Gilbert Morris Read online

  “You really need to take some time off, Son. You work too hard.”

  “Well, Pop, I think you may be right about that. As a matter of fact, I’ve got a good opportunity here, but it would mean I’d be out of town during Christmas.”

  Willie’s eyes did not change. “What is it, Ben?”

  “You know how I always wanted to go to Spain?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. You never told me.”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted to go there. I don’t know why. It just looks like a nice place to visit, especially during our winters here. So, I finally got some time off, and there’s a special on with one of the travel agencies. Trouble is, I’d be gone during Christmas. I wouldn’t be able to come and be here.”

  “Well, you can come and see me before you leave. Take lots of pictures,” Willie smiled. “When you get back you can show ’em to me and tell me all about it.”

  “Why, sure, Pop. I could do that, couldn’t I?”

  Relief swept over Ben like a wave. “Well, that’s what I’ll do then. I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

  “You remember,” Willie said, “what good Christmases we had when your mother was alive?”

  “I sure do.”

  “That woman loved Christmas. Sometimes she’d start in October getting ready for it. When we first got married I thought it was silly, but I got so I looked forward to it.”

  Ben remembered the Christmases then. They had been bright spots in his life, and the two talked about those times.

  “She believed in angels, too.”

  “She sure did.”

  “Well, I guess I do, too.”

  Anxious to change the subject, Ben said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll have a special Christmas dinner, turkey and dressing and all the fixings, brought in just for you. I’ll have Clara bring it in. She’s always cooking for her family. She’d be glad to.”

  Willie Raines looked up, and there was a gentle smile on his lips. He had never once complained about his condition in all the times that Ben could remember.

  “Well, that’ll be fine, Son. You take lots of pictures of Spain, and when you come back, maybe there’ll be some turkey left for you.”

  * * *

  Whistling off-key as he always did, Ben went through the trash in his office. He hated to throw anything away, but now was the time, and his wastebasket was stuffed with old business and worthless mail that seemed to come more and more often.

  Ben could hear the sound of Andy Williams singing Christmas carols from an office down the hall. Since his mother had died he had paid little attention to Christmas, but he always liked Andy Williams. At least he could carry a tune.

  “Hello, Ben.”

  “Hi, Sal. I just came to clear out a few things.”

  “How’s your dad?”

  “I was there this afternoon. He’s about the same.”

  Sal Victorio, the editor of the paper, looked more like a Mafia hit man than an extremely able editor. He was literate to an incredible degree, but he always looked as if he were about to pull out a gun and shoot someone. He had mentioned once to Ben that his grandfather had been in the Mafia, but his father had gotten away from that life. He had sent Sal all the way to Harvard University and was as proud of his son as if he were the president.

  Ben said, “I haven’t been on a trip in a long time. I’ve got to buy some new luggage.”

  Sal removed the cigar from his mouth, stared at it for a moment, then jammed it back in. He always kept a cigar exactly in the center of his mouth, and it looked now like a gigantic fuse attached to some monstrous bomb. It also smelled like burning rope, since Sal did not believe in wasting money on good cigars. “You heard about Sam?”

  “You mean our Sam?”

  “That’s right. Sam Benton.”

  “What about him?”

  “He had a heart attack.”

  For an instant Ben thought he had misunderstood his boss. “Was it serious?” he asked finally.

  “It could have been worse.” Sal shrugged his beefy shoulders. “The doc says he’s going to be all right, except he’s gonna have to have a bypass.”

  “But he always eats right, and he does those exercises. He’s a health nut.”

  “Looks like that doesn’t make much difference. He didn’t even have a pain. He went in for an annual check-up, and the doc did an EKG. Told him he was either gonna have a heart attack or he was having one right then, and Sam never felt a thing. It made him kind of mad, but he’s got to have that surgery.”

  “Sorry to hear about that. Right here at Christmas, too. Be tough on his family.”

  “It’s gonna be tough on you, too, Ben.”

  For a moment Ben stared at his boss, and then a suspicion began to rise in him. “Now wait a minute, Sal!”

  “You’re the man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re a smarter guy than that. You’ll have to fill in until Sam can come back.”

  Disappointment mixed with anger began to stir in Ben Raines. “You’ve been promising me a vacation for two years, and I’ve got everything set up. I’ve even got the ticket.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. By the way, you’ll have to do the Christmas story.”

  The paper had one big Christmas story as a tradition. It was something that Sam Benton usually did and that Ben had always said he couldn’t do.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this vacation for six months.”

  Sal took his cigar out then lifted his eyes toward Ben Raines. “Sam took over for you when you had mono for a month.”

  There was no answer for that, Ben knew, nor was there any way out of this. He was going to have to stay in Chicago, and he was going to have to write the Christmas story, and he would have to put up with all of the phony Christmas trappings that went on every year, but there were some things a man had to do. He straightened up and tried to force a smile. “Why sure, Boss, I’ll take care of it.”

  Chapter Three

  Do you really think angels look like that, Dad?”

  Willie Raines twisted his head around and looked at the picture on the wall to his left. It was a picture that Ben was familiar with, for it had been in his parents’ room as long as he could remember. The painting showed a young boy and girl about to step into a dangerous chasm, but over them hovered a bright shining winged figure, his hands outstretched as if to protect them.

  To Ben the picture had seemed somehow wrong, even when he was a child. He’d stared at it often, and wondered if God really cared enough to send an angel to look after wandering children. As he’d grown older, he liked the painting less and less—though he never mentioned his feeling to his parents.

  “Well, I don’t know, Son. I expect God’s got different kinds of angels. One of them might look like that, but others might look like something else. Funny thing, every time an angel appeared to someone in the Bible, the first thing he’d say was, “Fear not.”

  “Why do you suppose they said that?”

  “I guess they were pretty spectacular. In the book of Revelation an angel appeared to the apostle John, and he fell down and began to worship him.”

  “What’d the angel do?”

  “Why, he said, ‘Don’t do that!’ or words to that effect.”

  Ben looked at the picture and remarked, “You’ve had that picture a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Ever since I got out of the army. Your mother saw it for sale on the street and bought it for me. I remember that day just like it was yesterday,” he said.

  Ben suddenly remembered his mother as she had been when he was young, and a wave of loss touched him. “You still miss Mom, don’t you?”

  “Every day of my life, but I’ll see her one day soon.” Willie smiled gently, and a light touched his faded blue eyes. “You know, Son, people talk about people who die being lost, but I don’t see it that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you know whe
re something is, why, it’s not lost, is it?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “I know where your mother is, so she’s not lost. I like to think she’s waiting for me to show up.” Willie laughed suddenly, adding, “I was always late for things, and your mom was always on time. So I’m a little late, but I’ll catch up with her pretty soon.”

  Remarks like this made Ben Raines uncomfortable. He himself had given up on religion when he was no more than twelve years old. He knew his father, however, was a staunch believer in the Bible, and he quickly changed the subject.

  “I’ve got some good news, Dad. I’m not going to be gone for Christmas.”

  “What about that trip to Spain?”

  “I decided not to go. Too much work to do at the office.”

  Willie Raines studied his son thoughtfully then asked, “You’re not giving up your trip just because of me, are you?”

  Ben didn’t like to lie, but this was the time for it. He grinned and said, “I’ve got to fill in for a friend, but that’s OK. It’ll be good to be here with you.”

  “I hate for you to miss your trip.”

  “Spain will be there. It’s not going anyplace. One thing I have to do is to write the annual Christmas story.”

  Willie Raines brightened up then and asked, “Christmas story? What’s that?”

  “Oh, you know, Dad. Every year the paper has a long story on some aspect of Christmas.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember. It was always the best part of your paper, I thought.”

  “Maybe I could write something about the Christmas you had at Bastogne,” Ben said. Instantly he saw something change in his dad’s face. “What’s the matter, Dad? You don’t want to talk about that?”

  Ben’s dad had talked very little about his service during the war. Ben had grown curious a few years prior and had gone to the War Department and dug out the citation that went with the silver star that his father had won. It impressed him mightily, more than anything his father had ever done, but now he saw that there was some hesitation in his dad. “That might be a real good thing. People need to remember what you guys did in the war, and it was Christmas, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “I read the citation. That was quite a stunt you pulled off, charging into that rifle fire and then tossing those grenades and wiping out that mortar squad. I remember when I was a kid I was prowling around in your chest of drawers, which I shouldn’t have been doing,” he grinned.

  “You always were a nosy little guy.”

  “I remember once I found something I thought was chocolate candy in a little tin box. I ate ’em all.”

  Willie Raines suddenly laughed. “I remember that. Turned out to be Ex-lax, a pretty effective laxative.”

  “Well, I don’t want to talk about that,” Ben said quickly. “It wasn’t so funny at the time. Anyway, I found your medals in there, your silver star and the purple heart. I remember asking you to tell me about it, but you never would.”

  “I guess I just didn’t want to talk much about that time.”

  “Hey, you should, Dad. It’s something to be proud of. Isn’t there some way we could get a story out of that Christmas?”

  A silence fell over the room, and Ben waited patiently. His father, he well understood, was not a man who spoke easily about matters that were close to him. Finally Willie shifted in his chair and said, “It was a bad time. Cold as I can ever remember. I used to tell your mother during cold times here in Chicago, ‘Well, it’s not as cold as it was at Bastogne.’ She always laughed at that.”

  “I’d like to hear the story from you, Dad.”

  “You really would?”

  “Sure. Like I say, it’s something you should be proud of.”

  Willie chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, ran his hand over his hair and then said, “All right. If that’s what you want.”

  Willie began speaking slowly and Ben did not interrupt. He listened carefully to the entire story, and finally when Willie ended, he took a deep breath. “That’s some story, Dad.”

  “I haven’t told it to anybody in a long time.”

  “Lucky thing for you, and the rest of the guys in the squad, that lieutenant was there. I wonder how he knew how to get at that mortar emplacement.”

  Willie Raines gave his son a searching look. “There’s one thing about that story that’s not in the citation.”

  “What’s that, Dad?”

  “I didn’t know that lieutenant.”

  “He wasn’t the lieutenant in your company?”

  “I’d never seen him before in my life, Ben, and I knew most of the officers, by sight at least.”

  “Maybe he was from another company.”

  “When I woke up in the hospital, the first thing I wanted to know was how were the guys in my squad. They were all OK. Then I started asking about the lieutenant, but nobody knew anything about him. I did everything I could to find out, but they thought I was just hallucinating. But I wasn’t, Son. I can remember that officer just as clear as I can remember anything in my life.”

  “He was probably a replacement.”

  “No, he wasn’t. I checked everything that could be checked.” Suddenly Willie looked over to the picture of the angel, and when he turned back there was an odd look in his eyes. “I think he was an angel.”

  “An angel! Come on, Dad, you don’t believe that.”

  “I thought about it a long time, and that’s what I’ve decided. God decided that He was going to save our squad, and so He sent an angel down to tell me how to get at that mortar emplacement. I know you don’t believe in things like that, Ben, but I do.”

  For an instant Ben could not answer. He could not pretend to agree with his father, for Willie knew perfectly well he didn’t believe in angels or anything else very much. On the other hand he hated to destroy his father’s dream, so he took the best middle ground that he could.

  “Well, anything’s possible, I suppose.” The look in his dad’s eyes made him uncomfortable, so he got up and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow, but one thing we’re going to do is plan a great Christmas celebration right here. I’ll bring the turkey and dressing when the big day comes.”

  Willie Raines smiled. “That’ll be mighty fine, Son. I’ll look forward to it.”

  As Ben left the hospital he continued to mull over their conversation. The story of the angel he dismissed at once. Could have been a dozen ways some officer could come in there. A replacement. Somebody lost from his own unit. Or maybe Dad just dreamed it, imagined it. I’ll have to talk to the doctors about it.

  * * *

  Ben Raines spent most of the afternoon walking the streets of Chicago. It was something he often did when he could not get a handle on a story or a piece of writing. Usually something would come. It was not exactly like in the cartoons where a lightbulb goes off over a character’s head, but it was sort of like that. A thought would come, and when he meditated on it, thought about it awhile, it would begin to grow and swell like a tree puts out branches. That was the way the story was filled in.

  But this time nothing came—absolutely nothing. Finally he went home, fixed himself a TV dinner of chicken and rice, then sat down in his recliner and watched part of a football game. He didn’t care much about the game. Who won wasn’t important to him one way or another, so he dozed off.

  When Ben woke up, his mouth was dry and he felt confused. Opening his eyes, he started to get up out of the chair and suddenly realized that It’s a Wonderful Life was on. It was the scene where Clarence had saved Jimmy Stewart from committing suicide and was explaining to him how important his life had been.

  More than once during the next hour Ben nearly turned the movie off. He had seen it more than once, but somehow this time he felt compelled to watch. Finally it got down to the last of the movie, where all of the people that Jimmy Stewart had helped during his life came to his rescue, and Stewart realized that his life had not been in vain after all. Others had gone ahead of him
and made more money and become famous, but his life had counted, too.

  And then it suddenly came to Ben: I’ll write a story about Dad and the people whose lives were changed because of what he did at Bastogne.

  The idea was as clear as crystal, and he got up out of the chair and began walking back and forth, excited by the idea. I’ll find those men that were in that foxhole with him, the members of his squad. Shouldn’t be too hard to trace them. He probably knows where some of them are. Then I’ll find out what they’ve done since the war. Some of them may not still be alive, but some probably are.

  As always when Ben Raines got an idea, he ran away with it. He could not stop his thoughts. They seemed to tumble over themselves. His thinking was all intertwined with It’s a Wonderful Life, but he thought, That’s just a movie. Real life’s not like that.

  He fixed himself a cup of coffee, sat down at his computer, and began typing preliminary notes. He discovered at once that there was a problem.

  “It won’t be like the movie,” he said aloud. “Some of them may have wound up in the penitentiary, but I’ll tell the truth.” Another idea came, and he typed rapidly.

  “‘The Angel of Bastogne.’ That’s what I’ll call it. Has a nice ring to it.” Suddenly, as sometimes happened, he got a sentence that would do to begin the piece with. The first sentence of any writing was always important, whether a newspaper story, a novella or a full-length novel, and this one came to him. And when he had typed it, he stared at it and read it aloud:

  “We would all like for stories to have happy endings, but most of them don’t.”

  Pleased with this, Ben wrote rapidly, jotting down ideas, and as he did, the last line of the story came to him. He wrote it down, then read it aloud:

  “I’d like to believe in angels, but that’s not for most of us. Don’t wait for a Christmas angel to take care of you.”

  A troubled thought then drifted into his mind. Dad won’t like this story the way I’m going to write it. He always was kind of a romantic, optimist. Always thinking things would turn out all right, but it just doesn’t happen like that. I can’t tell him the angle of the story, but I’ll have to get the names of the men whose lives he saved.