Shattered (20 page)

“Who says anything about understanding? Because it's in Spanish that will make it even easier for you to drift off and ignore what is being preached.”

“Come on, Berta, this doesn't make sense.” I pulled my blanket over my head.

Suddenly the covers were ripped off and I was there on the mattress in my boxers, feeling exposed and practically naked.

“Berta!” I exclaimed. “I'm not dressed!”

“Get up and
get
dressed.”

“Be reasonable,” I pleaded. “Just give me one good reason why I should go to church with you this morning.”

“Fine. How about because I want you to come?”

I didn't know how to argue with that. “Could you explain
why
you want me to come?”

“I would enjoy your company. Besides, there is somebody I want you to meet, to talk to.”

“Couldn't we meet someplace else … sometime later in the day?”
She shook her head. “Then and there. This man is leaving the country tomorrow morning. You need to meet him today and he will be at church.”

“Can't I talk to him after church … a lot after church? I don't want to go to your church. I'm not even Catholic.”

“I'm not asking you to convert. I just need you to talk to him.”

I could see how determined Berta was but I wasn't going to give up easily.

“Can't you have him come over to the house after church … this afternoon or evening?”

“No good,” she said. “He is very busy. A few minutes is all we could possibly get after church.” She paused. “After that he goes back to Guatemala.”

“He's from your country?”

“He is from my hometown.”

“I still don't know why you want me to meet him.” “Isn't it enough to know that I want you to? Just do as I ask as a favour for me.”

I didn't answer right away. What I wanted to say was that I'd do anything for Berta, but I was too embarrassed to say it. I knew, though, that I was going to be going.

“Can we at least have something to eat before we go?” I asked.

“I'll fix you something, something good. How about an omelette, with cheese and green peppers and onions and maybe a little ham?”

“How about a lot of ham?”

Berta bent down and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. “A lot of ham.”

“Now, could I be left alone so I can get dressed?” I
asked, trying to sound angry. “Unless you want me to go to church in my boxers.”

“You dress as you wish, but remember, we are all naked before God.”

“That might make for some interesting church services.” Berta started to giggle. “Get dressed and I will cook.

Put on a suit—I want you to look good.”

CHURCH WAS PRETTY MUCH THE SAME
in Spanish as it was in English—boring. Although Berta was right, it was easier to ignore in a language I didn't understand. At first I struggled to pull down little bits of Spanish out of the air and try to link them together to make sense of things. I was actually amazed that I had got the basic idea of some of what was happening. Other parts of the service weren't that much different from our services—collection plates, hymns, shaking hands—I even recognized the Lord's Prayer even though it was in Spanish. After a while, though, it was just too tiring to try to keep up and I officially turned off my efforts.

I just wished I could turn my mind off that easily for other things. I'd spent more time thinking about Jacques … about our last conversation and about his life. Even when I wasn't thinking about it, it was still there. It was just below the surface. I'd suddenly have a sense of being uneasy, of something being wrong, and then it would all come tumbling back into my brain. And when I was thinking about Jacques I was thinking about Rwanda … and Cambodia, and Armenia, and Yugoslavia, and Nazi Germany, and those three thugs in the park.

I knew that last part was stupid, linking them with those terrible tragedies around the world but that was the closest thing to violence I'd ever experienced, and I couldn't help wondering—how much different were those three from those other monsters? If they had total power, what would they have done to me? I had no answers. I had no answers to any of it. Here I was sitting in a church, supposedly in the house of God, and all I could think about was the work of the devil. If God was everywhere, how come he hadn't shown up in Rwanda?

I guess all of those thoughts were what had made Berta bring me here today. I'd spent the last few days just moping around the house. I hadn't been sleeping very well and my appetite was really down. That was stupid. Not eating around Berta was like a scream for help. I knew I could snap out of it. It could take a few days, a week at most. I didn't need to come to church or to meet anybody. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I just wanted to be left alone to wallow in the bad feelings until they finally went away.

The choir struck up another song and they started to file out of the choir loft and down the aisle toward the exit. I knew what that meant in any language. The altar boys and the two priests followed behind them and out the door and the service was over. Over and out the door. The people in the first pews were now coming down the aisle, closely followed by the people in the next pew and the next. I had a great view since I was the tallest person in the whole church … by a long shot. I was head and shoulders taller. I'd also noticed that everybody was looking at me. It wasn't simply that I was a stranger, but a tall, non-Spanish-looking stranger.

“So what now?” I asked Berta.

“Now we talk to Eduardo.”

“Who exactly is Eduardo?” I asked. On the way to church she hadn't said anything more about the man from her hometown—the man she so desperately wanted me to meet.

“He is here visiting from Guatemala. In my country he is very important. A very big hero.”

“A hero … where is he?” I asked, looking around the still-emptying church.

“He is already gone outside. He was sitting in the front row.”

I hadn't noticed anybody who looked like a hero. We stood up and joined the people shuffling out of the church. Outside in the sunshine the crowd had fanned out but people were still standing around. It was like they were reluctant to get into their cars and leave. They stood around, laughing, talking in Spanish. That made everybody sound excited. Spanish always made me think that people were in a rush, the way the words just kept flooding out.

People kept coming up and greeting Berta and she introduced me to each of them—I was her
Eon
. And that was how almost everybody else said it too.
Eon
. Everybody was friendly and full of smiles and shook my hand or patted my arm. I was completely different from anybody else here but somehow I felt like I was welcome, almost like I belonged. My church hardly ever gave me that feeling.

“I know,” I said quietly to Berta, “that I've been kind of preoccupied the last few days but I really don't need to talk to anybody.”

“I don't want you to talk to him. I want you to listen to him.”

“What's he going to say?” I asked.

“I do not know, but he always seems to know what to say.”

“Sounds like you've known him for a long time.” “Since I was a child. He was the man who fixed the shoes in my town.”

“He's a shoemaker? I thought you said he was a hero?” I asked.

“You can be both.”

“But why do you want me talk to him?” I asked. It was strange enough when I thought she had wanted me to talk to a hero, but a shoemaker?

“He has things he can tell you about what happened in my country. About the death squads.”

I was taken aback. This was just about the last thing I wanted to hear anything about. Wasn't I having enough trouble sleeping as it was?

“Maybe I don't want to know any more,” I said.

“I thought that, then I decided I was wrong … and so are you. You need to know more.”

“What's the point?” I asked. “Knowing what happened doesn't change what happened.”

“You're right. You can't change what happened. Maybe, though, it can help you change what will happen in the future.”

I snorted. “Do you really think there's anything I can do that can make that big a difference?”

“Little things make big differences sometimes. Come.”

Berta took me by the hand and led me through the crowd. It seemed like she knew everybody we passed. Still more greetings. Lots of hugs. Lots of smiles. This seemed more like a festival than a church.

“There he is,” she said.

“Where?”

“In the group, in the centre of those women.”

“In the centre … you don't mean that man, do you?” I asked. There was a tiny old man, practically lost from view among the women. He was leaning heavily on a cane.

“
Si,
that is him.”

“But, but, he's so old … and small.”

“Do you think somebody has to be big to be brave?” Berta asked.

“No, of course not. I just thought he'd be … be different.”

“He
is
different,” she said.

We stood slightly off to the side while this little old man continued to be surrounded by people. Some left and others joined in and it looked like it could be a long time before we'd be able to talk to him. I really didn't want to be here. Maybe I could just wait in the car. Suddenly the man looked up and in our direction. His eyes widened in recognition as he saw Berta.

“Berta!” he yelled out. He moved forward surprisingly quickly, his cane tapping the pavement, and gave her a big hug and then reached up and kissed her on both cheeks. They talked in animated Spanish—is that saying the same thing twice?

“Eduardo,” Berta said, “I would like to introduce you to a very special person. This is Eon.”

“I'm most pleased to meet you,” he said as we shook hands.

“I'm pleased to meet you, too.”

“Berta has told me about you in our letters.”

“You've written about me?” I asked.

“She mentions you all the time,” he said.

“I just didn't know you did that.”

“You know I send letters to the orphanage all the time,” she said. “Eduardo runs the orphanage.”

“Helps to run the orphanage,” he said. “There are many people there, and here, who are part of the job.”

“But I thought you repaired shoes?”

He smiled. “I still do that, but only for the children of the orphanage. We think it is important to take care of their soles as well as their souls.” He turned directly to me. “But that is only because of the generosity of people such as Berta … She has given so much … has provided so much to our children. I just wish more people could be so generous of spirit. She is a very special person … a very caring soul.”

“You don't have to tell me that,” I said.

Berta looked like she was blushing. “Do you know who Eduardo is?” Berta asked.

“Sure. You just told me—he runs the orphanage.”

“He is also the man who saved my life.”

My eyes widened in shock. This little man … this little old man, leaning on his cane … he was the man?

“You give me too much credit. I was one of many, many people who worked together to bring people out of Guatemala.”

“He always downplays what he did,” Berta said.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I simply did what was right. What choice was there?”

“You could have done nothing,” she said. “Instead you risked your life.”

“I was not concerned. Who thinks that a simple shoemaker could be doing anything of consequence? I was too small a fish for the sharks to notice.”

A chill went up my spine. I knew he was talking about the death squads, about those who did the killing, who made people disappear.

“What are you doing up here now?” I asked, needing to redirect the conversation away from an area I didn't want to talk about.

“Visiting,” he said as he reached out and gave Berta's hand a squeeze. He looked around. “There are so many here that I know … so many. I just wish that it could have been more … that more could have been saved.”

I felt a jolt of electricity surge through my body—those were almost exactly the same words that had come out of Jacques' mouth. I looked at him—right at him—right into his eyes. He'd seen some of the same things that Jacques had witnessed. He was half his size, spoke with a different accent, was a shoemaker and not a soldier, and didn't look anything like him, but there was something about this man that was the same as the other.

“You did all that you could,” Berta reassured him.

“I know,” he said, sadly nodding his head. “I know that now, but for years I only grieved over the ones who were lost. I could not get beyond the sadness for those who were killed.”

“But you did get past it … right?” I asked.

A soft, gentle smile came to his face—he looked serene, peaceful. “I have.”

“How … how did you get past it?” I asked, the words just a whisper as they escaped my lips.

“Many things in many ways.”

“Could you tell me what they were?”

A thoughtful look came to his face. “Why is this of such interest to you?”

“It just is … I have a friend … I just want to know. Please.”

He nodded his head. “It sounds like you are trying to help your friend but don't know how.”

How did he know that? I looked over at Berta.

“I did not tell him,” she said.

“There was no need to tell,” Eduardo said. “I already knew. I will tell you. Time was one important thing,” he said. “I needed time to think, to distance myself from the memories.”

“So it's just a matter of time?” I asked.

“Time is necessary but not sufficient. You need more than just the passing of the days. Perhaps most important was helping others. It is a gift to the giver to help others. And, of course, I never lost my faith, and God's love. And then there was this … this … this will sound strange … there was this man … this beggar on the streets of Puerto Barrios. He told me a story.”