by Joan Hohl
Raising a shaking hand, Val pushed her heavy, disheveled hair from her face. “I—I fell,” she said in vague astonishment. “I must have gotten up too fast.”
Grace bustled to her other side. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
Her eyes dazed, Val glanced from one to the other. “Yes, I think so,” she began, then her eyes flew wide and she cried, “Oh, my Lord! The baby!”
“Baby?” Jean-Paul repeated, frowning. “What baby? My baby? Mary Beth’s baby?”
“I knew it!” Grace exclaimed.
Jean-Paul shot a blank look at the older woman. “I don’t understand. What did you know?”
Val answered his question. “I’m pregnant.” Swallowing convulsively, she gripped his arm. “Jean-Paul, please, will you call Dr. Abramowitz? I lost my first baby due to a fall. Dear God, I can’t lose this one!”
After an instant of shocked stillness, Jean-Paul took command of the situation like a man who had been tutored by a dynamo…which he had been, of course. Scooping Val into his arms, he barked an order to Grace as he strode to the door. “I’m taking Valerie to the hospital. Call Dr. Abramowitz and ask him to meet us there.”
* * *
The rain revived Jonas. Slowly he came to his senses. Through the fog he could feel a stabbing pain in the back of his head. As if echoing its pounding roar inside his skull, thunder rumbled overhead. The rain came down in torrents.
Where was he? Jonas winced; it hurt to think. Come to that, it hurt to breathe. Stifling a groan, he opened his eyes. He had to blink several times to clear his vision. The sight that met his gaze brought a frown to his brow.
“What the hell!”
There was a man lying above him, sprawled over what appeared to be the outer edges of a trough. Less than six inches separated the man’s body from Jonas.
Startled, Jonas moved, intending to ease himself from beneath the man. Another groan escaped his throat as his head scraped against something hard. Rockets of pain exploded. Closing his eyes, Jonas drew in great gasping breaths. Then he gagged and his stomach heaved, protesting against the stench in the air. Ignoring the pounding in his head, he scrambled backward. It was only after he was clear of the other man that Jonas realized that his own head had been lying on a large rock. The pain he was suffering gave ample proof that his head had not struck the unlikely pillow gently. Dismissing the questions this realization activated, he heaved himself up and over the edge of the trough.
He was exhausted, but he was out of that disgusting hole. Lying on his back, Jonas closed his eyes and welcomed the cleansing beat of the rain against his filthy body. When the throbbing in his head subsided, and his breathing slowed to a near-normal rate, he carefully pushed himself up and opened his eyes once more.
Where was he? The question reverberated in Jonas’s mind as his astonished eyes absorbed the scene of utter devastation around him. The area looked like a battlefield—a bombed-out battlefield. Twisted and burned pieces of debris cluttered the landscape. Wondering what the pieces used to be, Jonas shifted his gaze to the man lying suspended over the trench. The man’s back was gone, as if literally torn away by a blast of enormous proportions.
Bile gushed into his throat. What in heaven’s name had happened here? Jonas wondered sickly. And what was he doing here, wherever “here” might be? The questions were followed by another consideration, one that caused him to break into a cold sweat.
Who was he?
Sitting beside a stinking waste trench in the pouring rain, Jonas raked his mind for a memory…any memory. He found none. For an instant, stark terror gripped him. From the destruction around him, he appeared to be in the middle of a war zone, and he didn’t know who he was, where he was, or where he belonged.
War zone. The thought unlocked the grip of fear on his mind. Immediately his senses picked up the muted sounds of movement in the distance. He had to get away.
Jonas jackknifed to his feet. His head reeled. Gritting his teeth, he fought back the wave of darkness that threatened to wash over him until his equilibrium was restored. When the world was again in focus, he began to move. Without a backward glance at the scene of destruction, he slipped into the dense thicket of evergreen and deciduous trees surrounding the leveled compound.
Jonas struggled through the thick growth of foliage until he felt far enough away to avoid detection. Then, standing exposed in a tiny clearing, he stripped to the skin and let the pouring rain sluice the filth from his body. When he felt relatively clean, he spread out his clothes and beat them clean with a stout stick. By the time he was satisfied with the combined efforts of the pouring rain and the pounding of the stick, he was exhausted and breathing heavily. Pulling on the sodden garments, he methodically searched the clothing for some form of identification. There was nothing—no billfold, no papers, no money, no clues at all. Shoulders drooping in weariness and resignation, he moved back into the undergrowth in search of a place to rest.
The best Jonas could find was a tall, full, broad-leafed plant. It afforded some protection from the heavy rain and concealed his curled-up body from casual observation. Jonas went to sleep hungry, but he was able to slake his thirst by catching rainwater in his cupped hands.
When Jonas awoke the sun was shining. It was early and already hot and humid. Water dripped from every tree and plant. Jonas didn’t mind the dripping water, the heat or the humidity. He was famished, he still felt excessively tired, but the thumping inside his head had subsided to a dull ache. After standing and testing his strength, Jonas decided he’d survive until he found something to eat.
Since he had no idea who he was, where he was, or where he came from, Jonas had no idea where he was going. Yet strangely, intuition or instinct—some inner something—urged him to move in a northerly direction. Judging direction by the position of the sun, he headed north without question or doubt.
* * *
Val half sat, half reclined against plumped pillows in the large bed. A brown envelope lay on her lap. Her small hand clutched the contents of the envelope close to her breast. Jean-Paul and Mary Beth were seated in the room’s two easy chairs, which had been moved close to the bed. Jean-Paul looked grim; Mary Beth was weeping softly.
At Val’s insistence, but against his better judgment, Milton Abramowitz had released her from the hospital after twenty-odd hours of close observation. He had urged her to stay, for although she had suffered no injuries from her fall, Val was in a deep state of emotional shock and depression. Unable to keep her in the hospital against her will, the doctor had relented on condition that Val have complete bed rest at home.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Val said, her expression stark with the knowledge she could no longer deny. “Jonas really is dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ma chèrie,” Jean-Paul murmured, tightening the grip of his hand around his wife’s cold fingers. “I’m afraid we must accept the truth that Jonas is dead. The information was released this morning. It is the headline story in all the afternoon newspapers.”
“How…?” Val’s voice failed, and she had to draw a breath before continuing. “How did he die? Was he murdered?”
Jean-Paul winced at the harsh sound of pain in her voice. His hand gripped Mary Beth’s trembling fingers. “Valerie, ma petite, believe me, you do not want to hear.” He heaved a sigh. “It is an ugly story.”
Val caught her breath, but determination was written on her pale face. “No, I don’t want to hear about it,” she said struggling for control. “But don’t you understand that I must hear, Jean-Paul? I must know, or else I’ll never be able to believe, accept….” Once again her voice failed. The expression in Val’s eyes pleaded for understanding and compliance.
Sitting forward in her chair, Mary Beth supported Val’s insistence in a quivering plea of her own. “Val’s right, Jean-Paul. I keep thinking it’s all a mistake, that any minute the phone will ring and—” she sobbed “—and it’ll be Daddy, telling us it was all a horrible mistake.” Shudders rippled t
hrough her body.
Releasing her hand, Jean-Paul put his arm around her violently shaking shoulders and drew her close to the protective strength of his own trembling body. “All right,” he said on a sigh, relenting. “I will be brief. But perhaps I should relate to you what I was told unofficially by friends. It seems that Jonas was kidnapped by one of the newer, relatively small but apparently violent takeover groups to appear on the scene in an already strife-torn country in Central America. My informants told me the group consists mainly of malcontents and ex-mercenaries looking for the main chance.”
“But what did these men hope to gain by kidnapping Jonas?” Val asked in a strained voice.
Jean-Paul moved his shoulders in a weary shrug. “Who knows? Recognition, political leverage…it’s anyone’s guess.” His sigh conveyed a sense of futility. “At any rate, the authorities here learned that Jonas was being held in a remote, heavily forested area and a rescue mission was activated. But meanwhile there was apparently friction within the group itself. I was given no details. All I know is that when the rescue contingent arrived at the location, they found complete and utter devastation. The place had been leveled, destroyed by bombing.” He paused, as if dreading the need to continue.
Val sat as if frozen. Her lips barely moved as she prompted him. “Go on, finish it.”
Jean-Paul shut his eyes. When he opened them again, they were dark, shadowed by horror. “All the rescue team found in their search through the debris were bits and pieces, Valerie.”
Val flinched, as if from a hard physical blow. Jean-Paul’s free hand shot out to steady her. Her control shattered. “So this is all I’m to have of him?” Val cried in anguished protest. Lowering her hand, she opened her fingers and stared at the two articles in her palm. “This is all that’s left of my husband?”
“And my father,” Mary Beth whimpered, shuddering as a heart-wrenching sob was torn from her throat.
Springing from his chair, Jean-Paul gently drew his sobbing wife into his arms, consoling her with endearments murmured in French.
Tears running unheeded down her face, Val stared at the two objects in her hand. The metal was twisted and the edges blurred by melting from intense heat, yet the objects were identifiable as Jonas’s wedding ring and the watch Val had purchased for him in San Francisco for his birthday. Barely discernible, Val could still make out the inscription she’d had etched on the back of the watch.
“This isn’t fair!” Val cried, closing her fingers and once more clutching her hand close to her breast. “It just isn’t fair! Is this what I’m to show Jonas’s child?” she demanded. “And all because of some demented, self-styled would-be rulers? Jean-Paul, Jonas never even knew that he was going to be a father again!” Sliding down on the bed, she curled into a ball and gave way to uncontrollable sobs.
His expression revealing his sense of helplessness in the face of two grief-stricken women, Jean-Paul heaved a sigh of relief when Grace came bustling into the room. “You take care of your little lady. Mr. DeBron,” she said softly. “I’ll take care of Valerie.”
In truth, there was very little anyone could do to care for Valerie, other than see to her obvious physical needs. Desolate and inconsolable, Val withdrew into herself. She ate only enough to sustain the life and health of her child. She slept fitfully. She didn’t leave the bedroom and rarely left her bed. Jonas was dead. Val’s instinct for survival had died with him. She no longer wished to live.
Condolences poured in after Jonas’s death was reported in the newspapers. The employees of the firm were devastated by the news. The evidence of the high esteem in which Jonas had been held by scores of people all over the world, as well as in the States, did not surprise Valerie, but it did little to alleviate her remorse or ease her sense of loss.
Cloistered in the bedroom she had shared with Jonas, existing primarily on her memories of him, Val locked out the rest of the world. In much the same way as she had after the death of her fiancé, Jean-Paul’s brother, Etienne, four and a half years before, Val closed herself off from everyone. Only this time it was worse, much worse. Etienne had been Val’s first love, and with his loss, she had suffered the death of love’s young dream. Losing Jonas was a deeper anguish, like losing the most vital part of herself.
Val was bitter and she was angry. In an agony of grief, she ranted in silent fury against a fate so cruel as to rob her of newfound happiness, not once but twice.
With the loss of Jonas, Val relived their time together over and over in her mind, especially their time since their reconciliation in San Francisco. Listening intently to the echo of Jonas’s voice, Val was deaf to the reasoning of other, living voices. Jean-Paul could not reach her. Mary Beth could not reach her. Marge could not reach her. Not even Janet could get through to Val, as she had in Paris over three years before.
To all intents and purposes Valerie had abdicated from life, shutting out the people who loved her. Inside her head, she heard and wept with the echoing sound of Jonas’s whispering voice.
I remember. I remember. I remember….
* * *
Because of his compelling inner determination to trek in a northerly direction, it took Jonas only two months to get across the border into Mexico. It would have taken him longer, if it hadn’t been for the occasional rides he picked up from friendly farmers along the way. Jonas would probably also have faced starvation, if it hadn’t been for the food provided by those same farmers. At other times, Jonas survived by applying the keen intelligence that had enabled him to work his way up from the status of penniless orphan to the ownership of one of the most prestigious electronics firms in the world.
Though his memory of past events was gone, Jonas possessed common sense, and knew that if he was apprehended without identification papers he could be in big trouble. Whenever possible, he traveled parallel to guiding roads, not close enough to be observed by any passing traffic, yet near enough to recognize the farm vehicles. He ate off the land, availing himself of a tiny portion of the farmers’ crops of fruits and vegetables.
During the first month, the going was arduous because of the mountainous terrain. During the second month, the going was arduous because, skirting the mountains, he traveled through a section of the dense rain forest. Jonas grew gaunt, and since he was without the luxury of a razor or even a pocketknife, he grew a beard, which surprisingly came out red, liberally peppered with gray. When his clothes deteriorated to the point of falling in shreds from his thin body, Jonas stole others, which seldom fitted but at least covered and protected him.
The urge inside him to keep moving northward inexplicably grew stronger after he crossed the border into Mexico. Following that inner directive, he continued along the course he had intuitively adopted, avoiding towns and villages, eating off the land where possible, and accepting help from farmers whenever it was offered.
Dodging, wary and cautious, it took Jonas another month and a half to reach the Mexico-Texas border. He crossed the line somewhere between Nuevo Laredo and Rio Bravo exactly as many others had before him, by getting his back wet.
When he crawled out of the water onto United States soil, Jonas drew a deep breath of relief. He still didn’t know who he was, where he belonged, or where his inner urge was leading him. But deep inside, Jonas was certain of one thing. He knew he was in his own country. Armed with that knowledge, Jonas felt he could endure anything.
* * *
Val awoke with a start in the middle of a cold night in early November. Something had wakened her. But what? A dream? A sound? What? She frowned into the darkness. A moment passed, quiet, still, then Val’s frown changed to a wide-eyed expression of sheer wonder.
She had been awakened by the one sensation powerful enough to rouse her from her lethargy—the tiny flutter of quickening life inside her body.
Her baby had moved! Jonas’s child was alive and making his presence felt within her womb. Tears rushed to Val’s eyes as she carefully slid her palm over her gently mounded belly.
Motionless, barely breathing, she waited.
The flutter came again, stronger, more definite. Trembling, Val whispered into the shadowed room.
“Jonas, our baby, the child of our love is alive.” A short bubble of laughter burst from her throat as the sensation was repeated. “Darling, I can feel him stretching his tiny limbs inside my body.”
Her hand pressed protectively over her abdomen, Val shuddered as sobs wrenched from her throat. She had often given way to her tears during the past two months, but this time Val wept tears of healing. Within minutes she was laughing and crying at the same time. Her baby had moved, and in so doing had restored to Val the desire to live.
Val did not go back to sleep. Lying in the darkness, she reviewed the self-indulgence of the past two months and found herself wanting. In retrospect, she realized that she had been so self-absorbed, so steeped in self-pity that she had barely noticed the passage of time, had been oblivious of the fact that the heat of summer had surrendered to the crisp air of autumn. Only now was she prepared to acknowledge the pain, suffering and anxiety of those around her, including those most important to Jonas…his family.
Jonas would not be proud of her, Val admitted to herself. Nor would he be pleased by her willful repudiation of life. Jonas had felt disdain for quitters, especially those who in his own words copped out on life.
Jonas Thorne had been more than a fighter in the battle of life; he had been a genuine scrapper. The insight gave Val’s depleted spirits a shot of determination. Lifting her small chin, she whispered once more into the darkened room.
“From here on, my love, I promise that I will be a scrapper, too. Your responsibilities will be my responsibilities. And I will do more than fight and scrap for the welfare of our child; I will live for him.”
Her energy renewed, Val waited impatiently for the dawn. Not for an instant did she doubt that the child quickening with life inside her was a son.
* * *
Jonas spent over ten weeks in Texas. Not a glimmer of his memory had returned. But, if nothing else, since entering the States he now knew the date, month and year. He also knew the value of a dollar. That particular bit of knowledge amused him, considering the fact that he didn’t possess as much as a dime.
