Not Exactly Allies

by Kathryn Judson

CHAPTER 38 – BAD CASES OF ONE THING AND ANOTHER

  Perrine looked at her daughter, and sighed. Truly, this was a serious case of it. It was time for a talk. "There are a few questions you must ask yourself, Marie-Bertrade, before you say yes to a man."

  "Who says I was thinking of it?"

  Perrine smiled. The whole world could see she was thinking about it, and of nearly nothing else. Oh, well. Let the young think they had their mysteries. "Would you love him if he could not make love to you? If he could not speak? If he could not hear? Those are three questions to start with," she said.

  "Mama, you are being horrible and you are not making sense!"

  "Think of it a while, and then see if I am not making sense. For clues, I will say that if you are sure of those three things, you will avoid the most common traps that women fall into. Kisses and the rest of it can make us confuse lust with love. Pretty words can turn our heads. Perhaps most dangerous of all, when we find someone who will listen to us with sympathy, we are so relieved and excited we cannot think straight. Everyone wants a confidante, and is always afraid they will never be able to find a replacement if they lose the one they have."

  "But Mama!"

  "But daughter!" Perrine said, laughing. "And do not misunderstand. Desire and kind words and patient listening are all very important, and help to make a good marriage."

  "And happiness is important, too. He makes me very happy, Mama."

  "All right, then. There are four questions to start with in your case. Would you love him if circumstances made him sad?"

  "Mama. If you don't like him, that is your business. Do not hide it behind philosophy. You are beginning to sound like Papa."

  "Your Papa is a good man."

  "I know. But I bet you didn't ask all these questions before you fell in love with him. It is impossible to think so."

  Perrine laughed again. "No, of course I didn't ask those questions before I fell in love with him. It is only after you are attracted to a man that you have to be so careful."

  Marie-Bertrade seesawed on her feet, weighing the pros and cons of running out of the room versus trying to explain things to her mother.

  "For the record," Perrine said, "I like Bertin. He is hard-working and he seems to have good morals."

  "You make him sound like a dog to be bought at a kennel! He has a good attitude and is house-trained and is good with children. That is what it sounds like. Perhaps you would like to ask to see his pedigree," Marie-Bertrade said. She flung herself into a chair and sat sideways in it, defiance in every feature. "Bah!" she said, for emphasis.

  "Now who is sounding like Papa, I wonder?" Perrine said, but mildly. She smiled. It was the sort of smile that only mothers have, and even they only use it when they are overwhelmed with love. "Marie-Bertrade, in fact the only thing I see that is obviously the matter with the match is that you are so young."

  "Well, I can't change that, now can I?!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Marie-Bertrade half-panicked. Even in her anger she could tell she had made a seriously flawed statement. Patience would take care of being young. At least her mother would think so. Her mother did not understand how long even just a month was, let alone a year or two. That had been patently obvious since she was a little girl, and had been impatient for birthdays or Christmas. Mama could always wait for things. It was crazy. It was sometimes infuriating. But there it was. The woman simply had no sense of time and probably couldn't help it. "Oh, Mama! I am sorry. It is just that it is what Bertin says to me, several times a day. I am sick of being so young. Especially since he looks like he is almost going to cry whenever he says it."

  "I wouldn't blame him if he did cry," Perrine said. "It is very hard for him to wait. He loves you and wants you now."

  Marie-Bertrade sat up. "Well, if he loves me then it's all right, isn't it."

  "Oh no you don't, daughter. If a woman married a man just because he was in love with her, we would all have too many men in our houses. At last count, in fact, you would have seven husbands."

  Marie-Bertrade didn't know whether to sink into her chair from dismay, or smile at the thought of having so many men in love with her. As something of a compromise, she sank back in the chair and smiled. Then she frowned. "It is too complicated for me, Mama. I want life to be simpler than this."

  "That's too bad, because it isn't," Perrine said. It seemed a good note to end on, at least for the time being, so Perrine excused herself and left the room. After further thought, she went shopping. She liked the idea of her daughter being alone to mull over the fact that life was what it was and therefore wanting it to be different was foolish.

  Still, it was all right to dream, of course. Perrine wandered in and out of shops that carried items that would be good to buy for a young couple just setting up housekeeping. For fun, she bought a few kitchen items for herself. It was too easy, once you had lived for a while, to get into the habit of keeping your kitchen just the way it always had been.

  For a lark, she bought a storage jar that looked like a rooster. It was like one that she'd had when she was first married, but over the years it had been broken first by one toddler and then another as they stole biscuits or candy from it. Finally, it could not be glued back together anymore. She had all but forgotten that jar, but this one, although entirely different colors, brought the memory back. She liked that it was entirely different colors, as if that made it something other than a nostalgia purchase. She laughed at herself as she bought it.

  "My grandmother had such a jar in her kitchen," the sales clerk said, eyeing it lovingly.

  "Mine, too. She gave it to me when I married, but the children broke it," Perrine confided.

  "The same colors and everything?"

  "Oh, no. I remember it as entirely different."

  "Good. Perhaps your husband will not laugh at you for replacing it, then," the clerk said, sagely. "If it doesn't look too much like the original, I mean."

  "I am lucky. My husband is more apt to laugh with me than at me. Always."

  "I am jealous to the bottom of my toes."

  "You should be," Perrine teased. "And he is handsome, too."

  "Go away," the clerk said. "It's not fair."

  Perrine left with a bounce in her step. It was fun to buy doodads to liven up the home, and even more fun to make other women jealous. As she walked by her church, she felt less of a swagger. Finally she gave up, turned around, and went back to the church.

  "You looked troubled, Perrine," the priest said.

  "I have been having a good time making other women jealous of me today. I'm not sure I should be doing that."

  "That depends on how you have been doing it, perhaps."

  She told him. The priest pronounced it acceptable behavior for a good Catholic wife, and sent her on her way. He got down on his knees and prayed that he could have more parishioners who cared about whether they were doing the right thing, and had the decency to come ask him. Then he went for a walk in the garden. Perrine Durand almost always made him feel like a walk in the garden. Everything seemed more beautiful, after she'd come by. Why couldn't there be more women like her? So many women confused righteousness with being a spoilsport. How could he make them understand that godly women could be, should be, happy and joyous and lively? Not all the time, of course. But most of the time. Religion had its duties, but God was abundantly merciful and forgiving. So why did so many of his parishioners insist upon walking around like they had the weight of the world on their shoulders?

  "Mme Picard is here to see you," his housekeeper said, breaking into his reverie.

  A mammoth woman, fierce and dour, lumbered into the garden. "What are you doing out in the garden when I need you?" she sputtered. "My sister has been visiting our father behind my back. Can you believe it? I think she is trying to get him to change his will and cut me out of it. I want you to stop her!"

  "You know the law prevents him disinheriting you!" the housekeeper said.

  "Bah. My father has alw
ays known how to get around the laws. Who doesn't? It is the only way to survive. And, you know, perhaps she is telling him that I mean to kill him. That would get me out of the way, wouldn't it? People do that, you know. There are always ways. They are trying to cut me out of my share, I know it."

  Father Jules looked around his beautiful garden and tried to draw peace from it. A tiny voice in his head told him to stop being nice to this horrible woman, with her horrible manners. If only he could tell for certain if the voice was coming from the right quarter.

  "Stop gazing around sadly, you oaf. I need some action," Mme Picard said.

  The housekeeper fluffed like a hen about to protect her chicks, but Father Jules soothed her, and moved her to one side. He'd had enough of being protected by the housekeeper. Not that she didn't mean well, but surely he was man enough to take on a sour busybody, especially today, with the garden's splendor just screaming the powers of God at him.

  "Mme Picard, sit down," he said.

  She hesitated.

  He put both hands around her fat elbow, steered her to a bench, and sat her down.

  "Shame on you," he told her. "Shame on you for not noticing how beautiful the garden is today. Shame on you for being rude. Shame on you for thinking ill of your sister, who has only started going to see your father alone because she is tired of not getting a word in edgewise when you go together. And shame on you for thinking that your father is some sort of puppet. His mind is good yet, and so is his spirit. Speaking of minds, I can set yours at ease, I think. Regarding your inheritance, I mean."

  Finally he had her attention. She sat up, avidly intent.

  "You see, I have been let in on some of your father's decisions," he said. "You do not need to worry that your sister will cause your father to make any changes…"

  She looked smug.

  "…because he decided years ago to not leave you anything more than a token."

  "That is impossible!"

  "No, it is fact."

  "He always did like my sister more than me!"

  "She is getting nothing at all," Father Jules said. "She wants it that way."

  "But, you are lying!"

  This was too much for the housekeeper, who charged at the nasty woman who was making such ridiculous charges against her beloved priest.

  "Oooh, now, easy," Father Jules said, cutting her off. "But I am glad you are here, all the same. It will be nice to have a witness, I think. I hope you will remember that today, out here in the garden, I am telling Mme Picard that she needs to stop plotting to get her hands on her father's possessions, because he essentially has none left. He has sold the house, with the provision that he is allowed to live in it until he dies."

  "Not my house!" Mme Picard gasped.

  "And most of the valuables in it have been sold to museums, with the provision that they stay where they are until he dies, so that the collector might enjoy the fruits of his collecting."

  "No! They are worth fortunes! But, wait. Surely then, if he has sold the house and all the nice things, he must have a lot of money?"

  "He was kind enough to underwrite the rebuilding of-"

  Mme Picard ran screaming from the garden, her hands over her ears.

  The housekeeper snorted. "Serves her right, calling you a liar."

  "I might have exaggerated," he said. "I know her father was talking of doing those things, and that he gave me permission to tell her should I ever find it necessary for the sake of her soul or the safety of his other daughter, but I am not certain that he ever got the details worked out or all the contracts signed. Although, to be sure, he was pretty determined to leave her but a token. His opinion was that she would be dangerous if she had money."

  "She is dangerous enough without it, I'd say."

  "No, just obnoxious," Father Jules said. "There is a difference." He excused himself and went inside to call the father.

  The old man was delighted that someone had told his daughter where to get off, and doubly delighted that it was a Catholic priest. "Too many of you are wimps, you know," he said, utterly without malice, just stating a fact as he saw it. "We'd have more Christians if the clergy weren't so limp and colorless. It sets a bad example for meat-eating males, you know," he said. "Except for you. You're all right," the old man added, hastily, before mumbling his thanks and ringing off.

  That night, Father Jules lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, wishing that Catholic priests could sometimes let loose like evangelical fire-and-brimstone sorts out on a revival tour. It was awkward, this. He was sure that Catholics had the right theology, and he was all for dignity and reverence, especially in church. He feared the wrath of God if worship was not conducted right. But still, Mme Picard's father had a point. Somehow the church had become effeminate, and was paying a toll for that. Membership was down – this was not to mention that eighty percent of the people at any given service were female, and half the men were doormats. And in the wider population, respect was down. Of course it was. It deserved to be.

  He lay quietly and plotted ways of reviving the church. One by one, he set the fantasies aside on the grounds that they crossed the line of what it was proper for him to do, or even ask someone else to do. One by one, he brought three of the dreams back into consideration and played with modifications. At five in the morning, he got down on his knees and tossed his three favorite schemes skyward. "Thy will, not mine," he said, dutifully, before crawling back into bed.

  An hour later, when his alarm sounded, he got up feeling surprisingly refreshed and energized. But after he dressed, he looked out the window at the wide world and suddenly felt small and scared. What could he do, just one man? And where did a man start?

  A group of four boys was walking by. They laughed and scooped up rocks and tossed them against the parish hall and church. One rock broke a window. The boys cheered.

  Father Jules was out the door and grabbed two of the boys while they were still laughing, and before they realized that a priest might run out and grab someone, much less at that hour of the day. "Don't worry about the whole world," the priest's inner voice said, "just the people who cross your path. Start with these."

  "Need any help Father Jules?" a friendly male voice asked. The boys not in the priest's clutches tried to scatter, but found themselves held firmly by Leandre Durand, who was, they decided, stronger than he looked.

  "I didn't mean to break the window, honest!" one boy said.

  "But you will pay for it anyway, won't you," Durand said.

  Another boy swore. "See who it is! It's that same lousy, interfering jerk who helped that stinking Arab girl," he told his friends.

  Durand blinked. He tightened his grip. That he'd been up and walking around since 3 a.m. trying to work things through in his mind, especially about Bertin and Marie-Bertrade, was no excuse for not recognizing these boys, he thought. That he'd only seen them once before, in passing, and before he had known about the Arab boy's murder, Durand did not consider an excuse. Well, not much of one. In truth, even on second look, he did not recognize the boys, any of them. If the one had not spoken…

  "Heaven does provide, Father," Durand said. "Kick me on the shin if ever I forget this morning, will you? Now, boys, we are going inside to begin to sort this out."

  He suited his actions to his words, marching his captives to the parish building.

  -

  Bertin Nason was having serious bouts of self-doubt, mostly centered on the fact that he couldn't imagine how he could ever be worthy of a woman like Marie-Bertrade Durand. It was amazing how he had never noticed how far he fell short of a manly ideal. It was glaring, really, now that he'd taken a good look.

  Needing to divert himself, and also hoping to improve himself, and also hoping for some encouragement from an older man, Bertin met a rabbi friend of his for a good stout theological argument over breakfast. They'd been sparring this way, off and on, ever since they met. The rabbi was a good sparring partner. He didn't pull his intellectual punches, and he had a g
ood education to back up what he said. They met at the rabbi's home. The rabbi's wife didn't much like it, but the rabbi's children were delighted. The children had it in their heads that their papa was trying to out-convert the other man, and they were quite confident that he was going to win. Their father had told them, quite honestly, that he'd found discussions like this to be the best way of finding out where he was weakest in his grasp of the Scriptures and his understanding of the will of G-d. The children thought this a nice statement, but they still preferred to think of it as two men locked in strenuous and lengthy combat, with their father the certain champion.

  "I hear you are thinking of becoming Catholic," the rabbi said as Bertin settled into his chair.

  "What an astonishing thing to say, Rabbi," Bertin said. "And me a fire-breathing Protestant from way back."

  The rabbi's youngest son's eyes got big. "You are a dragon, too?" he asked. This was both wonderful and scary. Dragons were proper enemies, if ever there were any.

  "I wish," Bertin said. "It would be nice to be able to fly away some days, or singe the beard of one or two people I can think of, but no, I'm afraid I'm just a man."

  "If you say so," the boy said, backing off and looking dubious.

  "Shoo, boys. Off with you. I wish to talk to Bertin alone this morning," the rabbi said.

  "Yes, Papa," the boys said. They moved toward the door, but slowly, to prove that they might be obedient but were hardly well-behaved pets.

  The rabbi's wife came rushing into the room, herding the boys back into it. "There is an Arab here. He says he must speak to Bertin. Should I call the police, or rush the children to the hiding place?"

  "Here, I will go see," Bertin said. He stood up, straightened his clothes, and tried his best to look polished. He was never polished, and mornings were doubly impossible, but he thought a crisp appearance was in order and he gave it his best effort as he went to the front door.

  Behind him, the rabbi waved his family into a back room reinforced for bomb blasts and other emergencies and stocked for a siege, but for himself, he walked forward bravely with his young friend, sending up prayers as he went.

  At the front door, refusing to look as uncomfortable as he felt, was the murdered boy's father, dressed in a suit and tie. "I apologize, M. Nason, but my daughter has finally told me what happened, and your colleague is not at home, and I do not dare to have either of you to our neighborhood for reasons I will tell you later if I get the chance. I heard at the mosque that the rabbi could probably find you one way or another. I did not expect to find you here, but if we could just talk?" He stood there looking expectant.

  Bertin looked at the man carefully, considering, weighing his instincts against his training. His training said to hit the deck (or the intruder) when an Arab showed up when he could have used a phone, but his instincts said that this man had needed to be where he could see if he was being listened to and understood. Bertin was not sure that he, himself, would have used the phone in similar circumstances.

  "Of course," Bertin said. "Rabbi, this man's son was murdered and I am looking for the killers. I must make my excuses and be off. Can you suggest someplace he and I can get out of public view quickly? We seem to be drawing a few stares."

  "Will you come in?" the rabbi said to the Arab man.

  "I was not trying to bait you into offering your home," Bertin said. "Not that I think there will be any problem from this gentleman."

  "I am offering anyway," the rabbi said. "Perhaps it is a morning to show a little faith in our fellow man, not to mention the justice and provision of the Almighty. Besides, are not Muslims, Christians and Jews all People of the Book?" Too late the rabbi remembered that Bertin would not stand for having other faiths lumped with Christianity – because other faiths denied Jesus was truly God as well as truly man and that He came to save man from sin and hell – but a look at his young friend reassured him that Bertin would talk to him about it later, but for now would hold his peace.

  The rabbi's face was pasty, and the bereaved father's face had beads of sweat, but the father accepted the invitation and the rabbi ushered him and Bertin into the dining room.

  -

  Durand answered his phone, "Hallo?"

  "Hallo, Durand? This is Bertin Nason. Could we meet somewhere we can talk in private?"

  "Do you know where the Little Cathedral of All the Lesser-Known Saints is?"

  "Yes."

  "Can you come to the priest's residence?"

  "If that is where you want me."

  "It is where I am, and likely to be for a while. How long will it take you?"

  "If I don't turn the wrong way here and there, I should be there in half an hour, more or less, I should think. And in answer to your unspoken question, what I have to say can almost wait. If I die in a car accident before I get there, contact the murdered boy's father, but don't go to his neighborhood to do it. The rest I do not want to say over the phone if I can help it. Are you sure it is all right for me to come there just now? If you are in the middle of another emergency-"

  "Come, we will have breakfast for you."

  "I am having a very ecumenical and movable feast this morning."

  "What was that you just said? I only heard a mumble of some sort."

  "Never mind. It was nothing. I am en route, then, if you will excuse me?"

  "I will be watching for you."

  -

  Bertin was surprised to find four street urchins sitting at the priest's table. The priest's housekeeper was fussing over them, making the most of having been summoned hours ahead of schedule to help meet an emergency. The boys were making loud protests about the fussing, but showed no signs of leaving because of it.

  "Here! Hurry up!" one of the boys said. "If you are the man we are waiting on before we can have breakfast. I'm starving!"

  "As if this won't be their second breakfast here today," the housekeeper said, indulgently, and with the self-satisfaction of a cook who has people clamoring for her to feed them (this is not to mention that Father Jules usually got his own breakfast, and it was her cherished opinion that no male could be counted upon to feed himself properly).

  "I would like for you to meet my housekeeper, Mme Ferrand," Father Jules said, starting the introductions.

  "Good morning, dear lady. Ferrand is my middle name. Perhaps we are related, eh?" Bertin said, with all his good manners brought to bear, but with an overlay of roguish charm that bubbled out without his quite meaning it to.

  The lady blushed bright red.

  "Starving," the street boy repeated.

  "Oh, here, we can't have that," Mme Ferrand said, rushing off to get serving plates she had kept warm in the oven.

  Bertin looked at the urchins and bit back a grin. Obviously it had not been agreed upon whether they should be on their best behavior for the occasion of having a sit-down breakfast with new acquaintances, or defiant for the sake of some sort of gang honor. Two boys were straight up in their chairs doing their best (but uninformed) imitations of polite people, and two boys were cockeyed in their chairs, sneering.

  "Here, Bertin, if your news is urgent I can go with you into the other room before we eat," Durand said.

  "What, and miss out on such a feast while it is warm? It smells wonderful," Bertin said, eyeing Durand for cues as he spoke.

  "Bah!" the oldest urchin said. "You are here because you were with him the day the Arab boy got himself killed. I bet you thought we did it, just like Gramps here."

  "Actually, I happen to know that Jean Blondet's gang was behind it. Surely you don't hang around with those losers?" Bertin said. "I mean, except to take payment for herding little girls past certain hotels. But that's just business, isn't it?"

  All four boys sat up and stared – at Durand, at Bertin, at Father Jules, at each other.

  The littlest boy looked at the oldest one. "I didn't tell anybody. Honest."

  "And we didn't even get any of the money!" another one said.

  "How much di
d they give to Old Broken Nose, do you know?" the third boy asked.

  "Shut up," the oldest boy said.

  "That's easy enough for you to say. You got a cut of it after you beat him up," the third boy said. "I saw him hand it over."

  "Here. Here. We mustn't get upset when we are eating," Mme Ferrand fussed. "It will give you stomachaches."

  -

  The Little Cathedral of All the Lesser-Known Saints had a small bus that Father Jules decided would be better off for having a good, long highway run to clean out the engine, or whatever it was that highway use did for a vehicle that stop and start city driving did not. He came to this conclusion after talking with Leandre Durand, after Durand, closeted with him in the parish office, had held a deep and animated phone discussion with an English friend, who reportedly had a large heart and ample funds (and on top of that supposedly owed Durand a favor, and on top of that apparently wanted to cut a visit to France short and needed an excuse), who supposedly could find safe havens for the four street urchins, who definitely needed to be extracted from their neighborhood, at least until the murderers of the Arab boy were no longer running around at large, presenting a danger to those who might testify against them, especially homeless orphans.

  Besides, Father Jules had known Leandre Durand long enough to know that if he had that set to his jaw, and stood just that way on his feet, that he was doing what he thought was his duty as a son of God, and there was no point – and usually no reason – to get between him and whatever project he had laid out for himself. And besides, to know that Durand was personally taking responsibility for the boys was a relief. So often these days, children were shunted into the hands of bureaucrats, who generally tried to convince them of the wisdom of government and the folly of faith. It did not bear thinking about, really, how many children were having their physical needs met after a fashion, but whose souls were being half-starved at best, and sawed off from the vine at worst. Durand would make sure these boys got godfathers (of the honest variety), one way or another, sooner or later. If you had your eyes on eternity, this was a big point to consider.

  The boys were initially of mixed opinions about the bus. The littlest boy unabashedly was in awe of the pictures painted on the side of the bus, of people of all colors, in all variety of ethnic costumes, all of them with glowing heads. One of the other boys was going to teach him to sneer at the artwork (sneering at such things generally being expected from boys of their sophistication), but a look from Nason made him hesitate, and a look from the oldest boy made him give up. The oldest boy, it seems, had decided that to be driven around in a bus at no charge made them VIPs, regardless of the esthetic merits or demerits of the bus.

  It being a quirky bus, needing someone who was not upset if the speedometer did not work and who knew how to shift its creaky and unpredictable gears, Father Jules volunteered to drive. Bertin Nason was happy to volunteer the rest of his day off to help keep the boys corralled. Mme Ferrand also volunteered to go, even though it would mean that she could not go with a niece to help choose a wedding dress, but Durand thanked her in such a way that freed her up to meet her responsibility to her relative.

  It was a long trip, full of wonders and surprises for boys who had never been out of a tough part of a large city. The biggest surprise, though, was when they wound up at a parking lot near the Channel Tunnel depot, and Durand began to look around, as if he expected to meet someone.

  "Here! What if we don't want to go to England?" the oldest boy said.

  "You are dead if you go back. So what does it matter where you hide while I knock down Jean?" Bertin said.

  This had a relatively good effect, the boys readily accepting that they were important enough to kill if they went back to their neighborhood after meeting with outsiders.

  "Besides, my friend in charge of protecting your sorry lives is a good cook, but won't fuss over you like Mme Ferrand," Durand said. The older boys protested that they couldn't be bought off through their stomachs, and the youngest boy sobbed that he had liked Mme Ferrand.

  "Thank you very much, mine elder," Bertin said, taking in the uproar.

  "Ah, well. Children are unpredictable," Durand said. "Ah, there is my friend, and he has seen the bus."

  Richard Hugh came complete with entourage: two women and a man. As they got closer, Durand recognized the older lady first (she had been a secretary for a succession of chiefs for Richard) and then the young man (a wiretap expert for MI5 1/2). The young woman he wasn't sure he knew.

  Richard and company stepped into the bus, and Richard put himself into French language mode. "Hello, gentlemen," he said. He made a point of eyeing the youngsters carefully. "I don't know," he said to Durand, "This is going to be tricky, smuggling them past corrupt officials without getting them seized and sent to labor camps in Russia. Are you sure they have the nerve for it?"

  Durand shrugged. "They must decide, of course. I will not be responsible for so hazardous a venture. But, well, how are things looking so far? Has anything fallen into place like it should?"

  "Blasted little, worse the luck." Richard lowered his voice. "As you see, I've had to draw on two women. That's what we're down to during the emergency. We need them for logistical purposes, but – well, I won't do it if you don't have operatives who can keep an eye out for them. We need to break up into four pairs, you know."

  "Of course. All I have is the boys, I'm afraid. If they can't handle watching out for the women as well as themselves, well…"

  By now, the two middle boys were ready to die for Felicity, and offered their protection (which she so obviously needed).

  Carterson, being strong, fast, and used to hanging about with great masses of often unruly sports fans, assumed control of the oldest boy. Darlene took the youngest. Richard let the less scroungy of the middle boys go with Felicity, and wrested the fourth boy for himself. They split up before the boys quite got their objections together. The plan was to reunite at Hippo's.

  After the boys were out of sight, Bertin said, "I can't believe we went along with a crazy story about Russian labor camps if anyone gets caught."

  "I wouldn't have come up with it," Durand said. "But what was the point in contradicting him once he got going? The British, they are crazy and like their fairy tales."

  Father Jules started to say something, but thought better of it.

  Durand smiled at him. "Do not worry, Father. As you can see, my friend suffers sometimes from a worldly need to be clever in a worldly way, but he will plant the boys in a Christian patch. He has promised me that, and his word is good. And his wife is God-fearing enough to make sure it is a truly Christian home, and not one that recklessly uses the name while sneering at Scripture."

  On the way home, they stopped at a restaurant for a bite to eat. Bertin began to draw young women. "Sorry, ladies. I am already taken," he said. They went away. He settled into a pose that wasn't unfriendly, but didn't draw any more looks, much less invitations to flirt.

  Durand blinked. He'd thought Bertin had been growing up before his eyes, but this show of seriousness and command of the situation surprised him.