Comfort to the Enemy (2010) Read Free Page B

give much light. I could leave Jurgen in there till he tells me where he's been. Or, I could beat him up, I suppose if I cared enough, but I don't.
    I have to talk to him about the suicide.
    Come back tomorrow, Wesley said. Meantime, since you're close to home, go visit your old dad and sit on the porch with him.
    *
    It's what Carl did, drove around to the big California bungalow in the pecan orchard, his dad 70 years old now but had not changed much in Carl's memory. They sat in wicker chairs on the porch, Carl and his dad Virgil with bottles of Mexican beer, a pile of newspapers on Virgil's lap. The beer and the newspapers were from the oil company that leased a half section of Virgil's property, Virgil's share of the royalties an eighth of whatever the oil company made.
    They'd finish their beers and Virgil would raise his voice to say, Honey, what're you doing? and Narcissa, 54 now, would come out to the porch with two more of whatever they were drinking. Narcissa Raincrow had been living here since she was 16, hired to wet-nurse Carl when his mother Graciaplena passed away two days after giving birth to him. That was in 1906. Virgil had married Grace and brought her here from Cuba after the war with Spain. Narcissa wasn't married but had delivered a child stillborn and needed t o g ive her milk to a newborn infant, so it worked out.
    When Carl first brought his wife Louly to the house he told her that by the time he ha d l ost interest in Narcissa's breasts, his dad had acquired an appreciation, first keeping her on as housekeeper, then as his common-law wife for the past 38 years. Virgil thought she looked like Dolores Del Rio only was older, and heavier.
    Virgil was telling Carl he wanted to hire a POW as a handyman for cleanup work, painting, whatever was needed done around the place. But the guy at the camp in charge of labor says I have to take three guys. He says the way it works, it's one guard for every three prisoners. He can't send a guard to watch one man. I said you don't have to send a guard, I'll watch the Hun myself. I'll give him a bottle of beer with lunch, he won't think of running off. The labor nitwit said it's one to three and wouldn't budge from it.
    Carl said, You remember Jurgen Schrenk? He worked here when you were gathering and shipping to wholesalers, the one I mentioned escaped every couple of months for a few days?
    Yeah, and I spoke to him. I asked Jurgen if he wen t o ut to find something of a military nature he could sabotage. I told him I was aboard the USS Maine when the dons blew her up in Havana harbor, February 1898. I said I doubt he could cause an explosion as earthshaking as the Maine going down with two-hundred and fifty-four hands. It got us hurrying to go to war with Spain. Jurgen said he just liked to get away from the camp, walk down a road with n o p lace to go. Oh, is that so? What do you bet he's got some farm girl thinks he stepped out of a dream in his short pants? The Huns look pretty much like us, except there's something different about them. People'd come by to watch them work. One time -they're swatting pecans along the county road -I noticed a car stopped nearby. Pretty soon a guard come along and told the woman in the car to keep moving. The reason I know it was a woman, Narcissa's coming from town in our car and slowed up going past the car stopped there. She said it was a girl with blonde hair but didn't recognize her from anyplace.
    Carl said, What about the car?
    I thought it was a green Hudson with whitewalls. Nacissa says I don't know cars, it was a thirty-nine Lincoln-Zephyr. She reads the car ads and tells me what we should get after the war. But listen, the guard that told the girl to keep moving? I saw him a few times while he was around here. His name's Larry Davidson. From West Memphis, Arkansas, the poor soul. Young guy, sees himself as a hotshot the way he wears his overseas cap. Talk to Larry. See what he says.
    *
    Yeah, it was a green Lincoln, Larry