifelong plan that absolutely thrilled him. Realizing he had not thought of Greer caused him to think about her. She was now locked away in a place in his memory. His desire for Rita was nearly crazy.

Yet, in the odd moments Rita seemed to stray. She could go from uncontrolled passion to a chilling, languid sadness.

It took six weeks for them to have their fill of Venice and find themselves flying back to America, starting to get homesick.

Once home, Rita dared her great challenge. The ranch and its divergent sounds, from bleating cattle to zooming pickup trucks and the general activity, threw her attempts to write off kilter.

She sought Quinn’s blessing and set up a studio at the Maldonado villa a half mile below. Her bedroom was huge, had a fireplace, and was isolated.

Rita put a small wardrobe for herself and Quinn down there. If she worked late, if he needed a break from the ranch, if they wanted to make mad love, the studio was perfect.

Now there was a commitment to write, but the plushest office is no guarantee for lush pages. Rita was alone with Rita, with nothing between her and her typewriter.

It was serenely quiet.

Mal was gone a good part of the time, sculpting or painting some gorgeous body. Jesus, Mal, all those rich married ladies who want their boobs aggrandized! Some of his clients were older ladies, not of the sturdiest stuff but defiant and flouting their sensuality.

Rita had seen a lifetime of her dad working them. Anyhow, he always seemed inspired, no matter their sag.

Mal settled into his studio down in Cuernavaca in order to give his daughter thinking space.

Quinn had some apprehensions about Rita’s studio. He did not want it to become the scene of her heartbreak. He traveled back and forth to Denver as a senator, or on ranch business or flying about the country to Democratic Party meetings. Ordinarily, he’d want Rita with him, but she was entitled to follow her own bliss and make her own life.