Ben Soul

by Richard George

lined face. “The police confiscated it when they arrested me for looting my own stuff. It never appeared on the list of things I was supposed to have looted. Only the beans and part of the cash showed up on my indictment.”

  “I seem to have unusual grandparents on both sides,” Notta said. She drank deeply of her cooling tea.

  “Most people’s ancestors are an odd bunch, one way or another,” Haakon said. “I never knew anything about my mother’s people. She left them or they tossed her out long before I came into the picture.”

  “How did you survive, at twelve?”

  “By my wits and by selling my body. Where I lived, that’s what a person had a body for. I was lucky. The Madam sheltered me from anybody who might have hurt me, until I was old enough to take care of myself. She never sold my services to men, for example. Only to women who wanted a young man. Of course, that ended when I grew up. Madam told me one day to strike out on my own. I did, and eventually I met your mother.”

  “And out of that I came.”

  “Yes.” They sat comfortably silent. It was Notta who spoke first, impulsively. “I don’t know if Mother has told you, but I’m to marry DiConti Sharif soon,” she said. “I’d like you to walk me down the aisle.”

  Haakon stared at her in consternation. “That’s something I never expected to do,” he said, “I don’t know how. I can learn, I guess.”

  Notta grinned. “Dickon says most fathers survive the act.”

  “Well, I’ll do it, if you want me to.”

  “Thanks, Haakon.” She reached out to touch his hand. She wanted to make their connection concrete, but Ermentrude intervened.

  Haakon drew his hand from the table as Ermentrude leaped into his lap. Notta started to reprimand her. Cats weren’t supposed to occupy laps without an invitation. Notta left her reprimand unspoken when Haakon crooned, “Hello, little kitty, I’m so glad you came to see me today.” Ermentrude and Haakon had obviously formed their own set of rules, and it was Haakon’s home, after all. Notta and Haakon made small talk as they finished their tea. Then Notta excused herself; she did need to do some more work before she went to Las Tumbas to send it in to the City.

  “I’m glad you came, Ermentrude,” Haakon repeated, “and I’m glad you brought Notta.” To Notta he said, “Give my best to Emma.” He stood in the door and watched Notta walk down the path toward Emma’s cottage. The afternoon sun gilded the mountain as if to promise good things.

  Old Letters

  La Señora sat at her Papá’s desk. It was an old roll top desk, made from oak, and carved and engraved with multiple representations of grapevines. Decades of waxes and oils had collected in the engravings, darkening them against the golden wood. La Señora seldom used the desk; it was, after all, Papá’s, and therefore a shrine to his memory. Many of the ornate pigeonholes still held the same contents Papá had put in them many years ago.

  Now La Señora determined to go through the old bills, estate notes, and other trivia of that bygone era and discard what was of no historic or familial importance. She had already filled the small mahogany wastebasket once with debris. Elke had emptied it for her and brought it back, along with a pot of oolong.

  La Señora emptied a pigeonhole she did not recall emptying before. After she had sorted through and discarded the stack of old grocery bills, she probed the seemingly empty space to be sure she had removed everything. She touched the back, and bumped against the left side. A small door, engraved with grapevines, opened on the left, where the pigeonhole cabinet joined the wall of the desk. When she peered in, La Señora saw envelopes. She carefully withdrew them. There were four of them, thin, and all addressed to her, but never opened.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The hand was not familiar, but the return addressee was. It was Lt. O. Reginald Shinn. He had been the love of her young life so long ago in Lima. Trembling, she laid the letters before her on the desk. She sipped her tea. The cup rattled against the saucer as she put it down. The envelopes bore Ecuadorian stamps. She read the postal marks. The letters had been written over a period of several months, in 1938. All were postmarked in Lima, Peru. La Señora arranged them in date order.

  She took up a rapier-shaped letter opener that had belonged to Papá. The thin blade trembled in her hand. She inserted it carefully into one corner and slit the yellowed envelope. Bits of paper flaked off the cut. She lay the letter opener aside, inserted two fingers into the envelope, and drew out a folded sheet of paper. The lavender ink traced a bold hand on the sheet. She adjusted her reading spectacles on her nose and read the letter.

  British Embassy

  Lima, Peru

  February 7, 1938

  My Dearest Lima Rose,

  Lima is forlorn, that her favorite rose has fled for a northern clime. The city’s society is dull, her balls unmusical, her suppers tasteless. When will you return?

  I sit in my rooms and read the shipping news. My hope rises with every ship sailing in under American registry, and sinks again when the vessel simply unloads some dull cargo.

  I grieve that I let you get away without receiving your gracious agreement to be my wife. In lieu, this “lieutenant,” as you would say it, begs the grace of a note from you. Any topic will do, your daily observations on the weather perhaps?

  Yours, in all tenderness,

  Lt. O. Reginald Shinn

  La Señora stared at the note for a short time, not quite seeing it to re-read it. She had long ago decided that her Reggie had forgotten her before her ship sailed from Lima’s harbor. Had Papá intercepted this letter? She restored the sheet to its envelope, and took up the next. This she also opened with the letter opener.

  British Embassy

  Lima, Peru

  March 12, 1938

  My Dearest Lima Rose,

  The post between the City and Lima is most empty of letters from you. I trust my first letter reached you? You’ve been in good health, I pray, and just too busy to write? Perhaps you’ve been away at a cousin’s distant farm, or on that small cove your father speaks of so fondly.

  Lima misses you, and now the autumn has come, and, though the gray skies of Lima seldom show blue, if your letter arrives, I’m convinced azure will drown the clouds in heaven.

  I trouble for this darkening mess in Europe. The little Hun frightens me, with his ranting and his moustache. Mussolini, too, seems too large a price to pay for timely railroad travel. Let me hear from you.

  Your loving Reggie

  La Señora’s face darkened with anger. Papá had definitely intercepted Reggie’s letters. How else would they come to be, unopened, in a secret compartment of this desk? How hypocritical it had been of him to comfort her when she lamented never hearing from Reggie. She took up the third letter.

  British Embassy

  Lima, Peru

  May 2, 1938

  My dear Lima Rose,

  I have been ill. Some tropical fever that, no doubt, the natives shrug off, but we British take in full measure of distress. I have been bed-bound for nearly a month, and too weak to hold a pen for several weeks after that. I contracted this whatever it is somewhere along the Urubamba’s jungly banks.

  I am now well on my way to recovery, and about to take up my duties again. Rumor has it that I won’t be here much longer. I’m due to be rotated home to stand by for a more active assignment. Despite Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain, I do think war is imminent.

  Winter is on us, in Lima. We suffered a rare rainstorm two days ago. Some of the poorest sections of the city flooded. Small loss of life, but great loss of livelihood to those who least can afford it. Pray for them, if you will, my darling. Pray for me, as well.

  Your loving Reggie

  La Señora laid aside the third letter. She removed her spectacles and pinched her nose to relieve its tension. She rotated her shoulders to strike the stress from them. She felt a compassionate touch from the unicorn grazing on the
hill. Sighing, she took up the fourth, and last, letter.

  Aboard the HMS Flying Fish

  Somewhere off the coast of Colombía

  June 17, 1938

  Dear Miss Mandor,

  I have been posted back to Britain. Your father’s letter was therefore delayed a few days in reaching me. Please forgive my importunate previous missives. I had no idea you were considering taking holy orders. May you be blessed in your new life. Do not trouble for me. I shall recover, knowing you have set yourself aside to a noble cause. As your father put it, “No British Lieutenant can compete with Almighty God for a lady’s hand.”

  Yours in Christ,

  Lt. O. Reginald Shinn

  “Papá,” La Señora said “I do not regret I have never paid any priest to pray for the repose of your soul. Whatever the Evil One hands you in Hell, you’ve got double coming.” Elke entered the room without knocking. The fury in La Señora’s voice had penetrated into the hall where Elke was passing.

  “Señora,” she said. La Señora turned. The anger in her eyes shocked Elke, who had seldom seen La Señora show anger. Then La Señora burst into tears. This frightened Elke, but she rushed to La Señora to comfort her. She knelt by La Señora’s chair and took the old woman in her arms. Bit by bit La Señora told the whole sorry tale to Elke’s large and comforting shoulder. Had Papá been present, Elke would have gleefully pummeled him into something resembling library paste.

  “Oh, Señora,” she said, over and over, soothing the old woman, until her