Hi, everybody! Sorry I haven’t been in contact sooner, but I’ve been on the road and it took a while to find an Internet café in working order! Plus, to be honest, I am enjoying the solitude. You know me. The people I have met have all been friendly and helpful. And I have seen some extraordinary things. I just wanted you to know that all is well. Teresa, take care of Little Jimmy! Little Jimmy, take care of Teresa! I miss you all, but I’ll be in touch. Love, Mano. PS: Don’t worry so much for me, mom.”
“Well, that’s good news.” Hannah exulted. “He sounds happy.”
“I’m going to tell Dad,” Teresa said, darting out of the room.
Hannah sat in front of the computer and read over the e-mail several times. Then for the first time in longer than she could remember, she found herself mouthing a silent prayer of thanks.
Jimmy was on a stepladder, arranging a display of new paper mache masks that came a small village in Guerrero, when the electronic door chimes rang, indicating that a customer had crossed the threshold. “Buenas tardes,” he called out to the man, who made his way to the back of the store, examining a few objects along the way. Jimmy divided customers into two groups – the browsers and the buyers – and classified this one as a browser. So he finished hanging a surrealistic wolf mask on the wall (the snout was purple, the ears pink, and in the midst of its forehead, flowered a magnificent white magnolia blossom), before joining the man.
“Can I help you?” he asked in Spanish, unable to identify the customer’s nationality, although it was clearly not Mexican.
The man looked up from a set of azure ceramic dinnerware, laid out as if for a formal dinner. “Father Jimmy?” he asked.
Jimmy tried not to let his surprise show. It had been twenty years since he’d heard “Father” attached to his name. “Just Jimmy is enough these days,” he said.
“Forgive me. I guess you’ve always been Father Jimmy to me. In all these years, with all that has happened to both of us, you and I have had only one conversation. Isn’t that correct? On your lawn in New Hampshire over twenty years ago. Of course, your wife is a different story. She and I know one another quite intimately. She is fine, I presume?”
Even if Jimmy hadn’t recognized the face, the courtly manner would have been a give away. “Dr. Johanson, isn’t it?” he said firmly. “You have changed very little in twenty years.”
“So kind of you to say so, but I am afraid the body is weary, oh, so very weary.”
“Not weary enough to prevent you from harassing my family. I don’t know what you’re after this time, but I don’t want anyone bothering my children. Is that clear?”
“Very clear, indeed!’ said Dr. Johanson with a perfect look of understanding. “That is the reason I wished to talk with you. To apologize for Judith’s intrusions on your family. She and a friend came to speak to your eldest. They had not intended to approach the boy. It is not something that will occur again, if we can help it.”
“You can. Just keep away from my children.”
Dr. Johanson picked up a dinner plate and studied the pattern, before speaking again. “Do they know, by the way? Do they know who their older brother is?”
Jimmy bristled. “My family is none of your business.”
“I see.” Dr. Johanson replaced the dinner plate carefully in its setting. “Such a beautiful blue color! How ever do they achieve it? … I understand that the young man is away.”
“Yes, he is. So there’s no reason for you to remain here any longer.”
“Why? Is he gone for good? Doesn’t he intend to come back?”
“Look, I see no need to prolong this conversation. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave the store.”
He reached out to take the man’s arm, but Dr. Johanson sidestepped the gesture and resumed his examination of the dinnerware. “Do you know that he is not alone, Father Jimmy?”
Jimmy let his hand drop and stepped back. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there is a young woman with him. A young woman who, unfortunately, does not wish him well.”
“And you do?”
Dr. Johanson sighed, as if the truth had been evident from the start and it were pointless at this point to repeat it. “What you have failed to understand all these years is that we are his disciples. We wish him no harm. Quite the contrary. We will do whatever is necessary to protect him. Our place has always been to follow.”
“All the way to Mexico, it appears.”
“To the ends of the earth, if need be. You can’t expect to hide him any longer. He’s not a child.”
“Exactly. He’s a young man and he won’t be manipulated by you or anyone else.”
Dr. Johanson allowed himself to pick up one of the azure-painted soup bowls. “How much?”
“I’m sorry?”
“How much are you asking for all six place settings?”
“Two thousand four-hundred pesos. They’re hand-painted and lead free.”
Dr. Johanson turned over the cup and read the artist’s signature on the bottom. “Signed, too.”
“Yes, each piece is an original.”
“Such a lovely blue… May I say one more thing in all frankness? You say your son is now a young man. That, I would suggest respectfully, is precisely the issue. When one is young and male, temptation is difficult to resist. I think you know that as well as anyone Father Jimmy. Excuse me, Jimmy. You gave up everything, your life’s calling, for a woman. Tossed aside years of preparation, the wishes of your own family. Because temptation, when it is strong, is irresistible. I think you, above all, would know how urgent it is to warn your son of the dangers presented by this woman.”
“Who is this woman you keep talking about?”
“Someone who, unlike us, does not have your son’s best interests at heart. Her name would mean nothing to you. But it would not be overstating the case to say that your son is in mortal danger.” This time, it was Dr. Johanson who put his hand understandingly on Jimmy’s shoulder.
It all sounded preposterous to Jimmy - a mysterious seductress, pursuing his son. He knew Dr. Johanson and his followers were devious people. Look how they had trapped Hannah! And yet what he said about temptation was not to be dismissed lightly. The flesh followed its own rules. Jimmy had wrestled personally with the issue. If his son were engaged in a similar struggle, he needed help and support.
He wanted to ask Dr. Johanson just what dangers his son was facing, but that would be giving the doctor an opening, letting him into the family circle, and he wanted no more traffic with the man.
Dr. Johanson sensed a weakness and seized the chance to exploit it. “We ask so little. If you could just tell me where—-‘
The door chimes and a girlish voice, coming from the front of the store, interrupted him. “Dad, Dad!”
“Just a minute,” he said.
“It’s important. I’ve got something to tell you.” Impetuously, Teresa ran up to her father and gave him a hug.
“I’m dealing with a customer right now.”
“But we just got an email from Mano.” It was then she became aware of Dr. Johanson’s presence, and shrunk back. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Dr. Johanson gave no indication of anything unusual. Casting a final look at the dinnerware, he said, “Well, you certainly have a lovely store. And I am quite attracted to the dinnerware. But the price is a little out of my range. I hope I didn’t insult you by trying to bargain. I thought that’s what one did in Mexico. Bargain. Reach an agreement that is acceptable to both parties. So, who knows, perhaps, upon reflection, you will consider my offer, after all.”
He extended his hand in a vigorous handshake. Then he looked down at Teresa. “And this must be your daughter. How do you say? ‘Muy guapa.’ Very pretty, indeed!” With that, he strode out of the shop, triggering the chimes once again.
“Dad? I think that’s the guy I ran into on the street?”
Distracted, Jimmy stared down at the dinnerware. “I don’t know, hon. Is it?” His fin
ger aimlessly traced the interlocking pattern that wound around the edge of a dinner plate.
“I think so,” Teresa said, stepping out the front door and looking up the Calle Cinco de Mayo. Her body activated the chimes, as Dr. Johanson’s had seconds before. “Boy, Mom was right about tourists being everywhere. He must be part of a tour or something. It looks like the United Nations out there.”
“What do you mean?” Jimmy said, joining her. Eric was conferring with a group at the corner of the block. It consisted of ‘Yan from China’, ‘Stanislau from Russia’, ‘Pierre and Yvette from Belgium’ and ‘Feodor from the Ukraine.’ Something the doctor said prompted the Russian to glance back fiercely at Jimmy. Almost as one, the rest of the group followed suit and for a second, it seemed as if they were about to return to the store en masse. But Eric grabbed the Russian by the arm and forcibly walked him around the corner, out of sight. Reluctantly, the others in the group disappeared, too.
Jimmy and Teresa were left in the doorway to wonder what had just transpired. The electronic chimes continued to ring out repeatedly, their gentle welcome transformed into an urgent alarm that ceased only when father and daughter stepped back inside the store.
2:31
“Sally! Sally! Sally!!!!”
The voice came from afar, gaining strength as it wafted down the stairs, ever closer, so that by the time it reached Sally’s ears, it was a bellow. She seemed to recognize it as the voice of, what was her name? Miz? … Miz O … yes, that was it. It was the voice of Miz O, calling her…
Sally lost her train of thought.
… calling her somewhere …
“Sally! Sally!”
Upstairs, that was where the voice was coming from. The woman, whose name was Miz O, was calling her upstairs. And in an instant, Sally was in the room. Miz O was having another one of her hysterical outbursts, but Sally was able to watch with surprising detachment, as if between her and the screaming woman, there was a veil. The cries coming from the woman’s mouth were fainter here in the bedroom than they had been downstairs and then they ceased all together, although the woman’s lips kept moving, so she was still screaming, but like the heroine of a silent movie, producing no sound.
Sally found herself being pulled back from the foot of the bed, her legs barely brushing the floor, and then sucked out the bedroom window into the treetops. She’d never noticed there were so many trees around Miz O’s house before. But here she was, all of a sudden, in an ocean of green, an ocean of leaves. Waves and waves of leaves that tossed her back and forth, not unpleasantly (it was more a rocking motion), that moved her slowly until she was in front of the yellow house diagonally across the street from Miz O’s. She had the impression she knew this house, although she had never been in it. She didn’t even know who lived there. Still, the house was familiar to her. It was the house that was mentioned in the diary she’d been reading when she’d heard her name being called and she’d floated up the stairs. You could see the house from Miz O’s bedroom. And now here she was, brushing up against the windows. Was Miz O watching? She would want to know what was inside.
It was proving all too confusing for Sally. Miz O’s silent screaming and a yellow house – or was it white and the yellow just came from the setting sun? One thing was certain: The setting sun meant that her shift was over. Time to go home. Time to cook dinner for her son Hugo. Hugo would be waiting. Hugo would be hungry. Mustn’t keep Hugo waiting. With a great effort, she forced her body downward, so that her feet touched the sidewalk in front of the yellow house. The bus was waiting at the corner. The bus that would take her home where she would cook dinner for Hugo. As she headed toward the line of waiting passengers, she heard the cries again.
“Sally! Sally! Sally!!!”
The faster she walked down the street toward the bus, the less progress she made. In fact, she was moving backwards, backwards to Miz O’s house. Some force was drawing her back from where she’d come, back where she no longer wanted to be. She wanted to be with Hugo, but the screaming voice – “Sally, Sally!” – defused her will and sapped her strength. She summoned up one last burst of energy to break free, but it was fruitless. In what seemed like a split second, she was drawn back into the house, her whole body throbbing with pain.
Sally opened her eyes.
It took her a moment to realize that her head was on the kitchen table. She tried to lift it, but the weight was too great. Just moments before, she had felt light as a feather, but not now. With superhuman effort, she managed to raise her head a few inches above the table. Her eyes focused on the photograph of a handsome young man. She had a dim recollection that she had been looking at photographs, before this fantastic journey. But there were spots on the photographs now that she didn’t remember. Or was it her eyes, playing tricks with her? She touched one of the spots with her fingertip and it smudged. So they were spots! Spots of blood. Her blood! As her grip tightened on one of the photographs, the memory of the last few seconds came back to her, crystal clear.
“Sally!” Again the voice from upstairs.
Just as she opened her mouth to reply, she felt a thud at the back of her head and a new flood of pain. She lost consciousness and once again was light and free and floating above the kitchen table, littered with photographs.
Maria lowered the iron skillet and calmly walked to the kitchen sink, where she put it under the spigot and washed away the traces of blood. Then she wiped it dry with a towel and hung it over the stove, where it was part of a matched set. She rinsed out a sponge and turned her attention to the kitchen table, when she heard the ring of an unfamiliar telephone. It took a while for her to figure out that the ringing was coming from a pocket in Sally’s housedress. Her cell phone!
Maria took the cell phone out and looked at the caller ID. “Hugo,” it read. The son! Maria had forgotten there was a son. This was going to be more complicated than she had thought. But not that complicated. She examined the blood on the back of Sally’s head and concluded that her death could easily be made to look like an accident. Sally was no longer a spring chicken and accidents happened all the time to older people. They fell, for example. Maria went to the cellar door and opened it. The stairs were steep. If the light bulb had burned out and Sally had tried to navigate the cellar stairs in the dark … well, the conclusion was obvious.
Maria flicked the light switch and the stairs were immediately flooded with light. Calmly she unscrewed the light bulb, shook it hard enough to break the filament, and then screwed it back in the socket. Then she righted Sally’s slumped-over body in the kitchen chair, and using the chair, as if it were a wheelbarrow, maneuvered the woman to the head of the stairs. There she tilted the chair until the body slid off and tumbled downward. It landed with a dull thump. From her vantage point, the body looked to Maria more like rag doll than a person. She felt no compassion. If the woman hadn’t been a meddler none of this would have been necessary. But sometimes curiosity killed more than the cat.
Maria arranged the photographs and notebooks in a neat pile, sponged the blood off the table, and put the chair back in its normal position. She left the cellar door open, because, of course, Sally would not have closed it behind her before falling. A quick survey of the kitchen told her all was in order.
“Sally!”
Maria ignored the voice and gathered up the photographs and notebooks, before looking at her watch. It read 2 p.m. She would return in four hours for her usual shift. And the first thing she would discover would be the body. Such a pity. Sally seemed a good enough person. But sometimes even good persons got in the way.
Sally’s broken body lay at the foot of the stairs, but already her spirit was drifting away. “Poor Hugo,” she thought. “Having to hear this about his mother!” She wanted to tell him that she was fine, but he would learn the gruesome news from the police – maybe there would even be mention on the local TV news – and he would think only of the pain she had suffered. But this wasn’t the end of the story. How could she let Hug
o know that? For the first time distress entered her spirit which, up to now, had only felt elation. No, her life was not over. She had to let Hugo know that all was well. But she also had to find the young man in the photographs. She had to warn him.
And with that, she felt the wind rushing though her, sweeping her upward. Now the house was gone and then the neighborhood and the town. The warmth of the sun receded, as she rose higher and higher and the wind turned colder and colder. Nothing was identifiable any more. She no longer thought about her son or the young man in the photographs. There was only a deep, deep blue, and the wind, both lifting and engulfing her, filling her with a soaring freedom and power she had never thought possible before.
At ten minutes past six, Maria walked through the kitchen door. As a matter of principle, she was always ten minutes late. It was her way of making Sally and Miz O believe the job held little importance for her. Today would be no different.
“Sally? Sally!” she called out, as she usually did. “I’m here.” All business, Maria removed her coat and hung it on a hook by the kitchen door, then put her handbag on the counter. There was no cleaning up to do – she’d done all that in the afternoon - so she washed her hands and dried them on a dishtowel. It was important to maintain the appearances of routine. She’d call the Home Nursing office in a little while to report Sally’s absence. Then she’d wait a few minutes more and call back with the news that Sally seemed to have had a horrible accident and fallen down the cellar stairs.
“Help me! Someone please help me!”
The faint cry frightened Maria as much as anything had in her life. Her heart rose up in her throat and her vision momentarily went blurry. Sally couldn’t have survived the fall. The consequences were unthinkable. Maria allowed herself to approach the open door and glance down the stairs. The crumpled body hadn’t moved.
“Help me.”
She realized the voice was coming from the second floor. Breathing a sigh of relief, she called out, “Be right there, Ma’am.”
The Son, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book Two Page 13