Island of Saints (26 page)

We walked straight on into the kitchen. “How was Louisiana?” I asked, which is how we, in the South, ask someone about a trip, as if we cared about the whole place.

“Oh, fine,” she said. “We had a wonderful time. We stayed with the Wooleys—you know them—and saw all their people.” Another Southern thing. We don't have families. We have people. She stopped, perhaps a bit confused about why I was there. “I'm sorry . . . were you here to see me? Or did you want—”

“Both of you. I apologize for dropping in like this . . .”
But I did it on purpose,
I wanted to add. I didn't.

“Oh, don't think a thing about it. Let me get him, though. He's in the backyard.”

Soon she was back in the kitchen. “You want coffee or a Coke?”

“A Coke would be great,” I answered. “Regular,” I added, anticipating her next question. She nodded. She knew exactly what I meant.

In Alabama, we drink Coke. It's
all
Coke. In Chicago, they drink pop. In New Jersey, it's soda. But in Alabama, it is Coke.

“You want a Coke?” one person might ask.

“Sure,” comes the response.

Second question: “What kind?”

Final answer: “Orange.”

Translation: It's all Coke. This is how it's done here.

“Hey, Andy,” he said, coming through the sliding glass door. “What's got you out and about?”

“You know,” I said with a smile, “just doing some running around. Got my hair cut at Bozeman's, saw Dr. Surek . . . my throat thing still going on . . . and . . . what else . . . oh, I stopped at Patty Cakes Bakery for Polly. Anyway, I was in the area and just wanted to say hello.”

We all sat down at the table, talked about their trip to Louisiana for a while, our boys, the church, the possibility of an undefeated season for the Crimson Tide . . . Were they nervous? I couldn't tell.

Then I said, “Hey, I have something I want you to see.” Holding hands, both were sitting across from me. I removed a manila envelope from the leather writing tablet I always carry and opened it. Slowly, one at a time, I removed the silver buttons I had found under the wax myrtle from the envelope and slowly, one at a time, placed them in a line across the table.

Without speaking, I took the ring out next. I placed it in front of the buttons, careful to set it upright, straight, and symmetrically in the display I was creating. Next, the Iron Cross was situated beside the ring and the
UB
badge next to it.

I must admit that my hands were shaking as I forced myself to move even slower. Neither the old man nor his wife looked at me. They were still holding hands . . . watching mine . . . and made not a sound.

I put the picture of Hitler and the officers inspecting the sailors above the buttons and the photograph of the Kriegsmarine cadet in front of her. Then I brought out the small photograph—the one of the man, the woman, and the baby in the wagon. For a moment, I held it and watched the old man and old woman in front of me.

They were frozen, barely breathing.

Did I really want to do what I was about to do? Was this right? Would it serve a purpose beyond the satisfaction of my own curiosity?

As gently as I could, I laid the tiny family portrait in front of him and quietly sat back in my chair. For a moment, nothing happened. Both of them were seemingly deep in thought, but calm . . . motionless. Then the old woman haltingly reached across and picked up the family picture with her right hand. She had been holding her husband's hand with her left, but let go and put that arm around his shoulders.

At that moment, as close as they were to me physically—emotionally, they were miles away. I can only describe what they did for the next several minutes as a huddle . . . she with her left arm around him and continuing to nestle the family portrait in the palm of her right hand. Holding it close, they whispered to each other—the old woman doing most of the talking—and pointed to several details in the picture. I do not know what they said to each other during this time, for I did not try to hear.

When they were finished and looked up, both had tears in their eyes. “Mrs. Newman?” I said softly. “When did you bury these things on the island?”

She took a deep breath. Her lip quivered, but when she spoke, her voice was strong. “I did it one night before the war was over. Folks were getting real worked up about people from other countries . . . they were suspecting everybody and his brother as a spy. Newman spoke with an English accent back then, and, well . . . I didn't want to take the chance. Some had already had their homes gone through by the authorities, their yards dug up by suspicious locals. I didn't want to just throw the things in the Gulf . . .” She glanced at her husband. “. . . though
he
said to.”

She shrugged. “We were hoping to have children one day. I wanted them to have something of their father's . . .” She looked at the things on the table. “Right there . . . that's everything he had. I canned it all up . . . even this picture.” She held up the one of the family and frowned. “Seems crazy now to have buried this one. I mean, what could it have hurt to keep
this
one? But we were so scared. You can't imagine . . .” I nodded. She was wrong. In fact, I could
only
imagine.

“Anyway, I rowed over one night to that little island you live on now. It was trash land then. They grazed cattle on it. We never thought in a million years anyone would ever live there. As time went on, we tried occasionally to find the spot I had chosen that night, but, you know, storms and all . . . we just never found it.”

“Until now,” I said.

“Until now,” she agreed. “How did you know?”

I paused, trying to get my thoughts in order. I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask, but I knew it was important to
answer
this one. Indicating Mr. Newman, who had not raised his head, I said to her, “He told me.”

Still he did not move. But she did. Her mouth dropped open; her eyes were wide. She was as flustered as anyone I've ever seen. “What? I don't . . . What?” She looked back and forth between her husband, who
still
wasn't moving, and me, sputtering, “I just don't understand . . .”

“Mr. Newman?”

He looked up. “Call me Josef,” he said.

“All right.” Then, looking back to Mrs. Newman, I gave her the answer both needed to hear. “Mr. Newman . . . Josef . . . walked me to my car the last time we got together . . . right before you went to Louisiana. Before I got in, he said, ‘Those things all held up pretty good, didn't they? After all those many years sealed in a vegetable can?'”

Mrs. Newman was confused. “But I don't—”

“I never told anyone—anyone—that the things were buried in a can. I only said that they were buried.” I looked over at Josef, slightly stooped now with snow-white hair. “I have an idea that you knew that.”

She turned to him. “Honey, why did you . . . ?” She turned back to me. “I mean, it's all right . . . I just want to know why he—”

“Helen,” he interrupted gently, “I'm an old man. Danny's gone. We're alone. I'm not ashamed of the life we've built—”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said quickly, “I never meant to say—”

“Hush,” he said, covering her hands with his own. “Listen to me now . . .” He stopped abruptly, remembering I was there and smiled at me. “I'm sorry to be doing this in front of you . . .”

I held up my hands. “No,” I said. “I don't mean to be in the way. Do you want me to leave? We can talk later . . .”

“No,” Josef said. “Stay. We're fine.” Mrs. Newman nodded, then focused her attention on the man she had loved for more than fifty years. He said, “Helen Newman, you are the wisest woman I know. You are as beautiful now as the night you beat the daylights out of me on the beach. You have taken some unforgivable beginnings, some unforgivable situations, some unforgivable people . . . and forgiven them all.

“Together, we have struggled and learned to live life as it should be lived . . . except for one thing . . . one secret we have hidden for more than half a century. I am tired of hiding. You are, too, woman,” he said with a grin. “Night before we left, I heard you on the phone”—he motioned toward me—“telling him about a spy that got shot in the woods near Fort Morgan.” He noted his wife's embarrassed expression with a laugh and turned to me. “By the way, that's a story you need to hear.”

Back to Helen, he said, “Don't you think people will forgive us? I'm not saying we make an announcement, but I think a few people . . .” He looked at me. “Helen, I want this young man to ask some questions. I want him to find out what you know. There're a lot of people who need to take an unhappy life and turn it into a great one, like you've done.”

I spoke up. “I already know what my first two questions are . . .”

“All right,” Josef said.

I took that as my cue. “Number one, who is Danny? Number two . . . did she really beat the daylights out of you on the beach? I want to hear
that
story!”

They laughed, but Helen immediately got up and returned a moment later with a framed photograph. “This is Danny Gilbert,” she said. “He was our son. He had Down syndrome.”

I took the picture and saw that the subject was a grown man. His affliction was evident, but the light in his eyes was undeniable. “He was your son?” I asked.

They smiled. “He was,” Josef said. “Danny was actually the biological son of some very dear friends of ours, Billy and Margaret Gilbert. They owned a café down what is now Highway 59. When Margaret passed away in 1954, Billy was lost. He missed her terribly, of course, but was really concerned about Danny. Billy was getting up in years, and we all knew Danny couldn't live by himself . . . so Danny came to live with us. We never had any other children, and he called her ‘Mama Helen', so we called him our son. He seemed to like it.”

“So did we,” Helen said.

“So did we,” Josef agreed. Pointing into the den toward the back of the house, he said, “All those things are Danny's in there. Danny did those.”

Leading me into the den, Helen turned on the overhead lights and stepped back. I was in awe. The entire room was filled with carvings. And they were stunning. Mostly birds and animals, here and there a flower, there was even a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

“You have got to be kidding,” I gasped. “These are . . . they are incredible. I've never seen anything like this. How many are there?”

“We have about six hundred left,” Helen said proudly. “There's a store in New Orleans that we allow to sell two pieces a month. They haven't gotten less than fifteen hundred dollars for one in more than three years now. The money goes to education for children like Danny.”

“Hey, look at this,” Josef said, digging in his pocket. “This is my favorite. It's the first thing he ever did. I wouldn't take a million dollars for it—not even for charity.”

I took the small item from the old man and recognized it immediately as a speckled trout. The piece was small. Worn and nicked from the years spent in Josef's pocket, it did not possess the sophistication of the artist's later work, but because it was the very first “Danny Gilbert” and treasured by the owner, its value was indeed priceless.

I didn't want to make the old couple sad, but I was curious. “When did Danny . . . ahhh—”

“Danny died in 1961,” Helen said, smiling. “He was forty-nine.”

WE TALKED FOR HOURS . . . THROUGH LUNCH, WHICH WE ATE on the back porch, and on into the afternoon. It seemed I actually did have a thousand questions. “Is your name really Newman?”

“No,” he said. “The fishermen at the docks all called me the ‘new man' for a long while. Then it was ‘Josef
the
new man' and finally just ‘Josef Newman.' When Helen and I got married, I put ‘Josef Newman' on the certificate, and no one ever questioned it.”

“So you
are
really married?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Helen replied, “but not until 1947. It was well after the war before we felt safe enough to try to get the paperwork.”

“Wan made that happen,” Josef said.

“Wan was your best man, sweetheart.”

“That's true. That's true.”

As the afternoon wore on, I found myself attempting to keep all the stories straight. The conversation was moving in ten different directions at once. I thought then, and still do, that it might have been the first time Josef and Helen talked about some of this. “Wait,” I said. They looked at me patiently. “You mean Wan . . . the same guy who shot at you with the pistol?”

“Yes.” They laughed.

“What about the English accent?”

“What about it?” Josef asked.

“What happened to it? That's such a great part of the story.”

Josef grinned. “I kept it up for years.” He shrugged. “But it faded away. Along with all the people who remembered it, I suppose.”

I asked permission to change the subject and started down another path. “Can I ask what you did with Schneider's body?” Josef grimaced, and Helen looked very uncomfortable. I backed up. “That's okay, I just—”

“No,” Josef broke in, “You're fine, it's just . . . you know . . . not really anything I ever thought I'd be talking about.”

“I understand.”

He looked at his wife. “You okay?” She nodded, and he turned back to me. “We just dragged him off and buried him. I mean, we got out a ways from my little cabin.” I must have been frowning. Josef continued to explain, “You got to understand. That was a different time. No forensics, a deputy in on it . . .”

“In on it?” Helen said. “Wan shot him.”

Josef nodded toward her. “You know what I mean. Like I said, it was a different time. Anyway, I still feel like Wan did the right thing.”