The Last Place God Made

I said, ‘What’s wrong with him? Do you know?’

‘Sam?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s simple enough. He was too good too soon. Ace-of-aces at twenty-three. All the medals in the world – all the adulation.’ He leaned down for another spanner. ‘But for such a man, what happens when it is all over?’

I considered the point for a while. ‘I suppose in a way, the rest of his life would tend to be something of an anti-climax.’

‘An understatement as far as he is concerned. Twenty years of flying mail, of barnstorming, sky-diving to provide a momentary thrill for the mindless at state fairs who hope to see his parachute fail to open, of risking his life in a hundred different ways and at the end, what does he have to show for it?’ He swept his arms out in a gesture which took in everything. ‘This, my friend – this is all he has and three months from now, when hiis contract ends, a government bonus of five thousand dollars.’

He looked down at me for several seconds, then turned and went back to tinkering with the engine. I didn’t know what to say, but he solved the situation for me.

‘You know, I’m a great believer in hunches. I go by what I think of people, instantly, in the very first moment. Now you interest me. You are your own man, a rare thing in this day and age. Tell me about yourself.’

So I did for he was the easiest man to talk to I’d ever known. He spoke only briefly himself, the odd question thrown in casually now and then, yet at the end of things, he had squeezed me dry.

He said, ‘A good thing Sam was able to help you when he did, but then I’m also a great believer in fate. A man has to exist in the present moment. Accept what turns up. It’s impossible to live any other way. I have a book at the house which you should read. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.’

‘I have done,’ I said.

He turned, eyebrows raised in some surprise. ‘You agree with his general thesis?’

‘Not really. I don’t think anything in this life is certain enough for fixed rules to apply. You have to take what comes and do the best you can.’

‘Then Heidegger is your man. I have a book of his which would interest you in which he argues that for authentic living what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death. Tell me, were you afraid yesterday when you were attempting to land that Vega of yours?’

‘Only afterwards.’ I grinned. ‘The rest of the time, I was too busy trying to hold the damned thing together.’

‘You and Heidegger would get on famously.’

‘And what would he think of Hannah?’

‘Not very much, I’m afraid. Sam exists in two worlds only. The past and the future. He has never succeded in coming to terms with the present. That is his tragedy.’

‘So what’s left for him?’

He turned and looked at me gravely, the spanner in his right hand dripping oil. ‘I only know one thing with certainty. He should have died in combat at the height of his career like so many others. At the last possible moment of the war. November 1918, for preference.’

It was a terrible thing to have to say and yet he meant it. I knew that. We stood staring at each other, the only sound the rain rushing into the ground. He wiped the oil from his hands with a piece of cotton waste and smiled sadly.

‘Now I think we had better go and get him while there is still time.’

I could hear the laughter from the hotel long before we got there and it was entirely the wrong sort. I knew then we were in for trouble and so did Mannie. His face beneath the old sou’wester he wore against the rain was very pale.

As we approached the hotel steps I said, ‘This man, Avila? What’s he like?’

He paused in the middle of the street. ‘There’s a story I’m fond of about an old Hassidic Rabbi who, having no money around the house, gave one of his wife’s rings to a beggar. When he told her what he’d done she went into hysterics because the ring was a family heirloom and very valuable. On hearing this, the Rabbi ran through the streets looking for the beggar.’