Chapter 35: Consolation
Riza was sitting at her tree stump table, watching as Roy Mustang and a tall lad whom the doctor said was the son of an itinerant tinker swarmed over the garden like a pair of bony locusts. The boys worked with intent industry interrupted only when the elder one said something that made them both laugh.
From his vantage point at the kitchen window, Leslie Grumman watched the children with interest. The boy was much more confident than the skittish creature he had been last year, and he looked considerably healthier, too. He was flourishing – and growing – like a weed. A spindly, black-haired weed.
Riza, on the other hand, had changed in a very different way. She was taller and thinner than Grumman remembered. Some of that was the natural loss of puppy fat as a toddler grew into a child, but that couldn't explain it all. Either Riza hadn't been eating well, or Mordred hadn't been feeding her properly.
There was a difference in her manner now that surprised and saddened the young grandfather. When he had arrived yesterday afternoon, no joyous welcome had been forthcoming. Riza had stood silently a pace behind Roy, watching Grumman with large, sombre crimson eyes until he greeted her by name and held out his arms for a hug. Even then the embrace had been a subdued, dutiful one. Worse, in place of her merry chatter was a reluctance to volunteer any information that was not solicited directly. While the major had expected some change – both because it had been more than a year since his last visit and because in recent months fate had brutalized the little family – he had not expected to find a completely different child in place of the Riza he remembered.
The one change that he did like was her hair. The socially-acceptable, prim little plaits had been shorn off, leaving a short, boyish bob of smooth gold. It was cute, practical and peppy, and gave her face a becoming elfin quality. Grumman did not subscribe to the popular notion that a woman's hair was her crowning glory. Why, his own warrant officer wore her honey-coloured tresses exactly as Riza now did, and she was a capable soldier and a damned fine woman.
And look at all the trouble long hair could cause an active girl! General Armstrong's daughter insisted on keeping her long, flowing mane despite the stringent parade regulations at the National Academy in Central. That the lass was only fourteen was disruptive enough. That she had the hair of a debutant and the fierce, magnetic charisma of a tigress had the first-year class (primarily sixteen- to eighteen-year-old boys) in chaos. Luckily, according to rumour, the child had her father's mettle, the Armstrong family stubborn streak, and her grandfather's way with a blade. Still, she could have done without the rippling waterfall of white-gold silk.
No, Grumman decided. Pert, practical haircuts were best, and Riza looked quite charming with hers.
The back door opened and the handsome lady doctor came into the lean-to with a basket of laundry on her generous hip. Grumman turned from the window and smiled at her.
"I can't thank you enough for coming," the woman said, setting down her burden and smoothing her frock. "I know it was forward of me to write to you as I did, but I'm at my wits' end.
Leslie nodded. "Forward" was a polite word for it. It was nothing short of scandalous. Grumman, however, nourished a secret passion for scandal-raising, and he admired those who did what they had to do regardless of the social niceties and consequences.
"I'm glad that you did," he said. "From the look of things, my son-in-law isn't managing very well without his better half. At least the children look well."
"You should have been here two months ago," the physician said despairingly. "I've bought them clothes since then. Mordred was furious."
Grumman twisted his face into a parody of consternation. "You bought them clothes? To wear?" he gasped, as if appalled. "How could you? What kind of a person are you?"
Greyson sighed. "You see?" she said. "You understand. Mordred... well, I'm not sure he's ever going to forgive me for that." She looked out the window. "Riza needs new shoes, too. There should be some of Davell's around here that will fit Roy, but Mordred doesn't know where, and he won't let me look. He's..."
"Pigheaded," Grumman said sagely, twisting the corner of his moustache. "Always has been. Have you known each other long?"
"As long as I can remember," said the doctor. "Our mothers were the best of friends: since we could walk we've been the same. Until recently. Since his... your... since Lian's committal Mordred has been getting more and more unreasonable. He's forgetful, short-tempered. I think..."
She hesitated, scrubbed her face with her hands, and forced herself to continue.
"I think he's in financial difficulty," she said.
Grumman felt an empathetic pang. That had been hard for her to say, and he knew why. She was an unmarried woman. Doctor or not, to make allegations about the finances of a man who was not in her immediate family was a grave breach of the rules that governed polite society. Though the last few decades had brought many advances to attitudes towards women, with the increase in female physicians, soldiers, and even alchemists, there was still an expectation that a well-bred lady had little interest even in her own economic situation – much less that of a friend; and a male friend, no less.
"I see," he said. "I'll talk to him about it. He's more likely to listen to me than he is to you: I'm family, after all."
Greyson's relief was tangible. "Thank you," she said. "If he were only handling it better, I wouldn't worry so much, but his temper has been frightfully short, and I'm concerned for the children. I know that he shouts at them a great deal now, and they won't say anything, of course, but I have a feeling that that isn't all."
Grumman looked out the window at his now sombre, silent little granddaughter. "I'm inclined to agree," he said. "Don't worry. I'll see what can be done."
discidium
Riza's grandfather came out of the house. "Dinnertime," he said, holding out his hand to the little girl.
Roy looked up from the new pea pod he had been studying. Maes shrugged and set down the trowel. "See ya later," he grunted.
"No, please join us," Major Grumman told him. "There's plenty to eat."
Roy was shocked. Maes wasn't allowed in the house – but then, Riza's grandfather had said yesterday that he would be taking care of things for a while so that Hawkeye-sensei could rest and spend time on his research. Maybe, if he said it was all right, then Maes could stay...
"Thanks!" said the older boy, grinning indolently. "I never turn down a free meal."
"What a coincidence," said Riza's grandfather. "Neither do I!"
He led the children into the house, where four places were set.
"Now, I'm not much of a cook," the man warned them, taking Riza's plate and heaping carrots onto it. There was butter on them, Roy realized, his mouth watering. They hadn't had butter since the fall. "I've been a widower for fifteen years, and I haven't improved one bit."
"Sausages!" Riza exclaimed, as her grandfather put one of the plump curls of savoury meat next to the vegetables.
The man smiled so that his moustache wiggled. "That's right, sweetpea," he said. "I bought them just for you."
"Mm-mmh!" Riza smacked her lips eagerly, waiting as the adult cut the meat for her.
"Help yourselves, boys," said Grumman. "But not too much: I bought half a dozen sticky buns for dessert, and my doctor tells me I'm not supposed to have them. Tell me, my boy, how many does that mean each of you can have?"
That was an easy question. "None, sir," Roy said. "They're too expensive."
"I tell you, they're bought and paid for and you kids had better enjoy them, or I'll be mighty cross!" the major said, glaring comically at them. "Two each, I say! Unless, of course, you'd like to save one for a mid-afternoon snack."
Maes speared his sausage and took a large bite. "So are you Mr. Hawkeye's dad, or Mrs. Hawkeye's?" he asked.
"Mrs," Grumman told him. "I'm sorry, Riza, love, but I couldn't chase down any milk this late in the day. Orange juice will have to do. I squeezed it myself, you know."
He took a pitcher from the counter and poured a pulpy, bright yellow liquid into Riza's tin mug. Then he filled ceramic cups for Roy, Maes and himself, and sat down, stretching his short legs out under the table. "Tuck in, my lad," he said to Roy. "You need to get some meat on those bones of yours. Seems to me your body's been putting all its energy in growing up instead of out."
Roy flushed. It had been a long time since anyone had remarked on his thinness, but it still brought back unpleasant memories of Mrs. Hawkeye's critical gaze as she remarked: eight years old and skinny as a stick: it's unnatural! Roy couldn't help being thin: it was hard to be plump and natural-looking when you were used to having almost nothing to eat. And lately, anyway, he had been getting taller. He agreed with Riza's grandfather that that was probably where all of his food was going these days.
"So, then, what's your name?" the soldier said. It was easy to forget that he was in the military: he was cheerful and kind, and he wasn't wearing his uniform, and he had never once grabbed Roy by the ear or shook him 'til his teeth rattled or planted a firm boot on his backside.
"Maphs Huphgff," Maes said, trying to talk around a mouthful of carrots. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and swallowed. "Maes Hughes," he repeated, more coherently. "Atcher service."
"Leslie Grumman, at yours," Riza's grandfather said politely. "Tell me, now, you're father's a tinker, is that right?"
"Best damned tinker in the Eastern province!" Maes said proudly. Then he looked at Riza and flinched sheepishly. "Sorry. Best darned tinker," he corrected.
"I'm sure he is," said Grumman. "How does your mother like the wandering life?"
"She doesn't wander much anymore," Maes said candidly. "She's six feet under in a clearing halfway between New Optain and East City."
Roy shook his head a little, wondering if there was anything that Maes wouldn't say.
"Six feet under what?" Riza asked suspiciously, mashing a forkful of carrots and scooping it onto her fork.
"It means she died, sweetpea," said the adult. "And went to a better place."
Roy wondered if he really meant that. Hawkeye-sensei had told him that "a better place" was Mrs. Hawkeye's way of saying that Davell wasn't coming back, because she believed that he was somewhere else, now. But the alchemist had also said that that was a false, misguided idea. The dead boy hadn't gone anywhere, better or otherwise, except up the hill to the graveyard. Though the child didn't know it, this explanation had his mind equating religious belief in an afterlife with Mrs. Hawkeye's madness: the alchemist had effectively laid the groundwork for passing on his modern agnosticism.
"Oh," Riza said sombrely. She looked at Maes with a new understanding in her eyes. "Were you lonesome 'til Roy came, too?" she asked.
"Naw!" Maes said. "I've got five brothers and Dad. We keep each other pretty busy."
Grumman whistled softly. "Five brothers? I wouldn't want your father's job!"
"It's Gare who keeps us in line, mostly," Maes said. "Tiath and Ira joke that he's the mother, now."
Riza shook her head. "A boy can't be a mother," she said. She looked at her grandfather. "Can he? Or is Roy my mother, now?"
"No, sweetpea, only girls can be mothers," Grumman said. "Maes only means that..." He glanced sidelong at the bespectacled boy.
"Gareth," Maes supplied.
"That his brother Gareth does a lot of the things that a mother would do."
Riza nodded. "So does Roy," she said. "He ties my pinny."
"Yes, and I see he takes care of the garden, too," the adult said a little too cheerfully, in a way that told Roy he was trying to change the subject. "That's a big responsibility. It looks like you're doing a very good job."
Roy flushed a little at the unexpected words of praise. It wasn't often that he was told he was any good at anything at all. "Thank you, sir," he said.
"It's fun," Maes put in. "I've never grown anything before. Roy says the radishes'll be ready to eat soon?"
"That's what Hawkeye-sensei told me," Roy said.
"I'll have to take a look," said Grumman. "I used to do a little gardening myself, before my last promotion. A major has too much work to do to enjoy such a time-consuming hobby."
Riza set down her fork. "Grandfather?" she said. "Is my momma in a better place, too?"
Maes grimaced a little, and Major Grumman shook his head sadly. "No, sweetpea. Your momma is just fine. She's in a special hospital in Central now, so that she can rest and get well again."
"But when is she going to get well?" Riza said, her voice wavering in a way that told Roy she was trying not to cry. "She's been gone a long, long time!"
"I know, Riza, baby," the man said gently. "But it's not as if she has the sniffles in her nose. She's very sick now, and it's going to take a while for her to get better."
"But it's been a while!" Riza cried, her voice breaking as she covered her face and sobbed into her hands. "I want my momma! I want my momma!"
The adult got up and lifted her into his arms, cuddling her close. "I know, baby. I know," he said softly, and Roy could see that there were tears in his eyes, too. "You boys finish your dinner," he said, trying to sound cheerful. "The sticky buns are in the icebox. Enjoy."
Murmuring soft, consoling words to Riza, he carried her from the room and away from the two boys, who sat in consternated silence until Maes spoke.
"Poor li'l sprog," he said gruffly. "Eli says Ira used to do that, too. Only his mother wasn't coming back."
"Don't you ever miss her? Your mother, I mean?" Roy asked. He didn't remember enough of his own to miss her, exactly: dark eyes and smooth ebony hair that smelled like saffron, no lap and an enormous belly where the baby was growing, and a thin mouth that was always turned up into a smile... or maybe a smirk. Still, he sometimes wished she was here. He didn't want parents as much as he once had, for now he had a safe place to live, and food to eat, and clothes to wear, but sometimes he had a feeling that life would be better if he had parents.
"Naw, I never met her," Maes said. "She was dead before I was born, remember? Ben cut me right out of her belly. Sometimes I wonder stuff, though, you know? Like what she liked to eat, and if her cooking was really better than Gare's, or if Tia just likes giving him the gears. Or how her voice sounded, or what she looked like. She had bright red hair, see: Dad still wears a bracelet made out of it. I wish I had a picture of her, or something, but you know how it is. They just never bothered with it. Figured she'd be around forever, I guess."
Maes shrugged his shoulders and pushed his glasses back into place. "C'mon, finish your dinner. There's a sticky bun in that ice box with your name on it!" he said.
discidium
Leslie closed the door of the room once occupied by his grandson with care, not wanting to wake the young sleeper within. Roy was dead to the world, and had apparently been so for quite some time. Riza, conversely, had been difficult to put to bed. First she had wanted story after story, and then she had begged him to sing to her, and then she had insisted that he rub her back until she drifted off to sleep. If Grumman didn't know his granddaughter well enough to be certain that she was afraid of nothing, he would have sworn that she was frightened to be left alone. Having at last settled her for the night, and checked briefly on Roy, the soldier had the most difficult task of the evening still ahead.
He could never remember which step was the bad one, so a rapport like gunfire echoed in the stairwell. He flinched apologetically, hoping that the children had not been awakened. When no sound came from above, he descended to the corridor and rapped on the door of the study.
There was no answer. Irritated, Grumman knocked again. Mordred had not deigned to make an appearance to greet him yesterday, and had already sequestered himself away by the time the soldier had risen from the parlour sofa this morning. While he didn't expect is son-in-law to roll out the red carpet to welcome him, a simple "good day" and an inquiry after Lian seemed to be in order.
When there was again no reply, Leslie jiggled the door handle. It turned with ease, but the door was locked fast. Ruefully, he spotted the array carved into the wood. Undoubtedly there was one on the other side, as well, and the alchemist had used his art to lock himself in – and the world out.
Not easily discouraged, Grumman knocked a third time. No response. So he went outside, closing the front door carefully behind him, and walked around to the study window. The shade was pulled low, but he could see the glow of firelight seeping around the edges. He felt the edge of the sill with expert fingers, and sure enough: there was a knothole. It wasn't large, but he quickly found a stick small enough to wedge in. It was a weak lever, but he managed to raise the window just far enough to get his finger under it. With a quick, fluid motion he pushed the panes of glass upward, reached inside and found the stick meant to prop it open, and dusted his hands in satisfaction. Then with a limberness that he owed to years of military discipline and the excellent physical condition that his occupation demanded, the wiry major hoisted himself onto the sill and swung his feet into his son-in-law's study.
"Leaving a house just to burgle it," he muttered to himself as he slid under the shade and looked around. "That's a first."
The room was stuffy, and piled to the rafters with books. There were shelves covered in dusty old texts, a whole rack of scrolls that looked older than the regime, heaps of journals and papers and periodicals. The fire had died away, and most of the light came from the sconces on the wall. They all bore candles: for reasons best left to the imagination, the extraordinarily gifted alchemist didn't want live gas lines in this room.
At first, Grumman didn't see Hawkeye. He was at his desk, lying with his head in his arms, and the heaps of crumpled paper and academic detritus obscured the fact that there was a person in the heavy, high-backed chair. Leslie approached, and tapped him insistently on the shoulder.
"Good evening, Mordred," he said.
The alchemist snorted, a throaty, irritated sound. "Damn you, Bella..." he mumbled, sitting up. Then his squinting eyes frowned and he pushed his overgrown hair away from his face. "What the hell are you doing here?"
With an amused grin, Leslie picked up the yellow telegram onto which the alchemist had been dribbling. He waved it under his nose. "You received this six days ago, telling you that I had received some unexpected leave and would be coming to visit my granddaughter and frighten the innards out of your local corporal," he said. "I understand that absentmindedness has a certain philosophical charm, but really, my boy, you take it to new heights."
"I haven't got time for company," the alchemist muttered.
"Maybe not, but I'm staying for ten days regardless. Don't worry: you won't even notice I'm here." Grumman pushed a pile of crumpled paper onto the floor, and perched on the corner of his son-in-law's desk. "I like Riza's new frocks: very becoming. Did you choose the cloth, or did she?"
Hawkeye glared at him. "That meddling sawbones did it," he snarled. "Self-important woman and her damned charity."
"Ah," said Leslie. "I see. Perhaps she was only trying to save you time. Anyone can see you've been busy with your research."
"Of course I'm busy!" Mordred snapped. "I'm a busy man. I have important work to see to."
"You have two children to see to, as well," Grumman commented mildly. "That must distract a great deal from your work.
"A great deal too much," Mordred agreed sourly. Then his expression changed, the hard lines vanishing as his whole face melted into frantic anxiety. "You came from Central!" he gasped. "Lian! How is Lian?"
"She's well," Leslie soothed, startled by the sudden shift of his son-in-law's emotions. "I visit her regularly, and the doctors tell me she's doing much better."
"But she isn't... she isn't healed."
The flat despair in the man's voice was almost as heartbreaking as Riza's forsaken tears. Grumman wanted to reach out to console him, but he knew that the man would never accept such a gesture. He was too proud, and too firm in his principles, and they were hardly friends: they were two men with nothing in common but their love of the same woman; his passionate and Grumman's paternal.
"No," he said. "She still doesn't always understand that Davell is dead, and on the days when she does, it's all they can do to stop her tears. She isn't well yet, not well enough to come home, anyway."
"How are they treating her? Are they taking care of her?"
"The best care they can," Grumman promised. "They're good people."
"W-what about that procedure, the one they keep billing for. Electro... something... Does it help?"
Grumman's lips tightened, but he fought to keep his face composed. How could he tell this anxious, broken man of the electrotherapy room, with its tilted slab of a bed... the straps to hold the patient in place, with wooden bronze bucklers because iron would burn... the spade-shaped piece of rubber that they shoved between clenched jaws so that the teeth would not shatter with the force of the convulsions... and the muffled screams of pain and terror... the sharp reek of urine and the whine of the generator and the orderly holding him forcibly against the wall... and afterwards, the burns on each temple, and the fetal curve of Lian's slender spine as she wept silently into her pillow... the way she trembled under the gentle touch of his hair while he stroked it as he had when she was just a child...
But the next day, she would be smiling sweetly, and talking of home and her begonias and the pretty new frock that she wanted to sew for Riza's birthday. And for a while, she would almost be herself again, lecturing him about his habits and demanding why he wouldn't shave of his ridiculous moustache.
"It helps," Grumman said. "It's only a temporary fix, but it does help."
The alchemist nodded almost spastically. "Are they feeding her properly? Does she have enough to eat? Hospitals – they don't always feed patients well."
"She's fed well."
"Plenty of fresh vegetables? Meat? Lian loves chicken: the dark meat is her favourite. Are they taking care of her?"
Grumman nodded. "I promise, she's being looked after."
"And the sheets. She can't bear dirty sheets. She can't... can't..."
Then suddenly the man was sobbing wretchedly, his back – thinner than Grumman remembered – twitching with the sundering force of his helplessness and grief. Before Leslie knew what was happening, the alchemist's head was buried against his thigh, and he was stroking the dirty hair and soothing his son-in-law as he had his granddaughter, with soft platitudes and the consolation of gentle physical contact. For a long time they remained thus, as Mordred poured his pain out in a libation from his pale eyes. When at last the fit was past, Grumman helped the exhausted man to his feet, induced him to open the door, and led him upstairs to bed.
As he stripped off Mordred's slippers and rolled him under the covers, Grumman reflected that he would have to wait until tomorrow to address his own anxieties. Ah, well. He still had ten days to get the household back in order.
He reflected wryly as he slipped from the room that this was not quite what he had enlisted for when he had opted for the undertaking of marriage.