Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

He nodded politely and glanced at the employee sticker on the windshield. “That’s a fine-looking car,” he said.

“You bet.”

“I’m fixing to get me a convertible. At least when it’s a little bit warmer.” He placed one hand on the roof and smiled down at me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. “When I ask my girlfriend on a date, I got to take her on the bus. That don’t flush real well.”

Before I could reply, he pushed the gate free of the driveway and waved me through.

I parked at the very back of the lot, in a spot where the car couldn’t be seen from the security booth. Fourteen or fifteen patients were sitting in the sunshine on the knoll. A sidewalk sloped from the top of the knoll to the curb of the parking lot. I had loaded the Luger that morning. It was hard to believe I had come armed into the midst of people such as the receptionist and the attendant named Clementine and the good-natured kid in the security booth. I felt a terrible sense of shame. I told myself over and over that I had no recourse. My wife’s life was at stake. Nonetheless, I knew I was systematically deceiving others and that I might endanger their livelihoods and, if push came to shove, put their lives in jeopardy. I couldn’t think my way out of the problem. I had reached the point where I had begun to think in terms of “unavoidable attrition,” which was the rhetoric we had used to justify carpet-bombing and dropping incendiaries on civilian populations.

I saw Rosita in a wheelchair and Clementine sitting behind her on a stone b

ench. I picked up my clipboard and went up the sidewalk. Rosita was wearing a purple kerchief with red flowers instead of the shawl, as though setting aside winter and entering spring, regardless of what the seasons were doing. Her face seemed to have no expression, but when I looked at her eyes, I knew she was smiling inside.

I’d thought I would have a plan by that time. I didn’t. At least not one that was rational. I had used subterfuge to gain access to the institution. However, I had reached a juncture where I had to make a choice between more of the same or trusting the potential for charity that secretly we pray is always at work in our fellow man.

I sat down next to Clementine. At that time in our history, it was unusual for a white person to sit next to a person of color. It was acceptable to stand next to one but not to sit. “You know that Mrs. Holland was in a Nazi death camp, don’t you, Miss Clementine?” I said.

“Yes, sir, I heard that.”

“There are people out yonder who love her and want to take care of her.”

“I can understand that.”

“There are also people who want to hurt her. That’s how she ended up here.”

“That’d be a pretty mean thing to do. Hard to imagine.”

“It happens, probably more often than people think.”

“What are you saying to me, sir?” she said, looking straight ahead.

“I’m not a sir. I gave up being a sir when I was discharged from the army.”

“Polite is polite. Bad manners are bad manners.”

“Are you a Baptist?” I asked.

“I have been a Baptist all my life.”

“I was baptized in the Guadalupe River when I was twelve years old. I think the preacher was drunk. He almost drowned me.”

“Better say what you need to say, Mr. Malory.”

“I’ve done many things wrong in my life, but as an adult, I’ve prided myself on never telling a lie except to avoid injuring someone. I’ve told quite a few lies in the last couple of days.”

Her eyes were on the horizon and the blue sky that was more like summer than winter, and the orange dust clouds that kept rising up like funnels on the plains.

“I saved my wife from the Nazis,” I said. “I carried her in my arms through an artillery barrage. I hid with her in a cellar inside Germany until we were rescued by American paratroopers. I searched months for her after the war, and when I found her, I married her in Paris. I’d give my life for her right now, on this spot.”

“I believe you, sir.”

“Would you like to take a break? I can watch Mrs. Holland. Maybe I’ll push her around the yard a little bit.”

Her hands were folded together on her knees. “Yes, it’s getting mighty cold. We’re in the shadow of the building now.” She looked at the horizon and at a bird flying out of a bare field. She rose from the bench and buttoned her mackinaw at the throat. “Mrs. Holland would probably like to be in the sun. I’ll be back in five minutes with a hot chocolate. Not one second past five minutes. Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you, Miss Clementine,” I said.

She made no reply, and her eyes never met mine.