Recessional: A Novel by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online Page A

pound on the fender.
    She was so violent that staff from the main building began running out to see what trouble she was in this time, for they had learned that the Duchess, as she was called, lived from one crisis to the next. Her room was on the ground floor overlooking the oval, and from it she could guard the choice parking slot in which she usually kept her highly polished gray Bentley. Let a delivery boy try to park there when her car was in the garage, which it was more than half the time, and she could be relied upon to rush out, beat on the boy’s car with her cane and force him to move. She also kept a sharp eye out for stray dogs that wandered into what she called My Oval, for she was its chief protector.
    The first official to reach her this time was a chubby, rather nervous man in his mid-fifties who wore a three-piece business suit and an air of perpetual harassment. Running to where the Duchess was still hammering the fender, he cried in a quavering voice: “Sir!”
    “I’m trying to get out,” Zorn said plaintively, “but she won’t let me.”
    “And who are you?” the man asked as he tried to pull the woman away.
    “Dr. Zorn. I’m sure you’ve been told—”
    As soon as he heard the name, the man became obsequious: “Madam! Madam! This is our new director, Dr. Zorn!”
    When the woman heard the word
doctor
it was as if an enormous lightbulb had been turned on in her mind. Her face changed from a scowl to a smile: “So—you’re the new man we heard about. Time you got here to bring some order to this dump!” She glowered again, but this time at the official who had been trying to placate her.
    “I’m Kenneth Krenek, as you may have guessed,” the man said, “and this fine lady is Mrs. Francine Dart Elmore of Boston, whom we honor as the Duchess. She occupies that bay-window room there and her job is to see that things move properly in the oval. She’s a wonderful asset to this place, Doctor, and you’ll come to rely on her.”
    “And don’t try any foolishness,” the woman said as she turned to head back to her room, “because under my pillow I keep a loaded revolver.”
    “She does,” Mr. Krenek said. “We’ve tried to take it away, but she says—”
    “If a woman lives alone on the ground floor, available to anyone who comes through that gate, she deserves a pistol and I have one. I can use it, too.”
    When they were alone Krenek told the doctor where he could park his rig: “You’ll learn that your most important job in this place—that is, the one that gives you the most trouble—is how to find enough parking spaces for the residents.” With a sweep of his arm he indicated the cars wedged in everywhere. “And just as difficult, how to give everyone a spot that’s convenient to one of the doors. I’ve tried for eleven years—” Abruptly he stopped, laughed and indicated the open bay window through which the Duchess was watching them. In a voice loud enough for her to hear he warned: “Remember, if you try to take her parking space, she’ll shoot you with her little gun,” and she shouted back: “I would, too.”
    When they entered the main portion of the building and were seated in Krenek’s modest office, the temporary manager said frankly: “Dr. Zorn, I want you to know that I understand you’ve been sent down here to run this place, to bring a clearer sense of mission. I’ve been the interim manager, but it was never intended that I remain so. Mr. Taggart telephoned this morning and spelled it out. You’re to be advertised as Dr. Zorn, but you’ll have no real medical duties. Your job is to be the director. I’m a great detail man, Dr. Zorn, and you can rely on me to carry out your orders. But I’m not the man to keep all the people here happy, and bring in new ones to keep the beds filled. That’ll be your job.”
    “Tell me what I need to know, Krenek. The Chicago office spoke well of you, said you were invaluable, knew which buttons to