Blessed Child (10 page)

And Dadda was gone. That's what Jason had told Leiah yesterday, and he knew it was true.

Caleb sat on his haunches in the room and rocked back and forth, trying to decide what to do with the feelings that ran through his chest when he thought about Dadda. He knew that he was with God; he did know that. But he didn't know why that made him sad.

His father's brown face floated through his mind. “Remember, Caleb, words are weak instruments of love. They can do many things, but they do not carry the truth like your hands do. People need to be shown, not told.”

“Then why don't we go show them, Dadda?”

“But you will. You will. And I am showing you, am I not?”

Caleb swallowed and stood. The woman that the other children called Auntie Martha had left him in this large room a long time ago, and it was now dark outside. Maybe they would bring the other children in to see him soon. He'd seen five in the yard as they were walking here, and they had seen him too. It had made his heart run very fast.

Let the little children come to me
. Jesus had said that, and Caleb had always wondered what it would be like to jump on his lap with other children. A song he learned from Dadda ran through his mind.

You must be a child;

You must always be a child

If you want to see
,

If you want to walk in the kingdom
.

Caleb walked to the window and looked out to the dark yard. Lights blazed in a window across the grass. A figure walked past it and Caleb's pulse jumped. It was one of the boys! He walked out of view.

Hello, child. My name is Caleb
. Maybe it was Samuel, from the church. The one who had seen the cross with him.

Caleb rolled away from the window and stood with his back to the wall, swallowing. The cross in the church was the first he'd seen since leaving the monastery, and it had nearly stopped his heart. They had killed God on that cross. Not that one, but one like it. The worlds had collided on those beams, Dadda used to say, and standing there this morning, it had felt like his worlds were colliding.

He'd seen some things then.

And then he'd helped the boy Samuel see some things too.

The door suddenly opened and Caleb started. It was Martha. “Hello, boy. Did you miss me?”

She had a plate of food, which she put on the table. “Eat up. We can't have you goin' hungry.”

Caleb shifted on his feet, shy of her.

“Well, come on, boy. You may be special to everybody else, but not to me. To me you're just another boy, and the sooner you learn that the sooner you and I will get along.”

What did she mean by that? Her voice made him feel funny, and although he knew that she wanted him to go over to the food, he was having a hard time moving his feet.

She suddenly slammed the table with her hand, and he jumped a foot off the ground. “Eat!”

Caleb walked forward on wobbly legs. She was dark; he could see it as much as feel it. Not in her long black hair or her dirty brown eyes, but in her heart.

“And I don't want you whining, you hear? Nikolous may insist I give you special treatment, but that doesn't mean
better
treatment! You'll receive no favors. If you're going to grow up and become a man, you'll need no special favors.”

He sat at the table and bowed his head. The food looked like a heap of earthworms, but it smelled like cheese. Cheesy worms. He didn't want to eat.

She humphed and walked for the door. Her hips were large, and the brown dress she wore looked as though it might split. The black shoes on her feet appeared too small, so that the straps pressed deep into her ankles. They clacked loudly on the wooden floor.

At the door, she turned around and looked at him crossly. “I'll be back in one hour to turn the lights out. Your room is down the hall on the left.” She motioned to the dark opening that led to the rest of the quarters. “That food had better be gone when I get back. If I ever catch you outside of this building, I will whip you. And don't pretend that you don't understand; Nikolous told me that you speak English.”

She stepped out and shut the door.

Somewhere a cricket sang in the night. He didn't know what she meant by
whip,
but it did not sound like a good thing. Surely it couldn't mean she actually intended to strike him.

Caleb stared at his food and wondered at the feelings that hurt his chest. He began to bob his head. He bobbed his head, and he began to sing in a high, quiet voice. It was a song in Ge'ez, a chant that he and Dadda often sang, thanking God for his love.

A warmth settled over his shoulders, and he remembered that cross in the church. The cross.

“What does it mean to die, Dadda?”

“It means to find life fully. To be with God.”

“And when will we die?”

“As soon as we are done showing his love here, my son.”

Caleb nodded and smiled. He picked up his fork and stuck it in the food. He was a child and Dadda was dead. Both were good, he thought. Both allowed access to the kingdom.

8

Day 2

T
HE PHONE CALL FROM THE
G
REEK
O
RTHODOX CHURCH
came at eleven on Monday morning. There was a problem with the boy. “He won't do anything,” Father Nikolous said.

Jason and Leiah had left the church the previous day and driven back to Jason's house in silence. Working among oppressed peoples as they both had, they'd learned to shut down emotionally in order to survive. Not a distasteful response, simply a human one. It felt oddly like that to Jason driving home from the Greek Orthodox church. As if they had just been to a funeral—a rather strong emotion, considering they had only known Caleb four days now.

He'd taken her to a Super Eight motel Sunday afternoon, and after a brief, rather awkward discussion about their future plans, they wished each other well and parted ways. Leiah would catch a flight to Montreal Tuesday and take a short sabbatical before deciding whether or not to return to Africa. She probably would, she said. There was no place for her in North America. As for Jason, he really had no clue what he would do now. Probably return to some famine-stricken land to help the people struggle through impossible odds.

“What do you mean he won't do anything?” Jason asked into the receiver.

“He won't do anything. I went to see him this morning, and he told me flatly that he'll do absolutely nothing unless he first sees you and the woman. It's ridiculous.”

“Me and the woman? You mean Leiah?”

“Yes, of course!” Nikolous snapped.

“And what won't he do?”

“I've told you! Nothing! Everything! He refuses to eat or dress or talk. He sits by the window and pretends to be dumb.”

Heat washed down Jason's back. “And you're doing what to him?”

“Nothing. Martha has done nothing but try to encourage him to eat.”

“I'll be there in an hour. Don't touch him.”

The phone went dead in his ear and Jason hung up. He wasn't sure how well Nikolous knew immigration law, but the Greek might have just opened the door for removal of custody.

He called Leiah's hotel, hoping she was in her room. If he knew her, she was probably propped up on the bed, reacquainting herself with the Western world by flipping through television channels rather than taking to the streets.

Leiah answered on the first ring and immediately agreed to go with him. The flight didn't leave until 4:00 P.M., and she'd been thinking of taking a cab to check on Caleb anyway.

Leiah walked out to meet him in front of the hotel thirty minutes later, and Jason saw that she'd gone shopping. She wore faded jeans and a green cotton blouse with long sleeves. A red bandana hung around her neck. Walking across the driveway in tan leather hiking boots and flowing black hair, she could pass as a pinup model for John Deere tractors, he thought.
Our lady of Africa has found her new home.
Now there was an image: a model with third-degree burns from her neck to her ankles.

She slid into the Bronco. “So . . .” She smiled.

He nodded. “You good?”

“Better now.”

Jason pulled into traffic and headed to Burbank. “I thought you might be concerned with this news of Caleb.”

“It's hardly news. Did you expect any different? There was bound to be a problem with that charlatan.”

“It might end up being more than just a visit.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that if Nikolous and his staff have legitimate difficulties with Caleb, then we stand a good chance of finding him another home.”

“A home for how long?”

“It'll take several months for the courts to determine his citizenship rights. They'll have to demonstrate that his mother was an American. Just because Father Matthew claimed that some guilt-ridden commander confessed to killing the boy's supposed American mother doesn't mean she actually
was
an American. She could've been Canadian, for that matter. Or European. Point is, it'll take time. In the meantime the court will grant guardianship to a legal party. That's the first step, sometime in the next few days. For most refugees, guardianship is given to a relative within the United States, but with an orphan like Caleb, World Relief appointed Sunnyside Orphanage. The judge would normally rubber-stamp the appointment and turn full custody over to Sunnyside.”

“Unless there are problems with the case.”

“Unless we can convince the judge at the guardianship hearing that Nikolous and his outfit are unfit to care for this particular boy.”

Leiah placed her hand on his forearm. “Then we do whatever we can in our power to make that happen, Jason. I'm telling you, they will destroy him.”

He glanced at her hand. He could just see her skin, wrinkled at her wrist. He nodded. “I think you're right. And where would he stay?”

“With me.”

“In Canada? They'll never go for that.”

“No, here. I don't know. I'll find someplace. I am with the Red Cross; I'm sure something can be worked out.”

“Maybe. We'll see. First we have to stop the Greek.”

They arrived at the Greek Orthodox church and pulled into the same visitor's spot they'd parked in a day earlier. The large lot was vacant except for a half-dozen cars near the building's west wing. A tall, skinny man with a very short nose that made Jason think of a stuck-up butler led them through the offices to a back door. They entered a grassy courtyard surrounded by three identical long gray buildings. Dormitories. The layout looked like what you might find on a college campus. Or a prison camp. A pale yellow swing set sat idly on the lawn. The setting was as drab as wet concrete.

Lighten up, Jason. This is a fine facility
. The tall man led them down covered walkways to the far-right building. They left the courtyard and rounded the structure. The outer walls facing the main street were constructed of cedar and lined with flower boxes full of blue carnations. A high fence encircled the perimeter of the property fifty feet off, between the dormitories and the street—to keep the unwanted out, no doubt.

Nikolous had told them yesterday that they housed five to ten children at any given time. There wasn't any sign of them here; perhaps they were at lunch now.

Butler-man opened a door and showed them into the building and then left. The room they entered looked like a large waiting room, with gray sofas on the side closest to the door and a Formica-topped dining table on the far side. Black-and-white-checkered tile covered the floor, and the white ceilings stood a good twelve feet above their heads. Long warehouse fluorescents hung from white chains, lifeless now.

Nikolous stood by a window near the dining table. He glanced at them, walked over to the entrance of a hallway that ran farther into the building, and pushed a small red button on an intercom. “Bring him, Martha.”

The Greek could have passed for a trader on Wall Street in the black suit he wore—a far cry from the robes of yesterday. He approached them with his hands behind his back.

“Good morning,” Jason said.

“We should make this quick,” the Greek said. “I have a meeting at one o'clock and I haven't had lunch.” His hair was slicked back with grease, a stark look that seemed to exaggerate the dark bags under his eyes.

“I'm not sure what you expect us to do, Nikolous, but I can promise you it won't be quick.”

The man grinned. “Father Nikolous, if you please. And I expect you to help this child understand that you are no longer his guardian. He seems to have latched on to the notion that you are responsible for him. And when I say quick, I am referring to this meeting only.”

“Do you mind if we come in and sit?”

“Of course.” The Greek walked to the gray couches and sat in a folding chair adjacent to them. He smelled of linseed oil. Jason glanced at Leiah and saw that she was watching the hall. He took her elbow and they joined Nikolous.

“Where is he?” Leiah asked.

“With Martha. His caretaker. They will be out momentarily.” One look at Nikolous and any judge with his head screwed on tightly would want testimony on his worthiness. Jason would give testimony, all right, but it wouldn't be to worthiness.

“Now, I want to be perfectly clear,” Nikolous said. “If you have any misguided notions of making new arrangements for this boy, you should dismiss them. We have full custody of the child.” He frowned confidently. “I'm not interested in your taking him off my hands. What I am interested in is your help with Caleb's transition. The first days in such a new environment can be difficult, as I'm sure you well know. He seems to have taken a liking to you.”

“And not you? Why not?”

The frown deepened. “No need to be smart. These things take time. In the meantime you can help him. He will live here, under our care, but it might be useful for him to receive visits from you until he grows accustomed to his new home.”