Ben Soul

be happy with any other keeper. There will be one exception, a llama that will belong to a child not yet born. You will know that llama when the time comes. I give you a solemn duty. When that llama is born, give it the horn of the unicorn. Do you accept this obligation?”

  “Yes, Señora,” he said. “How will I know the llama to give it to?”

  “That llama, while still a cría, will make itself known to you.”

  “Rosa, I have provided that you will own the Café of the Four Rosas. I do not think the west end of this County could imagine anyone else cooking in that kitchen.” La Señora smiled at her. “I expect, of course, you will maintain your current culinary excellence.”

  Rosa’s tears flowed freely, now. She took a blushing pink handkerchief, embroidered with white roses on dark green stems from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. Her mascara had run, and left dark stains on the bright pink. “You are too kind, Señora,” she blubbered. Elke squeezed her hand again.

  “You have served me well, as liaison to the neighborhood. Because of you, Rosa, we are accepted here in all our non-traditional oddity.” La Señora waited for Rosa to compose herself. A few more mascara stains soiled the pink handkerchief before Rosa’s sobs subsided. “I appreciate the sacrifice you have made, Rosa, in living separately from Elke. Even though you have been nearby, you have not had a joint home of your own.”

  She turned to Elke. “Elke, my dear companion and friend, you have done so much to keep me going, and to keep my work flowing. Without you, my affairs would be chaos and disturbance. These past years since the Great Temblor you have lifted from my shoulders the grievous burden of organizing my household affairs. I appreciate, too, your sacrifice in living apart from Rosa most of every week.” She reached out a hand to each of them across the luncheon table. “That is why I have written into my will that Dr. Field’s cottage will be your joint home for so long as you want to live in it.”

  “I thought,” Elke said through an unaccustomed thickness in her throat, “that Haakon Spitz might remain there. Or, that Notta might move into it with her young man.”

  “Haakon will have another refuge,” La Señora said. “You will hear more about that later. Notta and DiConti I have also provided for.” La Señora took an envelope from her pocket. “One other matter,” she said, “that I should take up with you.” She opened the envelope and withdrew a sheet of notepaper. Bold writing in green ink covered the white sheet. “Let me read this,” she said. “It’s from the Reverend Carrie Oakey.”

  Señora,

  I have received four separate requests for marriage and commitment ceremonies from San Danson. Are you turning into Gretna Green, or Reno? Just joking.

  I’m happy to perform all four services, but I do want to know if I can do all four on the same day. My schedule is busy, and I’m flying frequently to the East Coast. Each service takes fifteen to thirty minutes. Can you contact all the interested couples and get back to me?

  Thanks, Señora. Carrie Oakey out.

  “I have talked with the other three couples involved,” La Señora continued. “They are agreeable to a joint series of ceremonies, with a grand feast to follow after. Rosa and Elke, you are the last for me to ask. Will June seventeenth be acceptable for you to have your commitment ceremony? Will you be comfortable celebrating this event with three other couples? They are, DiConti and Notta, Dickon and Ben, and Emma and Haakon.”

  “Emma and Haakon? I wouldn’t have guessed it,” Rosa said. “I’m glad to celebrate with them. How do you feel, Elke?”

  “What happens in the Village is all for one and one for all. I think it’s a grand idea.”

  “That’s decided, then,” La Señora said. “Willy, you and I will consider the menu tomorrow. If you will all excuse me, for now, I must go in to my nap. Elke, Willy can help me to bed. You take the afternoon to be with Rosa. You can think about how you want to celebrate your union.”

  Willy helped La Señora rise, and they went in. Rosa and Elke lingered on the sun-washed patio, talking of ribbons, laces, and who would be the groom and who would be the bride?

  Trial by Panel

  The Bailiff spoke in a loud voice. “All rise for Las Tumbas County Disciplinary Hearing number 407. Be advised that the Complainant is one Vanna Dee, and that the Respondent is Deputy DiConti Sharif of this County. The Charge is Excessive Force Exerted in an Arrest.

  “This hearing is called to order,” Sheriff Ottami proclaimed in booming voice that startled people in the hearing room who had never encountered him before. He was a small man, neatly put together, with the trim figure of a boy, despite his thick shock of white hair. His voice invariably startled people who heard him in person for the first time. “Let the records show this review panel is duly constituted with the requisite number of law enforcement officers, represented by myself, Drake E. Ottami, Sheriff of Greenhill County, and Daniel Druff, Sheriff of Las Tumbas County, and the requisite number of citizens, Mr. Arthur I. Diss of Las Tumbas, Ms. Mira Kell of Pueblo Rio, and Ms. Anna Mull of Los Albaricoques. Bailiff, read the complaint.”

  The Bailiff rose and read from the paper before him in a reedy voice: “Vanna Dee, incarcerated in the Las Tumbas County Jail, prays the panel to hear her complaint against one DiConti Sharif, Deputy Sheriff of Las Tumbas County, that on August seventh of this year the said Deputy Sharif did use excessive force in his arrest of the said Vanna Dee at the Black and Blue Cowgirl Saloon in Pueblo Rio, Las Tumbas County. Ms. Dee further alleges and affirms that the said Deputy Sharif did restrain her roughly in close embrace and did drag her at gunpoint from the establishment aforementioned. Furthermore, Ms. Dee alleges that the said Deputy Sharif violated her person with his touch in sensitive portions of her anatomy. Sworn to this fourteenth day of September, this year.”

  “Call Vanna Dee to the witness chair and swear her in.” The Bailiff called out, “Vanna Dee, you are now summoned to the witness chair for this hearing,” and, when she had been escorted by the deputies and carefully seated in the chair, the Bailiff said, “Do you, Vanna, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, on your most sacred honor?”

  “I do.” Prison had added pallor to Vanna’s face. Her attorney had encouraged her to dress in a simple black sheathe dress, a natural garment for her, and the specific garment he chose heightened her apparent vulnerability. She spoke in a small voice, yet one that carried throughout the hearing room.

  “On the date in question,” Dayton Mann asked her, “where were you, at about two in the afternoon?” She raised her eyes to her attorney. Throughout her responses to his questions, she fixed her gaze on him, as if no hope existed in the world but his work on her behalf.

  “I was at the Black and Blue Cowgirl Saloon, in Pueblo Rio.”

  “And what was your purpose in being there?”

  “I had an appointment with Holly Wudenfein, an appointment Deputy Sharif interrupted.”

  “How did Deputy Sharif interrupt you?”

  “He knocked on the door of a private room Holly and I were using. His knock terrified Holly. She ran from the room in an unclothed state.”

  “Why was she unclothed?”

  “The nature of our conversation was intimate, and led to her general disrobing.”

  “What transpired next?”

  “I followed Holly out of the room. I was concerned about her. As soon as I came into the saloon’s main room, Deputy Sharif slammed me, face first, against the wall, and handcuffed me.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I cried out, because the cuffs hurt me. I didn’t hear Deputy Sharif identify himself as an officer of the law.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I tried, feebly, to defend myself, without success. Sheriff DiConti forcibly dragged me across the room, in the process breaking the heels off my boots and bruising my stomach. When other patrons of the Black and Blue Cowgirl tried to intervene on my behalf, he brand
ished his weapon at them. When I examined myself later, I discovered he had bruised my breasts and raised welts on my stomach. I also sprained my left ankle when he broke the heel off my boot.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Dayton Mann said, “for reliving your ordeal in your statement. I’m sure we all can acknowledge your bravery in confronting your abuser in this manner.” Vanna demurely lowered her head and looked at her folded hands. One who had never seen her rages might be dazzled into thinking she was a pious churchgoer. Dayton Mann returned to his chair. Sheriff Ottami began the panel’s inquiries.

  “Ms. Dee,” he said, “you say you didn’t hear Deputy Sharif announce himself as a police official, nor did you hear him warn you of your rights?”

  “He did not warn me of my rights until I was in his patrol car, handcuffed.”

  “Did you resist the Deputy in any physical way?” Mira Kell asked. Her gray hair was coiffed in extravagant waves across her skull. Under her hair her face was wrinkled and sharp. Her eyes glittered with intelligence.

  “I did resist the Deputy by trying to break his hold on me. I would have acquiesced if I had known he was an officer of the law.” Vanna managed to extract a tear from her left eye. She let it trickle dramatically down her pallid cheek.

  “Anyone else have questions?” Sheriff Ottami asked. The other panel members murmured “No,” or shook their