Island of Saints (21 page)

Wan's mind churned.
Well,
he thought,
they just met,
right? So really, they weren't technically living together . . .
whew!
Wan felt relieved, much better.
But they were in the
same house . . . at night . . . and you know what that means
. . .
Wan felt worse, much worse.
The guy did say she gave
him the couch.

“Okay.”

Wan looked up. Helen was standing in front of him. Where had she come from? “Excuse me?” he said.

“Okay, what now?”

Wan was confused, and in the present state he had created for himself, it irritated him. “‘What now,' what?” he demanded testily.

Helen took a ragged breath. She was trying to maintain her composure. “Can we step outside?” Wan agreed, suddenly aware of all the eyes upon them. Even Margaret, he noticed as he held the door for Helen, was gawking shamelessly from the kitchen, an expression of horror frozen on her face.

Around the corner, Helen turned and said, “Wan, you have always been my friend. I want you to know that this was nothing I planned or even ever imagined.”

“You never knew this guy?” Wan said, attempting to keep the suspicion from his voice. “He just . . . appeared?” Helen nodded sadly. “You just invited the guy in? Just ‘hey, I don't know who you are, but you're welcome to spend the night'?”

“He was hurt. At the time, I didn't know what else to do.”

“Wow. Maybe I should have tried that.”

Something began to click inside Helen's head. She was listening carefully to Wan, but somehow it wasn't quite making sense. Her brow furrowed. “I'm sorry?”

“Hey, I never asked for an apology.”

“No,” Helen said impatiently, still trying to understand, “I don't mean, ‘I'm sorry' like ‘I'm
sorry' . . .
I mean, ‘What are you talking about?' What do you mean ‘Wow, I should have tried that'?”

Wan, on course again, took up the offensive. “You invite a guy you don't even know to spend the night, stay awhile . . . a guy is
living with you
because he's hurt? I was just saying, geez, Helen, you won't even go on a
date
with me . . . Hey, I'm not the best-looking guy in the world, and of course, I don't have that romantic English accent, but if I'd known that was what it takes, sheesh, I would have broken
my
arm. I mean, for
that,
a guy gets to spend the night?”

Wan stood with his feet apart. His hands were on his hips, his head cocked and jutted toward Helen at the perfect angle—aggressive, yet cool. He was in complete control, strangely proud of his precise remarks. He was a man for whom the consummate selection of scathing words had just poured from his mouth exactly as he had intended. Crisp and sarcastic, biting and hurtful—words designed to end a conversation the same way a boxer wins a fight, with a triumphant flurry.

That was why Helen's growing smile bewildered him. And with no other option available, Wan stood there, slowly deflating like a bad tire, while the one time in his life he'd just insulted a person to the best of his ability, only to have her hug him around the neck and smile. At that moment, despite the eloquence he had just displayed, Wan was a man like any other, feeling like an idiot in the presence of a beautiful woman—and not knowing why.

As for Helen, under any other circumstance, she would have slapped Wan into next week—perhaps even punched him—for implying what he had. But when it dawned on her what
he
thought was happening (and that she would not be sent to prison), Helen was so relieved that she had to stifle a giggle. And much to Wan's chagrin, she did not stifle it well.

Composing herself but unable to erase altogether her grin, Helen said to the red-faced deputy, “Wan, we will talk about this later. All you need to know is that nothing—listen to me—
nothing
has happened between myself and the gentleman you apparently met at my cottage. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Wan answered meekly.

Helen went back inside, promised Margaret a full explanation to be delivered at a later time, and slipped out the back door to her truck.

Wan, still leaning against the building where Helen had left him, watched her drive away and thought,
Gee. I just
figured you were fooling around. And you thought that was
funny? Wait 'til you find out I tried to shoot the guy.

AS SHE DROVE, HELEN'S MIND SPUN IN A THOUSAND DIRECTIONS. On the one hand, she was thankful Josef had managed to pull off whatever had happened; on the other, she was mad at him for getting into the situation in the first place. Had Wan said something about “a romantic English accent”?
The accent,
she thought,
that's how he did it.
Helen smiled to herself and shook her head in wonder.
That must've been
some awfully fast thinking.

Suddenly Helen was struck by a thought:
What if he's
gone?
She pressed a bit harder on the accelerator. It would only make sense, wouldn't it, for Josef to run? After all, why would he stay? Then another thought struck her, this one more disturbing than the first:
Did she want him to?

Several days earlier, after Josef had angrily left her on the beach, Helen had not come back to the cottage until dark. It had taken her that long to sort out her thoughts about the loss of Josef's family, his thoughts about forgiveness, the death of her husband, and the possibility that forgiveness might have a place in her life.

When she had entered the cottage that evening, a coolness had existed between the two. Both had been overly polite until Josef had asked if he should leave. “Of course not,” Helen had told him. She was so sorry, she had said, about Tatiana and Rosa. Josef had accepted her words gratefully, and soon, they'd begun talking like friends again.

Friends? Are we friends?
Helen thought as she bumped down her driveway, craning her neck, looking to see whether Josef was even still there. She pulled to a stop beside the steps.
Unbelievable,
she thought.
I actually want him to
be here.

“Hullo, lady! Odd time of the day for you to be home.”

Helen stuck her head out the truck window and looked up. Josef had come out of the cottage and was leaning jauntily against the deck rail, his British persona on full display.

“Hello, Josef,” Helen said as she exited the vehicle.

“Might I deduct, from what I confess is your not totally unexpected arrival, that you have recently experienced a conversation with the local constable?”

“You are very perceptive.”

“Yes then, well, I would be now, wouldn't I?” Josef grinned down at Helen and spread his arms. “Genuine fear, it seems, conjures forth a level of consciousness to which I have previously been unaccustomed.”

“I'll bet,” Helen remarked. “Are you all right?”

Josef exhaled loudly as if to rid himself of his alter ego—the happy Brit—and in his normal voice, he replied, “Yes, I am fine. What about you?”

As Helen began to relate the details of her encounter with Wan at the café, Josef descended the stairs and arranged some old beach furniture under the cottage in the shade. Sitting patiently while she told the story, Josef was relieved (and amazed) to hear that Helen had not really needed to provide any information. They were now free to collaborate on any details it might become necessary to reveal. When she was finished, however, Helen was surprised to see Josef frowning. “What's wrong?” she asked.

“The deputy . . . what was his name? Wan?” Helen nodded. “Wan thought . . . he thought you and I were . . . ahhhh . . . you know?”

“Apparently,” she said with an amused smirk.

“Oh, my,” Josef said, leaning back hard. “Maybe
that
is why he shot at me.”

Helen's head jerked around. “He
shot
at you!” she asked, half standing from her chair, plainly astonished.

“Yes,” Josef said, chuckling at her reaction, “and not with a peashooter like the one that got me here.” He indicated his shoulder. “The man had a cannon in his hands. It's probably why he missed.”

Josef told her the entire tale and asked a few questions of his own. He was particularly interested in Danny and was sorry he'd been frightened. He had only been joking when he intimated the possibility of Wan having shot at him out of jealousy, but insisted to Helen that the idea contained a kernel of truth.

“Wan? And me?” she scoffed. “That's ridiculous.”

“To you, maybe yes. To him? Perhaps not so ridiculous.”

“But I never . . . I mean, I haven't led him to believe anything of the sort.”

Josef made a calming motion with his hands. “I believe you. Sometimes we—by ‘we,' I am referring to men in general—sometimes we allow our hopes to obscure reality.” Josef was quiet as Helen contemplated that thought. Then he said, “In any case, I believe your deputy to be a good man. Although, luckily for me, a bad shot.”

Helen squirmed nervously in the beach chair, trying to take it all in. The day's events so far had proven almost overwhelming. “

Whatever
your feelings for the deputy,” Josef continued, “it is now clear that I must leave. I would have no one think of you what they obviously will when word spreads about a man living at your house—innocent though it may be. Not to mention,” he added, “the personal risk you continue to take as you harbor a . . . well, whatever it is that I am.” He paused. “I certainly don't
feel
like an enemy of your country . . . though technically, I suppose—”

“Josef,” Helen interrupted, “you are not our enemy. At least, you are not
my
enemy.”

Helen was somewhat surprised to hear the words coming from her mouth, but her spirit told her they were true. “Listen,” she said, the beginnings of an idea formulating in her mind, “maybe you do need to leave here . . .” She gestured with her hands, indicating the cottage. “. . . but it would be crazy—dangerous even—to leave the area.”

Josef frowned, not following her reasoning, but she didn't pause or even slow down. Helen spoke with intensity, leaning toward him, convinced that she was accurate in her assessment of the situation. “Josef . . . the thing with Wan and Danny today was the best thing that could have happened! Look at it this way—number one . . .” She smiled slyly. “. . . Wan will be nice to you. Not in a million years does he want it to become common knowledge that he had a shoot-out with a guy and his rake.” Josef laughed. “So,” Helen continued, “he'll be subconsciously protecting you. I will guarantee, at this very moment, he is scared to death you might say something. Therefore, he'll be buddy-buddy in public. And so to everyone else . . . ‘Hey, he's the deputy's friend.' And that will avert any suspicions anyone might have ordinarily had.” Josef began to nod.

“Number two is the fact that someone besides me knows you now. And you
are
the person they met. To Wan and Danny, you are the funny English guy, and that word will spread . . . which brings me to number three.

“We are not living in New York or Washington. Heck, Josef, this isn't even Mobile! This is a small town. And believe me, I know how these people are. They are sweet and kind and proud and protective . . . and before too long, they will be protective of you. You will be
their
funny English guy.

“So, yes, you have to leave here. But, no, you don't have to leave the area. We just have to find another place for you to stay.”

And that is how Josef Bartels Landermann, formerly an officer of the Kriegsmarine, came to live in a squatter's cabin tucked quietly away in a pine forest bordering the wild, windswept sand dunes of the Alabama Gulf coast.

Certainly the story could have ended there as well.

Josef's tiny one-room “home” was a bit less than a mile's walk from Helen's cottage. As the summer turned into fall, they visited nearly every evening and talked endlessly about their lives, God, politics, Danny, the war, and whatever else came to mind. They discussed what was important, argued about what was not, and laughed and teased each other about both. They were quiet together and often just sat on the beach, watching the waves, until one or the other of them yawned and said good night.

While Josef still missed Tatiana and Rosa, he no longer dwelled in dark thoughts and was able to look cautiously toward the future. It was, to be sure, a future fraught with uncertainty, but one he no longer faced with fear. Josef had decided to build a new life here in America. After all, wasn't this the country that encouraged new beginnings? A new beginning. A new life. And perhaps . . . he sometimes dared think . . . with a new woman?

AS THANKSGIVING CAME AND WENT AND CHRISTMAS approached, it was apparent that Helen had been correct. After the initial curiosity about the “squatter from England,” most of the local community seemed to accept Josef as part of the melting pot America had become. To them, he was just one more fellow, temporarily down on his luck, working his way toward better times.

Josef had discarded his old voice and, with Helen's encouragement, spoke only using his British accent. It seemed safer not to switch back and forth—German to English and vice versa—the odds of being overheard were too great.

Apprehensively at first, Josef had gone into town with Helen as she ran various errands and was introduced to many of the people there. He became familiar to Billy and Margaret and even did some odd jobs for them at their home and at the café. Mostly electrical work with a bit of carpentry thrown in, it allowed Josef to earn a wage and demonstrate a visible means of support. Undeterred by Helen's protests, he insisted upon paying her back for the expenses she incurred while helping him. Obviously neither of them really knew how much that was, but Helen often found small amounts of cash on her kitchen table that he left during a visit.