Black as Night: A Fairy Tale Retold (12 page)

She laughed again, and thought to herself, but
he could be scamming me. He might have picked up this card and be pretending to be vice-president of the company.
If he hadn’t looked so ill—and she knew he was—she might have been more cautious. She might have held back.

But her doubts about his identity were pushed aside as the door to the hall opened, and a man came out. “Mr. Fairston?” he asked solicitously. “Your wife is looking for you.”

“Why?” the man asked, a bit peevishly, then started and looked anxious. “Oh, have I forgotten something?”

“They want to present you with an award,” the man said, taking his arm.

“An award? What for?”

“Well, this is your farewell banquet and you are the guest of honor,” the man said, helping Mr. Fairston to his feet.

“Guest of honor?” he muttered as he fumbled with his cane. “Good grief, is that what all this is for?”

“Of course it is. Your wife arranged it.”

Mr. Fairston grimaced. “I told her I didn’t want a farewell banquet. They give me headaches. I don’t want to have a farewell banquet with a headache. I’ll get all cross and won’t enjoy it.”

“I don’t think you have much choice,” the man said with a smile. “Come on in now,” and led him up the steps.

Mr. Fairston paused, and looked back at the girl. “You will come and visit me, won’t you?”

“I will,” she promised. “Thank you.”

“Good night then,” he said, and allowed himself to be escorted inside, where the blond woman in red came graciously to his side, kissed him on the cheek, and said something into the cordless microphone she still carried. There were cheers as the entire assembly got to its feet, clapping loudly.

Slightly moved, the girl watched the man hobble his way up to the stage amidst the applause. The blond goddess accompanying him looked over her shoulder, and met the girl’s gaze. There was a coldness in her eyes that flashed like ice.

The girl stepped back into the night, surprised. For a long time she stood outside the door, holding onto the handle, listening to the screech and roar of the traffic behind her, rushing through the darkness.

II

As usual, Brother Leon had a difficult time concentrating on his Tuesday morning class on the Franciscan vows. He disliked sitting still, and shifted his feet and toyed with his pencil while Father Bernard lectured.

To make matters worse, they were in the room right next to the front door, and Leon was aware each time it was opened. He would catch snatches of conversation, get distracted, and have to forcibly turn his mind back to the explication of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

After a man had tried unsuccessfully to sell the friars a box of sugar packets “he just happened to find” outside a restaurant and Brother Herman had turned him away, Leon tried to pull his attention back to the Middle Ages and St. Francis. Then there was another knock at the door. Father Bernard sighed audibly, and looked at the door to the room, but as the office door was off its hinges, it was impossible to close it.

The knock came again, insistently, and Brother Leon wondered where the porter was. As the knocking continued, he stared at Father Bernard, wondering if his novice master would dispatch him to open it. The thought seemed to pass through the priest’s mind, but just as he turned to Leon and started to speak, they all heard Father Francis emerge from the kitchen and hurry to the door, his sandals smacking on the floor.

“Hello,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically cheerful, “And what can I do for you?”

There was a woman’s voice, rasping and aged by time, saying something Leon couldn’t catch.

“Well, we have food distribution on Thursdays. But come in, and I’ll see if Brother Herman can give you something from the food pantry right now,” Father Francis said at last.

“Oh, thank you!” the woman exclaimed. “That’s so kind of you!”

“Herman!” Father Francis called, with the barest touch of irritation. Meaning, “Why weren’t you here to get the door?”

“Coming!” came a frantic voice from upstairs, and the novices, who were all listening despite themselves, grinned at each other. They heard Brother Herman’s bulk hurrying down the steps.
This is like listening to a sitcom,
Brother Leon thought.

“This is Bonnie. She just came to the neighborhood,” Father Francis said, and for the next few minutes, the two older friars and the old woman chatted back and forth. Brother Leon heroically turned his attention back to the discussion of Sts. Dominic and Francis and their views on the vows. At last the conversation died away as Brother Herman led the visitor to the pantry, and Father Francis returned to his kitchen chores.

Then a few minutes later, Leon glanced up and saw someone standing in the doorway, inquisitively looking at the makeshift classroom. It was an old woman in a ragged black trench coat with bulging pockets, her shoulders stooped, her aged face covered by some kind of bright blue wool ski hat with a green visor covering her eyes. She wore incredible red high-topped shoes on her feet.

“Hi boys,” she said in a cracked voice. “What you doin’ in there?”

Of course, every eye in the room was on her.

“We’re learning about Franciscan vows. These are our novices,” Father Bernard said courteously, as though the bag lady were a visiting dignitary.

The woman fixed each of them with a gleaming eye. “Hi,” she croaked again. “Well, carry on.”

“We will,” Father Bernard said as Brother Herman appeared in the doorway next to her, holding a bag of food.

“Here you are, Bonnie. Oh, I see you’ve found our novices. This is Father Bernard, Brother Charley, Brother Matt…” But the bag lady had already turned away and was heading down the corridor towards the refectory.

“We’ve met,” came her cracked voice.

“Uh—excuse me!” Brother Herman hurried after her, his hands full of the sacks of food.

Brother Leon chuckled to himself and turned back to Father Bernard once again, but his attention was still partly aware of the bag lady at large in the friary. He could hear Brother Herman giving her an impromptu tour and ushering her back down the corridor.

“Interesting place,” she was saying as he guided her back to the front door, now holding her bag of food. “Like those stained glass windows—Carry on.”

At last the front door shut behind their visitor, and all the novices breathed a sigh of relief. Father Bernard turned the page of his book with a wry smile.

“According to the saints, the vow of poverty involves the surrender of our time,” he said, a faint smile on his face. “St. Thérèse of Lisieux in particular believed ‘a willingness to be interrupted’ was necessary to the devout soul.”

“Could you come up with any examples?” Brother Leon asked innocently, and Matt threw a pencil at him while the others chuckled.

III

Less than a month after being released from prison, circumstances had found Arthur standing on the streets of Manhattan at midnight, holding all his belongings in a pillowcase. He was still dealing with the realization that he and Ben had been disowned and thrown out of their father’s house, and that there was no other home for them to go to. His brother, who had missed the entire scene with Dad, was shivering and coughing, having been woken out of a sound sleep to be informed that he was suddenly homeless.

“So, where are we going to go, since you’ve burned all our proverbial bridges?” he had asked, a bit peevishly. It was starting to snow.

“Let’s go to St. Lawrence,” Arthur had said at last.

“Father Raymond is dead,” Ben had said flatly. “That new priest is never going to let us in.”

“He doesn’t have to know we’re there,” Arthur had said, and made himself walk, to push aside the feeling of desolation. “Come on.”

Since they hadn’t had any money and weren’t yet streetwise enough to do otherwise, they had walked from upper Manhattan to the South Bronx. It took them hours in the cold wind and snow. When they reached St. Lawrence, Arthur had let himself in with the keys Father Raymond had once entrusted to him, and the two brothers had huddled in a corner of the vestibule.

“We have to get out before anyone comes—or they’ll know we have keys—” his younger brother had mumbled before falling asleep. Simply glad to be out of the wind, Arthur slept.

They awoke early and quietly slipped out of the church onto the streets. A few moments later, a vision from their past life appeared in the form of their buddy Stephen Foster getting off of the subway, backpack on his shoulders, on his way to school. His dark brown face lit up when he saw them. “Hey Arthur! You got out, man! What gives?”

There wasn’t much they wanted to say, but Stephen guessed more than they told him, because after he had heard their answers, he said, “You come home with me tonight. My mom won’t mind.”

And that was how the brothers first met Mrs. Foster.

* * *

So it was that when Bear found himself in trouble again, he had no problem with calling Stephen’s mother. The heavyset black woman had accepted the boys as two more sons, and became a sturdy ally. He knew that she, shrewd but solidly certain of his character, would help him without doubting him. And she wouldn’t ask any pointed questions until they were in private.

“My, you boys have a way of getting yourselves into trouble,” was her understated reaction when he had called her from the jail last night and explained their situation. “I’ll be right over to get the keys and go over to the Briers’ house for you. Don’t you fret, Arthur. God’ll take care of your girl. You’ll see.”

The next morning, as soon as they were let out of their cells, Bear found the phones that the prisoners were allowed to use, and called Mrs. Foster back.

“What did you find?” he asked her, after they had exchanged greetings.

She paused. “Blanche is not there,” she stated. “I don’t think she’s been there since Saturday. The mail hasn’t been taken in and there was a Sunday paper in the slot.”

By her voice, he gathered right away that she had more to tell him, but she wasn’t going to tell him on this line.

“The good thing is that I found a phone number for Aunt Cindy on the calendar. The phone book says it’s an area code for San Francisco. Think that might be the one where the Briers are staying?”

“Yes, it’s a very good chance!” Bear said, with some relief. “We have to call them right away.”

“Since you can only call collect, how about I call first and find out if Jean’s really there? If she is, you want me to tell them everything?”

“No, just tell them I’m going to call. I want to be the one to break the bad news,” Bear said. This wasn’t strictly true, but he felt it was his responsibility.

“Can you stay by this phone?”

“I can call back in a half hour or so,” he glanced around the phone room. There were a few other men waiting in line for the phone.

“Then call me back when you can. I’ll see what I can do about calling those folks in San Francisco.”

“Sounds good,” he said with an effort. “Thanks for doing this.”

“How you doing, Arthur?”

“I’m okay, but I’m worried about Blanche.”

“How’s Ben?”

“Oh, nothing gets him down. He says I’ve just gotten us in trouble again.”

“You hang in there, Arthur. I know you must be going crazy in that place. God’ll watch out for Blanche. And you. You’ll see.”

He walked back to his cell. For half an hour he paced around, waiting, wishing there was something else he could do.

“I wish you would stop,” Fish said calmly, sitting on his bunk. “You’re making me nervous.”

Bear forced himself to stand still and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept well last night either. “Sorry.”

“So we’re in jail, and there’s no sign of Blanche,” Fish said to himself. “Well. I wonder if she’s hiding because she knows the police want her?”

“I’m not going to assume that yet,” Bear said doggedly. He couldn’t get the picture of Blanche’s frightened face in the photo out of his mind. “I wish I could know that she’s even still alive.”

“You’re pacing again,” Fish murmured.

Frustrated, Bear sat on his own bunk. After a minute of his mind running crazily along several trains of thought, he asked his brother, “Do you have any paper?”

“Not sure if I have anything. They took everything from me that could be possibly construed as a weapon.” Fish turned out his pockets, looking for scrap paper. Finding the postcard of the Delphic Sibyl in his trench coat pocket, he said, “Well, there’s this.”

“That’ll do,” Bear said. He had a stub of pencil the prison guard had let him have, and started to make notes on the back of the postcard, writing small to save space. “I’m making a timeline. As far as I can tell, Blanche was last seen on Saturday, at the banquet hall where she worked. The police detective said that the management missed several thousand dollars that had been collected as part of a fundraiser that evening. Then someone found Blanche’s backpack in the employee service room with a cache of Ecstasy pills in it.”

Fish stared at the wall. “I don’t envy you having to tell Mrs. Brier all this.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” His mouth went dry at the thought. A feeling came over him that he hadn’t experienced in a while, but was still recognizable. This was how he had felt towards Jean Brier over a year ago, when Blanche and Rose were just beginning to be friends with him. The guilty feeling that he was endangering her daughters by being friends with them, because he was in danger. He had been so relieved when that danger had passed.