“Catherine will be able to see you here, if it’s safe for both of you-it may not be. This really is the best place for you right now, Benjamin.”
He didn’t believe me, but he was old enough to know when he was out of options. And maybe, too, he figured I’d kept him safe this long, I might be trusted to keep him safe a bit longer. Or maybe he was just so tired he couldn’t fight anything going on around him. Whatever the reason, when Father Lou answered my anxious pushing on the rectory bell, Benjamin stayed at my side.
Father Lou’s T-shirt exposed the formidable muscles in his neck and forearms that he’d developed in his boxing years. His frown as he took in Benjamin’s and my bedraggled appearance made him look like a menacing Popeye. I hoped he didn’t frighten Benjamin into running.
“This someone Morrell sent you?” the priest growled.
My stomach felt queer at Morrell’s name; the night’s labors had kept me from thinking about him and now it came back to me in a rush, that he was missing, or missing anyway to me. “I’ve lost track of Morrell. Never mind that now: this young man has been hiding in an abandoned house out in the western suburbs. I found him moments before sheriff’s deputies
surrounded the place. He needs to be warm, he needs to eat and he needs to be in a place where the county cops and the city cops and John Ashcroft’s cops aren’t going to find him.”
“They have a good reason to look for him?” Father Lou pulled back the heavy door far enough that we could come in.
“Yeah, they don’t like his race, creed or place of national origin.” “That a fact. You got a name, kid?” His faded blue eyes looked directly at the boy, who didn’t withdraw, as I’d feared-I’d forgotten the priest had dealt with generations of frightened boys.
“Benjamin,” the youth whispered. “Benjamin Sadawi.”
“Mass in seven minutes,” Father Lou said. “Got to get to church. Ben, you go with Victoria to the kitchen, she’ll make you tea and eggs, fix you up with a bed. Unless it’s been so long since you’ve been here, my girl, you don’t remember where anything is.”
“I do not go to Christian church,” Benjamin said.
“Not asking you to. Got other rules you have to follow if you stay here: no drugs, no weapons, no cigarettes. Say your prayers however you want. Special intention for Morrell;’ he added to me. “For the kid, too. Jesus doesn’t care if he prays in Arabic.”
He stumped off down a dark corridor connecting the rectory to St. Remigio’s church. I took Benjamin down a different unlit hallway to the kitchen. Father Lou saves money in his financially strapped parish by not keeping lights in the halls. I had to switch on my headlamp again to guide us to the kitchen. The batteries were wearing out; the light was feeble, like my legs at this point.
In the kitchen, I found the matches to light a burner on the heavy old stove. I was surprised, in a way, that Father Lou even had spent the money on a gas stove instead of keeping a coal burner, or whatever had been in the rectory when the church was built in the 1880s.
In the refrigerator, I found the eggs that were the staple of the priest’s diet. He had margarine and a big block of cheese, as well. I scrambled them all together in a cast-iron skillet. Father Lou ate a lot of bacon, but I remembered not to offer that to a Muslim youth.
While the margarine was melting, I switched on a transistor radio perched on top of the refrigerator. It was the wrong time for news
highlights: I got ads and sports reports. The Bulls had lost again, along with the Blackhawks. It’s no easier to be a Chicago fan in the winter than in the summer.
Benjamin had removed his sweatshirt to fold it carefully on the cracked linoleum. He knelt down on it to recite his morning prayers, but when the radio came on, he looked up, his thin face anxious.
“No news,” I said. “I’ll turn it back on when you’re done.”
I cleared space on the enamel kitchen table. Budget figures, the sports pages from a week’s worth of papers, school essays and advertising catalogs were all jumbled together. I swept them into a pile without trying to organize them-if he needed to find something, Father Lou would sort through the stack. I’d seen him do it a number of times, looking for old sermon notes. He’s the only person I know more disorganized than I am.
I set down eggs, tortillas and cambric tea-a little tea and a lot of hot sweetened milk-for Benjamin and me. We both needed our blood sugar raised about now. I took a couple of aspirin from the bottle in my day pack and swallowed them with the tea. Maybe they would persuade my sore shoulder to calm down.
Benjamin finished his prayers with a defensive glance at me. His prayer schedule must have anchored him during his long days alone, given him something to rely on. His father’s Koran, his father’s prayer schedule, like my mother’s vocal exercises: the routine of the beloved makes you feel that the beloved is with you.
“News now?” he said. “Please you are finding out of Catterine.” “About Catherine,” I corrected him absently.