Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [16]
Jerome shoves my bowl to me. “Go along now. We’re almost done. You wait and I’ll come and speak with you. Hear?”
I nod, beam, and hurry on.
Abalone and Professor Isabella are curious, but I cannot find words to explain. I eat, feeding Betwixt and Between who, like me, are nearly too excited to eat the starchy stuff. Yet, I do, for I have learned that wasting food is a crime on the streets.
Jerome comes soon after the food line has closed down. He carries a pot of weak coffee in one hand and a few nearly fresh sweet rolls on a plate in the other.
“Sarah,” he pecks me on the cheek, the odors of tuna fish and mushroom soup not completely covering his own scent of scrubbed skin and after-shave.
I motion for him to sit and squeeze his hand. I rock a little on the bench, hunting for words to introduce him to the others.
“Jerome—A friend of publicans and sinners,” I manage at last.
Jerome jumps, surprised. “Sarah, you praise me.”
He turns to the ladies. “My name is Jerome—I guess you are friends of Sarah’s.”
He speaks softly and slowly, as if he is uncertain that they will understand him. Yet, courtesy is there, too, as true as if he were addressing his peers.
Abalone smiles. “Yeah—I’m Abalone and this is Professor Isabella. We kinda watch out for Sarah. You know her from the Home?”
“Yes,” he nods, then chuckles. “I work there—in the cafeteria. Always tell my Balika, my wife, that surely I can do the Lord’s Work elsewhere. After shoveling food all day there, I’d rather not come here, but today she was ill and I came to take her place. The Lord does work in mysterious ways. I’ve been worrying about Sarah since the big Exodus and now I have an answer to my prayers.”
He bows his head for a moment. “I’m forgetting my manners. Coffee? Sweets?”
We all accept and with an almost sheepish smile Jerome drips the last of the pot into a little plastic scrap about the size of a thimble and puts a shred of pastry next to it.
“For the dragons,” he explains. “I think that’s what caught me about Sarah, back at the Home. Her always carrying around that toy and always so careful to feed it.”
“Don’t leave home without it,” I add, blowing on my coffee. “I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls.”
“And to these folks here,” Jerome says. “May I request that you two ladies fill me in on what Sarah’s been doing? Poor child would be here ’til Armageddon looking for the words and I need to hustle on home to Balika.”
Abalone and Professor Isabella supply him with a very-edited version of the past month and a half. Jerome seems relieved when he learns that I am neither turning tricks nor doing drugs. He is wise enough not to question where we live and seems to assume that our food and clothing come from charity.
When we are leaving, he stands for a moment with the empty coffeepot dangling from one hand, his dark face suddenly creased with puzzlement.
“Funny,” he says. “I’ve only seen that golden-haired doctor who made such noise during the Exodus but once since. I made so bold as to ask her if she knew what had become of Sarah. She knew who I meant right off, said that she’d arranged to have her become a model, even promised me some pictures. Wonder why she’d go to the trouble to comfort me like that?”
“Guilt?” Professor Isabella answers.
“Who knows.” Jerome smiles. “Come back soon, now. Let me know how you are.”
He speaks in a general way, but I am warmed. The night seems more pleasant, the stars brighter, as we walk through the dark streets.
After leaving the soup kitchen, we head for one of Abalone’s many safe holes. Tonight’s is an abandoned building; it still has power, water, and, most importantly, phone service.
Abalone is intent over her tappety-tap. Professor Isabella drowses openmouthed on a pallet made from a few blankets Abalone has stashed there. I patiently play with my practice panel.
“Got it!” Abalone cries, waking Professor Isabella and startling me.
“What?” Professor Isabella yawns.
“I’m ready to let Sarah earn her keep,” Abalone says.