A Separate Country by Robert Hicks Page B

cousin as always, probably about our disappointing grandchildren. I wondered if my mother had felt the same way when she took the big paw of Duncan Hennen.
Get me away,
that’s what I thought.
    He watched me walk toward him, and when I came close he struggled to his feet, pressing hard on his cane. I didn’t know then that he had lost a leg.
    “Thank you,” he said. Those were the first words between us.
    “For what?”
    “For being kind. It’s not common, you know.”
    “How do you know I’m being kind?” I sat down at the other end of the settee and swept the gathered folds of my pink dress close to me. We sat pressed against our ends of the settee, as if each thought the other contagious.
    “Because the woman over there, the one staring with her mouth dropped open, she looks like you. The one you were standing behind. She watched you come over here, and I don’t think you saw this, but she took a couple steps. To stop you. If you’re here to make a joke of me, then she’s not in on the joke, and if I’m not missing my mark, she appears to be exactly the type of person who would love a joke on a cripple. So you’re not here to amuse your friends. Also, you’re looking me in the eye, and kind people do that.”
    I was. But God, his eyes! They were not the blue you see in the eyes of men. They were wet and deep and clear, the blue of the sky reflected in a clear creek. There were clouds in them too. I should be forgiven for looking him in the eye, though it was not demure or proper.
    “I am not making a joke of you, you’re right. I’m not sure why I would, what is there to have fun about with you? Are you famous?”
    He could only move one of his arms properly. The other hung at his side, bent permanently. He draped his good arm over the back of the settee and leaned toward me. Now the eyes were darker blue. They changed shade, I swear it!
    “Not famous enough, obviously.”
    That arm was powerful, his chest was broad, his face was long. And that beard, that silly old beard. I thought it made him look old, like an old billy goat. I could not see his mouth, only the mustache moving. He was a man, not like the fops. He was a foreign creature and mesmerizing. I forgot about my cousin.
    “But you should not assume I’m being kind, either.”
    “I choose to assume it anyway.”
    “I am not kind.”
    “I assume it because otherwise there would be no hope for this party, and because I want you to be kind. To me, if that’s not too forward.”
    I heard a shout from the entrance to the ballroom, the scrape and clang of men with canes and swords, but it was soon washed away in the ocean roar of the blood rushing to the tips of my ears and, I assumed, the tops of my cheeks. I could feel the heat there.
Good Lord,
I thought
, who is this man?
    “And your name, sir? I require the names of the men to whom I extend that sort of charity.” I was trying to parry, but my wit had fled me. It was good that he did not appear to hear me. He had stood again, looking toward the door.
    “Please excuse me, Miss Hennen, I shall return in a moment.”
    He knew my name. Of course he did. He was not a creature of this world. I watched him limp quickly to the door, where a man in a uniform, a Federal officer, was trying to gain entrance. His way had been barred by two young men, one of whom I knew had fought in the late war. Swords were half unsheathed when John got there.
    I didn’t hear what he said. But I could see that when he spoke all three of them listened intently. His face flushed and looked angry, but he kept his voice too low for anyone else to hear. Some of the dancers stopped to watch, or to join in, but when he looked up at them stone-eyed they beat a retreat and spun around the dance floor again, looking glad to be out of his way. The three who had been on the point of a fight straightened while he talked, and sheathed their swords. They looked down like little boys caught fooling with Papa’s guns. He