She went to the wardrobe, pulled out another old shirt, and began to tear it into strips. “Your blisters and those cuts have stuck to the steel, so this is going to hurt, but I’m going to wrap cloth around the metal so it doesn’t gouge you so much. Think you can stand it?”
“I’ll do my best.”
As she started, she saw the way his jaw was working, saw the pain he was in, and she wanted to distract him.
“So tell me about your family. Any brothers or sisters?”
“Eight of them. I’m the second one, but…” He took a breath against the pain. “Bannerman. One year older than me. Takes care of all of us. The best there is. He…” David broke off as some of his skin came away with the steel.
Edi thought it would be better if she talked. “My brother Bertrand is the laziest person in the world,” she said.
“Oh, yeah? And how lazy is that?”
“When he was three and saw all his gifts under the Christmas tree, he said, ‘Who’s going to open them for me?’”
David gave a little snort of laughter. “I’ve heard worse.”
“When he was six, my father bought him a bicycle and took him out to teach him to ride it.”
“And?”
“Bertrand did very well. My father ran along behind him, holding on, and my brother balanced perfectly. But when my father let go and the bicycle stopped, Bertrand asked why. When my father said he had to push on the pedals, my brother left it lying there in the street, and he never got on a bicycle again.”
David was still wincing when she cleaned one of the cuts, but less so. “Not bad, but I’ve heard worse.”
“When he was twelve, my parents took us out to a restaurant, the first one we’d ever been to, and my father ordered steaks for each of us. When my brother’s came, he looked at it and asked how he was to eat it. My father showed him how to cut the steak, then how to chew it. My brother called the waiter back and ordered a bowl of mashed potatoes.”
“Okay,” David said, “that’s getting up there, but I have heard a few worse.”
“When he was sixteen, my mother arranged for her beloved son to go to a dance with a very nice young girl. He was to pick her up at six P.M. At six-thirty Bertrand was sitting in the living room and my father asked him why he hadn’t gone on his date. My brother said, ‘Because she hasn’t come to get me yet.’”
David laughed. “All this is a lie, isn’t it?”
“Not a word.”
“But how did he survive? What does he do with himself? How’d he get through school?”
“My brother is a brilliant young man. In school he’d get someone to tell him what a book was about, and five minutes later he could discuss it. Debate it. He loves to sit and talk.” Edi wrung out a piece of cloth. “And gossip. He knows everyone in town, and they all tell him their secrets.”
“I guess he didn’t go to war.”
“Four-F. Flat feet.” When Edi gently pushed at another piece of cloth, David gave a little groan of pain. “Want to hear more?”
“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. “Got any about Austin? Something mean and juicy?”
“No, just Bertrand stories. Want to hear why he didn’t go to his own wedding?”
David opened his eyes wide and looked at her. “Tell me.”
“My mother arranged everything. Bertrand saw the girl, said she was suitable, and that was enough for both my mother and the girl.”
“Marrying money and an old name, right?”
“I already told you there was no money. But, yes, there was the name,” Edi said. “My mother was thrilled and spent months planning the most elaborate wedding the town had ever seen. My father had to mortgage our old house. The evening before the wedding, my father went into his son’s room to have a talk with him about the wedding night.”
“The wedding night,” David whispered. “I like this story the best of any you’ve told. Maybe of any I’ve ever heard in my whole life.”
“No one knows exactly what was said by my father, but everyone heard Bertrand shout for the one and only time in his life. He yelled, ‘I have to do what?’”