The Man Who Was Left Behind Page 6

  He ordered another drink and was just taking the first sip when he heard a ticking sound. The man seated next to him had an elbow on the bar, propping his head up in the cup of his hand while he talked to his neighbour on the other side. The ticking came from his wristwatch. That was it, Mr. Mackenzie remembered, and pulled his own watch from his pocket and set it from the other watch at quarter to seven. In an hour he would get up and go home to eat the dinner he was supposed to have had at noon. Remember that, he told himself, one hour from now.

  He read on. Out of the snow, into lush fields green and gold, asking directions, allying themselves with this man and that. The treachery, the betrayals, the discussions. The sea, the sea, they all shouted, and beyond the sea, home. But more treachery and more betrayals and corruption over money matters and Xenophon losing his grip, having to call meetings, saying he’d give up the command if anyone could prove he’d been at fault.

  It was really a pretty good book, he thought. When he’d first read it, a long time ago and in Greek, he hadn’t liked it. He’d thought it wholly lacking in psychological interest, not to be compared with Thucydides or Herodotus or even Arrian, and unstylish, just plonk-plonk-plonk we did this and we did that and so-and-so said such-and-such to which Xenophon replied as follows; worse than Caesar. But now he liked it, he was even really reading parts of it and it was easy to understand, simple, only told you the important things: where they were, what was happening, where they were going, how many people were killed, what they had to eat, how many horses were left. Just the plain truth. He thought it a model book and was about to read on when he noticed how thin it was getting at the end—he was near the end and wouldn’t have anything left to read late that night. Just this one more paragraph, he told himself, and I’ll go back to the room and be there in time and Bessie will be pleased that I remembered. He finished off his drink and read.

  A man stood up from the group and said he had a gripe against Xenophon because when the army was all lost in the snow, Xenophon slapped him.

  That’s a nice touch, Mr. Mackenzie thought. The anonymous man throughout history. Empires fail and governments are overthrown, dark ages come and new learning springs up and there are always these men who can say with pride: I held Napoleon’s horse, General Washington hired a boat from me, I delivered a message for Lord Byron, Xenophon slapped me.

  He closed the book and put it back in his pocket, looking forward to reading Xenophon’s explanation and justification of his conduct. He walked out into the street and thought he must be drunker than he had imagined, for the wind blew him against the wall and he had to put up his hands against it to keep from falling over while he coughed.

  He was still coughing, but not badly, when he opened the door. He took off his coat and hung it on the peg in the hall. Bessie came out of the kitchen.

  “You see? I remembered,” he said.

  “Remembered what?”

  “I said I’d come home for dinner and here I am.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Where was you at four o’clock?”

  “Four o’clock?”

  “Dr. Hildron called up here. You never been there.”

  “I knew there was something else. I forgot.”

  “He say he coming round tomorrow morning and you be here.” She had a spoon in her hand and shook it at him.

  When he’d finished eating and put his plate on the sideboard, she came in with coffee, saw the plate, and put it back in front of him.

  “The doctor says he see you last week and why don’t I feed you right. You eat that up.”

  “I’m full. Don’t fuss, Bessie.”

  “I do all that cooking just for you and you don’t eat half of it.”

  “All right.” He ate some more, drank his coffee, took another bite, and spread around what was left to make it look smaller.

  “I believe I’ll get to bed early tonight,” he said, and saw she was glad that he wouldn’t be going out. He took the book from his coat pocket, calling out a goodnight to her, and prepared for sleep. When he was ready to get into bed he noticed that she’d taken all the ashtrays out of the room. Did Hildron tell her to do that? He went into the bathroom and found a box of cough drops. The box was metal, so he tipped the contents out and brought it back and set it on the night table.

  He smoked in bed and read the rest of the book. When he was through with it he smoked for a while longer, listening to the wind outside. Cold. It would be months before the tree in the park regained its tropical look. He thought, maybe I should go away. Everyone kept telling him that. And he had enough money to go anywhere. But somehow he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to be where he was, either, and now that Jumbo and Elmie and Spats were moving on—he thought of the long winter, walking in the cold, not wanting to be inside any one place for too long a time, and the park having to wait for spring to bring back the allusion to Mexico.

  He turned off the bedside light and lay in darkness, breathing hard and thinking about the cold.

  When he woke up it was freezing. It was snowing. And someone was carrying him, walking through the snow. He wondered what could be happening. Then he opened his eyes and saw the other men, soldiers walking. They had their feet wrapped in hides and he remembered the terrible trouble they had with them because in the cold sometimes the torn soles of their feet would freeze to the leather skins and rip off pieces of their flesh. Then he saw riders and noticed the leather bags tied around the horses’ hooves to prevent them from sinking into the snow. Someone passed on horseback and said an encouraging word to the man who was carrying him. The wet snow beat into Mr. Mackenzie’s face and he closed his eyes again. He felt himself being let down to the ground on to the snow, so cold that it burned and made him open his eyes. The man who had been carrying him was doing something. Digging a grave, Mr. Mackenzie realized. That’s what he’s doing, he’s digging my grave. Another man walked to where he was lying. He heard the steps vague and swallowed in the flying snow and heard a voice, saying, “What do you think you’re doing? That man’s not dead yet. Pick him up.”

  The one who had been carrying him said, “I don’t care if he’s dead or alive, I’m not dragging him one more step.”

  Then Mr. Mackenzie heard it: the slap. And he saw Xenophon bending over him. The other man said, “Well, he’s dead now,” and Mr. Mackenzie wanted to say he wasn’t, but he couldn’t speak or move. The soldier dropped him down into the grave and piled earth over him and then heaped snow on top of that. The earth was cold but the snow felt warm, like a blanket, and he thought, they’re going to leave me behind, I must get out. He tried to move, to scrape away the earth and snow, but his hands moved so slowly. One of those terrible feelings, his wish to get out moving quickly quickly through him and his hands going so slowly. The way it sometimes happens in dreams. But this couldn’t be a dream because he could feel everything. He could feel the snow and how cold the earth was, burrowing through it.

  And then he was out.

  He looked around and it was spring, the snow was melting, and down in the plain the brown was turning to green. They had left him behind, thinking that he was dead. He stood up. Away to the north stretched the great plain with its fields and villages, the hills beyond, and beyond that the sea and home. From somewhere in the sky at a great distance he thought he could distinguish a voice. Oh Mr. Mackenzie, sir, what happened? Oh my Lord, Lord. Don’t move, don’t you move. I’m sending for the doctor.

  Let me see, he thought, this is sometime around the fourth century B.C. If I can make my way north I could be at the great Library before Alexander comes to burn it down.

  He began to walk down the slopes. No other person was in sight, and his own people must be miles away by now, marching over the hills and plains, green now and full of growing fields, impossible to catch up to. He imagined them as they must have looked disappearing over the farthest ridge at the horizon, the winter sunshine glinting on their helmets, their eyes tired, with the winter still in them. Again he
thought he heard a sound that might be water or leaves rubbing against each other, seeming to be saying something like Charlie, Charlie, can you hear me? You hold this to his mouth, hold that there, we II need the ambulance.

  But to walk, alone, all the way to the coast—it might take him years. Even if he kept his strength up, there were other dangers to consider, such as the undoubted hatred of the people through whose lands they had been marching.

  The wind overhead made a wailing sound as he reached the plains, and a word came into his head: Oxygen, quick, the oxygen. A Greek word.

  And that was the trouble. The army had marched off and left him, one lone Greek in the middle of the great Persian plains. He did not look like the people who lived there, he did not speak their language, and there was nowhere for him to hide among that enemy country lovely now with spring, that stretched away for thousands of miles into the horizon where the management had locked the doors to make sure that nobody got out without paying.

  Something To Write Home About

  The big tourist boat was about to dock and most of the passengers were standing up on deck to watch. John and Amy Larsen sat inside on a bench in the lounge where the evening before they had listened to music and drunk wine.

  “I don’t have any more postcards,” she said, and rummaged through her purse. From the outside pocket of it she took out three postcards, already written on and stamped. All were addressed to the same name and place, and at the top left-hand corner of each she had conscientiously put down the day, and the month, May, and year, 1965, as though the cards were intended to be saved for posterity.

  “Don’t worry about it,” her husband said. “We can buy some more as soon as we get off.”

  They had been married for eighteen months, although they did not look married. To look at, they might even have been related by blood rather than by law. They looked like students, and John Larsen was one; his wife had graduated the year before. She had majored in English, he was in his last year at business school.

  Standing near them was another American couple, who were on their honeymoon. They came from New York, and, in contrast to the Larsens, looked well-dressed, sophisticated, and as though they were either not married at all or had been married for several years and were taking a break from the children and a life of suburban cocktail parties. Their name was Whitlow. And they were on their honeymoon, all right. When the boat had put them ashore at Crete for the day, the Whitlows had had a quarrel of some kind and John and Amy had found Mrs. Whitlow alone, standing as though posed, with the sun on her shiny hair, and her tropically flowered sleeveless dress looking brand new, like a magazine ad for winter holidays in the Caribbean. She had walked forward towards them, peered this way and that into the other sightseers among the reconstructed ruins of King Minos’ palace, and recognized them.

  “Lost your husband?” John had asked.

  “Well,” she had said, “he went off in a huff, but I think maybe he’s lost now. I’ve been wandering all over the place.”

  That night they had laughed about it as they drank with the Larsens. Another couple named Fischer, a New Jersey businessman and his wife, had joined them. The Fischers were already grandparents, but were throwing themselves into the spirit of things with more zest than the younger couples. They had all begun to talk about the places they had visited or would have liked to see. The Whitlows had been to Nauplia.

  “Oh, we were there, too,” Amy had said. “That’s where we couldn’t get any artichokes.”

  “We sat down on the terrace of the hotel restaurant, you know, facing the harbour——” John had said.

  “That’s where we were, too,” Whitlow had told them.

  “And two tourist buses drove up and parked. We started to order dinner and the waiter handed us the menu and said, ‘With group?’ ”

  “With group?” Amy had repeated, in the voice the waiter had used.

  “So we said no, not with group, and started to order.”

  “And there were artichokes on the menu, which I just love.”

  “We were okay till we hit the artichokes, and then it turned out that they were all for group, forty-seven darn orders of artichokes. That just about finished the place for us.”

  “Did you notice what a funny kind of butter they had there?” Amy had asked. “It was white. It tasted just like Crisco.”

  “I told you, it was some kind of margarine,” John had put in.

  “Not tasting like that. I’m sure it was Crisco.”

  “Did you go to the island?” Mrs. Whitlow had asked.

  “Yes, we had tea there.”

  “So did we, but we made a mistake about the boat. Tell them about the boat, Hank.”

  “Well, when Sally and I got there, we saw this beautiful boat tied up at the landing-stage.”

  “A yacht, really, but a small one——”

  “And later we wanted to get out to the island, but the boat was gone. We went and looked at the sign, and it had the times of sailing on it.”

  “So then——”

  “Do you want to tell it?”

  “Oh, go ahead.”

  “So then later in the day we saw it there again and barrelled down to the jetty to get on board. My God, it was somebody’s private yacht. Nobody on board but the English mate. The real boat was a rowboat.”

  “Then we got into the rowboat and this girl who was staying on the island climbed in too, and dropped a paperback she’d been carrying, and Hank handed it back to her——”

  “Fanny Hill. No kidding. Sort of broke her up. She’d been reading it with the cover held back.”

  “The rooms out there were gorgeous, weren’t they? If we’d known you could stay on it, we’d have booked in there.”

  “That boat was a beauty,” Whitlow had said. “Some big wheel owned it and chartered her out for the season. The mate said it was built in Holland.”

  “Never mind,” Sally Whitlow had said. “One day we’ll have one.”

  “Diamond-studded,” her husband had agreed, and they had shaken hands on it.

  “Did you get to Delphi?” John had asked them. The Whitlows had been all through the Peloponnese and driven up to Delphi from Athens. They had really wanted to go all the way up into Macedonia too, but there was only so much time. This was the fifth and last week of their honeymoon. The Larsens had missed Delphi, which they regretted, but they had hired a car and driven through some of the Peloponnesian cities. The Fischers had seen Athens, taken a day’s excursion to Hydra and Aegina, and that had been all.

  The boat they were on had stopped at Mykonos, with a side trip to Delos, and at Crete. Mrs. Fischer had liked Mykonos best.

  “Well, I know it’s supposed to be a photographer’s paradise,” John had said, “but that whitewash and bougainvillea and arts and crafts just leave me cold. I think you either like Mykonos or Delos.”

  “And you liked Delos,” Mrs. Fischer had said, smiling at him.

  “Yes, maybe the best of all. What I’d really like to do is go back there and stay a couple of days.”

  “But there isn’t any hotel.”

  “Yes, there is. At that tourist pavilion, they’ve got about four rooms they can rent out. I asked them about it. Friends of ours stayed there last year.”

  “They loved it,” Amy had said.

  “They said that at ten o’clock the caique from Mykonos pulled in with all the sightseers who spent a few hours scrambling over everything and climbing up the hill, and when the boat pulled out again the island was covered in shoeprints and sneaker marks. Then it took about an hour, and when you looked after that, all you could see on the ground were lizard prints.”

  “And the starlight is bright enough to see by even when the moon isn’t out,” Amy had said.

  John had touched her hair and told her that they would go back there some day.

  But now the boat was docking at Rhodes, and they had their luggage ready, because they were leaving the group in order to be able to spend two day
s on the island. Then they would fly back to Athens, and from there would take a plane home. The tour leaders had allowed them to reclaim a small part of their tickets. They had even given the Larsens the name of a good, cheap hotel they could recommend. But the Larsens would be joining the group again for lunch at the luxury hotel and might go along on the guided tour of the city in the afternoon, since that had all been paid for and couldn’t be refunded. Only the morning would be different. In the morning the other passengers were going to take buses to Lindos and then visit the monastery of Philerimos. The Larsens were to visit both places the following day when they would be able to take their time. Amy had liked the cruise, but John was beginning to tire of constantly being hustled along from one thing to the next.

  The boat was almost at a standstill.

  “There’s that creep again,” Sally Whitlow said to her husband.

  One of the passengers, who had started off the tour standing with the German-speaking guide and had changed to standing with the English-speaking guide because of Mrs. Whitlow, shuffled into the lounge. His eyes were always on her, and he had been attempting to strike up a friendship with both the Whitlows all during the voyage. Mrs. Whitlow turned her head sharply away. Her husband glared at the man, who tried to start a conversation about what a nice day it was. Whitlow didn’t answer. The man sat down. The boat struck against something.

  “Feels like we’ve landed,” John said.

  Mrs. Whitlow stood up and walked out. Her husband followed. The German-speaking man stood up and began to walk behind them. Whitlow turned around and shoved him in the chest.

  “You stay right here,” he said, and turned his back and walked off.

  The Larsens went up on deck, carrying their bags. The Whitlows were leaning against the rail, and Sally Whitlow was saying, “It just makes me nervous, that’s all. You could knock him down ten times and he’d come up like a rubber ball. There’s just something missing. Really, somebody ought to lock him up, you know.”

  “Oh, I think he’s harmless enough,” Whitlow said.