Ben Soul

by Richard George

her foolish infatuation. She might be a long time forgiving me.

  I could not let her marry a Brit, especially one schooled at a Public School, as they call their boarding academies for corrupting the young with sodomy and cricket. Any man worth his salt knows the lads who learn buggery by force in those places never after loses the taste for it. It’s a wonder the Empire hasn’t collapsed.

  At least I was a lusty man for my women, wed and unwed. Salvación is too good a soul to lavish on any ordinary man, let alone one given to buggery. One day, perhaps, I’ll find the right man for her.

  “Papá,” La Señora said, “you’re as much a fool as any man ever was. Damn your prejudices, and damn your arrogance!” She drummed her feet on the floor in frustration. At the same time she slapped the desk with a ruler that she kept on the desk top.

  Elke heard, and put her head in the office. “I’ve just put the kettle on, Señora. Would you care to take some tea?”

  “Yes,” La Señora said, pushing her wheeled chair back from the desk. “I need Earl Grey, I think, to wash this betrayal from my throat.” Elke recoiled. She had seldom heard La Señora express anger, though she knew well the stony glare displeasure brought to La Señora’s eyes.

  “Señora,” Elke said, rushing to her, “is something wrong?” She put the back of her hand on La Señora’s forehead. La Señora slapped it away.

  “Leave it, Elke.” La Señora’s voice was savage.

  “Earl Grey it is,” Elke said, retreating, and went to put the kettle on.

  La Señora put the sheets concerning Papá’s affair with Tara back in the velvet bag and re-tied the ribbon. The other sheets, and Elly’s note, she put in the hidden slot with Reggie’s letters. “Later,” she said to herself, “I’ll sort out how I feel about all that mess later.” La Señora struggled with herself until she took control again. For a moment she slumped in her wheeled chair. Then she wheeled out of the office and down the hall to the library, where a worried Elke found her when the tea was ready.

  The Velvet Pouch

  La Señora welcomed Emma and Notta to her library. The afternoon spring sun danced and sparkled in La Señora’s library. She sat in one of the great armchairs Ben had described as “thrones for a cattle queen,” because they were very large, brown leather, and commanding presences in their own right. La Señora seated Emma in the other large leather chair. She gestured toward a smaller recliner of a more modern fashion, covered with dark green fabric and adorned with golden oak arms and platform. The comforting smell of old books mated with the rich aroma of brewed tea.

  “I have Darjeeling today,” she said. “It is from a gift packet Dijee Tully has mailed me from Australia. She assures me it is pure Darjeeling, from Darjeeling itself. I do hope you find it flavorful.”

  “I’m sure we will, Señora,” Emma said. “I remember Dijee. She was a diamond in the rough.”

  “Was she that sailor that worked with Captain Locke?” Notta asked.

  “Yes,” Emma said. “I remembered you were frightened by her rough voice when you were a child.”

  Notta smiled. “Yes, I was.”

  “Tea?” La Señora asked. When they said yes, she took up the pot and poured the rich red and brown fluid into three white bone-china cups set in matching saucers. Tiny blue periwinkles and twining green leaves wreathed themselves about the cups’ rims and saucers’ edges. As La Señora handed around the tea, Emma noted her hands did not tremble this spring as they had during the winter. Emma presumed it demonstrated an improvement in La Señora’s health.

  “It’s a lovely spring day,” Notta said, accepting her teacup from La Señora.

  “Yes,” La Señora said. “It is. Spring days can be delightful. Do have some seed cake,” she went on, offering them thin slices of the rich confection with a gesture. Emma demurred.

  Notta said, “Please, a single slice. It smells delicious.” La Señora took a silver server from the tray on the teacart and carefully lifted a slice of the cake onto a small plate from the same set as the cups and saucers. She put a silver fork on the plate and handed it to Notta.

  Notta murmured her thanks, took a polite amount on the fork, and lifted it to her mouth. “Delicious!” Notta declared. “Caraway and poppy seeds both, with, I think, lemon and orange?”

  “Yes,” La Señora said. “It’s based on a favorite recipe Rosa shared with Willy Waugh many years ago. I think Willy added the orange liqueur to the batter.” Notta continued taking dainty bites while Emma inquired after La Señora’s health, and received assurances it had much improved since the prior winter.

  A brief silence came, and rested easily among them. La Señora spoke, sending the silence softly toward the room’s corners. “I’ve asked you here today,” she said, to reveal a secret I have only recently discovered. It affects the two of you most closely, and concerns a history you should know about your ancestress.” La Señora folded her hands in her lap and looked down at their worn knuckles for a moment. Emma and Notta waited. When La Señora looked up again, tears stood in her eyes. Neither of the other women recalled ever seeing La Señora come even this close to crying before. La Señora took out an antique lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Please forgive me,” La Señora said. “This is very hard for me to tell, because it reflects on my dear Papá in an unsavory manner.”

  Notta felt a little thrill. She had always known La Señora was a distant relative of some degree, and had guessed long ago that she knew family history even Emma had not heard. Emma composed her round face in blank neutrality.

  “I have always acknowledged you as kinswomen,” La Señora went on. “I have always thought you to be my cousins.” She clasped her hands together in her lap again, as if to hold herself, or her universe, together. “You are, in fact, not my cousins, but my niece and grandniece.”

  “We are?” Notta asked.

  “Yes,” La Señora said. “Your mother, Emma, was my half-sister.” La Señora cleared her throat. “We shared Papá, but we had different mothers.” Emma stared at La Señora. None of the women knew what to say next.

  Notta finally broke the silence. “Who was Grandma Neva’s mother?” La Señora looked gratefully at her.

  “A young woman orphaned by the influenza epidemic of 1918,” La Señora said. “Her name was Tara, Tara Bull, and she came from Kansas or Nebraska. Of her mother and father, I only know the names, because I saw them one time on a faded photograph. They were Fuller and Amy Bull.”

  La Señora paused to freshen her tea. She silently offered the pot to Emma and Notta. Notta held her cup out for a refill. The Darjeeling was very good.

  “Papá met Tara when he went to pay his respects to the ashes of a long-time business associate at the Las Tumbas Columbarium of Everlasting Repose. Papá was late arriving; some matter of business had taken longer than he expected. Tara was employed by the Columbarium as a receptionist and guard. She was just closing up when he arrived and sought admittance. She was of a kindly nature, and allowed him to enter, despite the late hour. I suspect, from knowing Papá’s ardent nature, and Tara’s exuberance for life, that they charmed each other from the first. The denouements of their stories are best told by the papers.”

  “Papers?” Notta said.

  “Yes,” La Señora said, “a few pages of Papá’s diary, and a note from Tara.” She withdrew a small pouch of faded blue velvet tied with a stained satin ribbon from her apron pocket. She handed the pouch to Emma. “I discovered these just days ago in Papá’s old desk. I don’t know where the rest of the diary is. Mother had already passed when Papá died. Someone unknown, perhaps Papá himself, saved these few pages, and not the rest.” La Señora looked at Emma and Notta with eyes that almost pled with them for understanding.

  “It took me some pondering to identify Tara Bull with Tara Freed, the mother of my sometimes playmate, and presumed cousin, Neva. Later on, when Neva came to me for help be
cause she was expecting you, Emma, and her mother had disowned her, I never knew ‘Aunt’ Tara’s hypocrisy. They most rightly belong to you two. It now seems right to me to give them to you.” La Señora offered the pouch to Emma.

  “Señora,” Emma said, “thank you. I have often wondered about my mother and her mother. I am grateful, and I am sure Notta is as well, to have these mementos from the past.” She took the pouch. “Notta and I will keep these carefully for the next generation.”

  “I am also grateful,” Notta said, “and flattered and humbled, to be so near a kinswoman to you as grand niece.” She got up from her platform rocker and kissed La Señora gently on her age-whitened cheek. La Señora took Notta’s hand and patted it with her two hands. La Señora’s black eyes were bright, but whether with tears or joy neither Emma nor Notta could say.

  La Señora rang her bell to summon Elke. “And now, my dears,” she said, “please forgive me, but I must ask you to leave an old woman to her napping.” She looked weary indeed, so Emma and Notta excused themselves and walked down the Chapel trail to Emma’s cottage.

  For a while each was silent with her own thoughts and expectations. Over half way down, Emma said, “We’ll read the papers when we get to the cottage, over a whiskey, maybe.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me, Mother,” Notta said. The mustard danced