STARSHIP TROUPERS IV: THE UNKNOWN GUEST

Chapter Eleven: Chewing the Scenery

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright © 2012

 

 

We all stared, shocked, as Ramou stormed out of the bar.  Then General Shaklar took a communicator out of a pocket and spoke into it in a low tone.

 “But…what…”  Lazaro floundered in consternation.  “Did I say something wrong?”

“Yes,” I said, as I stood up from the table.  “I’m afraid you did.”

 “What?  What could I have said?”

 “It doesn’t matter now,” I told him.  “You said it twenty years ago.”

I went out the door and paused, looking about me at the whitewashed cottages and gaudily painted fishing boats.

Where would he be?

I looked up and was gratified to see Winston and Suzanne beside me.  True to form, she had come when she was needed—though in this case, I suspected a deeper motivation, one of which she was perhaps unaware.

“The sea,” I told her.  “If there are waves available, their sound and sight soothe the soul.”

Suzanne stared at me, shocked.  “You don’t mean...  He wouldn’t...”

“Not at all,” I said.  “He has something to live for.”

“What?” she asked, but I wisely forebore to answer, following the paving stones down to the wharf.

 

 

We found Ramou by the sea, on a margin of broken boulders.  He sat on the largest one, shoulders slumped, hands dangling over his knees, watching the waves come to commiserate.  Suzanne started toward him with an inarticulate noise in her throat, but I held up a hand to halt her.  Frowning, she turned to me in question, and I said, “Let him vent the worst of it with me, then come to soothe.”

Her brow cleared, but she still didn’t look sure.  Winston touched her hand.  “Trust Horace,” he said.  “He’s dealt with this kind of thing before.”

“Several times,” I concurred, then went to join the young man on the rocks.  I knew she’d ask how Winston could be sure of my experience with the heartbroken, and would be surprised when he explained that he had been one of them.

I sat down by Ramou and waited.  There was no need to hurry—I too found the sight of the waves soothing, and let my mind wander back over the years to a summer when a young lady had watched them with me on the shore by a summer theater...

“You can go.”  His tone was low and bitter.

“I can stay and listen, too,” I said.

“Nothing to talk about.”

I sighed.  “He didn’t know, Ramou—and if he had, would she have let him come back?”

“No,” he said, “because she didn’t, and she must have known where to find him.”  He slammed a fist into the sand between boulders.  “Lies!  All she told me were lies!  That he’d run off and left us because he was scared at the thought of having a son, that he never sent her any money for child support, that he’d started up with another woman, she’d read it in the papers.  How she gloated when she told me he’d failed at acting too, the way he’d failed at marriage—and all the time!  But he didn’t even know about me!  And it wasn’t his choice to leave!”

I shook my head.  “That would have been true this morning,” I allowed, “perhaps even an hour ago—but now we know he has been a captive all these years.”

“Then why did she have to tell me the lies?  Tell me how he’d deceived her, promised her she’d be rich and famous, then how cruel he’d been, how he insulted her and ran her down—and all the time it was her!  She chewed him out, she did the criticizing, she threw him out—and she told me he’d done it!”

There was more—he went on in the same vein until his comments about his mother became rather insulting.  “Listen to yourself,” I finally said, “and search for the reality behind the words.”

His head snapped up to stare at me—but when he thought back over what he’d said, heard himself, he finally lapsed into the silence of despair.  At that point, I stirred and began to speak.

“You can’t really blame her, Ramou.  I’ve never seen a divorce where there wasn’t some fault on both sides—unless, of course, there was spousal abuse or addiction involved, and it wasn’t in this case.”

“How about addiction to theater?”

“Well, yes, there was that,” I admitted, “but Lazaro probably did his share toward raising her false expectations.  At the least, I’m sure he never denied it if she talked about her notion of the life of an actor’s wife.  Would you, if a beautiful young woman seemed impressed by your involvement with theater?”

He didn’t answer, but there was a difference in the quality of his silence.

“None of us would,” I said.  “He didn’t have to pretend to be glamorous or boast of his success—he only had to refrain from denying it.  Simply being an actor is enough to impress most young women.  There’s no reason to tell them how poorly we’re paid or how slim are our chances are of ever becoming truly famous, is there?”

That barb struck home.  He dropped his gaze to the sand and mumbled a denial.

“Not your problem, I know,” I said, amused.  “The only women you’ve come in contact with since you’ve been in the theater are Suzanne and Lacey—and Marnie, of course—though you must admit none of us attempted to disillusion Prudence when the opportunity presented itself.”

I waited, and finally he mumbled, “No.”  Then he looked up at me, glaring.  “But mom didn’t have to work so hard to make me hate him!”

“I’m not sure she worked at it at all,” I said, “merely took advantage of a sympathetic ear.  Admittedly, she was wrong, very wrong, to make you her confidant—she should have found another to commiserate with, an adult—but I doubt she deliberately tried to incite you to hate him.”

“She sure didn’t seem unhappy about it when I ranted against him!”

“Perhaps,” I said with a sigh, “but you mustn’t really blame either of them terribly.  They were human, after all, and we each have our failings.  Even at your young age, I suspect you can remember things that you wish you had not done.”

I waited for the answer, and when it came, it was a mumble.

“Can you forgive her for being human?” I asked.

"Well, when you put it that way, yeah."  He was silent for a minute, then stormed, “Why would she do that?  Why couldn’t she tell me the truth?”

“Perhaps she did,” I told him, “the truth as well as she knew it.”

He was still again.  I watched.

Finally, he nodded.  “You’re right.  How could she know where he’d gone?”

“Indeed,” I said.  “All she knew was that he did not come home, and that she was going to have his baby.”

Another silence.  Then he said, “She could have figured it out.  She knew he was going to do his act as a warm-up for the concert—and the newscreens would have told her about the riot.”

“True,” he said, “she could have—but not all people are as quick as you are at connecting facts.”

This silence lasted longer; I could see he was linking facts of his own, perhaps some that I knew nothing about.  At last he said, “He could have written.”

“He may have,” I said, “but mail was no doubt censored—and with a rather heavy hand, from what I know of this place before Shaklar.  Then again, tachyon transmissions cost the moon, and I doubt Lazaro has been able to make much of a living.”

He digested that, then nodded.  “He does seem kind of… ineffectual...”

I knew the significance of the words trailing off, knew he was waiting for me to say what he did not wish to hear, and gave him my silence as a gift.

“You’re saying that I’ve only heard one side of the story,” Ramou said, “and that today I’ve heard the other side.”

“There are always two sides,” I said, “though sometimes the second is very slow in coming.”

“He makes her sound like a hag.  She couldn’t have been.  She was gentle and wise.”

“To you.”

“To everybody we knew.  She was a real sweetheart.”

“How long since you’ve written home?” I asked, and knew by his silence that he hadn’t.  “Neither did he, and for the same reasons—he couldn’t send money.”

“Hard to send what you don’t have,” Ramou admitted.  He raised his head.

I suppressed a sigh of relief—he had cleared the first hurdle.  Now for the second.  I did not even have to tell him it was there.  He looked out at the waves again.

“It’s not just that, though,” he continued.  “Sure, the betrayal is the worst part—but it’s almost as bad knowing I was sired by such a wimp!”

“Ah,” I said.  Then, “He must have had redeeming qualities, if your mother found him desirable enough to marry.”

“You mean because she could boss him around without trying?”  His voice was tight with anger again.  “Because a man like him wouldn’t take much pushing, I can tell you that!”

“He certainly does seem to have been battered by life again and again,” I agreed.  “But you are not him, Ramou.  You are not your mother either, though you may have gained some of your assertiveness from her.”

“Then what did I get from him?”  His voice was brittle.

“Talent,” I said at once, “and the poet’s heart that your warrior’s valor so capably protects.  We have all come to know your sensitivity, Ramou, your capacity for caring about others, your loyalty—”

“Loyalty!  Where was his loyalty?”

“It was evident in his attempts to remake himself in order to win your mother back,” I said, “and his failure to do so does not lessen his desire to be true to the woman he loved.  No, Ramou, you may find fault with each of them, but you must acknowledge that they had their virtues, too.  You seem to have inherited the virtues and managed to escape the failings.”

“Except for one.”  He finally looked up at me, though his smile was still sour.  “Their attitude toward commitment.”

“Let us see,” I said, musing.  “You have been with the Star Company more than two years now.  You’ve fought beside us, labored with us, shared our sufferings and our rejoicings, chosen to stay with us even though it meant exile from Earth...  No, I would have to say you have demonstrated a surprising capacity for commitment.”

He froze.

“You are yourself, Ramou,” I said softly, “not your mother or your father, not merely a combination of their traits, but something more, far more, distinct, and very, very worthy.”

He sat, staring at the sea, stunned.  I looked up to my left to see Suzanne and Winston waiting anxiously by the sea-wall.  I nodded, and she came so quickly that I could tell she was forcing herself not to run as I went back to join Winston.  She sat down where I’d been.

“Will he heal?” our resident villain asked with concern.

I nodded.  “I’ve lanced the boil and drained it.  Leave it to Suzanne to apply the bandage.”

But he didn’t, of course—leave, that is.  He stayed to watch, and so did I.

After a while, Ramou stirred and looked up where I’d been—and saw Suzanne.

 

 

I stared, and she reached out to touch my hand.  I pulled it away and turned to scowl at the sand.  “Don’t.  I’m contagious.”

“Then I devoutly hope I catch whatever you’re carrying,” she said with an intensity that made me shrink even more.  She saw and asked gently, “What happened, Ramou?”

“Didn’t Horace tell you?”  I looked up at her in surprise.  She shook her head.  Might have known—Horace honored a confidence even when I hadn’t asked him to.  “I just met my father.”

“Oh,” she said, shocked, and took a breath.  “Lazaro?”  Then:  “How wonderful!”

“Wonderful!?  He’s a dishrag, a lamb!  A weakling who doesn’t even have a personality unless he’s onstage.”

She was quiet for a moment, looking out at the sea, then turned back to me and said, “I wondered why you were so upset.  You were reeling in shock...”

“Shock?” I asked, with a mirthless smile.  “It was an earthquake!”

“Yes, the ground yanked from beneath your feet,” she said slowly, “but meeting him doesn’t really cancel everything you thought was certain and true...”

“Oh, yes it does,” I said, and put full venom into it.  “He’s a wimp, a total waste.”

“How—how did he come here?”

“What—you think he’s not a criminal?”  I straightened, looking out to sea.  “Well, maybe he is… but his crime is forfeiting his manhood.  He just kept losing and losing until he wound up here.”

“But you’re not a loser.”

I turned to stare, surprised at her intensity—and was caught.  Her eyes were huge, their blue so dark they seemed to be sea-pools, and I felt like falling in, falling to wrap the water around me and never, ever have to come out and face people again.

“You’re a man in every way.”  Her voice was low and vibrant.  “You’re strong, assertive, skilled, and hard-working—but you also have an amazing capacity to sense what other people are feeling, to share it, and offer support when they need it.  Even to Larry.  Even if they don’t know they’re taking it.”

I shuddered; she knew me too well.  I looked away.  “But I’m a bad risk.  I run at the first sign of trouble.  I never finish anything I start.”

“You’ve finished every production we prepared,” she contradicted, “and gone on to run each show whenever it’s scheduled.  You’ve even accepted every job Barry gave you.  Performance isn’t your union, but you knew we needed you onstage, so you did it—and I’m amazed how quickly you’re learning to act.”

“Yeah, well, it’s in the blood, isn’t it—the talent?”

I froze, remembering that Horace had said exactly the same thing— that I’d inherited Lazaro’s talent.

“Yes,” she said, “talent and more.  Is he really a wimp, Ramou, or just a gentle man?”

“I suppose you could call him gentle—and chicken.”  Then I frowned.  I didn’t really have any evidence of Lazaro being a coward, only of weakness.  Just because he couldn’t fight back at the world didn’t mean he hadn’t tried.

“So you inherited his strengths, though there were some weaknesses mixed in.”  Suzanne nodded.  “I always wondered how you managed to be brash and tough and still very sensitive underneath.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said.  “If you don’t have the strength you need to face life and deal with it, any other virtues you have don’t matter.”

“You’ve always been strong,” she said, “and I don’t mean being a brawler.  You’re dependable and reliable, and you stand up for the people you care about.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said.  “Nothing matters if you can’t stick to a commitment.  And I don’t mean just for one production, Suzanne, I mean for life!”

She trembled and looked away, and I was shocked to realize I’d hurt her.  “Suzanne—I didn’t mean...  I was talking about myself...”

“Yes, I know.  That’s why I’ve been avoiding you, Ramou.  I’ve always wanted to be an actor, always wanted the theater, and you’re too great a temptation to leave it.”  Her hand was warm on mine.  I thought I heard a sigh of relief somewhere, but it must have been my imagination.

“Ramou...”  She looked down at my hand, and hers.  “A woman has freedom today.  She can build a career, she can choose her own way of living, she can go where her heart leads her.  No one wants to give that up unless they’re sure they’re going to be winning even more than they lose.”

“And you’re smart enough to realize you wouldn’t be gaining much with me.”

“Oh, no.”  She looked up, looked into my eyes, and said, “I’m not that smart, Ramou.  I’m not that smart at all.”

I stared at her, stared into those incredible blue, blue eyes, and this time I did fall, fell slowly forward, trying to fall in, but her lips stopped me—her lips against mine as her eyes closed, and I closed mine as I finished falling in, submerging, surrounded by her, immersed in her, engulfed in the ocean that was Suzanne.

 

 

I watched them kiss and let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief.

Beside me, Winston grinned.  “I think he’s over the worst of it, Horace.”

“Yes,” I said.  “Bless Suzanne.  She’s given him what he needed.”

“Some of it.”  Winston nodded.  “But not all.  Not yet.  I think she will tonight, though.”

“I beg to differ, my friend,” I said.  “I think she has given him, right now, what he truly needs.  The rest he may want, may burn for, may crave—but what he really needs, he has right now.”

The two young ones walked off down the beach, hand in hand, in silence, dumbstruck by the miracle that had just occurred.  Every now and then they stopped and kissed again, then kissed some more.

“I’m beginning to feel like a voyeur,” Winston said.

“Yes, we should afford them some privacy, shouldn’t we?”

“Wasn’t there a pitcher with our names on it, back at Cholly’s?”

We turned away, but Winston looked back over his shoulder and smiled.  “I wonder if they’ll ever know how fortunate they are, how blessed.”

“We can only hope.”  Just as I had once hoped for Winston—and feared he did, too.