Cannibals and Missionaries (40 page)

From the doorway Yusuf pointed his flashlight into the room. In its beam they saw Gus sitting upright in rumpled pajamas, his fringe of white hair awry. “No, Yusuf,” Frank said. “Turn it off, will you, please. We’re all right here, just a little wakeful.” At last they heard the Bishop snoring, more wheezily than usual, but not enough, they decided, to send for Greet. During the night, he started up several times calling for “Rachel.” He seemed to be asking her, whoever she was, for something. “Where the mischief is it? What have you done with it?” He was getting very excited. “What is it you’re looking for, Gus?” Carey’s easy voice asked. He had come to sit by him, to spell Frank for a bit. “Can’t remember. Whatever it was, she took it away with her and hid it. She’s always hiding things from me.” “His mind’s wandering,” said Frank. “No use hoping to sleep till he quiets down again.” “Tell her I need it. I have to have it now. I’m too old to put up with her tricks. You never loved me, Rachel. Don’t you think I know that? You only loved my love for you.” Then he fell to snoring again.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Frank. “Do you think he really believed that all those years?” “He had doubts, I suppose,” said Carey. “Being a religious man. But if she loved his love for her, she loved him.” “Isn’t that a sophistry, Jim?” Those nearest could not help listening; it was curious how the word “love” made one prick up one’s ears even when one had passed the age for it. “But what about this whatever-it-is he thinks he’s lost, Jim? Do you understand what he’s talking about?” “His faith, I should think. She took it away with her when she died, and he needs it to meet her in Heaven.” The sofa springs creaked. “That’s it!” cried the Bishop, wide awake and chuckling. “Leave it to a Papist, eh, James? You darned fool, Frankie. I ordained you and made a good liberal of you, but even God Almighty couldn’t make a spiritual man of you.”

Some time during the night, the Bishop died. He must have gone quietly, for no one heard him. He was already getting cold when Frank touched his hand and knelt down to pray for him in the first light. There was nothing to do but wait for their captors to come down and take over. It would not be possible to bury him because the ground was partly frozen. Probably the best would be to have his body flown out. His friends could see to getting him out of his pajamas and shaved and dressed. These were labors of love that, by giving them something to do, would help relieve their feelings. Surprisingly, Charles was weeping big tears. But the one closest to the Bishop was not as broken up as one would have thought: Frank merely blew his nose from time to time and shook his head. It was as if he were still shocked or bewildered by the statements Gus had made during the night. In view of those, it was just as well perhaps that the old man had not lingered; he himself would not have wanted to live with his mind gone. And yet it was sad.

At last Jeroen and Greet came in to look at the body. Yusuf had brought them the news, but the only sign of life from them for what seemed like ages was the squawking of their radio in the kitchen. Now that they were here, they were very inhuman in their attitude. They pulled back the blanket and carefully examined the body. Then Jeroen ordered Jean and Denise to dress it—breakfast could wait. He would not let anyone help them and he did not want the body washed or shaved. Nor would he tell Frank whether they planned to announce the death soon—Frank was thinking of Gus’s relations. “In our own time and in our own way. You will see,” Jeroen replied and walked out. No one had had the courage to ask him what they were to do with the Bishop’s things or any of the dozen questions that came to mind.

When the body was dressed and reverently laid on the sofa, Jeroen reappeared. “Sit him up,” he ordered. The coins Denise had placed on the Bishop’s eyelids fell to the floor. “Now open the eyes.” Impossible to imagine what the purpose of this could be. Were they going to take his picture? The next thing they all knew they were being pushed into the parlor—Denise and Jean too. When the door was slammed on them, there was scarcely room to breathe. As they stood there, pressed together, swaying at the slightest motion and bumping into the plants, a rattle of gunfire came from behind the door. Then the door was opened, and they were allowed back into the next room—a privilege they could have done without. The Bishop’s body lay slumped forward on the sofa, riddled with bullets. Along his vest buttons were holes darkly oozing blood. Hussein was recharging the submachine gun. At a nod from Jeroen, Yusuf and Carlos carried the corpse out, dripping blood onto the rug.

“Was he
alive
?” shrieked Lily. Henk shook his head. “So you think a dead man has no blood in him?” Jeroen said, with a peculiar satisfied smile. “Then why have you done this terrible thing, Jeroen?” cried Frank in a voice of anger, which broke into wild sobs. Jeroen went on smiling. “The deputy has guessed, I think.” “You had bad news,” said Henk. “No pictures,” agreed Carey. “Well, that was to be foreseen.” He turned to the others. “They must have learned, first thing this morning, that Washington refused.” But the others still could not make a connection. “The application of force was indicated,” Carey dryly hinted. Henk nodded. Then Sophie saw. “You were going to shoot a hostage,” she told Jeroen. “Beautiful!” “And, my dears, they’ve done so, haven’t they?” fluted Charles. “Most economical of you, Jeroen. My compliments. You have seen the use of leftovers in your revolutionary broth.” That was a dreadful way of putting it, but at least all now understood. From their own point of view, callous as it sounded, it was providential that the Bishop had died during the night, allowing the revolutionaries to find a “use” for his body. It had saved them the work of having to shoot a live hostage. If he had waited to die until later in the day, one of the people in this room—which?—would already have been executed.

Jeroen stood there listening, neither confirming nor denying. “You will now eat breakfast,” he commanded, as Denise entered with the usual
“ontbijt”
on the pastry-board she made do with for a tray. When he was gone, they found that they were hungry: it was well known that death quickened the appetite. While they ate, the television screen lit up. A spokesman from the Ministry of Justice was announcing that a message had been received from the hijackers: a first hostage had just been executed, and the assassins now called for a helicopter to come and pick up the body. It must arrive within a delay of no less than two hours and observe the same conditions as before. The execution was to be understood in the context of legitimate ransom demands accepted as such by the prisoners themselves that Washington had criminally rejected. The identity of the hostage was not known, the spokesman added. Then the Minister himself came on the screen, appealing to the hijackers to take no more lives while Her Majesty’s government continued its efforts to find a peaceful solution. No avenue leading in that direction would be left unexplored. That was all.

It left a good deal to be mulled over in the long morning ahead. “No avenue will be left unexplored,” for instance—what did that signify? Henk thought it meant that Den Uyl was appealing to the Vatican and to the NATO allies to put pressure on Washington. The announcement that a hostage had been murdered would make his task easier.

“It won’t wash,” predicted Johnnie. “An autopsy’s bound to show that poor Gus died of a cerebral incident.” “We don’t
know
that,” Frank pointed out. “It might have been a heart attack. He had a heart condition, you know.” Johnnie kept his patience. “Whatever he died of, it’ll be easy enough for the experts to establish that the bullet wounds were sustained after death.” “Not so easy,” said Harold. “Rigor mortis hadn’t set in, you notice. So there’ll be no way of fixing the order of events prior to the onset of death. The cerebral accident or heart failure could have been a
result
of the bullet wounds or of just plain fear when he saw the Thompson aimed at him.” He sounded like quite a different person when he was in his own element. “He
didn’t
see it,” objected Henry. “Jeepers, man,
we
know that, but the medical examiners won’t. And the fact that we can sit here debating when we witnessed the whole thing shows what a free-for-all the pathologists’ll have with the autopsy. Hell, there are likely to be
two
autopsies, one here and one when they get him home. This is Dutch soil, no?” “There will be a
lijkschouwing,
certainly,” Henk agreed. “Before the body can be released. And the body may be held, in expectation of a trial, if the cause of death is in doubt. I am not sure of the law.” “Well, that’s your answer, Johnnie. Meanwhile there’s a corpse full of bullets, which will be all the prima facie evidence Gerry Ford needs to get his ass moving on the pictures.”

“And yet we know better,” sighed Aileen. Others sighed with her. It would be maddening to watch the terrorists get away with their hoax—that was the only word for it—and be unable to speak out and expose the deception. And yet should one be anxious to expose them? As long as they succeeded in palming off the dead Bishop as a live hostage they had ruthlessly shot down, there would be no pressing need, surely, to select another candidate. Not till Washington refused again, and would it, with all those international pressures? It was only one’s feeling for the truth that objected.

Frank’s missionary mind had been elsewhere. “Don’t you think that we should have grounds for rejoicing, as well as sorrow, in what we have witnessed? To me, the most interesting fact is that Jeroen and his comrades were unwilling to take human life.” “Unwilling or just kind of reluctant?” said Carey. “Loath,” suggested Aileen. But, whatever the shadings, Frank was basically right. There was no denying that Jeroen had chosen
not
to shoot one of their number. And if he was truly unwilling to kill a fellow-creature and kept finding excuses not to—why, after all, had they spared Helen?—then there was no great reason to be afraid of him, which should be cause for rejoicing in itself. Yet in fact it left one strangely uneasy.

Frank might be glad, piously, for Jeroen’s immortal soul, but the general reaction—if one could judge by a few comments—was more complex. If they could be sure that this proclaimed revolutionary was incapable of killing anything more than a cat, they would be relieved for selfish reasons, but he would go down in their estimation. Over these days they had formed an “image” of him which they would have preferred to keep intact. He seemed so hard and resolute, yet fair in his own way—an enemy one could respect. And since one was in his power anyway, it was preferable to look up to him. As Margaret said, a Jeroen who was “loath” to take human life was too small for his boots. “Your class still has warrior values,” Henk commented, seeming amused. “I don’t see it that way, Maggie,” Harold objected. “Don’t you think we’ll have to hand it to him for getting away with murder if he pulls this stunt off?” That was the slick business man speaking, and “murder” was scarcely the appropriate word. Yet it was interesting that Harold, of all people, should come to appreciate a hijacker and precisely for qualities valued in the business world. Of course Jeroen was bright as a button.

It was interesting, too, to learn that one had warrior values. Captivity was bringing out new facets in everyone. On the sad side, Helen, with her poor weak kidneys, had turned into something pathetic and repulsive, like an animal clawing at the door to “go out.” The admiration she had won for her willingness to die for her “Girl” had evaporated when Jeroen denied her the privilege. To be fair, that was clever of him. Now even Lily’s exquisite manners were finding Helen rather hard to take. In the end, Jeroen would get the “Girl” anyway was the general prophecy.

On the cheerful side, Lily was blooming: there was more to her mentally than had ever been suspected, least of all by Beryl. And Beryl herself was different. But, above all, there was the adventure of getting to know oneself, which was like making a new acquaintance. In the usual social round, there was so little time for that. Until deprivation showed them, they had not realized how many hours they spent changing their clothes, going to the hairdresser, the dressmaker, having the
masseur
or the
masseuse
in. Bathing twice a day, as the men did—in the morning and after squash—took up a good half-hour in itself. Not to speak of shaving and using the sun lamp—Johnnie. Then changing your books at the library or having your chauffeur do it: had anyone ever counted the hours consumed by that? Naturally they all fretted now over the absence of these time-takers and complained of being bored. Yet there
was
the compensation of having, for once, leisure—the last thing, come to think of it, that the so-called leisure class enjoyed—to contemplate one’s navel, study one’s reactions and those of one’s friends, probe into human psychology, which could be disappointing, embarrassing, but also plain fascinating.

This morning, in addition, they could profit from the unusual quiet. With the Bishop dead, games, which tended to become noisy and argumentative, were of course not to be thought of, and Frank could not tune up on that instrument. Out of respect, even conversations were subdued—no shouting matches. And probably there was small prospect of being taken out for exercise, at least while the helicopter was expected.

The Bishop’s body, they learned, was in the shed; quite soon, though, the guards would be taking it outside to be ready when the helicopter appeared. As the time drew near, Frank, brave man, asked if he could hold a funeral service. Surprisingly, the
kapers
raised no objection. They would allow Frank and the Senator to carry their friend’s body to the field, escorted by Jeroen and two guards. Frank could say the last rites over it, provided that he limited them to precisely five minutes; the mourners were not to attempt to linger but must return at once to the house. At Henk’s request, another concession was made: he and Charles could accompany the cortège too and remain for the service. But no one else need apply.

A handful of hostages hurried into the parlor to watch from the window. Most of the first-class passengers, however, felt it more seemly to stay behind. “Eloise, sit down,” Harold ordered. “What makes you want to rubberneck?” But Lily, armed with a clean handkerchief and wearing her black cashmere over her shoulders, refused to be deterred. “I think we should all mourn for him. It was so sad about his faith. I’m sure he got it back, though, in the watches of the night.” Beryl raised her eyebrows but with a sigh she joined her mother, and gradually others followed till the gloomy little parlor was full.