Way of Escape

by Ann Fillmore

  Siddhu handed around sandwiches and between bites, the Swede translated for them what Sture had related.

  “Your poor car,” said Halima. “It is, as you told him, only a bad coincidence. Surely.”

  “Do you want me to call a meeting?” asked Siddhu.

  Halima nodded. “Yes, at five. We can all listen to what Mrs. Ixey has to say.”

  “I hope she’s home when we call.” The baron carefully chose one of his dirty sweatshirts from the floor and used it to wipe his mouth.

  Cringing, Siddhu handed him a clean napkin. “When will you ever do your laundry?”

  Completely unfeigned, the baron replied with the great disappointment an employer might have at an errant servant, “The maid should do it and she hasn’t.”

  Siddhu, sandwich in one hand, used his other hand to gather up some of the soiled clothes. “You have to put these in a laundry bag, my friend, and set it in the hall.”

  “When did they start that policy?” Carl-Joran asked. “I’ve been here a year and…”

  The elegant Dr. Legesse put a hand to her forehead and pretending great exasperation, exclaimed, “Maybe you have a new maid! Do you know? Have you paid this new one extra?”

  “I always leave tips for whoever the maid is,” said Carl-Joran perplexed at the suggestion he should be aware of which maid was which. He looked imploringly at Siddhu who had found a stack of laundry bags in the bathroom and had brought them out to show his big friend.

  Registering the entreaty, he dropped the bags and raised his hands as if supplicating one of his Hindu gods for assistance, “I am so sorry that I do sometimes question why I must live this life.”

  “I’m going back to the office,” muttered Dr. Legesse, “while you two men solve the really important problems of the world.” Shaking her head, she quickly departed.

  “This is how you put laundry into the bags,” Siddhu instructed the baron and with his quick, efficient movements, he scooped one mound of clothes after the other from the floor and stuffed them into the long white bags.

  As the massive Carl-Joran watched his friend bring order to the chaos of the hotel suite, a memory of another thin, bearded man who had been concerned for him many years ago crept, at first slowly, into consciousness. A man who had extracted the young Swede from a very scary situation in Nicaragua and dropped him on the coast of California. A caring man who protected him from the American immigration authorities and finally, in order to hide him from the overly zealous FBI, had gotten him a new identity by arranging a marriage to a plain little lady in the local resistance group. A delightfully cheery, sunny kid, half Scots, half Swede, named Bonnie Seastrand.

  That brought a flood of images rising unrelentingly through the morass of his present-day thoughts: the taste of saltwater and the smell of low tide along beaches stretching from Morro Bay to San Simeon; the narrow roads winding through golden dry hills and skirting sheer drop-offs above the surf; the pelicans flying in strict formation on the wave crests; the dark and twisted pines on looming higher cliffs; the log cabin hotel in Big Sur in pounding rain with driftwood blazing in the fireplace, and the woman who had been his first love.

  In fact, the emotion he felt surging up from his groin was more than the mere word love could describe.

  Where had he hidden this feeling? Where had it secretly resided all these years? How could a person just lose so powerful an emotion and not miss it? Lust, affection, caring, and a kind of respect that bordered on adoration. The pain—oh, such pain! How that separation had ached when he had gone away and his question to himself was answered. He had kept it suppressed so deeply…so long…and the answer was spoken in a small, subconscious voice: because there had been an utter ripping of his soul when he was made to disappear that second time.

  Carl-Joran, pushing this revelation to a safer internal place, regarded his Indian friend lugging one laundry bag after another to the door, five in all. Toby Hughes had been very much like Siddhu in height and weight. Toby’s beard was much shaggier and lighter colored. Where was that nerdy, bespectacled Toby now, Carl-Joran wondered, and what did he finally do with his life?

  CHAPTER 6: OLD FAMILY BUSINESS

  There was a wonderful birthday cake in the middle of the table. Dell and Trisha had spent the afternoon making it and tonight would be the official celebration of Bonnie’s completion of a half century.

  Yesterday had been so stressful. There had been freezing rain in Seattle and the jet that was to carry Dell and Lou to San Francisco was hours late taking off. Once in San Francisco another foul-up meant they were late getting into Paso Robles and the rental cars had all been driven away, even the one they’d supposedly reserved, and Trisha had picked them up after all. They were now comfortably ensconced in the big guest room downstairs.

  Bonnie had pushed both girls out of the kitchen after the cake-making exercise, encouraging Trisha to take Lou and Dell on a walk to see the new greenhouses and the exotic herb gardens. Despite many efforts to teach her girls to cook, both had been disappointingly inept. The most they had managed were cakes and cookies and a fairly decent tuna salad if they had been hungry enough. The intricacies of putting together a large meal and getting it onto the table still warm remained beyond them. So Bonnie took charge of her own kitchen and prepared dinner while the rest of the family explored rows of ginseng, echinacea, dong quai, and the koi pond.

  Later, the family sat down to a heaping platter of fried fish, parsley boiled potatoes, a lovely green salad with fresh avocados and homemade rolls. Lou wasn’t waiting for anyone. The good-looking young man was scooping potatoes onto his plate before Trish had picked up the fish to pass.

  He and Dell had finally married a year ago. They’d been living together since Dell’s first year in college. He’d been her instructor in Biology 101, of all things. They’d gone scuba diving, a passion of Dell’s. He’d taken her onto the research vessel where he spent all of his graduate study hours. And by the end of summer, that had been that. Three years later, Dell was finishing her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and had already been admitted to graduate studies in marine sciences and Lou was within a term of completing his PhD in oceanography. Bonnie liked Lou Williams with his outdoorsy frankness, his lithe strength, and especially, those gorgeous blue eyes.

  “Thank you, Mom Ixey!” he exclaimed between the mouthful of potatoes and a bite of fish. “Who says you can’t love your mother-in-law.”

  Dell grinned and helped herself to the salad. “Don’t start,” she nudged him.

  “Hey, it’s okay you’re a lousy cook,” he swallowed, “as long as we can come here to eat once in a while!”

  Dell smacked him playfully on the shoulder and they smiled at each other. She had the short stick of the draw as far as Mendelian genetics went. She had inherited all the short genes Bonnie could give her and whatever few short genes might have existed on Ike’s side. She’d topped out at only five feet, two inches tall, which was incredibly tiny for the Ixey family in which the merely average person was six feet tall with the shortest Ixey aunt being five feet ten.

  Trisha’s big hands balanced the salad bowl long enough to serve herself more and then she passed it on to her sister. How unalike these two appeared, thought Bonnie, and grimaced. At that exact moment, the phone rang.

  “A salesman,” Lou insisted, “they always call during dinner.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Dell joined in, “leave it be.”

  But having a bad feeling about doing that, she started to get up and the answering machine came on announcing this as being the Ixey residence. She was reaching for the phone when the beep sounded and a voice from eons past came on.

  “Bonnie? This is Toby…”

  She grabbed the phone off the hook. “I’m here, uh…let me go in the other room.” She held out the phone to Trish to hang up and trotted quickly to the living room.

  “I’m sorry,” he started, “did I get you at dinner?”

  “That’s all right,” Bonnie respond
ed, “I know you must be a busy man.”

  “Yes, you could say that. You know that I’m doing engineering analyses for a very high tech firm,” he seemed to be speaking to her as if she were a moron or a child. “There are lots of security issues here and I have to be very, very careful who I talk to and what I talk about.”

  “Well,” said Bonnie, “I assumed that was true.”

  “If you assumed that,” Toby’s voice was changing, becoming harsher, “then why did you leave a message about Mink on my machine at work?”

  “You’re the only person I could think of to ask about him,” Bonnie went on bravely. “Did you know he died a couple weeks ago?”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear about it. He was always getting in harm’s way. It’s a wonder he lived to the age he did!” Toby Hughes, cleared his throat, “Now, listen, Bonnie, we won’t talk about him any more, will we? Let’s just you and me have a nice chat about our own lives.”

  “Toby, there are some things I must find out, things you might remember,” Bonnie insisted. He started to object and she ploughed on, “For example, did you know he was a baron. Were you aware I was marrying Swedish royalty?”

  “A what? Royalty!” Toby, incredulous, half laughed, half snarled, “Couldn’t have been. The man could hardly read and he could get lost in a parking lot. Giant Carl was by far the clumsiest individual I’ve ever come across. Him, a baron? Be serious.”

  “Yes, seriously. He was a wealthy baron, with a castle and an estate and Swiss bank accounts and after we…after he left, he went back to Sweden and got married and he has…had a son,” the whole sentence blurted from her mouth and she could feel tears brimming.

  “Wait, Bonnie, hold on, I didn’t know any of that,” Toby’s voice pleaded, “I really, honestly didn’t. He was a dork I rescued when I was doing that Latin American underground refugee thing. But, and I am really, really dead serious here, we have to quit talking about him. I wasn’t going to return your call for fear of this. I can’t say any more about him, please!”

  “Why?” Bonnie demanded, “Why not? You got me into it. You persuaded me to…”

  “We were different back in those days, we believed in different things, we thought we could save people, save the world from its own destructive urges.” The words sounded hollow and cavernous, like echoes of old TV shows heard from the apartment next door.

  The tears flooded over onto Bonnie’s cheeks and trickled down and they registered in her voice, “Carl and I never divorced, Toby. I thought it was a sham marriage, that Mink wasn’t his real name.”

  “It wasn’t. He made it up for his passport into the US. I was standing there when he did it. That’s all, Ixey, I’m hanging up!” he growled.

  “No, not yet!” she screeched, “Mink was his real name, it was a translation from his Swedish name, Hermelin, and we were really married and we’ve always been married and now he’s dead and I’ve inherited his estate!”

  “Christ almighty! You’ve been in contact with Mink? That’s why you called me. No! Don’t call me! Don’t write! And never, never e-mail me! Don’t mention this conversation to anyone. My security clearance is probably down the toilet already! God, if anyone heard…I’ll never work again, ever!” The connection on Toby’s end cut off.

  Bonnie held out the phone receiver and sniffling at it, put it gently into the cradle. People change, she thought, they really do. She stood and turned and there were her two daughters and son-in-law watching. Dell threw her arms around her.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  Bonnie laid her arms over the small shoulders of her younger daughter. “Ghosts, my dear.”

  “That’s what the letter from Sweden was all about,” said Trisha, confirming her own worst prediction. “Told you, there’s always a bottom line.”

  Managing a smile amidst the tears, Bonnie guided her family back to the table. “Sit, children, let’s have cake. Come, Dell, you light the candles. Trish, you serve up ice cream, and I will tell you a grand story.”

  She did not tell them everything. In fact, she kept it simple, extracting all the passion, the anger, the fear. How could she convey the danger to children of this time? They took what she did say well. She sensed they perhaps saw her in a more realistic light, certainly as more human and with a history they had never guessed before.

  They wanted to know more and she blushed and refused. Some things were hers alone. Besides, there was this ache beginning in her lower stomach. There was an odd burning sensation in her chest and her breasts tingled. This was no hot flash. This was lust. As she put her story to a close, she inwardly laughed at herself. A fifty-year-old woman with incipient wet dreams—how droll.

  “So I’m married into a potentially wealthy family?” was Lou’s first comment.

  “Yes, you are.” Bonnie smiled.

  “Right on!” he grinned. “So when do we pack off for Sweden?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be going, not the whole herd of us. And I have to make sure Carl’s son Sture is okay.”

  “Mom,” Trisha snorted, “the boy’s been raised in a castle. What else could he need?”

  “We can’t know,” said Bonnie softly, remembering the big, oafish Carl. “Wealth doesn’t provide for everything.”

  “It won’t change me!” Dell insisted rather disdainfully. “I have my love and I know who I am.” She hugged her husband and he kissed her on the top of her head.

  “I am glad you’re grown up before this happened,” Bonnie said truthfully. “Becoming wealthy suddenly can be very hard on a family.”

  “Not us,” chuckled Trisha, “we’re the Ixeys. I mean, we’ve done okay. We’re not poor ourselves. Dad and you were good providers, Mom.”

  Bonnie swallowed hard. She didn’t want to broach the whole subject of how very much they had inherited, that the baron’s wealth was beyond what the flower farm could ever dream of producing. “Um-hum, Ike was a good man. We always had enough to eat and a nice place to live. We’ve been safe and you’ve been protected.”

  At that, Trisha leaned over the table and asked, “What’s this about you almost being run off the road this morning?”

  “Just some Arab student who didn’t know how to drive,” she responded and Dell’s eyes lit up.

  “Arab?” She turned to her sister, “The man we saw by the end of the road, he was black-haired and swarthy. He looked Arab.”

  “Yeah, Mom, when we went walking earlier there was a guy hanging out near the mailboxes,” said Trish, “I sicced Gryphon on him.”

  Worried, Bonnie asked, “What happened?”

  “The guy ran,” laughed Dell.

  “Anyone would run if an eighty-pound Australian Shepherd was after them,” Trisha said, “I mean, they wouldn’t stop long enough to see he was old and nearly toothless.”

  Lou shoved his chair back, stood and leaned close to Bonnie, “You don’t have some sort of threat against you because of suddenly being rich, do you?”

  “Why would I?” she replied.

  “Maybe the tabloids are hot on your trail,” Lou hugged her, “my mom-in-law, a wild child now fabulously rich, being trailed by secret agents. Who’d-a thought!”

  “Oh, my,” she fussed, “what an awful thing it would be to have those vultures after you!”

  Lou let her go and taking his pipe out of his pocket, made for the front door. “Time for a smoke and since you women are all against my filthy habit, I’ll go stand on the veranda.”

  “I’ll come out in a minute,” said Dell, “after we do dishes.”

  “It’s not me evicting you,” Bonnie contended before he went out the door, “I like the smell of pipe smoke. Reminds me of my father.”

  “Ugh,” muttered Trisha, starting to collect dishes, “Let’s not mention Grandpa Seastrand.”

  Lou waved and shut the door behind him. Ten minutes later, he dashed in and hurried to the kitchen, pipe in hand. It was out. He was flushed from the brisk night air and excitement. Over the
clatter of dishes going into the dishwasher, he almost shouted, “There’s a different man lurking on the drive.”

  The women paused in their work and looked at him.

  He went on, “Not Arab this time. He’s a black guy and he’s for real in a trench coat. Kid you not. And he had those night binocular things and when I lit up my pipe, he quit watching and got into a car that was standard government issue. Swear to God! Drove off down the road, but I bet you he didn’t go far ‘cause I didn’t hear that car engine past the bend.”

  Trisha turned to her mom, a severity creeping into her voice. “What the hell’s going on? Do you know? Do you? You aren’t keeping something else from us?”

  Shaking her head, Bonnie shrugged her shoulders in a strong negative movement. “No, I am not.”

  “Should we call the police?” Dell looked up at her husband.

  “What do you think?” he asked Bonnie directly.

  “I don’t know…” she began.

  Trisha butted in with, “What if this new guy is a cop of some kind?”

  “But why?” Bonnie beseeched them. “It doesn’t make any sense.” She instantly recalled Toby Hughes’s consternation. He was terrified that someone would find out about what he’d done with the Latin American refugee rescue group despite its being so far in the past. There was undeniable panic in his voice at the mention of Carl Mink in the present tense. Could it be? Was there danger here? The sudden flavor of fear made her remember that summer when she and Carl were midnight riders hiding from the authorities. A thrill went through her. She stifled it and said, “This is all silly. Who’d want to put surveillance on a flower farm?”

  “Never know, Mom,” Trisha offered, “maybe they’ll invade us while we sleep and steal everything or surround us like Waco and accuse us of raising pot.”

  “Come on, Trish,” her sister giggled uncomfortably, “next you’ll be telling ghost stories like when we were kids and you’d scare the bejeezus out of me at bedtime.”

  “So that’s why you two never got to sleep!” exclaimed Bonnie and everyone laughed. “I always wondered and worried about you two being awake most of the night, even on school nights.” The subject of strange observers had been astutely set aside. Bonnie was relieved.