Ben Soul

the unicorn.”

  “I’m flattered. Whose child is this?”

  “I’m hoping it will be DiConti Sharif’s and Notta Freed’s child.”

  “I had no idea they were interested in each other.”

  “I’m not sure they know it, yet, either.” She smiled. A hint of her former strength sparkled in her eyes. “They are still finding it out, I imagine.” She sighed, gulped for breath, held up her hand as Dickon rose to go to her, coughed into her handkerchief, and cleared her throat. “Medicine’s working,” she said.

  “Perhaps I should go,” Dickon said, preparing to rise.

  “Please, not yet,” La Señora rasped. “I have a little more to say to you.” She took a deep breath, coughed again, and went on with a clearer voice. “I will not live forever, Dickon,” she said. He nodded. He was wondering if she had entered the first stages of some terminal illness. As if she read his mind, she responded to his thought.

  “This that I have now is only a severe cold. I am old, and the old have less stamina to ward off disease.” She swallowed, hard. “I yet have deeds to accomplish, before I yield to the inevitable.” She looked at him with an almost pleading look. “I have chosen an executor for my estate when the time comes. I have asked Ben to do it,” she said.

  Dickon’s eyes widened in surprise. La Señora noted Dickon’s surprise. “He is the least involved member of our community,” she continued. “Everyone else who is competent, you, Elke, Mae Ling, even Dr. Field, has too long a history with the group. Ben hasn’t had time to cast so many feelings and impressions in concrete as the rest of you have had.” She looked at Dickon. In her eyes he could see her willing him to understand.

  And, suddenly, Dickon did understand. Ben had none of the squabbles, shifting alliances, hurts, or intimacies that had built, layer on layer over the years, the mosaic of relationships in the Village. He was new, and more likely to be neutral, than any of the rest of them. Dickon disappointed that he himself would not have the power and recognition being executor would bring. He also felt relieved someone else would have all the responsibility and all the possible flak.

  Dickon smiled ruefully at La Señora. “Señora,” he said, “I think you’ve picked the right man. I’ll help Ben in whatever way he asks me.” He frowned at his hands holding the teacup. “I admit I’m a little disappointed you didn’t choose me.” He looked up at her. “Your reasons are right on target, and I’ll survive any disappointment, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you, Dickon. You are most comforting when you are reasonable. Please, now, ask Elke to let you out. I must rest.” Dickon stood up, went to La Señora, took her thin cold hand in his, bent over, and kissed it.

  “Blessings on you, Señora,” he said. “Good health and speedy healing.”

  “Go with truth in your heart. When Ben comes home, give him my regards.”

  “I will. Goodbye for now, Señora.”

  “Goodbye, Dickon.”

  He went out and down the hall to the front door. Elke stood there, as though she had been waiting for him.

  “She will be okay,” Elke said, “this time. We’ll bring her out of this episode. But every one takes more from her. One day she will not bounce back.”

  “And then she will rest,” Dickon said, and opened the door to the outside. “I must go now. Butter needs feeding, and probably a run.” He looked out at the trail. Fog was climbing up the mountain on a light wind. He walked into it, down the trail toward the Chapel.

  Morphine Metamorphosis

  When the nurse had finished with Hardin, she opened the door and invited Enna and Ben back into the room. Hardin was drowsing again. Enna went to him and stroked his cheek with one finger. Hardin smiled, and for a moment Ben saw on the drawn remains of Hardin’s face the map of the boy he had known as his younger brother.

  “We might as well go home for a while,” Enna said. “He’ll sleep, now, for several hours. The nurse gave him more morphine.” She leaned over Hardin and kissed him. “Goodbye, for now, husband,” she said.

  “Goodbye, brother,” Ben said, waving from the foot of the bed. Hardin slept on, at least temporarily anesthetized enough to blank out his pain.

  “We’ll collect Laws from the coffee shop,” Enna said. She walked briskly to the elevator and pushed the down call button. The doors opened immediately. “Here for a change,” she said and went in. Ben followed her.

  The lobby’s holiday decorations struck Ben as tawdry tinsel as the elevator doors opened. All their cheer was gone for him in the memory of Hardin’s worn and drawn face and body crumpled by pain. Laws was at the elevator when the doors opened. He waited for them to come out.

  “Dad doped up?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Enna said. “I thought we should go home, get some lunch.” She led them to the doorway. “Looks like the snow let up a little,” she said. It was falling, still, but smaller flakes with bigger spaces between them. They got in the car, and Enna drove carefully home. She did not talk; the driving had become more difficult with the snow now packed on the pavement, and she needed to concentrate on her driving.

  Hardin lay quiet in his hospital bed. The morphine the nurse had given him ran with his blood, singing a siren song of painlessness.

  He was in a summer pasture, naked, and butterflies covered him, bright yellow butterflies with black-edged wings. Meadowlarks called to one another around him, some near, some farther. The grass beside his ears was waving in the breeze raised by the fluttering butterflies. It tickled his earlobes. He laughed. How long he lay there he did not notice, but there came a time when he was on his feet, running barefoot over the soft young grasses. Along the way he had got into his overalls. The much-washed denim rubbed his knees and buttocks with a rough caress. Almost he flew over the ground, like a dragonfly or a meadowlark. The butterflies followed him in a cloud of yellow and black.

  At the house Enna directed Laws and Ben to put their coats and caps on hooks by the back door. “You’ll need them for later,” she said. She hung up her own coat and cap next to theirs. Then she went into the kitchen. “Simple lunch,” she said. “Soup and make-your-own sandwiches. Laws, see to the fire in the parlor.”

  Laws wheeled toward the parlor. Ben said, “Anything I can do to help?”

  “No,” Enna said. She turned to him from the soup can she was opening. A half smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. Her brown eyes, for the first time since Ben had seen her, looked soft and friendly. “Don’t mean to sound so harsh. This is my kingdom, this kitchen. I do best by myself. Go freshen up, if you want, or sit in a chair, out of my way.”

  “I’ll freshen up, then,” Ben said, glad of a few moments to himself without the tension that had Enna strung tight as a fiddle bow about to snap in two. He went to the bathroom to wash his face. He could hear Laws striking a match in the parlor, which was across from his guest room. Enna must want him to feel like a guest, not like someone who had come home. The parlor had always been for formal guests, like the preacher or the Bible salesman. Family and neighbors were entertained in the kitchen.

  On his bed Hardin’s arm began thrashing out of his control. His blanket and sheet slewed toward the bed rail, exposing his bare arm and backside to the ambient room temperature.

  And then it was over, this summer of his dreaming. Without an intervening autumn to prepare him, cold descended, and an unbroken field of snow. He saw a coyote on a ridge, nose toward the fat moon riding in silver glory through the dimly starred night sky. He heard the coyote sing his heart’s despair to the uncaring orb, and a great loneliness came over him. Far in the distance a steam locomotive sounded its wailing whistle. He fell to his knees in the snow, letting the cold seep into his overalls.

  The soup Enna put together filled the kitchen with a savory smell. She had combined a can of chicken noodle soup with a can of vegetarian vegetable. She had sliced cheese and a light rye bread for sandwiches. Con
diments were on the table, with pickles, for each to make a sandwich to his or her liking. When they sat, Enna bowed her head and spoke a silent grace. Ben and Laws watched her. When she took up her spoon, they did likewise, and began to dip their soup. Ben tried to make conversation, but after one or two comments elicited one or two word replies, he went silent. Laws had a hearty appetite, and ate three sandwiches. Ben ate only one.

  “Go on in the parlor,” Enna said when they had finished. “Some things I need to ask and say, Ben. Laws, you come, too. These things concern you.”

  A nurse’s aide came, and pulled the sheet and blanket over the shivering man in the bed. Slowly his body began to warm the space again.

  He was at the fireplace. Ben had come to get him. Ben had put on snowshoes and searched for him over the snowdrifts and ridges of the plains. Ben had picked him up, half frozen, and carried him home, to this warm place. Ben made cocoa, and chafed his numb fingers and toes. Ben held him close, warming him with his own body heat while the fire struggled to warm the room. He was safe.

  Soon he was soaring with the red-winged blackbirds over the summer stubble, swooping and diving with the swallows at evening, and flitting with the bees from bloom to bloom. And something called to him, raking through his dreams.

  Ben followed Laws out of the kitchen and along the hall to the