Ben Soul

by Richard George

before they ever got to Seminary.”

  Dickon stood, brushing the sand from the seat of his jeans. Ben stood and did the same to his clothes, wondering what it would be like to help brush the sand from Dickon’s jeans.

  He continued, “I didn’t fit in very well at Seminary. I came from a poor home, and I had to work to pay my way through college and Seminary. Not quite their class, dears.” He stretched his arms over his head.

  “I persevered, though, and made it through. The second year was easier; I made some friends among the new class members, who weren’t quite so old church.” He lowered his arms. “Want to walk a little way?” he asked.

  “Yes,” he said. Butter raced out ahead of them to chase some sandpipers that were waltzing with the waves. They followed her, talking of minor things, until they came round to the village trail again.

  Beach Party

  When Ben let out Butter one morning, he found an envelope thumbtacked to his screen door. It was an invitation, in a spare, elegant, hand, to the Midsummer’s Night beach party. Ben went to consult Emma.

  “Emma,” he said, when she answered his knock on her door, “I’ve just received an invitation to a beach party. From La Señora.”

  “Oh, yes,” Emma said, and smiled. “She said she was going to invite you especially. You’re to be a guest of honor.”

  “Me? The guest of honor?”

  “A guest of honor. Mae Ling, who’s just back from a book tour overseas, will be honored also.”

  “What should I wear? La Señora seems to lean toward the formal.”

  “Oh, just casual clothes. It’s only the Village, after all. By the way, leave Butter at home. This event is not for four-legged people.”

  “Thanks, Emma,” Ben said.

  “Can you come in for a moment? I’ve some lemon bars, just cooled from the oven.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to take Butter to Pueblo Rio to the vet for her shots. Another time, maybe.”

  “I’ll bring you some lemon bars later, then.”

  “Thanks. I’ll enjoy them, I’m sure.”

  When the night came round, he dressed in his best jeans and sweatshirt. Despite a strong offshore flow, the beach could get chilly by dark. Often, too, the offshore flow dropped at nightfall, and the fog crept onto the beach, even if it couldn’t penetrate the trees. Butter howled after him, protesting his going out without her. He had given her a ball to play with. She scorned any ball without a human to throw it.

  He was warm enough before the sun went down to wish he had worn a thinner sweatshirt. He was perspiring by the time he got to the beach. La Señora was already in place near a roaring bonfire. Elke hovered near her. La Señora was thoroughly regal despite the rustic setting. She sat in a Morris chair that properly belonged in a museum. He wondered who had carried it down the mountain.

  “Welcome, Mr. Soul,” La Señora said, as he came up to her to pay her court. Her “casual” attire was a severely styled dress that covered her to the ankles, with long puff sleeves that reached her wrists. It was gray, and touched at the throat with a little ribbon of ecru machine lace. “Please stand with me; I want to introduce you to the others as they come.”

  “Certainly,” he said, and stood, with his hands folded in front of him, next to her chair. He felt very much on display. Elke Hall was laying out dishes of food on a folding table not too far from the fire. Willy Waugh, still clad only in white briefs, struggled down with a second hamper of food. It seemed La Señora meant to put on quite a feast.

  The first villager to arrive after Ben did was Mae Ling. He had not met her. She was a small woman with an iron rod for a backbone. Gray lightly frosted her black hair and brows. As so many Asian women do, she had maintained her figure in a girlish hourglass. She was warmly dressed in a blue jumpsuit with red piping on various seams. She carried a matching bag. It was large enough to hold a full meal for four people.

  “Good evening, Señora,” she said. La Señora introduced her to Ben.

  Mae Ling asked him, “What do you do for a living, Mr. Soul?”

  “I’m retired.”

  “From what?”

  “Computer programming in an accounting department.”

  “How fortunate you are to be retired.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I write children’s literature.”

  “That sounds fascinating,” he said, watching Willy Waugh in his tighty whiteys setting out the food from the hamper he had brought.

  “I have been quite successful,” Mae Ling said.

  “Mr. Soul,” La Señora said, “have you read any of Mae Ling’s books?”

  “No, Señora, I haven’t, I don’t think.”

  “Let me lend you one,” Mae Ling said. She extracted a book from her bag. It showed a colorful picture of a southwestern pueblo, with a coyote in front of it. The title was Kiva Tales for Children.

  “Thank you,” he said. He glanced up from the book. Willy Waugh was gone. Two figures were coming along the beach.

  “Here come Dr. Field and Juan,” La Señora said. She waved to them, an action that startled Ben as far more girlish than anything he had seen La Señora do before.

  “Welcome, Doctor, Juan,” she called to them.

  The shorter man came first. A jerky kind of energy just barely under his control animated him. His face and head were round, with prominent ears. Where his hair was not gray, it was red. It sat in a fringe around three sides of his skull, like wagons circled to fend off an attack in the Old West. His eyes were quite piercing blue and masked pain with their merriment. His figure was rounded, but not fat. La Señora introduced him as Doctor Chester Field. Ben wondered where Colonel Beau was. The man with Dr. Field was surely someone else. It was only several days after the beach party that Ben realized this Dr. Field was the same man who had helped Len at the hospital tent.

  The other man seemed to be holding himself together over great inner turmoil. His head was bald, or shaved; Ben wasn’t sure which. His brown eyes were masks of whatever was going on inside him. He was dressed, like Ben, in jeans and a sweatshirt. Ben thought he had met him somewhere, but he couldn’t place him. La Señora introduced him as Juan Loosa. He was a silent man, and seemed to want no conversation.

  The Swami came down the stairs with Malcolm Drye next. They suggested Tweedledum and Tweedledee carefully dressed to be opposites. Rotund best described them both. The Swami had a few wisps of gray hair across his gleaming skull. He wore overalls and a blue chambray shirt with tennis shoes on his feet. No sock tops showed above the shoe uppers. Malcolm Drye wore a natty gray three-piece suit, and black patent leather shoes that matched the dye in his slicked down hair. Ben wondered if he had covered both his footgear and his cranium from the same bottle. La Señora introduced them to Ben. They acknowledged him, and went to the table to survey Willy Waugh’s feast.

  Dickon came from the Station. A woman walked with him. Ben saw in their manner with one another an easy and long familiarity. He wondered if this was the Dickon’s ex-wife. La Señora disabused him. “Oh, Dickon has brought Carrie with him. I’m so glad to see her.” She turned to Ben. “Carrie is the Reverend Carrie Oakey. She’s a great friend of Dickon’s.”

  Dickon and Carrie came up to La Señora and greeted her. La Señora introduced Carrie to Ben. She was a woman about his age, severe of countenance, with merry eyes. She wore her hair in a gray helmet. Dickon later described the style as “putting on the whole armor of God above the neck.”

  Emma came soon after. He wondered if she had put on weight since he had first met her. Only when she got close did he realize she had layered her clothing against various degrees of chill. She took off several layers and laid them on a bench.

  “Harry and Olive will not be with us tonight,” La Señora said. “As usual. They do not wish to compromise Harry’s faith.” Several heads nodded. “Rosa Krushan will join us a little later, when the Café close
s.” Again, several heads nodded. La Señora gestured at the table. “Let us eat, now. Reverend Oakey, will you lead us in grace?”

  Carrie Oakey said, “Let us pray each according to her or his beliefs.” She bowed her head. After a moment of silence she said, “Hear what our hearts say, Divinity, and bless us each in the way most appropriate to us. Let it be so.” One or two guests muttered amen.

  “Come, eat,” Elke said. She led the way. Willy (Ben presumed it was Willy) had prepared a feast of picnic foods. Willy had prepared all the food at the house, and brought it down in a series of insulated containers. Ben started with dilled potato salad, went on to cocktail shrimp with lettuce and an Italian dressing, corn on the cob dripping with butter and salt and garlic, and a hamburger replete with onion, sliced tomato, mustard, dill pickles, and ketchup. On his second pass, he had pasta salad with bell peppers and olives dressed with tangy mustard and mayonnaise and minced red onion accompanied by a hot dog with chili relish. He could not make a third pass, though Carrie Oakey, The Swami, and Malcolm Drye did so easily. Mae Ling managed a fourth plate.

  True to his custom when in a group where he knew few people, he listened politely to several conversations, added a few non-committal comments, and drew back to protect himself. Reverend Oakey would have none of it. She sought him out.

  “What are you hiding from?” she asked.

  “I’m not hiding,” Ben said.

  “You are. You’ve got an opaque