Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

He didn't wait for a reply. He turned on his heel and marched across the foyer through an open double sliding door to the sitting room. It was a formal sitting room, furnished sometime before the War of Rebellion and unchanged since ... with one exception: over the fireplace, the oil painting, from life, of Bartholomew Fitzhugh Howell (1805-1890), who had built the house in 1850, had been replaced by an oil painting of equal size, painted from a photograph, of Eleanor Patricia Howell Frade (1898-1922), who had been both born in the house and buried from it.

Clete followed him. The old man walked to a cigar humidor on a marble-topped cherry table, opened it, and took from it a long, thin, nearly black cigar.

"Will you have a cigar, Cletus?"

"Yes, thank you."

“Would you like me to clip it for you?”

"Yes, thank you."

The old man took from the table an old-fashioned cigar cutter—something like a pair of scissors—walked to the fireplace, carefully clipped the cigar's end, let the end drop into the ashes of the fire, and then walked to Clete and handed it to him.

"You will excuse my fingers," he said.

"Certainly."

"It was cold, the radio said it was going to rain, and you always like a fire, so I asked Jean-Jacques to have the houseman lay one."

"That was very thoughtful of you," Clete said.

Jean-Jacques produced a flaming wooden match. Clete set his cigar alight while the old man repeated the end-clipping business over the fireplace with another cigar from the humidor. Jean-Jacques went to him and produced a fresh flaming match. When the old man's cigar was satisfactorily ignited, he asked,

"What may I bring you gentlemen?"

"Ask Mr. Cletus, Jean-Jacques," the old man replied. "He is the returning prodigal; we should indulge him."

"Oh, I don't see how you could call Mr. Cletus a prodigal, Mr. Howell," Jean-Jacques said.

"You have not been in contact with a certain Colonel Graham, Jean-Jacques," the old man said. "Prodigal is the word. You're familiar with the Scripture, Jean-Jacques?"

" "There is more joy in heaven ...'?"

"Precisely," the old man said. "Cletus?"

"What I really would like, J.J.—"

"I wish you would not call him that," the old man interrupted. "It's disrespectful. I've told you that."

"Mister Howell, Mister Cletus can call me anything he wants to call me, unless it's dirty."

"Not under my roof he can't," the old man said.

"Jean-Jacques, could you fix me a Sazerac?"

"I certainly can, it will be my pleasure. And Mr. Howell, what for you?"

"I'll have the same, please, Jean-Jacques."

"And will you be taking dinner here, Mr. Howell?"

"That has not been decided, Jean-Jacques," the old man said.

"Yes, Sir," the butler said, nodded his head in what could have been a bow, turned, and walked out of the room.

The old man watched him go, then turned to Clete.

"One of your men is here," he said. "The Jew. I understand there is a certain secrecy involved, and I didn't want Jean-Jacques to hear me tell you."

"His name is Ettinger, Grandfather. Staff Sergeant Ettinger. He lost most of his family to the Nazis."

If Cletus Marcus Howell sensed reproof in Clete's voice, he gave no sign.

"Then there should be no question in his mind, wouldn't you agree, about the morality of going down there and doing whatever Colonel Graham wants you to do to the Argentines?"

"The Germans killed his family, Grandfather, not the Argentines."

"The Argentines are allied, de facto if not de jure, with the Germans. Two peas from the same pod. Certainly, you must be aware of that."

Clete didn't reply.

"Anyway, Staff Sergeant Ettinger is in the Monteleone. He arrived yesterday, and telephoned. I told him you were due today or tomorrow, and would contact him. Then I called one of the Monteleones, Jerry, I think, and told him I would be obliged if he would see that Staff Sergeant Ettinger is made comfortable."

"That was gracious of you, thank you."

"Simple courtesy," the old man said. "I was going to suggest, now that you're here, that we take him to dinner. Would that be awkward? If it would, we could have him here."

"Why would it be awkward?"

"As I understand it, there is a line drawn between officers and enlisted men."

"Well, I've never paid much attention to that line. And I would guess that Ettinger will be in civilian clothing."

"We could take him to Arnaud's," the old man said. "It's right around the corner from the Monteleone, and it has a certain reputation."

In other words, unless absolutely necessary, no Jews in the house. Not even Jews who are bound for Argentina to kill Argentineans.

"Arnaud's would be fine. It's been a long time."

"When we have our drink, you can call him," the old man said. "Do I correctly infer that you are no longer wearing your uniform?''

"Yes. I have a new draft card, identifying me as someone who has been honorably discharged for physical reasons."

"Have you your uniform?"

"It's in the car. They are in the car."

"Your dress uniform among them?"

"Yes."

"And your decorations?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"I thought I would have your portrait made," the old man said. "In uniform. I thought it could be hung in the upstairs sitting room beside that of your uncle James."

"I'm not sure there would be time="

"I don't mean to sit for a portrait," the old man said impatiently. "That's unnecessary. They can work from photographs. Your mother's portrait was prepared from snapshots."

"Yes, I know."

"When you know something of your schedule, we'll make time for a photographer. It will only take half an hour or so."

"If you'd like."

Jean-Jacques returned, carrying a silver tray on which were four squat glasses, two dark with Sazeracs, two of water, and two small silver bowls holding cashews and potato chips.

Clete and the old man took the Sazeracs. Jean-Jacques set the tray down on a table.

"Just a moment, please, Jean-Jacques," the old man said. Then he turned toward the oil portrait of the pretty young woman in a ball gown hanging over the fireplace.

"If I may," Cletus Marcus Howell said, raising his glass toward the portrait. "To your mother. May her blessed, tortured soul rest in God's peace."

"Mother," Clete said, raising his glass.

"And may your father receive his just deserts here on earth," the old man added.

Clete said nothing. He sometimes felt a little disloyal that he couldn't share the old man's passionate loathing for his father. Based on his grandfather's frequent recounting, over the years, of that chapter of Howell family history, he understood the old man's hatred: He held el Coronel Frade accountable for the death of his only daughter. But Clete's mother died when he was an infant, and he had no memories of his father.

That's about to change. I'll certainly meet him in Buenos Aires. And he probably won't have horns and foul breath. But he is obviously a sonofabitch of the first water. I've never known the old man to lie. And Uncle Jim and Aunt Martha have silently condemned him as long as I can remember. Both believed, and practiced, the principle that unless you can say something nice about someone, you say nothing. Anytime I asked them about my father, they answered with evasion and a quick change of subject.

If nothing else, it should be interesting to finally see the man— how does the Bible put it?—from whose loins I have sprung.

Been spranged?

He smiled, just faintly, at his play on words.

Clete saw in the old man's eyes that he had seen the smile, and hoped it wouldn't trigger anything unpleasant, The old man looked at him intently for a moment, then turned to the butler.

"Jean-Jacques, would you please call the Monteleone and see if you can get Mr. Ettinger on the line for Mr. Cletus?"