Chapter Six

THE REFUGEE

The war’s end did not appreciably change everyday life on Kirkwell. The year closed without the expected arrival of Rowowan soldiers to garrison the island. There were plenty of reasons for this apparent neglect. For one thing, the Rowowans had to divert troops to crush sporadic resistance in the southern wastelands and Ethosia, quell riots in their eastern provinces, and squash tribal unrest in the far north. To complicate matters, internal dissention wracked the Rowowan imperial council. Council members brandished captured Allerian government documents as they accused each other of wartime collusion with the enemy. The resulting paralysis and discord slowed Rowowan efforts to incorporate Alleria into its empire. As a result, for most Kirkwellians life continued along familiar patterns. The local sales tax provided funds for the city’s government to operate. The police maintained law and order, the courts dispensed justice, and city workers collected garbage and filled potholes. The hospital, school, and library functioned. Shops, stores, and factories remained open. Churches and civic organizations tended to the needy and displaced. There were certainly some inconveniences. Many goods remained in short supply because it was difficult, though not impossible, to conduct business in the region. Mail and telegraph services were unpredictable. Most of these challenges, though, were nothing new and could be accommodated. The iron law of supply and demand held true even in this political vacuum. Although people realized on an intellectual level that this bizarre yet comparatively benign state of limbo would not last forever, many hoped against hope that it would.

The winter’s first big storm blew across Kirkwell soon after the new year, blanketing the island under more than a foot of snow. Roy Czezarchek’s alarm clock went off just as the last flakes fell from the sky and the clouds gave way. He lived alone in a drafty little row house near the center of the city. He drank a hot cup of tea to warm himself up while watching the remaining flurries dance in the wind in front of the streetlights across the road. When he was done he bundled up and plunged into the frozen darkness to walk the half mile to his bookstore near the docks. The streets were deserted and all was quiet. The powdery and untouched snow sparkled in the moonlight until he crunched it beneath his boots. It was so cold that he had trouble breathing, but he kept his head down and his gloved hands deep in his coat pockets as he moved rapidly along the sidewalks. As soon as he unlocked his shop he retrieved a shovel to sweep his storefront clear. Then he turned on the lights, fired up the furnace, and brewed another cup of tea before starting on his day’s checklist.

Roy was not from Kirkwell. He was not even Allerian. He was actually born in Ethosia, the principality over which Alleria and Rowowa went to war. Two years earlier he had literally washed ashore at Kirkwell after a Rowowan submarine torpedoed the merchant ship on which he was serving. Fortunately, he arrived before the big wave of refugees at the end of the conflict exhausted the local population’s goodwill toward displaced people. An old man whose son had died in the war befriended Roy, took him in, and bequeathed him his row house after he succumbed to tuberculosis. Roy initially secured work as a shipping clerk, but quit after a few months to open up a small bookstore that catered to blue collar workers and his fellow Ethosians. He labored hard to make it a success. He scoured the region to procure the kinds of books, newspapers, and journals his lower class clientele wanted. The owner of the adjacent bakery realized that their mutual customers bought more when they could sit and enjoy their daily newspaper and croissants, so he and Roy set up chairs and tables in the empty space between their shops. Because of these efforts, Roy’s store turned a small profit, but doing so required a tremendous amount of time and energy.

Roy led a lonely life. To be sure, he attended Kirkwell’s Apostolic Church regularly and joined the island’s business association, but he never fit in. Although people were invariably pleasant, there remained a barrier that prevented him from acquiring friends. Roy attributed this to a combination of their xenophobia and his personality. Until the war, most Kirkwellians had never ventured much beyond the Ladle Archipelago, so it was hardly surprising that they had difficulty understanding and accepting people from different cultures. And Roy was not an easy man to know. Quiet and wary, he rarely initiated personal conversations. His pessimistic view of human nature prevented him from trusting others easily. Few saw his wry sense of humor, sensitivity, and kindness. He missed Ethosia, especially in the spring when the scent of wild onions filled the air. His loneliness and homesickness, though, did not depress him. Unlike most Ethosians, he was safe, had food in his belly, clothes on his back, and a roof over his head. In a world torn apart by war and suffering, there was much to be said for these basic blessings.

Roy tried to be grateful for all God had given him, but he longed for female companionship. Not only the physical aspect, but emotional intimacy as well. It would, he often thought, be nice to talk with someone about his day when he returned home. He especially missed the intoxication of infatuation – the anticipation, the wondering, the newness and discovery, and the excitement. He supposed it was akin to an addict’s craving for a drug. The problem was that he had never been good at meeting women. Rejection deeply embarrassed him, and he had seen plenty of it when he was younger. He looked instead for a woman to provide an opening, an expression of interest, some hint of welcome. Such opportunities, though, had been few and far between since he reached Kirkwell. Although the island contained plenty of unattached women, few frequented his bookstore, and hardly any of those engaged him in conversation. Even so, he reminded himself that he only needed to attract one woman’s attention, so he kept watching and waiting for her to arrive.

As things turned out, she appeared soon after the new year. One morning a pretty young woman entered his store to browse his small poetry section. Roy noticed her immediately, but refrained from approaching her. After several minutes, though, she walked over to him and asked if he could procure the works of an obscure Valgoran poet. Maybe it was the glint in her eye or lilt in her laugh, but it seemed like something more than his usual interaction with a customer. He was instantly drawn to her short black hair, petite frame, and bright blue eyes. After he promised to see what he could do, she agreed to return at the end of next week. Roy could not stop thinking about her over the next few days. He wondered if there really was something special about her or if he was simply attracted to her because she showed interest in him. Either way, the infatuation provided a welcome break to the wintertime blues. He daydreamed about her constantly as he went about his daily drudgery. He had the book for her when she returned, as well as a story of its procurement to keep her in his shop. She seemed happy to chat, and stopped by almost every day the next week to pick up a newspaper for her father. Each time their conversations grew longer and more flirtatious. Finally, he mustered the courage to ask her to lunch. She smiled and responded, “It’s not as difficult to get me to go out with you as you seem to think.”

Roy may have had trouble meeting women, but he had one particular gift that went a long way toward compensating for that shortcoming. He had a knack for getting them to reveal their innermost secrets, hopes, fears, and desires. He did not believe that there was anything extraordinary or special about this talent. It was simply a matter of asking the right questions – personal, but not excessively so; at least not at first – and listening attentively at the answers. Roy had learned as a child that people love talking about themselves; it was the one subject upon which they could expound with authority and at length. When he was younger and his hormones were stronger, he found this ability enormously frustrating because the emotional intimacy it created did not lead to the physical intimacy he craved. Instead, confiding women to whom he was attracted rewarded him with friendship, not sex. As a result, he often wondered whether women really valued the emotional over the physical because they were so free with the former and chary with the latter. At least with him they were. Over the years he had become more sanguine about such things and was inclined to look dispassionately at them. However, his conclusion that the outcomes of such intimacies depended on the woman, the man, and the situation brought little clarity to his efforts to understand sexual relationships.

Roy quickly discovered that there was nothing subtle about Anna Mullins. Although she was several years younger than him and had spent her life in and around Kirkwell, her self-confidence and wide circle of friends made her seem more worldly and sophisticated. She worked in an ammunition factory during most of the war, but by the time she walked into Roy’s bookstore she was a secretary at the cannery. Unbeknownst to Roy, she lived caddy-corner from him in another row house just down the hill that she had inherited from her father years earlier. Indeed, she had made up the story about buying a newspaper for him to justify frequenting Roy’s shop. Like everyone else her age, she scarcely remembered peacetime. Years of watching Kirkwell’s men disappear into the army and then reappear months or years later on the casualty lists gave her a devil-may-care attitude toward life. She was a bawdy, outgoing, and fun-loving woman with a complicated romantic past. She enjoyed Kirkwell’s limited night life and dreamed of moving to glamorous Emerald City. The problem was that she spent money as rapidly as she earned it, so she was unable to accumulate the funds necessary to leave Kirkwell. She and Roy shared an interest in poetry, Ethosian food, and people. She appreciated Roy’s willingness to listen with a half smile to her anecdotes. She was particularly attracted to Roy’s simplicity and emotional stability. She hoped that these traits would help keep her sufficiently grounded so she could make the sacrifices necessary to escape the backwater island once and for all.

After so many years alone, Roy was thrilled to meet and spend time with someone. But although he liked Anna and appreciated her company, there was something about their budding relationship that bothered him, something that did not sit quite right. He was unsure whether the problem was on her or his end – or a bit of each. She loved to talk and gossip, and was an endless source of amusing stories. Roy did not mind loquacious women, but she expressed little interest in his background, beliefs, and values. He rationalized that maybe her live-for-now lifestyle precluded curiosity about the past and future. Even so, he sometimes suspected that he was merely a placeholder to her, or a means to an end. On the other hand, maybe he was unwilling to give himself over to her because of his innate cautiousness. He realized that his infatuation would eventually fade. When that happened, he wondered if he would be willing or able to make the commitment that defines true love. Mulling these things over, he concluded that any difficulties between them would manifest themselves sooner or later. When and until they did, he may as well enjoy what he had.