Ben Soul

by Richard George

Dickon. She had left a brief message on the answering machine after her first night with Clarence that told Dickon she was alive and camping in a park with other refugees. She promised to come home to him when transportation out of the City resumed. She had stalled for two days, but she could not delay her return any longer. She turned homeward to the little manse smelling of mold and the bland Dickon she’d married.

  Dickon met her at the bus station. He welcomed her and she tried to provide enough enthusiasm about being home to fool him. Nonetheless, he sensed her irritation. When he said for the third or fourth time how glad he was she had survived, she snapped at him that of course, she had survived; she was a grown woman, after all. Dickon fell silent, and said very little for the rest of the evening. Vanna scarcely noticed; she was planning how to find time to count the money she had taken from Quig Drye.

  Dickon was busy with church relief efforts and Vanna blessedly soon had time alone. She made use of the time, counting the money she’d found in Quigley Drye’s office and puzzling over the black notebook. She tried to telephone the office, but it was soon among the non-working numbers. An article in the newspaper described the damaged block of buildings that had included the office, and listed their demolition schedule. Another article listed the identified dead, including Quigley Drye. The article did not mention next-of-kin, so Vanna presumed there was no one to mourn Quigley, or to look for his money.

  The money amounted to more than $125,000.00. Vanna split it among accounts at ten different banks. She did not mention to these banks that she was a married woman; neither did she advise Dickon of her windfall. Dickon, she presumed, was too busy being a pastor to notice the distance in Vanna’s attitude. One afternoon she announced she was going to the City to look for work the next day. She asked Dickon for a modest amount of cash to buy new clothing and accessories. Dickon dipped into their savings and provided her the cash she asked.

  Vanna spent a modest sum on stylish clothing and accessories, and met Clarence for several afternoon trysts. She used his contacts to get a job that would require her to live in the City, at least during the week. He had contacts at City Hall, and arranged an interview for her. She landed a position with the Mayor’s office arranging parties and social events, public and private, for visiting dignitaries. She took a hotel room in the City, and then told Dickon.

  Dickon protested, but gave in to Vanna’s arguments about how helpful the money would be. She insisted she needed to be in the City to do the job, since she had to be on call.

  “Just a call girl,” Dickon punned. She glared at him; he shut up, and helped her pack her clothing and other items she needed into an old truck he borrowed from a parishioner. He drove her to the Penn du Luz Arms. She introduced him to Clarence without telling him who Clarence was to her. Clarence knew she was married to Dickon. Vanna enjoyed Clarence’s discomfort. Soon after she moved in, she dumped Clarence for an aide to a City Councilman. Over the next several months, Vanna settled into her job in the City. During the evenings, she studied the little black book she found at Quig Drye’s office, until she deciphered its code. As she had come to hope, it contained names, addresses, and awkward incidents about the lives of several prominent City leaders, including the mayor and some of the Council. Eventually Vanna tired of Clarence, and dumped him for an aide to a City councilman. From the Councilman’s aide she went to the Councilman. Some weekends she went “home” to Dickon.

  Dickon came to accept the growing distance between himself and Vanna. Marriage to her had never felt quite right after the first honeymoon glow. Vanna had been so dissatisfied that Dickon wanted no part of rising to be a church power, and was content to consider being a rural pastor for the rest of his life that, from the beginning, she had made misery for him. She had a genius he had not recognized during their courtship for finding just the right inflection of voice or choice of phrase to irritate and upset others without ever quite seeming to do so. As their marriage progressed into habit, Vanna’s frustration with Dickon’s lack of ambition became more and more obvious. Then came the temblor. And Vanna took a job in the City.

  Farewell at the Ferry Landing

  Reality must intrude, at last, on romance. Haakon woke first from the post-coital drowse, and gently roused Emma. Afternoon shadows had grown long; they cloaked the City, temporarily hiding its bruises and broken bones. Haakon brushed gypsum crumbles from his body and Emma’s. He became aware of a breeze blowing softly across them. A great gap in the wall of their room where the window had been admitted the outdoors.

  Haakon looked about for his underwear, and, when he could not find it, slithered into his now dusty pants and shirt, and scrabbled under the bed for his shoes and socks. When he had dressed, he spoke.

  “Emma,” he said. “It’s time to get dressed. I don’t think it’s safe here, if there’s an aftershock the building could go down.”

  “Aftershock?”

  “Yes.” He stroked her hair, as he picked bits of gypsum out of it. “We’ve had an earth temblor, you see.”

  “My earth has certainly shaken today,” Emma said drowsily. She caught Haakon’s hand, squeezed it, before she opened her eyes and looked at the room. It was a shambles. “Oh!” she said. She covered her breasts with her hands. Haakon stood and turned his back. He picked up her clothes, brushed as much dust from them as he could, and, piece by piece, handed them to her behind his back. She drew them on.

  “How do we get out of here?” she asked, suddenly practical and worried.

  “The stairs were in the center of the building. I’m hopeful they’ve survived,” Haakon said. “If not, someone will be along to rescue us, I’m sure. It’s been a little while since the quake. Surely rescue crews have been organized.” He was reassuring himself as much as he was comforting Emma.

  Emma slipped her pumps on. She left her nylons twisted on the floor. They had no meaning, now. Haakon wrenched the room door open (the jamb was badly out of trim) and peered into the hall. Dim emergency lighting showed them their way down the corridor to the stairwell.

  The stair was dark, but by carefully feeling their way with their feet, and clutching the dusty banister, they found the ground floor. There was no one at the desk or in the lobby. Shredded wallpaper fluttered in the breeze blowing through the broken windows. When he could not open the door, Haakon carefully helped Emma exit through one of these broken windows.

  The street was as much an obstacle course as a passageway. Debris and automobiles barricaded the sidewalks and the narrow street. No functioning streetlights made picking one’s way a guessing game, until they had negotiated the two blocks to Harbor Parkway. Here the lights still worked, though random lamps were broken, leaving dark puddles in the lighted throughway. Other people were here, walking and talking and marveling and commiserating. Emma clutched Haakon’s arm, certain any of the passersby could tell what she and he had just done. That none of them cared, even if they guessed, made no impression on Emma’s mind. Suddenly she wanted to be home, holding a cat (though no cat lived with her).

  “Take me to the Ferry,” she said. “I think I should go home now.”

  “Certainly,” Haakon said. He had seen it before in his clients, this sudden guilt and fear of exposure that prompted a woman to race for home, as if she could hide from her experience with him in the comfortable obscurity of her suburban walls.

  The ferry landing was strangely empty. There were a few refugees seeking to escape the City, but most people hadn’t yet absorbed how great the damage was, since both television and radio were unavailable to large parts of the populace. Rumor, ever swifter than mere electrons, at first down-played the magnitude of the temblor and the extent of the damage in some quarters of the City. So, Haakon was able to get a ticket, with Emma’s money, to take her across the Bay and home. He stayed with her until the ferry began loading.

  “Thank you, Haakon,” she said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek, li
ke a sister.

  “Go carefully,” he said. “The other side of the Bay may be just as broken up as the City.”

  “I will,” she said, and walked onto the ferry. When she got to the upper deck, she went to the rail to wave goodbye at Haakon. He had already turned and begun walking up Harbor Street. She could just make out his blue-clad back in the crowd. The captain sounded the whistle, and the ferry pulled from the slip onto the heaving bosom of the Bay.

  False Conviction

  Haakon knew it would be some time before the banking system had restored function enough for him to collect his fee for this afternoon’s work from Mae Ling. He trusted her, and the Wong Brothers, in financial matters. Business would not be ordinary for at least three or four days, he guessed. Wisely, he complimented himself, I have provided a haven for myself.

  Haakon commonly roomed in hotels and motels supplied by his clients. On those rare occasions he had no work, he repaired to an illegal room in the basement of a friend’s house. Here Haakon kept a backup supply of food, money, and clothing. From Harbor Street he turned right, up the hill, on Salmon Lane. Here, where the land was more solid, the houses were less shattered. Even here, of course, the wary