Chapter 15: First Interlude

Even though we had been gone for only the regulatory five minutes, the girls knew that things had changed and were impatient to hear details. Alfred demurred.

"It is better you should not know about this at all. Yes, we do not have to worry any longer. There are certain aspects of what we did that will demand observation for some time to come. No, Lexa, we did not kill anybody, though some have died through their own actions. You know we agreed on that beforehand and we kept our word. Things took care of themselves, you could say.

"Please, dears, we may have been gone for some minutes only but had a very bad morning of it. Is there some food left?"

Of course, they came up with what Wilbur called a medium heavy-duty brunch and marvelled at how much three people could eat only a short while after breakfast.

Reluctantly Sabreena and Lexa accepted that we would not tell about our exploits. They had listened to their radio and heard the same asinine comments, guessed that this was our doing but could not figure out how it could have been done. Alfred assured them once again that all worries were now over, finally so.

"Please, forget all about it. Let's rather find a way to approach Elise, convince her to trust us, to heal her and make her part of us once more. Any ideas?"

It soon became obvious that we had a Catch 22 situation. I knew what was wrong with Elise, but could not approach her. They would most probably be accepted, but would not dare suggest healing her. In the end I came up with what at least might be a plan.

"Lexa, Alfred, I have to ask a big favour of you both. Could you come visiting with us? Early in the new year? We would fix a time where Elise will be at home, she will have to open the door for you because I will make certain to be absent. A forced surprise, so to speak, but with you there, Lexa, I cannot think but that she will be agreeable to be the good host to you and, who knows, the surprise in itself may be sufficient to remove the blockade. If not, she should at least be open to talks and we can take it from there. I am certain that it will work. It has to, I see no other way.

"Sorry, Sabreena, Wilbur, but I think that the four of you would overwhelm her, frighten her even. You know that she loves you both, we just looked at the proofs."

"You are right, Bert. Wilbur and I will stay well at the back of this. I know that Lexa and Elise have some special rapport with each other. If this doesn't work, nothing will. But we do expect both of you here, and often, as soon as everything is set to rights.

"If only to get Wilbur and his mill going," Sabreena added with a huge grin.

As soon as Alfred and Lexa had considered my request and agreed to it immediately, Wilbur wanted to hear more about mills and paper and plants and fibres.

"No, Wilbur, now is not the time to talk about technical stuff. I know of a few books you can read and the net will take you a long way towards your goal. It has all been done before and is well documented. We will look into this tomorrow if you insist, sift carefully through your treasure trove in the back to see what you have got to work with and take it from there. Just be patient.

"I would like to get to know your valley better, could we all go for a walk? You to be tourist guides in turn? And talk about travelling dates and such? Yes? So let's go."

Alfred knew about this strange walking habit since he had often questioned me on how we lived, how we did things, what was important to us and what not and was all for it. Lexa liked it as well. The other two took some insistent convincing that walking about the landscape in damp, cold weather was not some outlandish kind of perversion. I had to tell Wilbur that this was a good chance to get an idea of how much of his special grass was there for him to harvest. He surrendered quickly and was the first to be outside, tapping his feet. Eighty-odd years old, more than ninety considering all the time he spent in other phases, and as excitable as a youngster.

"Sir, may I draw your attention to the fact that your silver top is still uncovered. Shouldn't you be wearing your turban? Without the tag this time?"

Wilbur was unflustered. He reached into the wide pocket of his parka and pulled out a chequered dishcloth that he proceeded to wind around his head till he looked like a low-budget copy of Yassir Arafat, now deceased.

"Salaam, Bert ben Nemsi efendi. This towel will be warmer than the turban and is much easier to wind up. It is also multi-purpose since it kept my drink safe. See?"

Damn it, this notorious delinquent must have read Karl May in his youth and yes, he did have a hip flask wrapped in the towel that he stowed lovingly in one of the large inner pockets of his parka.

We were ready and quite a merry bunch, walking along the streamlet with Alfred checking out his favourite fishing spots once more while Lexa seemed to enjoy this unusual pastime the most. Her face glowed from the fresh air, her eyes sparkled.

"Bert, I will not believe that Elise cannot be healed again. Just be very gentle about it. But if she could be here now, I am almost certain that it would do the trick. I never fully realised what a treasure this valley is. Look, there, that old solitary pine. There is a large nest in it. There are so many birds here, deer as well as lots of smaller animals. This place is like a sanctuary and it should go far towards mending anything those despicable crooks messed up. Will you both come here, soon, please?"

"Lexa, we will certainly come once everything is put right. But the renewed healing, the mending will have to be done on the island and I think only you and Alfred can convince her to agree to it. And I also think that it will be a good thing if you will go to the island with her and Alfred, I to follow afterwards if she will have me.

"I think that the second week in January should be best. Elise only works a couple of days each week, it will be easy for her to adjust her schedule. I should be out of sight, at least for the first day or two to give you people a chance to get close to her. What do you think, Alfred, can you do it?"

"Of course, Bert, no question. Lexa is free of commitments now, since she decided not to go back to university. After our experiences, the law does not seem to be the answer..."

"Yes, Bert," Lexa interrupted. "Laws have been with us from the darkest ages. Yet we don't seem to make any progress. Instead of becoming simpler and more humane it gets more complicated and more corrupted every day. I have decided to find something more useful. I don't quite know what yet, but teaching appeals to me very much, especially working with younger children."

I could well see Lexa as a teacher, a good one; she had the compassion and a certain stubbornness to go with it. And she would have to live at least near a decent town. No schools here at all.

We had by now reached the end of the valley, the hillsides closing in more and more with bare wet rock showing in patches. When I asked whether they had found the source of the stream yet, all four gave me funny looks.

"Bert, I did not suspect this outdoor interest in you. You keep surprising me. Why would we go looking for the source? The stream is here, that's sufficient to know, surely?" Wilbur asked. "Besides, work on the mill took up all of my days and some long, long nights too."

"Well, Wilbur, that may be so. But all my life I wished to be able to own a larger tract of land, a farm, a mill even, any place at all where the neighbours would not be pressing in on me. And I would have explored it extensively, as I did with the island. I don't like machines I don't understand or could not repair and I must be familiar with my surroundings. You will have to know whether the stream is perennial, what the water volume is through the course of the year and you would want to be certain that the source of your future happiness will not be endangered by landslides, flash floods or other disasters. If it is, then you have to provide for the means to divert the water away from your mill."

Wilbur immediately saw my point but eyed the steep mountainsides with deep distrust.

"You are right, Bert, but I will survey it by air. I am not built for strenuous exercise, I am built for comfort! – What the hell?"

Sabreena had carried on walking towards the forest's edge and had suddenly disappeared in the undergrowth to the sounds of shattering timber and crumbling earth.

"Hey, guys, come here. You won't believe your eyes."

We looked at each other for a second, fearing yet more aggravation, and ran towards the source of the voice. An extremely bedraggled but apparently unhurt Sabreena sat about two metres below ground on what looked suspiciously like a lot of rubbish over an oaken barrel.

"Sabreena, love, please do tell me that this barrel is empty. I feel like Bileam's ass has kicked me in the guts – I took a vow today that I would cut down on my drinking a bit. That's why I only carry this tiny flask, see?"

But Sabreena told him otherwise. "I don't know what is inside those barrels, silly; it might be crude oil for all I care. But there is rows and stacks of them, they look solid and this one sounds it and I can't even try to count them with all this filth lying about, besides, it's too dark in here."

Lexa giggled, Alfred broke out hee-hawing and I had to wipe tears of mirth away. Wilbur and his tiny flasks.

"Come on, Wilbur, let's share a drink and a look what's inside those barrels. But I bet you anything you should care to mention that you were right with your first suspicion. They did make shine here too. Let's hope it's drinkable."

After taking a good-sized swig off Wilbur's lifesaver, Alfred jumped down into the basement.

"Are you all right, Sabreena? You disappeared off this earth rather fast."

"Thanks for asking, Alfred, I am fine. Much like Bert the other day, a few bumps to my dignity only. – But see here, this isn't shine if it is whiskey at all. This barrel is bonded, that means all duties on it have been paid. They didn't bond crude oil, did they now?"

Sure as hell, all the barrels Alfred could get at looked fine and had the seals unbroken. Another surprise was the fact that the storeroom, it must have been that once, was quite dry and clean throughout, the mess Sabreena had caused by crashing through the ceiling being the only obvious damage.

"Maybe, love, we should go to the island for a spell. Practice in the bio-gym to take some weight off you," Wilbur added with a moist chuckle, barely lifting his mouth off the bottle's neck.

Snarling, Sabreena grabbed about in the rubbish with her right hand, clutched at something blindly and threw it up at Wilbur, connecting squarely with his forehead. To be fair, old Wilbur wavered but did not go down and even managed to hold on to his precious flask.

"Dear, dear, I did not mean to..."

"Shut up, you blabbering fool, and help me out of this hole. I want to get at you some more."

Reluctantly Wilbur stepped closer and extended a hand. Sabreena stood up on the cask and allowed herself to be pulled up and out with Alfred assisting heavily from beneath. I suppose they could also have searched for a door...

Instead of clobbering Wilbur, however, she stepped up to him and kissed his swelling bruise.

"See what you make me do. When will you ever learn?"

"Hey, guys, this is really interesting. Sabreena hit Wilbur with some kind of ledger, probably the stock book. Isn't this treasure hunt exciting?"

Wilbur of course disagreed, rubbing his smarting forehead, but was very keen to find out what this was all about. The ledger told us that we were indeed looking at a very large hoard of hooch. Sour mash of course if anything was still left in those barrels after decennia of evaporation.

"Stand back all, I will get this barrel out and home. We will try our luck there."

"How can you..."

Lexa obviously was not completely up to date with what heavy matter could achieve and Alfred never went anywhere without his gadget. He soon had the cask standing on safe ground where we admired the damn thing, knocking along its sides to estimate how much it still held. Something clicked in my old brain while I looked back over the way to the mill.

"Listen, aren't those some maize stalks standing over there and there, corn you call it hereabouts, I think?"

"Yeah, Bert, you find leftover corn stalks all over the country, corn has been growing wild for ages, since lots of farms were left to decay. So what?"

"Hell, Wilbur, this will be a very tough act for you to follow. Those boys were extremely clever. The used the corn to make whiskey of course, but from the husks and the leaves they must have made some of their paper. The alfalfa was most probably added to make different grades and sorts. Perhaps we can find something in the ledger to tell us about that side of their operation as well. Now you will have to go and explore, no excuses left."

Going back to the mill was quick. Lexa clutched the ledger, Wilbur clutched Sabreena and Alfred had moved the barrel to the mill already. It was waiting for us in the forecourt.

Alfred did his magic once more and we had the barrel lying on its side on the kitchen table, bung up, fixed in position by makeshift wedges. There was no stopping Wilbur now. From the depths of Sabreena's kitchen cupboards he came up with a forceps-like contraption and set to work on the bung. When it came off with a soft plop he stuck his nose into the opening, inhaling deeply. He had to make a show of it, letting his eyeballs rotate as if in delirium. Next he dipped a long-handled ladle, brought it back up swiftly and decanted its contents into a large tumbler. The liquid, surprisingly clear, had a dark golden-brown tint to it, the aroma almost overpowering.

A more careful soul might have taken the tiniest of sips to gauge the fluid. Not Wilbur's way. He gave us all a deep, soul-searching glance – the conscientious researcher offering his life unselfishly on the altar of pure science – and took a hefty swig. Wilbur over, almost out and nearly down.