Queen’s Crest Subdivision where the Leif Landgren estate was located had been a less choice farm a mere decade earlier, owing to the tortuous wooded ravines that carved it up. But the expansion of greater Minneapolis proved to be a bonanza for the elderly couple who had spent nearly half a century wresting a living from that piece of land. Its secluded valleys and rolling hills were ideal raw material for a land developer to turn into an exclusive gated community. The couple took the money he gave them and retired to Arizona, free of financial worries for the rest of their lives. The lots carved from the farm never did go “on the market.” They were parceled out by “insiders” passing on a hot tip to wealthy industrialists. The only nonindustrialist in Queen’s Crest was the noted brain surgeon, Dr. Emmanuel Kaufmann.
The homes in this exclusive maze of glens were worth five to ten times the value of a new home in any other district in Reedville, sprawling insects of glass and stone hugging the hillsides. The Pearsons, following Mr. Pfister’s new Chrysler in their repaired DeSoto, were privileged to behold these dwellings in their full splendor as many of them were ingeniously floodlighted to highlight their most flattering attributes.
“Do they keep those lights on all the time, or are they doing that just for us?” Kay wondered out loud. “Makes me appreciate our cozy little house. I wonder what floodlights would do for our place….”
“You sweetheart,” Steve responded, reaching over and squeezing her hand.
Merry Rose Lane wound through several gorges before it brought you to the Landgren home. Their broad driveway was lined with prestigious cars, but a widening in the road just below their house was obviously intended to accommodate an overflow of the parked cars of visitors. So the Pfisters and the Pearsons turned their cars in on an angle next to a few vehicles that were already parked there. It was just after 10:00 p.m. The Pfisters escorted Steve and Kay along the one hundred yards or so up the sloped driveway to the front door of the Landgren home.
“Why, if it isn’t our guest of honor and his charming wife, and our beloved principal and his dear wife!” exclaimed Mrs. Landgren. “Do come in. We’ve all been waiting for you.”
She was a stately woman of about forty-five years of age. She had tastefully applied makeup to her eyes that gave them the merest hint of Oriental mystery, perfectly matching her tight silk evening gown and the fluidity of her mannerisms. With grace she showed them into the foyer and helped them off with their coats, handing them to their Finnish maid whom she didn’t bother to introduce to them. Then, taking Steve by one arm and Kay by the other, she led them toward the spacious living room in which about forty people were already comfortably seated. As they appeared under the hallway arch, the men all rose to their feet and the women all smiled politely at the persons of their guest of honor and his wife.
“Friends, friends,” announced Mrs. Landgren. “May I have the honor and pleasure of presenting to you our guests, Dr. Stephan and Mrs. Katherine Pearson.”
Then she released their arms, turned to face the self-conscious scientist, and said on behalf of everyone present, “Sir, we are indebted to you for your address this evening and welcome you into our home.”
Turning back to the main body, she took Steve and Kay by the arms around the entire room, introducing each couple by name and position. The only couple who rang a bell with the Pearsons was “Dr. and Mrs. Rolph Eriksson. The good doctor is everyone’s favorite general practitioner in Reedville and a valued member of our school board.”
The introductions completed, she conducted Steve and Kay to an elegant love seat behind a coffee table and invited them to be seated, adding with a touch of finesse, “Don’t worry, my friends. You won’t be lonesome. Many of us are eager to spend a few moments with you. I’ll leave you right here where we can all reach you,” she said, pulling two chairs around to the other side of the coffee table.
“Ingrid will see to it that you are offered plenty of hors d’oeuvres. Can I offer you something to drink?”
Stephan looked straight up at their hostess for the first time.
“Would you have a gin and tonic for me and a glass of sherry for my wife?”
“Certainly,” she replied.
Kay looked at Steve. The strain of the day had heavily sapped his strength. She could see that he was already bending under the weight of the challenge he had urged on everyone else that evening, the challenge he would now be obliged to face himself. The pallor in his face, the trembling of his hands, and the retreat into himself that she sensed was happening already frightened her. She was all too aware that something was crumbling inside him, that he was in the early stages of caving in.
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “A gin and tonic and a glass of sherry would be just right.”
Mrs. Landgren vanished to fetch their drinks. Another woman immediately took her place. Her perfectly coiffed hair was purple-white. Her suit was haute couture. Her cheeks showed the flush of the three or four martinis she had already consumed. She was at no loss for words.
“Dr. Pearson! It is such a pleasure to meet you and your wife. I’m Lucille Maaker. My husband is the superintendent of schools. I so admired your address tonight, your composure, your self-possessing assurance, your oracular confidence in the truth of what you were conveying to us. You must have great faith in what you believe.”
“I’m glad if you found my words beneficial,” he returned.
“Beneficial? Inspiring, I should say. What particularly, shall I say, ‘invited’ my keen attention to the rest of the insights you shared with us was the allusions to the Deity you made early on in your address, and several times thereafter. Am I right in concluding that much of your assurance comes from your faith in the Almighty?”
“Yes,” he answered. “That is true. To carry on from where we are now, we need hope. And that hope can come only from Him. Only He can bring about the conversion of our society. We can’t do it. It has to come from Him.”
“O Doctor, just to have faith that something is true behind it all. It must be wonderful! Do you mind if I ask you a rather personal question?”
She was working herself into quite a fit of excitement.
He nodded his head.
“What is your religious persuasion? That is, what spiritual collectivity do you affiliate with? For years I’ve been looking for one that really meets my needs, but I can’t seem to find the right one. I need a spiritual connection that can give me your kind of faith. What form of spirituality do you practice? To whose belief system do you subscribe with confidence as a man of science and culture?”
“Actually, I have found at various times in my life great strength in the Lutheran and the Catholic….”
“Lutheran?” she broke in. “Why, every second church here is either Lutheran or Catholic! I was raised Lutheran. O doctor, NO!”
She staggered back.
“I can’t believe it. Lutherans and Catholics are so … I just can’t believe it….”
“I find a depth and a truth and a timelessness in it that….”
“O Doctor, NO! Don’t let me hear it again. If they had anything to offer me, I’d have found it long ago. O Doctor, I’m so disappointed!”
The poor disillusioned woman took a long draught of the martini she was holding and collapsed into a nearby chair, a glassy look in her eyes.
For the next two minutes nobody else ventured over to the sofa except Mrs. Landgren with their drinks. Gratefully Kay took them and gave the gin and tonic to her husband who had yet to regain his balance after his encounter with Mrs. Maaker. She almost had to fold his fingers around the glass to make him realize what it was. In so doing, she noticed that her own hand was unsteady and her own heart was fluttering. The room was abuzz with conversations, but directly across from them the voices of two impeccably dressed middle-aged men stood out.
“But is it good business? That’s all I ask.”
“That’s the clinching argument. You can’t run a business on noble thoughts and stay solvent for long in this world. How long would you stay in business if you paid no attention to profits and losses?”
“That’s just what I mean. My company has a factory in Venezuela. Yo mismo hablo un poco español. Es muy necesario para las negocias. Sure, there are problems. The communist menace is real. But if it weren’t for us, hundreds of men would have no means of supporting their families. When we transfer a plant manager from here to go there, we have to provide a home for him on a par with what he is used to here. That’s only fair. But often the locals don’t see it that way. They hold it against us, even though we are giving them jobs they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“And a man has an obligation to his stockholders. What in the world would you tell them if you spent their retirement dividends on a charity in some foreign country? That’s the church’s and the government’s business, not ours. We donate to the church and pay big taxes to the government. Fair is fair, I say. What’s wrong with letting them look after that?”
“Besides, it wouldn’t work. If you gave workers there even half of what our workers here demand, they wouldn’t know what to do with it. Probably drink it all up, and then where would they be?”
“You’d have to charge more for your product here in the US.”
“And your profits would plunge.”
“And you’d be out on your ear after the next stockholders’ meeting.”
“You couldn’t stay in business without massive revisions to import duties.”
“The only person qualified to advise a businessman is another businessman with a good track record. And if he is a competitor, you do the opposite of what he tells you and you can’t go wrong.”
The two men chuckled.
“No, a man makes a fool of himself when he tries to tell a businessman how to run his business. After all, we hire the scientists not as business advisors but as employees to make our products more saleable.”
“They’re good men, most of them. Just ignorant of what makes the world go round. When you build them a well-equipped laboratory, give them some work to do for you, and turn them loose, they’re as happy as kids in a sandbox.”
“And think of all the great publicity you get when you award a post in your business to some kid graduating from your alma mater!”
“There’s all too much truth in that,” moaned Steve, reaching for Kay’s hand.
“They belong in the laboratories we build for them, not on center stage,” concluded one of the men, getting up to refill his martini goblet.
Just then a pert young woman of about thirty years of age flew up to Steve and declared, “Dr. Pearson! I just have to tell you how much I enjoyed your address. I confess I took offense at some of your remarks, but I can overlook them especially since you really didn’t say a word against enjoying life. In fact, as I heard it, everything you said could be construed as your idea of how to really enjoy life.”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“Yes indeed. I simply cannot suffer those prophets of doom who are constantly harping about our imminent destruction. What are they missing? I’m sick and tired of their whine. The doom they predicted years ago is no closer now than it was then. But still they don’t change their tune. Why should we all hate life the way they do? If God wanted us to hate life, why would He have created us? So if, as they say, it is inevitable that we will destroy ourselves, shouldn’t we be enjoying ourselves all the more between now and then? Que será, será! Why shouldn’t we all enjoy life while we have it, you in your way and I in mine?”
Then, looking straight at Kay whose flushed cheeks enhanced her youthful attractiveness, she added, “I can see you also believe in enjoying life while we have it. Your wife is very lovely. Don’t tell me that’s totally accidental. Well, thank you for your time. My husband gets so jealous when I spend a few minutes in conversation with another man.”
She vanished into the guests as quickly as she had appeared from their midst.
At that particular moment, Dr. Pearson must have looked unwell because the couple now approaching him backed away at the sight of him. But he looked up just as they were retreating and said, “No, Dr. Eriksen, Mrs. Eriksen. Please do be seated. We would be honored to get to know the parents of such a fine son.”
He stood up, and Kay with him. They shook hands with the Eriksens.
Dr. and Mrs. Eriksen, aware of how depleted Dr. Pearson was, were especially moved by his cordial reception of them by name.
“Thank you very much. My wife, Ann, and I will bother you for only a few minutes.”
Gesturing for them to be seated, Dr. Pearson said, “We are very glad for the unexpected privilege of meeting you this evening. Meeting your son, Rolph, gave us a bright ray of hope earlier today.”
“That doesn’t surprise us. God has given us a son whom Jesus possesses.”
“A miracle of grace,” Steve responded as Kay nodded warmly.
“I suppose, Dr. and Mrs. Pearson, that you have had your of fill of vapid compliments by now. However, driving here from the auditorium, my wife and I agreed that you converted what could have been one more disastrous evening into just exactly what our school and community need to hear now.”
“Thank you. Kay and I felt disaster in the air, too.”
“Our son, Rolph Jr., told us of his aborted meeting with you this noon, but he glowed when he told us you said you’d see him again.”
“Yes. We are determined to see him again, God willing. I am at a loss to explain why Mr. Pfister was so eager to curtail our time together when we, not Rolph, were the ones who initiated it.”
Mrs. Eriksen broke in. “Now you know what my husband’s constituency had in mind when they elected him to the school board. They thought that because he had already single-handedly reconfigured our hospital board to be more oriented toward patient care than toward profit-making, he could turn our gaudy high school showpiece into an actual institution of learning.”
“I don’t mean to be too critical,” commented Kay, “but how would you have found enough people around here to elect someone on that platform?”
“You wouldn’t have,” admitted Mrs. Eriksen. “I’m sure he was elected on his reputation.”
“Well,” explained Dr. Eriksen, “you see, the movement for my candidacy was initiated by a handful of sincere people who adopted the slogan ‘From an empty showcase to a real schoolhouse.’ They approached me and almost forcefully drafted me to run for the school board. The slogan may have won the election for me. In principle, who would not want a showcase turned into an honest-to-goodness school house where the students actually learn something useful, not just have a good time? In any case, I was elected by a slim margin, and, much as I am verbally respected, I have made almost no headway in converting our slogan into any kind of a plan of action.”
“It sounds to me as if it amounts to resolving the tension between the spirit and the flesh simply by guaranteeing that the spirit will always be subservient to the flesh,” observed Kay. “I don’t envy you, but I deeply admire you.”
“That is the issue in a nutshell. Those of us whose spirit is still willing are finding our flesh growing weaker and weaker. How do you face the same intolerable abuses day after day without finding yourself starting to tolerate them little by little, just to survive, just to stay sane? Some days I see myself as a living contradiction, saying one thing and doing something else, ‘warring in my members,’ as St. Paul says, against what I am firmly convinced is true. On the positive side of the ledger, a few really good teachers have joined our staff mainly through our efforts. But how does even a good teacher motivate the spoiled, lazy, self-serving, offspring of affluence? For every victory you win as a good teacher, they tell me, you suffer more defeats than you can count. The administration sees me as a curiosity at best, an enemy at worst, because in their view I am stuck in an outmoded and far too regimented view of the purpose of a high school education. Strides have been made since my time, I am told, in the psychology of education. The idea now is to encourage individuals to discover their own strengths and then to give them plenty of room to develop them on their own. It’s called ‘respecting each person’s individuality.’ To me, this is a recipe for disaster in an affluent and self-indulgent society like ours, where our children face so few real challenges and material deprivations. You said it so well. Trials and tribulations produce strong people. Their absence practically guarantees atrophy. I often ask myself why an approach so clearly doomed to failure has taken over our school. The answer, I greatly fear, lies in the fact that the healers of the disease are themselves too stricken by it to be of much help to the sufferers.”
The man had spoken cautiously, unburdening his conscience to someone he knew would understand. Dr. Pearson heard him out, his back rigid and his eyes fixed on the troubled physician. Kay’s heart was also aching for him, but it was aching even more for Steve as she watched her husband get caught up in the man’s dilemma.
“But you have a son of whom you can be justly proud. He hasn’t caught the disease,” Kay interjected with a note of hope.
“Only by virtue of his strong mental and spiritual health which they seem intent on destroying,” declared Ann. “If he were not so well grounded in our family values and our faith, so singularly able to avoid succumbing to the general plague, we would flee this place tomorrow. Even so, I wonder how much abuse any one student can take without caving in.”
“Mental and spiritual health,” repeated Dr. Pearson slowly, leaning forward. “Without that team, that inseparable team, a man is dead. And they must be robust partners, not fragile, not barely clinging to life. Or else, I say, a man is dead…. I would so appreciate the opportunity to speak with your son, as we had hoped.”
“That opportunity may well arise, Doctor. Christiania is one of our church’s colleges and it is Rolph’s great desire to continue his education there, mainly because of you.”
“I can think of nothing I would consider a greater privilege as a teacher than to have your son in my class.”
Just then a plump colorfully attired woman of about fifty dashed up to the physician. Her puffy face was darting between a forced smile and a bona fide frown.
“Gentlemen, do excuse my interruption. But I just said to myself, ‘Anna Wellington, while it’s on your mind you get right over there to your old friend, Dr. Eriksen, and have him write you out the prescriptions for your pills before you forget and run out.’ And so here I am with less than a week’s supply left. Could I trouble you to do that for me now?”
“I believe so, Anna. Just a moment.”
He took a wad of blank prescription forms from his vest pocket, scrawled something across three of them, and handed them to her. She was perfectly delighted. Her intermittent frowns vanished. She pranced off to a group of ladies conversing near the hors d’oeuvres and deposited the slips conspicuously in her purse.
“It’s a web, my dear professor,” said the physician sadly, “and I’m as entangled in it as anyone. You described Anna Wellington perfectly this evening, and she heard every word of it without batting an eye. There isn’t a thing wrong with her that a little genuine affliction couldn’t cure. She has every material possession she wants and has no idea that’s why she’s so ‘sick.’”
“Just look at those poor creatures over there,” said Mrs. Eriksen, gesturing toward that group of women. “They are talking about the only problem they know—their own precarious health. And they can go on and on about it.”
“My dear,” said the physician, “I will tell you how grave a problem that is from a purely medical point of view. Two of those prescriptions I wrote out for Anna were for different strengths of colored sugar pills and the third was for a plain iron pill like those we give to pregnant women. She’s been taking those pills for five years now, and to them she ascribes the delicate balance of her health which, as everyone knows, is on the verge of collapse. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were discussing another favorite topic of theirs at this very moment—tranquilizers. You see, only people occupied with really important matters require a chemical to keep them on an even keel.”
“To them she ascribes…,” intoned Dr. Pearson as if in a trance.
“And ‘our virulent superfluity is the answer to their desperate needs.’ Dr. Pearson, you see why we thank God you had the courage to say what you did.” Mrs. Eriksen was almost in tears.
Dr. Pearson looked back at her and slowly shook his head.
“Look around you, my friends. All of these poor dear people who have so commended my address—do you see among them one lasting achievement of my ‘courage’?”
Only then did they note the ashen pallor of his face and the palsied trembling of his hands. Kay grasped them and hung onto them tightly, terrified by the vacant look in his eyes. For fully a minute he sat there stiff and erect. No one stirred as the party went on gaily about them. Then his eyes dropped to the floor in front of him and he muttered half aloud, “I’ll be quite all right. It’s been a long day. I think we ought to start for home.”
Kay swallowed hard. “Yes, it’s past midnight. We need to be on our way.”
Hasty, startled farewells were said. Mrs. Landgren looked roundly offended when she saw her guests of honors leaving before the party was over, but one look at Dr. Pearson told her why.
Just before leaving through the front door, he turned and let his eyes float around the front part of the living room visible from the doorway. Near the archway he caught sight of Dr. Eriksen gazing at him intently and perhaps remorsefully. The two men exchanged a knowing nod.
And the Pearsons stepped through the door out into the cold dark night.