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Without Carla, the des Cieux had to take up the slack of supplementing what the hospital could do for her. Pierre brought in a small shortwave radio and they were able to listen to broadcasts from back home, dispensing with the non-functional television. The family took times about going home to rest, to get more things for a stronger and more demanding Madeleine, and to attend Mass at the Cathedral. Pierre went to the 1100 Mass, and wasn’t in a very pious mood as he greeted his bishop, Anthony Santini, as he was leaving.
Santini looked like more like a Cardinal than the bishop of a very small diocese whose presence was illegal in most of the Island. In his early fifties, with his wire-rimmed glasses perched on his large nose, Santini had only been bishop for a year and a half. Like most Catholic Bishops of Verecunda the past forty years, Santini had been elevated with Lucian Gerland’s blessing, as if the man had la regale that had slipped out of the hands of the crowned heads of Europe. But Santini also prided himself in his good relationship with the current government, a useful if short-sighted expedient in Allan Kendall’s Verecunda.
“I understand from Raymond that your daughter is doing better,” Santini proclaimed to Pierre.
“If Father Moore had made more than one fleeting visit, you would know this for yourself,” Pierre replied sourly.
“You make many demands on mother church you should not,” Santini scolded back. “The Secretary of State—excuse me, the Foreign Minister—just revoked the visas of my two Irish priests. I am short handed.”
“So why don’t you send at least one of them to Collina and bring Father Becker over?”
“Vatican II notwithstanding, it is not the role of the laity to dictate assignment of priests. Besides, I may have to send Avalon back to his native land if he keeps kicking against the goads on the subject of abortion and the many other things he does to antagonise the government.”
“I regret to inform you that we have had better ecclesiastical representation from Madeleine’s Baptist friends than from ‘mother church,’” Pierre retorted.
“Your Baptist friends are in more serious trouble than we are,” Santini came back. “Sects such as they are at the top of the government’s list of bad elements, as they should be, ecumenical considerations notwithstanding.”
“And whom do you think they will visit when they are finished with them?” Pierre asked.
“You are very impertinent, my son,” Santini replied irritatedly. “The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. Good day,” and with that he turned and walked away. But he did actually visit Madeleine early that evening.

Pierre and Yveline were still asleep when the phone rang about 1000.
“Allo!” he said, not fully aware as to what country he was in.
“Mr. des Cieux?” the girl’s voice came back.
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s Carla. Madeleine is awake. Her fever has broken. She’s awake, soaking wet and hungry.” There was a long silence over the phone. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. I’ll be there soon. Thank you.” He placed the black handset back on the cradle.
“What is it?” Yveline asked him.
“Carla just informed me that Madeleine’s fever has broken and she’s awake.”
Yveline looked at Pierre in shock, then turned, bounded from the bed, and yelled, “Raymond! Raymond! Get up! Madeleine’s awake!”
“I’m awake, Maman,” Raymond answered from the other room. Yveline turned her efforts towards Pierre, but even in his state he needed little encouragement. It wasn’t long before the three got to the hospital and burst into Madeleine’s room.
“Papa, Maman,” Madeleine weakly whispered as she, then he enveloped her with their arms. Yveline was sobbing as she held her handkerchief in one hand and Madeleine’s hand in another.
“When did this happen?” Pierre asked Carla as he gained his wits about him.
“I’m not sure,” Carla said. “I woke up about nine thirty and heard her moaning. I got the nurses to check her out and her fever’s gone. They called the doctor but he’s not here yet, it may take a while since it’s Saturday.”
“Well it might,” Pierre mused. He looked over as Yveline pulled one of her famous croissants out of her bag for Madeleine. “She thinks of everything.” He looked back at Carla, who was eyeing it longingly. “I hope you followed your normal custom and brought enough for two young ladies.”
Yveline stopped and looked at Pierre and Carla. “Oh, yes,” she said, handing one to Carla.
“Thank you,” Carla said.
“She usually brings enough with her for our entire office when she comes to visit,” Pierre observed while she took care of her men as well. He then turned back to his wife. “Since Miss Stanley has sacrificed so much in watching over our daughter, perhaps our hospitality should extend beyond this.”
“This was very good,” Carla observed while finishing her croissant.
“I was thinking about that small café about two blocks from here, near the Theatre of the Muses,” Pierre said.
“My parents are supposed to come by here about eleven,” Carla said.
“Call then and ask them to join us,” Pierre replied. “I never miss an opportunity to ‘wine and dine’ my customers, as you say in English. For you and your parents, I must stick with the dining, which is a pity, since I do not know how else to repay you for what you have done for Madeleine.”
“She needed me,” Carla said flatly. “I couldn’t do anything else.” They all hugged Madeleine very gingerly, and left her with Yveline.
It wasn’t very long before the doctor on call that weekend came in. He put his best poker face on when he realised the unexpected turn of events and called the nurse in. Patiently alternating between checking her vital signs and looking at her chart, he finally turned to Yveline.
“Her recovery is quite remarkable, but she is still very weak. She must remain hospitalised until we can run the full battery of tests and ascertain that what we are seeing is her actual trend.”
“So why has her recovery been so rapid?” Yveline asked.
“It’s hard to say,” the doctor replied. “Encephalitis can take many different courses. Obviously she must have a very strong constitution.”
“She comes from strong people,” Yveline explained. “My father was gassed during la Grande Guerre; Pierre’s went through Verdun. He himself fought with Leclerc to take our country back from the Germans; that’s how we met. During the invasion, he found me in our farmhouse.”
“That’s very interesting,” the doctor opined. “But diseases such as this can bring down even the strongest among us.” He scribbled on her chart and, nurse in tow, left the room.
Pierre returned about 1200 with Raymond, Carla and her parents. The Stanleys had brought Yveline some food as well.
“I guess I need to get back home,” Carla said. “We’re supposed to be having relatives in from the mainland. And I’m supposed to be in my church’s Christmas program.”
“So what are you playing?” Raymond asked curiously.
“One of the angels that announces the birth of Jesus,”Carla replied.
“You’ve already been that,” Madeleine said weakly. “Thank you so much.” The girls hugged to the extent they could and cried for the rest, and Yveline did the same with Carla and her mother. The men shook hands and the Stanleys left for the other end of the country.

Raymond was the early bird the next morning; he had arranged an early morning tennis match with Deidre, so her mother came and got him before Pierre had the chance to arouse himself with East Island coffee, closer to what he was used to than the more American brew the Verecundans drank. Arthur came a little later and brought him to the shop, eventually Raymond joined them, they returned to port and they were on their way back to Verecunda, very satisfied with Pierre’s intermediate stop.
The sun was just setting over Verecunda Bay when the ferry pulled into its wharf in front of the customs house. Even before they had a chance to step on the gangway and go ashore, Luke Allen, Pierre’s warehouse manager and a burly man with some Island native blood in him, greeted them in his usual straightforward manner. Luke wasn’t much for a sunny disposition but even before he helped Pierre and Raymond get their luggage off of the boat he delivered news as only he could.
“Madeleine’s in the hospital, Boss,” Luke informed Pierre.
“Hospital? For what? Why wasn’t I called, at least in Alemara?”
“She only went in this afternoon—felt a little woozy yesterday, went out of her head this morning, collapsed just before lunch. ”
“So what is the doctor’s idea of what is wrong with her?” Pierre asked, agitated.
Luke thought for a minute. “You’ll have to ask him, Boss—I’m not really sure. It’s serious, though.”
“Very well,” Pierre sighed. With that they disembarked. Luke did his usual magic getting Pierre, Raymond and their luggage into Pierre’s old Citröen 2CV—another of Pierre’s “trademarks”—and with Luke driving they puttered off to the hospital.
The Verecunda Municipal Hospital was an imposing building between Gerland Street and the university. It’s main virtue was that it was the only facility of its kind on the Island. People came from everywhere to be greeted by inadequate hall lighting shining on the green walls, resplendent in their lead-based enamel paint. While admiring this, doctors, nurses, patients and visitors alike were able to walk on well waxed, beige asbestos floor tile.
The main entrance lobby was decorated to match the rest of the establishment. Pierre and Raymond were only cheered by seeing Yveline des Cieux in the lobby waiting for them. They threw their arms around each other as they had not in a long time.
“So what has happened?” Raymond asked.
“She has encephalitis,” Yveline gravely reported. “It is a serious case. The doctor will be by in about half an hour. Let’s go.”
“Indeed,” Pierre agreed, and they headed to the elevator. As it rose up to Madeleine’s floor, it beeped and flashed as it passed the intermediate ones, echoing Madeleine’s own heartbeat and struggle for life. Pierre hoped that Madeleine’s own inner rhythm was quicker, because the elevator was interminably slow as it crawled upward past each floor. Finally they arrived at her level, burst from the elevator in uncharacteristically rapid fashion and made their way to her room, not far from the nurse’s station.
Pierre stopped dead in his tracks at the door—not for Madeleine, but for Pete and Alice Stanley, standing up to greet them. A couple in their early forties who still echoed in looks and demeanour the fact that they were high school—or Upper Division, as the Islanders would put it—sweethearts, they owned the feed and seed store that supplied upper Uranus along with Vidamera, Alemara and sometimes Aloxa. They were also tractor and farm equipment dealers as well, which meant that they purchased tyres from Pierre from time to time.
“It is very kind of you to visit,” Pierre said, not sure what else to say.
“It is her doing,” Pete answered, pointing to his daughter Carla awakening from a nap on her cot. A Sixth Former like Madeleine, Carla was almost the perfect “Aryan” in appearance: bleached wavy blonde hair flowing down her back, blue eyes and fair complexion complemented by broad shoulders and a slender figure. She roused herself and stood up, not well put together in the present situation.
“She insisted on coming and being with Madeleine,” Alice added. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Because of the crime that’s about, we came with her. My brother lives in town; we’ve made arrangements to stay with him while she’s here.”
Pierre removed his hat very slowly, as if in respect. “I have had many loyal customers over the years, but you have exceeded all of them.” From that he approached his daughter lying in the bed. Madeleine was wired with IV’s and monitors. She had a very pale look about her as she lay in the bed motionless. Raymond was right behind him; both were visibly shaken at the sight before them.
Pierre finally turned back to the Stanleys and Yveline. “My wife tells me it is encephalitis. But how?”
“We were playing tennis on Wednesday, up in Hallett,” Carla said. “We were both bit by mosquitoes. I guess her’s was the bad one.”
“But this time of year?” Pierre asked.
“Since they outlawed DDT, they’ve gotten worse,” Pete stated. “Even in a dry December like this one. We used to worry about the ones coming over the border. Now we’ve got to deal with our own.”
“So what are they doing about it?” Raymond asked.
“There isn’t much they can do,” Pierre gravely observed. “We must wait and see what happens.” He looked around. “How did she get this private room?”
“Pulled a few strings,” Pete admitted. “Makes it easier on Carla. They moved her out of intensive care because there wasn’t much more they could do there.”
“Surely you’re not going to stay all the time,” Pierre declared.
“I can’t leave her,” Carla said. “It takes forever to get anything around here. She needs me.”
“Since they set up national health care,” Pete came in, “things have gotten slower.”
“They lost quite a few doctors,” Alice added.
Pierre found himself lost in his thoughts at all that suddenly confronted him. He looked around to see the two flower arrangements that were in the room.
“I assume one of those is yours,” Pierre said, looking at Pete and pointing at the flowers.
“The other came from your people at the warehouse,” he replied.
“Has the priest come?” Pierre asked.
“About 16 hours,” Yveline said. “He came in, performed the last rites—or the unction of the sick, as they call it now—and left. That was all.”
Pierre stood in silence again. “The doctor’s supposed to be here shortly, isn’t he?” he finally asked.
“Supposed to,” Carla replied. “But they run slow too. If he’s here by eight, I’d be surprised. It took them three hours to figure out what was wrong with her to start with.”
“Why don’t we take the kids down to eat somewhere while you stay here for the doctor?” Pete asked after a very long silence.
“That’s a good idea,” Pierre agreed, “but I sense that I will be waiting for Godot.” With that the four of them left for the hospital’s cafeteria. Once again Raymond was the biggest winner, getting to sit with his sister’s friend, whom he thought pretty if two forms up from him. Carla didn’t feel like she was as much company as she was, a shell-shocked feeling unchanged by the cafeteria’s uninspiring cuisine. They returned about 1730 to find the des Cieux pretty much as they left them.
They didn’t have a chance to ask about the doctor, as he came in behind them. He officiously went through the diagnosis. The des Cieux learned nothing new: Madeleine had encephalitis, it was a serious, fast-acting case, there was little she could do, and the prognosis wasn’t very good. He bounded out of the room as quickly as he came in.
Pete could see that Pierre was beyond making decisions. “Why don’t we follow you home so you can get some rest and something to eat. There’s nothing you can do here, and there’s no reason you should have to endure Island hospital cafeteria food. Carla will let us know if anything changes.”
“It is the best thing, I suppose,” Pierre finally agreed. He leaned over and kissed Madeleine on the forehead, as did Yveline.
“Are you sure you will be all right?” Yveline asked Carla.
“I brought my things,” she said, pointing to her duffel bag in the corner. “I’ve got clothes hanging in the closet. I’ve done this before. I’ll be OK.”
“Very well,” Pierre agreed. The Stanleys hugged and kissed their daughter and everyone but Carla and Madeleine left.
“Your daughter is more than kind to do what she is doing,” Pierre told the Stanleys as they navigated their Ford estate car though the streets of Verecunda.
“She’s always been that way,” Alice said. “When her grandmother was dying, she stayed with her to the end.”
“She is very special,” Yveline added.
“We think so,” Alice replied.
“But how much can she do?” Pierre asked.
“May the Lord’s will be done!” Pete said as they turned into Pierre’s neighbourhood.
Back at the hospital, Carla tried to settle in for the evening. The room’s television’s picture tube was blown, so that wasn’t an option, and not much of one in any case since Verecunda had only one, state-owned TV channel. Nevertheless Carla ventured out to see if there was a waiting room where one was working, to pass some time and clear her mind. She found one only to discover they were in the middle of a Soviet film festival, so she turned her back on How the Steel was Tempered and returned to the room. She read her Bible for a bit but then closed it to pray.
She took Madeleine’s very warm, feverish hand and began to turn her heart and conversation towards God. As a Baptist, she had learned to pray prayers that were both spontaneous but well orchestrated at the same time. She started in on one of those but not too far into it she broke down in tears, pleading with God to save Madeleine’s life while crying into the bedsheet. She was so loud one of the nurses came down to see what was wrong. Carla regained enough of her composure to reassure the nurse somewhat, then she resumed prayer in a more conventional fashion. She soon found fatigue catching up with her, and it wasn’t long that she was fast asleep.

Pierre was unusual in that he was a second-generation expatriate; his father worked for the same company that he did, and Pierre himself was born in China where his father had been posted after surviving the trenches of la Grande Guerre. After two generations of des Cieux going abroad, Pierre had the deep sense that, instead of selling into the modern world, he was reliving his father’s more primitive postings, and his return trip home underscored that feeling.
When Pierre arrived in Serelia, he did so by ferry from Alemara with no car, so he made arrangements to hire one of the church’s vehicles to get himself around. After several days of beating around Serelia’s narrow, poorly maintained roads, he arrived at the Amhersts’, his last stop. They insisted on taking him back to the port, and early the next morning, while the Amhersts slept off their ample alcohol consumption from the night before, the driver loaded Pierre’s luggage—now without the champagne he had brought with him—and headed to the morning darkness to the port in Serelia town. Once more he transferred self and stuff into another conveyance, this time the ferry. As the ferry headed out the inlet and the rising sun fell on the ship’s starboard bow, Pierre stood to watch as the palace passed by. Once it cleared the inlet, the ship’s course was set more towards the sun as it headed along the eastern shore of the Island.
Pierre’s trip was more visually appealing than usual in that his travelling companions for the day were a group of silly Alemaran and Vidameran girls coming home from St. Anne’s School up the coast from Serelia town, some still in their school uniforms. Pierre knew most of their parents, so he was able to make conversation, explaining to them them their mistakes on their French exams, more pleasantly enthralling them with stories from his travels, and giving the voyage a more cosmopolitan feel. At the same time he was gathering intelligence, both for himself about their parents and for his daughter Madeleine about St. Anne’s girls’ tennis team, which Madeleine’s school was supposed to play the following year.
They rounded the point at Drago and headed outside of the Gulf of Cresca, finally threading their way through Campbell’s Cut and arriving at Alemara’s Government Dock. Passing through the usual formalities, Pierre came through to be greeted by his son Raymond, finishing up the first part of his Fourth Form experience at Alemara Academy. Raymond’s greeting of his father, however, wasn’t very attentive; he was drawn to all of these girls his father had been travelling with, and so while Raymond spent time socialising with them Pierre engaged in conversation with their parents.
As it happened both Pierre and Raymond achieved their objective. Staying at the Alemaran Guest House, Pierre ended up having dinner with Arthur and Maureen Williamson. Arthur was on Alemara’s ruling council and owned the auto repair and parts shop which was Pierre’s principal outlet in Alemara. Across the room Raymond attempted to exercise his Gallic charm, undimmed by his father’s foreign postings, on their daughter Deidre, who had already experienced his father’s ability to attract and hold attention. Both father and son agreed at the end that life just didn’t get much better than it had that evening.

The Amherst Estate was, after the Royal one, the single largest holding in the Kingdom of Serelia, especially since those of their rivals the Cavitts and Masters had brutally passed into the Crown’s holdings. The nerve centre of the estate was the family mansion, situated at the end of a spur off of the Old Beran Road, that civil engineering wonder of the World War I era that both united and divided the Island at the same time. The spur ended in a circular loop that was as barely paved as the narrow way that connected the Estate’s centre with the outside world. The loop was perched on a slightly elevated place in an otherwise homogeneously flat part of the earth.
The mansion itself, which echoed plantation architecture of the antebellum American South, was a two-storey affair which faced due east as surely as any Masonic Lodge or Christian church or cathedral could want to, and more so than Serelia’s own Cathedral of St. Thomas. For the observer standing in front of the mansion’s entrance, one could see to the immediate right the guest house, necessary since the second generation of Amhersts to occupy the house had been very fertile, with four children. Beyond that was the servants’ quarters, itself with a little courtyard that the confederado western neighbours, the Dentons, referred to as the “Negro yard.” But there were no Negroes there; the last black people to work for the Amhersts massacred them when they were in the west, searing the memory and leaving a lasting legacy on family and national policy. The occupants were as European in ancestry as those in the mansion, and rumour had it that some of them were blood relatives of their own “masters,” but such rumours were only said in very hushed tones.
To the left of the servants’ quarters were the stables. The Amhersts were said to have the best horses in the country; they certainly were the most equestrian family in the kingdom, riding for sport and to help manage their vast estate. Separating the stables from the business office—which rounded out the square—was the spur itself, moving off straight away from the estate centre, then through alternating subtropical thickets and fields, towards the main road and ultimately the rum distillery that was an important source of income for the Amhersts and the town that bore their name.
The centre of the circle—or more accurately the oval—was a well-manicured patch of Bermuda grass with a ficus hedge or two. The scene, combined with the family history, begged for some kind of monument, but the master wasn’t much for monuments to his past or that of his forbears.
All of this private property was hard to see on the moonless and slightly warmer than usual December night. Looking out from the mansion’s front, the Milky Way rose from the earth, leaning off to the north, leaving Saturn to its right and high in the sky to join the stars in looking down on the scene. The Amhersts weren’t much for security lighting either, so the only lights to break the darkness other than the stars and planet alternately showing and hiding behind the cirrus clouds sailing in the sky were the ring of lights showing through the windows of the various buildings.
The darkened quiet of the scene was only broken at last by laughter and conversation that burst forth from the second storey balcony on the mansion. A full balcony that extended across the entire front of the house, it also split the columns horizontally that gave the dwelling its “plantation” look. As the host and guest came out and seated themselves on the wicker chairs, the servant followed dutifully with the Boreal orange liqueur that was both Serelia’s trademark and an important source of revenue for the Crown.
The two men who seated themselves on the end of the balcony facing the guest house were a study in contrast. The estate’s owner, Elton Amherst, had just passed his three score and ten in apparent good form. His signature red hair was almost completely white by now, but he had most of it. Thin with his military bearing, before he was seated he strode across the balcony with ramrod straight posture. Although he was born in what is now Aloxa, his accent was that typical “East Island” one, with its formalities of phrase.
His guest was the Island’s premier tyre salesman, Pierre des Cieux. Although their heights were not that divergent, the effect was entirely different, as Pierre’s creeping waistline was turning his country’s famous crise de foie into a crise de l’oie. Pierre had already remounted his trademark straw hat back on his head; some on the Island were convinced that he was born with it on. The hat concealed balding at work, but he compensated for that to some extent with his moustache, still mostly dark at this stage. His own accent revealed someone who had worked very hard at learning English but whose overlay of French was inseparable.
As they were seated, the servant poured the liqueur, bowed to both of them, and left the balcony. Elton lit one of his Havana cigars and Pierre his pipe.
“It’s a pity that Thomas cannot join us,” Pierre noted.
“There’s always something to attend to,” Elton observed. “My son isn’t much of a socialiser in any case. When he becomes master of the estate, you will come here, he will haggle with you a bit over the price, he will give you your order, and you will leave very shortly, which will give you more time to collect your money from our neighbours to the west.” They both chuckled at that.
“Your family seems to be doing quite well.”
“Other than my wife’s departure for the ‘celestial lodge,’ as we used to say, they are. . .”
“Grandpa!” The cry came from the centre of the balcony. They saw Thomas’ wife Susan standing at the door. She was an attractive blonde but Pierre noticed a sad shadow over her mood the whole time they were together. But the centre of attention was her little daughter Darlene, in her pyjamas, her bright red hair made up into pigtails. “Grandpa!” she cried again and ran over enthusiastically towards Elton, the rhythm of her tiny feet beating enthusiastically on the wood plank balcony floor. Her dash came to an abrupt halt when she got in front of Pierre. She stopped, looked at him quizzically, then extended to him her right hand.
“En-chan-tée,” she mouthed out, obviously memorised.
“D’accord,” he replied, taking and kissing her hand. She put her performance into oblivion and resumed her run toward Elton.
“I love you, Grandpa,” she said, reaching up for him. He leaned over, took her up into his lap and kissed her forehead. They hugged for a long time.
“I love you too,” he answered. “You have sweet dreams.” Darlene was in no hurry to get out of his lap but she sensed her mother’s impatience and finally parted, running back to Susan and leading her back into the house.
“She’s very charming,” Pierre said.
Elton took a sip from his liqueur. “There’s something special about her. She’s the most affectionate child I’ve ever seen—and, for some reason, everyone around here has taken leave of their senses and indulged her. But her brothers have decided that they needed a boy for a sibling. They take her on hunting and fishing trips—very quick study, from what they tell me. Too quick sometimes—just last week her mother had to give her a good whipping and wash her mouth out with soap for using some of the salty language her brothers find inseparable. It seems that, since she is so ‘out of order,’ normal conventions don’t apply.” He turned and looked Pierre straight in the eye. “I think she has a decidedly ‘unwomanly’ future ahead of her.”
“To be frank, in this society that is surprising,” Pierre responded, trying to be careful.
“This is a different world we live in. Who knows what could happen? Even here. But she’ll definitely do better than that bubble-headed sister of hers.”
“Theresa?”
“Of course. Inherited all of her mother’s beauty and charm. But it doesn’t go much beyond that. Now she’s taken up with the help, that stable boy Barton Caldwell. Susan can’t bring herself to face the fact that they are seeing more of each other than they should. We put the servants’ quarters where we could keep an eye on them, but it works both ways. Barton’s gotten his eyeful—and more. I know it. Her brothers know it. But her parents won’t do what they have to do.” Even Pierre, always the conversationalist, was at a loss to deal with this outburst.
Elton picked up on his guest’s discomfort. “Sorry to burden you with such things,” he resumed. “But I know you’re a man of discretion.”
“Of course,” Pierre recovered.
“So how has your trip to Serelia gone?”
“Very well. I have seen all of my end users, including those in Drago, Cresca and Fort Albert. Had a very good audience with His Majesty and the Bishop as well.”
“Our dear sovereign. . .his father was a fine fellow, I owed a lot to him. I still feel his loss last year. His son is good, but too much like dealing with the Sphinx. But that’s also a matter for discretion. So how many cases of champagne did you bring to the East Island? The champagne you presented to Thomas and me is magnificent.”
“Three actually. It is a good thing to do at Christmas time, to appreciate our loyal customers.”
“From a drinking standpoint, it is a drop in the bucket in this country. . .but it is a fabulous gesture. You should be commended. You are Jaques’ worthy successor. So how is he doing these days, in retirement?”
“Very well—I don’t hear from him much, so he must be having a very good time.”
“Didn’t he retire to the south of France?”
“He did.”
“Evidently he hadn’t had enough of the hot weather in this place. One of these days, one of you will decide to stay here. But the Island is a rough place.”
“I have enjoyed it very much. It is an interesting territory, pleasant in many ways, challenging in others. Serelia is, frankly, straightforward. Verecunda has gotten interesting with the recent political changes.”
“Political? Ideology? Rubbish!” Elton exclaimed. “It’s all personal vengeance. He married Max Herver’s granddaughter, and she wants revenge for Lucian Gerland wheedling her family out of that estate of theirs. If you want to keep something in the family, the family has to stick together!”
“But, all of this legislation he is passing—there is some kind of social agenda.”
“It’s the Americans’ fault. They spoiled this generation coming up, so their kids threw a tantrum, just like little Darlene does when she doesn’t get her way. But you see even Susan knows what to do when that happens. Their idea of discipline is to let this tantrum go all over the world. What they’re doing is vile, and will lead to Verecunda’s destruction. I told His Majesty just last week what I always told his father—if he lets that kind of thing into this country, we’ll end up the same way and he’ll lose his throne. So far, I think he’s listening to me. Now, the American’s won’t fight for what they have thanks to this ‘tantrum,’ so not only do we have to worry about a bunch of fornicators and drug addicts taking over the Island, but now we have to worry about the sound of Soviet boots goose-stepping down our streets. You’ve met Russian expatriates, haven’t you?”
“Many, over the years. My father counted a good number as friends.”
“Then you know what the Reds can do.” Elton took a good swallow of liqueur to calm himself from the small tirade he just made, easing back into a more relaxed posture in his chair.
Elton looked at Pierre again. “You must excuse me from burdening you,” he resumed. “I have lived on this Island for more than three score now. When I was born, the sons of Beran ruled most of it, the Negroes knew their place, the Verecundans and Collinans were confined to the corner of the Island, and all was well. But things are not the same now. Today we have a collection of kinglets fighting for every scrap of swamp they can get their hands on. The Negroes spilled the blood of kings and rulers and have nothing to show for it. The Verecundans are following blind guides over the cliff. Thank God we have a Christian king and a magnificent Christian church to help us avoid such dangers and have a country where everyone can do what’s right.”
His servants had a sixth sense of when his glass was empty; they refilled it just at the end of his last speech, along with Pierre. For his part des Cieux was agitated by his thoughts. Usually he knew how to ‘hold it in,’ but Elton could detect his nervousness, especially with his extended silence.
“There’s something bothering you, my friend,” Elton noted. “Let me guess, you’ve heard rumours.”
“This is true,” Pierre finally confessed, realising that his own sang-froid had been overcome. “You must excuse me for my impertinence, but ever since I have lived on the Island, I have heard it whispered that you are in fact the senior descendant of the kings of Beran through your mother.”
Elton sighed and looked out on the oval. “Such fairy tales are magnificent, but it’s not so. My father took the privilege of gentlemen, and so my mother was not his wife. He chose to raise me amongst his other sons. That is why I lost my head and ended up here—by God’s grace, as it turns out. So put such things out of your mind, and enjoy the evening—the children of the royal house of Beran are no more, if it were otherwise Allan Kendall would not be wasting his time fighting the Gerlands. The sons of Beran had no equal in their day and do not now.”
“One can only amuse oneself with what could have happened if the two had joined together.”
“The Gerlands and the house of Beran?” Elton asked, a little startled.
“Of course.”
“Now that is a fairy tale!”

The laughter and good times drowned out the gentle ocean surf in the background at the Serelian royal palace, situated as it was on the seashore. Evening had come and so had the time to put aside affairs of state and enjoy good times with old friends.
Around the table at the end of dinner were the hosts, King George and Queen Darlene, moving from early to mid-thirties. Darlene was pregnant with their third child, their daughter Miriam having been born the previous spring. With medium blonde hair and matching complexion, George’s shrewd leadership skills were hidden under an affable and slightly cynical demeanour. Darlene’s long red hair and piercing blue eyes deflected attention from her stocky build and revealed a woman who loved and ruled with the same intensity, evidenced by her holding the hands of the two people on either side of them when not using them to talk. One of those people was her husband; the other was her favourite bishop, Terry Lewis, and next to Terry husband Julian. Both of them were resplendent in their Anglican ministerial garb, Terry’s purple and Julian’s black, and both were taller than their royal counterparts. The purple matched well with Terry’s dark features which reflected her Chinese heritage; although considerably taller than the King, Julian’s colouring was similar, possibly because they were second cousins.
Next to George was the youngest of the group, Caroline Luwayo, and her mother Madeleine. Madeleine’s shoulder-length dirty blond hair and clear blue eyes made her a near replica of her Norman mother. Caroline was almost her mother made over except that she was several shades darker in both hair and skin, the latter nearly the colour of the Serelian café au lait that the party sipped with dessert. Comparing the two showed how the years had fallen gracefully on Madeleine, as they had on Terry.
Next to Madeleine was her father, Pierre des Cieux. Definitely the senior of the group, his white hair and moustache were his remaining trademarks, having left his straw hat with the lackey out of respect for his hosts. With him was his wife Marguerite, Madeleine’s stepmother. Both of them showed the signs of too much good French cooking, which made them rival Darlene in girth, although the Queen had a better excuse.
At the opposite end of the table was the Queen’s sister Theresa and her husband Barton Caldwell. With relatively short hair nearly Madeleine’s colour, Theresa’s appearance and countenance revealed someone who had started out with great beauty but who allowed life to pry too much of it from her. Barton also reflected a hard life, one largely wrought by war injuries which deprived him of one leg. However, they both had a happy attitude about them which helped to compensate for the rough years, and neither betrayed the weight gain that the senior des Cieux did.
“I find it hard to believe that you home schooled her,” Darlene declared to Madeleine as the help began to take the used silver and china up. “I had no idea that Belgium permitted such. It’s not even easy in parts of the U.S..”
“She has known nothing else,” Madeleine replied with her soft French accent. “I started out sending my children to school, but, by the time she was ready to start, the others were already in home school, so she stayed with me.”
“With five children, I’m surprised they didn’t make you get the proper license to operate your ‘school’,” George quipped, to laughter.
“Do you have home schooling here in Serelia?” Madeleine asked.
“We do not,” Darlene flatly replied.
“And why is this?” Madeleine asked. “Is there a religious reason?”
“The Church operates all of the schools here,” Pierre answered. “Traditionally, the problem is truancy, if I may be so bold to say.”
“If we had home schooling,” Theresa chimed in, “they’d all be home schooled—learning fishing, farming and whatever else their parents could find to make money. I know we fought this when my first husband Anselm was a rector.”
“Since we are speaking of school,” Marguerite came in, “isn’t your son and his wife starting university just now?”
“They called me today,” Theresa said, her face glowing with the thought. “They’re doing great, getting settled in. Her parents are helping them to get the kids’ flat started, they grew up not so far from the university. Barton and I will go later in the fall, after we see how this hurricane season goes.”
“Don’t you have a daughter in the Sixth Form?” Caroline asked, finally getting a word in edgewise with her garrulous elders.
“Yes I do,” Theresa said, the glow continuing.
“She is presently dining with His Excellency,” Barton said in an pompous, mocking fashion. Caroline looked puzzled.
“What he means to say,” Theresa informed her, “is that she’s courting the new Minister of Defence’s son. They’re over at his father’s house.”
“I know it is your custom,” Madeleine declared, “but so soon to court and marry for both of your children?”
“You’d better be careful up here,” Terry said, looking directly at Caroline. “I came here at nearly forty. It only took me five months.” The room burst out laughing at that, to Julian’s embarrassment.
“So,” Darlene said to seize the conversation in the wake of this merriment, “Caroline, after being home schooled in Europe’s capital, what made you decide to come here to Serelia, so far away from home?”
“And everything else,” George added.
Caroline was speechless for a bit, collecting her thoughts. “It is not so far from my grandfather. He is only able to come to see us two or three times a year. Now I can go visit him at every break.”
“That’s sweet,” Theresa said.
“St. Anne’s has an excellent reputation for its academic programme,” Madeleine continued. “And it doesn’t hurt her to be in an Anglophone environment—as regrettable as it is to many, we live in such a world.”
“She can see the results of a St. Anne’s education for herself, with two alumnae sitting here,” Pierre noted.
“Now don’t discourage her!” Darlene declared.
“But. . .” Caroline came in hesitantly, “. . .there is one more reason.”
“And what’s that?” Darlene asked, sensing an adventure.
“Last year, we heard a guest preacher in my father’s church talk about one of your ministers praying for someone to come back to life.”
“That minister was Diana Morgan,” Terry noted. “A really sweet girl.”
“After that, the Lord showed me that this was the place of miracles. So I wanted to come.”
“Getting in on such short notice was one of them,” Theresa added.
“With des Cieux, anything can happen,” George quipped.
But Caroline was undeterred in her serious attitude. “In any case, this is where my mother performed her miracles, although she doesn’t like to talk about them. That has drawn me to this place.”
The room fell silent at this. Everyone was looking at everyone else to see who might want to pick up on this.
“Is she talking about the ‘Ten Weeks’?” Darlene finally asked.
“The ‘Ten Weeks’?” Madeleine queried.
“That’s what I have called that time when I was in Fourth Form and you in Sixth when all of those things happened. I think Pierre came up with the name first,” Terry informed her. “Come to think of it, I’ve never discussed it much myself.”
“Then you must tell us about the Ten Weeks!” Darlene declared, her intense blue eyes focused directly on Madeleine.
Madeleine returned her gaze with one of fright. “It was so long ago. . .” she attempted to excuse herself. Pierre uncharacteristically squirmed in his chair at the thought, as did his wife. Even Terry and Theresa looked nervous.
“You cannot refuse me!” Darlene persisted. “You must tell me. This is an absolute monarchy. I demand it.”
“I’m not Louis XIV,” George observed, “but I do have an excellent security service. They have their ways. . .”
Pierre’s sigh broke the silence. “Eh bien, I suppose we must tell them. In any case, since Caroline has made such an effort to come here, she deserves to know everything.”
“Very well,” Madeleine said with resignation.
“But, since we are in the presence of the children of Beran, we will begin this tale at their own estate,” Pierre added. “It was twenty-seven years ago, let me see, Her Majesty was living there and. . .five years old, I think.”
“What month?” Theresa asked.
“December,” Pierre said. “We will start just about in the middle of December, 1970.”
“Coming up on six, thank you,” Darlene said. “So what does that have to do with anything?”
“Because, at the start of this tale, you were a very important attraction there.”
Darlene thought for a second. “Oh. . .oh, dear, now I remember.”
“You may live to regret your impetuosity,” Theresa said, looking at her sister.
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” Terry confidently quoted.
“But it will humiliate you first,” Darlene sighed.

The Ten Weeks is at its simplest a story about several teenagers—and their parents—who are forced to deal with change, not only from within but from the world around them. To get some idea of what they went through, and what their response meant, we need to look at the political situation of the nation they lived in, the Republic of Verecunda, at the south-western end of the Island. At the centre of these changes was one man—Allan Kendall—who dominated the Republic for nearly three decades.

Allan Marshall Kendall was born in 1930 in New Jersey, but when he was five his family moved to Verecunda. The Island had seen a boom during Prohibition; at the end of that social experiment, Verecunda and Collina saw some retreat but were also better known with the travelling American public. Kendall’s family had seen its hard knocks from the Depression and hoped to start again. His father was a greengrocer and started a small store in the north-western part of Verecunda, across the canal from the so-called “Dillman-Arnold” addition, which was just starting to be developed.
Since its founding in 1828, Verecunda had been dominated by its “first families,” the Arnolds, Dillmans and Hervers. Multi-generational wealth splits and family problems had diluted their holdings both individually and collectively, which invited a power challenge. That power challenge came in the form of Lucian Gerland, son of Italian immigrants and an aggressive player. Gerland’s main base of wealth was his real estate holding, but an extension of this was his retail activities. Independent greengrocers such as Kendall’s father stood in his way; he planted a rival store nearby and, through very aggressive pricing, drove Kendall’s father out of business. Kendall never forgot nor forgave his father’s business failure; it drove him on through his entire career.
Through all of his father’s business difficulties Kendall was a diligent student; upon graduation from secondary school, he returned to his native state to attend and graduate from Rutgers in 1952. In spite of the ongoing anti-Communist scares, there was plenty of left-wing activity to take in, and Kendall, nearly a Marxist by that time, did so with a vengeance. At a time when American leftists were wondering how to get back at a McCarthyite nation, Kendall realised that he had a reasonable shot at doing so himself on a much smaller scale. During his time at Rutgers he got another shot of inspiration when he met Laura Millburn, a fellow Verecundan two years his senior. They married in 1950; their only daughter Denise was born three years later.
Laura was more to Allan than a lover and wife. She was the granddaughter of Maximilian Herver, who owned the largest estate in Verecunda proper, extending along the eastern seaboard of the city. Herver had no male heirs and an impending fight amongst the daughters—one of whom had married into the Dillmans—was brewing. Unfortunately Herver wasn’t the best manager of money, and Gerland saw his chance. Whipping up popular support through his political operatives, in 1946 Gerland managed to get a real property tax enacted. Gerland and his other rivals had enough income from their commercial holdings to afford such a tax, but for Herver—whose estate had largely reverted to a wilderness—the burden was unsupportable. Gerland had lent him money, so he called the loans, Herver went bankrupt and committed suicide, and Gerland ended up with the entire tract.
Like Allan, Laura bore a grudge against Gerland. At this point, however, Gerland miscalculated. Having no desire to bear this new property tax alone, and hoping to cool the backwash from his takeover of the Herver Estate, Gerland donated about half of the land, some to the Republic for a seashore park, but most to the University of Verecunda, which relocated to its new spacious campus from what became the government’s central complex. The growing university needed teachers, and Kendall came back from Rutgers to teach history and just about anything else they needed him to.

Although nearly a Marxist, Kendall understood that a straightforward, “proletarian” revolution would not succeed in a tourist-agrarian economy such as Verecunda’s. He also realised that, if Verecunda went formally Communist, it would face the serious possibility of American intervention. He also had some ideas on his social agenda that went beyond standard Marxist-Leninist thought. So Kendall decided to “go it alone” without help from the Soviets, hoping that the vulnerabilities in Verecundan society would bring him victory.
His first move was to found the Committee for Personal Liberty (CPL) in 1955 with fellow faculty member Arthur Moran. They spent the next decade radicalising the student body through their own classes and through the meetings and activities of the Committee. Kendall also used the broad structure of the Committee to include off-campus elements. Chief amongst those were the underground trade unions. All of the ruling families of Verecunda—including Gerland—had stoutly resisted the right of workers to organise. With Kendall’s encouragement, the unions resorted to sporadic violence in an attempt to organise Gerland’s hotel empire, among other companies. This led to the authorities arresting Kendall on two occasions, although he was released when the authorities could not directly connect him with the attacks. Kendall’s release was also related to sympathetic people in the police force, which made Kendall see the house of cards he was up against.
But Kendall was patient; he resisted attempts by his trade union allies—to say nothing of Moran—to rush the process. In 1960 the CPL, operating as the Verecundan Peoples’ Party, elected two members to the Verecundan Senate, from the same part of Verecunda that his father had operated his grocery a quarter of a century earlier. But Gerland wasn’t idle either; the same year he secured the National Party nomination and subsequent election of Roland Campbell as President of the Republic. Campbell strengthened the police and managed to get both Kendall and Moran expelled from the University faculty. Moran fled to Alemara to avoid arrest. Kendall would have been arrested himself, but Laura got her Dillman relatives to intervene, and Kendall was able to get a job teaching at Collina Comprehensive. With its leaders on the run, the CPL was in disarray, its senators were an isolated minority, and all seemed lost.
But it wasn’t lost, in part because Kendall’s anti-Gerland stance was getting traction amongst land-holding people in both Verecunda and Uranus. Gerland continued to acquire property under duress. In 1962 he finally managed to buy out the Arnolds’ holdings out at something of a discount, the result of family splits and Gerland’s financial power. In addition to the large Uranan land holders, the branches of the Dillmans which held large tracts (urban and rural) were under pressure. They decided to throw their lot in with the People’s Party, against the (well justified) objections of their other relatives, especially those in the medical profession. With that they began to prepare for the 1964 elections.
Moran was the first of this “dynamic duo” to return to Verecunda, which he did in early 1963. Kendall left Collina Comprehensive to return that summer. The CPL was reactivated. Campbell wanted to move, but by that time he was embroiled in a power struggle within Gerland’s own organisation. Gerland wasn’t getting any younger, and his own interests were more focused outside of Verecunda. Gerland discovered that several of his own people were involved in a scheme to defraud him and that Campbell was involved in covering for them. The two main leaders of the plot were tried and imprisoned; others fled the country, some becoming CPL members. Campbell would have been forced to resign but Gerland didn’t want the embarrassment, so he put Campbell on a short leash until his term expired. That “short leash” prevented Campbell from moving against the CPL, and in any case Campbell was drawn towards Kendall’s organisation (he was Kendall’s first Secretary of State/Foreign Minister.)
Gerland was left with a decidedly “second string” group of people to work with, and this showed in the election of Joseph Bucek in 1964 as President. A reasonable hotel manager, Bucek was totally unprepared for the situation in the Republic. The fact that he was Roman Catholic didn’t endear him to the other leading families either. The People’s Party had grown to hold about a third of the seats, and many of his own party were sympathetic. The CPL became a dominant force through its protests. Moran wanted to start pushing their social and political agenda through the Senate but Kendall held back; he felt that Gerland’s people would get the credit if they did so at this time. So paralysis was the order of the day. What looked like a stand-off was in fact a situation where Kendall’s situation improved as Gerland’s deteriorated.
Making Gerland’s situation worse was the situation in his own family. After years of secret accounts and corporations, it became clear that his desire was to leave his entire empire (except for some cash trusts) to his son Ernie. This enraged his daughters Victoria and Eleanor, especially since Lucian had sexually abused them as children. Victoria was the first to openly come out against her father, joining the CPL in 1966. Eleanor was slower to come out but joined the Committee two years later.
Kendall decided that his time had come in 1968, and so he was nominated as the People’s Party Presidential candidate, with Moran as his running mate. He was handed the best gift of all in that Gerland decided to run himself. Not an effective campaigner and the object of many Verecundans’ hostility, he still would have beaten Kendall had the Uranans not given the latter protest votes over Gerland’s land acquisition schemes. The People’s Party did even better in the Senate, sweeping that body, and Kendall became President of the Republic, a position he would hold for nearly a quarter of a century.
Kendall’s proceeded aggressively on the social front, with liberalising legislation on a variety of issues ranging from the nationalisation of health care to the legalisation of abortion on demand. From a political standpoint, the aim of this and other legislation was to consolidate his own political power along with that of the CPL and the People’s Party.
Kendall had some personalities to deal with as well. The first one was Moran himself, who died in a mysterious private plane crash just seven months after he took office. Moran was replaced by none other than Roland Campbell, who owed a great deal to Kendall. But Kendall’s greatest challenge was still Lucian Gerland, wounded but not yet down. Kendall had many operatives in Gerland’s organisation. Moran wanted to finish Gerland off through a show trial, but Kendall was, as usual, more patient; he knew that Gerland still had a good deal of offshore money and friends. He also knew that Gerland, who felt betrayed by the country that he had “built,” was sick at heart; he didn’t even choose exile to escape the inevitable doom, whether in life or in death.
As the Unix Era began, Gerland’s health slipped away as he isolated himself in Santa Lucia, his palatial estate on Point Collina. But before we go to those fabled times, we start our story at the royal palace in Serelia, on the opposite end of the Island and twenty-seven years after the events of this tale.

Now that we’re off, below is a “preview” series that I did ten years ago (for the fortieth anniversary of the novel’s setting):

• Week One (13-19 December): In the Clutches of Nationalised Health Care
• Weeks Two and Three (14 December-2 January): A Lovely Catholic Confession, An Ugly Secularist Rejoinder
• Week Four (3-9 January): Dinner with the Freemasons
• Week Five (10-16 January): A Baby Dedication, and Strange Visitors, at the Baptist Church
• Week Six (17-23 January): Learning About French Kissing From the French
• Week Seven (24-30 January): Two Blondes Explore Islam
• Week Eight (31 January-6 February): Before Texting, We Actually Had to Talk on the Phone
• Week Nine (7-13 February): A Little Corporal Punishment for the Road
• Week Ten (14-20 February): When God Touches Your Life, You Will Never Be the Same

Today is the beginning of many things.  It’s the First Sunday in Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year for Anglicans, Catholics and others who follow such things.  It’s also the eve of St. Andrew’s Day, which is appropriate because my experience at the prep school named after it was in part the inspiration of what’s going to dominate this blog for the next three months–my novel The Ten Weeks.  It’s timely for reasons I’ll set forth, in addition to being (hopefully) entertaining.

How It Was Written

The early part of this millennium was for me a time of rediscovery: of my Anglican/Episcopal roots, of my family history, even of my golf game.  One result of those rediscoveries was the Island Chronicles, which had its genesis in the mid-1970’s.  Those really haven’t been widely published, because I’m not the kind who likes to fill up my garage with books, and many fiction authors end up doing just that.

As the first decade of the millennium lumbered on, I had the feeling that there was one more place to discover, and that place was the Island in the early 1970’s (the beginning of the Unix Era for computer people.)  In January 2006 I was appointed Ministries Coordinator for the Lay Ministries Department of the Church of God; in August this site became a WordPress blog.  Somewhere between those two milestones I began organising and writing The Ten Weeks, which was completed early the following year.  With one minor revision in 2008 it has stood ever since; it is the only novel which has passed into distribution, but again with no desire of spending a great deal of money getting it published–and fiction in general being the crapshoot it is–it hasn’t gotten a great deal of exposure either.  This blogging series is an attempt to fix that problem.

Why Now?

Christian political involvement in this country is based on two narratives, one of which is vocalised, the other hidden, neither true.

The first is that, until some recent time, this country has been a seamless Christian country with seamless Christian virtues.  Although I’d be the first to admit that the arc of our morality hasn’t been upward in my adult lifetime, the truth is more complicated than that, complicated by such things as Masonry, Judaism and, to some extent, Roman Catholicism.

The second is that the wealthy (and later the educated) are, by virtue of having risen to their status, more virtuous and better, and thus deserving of deference.  This has always been a thread in Christian life in this country, but there has been pushback, especially in the South.  With a major shift in that culture, it made it easier to sell “Reaganomics” to the Christian community during the 1980’s and beyond, and thus merge the two into one political movement.  But the truth of the matter is that, the closer you get to the wealthy, the more you realise that this is false, and moreover they are the source of many of the social ills that have degraded our society, as they can afford the blowback of their failure and the rest of us cannot.

Recent events should be a wake-up call that our failure to recognise the falsity of these narratives has gotten us into serious trouble.  Many are shocked that things have turned out the way they have.  But for those of us who were in the storm of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and were not raised on another planet, where we’re at was predictable; the surprise is that it took as long as it did.  The Ten Weeks is, in one sense, a thought experiment as to what life would have looked like if the timetable had matched our expectations.

Blogging the Novel

Although it’s been done successfully, blogging a novel isn’t as straightforward as it looks.  The Ten Weeks is no exception.  The title implies a timetable, and the book is built around a very tight chronology.  The original narrative is set from December 1970 to February 1971.  In blogging the novel, I was aided by two providential circumstances which greatly helped things along.  The first is that we are at the fiftieth anniversary of the setting of the novel.  The second is that the days of the week for that anniversary are identical to the setting of the novel.  This means that the narrative can be presented realistically in the novel’s time sequence.  The trout in the milk is that fiction, like life, is more eventful on some days than others, so I have had to split up some of the days and move them back some to keep the blog posts from becoming too long.  With that my success is mixed; I have done my best, I trust that you will find it acceptable.

If you don’t, of course, you can order the novel in paper or virtual form; places to do that are all around you on this site.  In any case it’s time to start the adventure that is The Ten Weeks.