The Caleb Collection Page 11

  The boy nodded once.

  “Stand back from him,” the Greek said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Leiah thrust a warning hand out with enough authority to make him hesitate.

  Jason continued. “I want you to promise that no matter what happens, you won’t leave your new home without me or Leiah in your presence. And if they force you, you’ll pretend to be stupid. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” he said immediately, as if the idea were not new.

  “Good.” He leaned forward and hugged the boy gently. Caleb released Leiah’s hand, reached his arms around Jason’s neck, and pulled him tight. For a moment he would not let go. When he did step back, his face was expressionless. Caleb was playing the part of the strong boy, Jason thought. He turned from them to swallow.

  They left the campus with a string of objections and vile threats from the Greek.

  II

  LIFE AND DEATH

  As a result, people brought the sick into the streets

  and laid them on beds and mats so that at least

  Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them

  as he passed by.

  Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem,

  bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits,

  and all of them were healed.

  ACTS 5:15–16

  10

  CALEB STOOD AT ATTENTION IN THE LARGE ROOM they called his new home, facing Martha, who wore a deep frown. They had given him brown shorts that came to his knees and a soft white shirt with a collar. The black shoes hurt his feet and she insisted he wear the socks up to his knees, but in some ways he felt at home in the strange clothes. They were what the other children he’d seen running outside the window wore.

  “So what are we going to do with you, hmmm?”

  The woman seemed upset, and he didn’t understand her. In the three days he’d been here, she had left him alone to stare out the window and wander around the large eating room. Each night she’d marched him down the hall to the small bedroom where she told him he must sleep. Each night he had left the dark room for this one with its tall ceiling and soft couches. She’d found him twice early in the morning and scolded him.

  Now it looked like she meant to scold him again.

  “Father Nikolous tells me that you’re not to watch the other children anymore. Do you understand me, boy? He doesn’t want you to look out in the play yard at the others any longer. He says it will mess with your head. But if I leave you alone, I know that you’ll look anyway, won’t you? I know that because every time I come in here you’re staring out that window. And that just won’t do.”

  She sighed and glanced at the large window. “And I’m not about to cover up that window. It would look ridiculous in this large room, wouldn’t it?” She kept asking these questions without really waiting for an answer.

  “Which means we’ll just have to keep you in your room when you’re alone.” She studied him for a moment, as if expecting him to say something, but he wasn’t sure what she meant.

  “Let’s go.”

  Caleb stared at her, still not sure what she wanted him to do. Go where?

  Her face twisted into a snarl. “Don’t just stand there like you don’t understand me, boy! Move it!”

  He felt a twang of fear at her anger, but he could not move. How could he move unless she told him where to move to? He suddenly wanted Jason or Leiah to be here. And he’d promised Jason that he wouldn’t go anywhere without him.

  The woman took a large stride toward him, snatched up his right wrist, and yanked him behind her. Pain shot up his arm and he yelped.

  “You’ll do what you’re told, you understand? I don’t care if Nikolous does think you’re God’s gift to man; you don’t fool me. When I say go, you go!”

  She dragged him down the hall and he stumbled to catch up. They marched right into the small room on the left, and she flung him toward the bed. Caleb caught himself on the mattress and sat with a bounce. She gave him one last glare and slammed the door shut. Darkness filled the room. A click sounded in the latch and then her footsteps clacked away.

  He waited for a few moments and then ran for the door. The knob wouldn’t turn. He spun around, suddenly frightened. The dim shape of the bed with its white sheets lined the darkness. To his right a big glassy box sat in the corner. He had no idea what it might be.

  A scene from the monastery flashed through his mind.

  “Dadda, Dadda, it’s dark! I’m afraid!”

  “Dark? Nonsense, child. It’s as bright as day in here.”

  “It is?”

  “It is. Open your eyes.”

  “My eyes? They aren’t open?”

  “Not if you can’t see the kingdom. Not if you can’t see the light. Open your eyes.”

  “Ouch!”

  “What?”

  “I touched my eye. It is open, Dadda.”

  He chuckled. “Open your other eyes, Son. The eyes of your heart. You will see that it is very light in here. It’s always light in the kingdom of God.”

  He was a small child and it was the first time he’d seen the light. The kingdom, as Dadda liked to call it. It occurred to him that this was no different than that.

  Caleb crossed to the bed and climbed up. He sat against the wall, pulled his knees to his chin, closed his eyes, and began to hum. No, this was not different at all. The kingdom was not just bottled up in a monastery somewhere. It smothered the world. That’s what his father used to say. “It smothers the earth, Caleb.”

  A thin film of light lapped at his mind and he smiled. He began to sing in Ge’ez. Words. Kingdom words. Then he walked in and his world went white.

  11

  Day 4

  JASON AND LEIAH CRUISED DOWN THE FREEWAY in somber silence at eleven the following morning. The Greek’s black Mercedes led them ten meters ahead, speeding Caleb to the park as Donna had suggested. It felt like a funeral procession. Jason’s request that the boy do nothing without them present had paid off; at least for that they could be thankful.

  They had arrived at the Orthodox church an hour earlier, eager to see the boy, only to discover that the Father had expanded his restrictions. Not only was their visitation limited to the one-o’clock hour each day, they could only see him in the main room, and only away from the windows. The boy was to remain isolated from any contact with the outside world, and that included watching the other children in the play yard.

  Leiah had expressed her outrage in true form. It was child abuse!

  But Nikolous had merely chuckled. “He’s been confined to the walls of a monastery for ten years, and now you decide it’s better for him to wander the streets of Los Angeles? We’re simply keeping him in an environment more familiar to him. I don’t think Dr. Caldwell would disagree.”

  The circumstances allowed them only twenty minutes with the boy and that with Martha standing guard like an overstuffed black crow. The boy walked from the dark hallway dressed like a proper parochial schoolboy. Leiah kneeled to hug him and then the boy walked to Jason and lifted his arms for an embrace. A huge grin split his face when he pulled away. But he still hardly spoke. A simple yes with wide eyes, or a no. Are you happy, Caleb? Yes. Do you need anything? No. Leiah kept eyeing the hallway with a furrowed brow. Are the quarters okay? Yes.

  Nikolous had taken his decision to isolate Caleb to the extreme. He could drive in no car other than the Mercedes, which had been appropriately prepared. Martha had marched the boy to the waiting car, hustled him into the back seat, and attempted to shut the door before Jason could stop her. But he’d grabbed the door and moved her aside with a stern stare. Inside, the windows had been blackened, and a burgundy velvet sheet closed off the front seat so that the rear was completely sealed off from any outside view. Caleb sat with his hands between his knees, lost on the large seat.

  “We’ll be right behind you in my car,” Jason promised him. Then Martha had rattled something off in Greek and angrily
slammed the door, very nearly on his fingers. She was wicked, that one, and he shuddered to think that she had any influence on the boy at all.

  They turned off the freeway and entered heavy surface traffic. “I still can’t believe we’re running off to some park because some snotty reporter decided it would be the best thing for him,” Leiah said with a frown.

  “Nikolous agreed to it, not me,” Jason returned.

  “I didn’t hear your objections. And I can certainly think of more courageous ways to reignite an old flame than at the expense of a young boy.”

  “Please. This isn’t about reigniting old flames.”

  “Of course not.”

  They came to a stoplight and pulled up to the Mercedes’ bumper. Jason held his tongue and wished for a change in subject. He got one.

  “Do you think he’s happy?” Leiah asked.

  “I’m not sure he knows how not to be happy,” Jason said.

  She bit the fingernail on her index finger and stared ahead. “This isn’t right, Jason. We have to get him back. We can’t just sit by and let them destroy him.”

  “And how do you propose we get him back? By gunpoint?”

  “Of course not. But there must be legal remedies. Surely there are laws for the protection of children in this country.”

  “He’s a refugee. You heard Nikolous; he’ll simply say he’s keeping Caleb’s customs.”

  “You can’t talk to John Gardner at World Relief and explain?”

  “I already have. But there’s no evidence of abuse, is there? Honestly, Nikolous has everything on his side. We don’t even have cause to file a petition for a new hearing.”

  “So we do what?”

  “So we stay with him and jump all over Nikolous at the first sign of impropriety.”

  “He deserves more, you know.”

  She was right. He deserved a loving mother, and Jason wondered if Leiah had decided to contend for the spot. And what would Jason’s own life be like if his ex, Ailsa, had possessed Leiah’s loyalty? What if his Stephen had had a mother like Leiah?

  Of course that was ridiculous. He hardly even knew Leiah.

  Jason glanced at her. She’d left her motel and taken an apartment on a weekly rent, not far from his house. She would stay for the boy until satisfied that he was in good hands. Like the Peace Corps, the Red Cross would pay her a small monthly salary to cover her expenses for up to a three-month break between assignments.

  Her scars were well concealed under a white blouse today. At a glance you wouldn’t know that she even had the scars, but look closely at the edges and the disfigurement took shape. And if you were to look past a button, you would find what?

  She looked at him and they held stares for a brief moment. The light turned and Jason pulled after the Mercedes.

  The next question came from him without his full blessing, but there it was. “So what happened to your neck?” Actually it wasn’t her neck. It was her body, but he couldn’t very well ask what happened to her body. Still it wasn’t her neck, was it? “I mean what—”

  “I know what you mean. You mean why is my body covered in burn scars? Don’t worry; it won’t bite.”

  “Actually, it’s hardly noticeable.” His face heated with a blush. “You’re really quite beautiful.”

  Goodness, what was he saying?

  “You don’t have to patronize me.”

  “I’m not patronizing you. You seem to be concerned about your skin; I’m simply telling you that you’re a beautiful woman, with or without the scars. You really should learn to take a compliment.”

  That quieted her. It was true, of course. One look in the mirror and she must know that most women would kill to have a face as striking as hers. Then again, one look in the mirror with her blouse off might have them blanching. It was an image Jason had difficulty framing.

  “I’m sorry.” She was staring ahead now. “Everybody has some beauty, you know. Their hands, their hair, their legs. For me it’s my face. But the rest of my body is a wrinkled mess of pitted flesh. Either way it’s me, take it or leave it.”

  Jason had no clue how to respond.

  She sighed. “I was in a car accident in Ottawa when I was twenty years old. I was on the national track team, headed for the Olympics in Korea— two and four hundred meter. I think I might have medaled too. The car caught fire and I couldn’t get out. Fortunately the window was down enough to get my head out or I would’ve died from the smoke. When they dragged me from the car, my skin was gone. It took twenty-two separate surgeries to get me to where I am now.”

  She turned to stare out her window. “I tried to return to normal life and gave up after coming to the conclusion that North America is not well suited for people covered from head to toe in disfiguring scars. I volunteered for the Red Cross, found Africa, and vowed never to return to Canada.”

  A shiver passed through Jason’s bones, thinking of the flames licking at her skin. He swallowed. “And now you’ve returned.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not many would do what you’re doing.”

  “Not many have seen what I’ve seen in the Third World.”

  Jason nodded. True enough. She wasn’t confined to a wheelchair. Although in many ways the grotesque lumps under her blouse confined her in their own world. She knew that well enough.

  “So what do you make of the boy now that you’ve seen what he can do?” he asked.

  “I think he’s the same boy who fled the monastery with us a week ago. Even beyond this power of his there’s something special.”

  Jason nodded. “He’s nearly irresistible, isn’t he? A perfect package of goodness. I can’t get over his eyes.”

  Leiah turned to him and smiled. “He has a way of stealing your heart, doesn’t he?”

  Jason nodded. “I had a son once. Stephen. He died from ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—when he was four. If he had lived, he’d be about Caleb’s age.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Jason cleared his throat. “Funny thing is we took him to faith healers, you know. We were desperate and turned to the church. It was all nonsense, of course. Scared him half to death, all those fools yelling their prayers over him. But it also raised his hopes and that was the worst of it. They even had me going for a few months.”

  “I can’t imagine. Someone once suggested I find someone to pray for me. I don’t think I ever could. I’ve learned to accept myself; wanting to be someone else again could ruin me.”

  “Caleb makes you think, though.”

  “Yes, he does that, doesn’t he?”

  “It’s amazing. Not so long ago the world was flat. Until we discovered that it was round. So now what are we discovering through Caleb? That the human mind is far more powerful than once imagined.”

  They’d come to the park and Jason piloted the Bronco through its arching entrance. Cars lined the street; pedestrians loitered on the grass; ahead a crowd gathered around a commotion Jason assumed would be the press conference.

  “You were married?” Leiah asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And what became of your wife?”

  “Ailsa? She left me a month after Stephen died. Ran off with someone who managed to distract her from her hell.”

  “And you, too, found Africa.”

  “Yes. I guess I did.”

  He glanced at her and saw that her eyes were on him, blue and soft. He smiled and they drove on in silence.

  They followed Nikolous into a side parking lot with reserved space beside a white news van sporting the NBC peacock.

  “I thought this was supposed to be a quiet, comfortable setting for him,” Leiah said, looking at the crowd already gathered. “What time is that press conference supposed to start?”

  “She said twelve and it’s eleven-thirty now.”

  Leiah humphed and hurried out. She reached Caleb’s door before the Greek had climbed out and she quickly took the boy under her wing. They approached the crowd from the rear, looking
for Donna. Nikolous strutted forward in his tailored black suit with the three of them in tow as if their allegiance to him was without question. And he wasn’t so wrong—although they could have bolted at any time, it would be a futile run from the law.

  Where was Donna? This news conference of hers looked as if it was about to start.

  Caleb walked along in his typical posture, gliding on his feet, hardly moving his upper torso or his arms. His belt looked cinched too tight, but only because the new shorts he wore were several sizes too large.

  The boy looked at the crowd in a dumb silence, and it occurred to Jason that this was the first time he’d been in public since their first visit to the Orthodox church. Since then he’d spent every waking minute in his new prison. There was the visit to UCLA, but he’d met no one except the doctor there. And prior to the first church meeting, he’d seen nothing that could not be seen from the window of a speeding car—either a taxi or his Bronco. Watching him, Jason wondered how much of Dr. Caldwell’s prognosis would bear true.

  They skirted the crowd toward the front. For the most part this was a news crowd, maybe a hundred strong with all of their support staff. The candidate’s people had erected a podium on a small platform. Behind it a huge vinyl backdrop showed a vivid red sunset. A life-size man and woman had been imprinted on the sunset, standing side by side, each staring intensely at their own knotted fists raised to the sky, as if in those hands lay some deep mysterious secret. Crandal’s slogan, presumably that secret, was splashed in a bright blue across their waists: Power to the People. The setup looked more like something you’d find at a revolution rally in Russia than at a candidate’s news conference.

  A very large man with a perfectly bald head strode out to the podium, and applause pattered across the lawn. Charles Crandal’s face split to a wide grin, and he immediately became a man who looked pleased with his surroundings. He carried himself lightly, despite his enormous size, and he wore his suit as if he’d been born in the thing. Crandal put both hands on the podium without acknowledging the accolades cast his way from supporters encroaching on the perimeter of the news groups. He scanned the crowd carefully, nodded slowly—as if he approved of this particular group, but just barely—and started to speak.