The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (52 page)

“Big mistake,” Rex said.

“He laid his hands on my head and blessed me! Can you believe it?” Powell
chuckled
. “How else could I
have
interpret
ed
his blessing but as the ultimate expression of warm support? I practically danced my way back
to my office
, where a letter
soon arrived by messenger
, suspending me from all teaching and research responsibilities and banning me from the library.
The library!
”

Having raised his voice, Powell coughed hard, pressing on his chest.

“I begged my colleagues to support me, but they were afraid
to lose their job
s
. Our bishop took away my Temple Recommend Card for ‘safekeeping’ until I
returned
to my senses. When I wrote a letter to
the
Salt Lake
Tribune
, our bishop instructed my wife to threaten divorce unless I backed down, which I might have done if not for my boys. It was their future I was fighting for! And my wife still loved me! But the pressure on her was relentless—
the
b
ishop,
s
take
p
resident,
g
eneral
a
uthorities, her parents—and we ended up in court.”

“Guess who’s coming to court,
”
Ben said.

“A bunch of very friendly Mormons—the judge, the lawyers, the social workers, the witnesses, and even the psychiatrist—the honorable Dr. Neibauer, who reported on his diagnosis
, based on input from family and friends,
of
my acute
schizoid-paranoid
affliction
. And there I was, in a lovely, wood-paneled
courtroom, surrounded by the nicest white people in the world, all working in happy harmony to save my wife and boys from
a
raving lunatic in Lucifer’s dark skin.” He pulled out a worn photo. “Here, do I look insane?”

Ben examined the photo of a much younger Powell, smiling, his arm
around a pretty brunette, the
boys dressed in their Sunday best, their skin color a smooth chocolate. “Good-looking kids,” he said.

“Don’t bullshit me.” Powell took back the phot
o. “I know what your white mind i
s thinking.
Half-breeds. Ugly little mutts.
”

“You
are
paranoid,” Ben said. “My white mind was thinking about my black girlfriend and how one day we’ll have kids looking just like yours.”

Powell burst out laughing. “You’re dating a black sister? I’d never have guessed that about you, boy! What’s her name?”

“Keera, and she’s
not happy right now
.”

Part VII
:

The Descendent

Chapter 51

It had rained
the rest of Friday and
all
of
Saturday, which mattered little as Ben
had remained i
n bed, propped up on pillows, reading the books
.
Powell and
Rex
took turns in the kitchen
,
but
there was no sign of Streep
or
Dreyfuss
.

Sunday morning
brought back the sun.
After a breakfast of eggs, toast, and a fresh salad, Rex
changed the dressing on Ben’s wound and
suggested they go for a ride.

Stepping out of the house, Ben took in the open views of the surrounding landscape. The stone house was only one of several farm buildings clustered together against a hillside. The farm was
old, but not
in disrepair—two large barns
,
an equipment shed
,
a
n inactive
chicken coop, and a green tractor
of
an
old vintage under a
carport made
from
galvanized steel
.
There were no neighbors in sight, and the rolling hills showed signs of past cultivat
ion,
probably corn
fields and
apple
orchards
, now
repossessed
by nature
.

“I put the bikes out of the rain.”
Rex pulled open the doors of a storage shed. Ben’s GS was inside, together with the white Ducati, a black Harley Davidson, and a dual-purpose Kawasaki KLR650. He rolled out the GS and the KLR.

Getting into
the
jacket was a little
painful
, but once Ben was
sitting
on the GS, everything else disappeared into the back recess
es of his mind.

Rex took off on the light KLR
. The
unpaved
road was packed
with
gravel
, which
provided solid traction
, except for areas where it had been washed away by the rain, leaving rutted mud that required
careful balancing, especially for the heavier GS.

T
hey reached
a
gate
, which
was locked
. Rex
stopped, got off the bike, and
unlocked
the gate, holding it open for Ben. After pushing his KLR through, Rex
locked
the gate
behind them. Moments later, they reached a paved country road.

The pace
grew
faster
. Rex seemed to know t
he area
well
, leading
the way through hills and valleys, passing by active an
d neglected farms, across a dam
and down to a rushing river, where
he
stopped
, signaling to Ben to do the same
.

From a duffel bag that was strapped to the back of his
KLR
, Rex
took out a bunch of sticks, which
he assembled into
a fishing rod.
After
fixing
a
bait
on the
hook
, he cast far
into the water
and sat on a rock
.

“Nice spot,” Ben said, settling down on another rock.

“I used to come here with my grandfather.
” Rex tugged on the rod, reeled in a bit, and let it sit. “It reminded him of a
similar river, back in Russia. We
fished every Sunday and
fr
ied
the
catch
back
at
the far
m
, together with fresh onion and cabbage.”

“Now it’s your farm?”

Rex nodded. “I put it into a trust to keep my name out of the records. Harder to track me down that way.”

“Can’t they find you at Best Buy, like I did?”

“Not anymore.” He tugged on the rod, but it
loosened again
. “I’ll go back after this operation is over.
”

They sat in silence for a while. Then the line went taught. Rex reeled in and paused, reeled in more and pau
sed, until a healthy-sized fish
emerged from the dark water.

Ben helped unhook it into a net, which Rex tied in the shallow water to keep the fish alive until they were ready to leave.

Rex cast again. “
We are betting everything on you.”

“Why
are you involved in this?
How did the
Mormons
hurt
your family?”

“N
o
family
to hurt
.” Rex reeled back t
he line, which came empty, and put a new bait on the hook
. “I left the
s
aints many years ago, soon after I
finished my
service.”

“Why?”

He cast the line far in. “You like asking questions.”

“It’s my job.”

“Do you know the Marine Corps motto?”

“
Semper Fidelis.
”

“That’s right.
Always Faithful.
But faithful to
whom
?”

Ben waited for him to answer his own question.

“My
grand
father
escaped
from
Russia
with his young wife
after the Cossacks killed everyone
else
in the pogroms.
Try to watch
Fiddler on the Roof
without the sound, without the songs and dancing, and you’ll have a good idea of how Jews lived in Russia a century ago.
They came here
after
a distant cousin
lent them money to buy cheap
land
and recreated the life they had
lost.
My grandfather remained faithful to his Jewish religion and the only way of life he knew. But my father, an only
son,
hated
everything about
the pitiable, gru
ngy
existence
his immigrant parents had imported from
Russia.
”

“It’s not unusual,” Ben said, “for immigrants’ children to become alienated from their parents, or even ashamed.”

“True.” The line tightened, and Rex tugged on it, but it came out empty. He hooked another worm and cast the line into the water.
“
For
G
rand
pa
, western Pennsylvania
was heaven, a
place to
rebuild
the same way
of life
, but without the murdering Cossacks. For my father, the farm was a
g
u
lag to escape from. He
aspired
to be
come
a real American,
free and successful, which meant going to college. The only school that gave him a full
scholarship
was Brigham Young. He
left his
Judaism
behind,
on the farm, together with
the
Yiddish
yakking
and
Eastern European
drudgery
. As a freshman, he
took the mandatory classes about LDS history and scriptures, joined his classmates on Sundays, and
discovered
Mormonism
to be
a real
American religion, filled with pioneering spirit, strong community, and a celebration of materia
l success. The fact that a
blond, blue-eyed stunner was madly in love with him, well, that didn’t hurt either.”

“Your mom?”

Rex nodded. “My sisters got her looks. I’m a
poor
mix.”

Ben laughed.

“By the time my dad was a junior, he was married with a kid on the way. A decade later, he was
an executive with IBM.
My parents
had just bought a new house when dad
crash
ed his car during a snowstorm, dying at the scene
.”

“I’m sorry.”

“
Me too. It was terrible
during the first few months
. But our Mormon community provided everything we needed
—cooked meals,
childcare
, mortgage payments
,
and later, a
series of potential husbands for my mom, who
settled for a lawyer, a father of five whose wife had died in childbirth. My mom was soon pregnant again, and again.
We all worked hard to be helpful and happy, but it was kind of fake.
I spent my
summers here with my grandpa and grandma. I was Jewish on the farm and Mormon the rest of the time. It was interesting.”

“I bet.”

“After doing my Mormon
mission in Alabama,
I
enlisted in the Marine
s
and spent time in Japan and
Germany
.
Both my grandparents
died during my first year back
, and I discovered that you can’t be
Always Faithful
when you face two competing values
.”