Part 20 (1/2)

”Thank you,” he corrected.

”Thank you.”

”And how is your brother?”

”Mon frere, my brother is very well. Thank you.” She stuck out her tongue as she emphasized the last words.

Jerry stuck his out back at her. ”Superbe, Gabi!”

For a moment the two wounded individuals were silent, each lost in their own thoughts of pain and recovery; savagery and tenderness.

”Jerry?”

”Oui?”

The little girl frowned disapprovingly as she crossed her prosthetic arm over her real one. ”Dans anglais, si vous plaisez, monsieur.!” she said in a mimicked grown-up tone.

”Okay,” Xenos chuckled. ”Yes? he said seriously.”

Gabi seemed to look deep within him at that moment. ”Why is the world so, eh, demente?”

”Crazy? he said after a moment of stunned silence.”

”Oui, eh, yes. Crazy.” She seemed to like the word.”Why?”

”I just don't know, sweetie. I just don t...”

”Have you forgotten everything I've taught you? Avidol asked from the other side of the bed.”

Xenos looked over at him, locking eyes with the man he thought might never speak to him again. He felt a tug at his sleeve, then turned back to the puzzled little girl. ”Mon pere, Gabi.”

”Ah!” she said with a mixture of surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt as she studied the man. She leaned over and quickly kissed Xenos on the cheek. ”Au revoir.” She curtsied toward the older man. ”Excusez-moi, monsieur.”

”Au revoir, ma minet.” Avidol smiled after her as she skipped away. ”I didn't expect this place,” he said as he watched her go.

”I didn't expect it either.”

Avidol sat down next to the bed. ”So?”

Xenos winced as he turned toward the old man. ”The Russians figured that the only way to win a war of attrition in Afghanistan was to eliminate future generations of enemies. So they dropped bombs disguised as dolls or toys for the children to find. Those that survived ended up like Gabi.”

”So?”

”The world still largely refuses to concede what happened there over ten years. The Taliban militia that took over hates the mountain people almost as much as the Russians did. So what little aid there is barely gets through to where it's needed.”

Avidol stared into his son's eyes with fire and accusation. ”So?”

”I know these people,” Xenos said after a long silence. ”Tried to help them then. Do what I can now.”

Avidol breathed in the pure Mediterranean air. ”Why is the world so crazy?” There was accusation in his voice.

Jerry closed his eyes. ”Beats the h.e.l.l out of me.”

”Is the truth so foreign to you now?” Avidol's gaze was changing from accusing to sheer astonishment. ”Is there so little of my son left in you?”

Xenos met that look, that indictment, with an equally steely glare of his own. ”What do you want from me?”

”Only the truth.”

Xenos laughed bitterly. ”Yeah. But whose truth?” Avidol shrugged. ”G.o.d's.”

A deep sigh from the man in the bed. ”G.o.d's. G.o.d's truth.” He seemed to drift with the thought. He shook his head. ”For that, you'll have to ask someone else. I only have my own.”

His father seemed shocked. ”You have completely forgotten your G.o.d?” He said the words as if he couldn't quite make himself believe it. Although he'd expressed the same thought aloud many times about his ”lost son.”

”Oh, Papa. What's the point? You are who you are and I'm something else entirely. Can't we just leave it at that? Put it aside for a few days, at least, and enjoy being together again?”

”No.” Avidol's voice was rock-solid. ”You were lost to me, I thought forever, because we 'put it aside before. Not again.'”

He reached out, turning his depressed son's face back toward his. The physical contact sent an electric tremble through both men.

”Gerald,” Avidol began in a soft voice, choked in emotion, ”you are my son and I will always love you. We may, I may,” he said in a trembling voice, ”not always be able to see that. But it remains nonetheless. A living bond between us.”

Xenos looked up at him, anger and accusation flying from his eyes now. ”You said I'd died! You said Kaddish, tore your clothes, and consigned me to eternity away from you! Away from my family! That's not love!”

Avidol shrugged. ”A man sits on a stoop and watches his child playing catch. He misses a ball and it rolls into the street. The child runs after it as a truck which has lost its brakes rounds the corner.” He paused. ”The man cannot sit by and allow his son to die.”

He stood, looking out the window at the breathtaking Mediterranean view.

”You were never an easy boy.” He laughed quietly. ”From early on you sought your own way in the world. There was little I could do to stop you from your head-strongness.” He turned back to Xenos. ”Do you remember the lake?”

Xenos nodded. ”Of course.”

Avidol nodded. ”So little a boy,” so large a lake, he whispered as he sat back down. ”I told you that you couldn't swim beyond the restraining rope. We argued, we fought that entire summer. Then, one day, you were gone.When we pulled you from the water you were half drowned, exhausted, using your last strength to fight me in order to finish that swim. It was like you were a little stranger, fighting your father like that. Amazing.”

”I would've made it,” the man in the bed said softly.

Avidol smiled. ”Still?” He sighed. ”Perhaps. But at what cost? As is, you came down with double pneumonia which was made all the worse by your complete exhaustion. The doctors all thought you would die.”

”I refused to.”

Avidol studied his son. ”That's right. That is exactly what you said to us. You were eleven years old and lecturing your father and the doctors about how you 'control what happens to me. Not some G.o.d or force I can't see or prove. I determine my own fate.' An amazing sight.”

The old man shook his head sadly. ”When the angel of death came for you the next night, we called for the rabbi and he told us what to do. We must give you another name, he said. To fool the angel of death. So that night, for that night, you became-in the language of your ancestors-Xenos Filotimo.” Another laugh, this one more bitter than the last. ”My little stranger with the iron self-respect and sense of honor.”

Xenos busied himself sipping from his ice water. Anything but look into those sad eyes. ”What does this have to do with-”

”I knew then that I could never stop you with an argument. Not my little Xenos. Not my headstrong little boy with such a dangerous self-confidence. Then you became a man. And mere words seemed to become meaningless.”

After a deep breath, Xenos turned to face his father. ”I don't recall your ever running out of them.”