The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(48)

“What do I think?” she asked. “I think you are an idiot.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” I admitted.

“Your sympathy for my father disgusts me.”

“Well,” I said. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on me, Natalia. I know how it feels.”

“You know how what feels?”

“Losing a parent.”

She looked at me for a long time. It was so long, I started to feel very uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than usual.

“And at least there’s a chance he won’t die,” I went on. “My mom didn’t even have that.”

36

Things changed between Natalia and me after that night. I’m not saying they got much better, but it was like we’d reached some kind of understanding. I still caught her staring at me sometimes, and once or twice I think Mike noticed too. Once at dinner, I looked up from my plate and saw her looking, and then I looked over at Mike and he was looking at her looking at me, and he was smiling.

One morning, after I finished my shower, I passed Bennacio’s door and heard Natalia’s voice, followed by the low hum of Bennacio’s. It sounded like a heated debate was going on; I figured it was about Natalia going with him to the rendezvous with Mogart. I went to my room and closed the door. After a while I heard a door slam and the light tread of Natalia going down the hall.

I went to Bennacio’s room and knocked softly on the door. There was no answer. I tried the knob. It was unlocked.

I stepped inside. The light was off, but there was a glow in the room from two candles sitting on the small table pushed against the far wall. Propped up between the candles was a small painting in a gilded frame of a man in a white robe, kind of floating against a black background, with great white fluffy wings outstretched on either side, holding a sword in his right hand.

Kneeling in front of this picture was Bennacio. He didn’t lift his head or move when I came in. I felt ashamed, almost as if I had walked in on him naked. The main thing that struck me, though, was how terribly small he seemed, kneeling there in front of that picture, how terribly small and alone.

“Yes, Kropp?” he asked without turning or getting up.

“You should take her with you,” I said.

He didn’t move.

“Take her with you, Bennacio,” I said.

“You do not know what you are asking,” he said finally.

“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “There’s a lot I don’t get. Most stuff I probably never will, but this one thing I’m pretty sure of, Bennacio.”

His shoulders dipped, his head fell to his chest, and when he stood up, for the first time he struck me as an old man, old enough to be a grandfather, even. He turned and looked hard at me.

“What are you so sure of, Kropp?”

“Look, Bennacio, when my mom got sick she would get on me all the time about coming to see her at the hospital. She was all worried about me missing school or sleep or meals, but she was dying. There was no hope for her. But I didn’t care. I came every day anyway, for over a month, and I sat there for hours, even when she didn’t know I was sitting there.” All the memories came rushing back then, of Mom shrunken to the size of a pygmy in that hospital bed, bald from all the chemo, big black circles around her eyes. Her teeth seemed huge against her hollow cheeks and thinned lips. And the way she would whimper, Please, please, Alfred, make it go away. Make the pain go away.

“Maybe it was useless my being there. Maybe there was nothing I could do, but where else was I supposed to be? You say you don’t have a choice, but you think she does. Well, maybe she doesn’t have any more choice than you do. It’s kind of hypocritical, if you ask me, saying you don’t have a choice but she does.”

I don’t know if anything I was saying was making any sense. But he listened. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, but he listened, I think.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s it. That’s about all I had.”

I walked out of the room, pulling the door closed behind me. Standing a couple of feet away was Natalia.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and walked hurriedly past her, muttering as I passed, “There’s no such thing as accidents.” I don’t know why I said that.

37

I went to my room and after a while—I don’t know how long, maybe a couple of hours—there was a knock on the door and Bennacio came in, still wearing that brown robe. He was carrying a long box. He sat beside me, setting the box down on the bed behind us.

“Kropp,” he said.

“Bennacio,” I said.

“I cannot take her.”

“Well,” I said. “You should.”

“One day, perhaps, you will have a child, and you will understand.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Do not think too bitterly of me.”

“Okay,” I said, as if what I thought about Lord Bennacio, Last Knight of the Order of the Sacred Sword, really mattered. Bennacio was giving off some serious sadness sitting there beside me, as if an invisible cloak of sorrow was wrapped around his shoulders.

“That picture in your room,” I said. “Is it Saint Michael?”

“The Archangel Michael, yes.”

“You know, I was thinking about that. Mr. Samson talked about the master of the Sword and so did the Lady in my dream. Michael is the master of the Sword you’re waiting for, isn’t he?”