Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend (13 page)

He rummaged his bookshelves until he found a world airline guide three years out of date. British Airways showed a nonstop
from Chicago to London and then a later flight straight out to Madras on the east coast. Pondicherry was about 150 kilometers
south of Madras, on the Bay of Bengal. Michael wasn’t worried about that leg; if he could make Madras, he could make Pondicherry.
All he really was concerned about was getting to the Indian subcontinent. India has the best rail service in the world, in
terms of number of trains going here and there. If not a train, then a bus. If not a bus, then a car and driver. If none of
the above, he’d walk. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Jellie Braden somewhere in the swirling crowds of India. If she
wasn’t in Pondicherry, he’d be in tough shape. She’d be almost impossible to track down if she decided just to lose herself
out there. But, by God, he was going to try.

He called the British Airways 800 number. Yes, said the quite lovely, very British, very female voice at the reservations
desk, that flight was still operating, but there were no openings for the next three weeks. Did Mr. Tillman want to be put
on a waiting list? Yes. He called Air India again and also had them put him on a waiting list, with the date open. Anytime,
he told them. Anytime.

Things to do. His mother first. He called her, and they talked for a long while. He’d never missed spending Christmas with
her in the last twenty years but told her he had to go to India right away and didn’t know when he’d be back.

Her ears were failing her, but she heard something in the way he spoke, urgency, intensity. “Michael, don’t tell me you’ve
finally found a special lady for yourself? I’ve never heard your voice sound quite like it does now. Is that it?”

“Mom, the answer is maybe. That’s all I can say. It’s just real important I do this thing—go to India—but I hate to miss Christmas
with you, if it comes to that.”

“Michael, thank you for caring and for asking. I’m glad we’ve gotten to be with each other as much as we have over the years.
Go to India and find this lady, whoever she is. Then bring her home so I can meet her. I still haven’t given up hope on having
grandchildren, you know.”

“Mom, I promise I’ll come out to Custer as soon as I’m back, though I’m not sure when that will be.”

“Fly on, Michael. If this is your moment, take it. Stop talking to me and get to India.”

The departmental secretary was a first-rate person who knew the systems and ways to get around them. Michael always gave her
a bottle of wine at Christmas and sent her flowers at the end of the academic year. She agreed to fill out his final grade
sheets and forge his signature on them. She didn’t even ask why. He asked her not to say anything, and she said, “Don’t worry,
you and I understand each other. Wherever you’re going in such a hurry and whatever you’re going to do when you get there,
I’d like to be a fly on the wall.” She finished her words with a strange little knowing smile.

Jimmy Braden had come back on Monday night. On Tuesday Michael announced to his classes they were shutting down that day.
Since he wouldn’t be giving a final examination, he told them everyone got one-half a grade higher than what the scores in
his grade book currently showed. To hell with it, once in a while you’re entitled to be flaky. Hats flew in the air, and a
young woman’s voice came from far back in the classroom: “We love you, Professor Tillman. Merry Christmas.” He gave one of
the MBA students who lived upstairs in his building a hundred bucks to make sure Malachi and Casserole were well cared for.

Travel light. Real light. He’d booked a flight to New York, but no reservations beyond, and he might get hung up anywhere
on his way to India. New York, Moscow or London, Cairo or Athens. Anywhere. It might take him a week or more to get to India.
Jimmy Braden could sit in Cedar Bend and pray and mope all he wanted. Jimmy had already told his story to at least five other
people, so he was getting lots of sympathy.

But Michael was going to India to find Jellie, and he was going now. There was a reason she pulled out, and he had a pretty
strong feeling it had something to do with him. Maybe not, but that’s how he guessed it. People get lost in India. That’s
why a lot of them go there. He had to find Jellie before she just drifted off and, for whatever reason, retreated to a mountain
commune or ashram in the boondocks where he’d never find her.

Old L.L. Bean knapsack. Three shirts, only one of them clean. Wear the clean one, blue denim. Jeans, one pair on the body
and another pair in the bag, and some khakis. Wear bush jacket en route. Navy blue cotton sweater. Shoes? Wear the old field
boots, take sandals, too. He could buy clothes in India if he needed them; the
khurtas
and some pajamalike bottoms underneath worked just fine for him. Other essentials, including a good map of the India subcontinent
he’d purchased on his last visit, showing railroad and domestic air routes. Small flashlight, old cotton hat with the wide
brim.

Damn, no malaria pills. Take the risk. No, have physician call the drugstore, pick them up on the way to the airport, even
though he should have started taking them a week ago. Working hard, throwing clothes around the bedroom, folding shirts, rolling
up the jeans and khakis with underwear and socks inside the roll, Malachi and Casserole watching. Jam the old pair of sandals
in the top, cinch it up. The knapsack bulged. He hefted it—not too bad. Anything else? Small canteen. It can be a long time
between drinkable water supplies in India.

The taxi came at eight
A.M.
on Thursday morning, sixty hours after Jimmy had sat at Michael’s kitchen table, bawling his guts out. It was bizarre all
right. Jimmy Braden was lurching around Bingley Hall telling people, in so many words, about how poorly Jellie had treated
him, running off that way. And Michael was on his way to find her, but Jimmy didn’t know that. A stop at the pharmacist’s,
another at the bank. Three thousand in American Express Cheques, $100 units. Five hundred in cash.

At the local airport, waiting for the commuter jet to Chicago, Michael remembered a detail he hadn’t taken care of and called
the departmental secretary. After he cleaned up the detail, she said, “Michael, a cable for you just came in, hand-delivered.”

He thought for a moment. This was dicey if it was from Jellie, which he had a feeling it might be. “Betty, read it to me,
and I’m swearing you to secrecy ever after concerning the contents. Deal?”

“If I told everything I knew about what happens around here, Bingley Hall would implode in the world’s largest cloud of dust.
Besides, I have some vague sense of what’s going on. I’ve seen your face change in the last few months. I saw you on your
motorcycle out near Heron Lake early one morning not long ago, and I also saw who was riding behind you. But I’ve never said
anything, and I won’t. Now, I put that together with the weeping going on in Jimmy Braden’s office—all over the building,
for that matter—and it doesn’t require a mathematical genius like you to make it add up.”

“Betty, Betty, Betty… you may end up being one of the great loves of my life. Read me the cable.”

“Okay, I’m opening the envelope. It says thirteen hundred hours. Let’s see, that’s…”

“That’s one in the afternoon, Betty. What’s the date?”

“It’s today’s date. How can that be?”

“Time difference. It was sent about one-thirty
A.M.
this morning, our time. What’s it say?”

“It says, ‘M, Please try to understand. There are feelings so strong within me I need space and time to work them out. I’ll
be in touch sometime, I promise I will. J.’”

The hell with space and time, that’s what Michael Tillman thought. Sometimes you let circumstances go their own direction,
in the way Jimmy was doing, but sometimes you have to get in the middle of situations and manage them. He had a feeling Jellie
was pretty confused, and he wasn’t going to let her just wander off in a fog. If he screwed up her life by going to India
to look for her, she’d have to live with it, and so would he. But he wasn’t about to sit on his duff in Cedar Bend and hope
for better days.

“Betty, where did the cable come from, what city?”

“Madras. Did I pronounce it right?”

“No, but that’s okay. Everybody in the States gets it wrong. Betty, run the cable through your shredder, please.”

“I will. Don’t worry. And, Michael?…”

“Yes?”

“I’ll be back here cheering for you. Go find her.”

“Thanks, Betty. Do you prefer necklaces or bracelets?”

“You know that’s not necessary. But I’d like a bracelet sometime from some exotic place, if you insist.”

“Done. Good-bye, and thanks again. My plane is boarding.”

“ ’Bye, Michael. Good luck.”

*    *    *

At O’Hare he called Air India and had British Airways check to see if anything had opened up. Nothing. “What if I go down
to the gate and see if there’s a no-show?” he asked the woman running the British Airways counter.

“You can try.” She looked at his ticket. “Your flight for New York leaves before ours departs for London. If you wait for
us, you’ll miss your New York flight.”

“I’ll chance it. I’m feeling lucky, somehow.”

She shrugged and typed his name into the computer as a standby. “We’re in the new United terminal, at the far end. Good luck.”

He bought cigarettes and coffee, then went to the United terminal. An hour and fifteen minutes until British Airways 42 would
leave for London. The passengers were lined up, long line winding back and along the terminal wall. Baggage… he never could
understand why people carry so much. Huge suitcases tied with ropes. Christmas presents, bedrolls, tired kids with winter
colds and runny noses tugging on their parents’ hands, crying.

The line moved slowly. Twenty-five minutes before departure. Then twenty. Only two people left to check in. “Michael Tillman,
Mr. Michael Tillman, please come to the British Airways podium.”

He was there in four seconds.

“Mr. Tillman, we have a seat for you on the London flight departing in approximately fifteen minutes. However, we are not
able to confirm a seat for you on flight 34 to Madras. Do you still want to go with us tonight?”

“Yes. I’ll pay for the ticket with my Amex card.”

Six hours later he was looking at Ireland down below in first light, and he thought of Jellie standing along a stone wall
somewhere down there, having a Polaroid picture taken, which eventually hung on a wall in Iowa. Except the picture was now
in the pocket of his bush jacket. If you’re going to be a tracer of lost persons, a photo might be useful. He’d thought of
that at the last moment and brought the photo with him.

Heathrow was chaotic, as usual. Michael passed up the transit lounge and went out into the main terminal, where he could look
in the eyes of ticket agents. No problem. As the agent told him, people often book more than one flight under different names,
and several cancellations had come in during the night.

“Do you wish to book a return flight from India, Mr. Tillman?”

He told her to put him down for January 12, a few days before the spring semester started. Indian officials strongly prefer
you have a return ticket before a visa is issued. That’s a precaution flowing partly from the old hippie days when Western
kids went seeking truth and enlightenment and ended up being dope-smoking, social welfare problems for the Indian government.

Michael pulled out his Amex card, got the ticket, and located the tube into London. He told an official he needed a visa to
India and was steered in the right direction. Three hours later he was back at Heathrow, through security, and sitting in
the transit lounge. Five hours before his flight to Madras.

Time always moved pretty fast for Michael in big airports. He liked to watch people come and go, read a little, nap a little.
After going into the restroom and washing his face, he bought a copy of the London
Times,
settled down on a chair, and put his feet on the knapsack. But he couldn’t concentrate on the paper and fished the picture
of Jellie out of his pocket. He sat there looking at it while the public address system summoned people to planes leaving
for distant places. And somewhere out in those great spaces was a woman named Jellie Braden. She was out there, somewhere
… somewhere.

I
n spite of his smart-lip comment to Jellie one time, Michael Tillman was not jaded. Maybe a little cynical, probably more
than he had a right to be, but not jaded. Never had been. That’s an advantage coming down from the kind of childhood he spent.
You grow up not expecting too much, so when good things happen in your life you’re amazed they happened at all. Long-haul
travel was that way for Michael. When the pilot came on the intercom and said they were passing over Baghdad, he looked down
from his window seat and saw a brown city in the desert forty thousand feet below.

He’d done that before on his first trip to India, thinking, Baghdad—I never thought I’d be flying over Baghdad. And he reached
back like a mule skinner with a whip, pulling the memories forward, seeing himself working on the Shadow in his father’s gas
station thirty years before. Working on it and looking out at the highway and knowing the Vincent Black Shadow could take
him down that road if he learned all there was to know about valves and turning wheels and highways running eastward.

When the plane was two hours out of Madras, Michael took his shaving kit out of the knapsack and went to one of the tiny restrooms.
This kind of travel leaves a film on the body and mind, and he’d developed the custom of shaving and cleaning up before landing.
Somehow that also cleaned up the mind a little.

The cabin was still dark, most people sleeping or trying to, a few reading lamps on. The flight attendants were talking quietly
with one another in the midplane kitchen. He stuck his head in and asked for a cup of tea. They fixed him up, and he went
back to his seat, steaming cup in hand, in good shape overall but with the special, taut feeling in his stomach he always
got when approaching a distant place, particularly India.