The Dusty Wayfarer
Late that afternoon they arrived at the old fashioned house which for many years had been the Winslow home. House, outbuildings and ground covered a large lot on a quiet side street, a block or so from South Orange Grove Avenue in staid and substantial Pasadena; a city which paid no tribute, social or economic, to the more popular sections which had mushroomed up to the West.
The passing years had made little change in that old neighbourhood where houses had been built by generations disdainful of subdivision footage and superficial construction. These homes had been put up to stay, on lots large enough to insure comfort and privacy.
Rolling into the driveway, Julius got out. Fenta, somewhat recovered, held the door open for Jada, then removed the bags while Julius unlocked the front door. The Winslows entered first, Fenta following with the luggage.
‘I’ll start supper.’ said Jada. ‘Julius, take Fenta up to the little room upstairs.’
‘If it would not be imposing on your hospitality,’ said their guest with a look of wry displeasure at the rags he was wearing, ‘I should be grateful if I might be permitted to bathe, and rearrange my attire as fittingly as possible under the circumstances.’
Indeed, under the searching flood of the hall lights, he presented a sorry picture. His face was dirty and steaming, and his ragged clothing hung on his tall frame like a scarecrow’s.
‘It’ll be an hour before supper.’ said Jada. ‘Bessie doesn’t expect us until tomorrow and is visiting her sister in San Pedro. You’ll have plenty of time. I’ll look up some of Julius’ things for you. He has closets full that he’s forgotten about.’ she said glibly.
‘I trust you will not inconvenience yourself unduly on my account.’ replied Fenta courteously.
After freshening up her makeup, and a quick change of clothing… though less hasty than had she been alone with her brother… Jada raided Julius’ wardrobe and deposited a complete outfit, including grey slacks and a sport shirt, outside Fenta’s door.
Julius, with male perversity, always grumbled at her charities. Kindhearted and generous as his sister, it would have surprised and hurt him had she ever listened to him, which she never did. In fact, just before she made the foraging raid in his clothes closet, he had offered his guest shaving articles. Much to Julius’ surprise Fenta had politely declined them, saying that he never shaved. While he undoubtedly needed a bath, he certainly did not need to shave. Mulling this over, Julius took a shower, changed into comfortable clothing, and went down to the kitchen where his sister was getting supper.
‘Can you figure him out?’ he asked, perching on a kitchen stool and lighting a cigarette. ‘Math, chemistry, physics, astronomy! Merrinee, Brahl, Lazanne! He’s nuts. That’s why the mention of Pacific Colony upset him so.’
Jada, busy with her preparations for supper, didn’t’ answer for a moment, and her brother resumed argumentatively.
‘He’s certainly a person of refinement and has some education, or he knows just enough of the vocabulary to fool the unsuspecting. Maybe he escaped from the Colony. We’d better watch him.’
Jada stood near the kitchen table turning a knife over and over. At last she answered.
‘No, he couldn’t have, or he wouldn’t let us bring him back to Pasadena. Spadra’s too close. He may be unbalanced, but he’s certainly harmless. Let’s not make up our minds about him yet. He may be in real trouble. Something must have gone wrong, Julius, for no common tramp could talk, look and act the way he does.’
‘Oh, all right, you old softy,’ said Julius, kissing her affectionately. ‘If there were another one like you floating around anywhere, perhaps I mightn’t be a crusty old bachelor.’
‘Just you dare bring any strange hussy here.’ countered his sister, her gaiety returning, ‘and I’ll scratch her eyes out.’
‘As to my importing strange hussies, my dear,’ observed her brother with a twinkle in his eye, ‘how about good looking tramps? You’re rather a connoisseur yourself, what?’
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ flared Jada. ‘You’d be the first to do just what I did, and you know it!’
‘Hmm, methinks the lady doth protest too much.’ countered Julius.
Jada’s scathing retort was interrupted by Fenta’s step on the stair.
‘Come in, Fenta.’ she called. ‘We’re going to have supper in the alcove.’
Many as had been the surprises in connection with their strange guest, neither was in the least prepared for the sight which met their gaze as Fenta walked in the kitchen. Gone was the bowed and tired pilgrim whose wretched appearance had first attracted their sympathy on the Santa Susanna Pass. Gone was the dusty and bedraggled tramp, who but a short hour ago had left them to wash up for supper. In his place stood the most extraordinary being either had ever seen, or could have imagined. A commanding presence, noble bearing and beauty of countenance were but the setting for an overpowering inner beauty and illumination, which shone from his eyes and seemed to envelope him as in a halo.
His features were fine and delicately chiseled, yet without a trace of effeminacy. One felt a virile and powerful personality borne out by a magnificently proportioned body. Every movement was the epitome of grace, yet suggested prodigious reserves of muscular power and nervous energy. His skin was a golden, caramel colour, and in texture could be likened only to fine porcelain.
His blonde hair was wavy, silken, and lustrous. Although cut fairly close to his shapely head, one felt that it should have been worn long in keeping with a costume very different from the one he wore.
His eyes, however, were his main beauty. They illuminated his face and cast a radiance about him which was almost tangible. Penetrating yet tranquil, the benevolent serenity of their gaze seemed to reflect the vastness of some mighty ocean. Taken part by part or as a whole, he was a paralysingly beautiful creature, and the Winslows found themselves awed into silence.
Julius was the first to recover, and with a bluntness born of many years of painstaking observation of facts and phenomena, walked over to get a closer look at this strange apparition.
‘Sweet suffering Jehovah!’ he exclaimed… he usually became mildly profane when anything disturbed the tranquility of his scholarly existence… ‘Where on the face of God’s green Earth did you come from? Gabriel must have sounded his horn and I never even heard it!’
Fenta was by no means unaware of the impression he was making. One of his great attractions was the naive pleasure he took in looking his best. He appeared to regard his body as a vehicle for the expression of physical beauty, without a trace of vanity.
Jada abruptly suggested sitting down to dinner. Her brother began at once on a steaming dish of soup.
Fenta, with hands in his lap, looked at the soup before him and then slowly closed his eyes. The Winslows watched on with curiosity, Julius delaying his next spoonful.
‘Why, good heaven!’ exclaimed Jada. ‘I thought you were hungry!’
Fenta opened his eyes and looked at Jada.
‘And so I am.’ he replied. “Very hungry. I have had nothing to eat since yesterday except some oranges I was permitted to pick up in a roadside grove.’
‘Why, you poor soul.’ said Jada sympathetically. ‘How have you managed to keep going? But what’s wrong with the soup?’
‘Nothing at all.’ replied Fenta. ‘I was taking a moment to acknowledge with gratitude the generosity with which you have placed this bounty before me.’
Jada blushed.
‘A religious practice?’ asked Julius.
‘It is customary for my people.’ replied Fenta.
‘Is that an Oriental custom?’ probed Julius. ‘I thought you looked Oriental. But surely a platinum blonde like you did not come from the Orient.’
‘No, I am not from the Orient.’ Fenta replied, but vouchsafed no further information regarding his origin. That was one point the Winslows learned to avoid. Under no circumstances could even the most adroit question elicit any information. Even the most round about allusion to his origin was met with an apologetic silence, that from mere civility they dropped the subject. Upon any other matter concerning himself, his family, or his people, he would talk with utmost freedom.
What particularly aroused their curiosity and interest, was that he never evaded embarrassing questions; instead he became silent and his mobile countenance fully expressed his chagrin.
For that matter, he never evaded any question or coloured any of his statements. It was not long before the Winslows came to the astounding realisation that here was a being as incapable of expressing, acting, or living any form of lie, as an equation is incapable of expressing an imbalance between its sides. This was seemingly no conscious achievement based on principle; untruth, even an innocent lie, simply was not in him.
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. After they had finished, Fenta quietly removed the dishes and put things to rights. He seldom asked if he might help, but seemed to find the right thing to do at the right moment. In a few weeks the Winslows were to wonder how they ever managed without him.
‘Fenta,’ said Jada after they were seated in the living room, ‘won’t you tell us about your work, or the studies you mentioned? There must be something you can talk about. We want to help you if we can, you know.’ she added.
‘Indeed, I fully appreciate your kindness and good intentions.’ replied their guest with genuine gratitude. ‘Unfortunately my work is of a nature which I fear you would not understand. I trust you will consider it no discourtesy if I refrain from discussing it. As for my studies,’ he went on, brightening perceptibly, ‘I have devoted considerable time to your brother’s science, this being required in my… well, you might call it my profession.’
‘How interesting.’ replied Julius dryly. ‘I hope it didn’t interfere with your physical, electrical, chemical and… oh yes… astronomical researches.’
‘Not in the least.’ replied Fenta suavely. ‘It supplemented them.’ The ghost of a smile played about the corners of his mouth.
‘You don’t say.’ returned his host, his exasperation rising once more. ‘And with what department of mathematics did you concern yourself, if I may ask? All of them?’
‘Surely not all.’ laughed Fenta. ‘However I have a fair knowledge of such conceptions as I have so far encountered here. You see, I had the good fortune some time ago to secure temporary employment in Los Angeles, washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant on First Street, and when I was not occupied with washing dishes I used to visit your excellent library on Fifth Street. The scientific section dealing with your mathematics, physics and chemistry, was very comprehensive… at least the librarian told me… and I had the opportunity to acquaint myself with the general scope of knowledge in these fields.’
‘Just a minute.’ broke in Julius, bristling like a porcupine. ‘Am I to infer that during your off hours, covering a period of temporary employment, you did all this?!’
In alarm, Jada tried to sidetrack the conversation. But Julius silenced her with an impatient gesture, and glaring at their guest, awaited an answer with ominous expectancy.
Fenta was apparently not in the least put out by this frontal attack.
‘Yes indeed.’ he replied in an even voice, ignoring Julius’ rising exasperation. Fenta’s uncanny ability to convey the exact state of his feelings by his facial expressions, disarmed Julius. Somewhere in the back of his consciousness, he sensed that Fenta was stating a fact.
Jada was concerned with finding some way to stem the rising tide of Julius’s displeasure. But Julius kept his temper, much to Jada’s relief, although he was determined to prick this ridiculous bubble before it grew any larger. A simple test of such a ludicrous assertion was in order.
‘Perhaps, then, a helping hand for this lowly mathematician, if you will?’ Julius jibed. ‘Performance is far more valuable than mere words, you will agree? Would you be at all interested in working out a little problem upon which I’ve been engaged for some months past; the solution to which has so far eluded me?’
‘It would be a great pleasure to be of assistance to you in any way.’ answered their guest humbly.
Feeling that he was leading a lamb to the slaughter and consequently just a little ashamed of himself, particularly when he met Jada’s reproving glance, he brought out paper and pencil, and began rapidly to go through an argument in the projectional geometry dealing with the path of light, reflected outward from a series of rotating mirrors. The problem, quite solvable from an engineering standpoint, nevertheless presented considerable difficulty from the point of view of rigorous analysis.
For some time Fenta listened quietly, watching the geometrical construction building up under Julius’ pencil. Finally, interrupting the flow of trigonometrical expressions, he said,
‘I believe, Dr Winslow, that I see your difficulty without you having to pursue the argument further. It is evident that the method you employed will describe, within any given degree of accuracy, the location of any point or series of points through which the beam will pass. What other axes of reference can you employ?’ asked Fenta.
‘I beg your…’ Julius asked quietly. He looked at the diagrams he had constructed.
‘Can you see how selecting a set of coordinates can complicate the equation of the curve, thereby obscuring its simple nature?’ asked Fenta gently. Julius stared at the geometry, seemingly fixated on the solution he was invested in. ‘You oriented your reference frame through the angle beta.’
Julius nodded.
‘What happens, for example, if you perform this orientation through the angle theta?’ asked Fenta.
Julius began the construction once again using Fenta’s hint. A stream of symbols poured over the page, along with new diagrams. Julius beamed, seemingly on the verge of an epiphany.
Fenta followed Julius’ constructions and just before the final realisation…
‘You can see plainly that the equation of the curve…’ began Fenta.
‘Shows it to be an ellipse.’ Julius gasped.
Julius was paralysed. For several minutes he gazed silently at the sheet. Jada was amused by the realisation that for the first time in his life, Julius was having to take his own medicine. Now had come the hour of his intellectual Waterloo, and at the hands of a tramp she had picked up off the highway!
Julius’ reaction, when he had sufficiently recovered to show one, was that of the thoroughbred and true man of science. Double checking that the equation of the curve checked with the standard form and was unquestionably the result he had been unable to get, despite several month’s study of the problem, he arose from his chair and held out his hand. Beaming with gratification, Fenta took the proffered clasp nearly breaking Julius’ bones in an iron grip.
‘See here, Fenta,’ said Julius, ‘I don’t know who the devil you are or where the blazes you come from, and I care less. You can be a ph.D. from Brahl, Lazanne, Gehenna or anywhere else. All I know is that it has taken you less than five minutes to look over, under, all around and through a problem that took me three hours to state, let alone work out, and which I’ve been unable to solve except by laborious approximations. I’ve tried unsuccessfully for months, to employ the method of rigorous analysis which you have just so brilliantly exposed by asking the correct and much needed questions, and that is all I ever need to know about you.
From now on, you’re my welcome guest and honoured colleague, and I shall consider it a privilege to have the benefit of your knowledge and experience in certain other problems and theories upon which I am working. If this is agreeable to you we’ll get at them in the morning.’
‘Dr. Winslow,’ said Fenta, still squeezing Julius’ hand in a grip his host was at great pains to bear without flinching, ‘I can only tell you that for two terrible years I have lived for this moment. You are the first person who has given me one word of encouragement or recognition.
At times I have been met with charity and kindness… had it not been so I should not be here… but not once have I been regarded as other than a madman or a liar.
This day my struggles have been rewarded.’
Here he relaxed the hold he had maintained upon Julius’s hand, and came rigidly to attention, his right hand over his heart, and his left hand pointing down stiffly to the floor.
###
Later that evening Jada went softly to Julius’ room, knocked and entered.
‘Julius,’ she said excitedly, ‘what does it mean? That problem not only stumped you, but old Professor Hodges too, didn’t it?’
‘It did indeed,’ said Julius. He pushed a chair towards her and she took it absentmindedly, perched on its edge. ‘And now you pick up a tramp off the highway, and it takes him about thirty seconds to solve it. I’ll be…’
‘Don’t call him a tramp!’ commanded Jada. ‘I don’t care what else he is, at least he isn’t that. He certainly has earned…’
‘Earned his right to my respect?’ Julius cut in. “If that’s what you were going to say, I’ll have to sound him out as thoroughly as I can, of course, but I’ll see to it that he gets as good a start as I can give him.’
‘Of course you will, dear.’ Jada said warmly. “And we’ll start by getting him a new outfit tomorrow. But now, let’s go to bed.’
She kissed him fondly… just a bit too fondly, Julius reflected ruefully, before drifting off to sleep.
© 2020
You can go to Chapter Three here…
https://medium.com/@nelipnc/the-dusty-wayfarer-ch-3-c9b98f340b8d
And you can begin at Chapter One here…
