A Man Called Milo Morai

by Robert Adams

  Not until the doctor had had up Milo's bloody shirt and undervest to see what looked like a minor and closing scratch on the skin of the abdomen beneath would he believe his prized mystery man to be unhurt. Only then did he leave for the upstairs, guided by Michelle, the maid.

  Maggie pushed her daughter from off her bounteous breasts and said, "Kathleen… ?" When the girl did not answer, merely stood snuffling, with downcast eyes, the older woman gave her a shake that rattled her teeth.

  "Answer your mother when she speaks to you! If you think you're too old for me to take down your knickers and paddle you, you've got another think coming, young lady!"

  "Oh, Mama, he… he killed him. He just tore poor Jaan apart with his bare hands!" Kathleen's voice had risen to a higher pitch with each succeeding syllable, and so the last four words came out as a near-scream.

  Rosaleen resignedly took a step or two forward, her intent to administer a few more wallops of her sovereign Old Country cure for hysteria. But Maggie had her own brand of cure. She once more shook her slender daughter, a shaking that was painful to watch and revealed just how much power lay underneath the adipose tissue.

  She nodded. "It's true, then, isn't it, Kathleen? You've been letting in hoodlums to steal from my boarders, haven't you? Well, you shameless hussy, answer me?" She gave the girl another shake, of shorter duration but just as powerful if not more so. "Haven't you?"

  "Bububu…" Kathleen blubbered, her tears once more at full flow. "But, M-Mama, it… it wasn't really stealing. Jaan ex—explained it all to me… to us all. Lenin said that—"

  "Lenin, is it?" Pat O'Shea sprang up from his chair. "Is this what that damned university teaches you? I'll not see you go back to learn more godless Boshevism, daughter."

  It's to the nursing school, with your sister, you'll be going, by God, there or as a novice with the Holy Sisters of Saint Agnes.

  "Mrs. O'Shea, we should be ringing up the police to come and fetch that Dutch Jew up abovestairs. I'll not be having a heathen Bolshevik longer under my roof!"

  "Aye!" Rosaleen O'Farrell nodded her firm approval. "It's doing it now, I'll be. The jail's the best place for the likes of that one. Corruptin' young, witless, Christian girls!"

  But Maggie O'Shea would not have the police summoned. Instead, when Dr. Gerald Guiscarde had done all that he could immediately do for Jaan Brettmann, he drove into the business area and brought back from his tailor shop old Josef Brettmann and his eldest son.

  When the three men entered the parlor, Milo immediately recognized the youngest, not simply because of the strong familial resemblance to the injured knifeman, but because he recalled him from the office from which he received the papers and to which he returned the translations.

  He walked forward, his hand extended, "Sol, what are you doing here?" he asked in Dutch.

  The newcomer was slow to take Milo's hand, took it only gingerly then, and quickly took back his own hand. Not meeting Milo's gaze, he said softly, Mijnheer Moray, this is my father, whom you had not yet met. The boy, he who robbed you and tried to kill you like some common thug, that is… is my younger brother, Jaan. The medical doctor explained all that happened while we rode here in his auto. Jaan has humiliated me, our father, all of our family before with his wild, radical ideas and schemes, but never to this extent, never housebreaking and attempted murder.

  "I do not, cannot understand him and his university friends. America has been so good to him, to us all, has given us so much that we never would have had in Amsterdam or anywhere else. How could he have done, have even thought to do, such a horribleness?"

  "I do not know what your losses have been, but we— my father and I—will assuredly repay them. It may take time, but you will be fully repaid by the Brettmann family."

  He turned, "Papa, dit is Mijnheer Moray." Then, switching languages, he added, "Mr. Moray speaks also Yiddish and Hebreish, Papa."

  The little old man was tiny. Shorter than either son, neither of whom was of average height, shorter even than the girl, Kathleen. He wore thick-lensed, wire-framed spectacles high on the bridge of a Roman nose, was clean-shaven and utterly bald. He was slightly hunchbacked and peered up at Milo from dark eyes full of tears, and a lump of pity blocked Milo's throat.

  With the agreement of all concerned parties, the police were never summoned or even notified of the incident. When, a few days later, Jaan Brettmann emerged from the hospital, he was met by Sol, who gave him a packed suitcase, a one-way railroad ticket to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the address of his father's first cousin by marriage, Isaak Sobelsky, a jeweler. True to his word, Pat O'Shea saw Kathleen yanked from out the university and ensconced in the hospital nursing school, the only other option offered by her furious parents being Holy Orders. A week or so after his erring, youngest son had been sent off to well-earned exile in the East, old Mr. Brettmann suffered a stroke, which, though it did not quite kill him, left his entire right side paralyzed, useless, making Sol the sole support of his father, his aged mother and his two younger sisters.

  As for Milo, he and Nurse Irunn Thorsdottar began to enjoy occasional days or evenings—dependent entirely on which shift she was working—out. After confiding to him her passion for the works of the musical masters, many of their sojourns were to the opera or the symphony, and he soon became familiar with the soul-stirring music of Wagner, Grieg, Beethoven and Sibelius.

  The translating work really took up little time, and he made use of the rest of each day and of his work locale to voraciously read of past, of present, of imagined or projected futures of the world in which he lived, hoping against hope that some word or group of words, some photograph or painting reproduction in some book would trigger his memory that he might regain his lost past. He learned vast amounts about the world, about its history and accomplishments, but he could never remember any more of what he had done, had been, before his clubbing than he had on that morning in the hospital, in the depths of the winter now past.

  On each succeeding visit to the office of Osterreich's group, Milo noted that Sol Brettmann looked more worn with exhaustion and care and worry. In order to pay the medical costs, to keep food on the table, clothes on the family's backs, his sisters in public high school and the rent paid on the family flat above the sometime tailor shop, Sol had dropped out of his almost-completed law-school program and taken a second job, a night job selling—or, rather, trying to sell—life insurance.

  One day, on the day when he was scheduled to collect his pay for translations completed, young Brettmann took Milo aside and pressed a wrinkled and stained envelope into his hand. Inside it, Milo found a sheaf of crisp new ten-dollar bills, ten of them in all.

  "This will, I hope, recompense you for the money my brother induced the O'Shea girl to steal of you."

  "Now, damn it all, Sol," expostulated Milo, "you can't afford to part with this money, you know it and I know it. How the hell did you get so much together so soon, anyway?"

  Brettmann flushed darkly, hung his head and replied, "I… I knew that I… that we, the family, would be years, maybe, in getting that much… now, with Papa and all. I borrowed it from… from Mijnheer Doktor Osterreich. And he wouldn't even talk of any interest on the loan. He is a truly good man."

  "Then you just give it back to Sam Osterreich, Sol. You do or I will. You owe me nothing, hear? You and your family aren't in any way responsible, so far as I'm concerned, for what your nutty, deluded brother did or tried to do."

  Brettmann's thin lips trembled. "But… but you must take the money, Mijnheer Moray! You must! This is a matter of honor, of family pride, and it preys so on poor Papa's mind. I… I must ease at least that burden from him. It is my duty."

  Nor would Osterreich take the money from Milo. "Mein freund, Josef an old and dear acquaintance is and much more than this I vould do for him and his family, vould they allow such of me. The vord 'loan' I used only for young Sol's pride and for Josef's. Whatefer he pays back to me I vill manage into his pay envelopes to plac
e back to him."

  "Such a shame it was, too, that from university he withdrew. A mind that boy has, a brilliant attorney he vould haf made, too. But a real mensch he is, it is there for all of the vorld to see!" He sighed, then, and added plaintively, wistfully, "If only to help them more they vould allow me… if only they vould…"

  The spring of 1937 slowly became summer, and on the Fourth of July of that summer, Milo accompanied Irunn on a picnic outing sponsored by a Scandinavian-American society of which she was a member. Milo mixed in well with the merry, hard-eating, hard-drinking men and women, conversing easily with them in only German, at first, then, upon hearing and discovering that he knew the languages, in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Even as he ate and drank, mingled and walked and talked, he. wondered just what was the total of languages he knew, how many of them lay somewhere in his mind, just below the surface, awaiting only the right stimulus to prod them to his consciousness.

  It was while he was chatting with a Danish friend of Irunn's that the scholarly man remarked, "Your languages all are very well spoken, Herr Moray, Danish, German, Norwegian and Swedish, too; your accent is flawless in all of them. But I cannot but wonder where and when and from whom you might have learned them, for the dialects you speak are very old. Your Danish, for instance, sounds like I assume the Danish speech of two hundred years ago sounded."

  Milo was trying to think just how to respond to the probe when Irunn saved the day, half-pouting mockingly, "Oh, Dr. Hans, I will bring Herr Moray to a meeting one Wednesday, soon, and you two may sit and drink and talk that night away. But now, today, he is my man and there are things to do here in God's green, beautiful world. Come, Milo, let us get a boat and row out on the lake."

  But as they rowed around the lake, Irunn said, "You should not have withheld from me that you spoke Norwegian, too, Milo. I don't speak it too good myself. I was born in this country, in Wisconsin, and Papa and Mama insisted that all of us children talk in English most of the time. But both of my parents speak it, and… and soon I must take you up to meet them… if you so wish, of course."

  Stroking easily and evenly—unaware of how much practice was required to learn to handle a small rowboat that way—Milo nodded and smiled. "Sure, Irunn, I'd like to meet your folks."

  As they two plodded tiredly up the walk to Maggie O'Shea's boardinghouse that night, Irunn stopped suddenly, faced Milo and laid her palms on his cheeks, then pressed her opened lips onto his. "Milo Moray," she whispered after the long kiss was done, "I love you, Milo Moray. I am yours and you will be mine. You will be mine."

  Milo liked Irunn, but that was all. Besides that, he had no intention of marrying her or anyone else, not for a while, for a long while, possibly. But he quickly found out that attempting to reason with the woman was equivalent to batting his head against a brick wall.

  "Irunn, can't you see that I can't marry anyone now?"

  "Why?"

  "Well, for one thing, I still have no slightest idea who I am… or was. I could be… have been a criminal of some kind, you know."

  "You? You could never have been a criminal, my Milo, you are too good, too kind. And as for who you are, you are Milo Moray, the man I love. You are a good man, a strong man, a man who makes a good living, a man who my Papa will be proud to name his son-in-law and the father of his grandchildren, when they come."

  He considered packing up his few effects and leaving the Chicago area entirely, but he had the presentiment that that would only bring the stubborn, strong-willed woman dogging his trail wherever he went, however far he went.

  He made an appointment and visited Dr. Osterreich in the psychiatrist's office, seeking advice and help in extricating himself from the situation. But Sam Osterreich just laughed.

  "Ach, mein gut, gut freund Milo, marriage the lot of most men is, do not to fight it so hard. Fraulein Thors-dottar I haf at the hospital seen and talked with. A gut voman she is, und a gut Frau vill she for you make. Basic, Teutonic peasant stock, she is—strong, sturdy, with much vitality und not prone to easily sicken, und they little difficulties usually haf in the birthings, either."

  "No, no, there no charge is for you, mein freund, nefer any charge for you. Just name one of your sons, Samuel, eh?"

  Milo could still hear the little psychiatrist laughing as he closed the door to the outer office.

  Dr. Gerald Guiscarde was of no more help. "Look, Milo, I know a little bit about Irunn and her family. They own a big, a really big, dairy farm up in Wisconsin, you know, and for these times, they're doing damned well. So you could do a hell of a sight worse, say I."

  Finally, he went to Pat O'Shea. The old soldier showed his teeth in a grimace that was as close as he could any longer come to a real smile. Then he sobered and said bluntly, "Milo, time was when I felt just like you do, but I knows different, now; indeed I do. If I hadn't had my Maggie when I come home like I am from the war, God alone knows what would've become of me. And a man never knows whatall is going to happen to him, Milo, peace or war, day or night, one minute to the next, so I say when you got the chance to get hitched up to a good, strong woman like that, even if looks ain't her best suit, do it afore she changes her mind. Marry her, Milo."

  After a long pause, he added, "But if you really are dead set against the institution of marriage in gen'rul and you want to get somewheres where she can't come after you and fetch you back to the altar, let me know and I'll have you enlisted in the Army and on a train out of Illinois in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

  Chapter III

  On the 12th of August, Maggie O'Shea received a telegram the receipt of which was to change the course of Milo's life for good and all. Taking both of her daughters out of nursing school, she and they hurriedly packed and entrained for Boston, Massachusetts, and the bedside of her last living relative, a deathly ill aunt. Pat O'Shea, who studiously avoided any public appearance at which he could not hide his hideously disfigured face, stayed behind.

  Irunn had been badgering Milo for weeks concerning just exactly when he would accompany her to Wisconsin to meet her family—and, he was certain, while there, be maneuvered into asking for her hand… or at least give the appearance of having so done. He had been elusive and vague at best, blaming heavy commitments in his work, which was no lie, the recent volume of Western and Central European periodicals having so increased that he now lacked the time at the library to get very much of his history and current-events reading done, spending whole days from opening to closing of the facility translating and writing out the articles in American English. With the swollen volume and a limited budget, the per-word rate had had to be halved, but still Milo was assured of a very good, well-stuffed envelope each week.

  Irunn had been badgering Milo, but on the Sunday following Maggie's abrupt departure for points east, the big woman ceased to do so, becoming again all sweetness and light and snugglings in private and caresses in passing, and Milo breathed a silent sigh of relief, the week ahead promising to be full enough, if the thick stack of assorted publications the office staff had handed over to him on Friday was any indication.

  By the time the library closed on Monday afternoon, he had—even at the rate of half a cent per word— done work to the tune of more than ten dollars and made a healthy dent in the stack of papers. But this had been accomplished only by keeping his nose pressed firmly to the grindstone, staying glued to the chair, not even taking time to leave for lunch. And so when he returned to the cool dimness of Maggie O'Shea's boardinghouse just a few minutes before Rosaleen OTarrell called for the dinner assembly, Milo was tired, ravenously hungry and a little edgy.

  To this last and to the tiredness, he ascribed his seeming foreboding of imminent doom as he hurriedly washed up and put on clean undervest and shirt. But the all-pervasive aroma of Rosaleen's corned beef and cabbage and carrots and boiled potatoes set his salivary glands into full flow and sped his pace down the stairs toward the waiting dinner table.

  He was not surprised to see most of the household a
lready seated around the long oaken table when he entered the dining room, the cloud of steam rising from the platters and serving dishes that lined the center of that table until it rose high enough to be dispersed by the air wafted lazily by the mahogany blades of the ceiling fan.

  He was, however, surprised to see Irunn presiding at the head of the table—the absent chatelaine's normal place—and the master of the house, Pat, occupying a side chair rather than his accustomed spot at the other end, the foot of .the board. Milo's look of wonderment at Pat was answered by a chuckle and a twisted grimace-smile.

  "It's time, Milo, that you began to learn your place at table."

  Milo's second surprise came when Irunn did not, as usual, eat hurriedly, then rush upstairs long enough to brush her teeth and hair and immediately hurry out in the direction of the hospital and her seven-to-seven night shift.

  As the tall woman continued to dawdle and chat with various of the others over coffee and deep-dish dried-apple pie and an old, very strong Cheddar cheese, Milo finally drew his watch from his vest pocket, opened the hunter case and remarked, "Irunn, you're going to be late to work, you know."

  Irunn laughed throatily. "Oh, no, my love, for this week I'll be working days, not nights. It was necessary to make some rearrangements at the hospital in the absence of Mrs. O'Shea, and so what could I do but cooperate? But I am very glad, Milo, for this week we two will have so much more time together, won't we? And we can go, on Wednesday night, to the club meeting, too."

  Even more rested now, a bit more relaxed, his belly now pleasantly full, Milo felt the ominous presentiment return full force. Something deep within him was screaming out, "Danger! Be wary! Danger!"

  Excusing himself from the usual round of chess and chat and a nip of whiskey with Pat O'Shea after dinner, Milo ascended the stairs to his room, turned on the ceiling light, spread out papers on the bed and pushed his forebodings into the back of his consciousness as he applied himself to his translating chores. And there he worked steadily until his eyes were gritty with fatigue and he caught himself in the umpteeth mistake of the night. That was when he undressed, padded down to the communal bath in dressing robe and slippers, bathed, brushed his teeth, voided his bladder, then returned to his room and Crawled under the cool, muslin sheet with a sigh of utter weariness. In seconds, he was asleep.