Flower of Heaven Page 2

  “Great idea, Dick,” chimed Father McNeil. “I’ve got to get back to the children anyway for a while, and then I want to check in on the clinic and see how the sisters are doing.” The nuns who prepared enough food for about two hundred people served dinner nightly at 7:00 p.m. Meals consisted mostly of the basic staples, rice and vegetables, the rice coming from supplies from the States and the vegetables, for the most part, grown in the fields nearby. Father McNeil was proud of what the mission had accomplished with the agricultural tools they had, allowing the natives to grow their own food and even selling some of it to hotels and restaurants in the city.

  To allow time for meal preparation, the clinic closed at 4:00 p.m., enough time for the sisters to rest before beginning the chores to get dinner ready. “We’ll talk some more at dinner, Mr. Bumpus,” shouted Father McNeil as he headed out the kitchen.

  Father Dick, however, was not finished with Jack Bumpus.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Is there some explanation you’d care to share with me, Jack, on that little speech you just gave Father McNeil?” Father Dick posed with a very stern look of disgust on his face. “I don’t really know who you are and I get the distinct feeling that what you’re about to tell me isn’t going to help me know you any better.”

  “Trust me, Dick,” echoed Jack, “I’ll tell you more later but not in front of Father McNeil. I’ll explain it to you tonight but I’d like to check this place out and, maybe, talk to the locals first.” With that, Jack got up from his chair and waited, with luggage in hand, for Father Dick to lead the way.

  Jack could obviously see doubt written all over Father Dick’s face as they entered the bedroom area of the priest’s quarters. Father Dick was silent through this brief period other than to point the room out to Jack, an eight-by-ten-foot partitioned area next to his own similar room opposite Father McNeil’s slightly larger area. The room was plain: a twin bed, a bureau, a chair under a small-screened window and a table to be used as a closet or nightstand.

  “That’s Jack, alright, biggest bullshit artist I’ve ever met,” Jim Howard blurted, as if somewhat disgusted and partly with a smile on his face. “I can imagine how he tried to talk his way out of that one with you, Father,” Jim continued, “but, what does a visit to Haiti, ten years ago, and Jack Bumpus have to do with me?”

  “I’m getting to that, bear with me,” pleaded Father Dick who, by now, was trying to speed up the story to make his point before Jim Howard had a chance to get too uneasy about the whole conversation. The housekeeper appeared at the parlor door with a tray of cookies and a pot of fresh coffee, which she merely placed on a coffee table between Jim and Father Dick and quietly left the room, sliding the divider doors closed behind her as she left.

  “I’m in trouble, Dick,” Jack Bumpus had told Father Dick. “Our group had to leave Cuba in a hurry three days ago and the Cuban authorities tracked us to Haiti. My other associates and I decided to split up and go it alone; we figured we had a better shot at making it back to the States alone and we wouldn’t draw as much attention from the local authorities that way. The Cubans merely buy off the locals here for information, and they’d turn their own mothers over to them for the right price.”

  “I don’t have a passport, so I’ve got to lay low for a couple of days to try to figure out what I’m going to do. I’ll stay out of your hair and you won’t even know I’m here, Dick, just play along with me on this with Father McNeil. You’re a tourist and you’ll be out of Haiti in a couple of days yourself. Father McNeil lives here. If they find out I stayed here and he knew what I did for a living, they’d get it out of him. This way, all he knows is that I’m a guy working for a textile company here on a business trip.”

  Father Dick was angry, his face and neck were as red as they could be, and it took all he had not to jump up and scream at this man who had used him and had now jeopardized what his long-time friend had worked for in Haiti for years by harboring a man wanted by the authorities without even knowing it.

  “I do what I have to in my business, Dick, sometimes I hurt people I don’t mean to, but I always try to even it out, even if it takes me a long time to do it; I make it up to people who get caught up in my world, even when they don’t ask for it,” said Jack, almost apologizing for what he’d already done but, somehow in the same breath, implying that he’d do it again if he had to.

  “I expect you gone from here, Mr. Bumpus,” Father Dick emphasized using the formality of his sudden terminated relationship with his new acquaintance, “and the sooner, the better. Father McNeil may begin to like you and I don’t think I want that to happen.”

  “Dick, come quick, I need your help!” Father Dick could hear from outside the bedroom. As he headed through the kitchen area, there was a frantic Father McNeil, rushing in to announce an outbreak of fever at a nearby village. He had to leave at once with one of the nuns from the clinic to attend to the sick. Father Dick offered to go with him and, while they both gathered a few things needed for the short trip, Jack Bumpus asked if there was anything he could do to help.

  “No, no, Mr. Bumpus, your kindness for the mission is more than enough. We should be back in a day or so. In the meantime, please make yourself as comfortable as possible. My house is your house,” uttered Father McNeil as he hurried out the door with Father Dick at his heels. The last glimpse from Father Dick toward Jack Bumpus was self-explanatory.

  “Indeed, Mr. Bumpus, you’ve done enough.”

  Two days later, the priests returned to the mission, both exhausted yet relieved that the fever in the village was under control. As a precaution, Father McNeil had asked a nun to stay behind for a few more days to tend to any new cases that might emerge. Medical supplies were adequate to handle this type of fever, common in countries with tropical climates and symptomatic of malaria, although curable with proper treatment and injections.

  As he had wished, Father Dick had a letter waiting for him from Jack Bumpus, who was nowhere to be found. According to one of the nuns at the clinic, Jack had left the following morning after the two priests had departed for the stricken village. “Dear Dick,” the note read, “Sorry for the trouble I may have caused you and Father McNeil. Wish I could stay to explain more but I just thought of a way to get off this island and I can’t pass it up. I got your address from your luggage tags and I’ll contact you soon, if all goes well.” The note was simply signed Jack and was followed by a postscript, “The $100 is for the mission as I promised. Please destroy this note after you’ve read it.”

  For the remainder of the week, there was little other excitement at the mission and, as Father Dick relaxed on the screened-in porch one evening, he couldn’t help but think about the strange incident with Jack Bumpus just several days earlier. It would have been nice to know more about this man who was out of Father Dick’s life almost as quickly as he had entered it.

  “Better get packed before you turn in, Dick,” said Father McNeil as he joined Father Dick with a glass of brandy in each hand. “I’ve got to take you to the airport early tomorrow. You know how bad the travel schedules are at the airport, as much as I’d love for you to stay longer. If you should hear from Mr. Bumpus when you get back, do me a favor and send me his address, will you? I’d like to thank him for his donation to the mission, and he didn’t even stay more than one night. Nice fellow that Mr. Bumpus.”

  The next evening Father Dick was back in New England and at St. Matthew’s. He had the unusual feeling during the return flight home that he would hear from Jack Bumpus again. Whether he wanted to or not, he really wasn’t sure.

  “I heard from Jack Bumpus three weeks after my return from Haiti,” Father Dick related to Jim who, by now, was content in sitting back and listening to this account involving an old comrade.

  Father Dick had received a letter from Bumpus with a passport included; Father McNeil’s passport. Jack had apparently removed Father McNeil’s picture from the passport and had replaced it with his own, dressed in a priest’s bla
ck suit. As the letter continued, Father McNeil’s black suit had been damaged by Bumpus accidentally and was in no condition to be returned. Enclosed was $200 in cash to cover the cost of replacing the suit. He asked Father Dick to mail the passport to Father McNeil with the money and to offer his apologies the best way he saw fit.

  The letter was postmarked from San Diego with a post office box number only. Jack Bumpus closed by telling Father Dick that if he could repay the favor someday, he would.

  “That’s how I know Jack Bumpus, Mr. Howard,” said Father Dick, “and now, ten years later, I needed a favor and I wrote to the same box number and he gave me your name. He really thinks highly of you, Mr. Howard. Were the two of you close in your military days?”

  “Close? Nobody got too close to Jack, Father,” said Jim shaking his head. “Jack believed that if you didn’t get too close to somebody in combat, you wouldn’t become emotional if something happened to one of your men. He was strictly by the book. A job had to be done and he wouldn’t let any personal feelings sway his decision when he had to send guys out on a mission back in ‘Nam.”

  “Then why did he recommend that I contact you?” Father Dick questioned.

  “Because he saved my skin over there and he knows that I owe him my life, that’s why,” Jim countered. “The fact that I can speak five languages, spent my early Army career in the Military Police and a couple of years as a private investigator before this job, I’m sure that’s all got a lot to do with it also, Father, whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  Jim recollected how the two men had been on a patrol one day in the delta. Major Bumpus made it a practice of moving his men slowly and cautiously when on missions in the jungle area. He knew all too well the booby traps and primitive weaponry used by the Vietcong. Jack had been one of the few officers who had signed on for a second tour of duty in Vietnam. A rare breed, a man more interested in what he was fighting for than most others assigned to him, but Jack was about to make a mistake. He was about to get involved with one of his men. It’s not the kind of thing you can get ready for, it sort of just happens and you have to address it at the moment as best you can.

  No Vietcong had been sighted that day and by 1500 hours, Bumpus gave word to start heading back to camp. As if acting on instinct, Jack suddenly yanked Corporal Jim Howard by the collar and threw him fiercely to the ground. With the flick of his rifle point, Jack flipped a thin wire across the trail two feet in front of Howard. Like a catapult, a rope sprung up from the ground and whipped across the path, slamming hard against a wall of wooden spikes carefully concealed in the brush. As quick as he had thrown Howard down, Jack picked him up and motioned him to move on. Jim Howard was frozen in his tracks and just kept staring at the wall of spikes that had his name written all over it. Jack Bumpus stayed at Howard’s side for the remainder of the patrol duty until they were returned to friendly lines.

  “You got to watch these trails, Son,” Bumpus had told him, “the VCs always like to sucker you in on those neat little trails.” From that moment on, until he returned to the States, Jim Howard stuck to Jack Bumpus in other combat encounters, and virtually stood by his side. As much as he tried to avoid it, Jack got to know Jim Howard in spite of his reluctance to get too close to any of his men. Jim was different, he had told him when he and Jim said goodbye to each other on Jim’s last day in Vietnam. Jim had taken orders well and had performed his military duties with intelligence, Jack had informed him as they shook hands near the landing pad as the helicopter approached for one last time, as far as Jim was concerned.

  Jim Howard’s mind was far away from Rhode Island now, Father Dick noticed, and the daze that came over him as he related the life-saving tale and the ensuing friendship that developed. Father Dick couldn’t help but visualize how frightening the whole experience of the Vietnam War must have been.

  “What can I do for you, Father,” Jim snapped as if coming out of a hypnotic trance, “Jack’s calling in his chit. I wonder how come he isn’t taking care of this himself.”

  Father Dick told Jim that the letter from Jack Bumpus only said that he was unable to personally help because of an illness, which prevented him from making the trip to New England. There was no mention of the nature or extent of the illness but that one other person he could think of, Jim Howard, who, coincidentally, was now in the area, could only address the seriousness of Father Dick’s request.

  “This must be big, Father, what did you do, steal money from the poor box?” Jim sarcastically replied, knowing that his smart remarks were out of character for him. It was as if the association with Jack Bumpus brought out his crude military past laden with this type of talk. “I’m sorry, Father, a bad joke,” quickly shouted Howard, realizing the serious look that was still so evident on Father Dick’s face.

  Father Dick got up from his chair, stared out the parlor window and, with one hand clasping the crucifix around his neck, turned to Jim Howard.

  “I need your help, Mr. Howard. I need someone to help me find my two sons.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Françoise Jeannette Dupont was born June 12, 1932 in Paris, France to Louis and Jacqueline Dupont. The fifth child and only girl, Françoise’s birth brought temporary joy to a household struggling to make ends meet in a city beset with poor living and working conditions.

  In 1932, Paris was beginning to feel the effects of the world economic depression that started to spread across the globe in 1929 and 1930. Unemployment statistics grew daily and lack of work became a serious problem. There were over six million inhabitants in and around Paris, with the population in the city increasing rapidly from the immigration of Russians, Poles, and Jews driven out by the disturbances present in Eastern Europe. This influx to Paris put additional strain on an already bleak job market.

  Louis Dupont was employed as a desk clerk on the night shift at the Hotel Colbert on Rue D’hôtel Colbert. He had been associated with the hotel since he was eighteen years old and held various jobs, first as a janitor and then a bellboy, until becoming a desk clerk at the age of twenty-five. Now, in his early forties, Louis was good at his job, so good that the hotel manager very seldom needed anyone else to assist Louis on his shift. Besides that, Louis had never missed a day of work due to illness and was considered one of the most dependable workers in the hotel. The Hotel Colbert was an old Parisian establishment near the cathedral of Notre Dame and had been in operation for nearly one hundred years. Tradition abounded and the old-fashioned way of catering to the hotel’s clientele kept it in competition with many newer hotels cropping up in the city. Louis would never disgrace the hotel in any way and was liked and respected by almost all the other employees as a loyal person and friend.

  After his shift ended, usually around 8:00 a.m., Louis would stop at the Bon Marche, a food shop, to check out the daily morning bargains from yesterday’s leftovers. It was a long walk for Louis, nearly an hour by the time he had finished at the local shop, to the apartment he rented on the third floor in the Issy section of Paris. He was always warmly greeted by his wife Jacqueline who had herself been up since 5:00 a.m. to feed her pride and joy and only girl, Françoise. She almost looked content in spite of the grueling task of caring for four other growing children, all boys, ranging from sixteen to four, and all four years apart. At thirty-six years old, Jacqueline looked more like fifty. She would await Louis’s arrival each morning to sit with him and chat about the upcoming day’s activities while he ate his breakfast. The sixteen-year-old was already up and gone to work. A carpenter’s helper, Marcel Dupont had been lucky enough to find work on the Exposition grounds near home. The Exposition was to be the site of the 1937 World’s Fair and, although five years away, work there was available if you had the skills. Young Marcel had worked for local carpenters for nearly four years and the Exposition job came when local carpentry work was at a virtual standstill because of the poor economy.

  Jacqueline would do laundry for the Broussais Hospital, a short distance from home, from 9:00
a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and return home in time to greet the other three boys on their return from school. Louis would watch over Françoise during that time while catching as much sleep as he could. At 2:00 p.m. Louis would be awakened by the gentle touch of his returning wife, who found these few moments each day to be alone with Louis. This was the time when they made love, in the afternoon, the only time they were truly alone to talk of the better days to come when they would have saved enough money to move to a better place, or even to buy their own home outside the city. Fortunately for them, the French government had frozen rents because of the poor times. Every extra franc they earned would be set aside for their dream of better days. But for now, Louis and Jacqueline were content on making ends meet and on using some of the extra money to cater to the newest member of the Dupont family.

  At 4:00 p.m. each day, Louis would get ready to leave for his waiter’s job at the Café Royal, a job he liked because of the tips he received. Between 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., Louis could make as much in tips as what he made for a whole night in wages at the hotel. If the café had more business during the day, he would have left the desk clerk’s job long ago. As it was, dining in Paris between 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. was very common and the Café Royal’s location between the Hotel-de-Ville and the Hotel-de-Cluny was ideal.

  Every Saturday and Sunday, Louis would spend with Françoise, displaying his daughter, like he was wearing a new suit, to his friends and neighbors, as he proudly paraded with her in his arms. The other boys were too busy playing with boys of their own ages in the neighborhood to notice the attention their father gave to Françoise, not that it would have mattered to Louis. This was his pride and joy, his first daughter, and perhaps, his only daughter.

  As Françoise grew, Louis would take her to different sections of Paris each weekend, carefully explaining the history of each landmark he pointed out to her. By the time Françoise was six years old, she could identify sites in Paris that her mother did not even know existed. It was quite clear to Louis that this child had a flair for the geography and history of the city and was the first to rise on Saturday so she was ready for the trips throughout the city with her father.