by Ted Neill
“He’s passed on. I received a letter from the last parish where he was a pastor, in Florida.”
“That’s too bad. Father Greenhall, that old son of a gun.”
The line cracked with a hum of static.
“Is Elizabeth living in New Jersey? Is that what you said?” Emilia asked.
“Yes. Yes, she is. At least she should be there.”
Emilia took a deep breath. “Well, I’m going to be in the States next month, and I was hoping to visit her.”
“I was thinking of visiting Italy myself,” Mr. Seroli said without answering her question. “It would be nice if I knew someone over there, though. Maybe I could sleep on your couch.”
“It’s a private convent, I’m afraid. But there are hostels nearby,” she said, twisting her rosary beads in her hand. She didn’t even remember picking them up.
“So much for Christian charity, Sister.”
Emilia was not sure what to say. “No, Mr. Seroli, it’s just the rules. I’m sure you understand.”
“Don’t worry. Don’t mention it. I don’t really have time for an Italy getaway. I’m too busy.”
Emilia swallowed before she asked, “Do you think it would it be possible for me to visit Elizabeth when I come to the States?”
“Well, you can’t do that.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“Are you taking a tone with me, Sister? Wow, they don’t make nuns like they used to, do they?”
“Mr. Seroni, I didn’t mean to offend—”
“Seroli. My name is Seroli. It was Elizabeth’s maiden name, you know. Or maybe you wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“It would be inappropriate if you visited. I won’t allow it.”
“Now, Mr. Seroli, I appreciate your concern for your sister. I do, and I admire your devotion to her. Do you truly think my visit would upset her?”
“I am sure. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made this phone call.”
“Mr. Seroli, this may be the last time I’m in the States for some time.”
“Well, I’m sorry. A visit would just confuse her. As her legal guardian, I have to look after Elizabeth’s welfare.”
“Well, maybe I could have her address and write to her.”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“Just a letter?”
“I’m the only one who gets her mail.”
“Please, Mr. Seroli—”
“I can see this is not working.”
“What is not working?”
“I’m sorry you don’t understand. Good-bye.”
“I’ll keep her in my prayers.”
“Keep us all there. It’s a difficult job, keeping care of her and all. Hard on us all.”
He hung up.
Emilia stood up, as if she had to go somewhere. But in her small quarters there was no room to pace. She went to the window. It was evening. The servers at the café below were rolling the kerosene heat lamps under the awning and chaining up the tables for the night—it would be too cold to let diners eat outside this evening. A group of children kicked a football in the piazza in front of the convent, sending the pigeons scattering into their air. They were children from all parts of the globe: Italy, Eastern Europe, refugees from North and West Africa. They played football with an abandon that she had seen in poor countries throughout the world. Not far away, Alberto, the homeless man who slept each night on the steps of the church, was taking up his place wrapped in his sleeping bag to beg the evening mass-goers for change. The football bounced from one child’s foot to another’s. Emilia felt like there was something she was supposed to be doing that she had forgotten. A wind picked up and turned over one of the tables in the cafés. Chairs skidded along the ground. The servers scrambled after them. Children shouted. Emilia buttoned her sweater tighter. She was cold. Winter was coming.
15.
Nazis
I couldn’t believe it. Professor David Palmer of Weldon University, winner of the Noble Prize for Economics. The news didn’t lie. It was that time of year when every day of the week the news announces the winners in another category. You know, they announce the names, you don’t pay any attention. You just wait for the next story. Unless, that is, you know one of the names. Unless you used to sit next to the guy whose name they are announcing, his name called right after yours in roll each morning.
There was a small picture of him, Dr. David Palmer, beside the other winners. He looked older. We all do, but it was him. He had this big old smile. Dave always had a big smile, didn’t always know where it came from, but it was to his credit. I smiled too, standing there in the kitchen drinking my coffee with a big helping of shock and disbelief. David had lived in this town, in the neighborhood by the grocery store where I still shopped. Now he was a world-famous figure.
And I had taught him how to throw a football.
I looked at his picture. It was definitely him. In the years since, he had gotten a little better at presenting himself. His hair was neatly parted, and he sported a scholarly beard. He had been ugly in junior high. With his stretched-out lips and rounded cheeks, at first glance he looked like he suffered from Downs syndrome. He also had bad dandruff and scaly red skin that was always breaking out in a rash, a reaction to something or other. The girls used to recoil at him and pinch their noses behind his back. His feet pointed outwards, so when he walked he bent over and breathed hard through his mouth. I wondered if he had used that same duck-walk when he’d crossed the stage to receive his prize.
He used to say things like “Top of the morning, Sidney” and “Good day, young chap” and called me “Laddie.” He reminded me of my grandfather. Dave loved history and engineering. No one doubted that he was smart, but no one would ever have traded their looks for his smarts. He loved the history of warfare too, and was particularly fascinated by the German war machine. I had taken a few looks at my dad’s artillery books while I was in our bathroom, so I could actually talk to Dave about these things.
“The bomb ended the war, Dave, but radar won it.”
“That would be the one solitary example of the Brits getting the jump on the Krauts,” I remember he had said.
“The Brits got the jump on a lot of things.”
“The British did invent the first aircraft carrier, but the Germans invented the first jet plane, the Heinkel HE 178, predecessor to the Messerschmitt ME 262.”
“Well, if the Germans hadn’t had their gadgets, they would have lost the war in a month.”
Dave had looked at me, aghast. His heels came together, and he poked at the air with his finger, which meant he was quoting someone important. “‘The German’s institutionalized military excellence. For every one excellent general on the Allies’ side, the Germans had ten,’ General Eisenhower, 1946.”
“Well, I guess that settles it.”
I changed schools after sixth grade, so in seventh grade I was the new kid. My parents wanted me in a smaller, private school. They could still afford things like that then; Dad was still working his job in finance. It was a real small Catholic school—only two classes per grade. Real cliquish. The kids who had been there the longest were like the ruling class. They were the cool ones. I was a nerd because I was new. You could see the segregation between the cool group and nerds at recess. The cool guys played football on the back field; the nerds didn’t. We just played catch near the school building. My friends were Pablo and Jeff. They were nerds too. Jeff, because he wore Metallica T-shirts, and Pablo, because he was poor and wore the same clothes every day. But Jeff and Pablo never considered themselves as nerdy as Dave. Even nerds have a strange kind of hierarchy, I guess. No one wanted to be associated with Dave. He was always raising his hand in class and providing these long-winded answers that even the teachers got tired of. But nothing could dampen Dave’s enthusiasm for learning.
Yeah, big nerd, but no surprise about the Nobel, I guess.
At recess, Dave would follow me around the playground. I acted like I didn
’t know he was there, but he was persistent as a shadow. When I would come up to Jeff and Pablo to toss the football, they’d inevitably look behind me and say, “Dave, you sit over there and watch.”
So Dave would sit on the curb watching us throw. As we played, Jeff and Pablo would slowly move away, so that by the time recess was over, we’d be on the opposite side of the field from Dave. He’d sometimes still be sitting there, like we’d told him to.
One day, both Jeff and Pablo were absent from school. I had no one to throw with, so I turned around, facing Dave, and tossed the football. It hit him in the shoulder and fell to the ground at his feet, where it sat rocking. He stood staring at me through his watery glasses.
“You dropped your football, Laddie,” he said.
“No. You dropped it. I threw it to you. I’m teaching you how to throw.”
“Oh, splendid!”
Dave was not very coordinated or strong. His fingers were short and fat. Academic fingers, I suppose. I don’t think he ever actually threw a tight spiral, but he could flub that ball pretty well. Pablo and Jeff were not thrilled when I said Dave could throw with us the next day. Dave couldn’t catch to save his life. He’d close his eyes, and the ball would hit him in the chest, bounce past his fingers, and Jeff or Pablo would grab it. They begrudged me his presence. Every day they would run and hide from him behind the dumpster, but Dave would always find us, and we’d emerge to pass the ball. It was a weird little ritual they insisted on.
It was over Christmas break that I lost my eye. I came back after an extra week out with a patch. Seventh grade is not a good time to be different. For a while it was like people felt sorry for me and didn’t say anything. But it didn’t take long for the teasing to begin. Mostly pirate jokes. I’ve heard so many stupid pirate jokes. It was Chris Solaris who was the first to start making jokes about it in the cafeteria. Started doing this loud pirate imitation. I ignored it, as if it wasn’t happening. I wanted to believe it wasn’t directed at me. If I pretended hard enough, I could almost convince myself it wasn’t. I was still new to it. Later I would have throttled him, but then I just felt vulnerable and raw.
Jeff and Pablo were useless that day. They were not going to challenge Chris Solaris. He was a clown, but he had been at the school since kindergarten. Like I said, he was part of the ruling class.
I don’t know what it was that Dave caught on to that day. Maybe it was because he was used to being teased, maybe it was because I had taught him to throw the football, but he piped up and said in his loud, nasal voice so the whole cafeteria could hear: “Chris Solaris, you should be ashamed of yourself! Some of the most famous people in history have had one eye, including Hannibal, who was one of the greatest military leaders of all time. Not to mention Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first dictionary of the English language. Theodore Roosevelt was blinded in one eye during a boxing match. Not to mention my personal favorite, Horatius Cocles, who single-handedly defended Rome on the bridge over the River Tiber when the Etruscans attacked—all with an arrow sticking in his eye socket. Mr. Solaris, you could only wish to be in such rarified company as that.”
Dave’s outburst effectively shifted the attention away from me, so I guess that was good. Still, to say I was mortified would be an understatement. I didn’t want Dave coming to my rescue, and I didn’t need people thinking we were best friends. I just got up and ran to the boys’ bathroom, where I cried. It was weird. I could still cry out of both eye sockets but only see out of one. Had to pull off my patch so it wouldn’t get ruined.
Right before spring break, we were doing the yearbook’s last will and testament section—you know, that part where you bequeath things to the lower classes. Jeff left all his gym socks to the kindergarten kids. Pablo wrote something obscene in Spanish. I wrote: I leave all the phone numbers on the bathroom walls to anyone lonely enough to call them. The editors wouldn’t put mine in the yearbook, but they approved Pablo’s and Jeff’s. I don’t think they spoke Spanish. Dave’s also was accepted. He wrote: I leave all my books to Sidney. Better get a bookcase, Laddie! The class thought this was hilarious. Rick Davies left me a hammer and nails, so I could build a bookcase. Chris Solaris left me wood for the shelves. Brad Caveny, who was the coolest kid in school—he already had to shave in just seventh grade—started calling me “Laddie” whenever he saw me. This made my ears burn and my armpits itch with perspiration.
I got in trouble for poking holes in my spelling book, breaking a red pen over them, and spreading the ink around so that it looked like blood. That, combined with the fact I finally punched Chris Solaris in the face, meant I lost recess privileges. But it was worse than that. I guess they were afraid I was homicidal or something. I had to sit in the counselor’s office for observation during recess for a week. On the second day, Dave walked in. I realized he had come looking for me.
“Sidney, my good man, what ails you?”
“Nothing ails me.”
“Why are you in the counselor’s office?”
“Because I’m ‘disturbed.’”
“Do I dare, disturb the universe? In a minute there is time. For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse,” he said with a grand sweep of his hand. He looked down at me. I knew he was quoting, but I had no idea what. He took pity on me. “T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
“That’s great, one of my favorites.”
“Mine too. Mind if I join you, Laddie?”
“By all means,” I said, copying his sweeping hand motion as I gestured at the chair across from me.
He snorted and smiled, then sat down. “Pablo and Jeff are off smoking behind the dumpster. They said they aren’t going to throw the ball until you come back.”
I figured they were likely throwing it now that he was gone.
“I’ll be back next week.”
“Oh, my.” Dave looked around, his eyes landing on a box of checkers. When he opened it, we could see a bunch of chess pieces rolling around too.
“Fancy a game of chess?”
“Why not.”
Dave decimated me, every game. But that was all right, I learned a lot of strategies and combinations from him. He was real patient with me too. I kept knocking over the pieces when I reached for them. I was still new to having one eye and had not recalibrated my sense of depth. Dave wasn’t fazed. He knew what was up. He’d just keep talking, about Germans or the Greeks or British poetry, without missing a beat and set the pieces back in place.
One afternoon, a counselor who was also a nun walked by, stopped, and asked, “David, what are you doing here?”
“Greetings, Sister Camilla. I’m not in trouble. I’m just keeping my friend here company.”
“Oh.” She looked at me, likely surprised that Dave considered me a friend. We were an odd couple, I guess. She probably wanted some type of confirmation from me. I shrugged.
“I taught him how to throw a football. He’s teaching me how to lose at chess.”
Dave laughed uncontrollably. He came in every day that I had detention or observation, whatever it was. If he had been anyone else, the counselors wouldn’t have allowed it, but it was Dave Palmer, and they probably thought he was a good influence on me. I was more comfortable talking to Dave in the counselor’s office. None of our classmates could see us then. But I wondered if it meant he would follow me around even more. I made sure to walk ahead of him and not talk to him on the way back to the classroom each day, letting him duck-walk after me like a lost puppy or something.
In April, Dave had his birthday. He invited Jeff, Pablo, and me. I called his house to say I couldn’t go. His mom answered.
“Hi. This is Sidney. I’m Dave’s friend.”
“Hello, Sidney, how are you?” Her voice seemed really nice.
“I’m okay, but I can’t make it to Dave’s party. My mom says I have a fever.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Tell him I’m really sorry.”
“I will. I hope y
ou feel better.”
I later found out that Jeff and Pablo didn’t go either. I hoped someone had shown up, but I never asked Dave how his birthday went.
One recess, Brad Caveny came up to us and watched me throw without saying anything. I was waiting for him to start making fun of me, but he goes, “Sidney, that’s a good throw.”
“Thanks.”
“We need a quarterback. You want to fill in for Chris? He got suspended.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You can’t take Sidney,” Dave jumped in. “We were having a stimulating conversation on the Reich’s use of the machine gun at the Battle of Somme.”
“Reich?”
“It’s, uh, German,” I said, looking at my feet. My cheeks felt real hot, my armpits sweaty again.
“German,” Brad said, turning. “Dave, are you a Nazi?”
I chuckled a little, mostly because I was nervous. But Brad took it as encouragement. Dave’s voice rose a little bit, so it got real squealy. He always started to sound like a soprano when he was flustered, like an old woman, really.
“No, of course not. It’s just that throughout history, the Germans have been some of the best engineers in the western world.”
“Dave’s a Nazi.” Brad tapped me playfully on the shoulder. Dave’s face turned red, and his big frog lips frowned.
“I am not a Nazi!”
“Dave, you always talk about German’s. You have a swastika tattoo?” I said, joining in. I wanted Brad to like me. I wanted to be a cool kid, I guess.
“I am not a Nazi!” Dave stomped his foot and screamed.
“David is a Nazi. David is a Nazi,” Brad was chanting.
Dave’s face bunched up and he started whimpering. It quickly changed to crying. All-out bawling. He charged Brad and tried to stomp on his foot. That was as violent as Dave could get, stomping someone’s foot. Brad jumped right out of the way, dancing and singing. I did this too, hopping away from Dave’s stomping feet and bouncing on my toes in tune with Brad’s singing. It was fun. The whole football crowd slowly came and joined the dance. Dave finally ran inside. I don’t even think he could see us after a while, his face was so swollen, his eyes just pouring tears. We could hear his high-pitched whining all the way across the field. People did imitations of him for the rest of recess.