Ben Soul

there,” he said. “She’s going crazy. Doesn’t like her routine upset, I guess.”

  “See you later,” Dickon said. He started toward the Station, but turned and blew Ben a kiss, before he went on. Ben waved at his back and went in to face an irate Butter.

  Butter was not at the door to greet Ben. She was barking furiously in the kitchen. Ben went warily; any out-of-character behavior on Butter’s part could spell trouble. He crept toward the kitchen.

  Butter was at the table, with her paws on its edge, a most grievous breach of etiquette on her part. Ben was shocked. Butter knew her few rules, and obeyed them without question. Then he saw the object of her furious barking. A small gray and white cat sat, unconcernedly licking the butter, in the center of the table. It pretended not to notice the ferocious dog aching to get at it, although, Ben noticed, it kept a wary eye corner aimed in Butter’s direction. Someone knocked at the kitchen door.

  Ben shouted at Butter to be quiet, with no result. Butter went on angrily advising the cat in no-nonsense canine language that it had transgressed exceedingly much. Sighing, Ben went to the door and opened it.

  A younger version of Emma stood on the porch. Her hair was soft brown, and her figure shapely, for a woman. She wore aesthetically tight blue jeans, and a gray sweater that supported and displayed her breasts and flat abdomen to good advantage. Her eyes were blue, and twinkled like birthday candles. Ben thought to himself that she’d have been a beautiful boy.

  “Yes?” he shouted over Butter’s tirade.

  “I think I can stop that,” she shouted back, “if there’s a gray and white cat in your house.”

  “There is. Come in, please, and get the cat.” He held the door for her. She went to the table to pick up the cat that was still licking the butter. Ben grabbed Butter by the collar and pulled her back. The woman picked up the cat and cradled it against her sweater.

  “Sorry,” she said, and took the cat out. Butter’s furious barking followed it all the way to the door. Then she looked up at Ben and wagged her tail slowly and tentatively.

  “You were ferocious,” Ben said. “You terrified that poor cat.” He rubbed her behind the ears. Her tail moved more confidently. “Yes, she intruded. How she got in I don’t know.” Ben began to look around the kitchen for gaps between the walls and the floor, holes in the screen, or other signs of forced feline entry. He was still looking when another knock came on the kitchen door.

  The young woman was back, sans cat, this time with a plate of cookies in hand. Oatmeal and date cookies this time.

  “I’m so sorry about Ermentrude’s intrusion,” she said. Ermentrude, Ben guessed, was the small cat. “She doesn’t get on too well with Prime Pussy, you see. Will cookies help me apologize?”

  “Yes, to me,” Ben said. “I’m an easy pushover. I won’t speak for Butter, though.” Butter spoke for herself with a low growl. “No, Butter,” Ben said authoritatively. Butter slunk off into a corner. “Would you like some tea?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, that would be nice,” the woman said. “Let me introduce myself,” she went on as Ben took the cookies from her and put the plate on the table. Not too close to the cat-licked butter, however.

  “You’re Notta Freed, Emma’s daughter,” Ben said. “You can’t deny it. You look too much like her.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  Ben put the kettle on, got down two cups, and put a teabag in each. “I hope plain tea is okay,” he said. “I don’t much go for the varietals.”

  “Plain tea is fine,” Notta said.

  “Have you come for a visit?”

  “Yes. I’ve got three weeks off, so I toddled up from the City to see Mother.”

  “Will you be here the full three weeks?”

  “That depends on how tired Mother and I get of each other.”

  The kettle whistled. Ben made the tea and brought a cup to Notta. “Sugar? Cream? I don’t have lemon.”

  “Plain is fine. Have a cookie.”

  Ben took one, bit into it, closed his eyes, and sighed in ecstasy. “Superb!” he pronounced.

  “They should be,” Notta said. “Mother made them.” She took her teacup and swallowed deeply. Ben wondered that she didn’t burn her throat.

  “Good tea,” Notta said. “Mother says you’ve been here since late spring.”

  “Yes. I saw the cabin was for rent one day, quite by chance, and applied to La Señora for residency.” The afternoon was growing middle-aged when Dickon returned. Notta was just leaving; she and Ben had exchanged idle chatter for almost an hour.

  “Oh, hello, Notta,” Dickon said as he came in. “Up for your annual visit?”

  “Yes, Dickon. I’ve just been getting acquainted with Ben here,” she said. “Thanks to Ermentrude’s interference. Ben can tell you all about it,” she went on. “I promised Mother we’d go to dinner tonight in Las Tumbas, and I’ve still got to wash my hair. I’ll see you later, guys.” She went out the door.

  “Only crumbs left, I see,” Dickon said. “Now I don’t feel guilty about being late with the salami.”

  “We’ll have it for supper,” Ben said. Butter thumped her tail, got up, and brushed against Dickon’s legs. When he didn’t respond to her, she whined.

  “Sorry, Butter,” Dickon said and bent to rub her ears and scratch her rump just above her tail. “I saw Chester in the Station. He looked very tired. I guess he had to work pretty hard to keep our intruder alive until they got to Las Tumbas. He felt he should stay for several hours to see the man through the crisis. I need a cup of tea, and I can tell you all about it.”

  “Okay, then I’ll take Butter for her afternoon run.”

  “I’ll come with you, if that’s all right.”

  “Okay.” Ben put the kettle on.

  Such a Nun

  No hospital ever sleeps; indeed, the patients are either blessed or comatose if they can sleep. Beeping machines and calls for Doctors and nurses penetrate the night with persistent urgency. Add to this the groans and cries of those whose pain has driven them beyond caring, and a brass band could practice unheard in the halls.

  Sister Beatified patrolled this universe of cacophony bringing silent comfort to the ill and distressed. Sister Beatified had taken her vows as a teenaged nun, and never regretted her marriage with God. God probably never regretted it, either. After stints in school with unruly students scarcely controlled by sturdy rulers and bruised knuckles, a wise Mother Superior had assigned Sister Beatified to hospital work.

  Sister, who had never been prone to idle chatter, took up the practice of silent prayer and silent comforting of the ill. She could, with a touch, bring calm to a restless patient, relief to a painful limb, hope to a despairing heart, and releasing tears to a grieving widow. Sister Beatified was a prized institution at Las Tumbas General Hospital.

  Now in her seventies, she was stooped with osteoporosis and the burdens of age. Very traditional in her habit, she typified the black robed white wimpled nun cruel boys had labeled penguins in the old days. Most of Sister’s order wore modern dresses, sober in color and decent in hem length. Sister Beatified had special dispensation to keep her traditional garb.

  Once she had glided up and down the corridors of the hospital. Now she shuffled, determined as ever to bring what relief she could to any and all patients. She smiled as she left a young mother’s room. The woman, severely ill with post-partum depression, was at last beginning to see a positive side to life with a baby in tow. Sister Beatified had done her bit, without a word.

  Sister nodded to the person in gray-green hospital garb who was striding along the hall with purpose. The person did not acknowledge Sister. Sister whispered a prayer for the person’s benefit and passed by. A great chill assaulted Sister Beatified’s spirit. Darkness pounded at her very soul. She stopped short, nearly falling over her own feet, so sudden was her halting. Something was wrong.

  Sister Beatified had met
evil before, of course. No one could live fifty plus years in a religious institution without meeting many faces of darkness. Never before, however, had the passing of a stranger so battered at her soul. Sister Beatified turned, and watched the person in hospital scrubs striding along the corridor. Something compelled her to follow. She shuffled after the figure as rapidly as her trembling legs and aching feet allowed her.

  The person she followed did nothing unusual. Now that Sister looked closely, she determined the figure was a woman from her stride. Sister Beatified followed her through the maternity ward, past the pediatrics department (Sister breathed a sigh of relief when the evil didn’t stop to pollute the innocent babes), and to the elevator. Sister caught up with the woman just as the elevator doors opened. They entered the elevator together.

  The woman pressed the button for the next floor. “What floor?” the woman asked. Her voice was hard.

  “The same,” Sister Beatified said. The dark cold miasma of wrongness was filling the cubicle as it rose. Sister wondered that the weight of evil did not depress the car so much it could not rise.

  It seemed an eternity before the doors opened on the next floor. The woman in the scrubs marched out and went to the nurse’s station for Intensive Care. Sister Beatified followed as unobtrusively as she could.

  Sister’s hearing wasn’t quite what it had been when she was young, so she couldn’t make out what the woman asked the nurse on duty.