A Swiftly Tilting Planet (2 page)

Meg cried, “Father, we know something’s happened. You have to tell us—please.”

His voice was cold and distant. “War.”

Meg put her hand protectively over her belly. “Do you mean nuclear war?”

The family seemed to draw together, and Mrs. Murry
reached out a hand to include Calvin’s mother. But Mrs. O’Keefe closed her eyes and excluded herself.

“Is it Mad Dog Branzillo?” asked Meg.

“Yes. The president feels that this time Branzillo is going to carry out his threat, and then we’ll have no choice but to use our antiballistic missiles.”

“How would a country that small get a missile?” Sandy asked.

“Vespugia is no smaller than Israel, and Branzillo has powerful friends.”

“He really can carry out this threat?”

Mr. Murry assented.

“Is there a red alert?” Sandy asked.

“Yes. The president says we have twenty-four hours in which to try to avert tragedy, but I have never heard him sound so hopeless. And he does not give up easily.”

The blood drained from Meg’s face. “That means the end of everything, the end of the world.” She looked toward Charles Wallace, but he appeared almost as withdrawn as Mrs. O’Keefe. Charles Wallace, who was always there for her, was not there now. And Calvin was an ocean away. With a feeling of terror she turned back to her father.

He did not deny her words.

The old woman by the fireplace opened her eyes and twisted her thin lips scornfully. “What’s all this? Why would the president of the United States call here? You
playing some kind of joke on me?” The fear in her eyes belied her words.

“It’s no joke, Mrs. O’Keefe,” Mrs. Murry explained. “For a number of years the White House has been in the habit of consulting my husband.”

“I didn’t know he”—Mrs. O’Keefe darted a dark glance at Mr. Murry—“was a politician.”

“He’s not. He’s a physicist. But the president needs scientific information and needs it from someone he can trust, someone who has no pet projects to fund or political positions to support. My husband has become especially close to the new president.” She stirred the gravy, then stretched her hands out to her husband in supplication. “But why? Why? When we all know that no one can win a nuclear war.”

Charles Wallace turned from the tesseract. “El Rabioso. That’s his nickname. Mad Dog Branzillo.”

“El Rabioso seems singularly appropriate for a man who overthrew the democratic government with a wild and bloody coup d’état. He is mad, indeed, and there is no reason in him.”

“One madman in Vespugia,” Dennys said bitterly, “can push a button and it will destroy civilization, and everything Mother and Father have worked for will go up in a mushroom cloud. Why couldn’t the president make him see reason?”

Sandy fed a fresh log onto the fire, as though taking hope from the warmth and light.

Dennys continued, “If Branzillo does this, sends missiles, it could destroy the entire human race—”

Sandy scowled ferociously. “—which might not be so bad—”

“—and even if a few people survive in sparsely inhabited mountains and deserts, there’d be so much fallout all over the planet that their children would be mutants. Why couldn’t the president make him see? Nobody wants war at that price.”

“It’s not for lack of trying,” Mr. Murry said, “but El Rabioso deserves his nickname. If he has to fall, he’d just as soon take the human race with him.”

“So they send missiles from Vespugia, and we return ours to them, and all for what?” Sandy’s voice cracked with anger.

“El Rabioso sees this as an act of punishment, of just retribution. The Western world has used up more than our share of the world’s energy, the world’s resources, and we must be punished,” Mr. Murry said. “We are responsible for the acutely serious oil and coal shortage, the defoliation of trees, the grave damage to the atmosphere, and he is going to make us pay.”

“We stand accused,” Sandy said, “but if he makes us pay, Vespugia will pay just as high a price.”

Mrs. O’Keefe stretched her wrinkled hands out to the flames. “At Tara in this fateful hour …” she mumbled.

Meg looked at her mother-in-law questioningly, but the old woman turned away. Meg said to the room at large, “I know it’s selfish, but I wish Calvin weren’t in London giving that paper. I wish I’d gone with him.”

“I know, love,” Mrs. Murry replied, “but Dr. Louise thought you should stay here.”

“I wish I could at least phone him …”

Charles Wallace moved out of his withdrawn silence to say, “It hasn’t happened yet, nuclear war. No missiles have been sent. As long as it hasn’t happened, there’s a chance that it may not happen.”

A faint flicker of hope moved across Meg’s face.—Would it be better, she wondered,—if we were like the rest of the world and didn’t know the horrible possibility of our lives being snuffed out before another sun rises? How do we prepare?

“… in this fateful hour,” the old woman mumbled again, but turned her head away when the Murrys looked at her.

Charles Wallace spoke calmly to the whole family, but looked at Meg. “It’s Thanksgiving, and except for Calvin, we’re all together, and Calvin’s mother is with us, and that’s important, and we all know where Calvin’s heart is; it’s right here.”

“England doesn’t observe Thanksgiving,” Sandy remarked.

“But we do.” His father’s voice was resolute. “Finish setting the table, please. Dennys, will you fill the glasses?”

While Mr. Murry carved, and Mrs. Murry thickened the gravy, Meg finished beating the hard sauce, and the twins and Charles Wallace carried bowls of rice, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, to the table. Mrs. O’Keefe did not move to help. She looked at her work-worn hands, then dropped them into her lap. “At Tara in this fateful hour …”

This time nobody heard her.

Sandy, trying to joke, said, “Remember the time Mother tried to make oatmeal cookies over the Bunsen burner, in a frying pan?”

“They were edible,” Dennys said.

“Almost anything is, to your appetite.”

“Which, despite everything, is enormous.”

“And it’s time to go to the table,” Mrs. Murry said.

When they were in their places she automatically held out her hands, and then the family, with Mrs. O’Keefe between Mr. Murry and Meg, was linked around the table.

Charles Wallace suggested, “Let’s sing
Dona nobis pacem
. It’s what we’re all praying for.”

“Sandy’d better start then,” Meg said. “He’s got the
best voice. And then Dennys and Mother, and then Father and you and I.”

They raised their voices in the old round, singing over and over,
Give us peace, give us peace, give us peace
.

Meg’s voice trembled, but she managed to sing through to the end.

There was silence as the plates were served, silence instead of the usual happy noise of conversation.

“Strange,” Mr. Murry said, “that the ultimate threat should come from a South American dictator in an almost unknown little country. White meat for you, Meg?”

“Dark, too, please. Isn’t it ironic that all this should be happening on Thanksgiving?”

Mrs. Murry said, “I remember my mother telling me about one spring, many years ago now, when relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were so tense that all the experts predicted nuclear war before the summer was over. They weren’t alarmists or pessimists; it was a considered, sober judgment. And Mother said that she walked along the lane wondering if the pussy willows would ever bud again. After that, she waited each spring for the pussy willows, remembering, and never took their budding for granted again.”

Her husband nodded. “There was a reprieve then. There may be again.”

“But is it likely?” Sandy’s brown eyes were sober.

“It wasn’t likely then. The pussy willows, nevertheless,
have budded for a good many springs.” He passed cranberry sauce to Mrs. O’Keefe.

“In this fateful hour,” she mumbled, and waved the sauce away.

He bent toward her. “What was that?”

“At Tara in this fateful hour,” she said irritably. “Can’t remember. Important. Don’t you know it?”

“I’m afraid not. What is it?”

“Rune. Rune. Patrick’s rune. Need it now.”

Calvin’s mother had always been taciturn. At home she had communicated largely in grunts. Her children, with the exception of Calvin, had been slow to speak, because they seldom heard a complete sentence until they went to school. “My grandmother from Ireland.” Mrs. O’Keefe pointed at Charles Wallace and knocked over her glass.

Dennys fetched paper towels and mopped up the spilled liquid. “I suppose, cosmically speaking, it doesn’t make much difference whether or not our second-rate little planet blows itself up.”

“Dennys!” Meg cried, then turned to her mother. “Excuse me for using this as an example, but Den, remember when Mother isolated farandolae within a mitochondrion?”

He interrupted, “Of course I remember. That’s what she got the Nobel Prize for.”

Mrs. Murry held up her hand. “Let Meg speak.”

“Okay then: farandolae are so minuscule and insignificant it doesn’t seem they could possibly have any importance, and yet they live in a symbiotic relationship with mitochondria—”

“Okay, gotcha. And mitochondria provide us with our energy, so if anything affects our farandolae, that can affect our mitochondria—”

“And,” Meg concluded, “if that happens, we could die from energy loss, as you well know.”

“Go on,” Sandy said.

“So if we blow up our planet it would certainly have some small effect on our solar system, and that could affect our galaxy, and that could …”

“The old chain-reaction theory?” Sandy asked.

“More than that. Interdependence. Not just one thing leading to another in a straight line, but everything and everyone everywhere interreacting.”

Dennys threw out the wet paper towels, put a clean napkin over the soiled tablecloth, and refilled Mrs. O’Keefe’s glass. Despite storm windows, the drawn curtains stirred and a draft moved across the room. Heavy drops of rain spattered down the chimney, making the fire hiss. “I still think,” he said, “that you’re overestimating the importance of this planet. We’ve made a mess of things. Maybe it’s best we get blown up.”

“Dennys, you’re a doctor,” Meg reprimanded.

“Not yet,” Sandy said.

“But he’s going to be! He’s supposed to care about and guard life.”

“Sorry, Sis,” Dennys said swiftly.

“It’s just his way of whistling in the dark.” Sandy helped himself to rice and gravy, then raised his glass to his sister. “Might as well go out on a full stomach.”

“I mean it and I don’t mean it,” Dennys said. “I do think we’ve got our priorities wrong, we human beings. We’ve forgotten what’s worth saving and what’s not, or we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Mean, don’t mean,” Mrs. O’Keefe grunted. “Never understand what you people are going on about. Even you.” And again she pointed at Charles Wallace, though this time she did not overturn her glass.

Sandy glanced across the table at his baby brother, who looked pale and small. “Charles, you’ve eaten hardly anything, and you’re not talking.”

Charles Wallace replied, looking not at Sandy but at his sister, “I’m listening.”

She pricked up her ears. “To what?”

He shook his head so slightly that only she saw; and stopped questioning.

“At Tara in this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power!” Mrs. O’Keefe pointed at Charles and knocked over her glass again.

This time nobody moved to mop up.

“My grandma from Ireland. She taught me. Set great store on it. I place all Heaven with its power …” Her words dribbled off.

Mrs. O’Keefe’s children called her Mom. From everybody except Calvin it sounded like an insult. Meg found it difficult to call her mother-in-law anything, but now she pushed her chair away from the table and knelt by the old woman. “Mom,” she said gently, “what did your grandmother teach you?”

“Set great store on it to ward off the dark.”

“But what?”

Mrs. O’Keefe said in a singsong way,

At that moment it seemed as though a bucketful of water had been dumped down the chimney onto the fire. The flames flickered wildly, and gusts of smoke blew into the room.

“The fire with all the strength it hath,” Charles Wallace repeated firmly.

The applewood logs sizzled but the flames gathered strength and began to burn brightly again.

Mrs. O’Keefe put a gnarled hand on Meg’s shoulder and pressed down heavily as though it helped her to remember.

The wind gave a tremendous gust, and the house shook under the impact, but stood steady.

Mrs. O’Keefe pressed until Meg could barely stand the weight.

Using Meg’s shoulder as a lever, she pushed herself up and stood facing the bright flames in the fireplace.

Her voice rose triumphantly. “That’ll teach Mad Dog Bran-what’s-his name.”

The twins looked at each other as though embarrassed. Mr. Murry carved some more turkey. Mrs. Murry’s face was serene and uncommunicative. Charles Wallace looked thoughtfully at Mrs. O’Keefe. Meg rose from her knees and returned to her chair, escaping the unbelievably heavy pressure of her mother-in-law’s hand. She was sure that her shoulder was going to hold black and blue finger marks.

As Meg moved away, Mrs. O’Keefe seemed to crumple. She collapsed into her chair. “Set high store on that, my grandma did. Haven’t thought of it in years. Tried not to think. So why’d it come to me tonight?” She gasped, as though exhausted.

“It’s something like
Patrick’s Breastplate
,” Sandy said. “We sang that in glee club in college. It was one of my favorites. Marvelous harmonies.”