The Peripatetic Philosopher shares more of "Devlin":

THE DEVLIN CHILDREN

JAMES R. FISHER, JR.

© December 31, 2016

Reference:

This is another excerpt of the novel “DEVLIN,” which will be available on Kindle in the first quarter 2017.  Dirk Devlin, who is facilitating the formation of a new specialty chemical complex, is an often absent father and family man while his children are experiencing difficulty in acclimating to a new culture and country.  

The Devlin gardener has been murdered, a Bantu with whom Dirk Devlin has had a warm relationship, and with whom the American claimed represented the best in South Africa.  You get a sense of this in this introduction of the Devlin children.

*     *     *

While commotion grew in the Devlin household with the tension between the parents breaking into periodic outbursts followed dramatically by the murder of the Devlin’s gardener, Robbie, Rosie and Ruthie remained focused otherwise in the midst of the school year.  

Transitioning from American schools, it meant that they were now in an additional semester with the American spring leading to South Africa’s winter. Being constantly in school didn’t increase their happiness.  Rickie, being too young for school, was fascinated listening to his siblings discuss and complain about now being in school year around.

Ruthie and Rosie were enrolled in St. Teresa’s Catholic Convent School and Academy.  They wore uniforms of heavy coarse material with vertical black and gray striped jackets with the school’s crest over the left jacket pocket, along with a white shirt and black tie, black sweater, and skirt that touched the knees, and calf length black socks and black patent leather shoes.  Robbie wore the same uniform only with shorts to his middle thighs. 

St. Theresa’s was a series of tall gray somber buildings in the style of European Gothic architecture with the Roman Catholic Church and Convent School of the same rococo baroque style.  Missionary Dominican nuns from Ireland were the girls’ no nonsense teachers.

Robbie was enrolled at the King Edward VII School in Houghton, which was a community just outside Rosebank.  It had the status and decorum of Great Britain’s public schools and was well known in Johannesburg for its academics and athletics.  Several South African Springbok rugby players had graduated from the school including the internationally famous golfer, Gary Player.

Ruthie, who was tall for her age was automatically promoted to the next grade, as she represented an embarrassment to children her own age as well as to some of the nuns.  Only seven, she was already more than five feet tall.  It was clear school officials didn’t think her passport was accurate until they met her parents. 

Robbie, on the other hand, already nine was small for his age and nearly a head shorter than his sister, Ruthie.  He was given the lead in the American play, “Oklahoma” because he had the American accent.  

Devlin never saw the play because he was on the road when it was staged.  In fact, he never attended any school functions after the initial orientation, as his work took him across the country or to meetings during scheduled school affairs. 

*     *     *

Rosie in particular could not get used to dressing and sitting down to a formal dinner cooked by Gabriel, and served by him and Asabi with their hands in white-gloves.  Nor did she like the fact that her mommy sat at the far end of the long dining table with her father at the opposite end with the two sisters on one side and the two brothers on the other side, putting everyone worlds apart and making meals formal and therefore not much fun.  But that was not her major complaint.

“Why does Gabriel serve us those little potatoes every meal?” she asked her mother.

“Because they’re good for you.”

“Then why does he have to put them in our lunch, too?”

“In your lunch?” her mother looked at her husband.  “Do you know anything about this?”

Devlin shrugged his shoulders, and asked.  “Honey, what is wrong with the potatoes?”

“Daddy, he makes them into chips, but when it comes time to eat them at school they’re soggy.”

“I like them,” said Ruthie, “I’m too hungry at lunchtime to worry about them being soggy.”

“But is Rosie right?  Are they soggy?”

Ruthie touched her sister’s arm.  “Yes, they are soggy and Rosie ends up giving them to me.”

“Sarah, I think you should have a word with Gabriel about this,” Devlin said, “or better yet, show him how to make shoestring potatoes.”

Not happy with the big bastard passing the buck, she replied sarcastically, “Yes sire.  Leave it to mother to solve.” 

Devlin waited for a smile, but none creased her lips.

*     *     *

The children weren’t very nice to Josiah.  It was mainly because they didn’t know him, and weren’t used to being around dark colored people.  They called him “Shadrack,” and often made fun of him as he worked in the garden in his big sombrero.   It was unfortunate because Josiah could see they loved his garden, especially the roses, and would have shown them what he did to make them grow if they had been of a mind to learn. 

Devlin mentioned this to Sarah but she cringed at the suggestion.  “I don’t want my children to get too familiar with black people.  Why would I want them to fraternize with a Negro?”

The children heard rumors from classmates that Bantus were aborigines.  They didn’t know what that meant but thought it must be bad.  They were also told that Bantus ate food with their hands.  Ruthie didn’t see where that was necessarily bad.  “We eat hamburgers with our hands, slide food under our forks, and we see other white people in restaurants eating fish and chips with their hands.  Are we all aborigines, too?”  Ruthie never took anything at face value because someone had said it was so.

The children would wander beyond the gate of the estate to watch Bantu women passing by carrying the laundry of their employers on their heads.  Even little Rickie found this fascinating.  “Look, mommy, look at the ladies?”

When Devlin came back one trip from Cape Town, Rosie tried to demonstrate to her father how women carried a load of laundry on their heads, and forgot there were glasses in the bundle with shards of glass splintering across the floor as the bundle toppled off her head.  Fortunately, she wasn’t cut.

Asabi was a favorite of both of the girls.  They thought she was terribly pretty, and loved for her to read Dr. Seuss books to them.

One day Ruthie came home with her face so red that Robbie asked her what had happened.  “Kids at school bully Rosie because she is pudgy and wears glasses.  She was playing marbles with some girls, and won.  This red headed fat girl stole Rosie’s marbles, then pulled her by her braids and knocked her against the soda machine.  She also stole Rosie’s lunch money.  When Rosie told me about this, I went looking for the girl, found her and beat the crap out of her.  I told her if she ever touched my little sister again I’d sit on her head until she puked.

“The red head went to Sister Superior and told her what I had done, not what she had done. That was the first time I got my hands slapped with a ruler in front of my class.  After that, Rosie and I walked together at lunchtime holding hands to let everyone know we were sisters.”

Ruthie was not only tall for her age, but seemed to reflect the maturity and skepticism far beyond her young years.  Every Friday all the girls in each class were compelled to go to confession in the convent church.  Although only seven, she couldn’t see the point of the routine.  So, for two weeks she had hidden between buildings while everyone was going to confession, then broke into the line when her class was returning to school. 

She didn’t like entering a little box called a confessional, or looking at a man with bad breath through a lattice window, where he proceeded to talk in some gibberish that she was told was Latin, and wait for her to confess her sins. 

The priest would probe and ask her embarrassing questions, questions no one else had ever asked her, including her own parents, such as did she touch herself, did she touch other people in their private parts, did she lie, cheat, steal or swear.  She would say, no, and the priest would say, you should say, “No Father,” and so she said “No Father” to every question he asked her, only to have the priest ask her if she thought that she was a saint. 

She had no idea what he meant by saint, but decided to say “No Father” to that as well, which got her off the hook with three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.  

But after that, she avoided the whole ordeal, that is, until caught by a nun from another class who saw her come out from between two buildings.  She was punished with the ruler across her knuckles for that as well.

Rosie listened to her complain about the discovery, but she told no one else.  Whatever Ruthie told Rosie was safe because she adored her older sister.  Bad and these acts were, it was even worse when she attempted to cheat on a health test.  Ruthie thought for certain it would get back to her parents.  


She didn’t know the answers, and girls were circulating a cheat sheet in the girls’ restroom.  The girls put the answers under their felt hats.  Ruthie’s hat fell off when she bent down to pull up her stockings with the answers falling right at her feet in the clear sight of the nun teacher. 

Her knuckles were beaten blue with a ruler for that.  It stung so much that Ruthie peed her pants right in front of the entire class, while she held back her tears.  Nothing had ever happened to her before that was more humiliating then to feel pee running down her legs with snickering across the classroom like braying springbok. 

If this were not enough, she was the only left handed person in the entire class with all the ink wells on each desk on the left side of the desk as the desks were designed for only right handed students.  How did the nuns handle the problem?  They attempted to force Ruthie to become a right-handed person.  When she would try to sneak writing left handed, the nun teacher would again slap her left hand with a ruler. 

One day Ruthie took the ruler from the nun, who was at least two inches shorter than she was, and proceeded to hit the nun across the back of the nun’s knuckles in front of the whole class.  The nun took the ruler from her and slapped her in the face, neck and shoulders with it until Ruthie was finally reduced to tears.

As outrageous as Ruthie’s behavior, or as draconian as her constant discipline, the Devlin parents were never privy to any of this.  Moreover, there were no suspensions or disciplinary procedures directed against Ruthie or any other children of high-ranking foreign executives.  


Why?  It was quite simply because these international corporations carried the mother lode of expenses of the operation and upkeep of such schools.  Meanwhile, the faculty of St. Theresa’s were quite confident the children wouldn’t want their parents to know of their high jinx in school. 

Consequently, Sarah and Dirk Devlin had no knowledge of this abusive treatment, not even from their children.

*     *     *

Robbie went to a public school in the tradition of Great Britain’s private public schools.  He had a tough time being accepted because he was small but cocky and a good talker, and would egg the bigger boys on only to make more trouble for himself.  He received similar treatment to that of Rosie, but did not have a big brother or sister to defend him.  Again, none of this ever reached beyond the knowledge of the siblings themselves. 

With their mother in a state of high hysteria a good bit of the time, and their father practically never home, the three siblings gravitated to a form of deviancy bordering on if not juvenile delinquency at home.

On one occasion, they set Josiah’s tool shed on fire, and then laughed from the sanctuary of the house as they watched the gardener frantically attempt to put the fire out and save his tools, plants, chemicals and fertilizers. 


The Devlin children had no idea that the tool shed could go up like a tinder box for the stored fertilizers, exploding like a bomb and possibly killing the gardener and several others while destroying the main buildings on the estate.  Josiah never reported this to anyone, including to master Devlin.

When they were bored with nothing to do, they would make mud balls, and launch them over the seven-foot wall of the estate at passing Bantu natives.  Rosie would act as look out telling them when someone was coming down the road. 

Robbie and a friend from school climbed up a ladder and threw firecrackers down the chimney of Josiah’s house while construction workers were working inside.  Fortunately, the firecrackers failed to ignite.    

Delinquency wasn’t natural to Robbie.  He got good grades in school.  Although physically small, he had a sense that he was the eldest sibling and took care of his brother and sisters, listening to them, keeping their confidences, and suggesting what they should and shouldn’t do.  The shouldn’ts included not telling mom and dad. 

One day little Rickie saw the gardener put on a plastic suit and a net over his head with a canister over his shoulder and walk to a tree and spray something into the tree.  Later Rickie walked over and saw hundreds of dead bees on the ground.  He scooped them up and put them in a bucket and set them on fire, believing he was making honey until his mother caught him and spanked his bottom for playing with matches.

Being in a strange society with no real friends they bounded together as siblings and learned to watch each other’s back. 

Only nine, Robbie was already a gifted athlete even though frail and small.  There was music in his body, which is typical of exceptional athletes who hone their instincts to do what others cannot imagine doing as their muscles respond to intuitive commands.  Athletic intelligence is as complicated and complex as cerebral intelligence and equally as impressive. 

Devlin would come home and take Robbie to the Rosebank Golf & Tennis Club, which was nearby, and volley with him for an hour or more.  Robbie wasn’t but four-two but he could handle a tennis racket with skill and had already learned to use the power of his opponent’s speed against him.  Others in the tennis complex would stop what they were doing to watch this father and son volley with clear evidence that the son had superior skill to that of his father. 

*     *     *

The children had no experience with death.  When Josiah was murdered, they weren’t informed but they saw Asabi crying, and Gabriel whispering to their mother.  What was more confusing to them was how the death seemed to change their father.  They had never seen him with such a long face, not seeming to hear or see them when they tried to get his attention.  He was no longer interested in playing tennis with Robbie.  It seemed that when he was home he wasn’t there, and when he was gone he no longer called to see how they were doing. 

This prompted Ruthie to ask, “Why are you so sad about Shadrack?  He was just our gardener.”  He put her on his lap, looked into her beautiful blue eyes, and asked Rosie to crawl up on his lap, too.  Rosie brightened and then leaped on top of Ruthie.  Once the two girls were settled, he asked Robbie and Rickie to come over.  They did. 

“I’m going to tell you a little story about life.  Let us call it the life story and fulfillment of our greatest wish, a wish that only we know about, a secret we have never shared with anyone.  We carry this life story, which is our greatest wish, wherever we go, and know that it is there although no one knows that this life story even exists.”

“Is this a true story?” asked Rosie.

“I’ll let you decide,” Devlin said.  “You could call it a ‘made up’ story, but made up stories can be true if we think they are true.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, daddy,” said Ruthie.  “How can something made up be true when it is made up like stories we read in school?”

“Okay, can we agree that we can learn something from a made up story?”

Robbie said, “Yes, like Oklahoma is a made up musical but I think it is true about the people it describes, is that what you mean?”

“Yes, Robbie, that is what I mean.”  He looked at his children.  “Are we in agreement on this?”  They nodded.

“Now, let us say the fulfillment of a wish is to have a garden, and to have the freedom to attend that garden as you like without interference.”

“Like Shadrack’s garden, is that what you mean, daddy?” asked Ruthie.

“Yes, like Josiah’s garden.  I think we can say the garden was his life story.  When he was in his garden, he was free.  He was in charge.  He could talk to his plants and they would answer by growing healthy and beautiful for his loving care.  His plants knew him and he knew his plants.  He felt love and responsibility for them no matter what the weather, no matter who might try to harm them.  He was always there to nurture them to health and happiness, and by doing so, he fulfilled his wish by being healthy and happy himself.”

“And when he died, daddy, that was all taken away from him,” said Ruthie.

“Yes, his life story, the fulfillment of his greatest wish, was taken from him and he had done nothing wrong.”

Ruthie could see tears in the corner of her father’s eyes, something she had never seen before, and in that moment she knew something had been taken away from her father, too, but wasn’t certain what it was.  She was disappointed that with her father’s tears the story ended, but knew she would not forget this moment or this story.

*     *     *