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“No one on earth can answer that question, Mr. Comprix—and you should run from anyone who claims they can.”
• • •
Cam wanders the streets aimlessly, not knowing or caring where he is. He’s sure that Roberta has put out a search party already.
And what happens when they find him? They’ll take him home. Roberta will soundly chastise him. Then she’ll forgive him. And then tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, he’ll try on the crisp uniform hanging on the back of his door, he’ll like how it looks, and he’ll allow himself to be transferred to his new owners.
He knows it’s inevitable. And he also knows that the day that happens is the day any spark he has within him will die forever.
A bus approaches down the street, its headlights bobbing as it hits a pothole. Cam could take that bus home. He could take it far away. But neither of those choices is the idea pinioning his mind at that moment.
And so he prays in nine languages, to a dozen deities—to Jesus, to Yahweh, to Allah, to Vishnu, to the “I” of the universe, and even to a great godless void.
Please, he begs. Please give me a single reason why I shouldn’t hurl myself beneath the wheels of that bus.
When the answer comes, it comes in English—and not from the heavens, but from the bar behind him.
“ . . . have confirmed that Co
The bus rolls past, splattering his jeans with mud.
• • •
Forty-five minutes later, Cam returns home with a new sense of calm, as if nothing has happened. Roberta scolds him. Roberta forgives him. Always the same.
“You must stop these reckless surrenders to your momentary moods,” she chides.
“Yes, I know.” Then he tells her that he’s accepting General Bodeker’s “proposal.”
Roberta, of course, is both relieved and overjoyed. “This is a great step for you, Cam. A step you need to take. I’m so very proud of you.”
He wonders what the general’s response would have been had Cam not accepted. Certainly they would come for him anyway. Forced him into submission. After all, if he’s their property, it’s in their right to do anything they want to him.
Cam goes to his room and heads straight for his guitar. This is not an idle kind of playing tonight; he plays with a purpose only he knows. The music brings with it the impressions of memories, like an afterimage of a bright landscape. Certain fingerings, certain chord progressions have more of an effect, so he works them, changes them up. He begins to dig.
His chords sound atonal and random—but they’re not. For Cam it’s like spi
Then finally, after more than an hour of playing, it all comes together. Four chords, unusual in their combination, but powerfully evocative, rise to the surface. He plays the chords over and over, trying different fingering, finessing the notes and the harmonies, letting the music resonate through him.
“I haven’t heard that one,” Roberta says, poking her head in his room. “Is it new?”
“Yes,” Cam lies. “Brand-new.”
But in reality it’s very old. Much older than him. He had to dig deep to coax it forth, but once he found it, it’s as if it was always there on the tips of his fingers, on the edge of his mind waiting to be played. The song fills him with immense joy and immense sorrow. It sings of soaring hopes and dreams crushed. And the more he plays it, the more memory fragments are drawn forth.
When he heard that news report coming from the bar—when he stepped in and saw the faces of the Akron AWOL, his beloved Risa, and the tithe-turned-clapper on the TV screen, he was stu
It was the tithe. That i
He was injured.
He needed healing.
I played guitar for him.
A healing song.
For the Mahpee.
Cam had no idea what that meant, only that it was a spark of co
So now Cam plays.
It’s two o’clock in the morning when he finally gleans enough from his musical memory to understand. Lev Calder had once been given sanctuary by the Arápache Nation. No one searching for him will know that, which means he has the perfect place to hide. But Cam knows. The heady power of that knowledge makes him dizzy—because if it’s true that he’s traveling with Risa and the Co
Had Risa known Co
Cam should be furious, but instead he feels vindicated. Exhilarated. He had no hope of battling a ghost for her affections, but Co
After that, Cam can personally bring the Akron AWOL to justice, making himself enough of a hero to buy his own freedom.
It’s three a.m. when he slips out of the town house, leaving his semblance of a life behind, determined not to return until he has Risa Ward under his arm and Co
Part Four
The Scent of Memory
“FOUNDLING WHEELS” FOR EVERY ITALIAN HOSPITAL?
By Carolyn E. Price
Feb 28, 2007
Italy tests out the “foundling wheel,” a concept first introduced in Rome in the year 1198 by Pope I
A well-dressed, well-looked after three- or four-month-old baby, maybe Italian, or maybe not, and in excellent health, was abandoned on Saturday evening in the “foundling wheel,” a heated cradle that was set up at the Policlinico Casilino. The foundling wheel was created for women to put their infants in when the child is unwanted or is born into seriously deprived conditions.
The baby boy is the first to be saved in Italy thanks to an experimental system that was devised to stop babies from being abandoned in the street. The baby “foundling” has been named Stefano in honor of the doctor who first took charge of him.
For health minister Livia Turco, the project is “an example to follow.” Ms. Turco’s colleague, family minister Rosy Bindi, wants a modern version of the foundling wheel “in every maternity ward in every hospital in Italy.”
The head of the neonatology department at the Policlinico Casilino, Piermichele Paolillo, notes: “We wouldn’t have been surprised to find a newborn in the cradle, but we didn’t expect to see a three- or four-month-old baby . . . . Who knows what lies behind this episode . . . ?”
Published with permission of
DigitalJournal.com
Full article at:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/127934
The Rheinschilds
Finally a time to celebrate! Tonight the Rheinschilds dine at Baltimore’s most expensive, most exclusive restaurant. This splurge is long overdue.
Sonia holds Janson’s hand across the table. They’ve already sent the waiter away twice, not wanting to be rushed with their order. Bubbles rise in their champagne flutes while the bottle of Dom Pérignon chills beside them. This night must not pass too quickly. It must linger and last, because they both deserve it.