Ben Soul

Yuna’s specialties). It was the first of many invitations.

  Vanna consulted her Aunt Mella Dee, who had inherited some of Clara Dee’s lesser spells. One of these was a love potion. She schooled Vanna in its preparation and taught her how to slip it into Dickon’s tea or coffee. Vanna used the substance at the maximum dose. Over the course of his senior year, Dickon fell into the habit of spending Sundays in Sheepshin Valley, usually at dinner with the Dees.

  When Perry Dee grumbled to Yuna about Dickon’s freeloading ways, she hushed him with the prospect of a possible husband for their Vanna. At the beginning of May, Dickon proposed to Vanna. Vanna accepted. They planned an August wedding.

  Dickon wrote to a friend from the seminary.

  Dickon Shayne

  1016 Seminary Towers

  Dinkum, California

  May 18, 1972

  Rev. Maurice Toryum

  971 Blackwater Circle

  Tumbling Rocks, Washington

  Dear Morrie,

  I have accepted a call to the Hollow Log Presbyterian Church in Bypass Village in Oregon. I am to begin there on the second Sunday in June. That Presbytery will ordain me. I look forward to this congregation. Most of the parish is older people whose children have grown and moved away. Not much chance to increase the Sunday School, but a lot of adult education opportunities. I will not have to report to a senior pastor, since I am the only pastor for the congregation, which numbers forty-seven. The salary meets the minimum, and a manse is provided.

  Further news: I am to be married in August. Her name is Vanna Dee, from Sheepshin Valley. Her family is staunchly Presbyterian, and faithful in their attendance at their local Presbyterian church. Her father has served, I believe, as an elder for two or three terms. Vanna has long dark hair, deep black eyes, and a great intelligence. She is an easy conversationalist, though a little shy. She is also frugal, a better cook than I am, skilled with a sewing machine, and will be, I think, an ornament to this pastor’s calling.

  Pray a thanksgiving prayer for me. When I have specific dates and times for my ordination, I’ll write to you.

  Yours in Christ,

  Dickon Shayne

  Vanna wrote to a favorite aunt with great expectations.

  Vanna Dee

  3729 Gray Fleece Lane

  Sheepshin Valley, California

  May 19, 1972

  Ms. Mella Dee

  1407 Wounded Partridge Lane

  Bird-in-the-Hand, Utah

  Dear Aunt Mella,

  It’s true. I’m getting married in August. Thanks for the family potion. I think it helped. Dickon is almost six feet, with red hair, green eyes, and a good body. He has a beautiful tenor voice that sells well in the pulpit. He even has a job, a “call” as they say it, to a place in Oregon. It’s another hick town, like Sheepshin, but it’s a starting place. With a little encouragement, Dickon should go on soon to bigger and better things. At least he doesn’t plan to raise sheep or hay. He’s allergic to both.

  I know you think I should have held out for a doctor or a lawyer, but there aren’t any available specimens in Sheepshin Valley. We’re lucky to get preachers and teachers.

  I don’t think I’ll have much trouble managing him. Mother says I should just let him think he’s in charge of everything, and do my things my way anyway. She says it has worked well for her with Father. Dickon seems to be very much in love with me, at least he keeps saying so. I murmur similar responses, but I keep your advice in mind, Aunt Mella. The advice you gave me years ago about loving no man so much as I love myself. I’ll write more later; right now Mother is ready to take me to town to find a wedding gown material within Father’s budget.

  Your loving niece,

  Vanna Dee

  Yuna Dee sat down, after the wedding clutter had been cleared away, and wrote a brief note to an old friend.

  Yuna Dee

  3729 Gray Fleece Lane

  Sheepshin Valley, California

  September 5, 1972

  Effie Denz

  6879 Rutabaga Road

  Truck Garden Town, Texas

  Dear Effie,

  Well, it’s over and done. My little Vanna has flown the nest. She’s now Mrs. Dickon Shayne wife to the Reverend Dickon Shayne, of Bypass Village, Oregon. The wedding was quite lovely, and, I can say with pride, I produced the whole affair within Perry’s spending limits. One would think a father would be readier to indulge an only daughter than Perry was. We held the wedding at the church, of course, and the reception here, at the house. Vanna and I made her dress ourselves. It was a simple gown, Empire-waisted, with faux seed pearls sewn to the sleeves. She wore my veil, the one Mother bought me when I married Perry. The groom is handsome, a green-eyed redhead, with an erect posture and a shy smile that lights up one’s heart. I hope they will be happy together. I fear Dickon is not as ambitious as Vanna might want him to be. They’ll have to work that out between them.

  The house seems very empty without Vanna. Dan has grown into a silent man, hard, as his father is hard. Perhaps he’ll find a woman, one day, and bring her home to be his wife, and dare I hope it? my companion.

  Do write and tell me the news of Texas, and the Denz family.

  Sincerely,

  Yuna Dee

  Thrift Shop Theology

  Swami Rirenda Fendabenda felt his worship lacked focus. His altar, with a simple bronze Buddha incense burner and two candles was too simple. It did not impress the occasional visitor to his shrine sufficiently with his devotion. He needed more statuary, in short. As usual, funds in his capacious pockets were minuscule. He abandoned thoughts of buying brilliant ceramic saints from the Wong Brothers’ Import Export Emporium or any other of the shops in Chinatown. Perhaps the St. Edmund’s Thrift Shop had something to offer.

  The Swami donned his saffron robe and tied the emerald cord around his ample abdomen. He put on his best walking sandals; the sun was high for the City, and the walks would be quite warm, at least on the sunny side of the streets. The Swami’s feet were tender.

  The day was warm, and he walked slowly, lest he break into a sweat that would leach the dye from his robes into his armpit hair. He had done so once, and the itch lasted for days.

  St. Edmund’s had few customers at the noon hour. Most indigents, who provided the shop’s primary demographic, were at table in the church’s dining hall. The Swami greeted the monk, Brother Vitus, whom he knew slightly, with a nod. Brother Vitus nodded in return, scarcely looking up from his devotional reading. Brother Vitus was scrawny from much fasting, and sour of countenance from much prayer. His large nose dominated his almost chinless, gaunt, face. He wore the rusty black robes of his order. He sniffed at intervals, perpetually tortured by uncontrolled sinusitis.

  The Swami prowled the room, passing the racks of used trousers donated by folk of good will who hoped to buy a little more from whatever deity they worshipped. He walked, holding his breath, past the books. Most were from clergy libraries, doomed to lie on the shop’s tables until they moldered into heaps of mildew. In the back, beyond the fugitive plates from old wedding china sets and the chipped glasses and bent flatware that still might serve a street person, the Swami found a shelf of pious objects. St. Francis and the Madonna predominated. Though his own faith was most eclectic as to participant saints, the Swami wanted to maintain an Oriental décor.

  Set on a shelf below, amidst cracked moustache cups and grimy carnival glass he found them. Three Kuanyins, obviously a set. He lifted one, and then the next, and then the third, before he found a price. Ten dollars. He winced. That meant broth and noodles for a while, until he could finagle donations from someone. He had tapped out his regular donors out for the month. He frowned. Then his face cleared, and he chuckled softly. Brother Vitus had a weakness of prejudice.

  He carried the three statues to the desk where Brother Vitus and his devotional guarded the cash register.

  “Good afternoo
n, Brother Vitus,” he said. Brother Vitus looked up. His glacial blue eyes peered around the contours of his nose.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Do you know the provenance of these statues?”

  “No. What are they?”

  “Objects of worship from heathen temples in China. I’m surprised to see them here.”

  Brother Vitus shrank back, as though the Swami offered him a vial of bubonic plague. The Swami pretended not to notice.

  “See,” he said, pointing to a smoky streak on one of the statues, “Here’s where the smoke from heathen incense has marked the thing. Someone must have used it frequently. Lots of heathen prayers uttered here.” The Swami looked at Brother Vitus with a wide-open innocence. “Have you had these in your shop for a long time?”

  “No. Just came in this morning. Some estate dumped them here.” Brother Vitus was rubbing his fingers against his robes. The Swami guessed Brother Vitus had priced them and put them on the shelf. “Be glad to get rid of them.”

  “I’ll give you a dollar apiece for them.”

  “Done, if you put them in a bag yourself.”

  The Swami took out three one-dollar bills and handed them to Brother Vitus, who feared no contamination from mere money. He handed the Swami a bag. The Swami put his purchases into the bag and left Brother Vitus moaning prayers behind him in the shop.

  Shir Li Makes Statues (From the Book of Bygone Days)

  It was June of 1900, and China was in flames. The I Ho T’uan, the “Righteous Harmony Bands,” whom the missionaries, in their foreign devil speech called “Boxers” were pushing out the foreigners and