A Favorite Son Read online

  I have a catch in my throat as I tell her, “I’m so glad you came.”

  Bathsheba lifts her eyes and looks straight at me.

  “Really,” she says, in her most velvety tone. “You mean, I had a choice in this matter?”

  Her question stumps me at first, because how can I admit that she is right, so right in asking it? Instead I just shrug.

  “You do have a choice,” I say at last. “And I hope you’ll make it.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” says Bathsheba. “With that ape, I mean, that bodyguard of yours knocking so loudly, so rudely, and for such a long time at my door, I had my doubts about it.”

  “You can go, if you wish,” I stress, with a reluctant tone. “But I wish you wouldn’t. Stay with me, tonight.”

  Bathsheba picks the stem of the red cherry, and takes little bites out of it. In her pleasure she hums, and smacks her lips. Then she raises the goblet to my lips, letting me take in the aroma. I do, and then I take a long gulp.

  With a slight sway of her hips Bathsheba walks past me, knowing I cannot take my eyes off of her. She wanders about my chamber as if she were the one owning it.

  “You’ve been brought here by my order,” I whisper to her, across the space. “But I am the one held captive.”

  Excerpt: Apart from Love

  “Stop right there,” I tell him. “It makes no sense to me! Why would she want to leave you right then, at the turning point of her life, when you could be there, by her side, fighting to hold her back, away from the brink?”

  “This,” says my father, “is something I, too, do not understand. Up to that point Natasha has changed, quietly, and grown so much stronger than me, to the point that, no matter how hard I tried, there was no pleasing her. Then she got word, somehow, about my moment of weakness: my fling, this little, one-night thing—that was all it was, back then—with Anita.”

  I look at him as if to say, Who cares about your moment of weakness? So far it has lasted ten years.

  He looks away, saying, “Your mom, she was mad at me. She flared up in anger. It was painful. More painful than I had expected. Was she too proud to forgive me? Did she expect me to fight harder for her, so that she may take me back someday? There was no way to know. My God, she let me feel I was done, I was no longer needed.”

  “But, dad,” I say, “did she believe she could face it alone, whatever it was? Was she willing to risk everything, and for what? For no better reason than pride?”

  “God,” he says. “I wish I knew.”

  “Enough,” I say. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “That’s just the thing, Ben. Natasha kept quiet, all these years, and so did I, for her sake. Gradually, her memory problems got worse and yet, no one knew: not our friends, not even her students, because she was so afraid, afraid to lose them. Teaching, for her, became more than a livelihood: it was the last token of her independence.”

  “You should have told me, dad.”

  “Well, how could I? There was no one here to whom I could talk.”

  “So, since then, has mom been diagnosed?”

  “Well, son, it took a long time,” he says, in a tired tone of voice, “Four years after she had left me, that was when they found out, at long last. And you, Ben, you were in Europe then, off to your medical studies, or something, with a light suitcase, and a heart heavy with anger, who knows why.”

  I want to say, Because I had to go, to be some place else. Because I had no family, with you cheating and mom throwing her wedding ring away. That’s why. But without waiting for an explanation, my father moves on to say, “I just could not do it, could not bring myself to open up, to tell you about it.”

  Suddenly his voice trembles, and he wraps his arms around me, which makes me unsure if this is to lean on me—or perhaps, to protect me.

  “Ben,” he says, “this disease, unfortunately, it can strike in the prime of life. Natasha was forty-six when, after years of knowing that something was going terribly wrong, and not being able to put a finger on it, they finally diagnosed her.”

  “And,” I hesitate to ask, “does it have a name?”

  There is a sound by the entrance door, then a knock, once, twice, three times—but neither one of us moves. There is a somber expression on his face. His gaze is locked into mine, and something passes between us which I cannot express in words.

  Meanwhile, between one knock and another there is a smaller sound: the click of the clock. Under the glass crystal, the black hand moves around the dial, from one minute mark to the next. It advances with a measured beat, the beat of loss, life, fear—until at long last, my father takes a long breath, and allows himself to say, “The doctors, they call it Early onset Familial Alzheimer’s disease.”

  Then he passes by me on his way to open the door; which gives me a moment to think of mom.

  I picture her staring at the black-and-white image of her brain, not quite understanding what they are telling her.

  The doctors, they point out the overall loss of brain tissue, the enlargement of the ventricles, the abnormal clusters between nerve cells, some of which are already dying, shrouded eerily by a net of frayed, twisted strands. They tell her about the shriveling of the cortex, which controls brain functions such as remembering and planning.

  And that is the moment when in a flash, mom can see clearly, in all shades of gray blooming there, on that image, how it happens, how her past and her future are slowly, irreversibly being wiped away—until she is a woman, forgotten.

  Excerpt: Twisted

  He turns to me with a sly look. To my surprise, his smile—even with those sharp fangs—is quite endearing.

  “Job’s wife, I presume? Hallelujah! I have been expecting you for quite a long while,” says Satan. His voice is sweet. He must have sung in a choir in his youth, because in some ways he sounds as pious as my husband. “Shame, shame, shame on you,” he wags his finger. “You sure made me wait, didn’t you...”

  And without allowing time for an answer, he brings a magnifying glass to his bloodshot eye. Enlarged, his pupil is clearly horizontal and slit-shaped.

  Which makes me feel quite at home with him, because so are the pupils of the goats in the herds we used to own.

  Meanwhile, Satan unfolds a piece of paper and runs his finger through some names listed there. Then, with a gleam of satisfaction he marks a checkbox there, right in the middle of the crinkled page. At once, a whiff of smoke whirls in the air.

  Satan blows off a few specks of charred paper, folds the thing and tucks it into his breast pocket, somewhere in his wool. Cashmere, I ask myself? Really? In this heat?

  Back home, when I would count my gold coins, this was something I craved with a passion... It would keep me warm during the long winter nights...

  Then, without even bothering to look at me, Satan says, “I swear, madam, you look lovely tonight.”

  For a moment I am grateful that my husband is among the living. Or so I think. Nowadays, influenced by the elders, he regards swearing as a mortal sin, as bad as cursing. He even plugs his ears, for no better reason than to avoid hearing it. But if you ask me, I swear: without a bit of blasphemy, language would utterly dull, and fit for nothing but endless prayer. Sigh.

  Strangely, Satan does not frighten me that much anymore. And so, swaying on my hip bones, I strut out of the cave in his direction. I feel an odd urge to fondle his horns. Along the path toward him I make sure to suck in my belly, because in the company of a gentleman, even a corpse is entitled to look her best.

  Books by Uviart

  My Own Voice

  (Volume I of Still Life with Memories)

  978-0984993215

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Audible US,

  Audible UK, iTunes

  The White Piano

  (Volume II of Still Life with Memories)

  978-1517049447

  Paperbac
k: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Audible US,

  Audible UK, iTunes

  The Music of Us

  (Volume III of Still Life with Memories)

  978-0-9849932-9-1

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK

  Audible US, Audible UK

  Apart from Love

  (Volume I and II of Still Life with Memories, woven together)

  978-0984993208

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK

  Audible US, Audible UK

  The David Chronicles

  (Volume I, II, and III)

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Rise to Power

  (Volume I of The David Chronicles)

  978-0-9849932-4-6

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,

  Audible US, Audible UK

  A Peek at Bathsheba

  (Volume II of The David Chronicles)

  978-0-9849932-7-7

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,

  Audible US, Audible UK

  The Edge of Revolt

  (Volume III of The David Chronicles)

  978-0-9849932-8-4

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  A Favorite Son

  978-0-9849932-5-3

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,

  Audible US, Audible UK

  Twisted

  978-0984993260

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,

  Audible US, Audible UK

  Home

  978-09849932-3-9

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK,

  Audible US, Audible UK

  Children’s Books by Uviart

  Jess and Wiggle

  978-1494920968

  Paperback: Amazon

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords

  Now I Am Paper

  978-1494919429

  Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble

  Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords