WHENCE HELMS

~~~

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Robert Helm said loudly as he got up from his chair and headed for the door, making guesses as to who was _knocking_ on his door this late at night.

When he opened his door, there stood an ex-patriot Frenchman with a great resembalance to the doc, and a towering woman beside him.

His parents.

"Wha-?" Robert Helm asked, his mouth gaping. "What are - how did you two find me here??"

His father smiled. "Rob, if your mother can find a dinar in a sandstorm, she can certainly figure out where her son went," speaking in French.

"Come in, come in," Robert invited them, switching to one of the family languages as well - French, in this case.

Looking over them, Rob saw that his father had a few more wrinkles, and not all laugh lines - diplomacy was a hazardous job. Rob's mother, on the other hand, was unchanged; her hair was starting to silver, but Rob had a feeling that that was only a cosmetic change.

Even when she was in human guise, Rob's mom was large; large enough to make her scarf look like naught but a red ribbon.

She had been Ubaratta, goddess of ecclectics and useless knowledge, with the hieroglyph image how she was seen by many in olden times: She was The Bear.

Since Dad had awoken her at Napoleon's request in Egypt, she'd added another trait. Verbigeration.

Growing up in such a household had not been easy. Not for him, nor for -

"Where's Malea?" Rob asked, wondering where his sister had got to, or what she was up to this time.

His mother shrugged, an artificial gesture. "She said she would meet up with us, rejoin, destin here. She has a pecuniary business to attend to first, she said; a task, a dealing."

"There a washroom availiable, son?" his dad asked. "I think one of the horses out there is part camel."

"What makes you say that?" Rob asked as he pointed to his washroom. His father held out a pair of hands - hands soaked by animal spit. "Oh."

"Speaking of your sister, your mother had an idea on the trip over, Rob," his father told him as Dad headed for the washroom. Rob hoped that equine spittle would wash out of linen - he only had one towel of that kind.

Rob swallowed, trying not to let his nervousness project. "Mom?" he asked.

"Twas nothing much," she said, reassuringly. "Only a little get-together, a reunion of family and friends."

Rob's eyes nearly went wide. The last time he'd attended a family reunion, it'd been in the Valley Of Queens, and it'd taken him months to get Bast's distinctive smell of out of his clothes; he did like her though.

"Oh I don't think that would be a good idea," Robert objected as politely as he could.

"But you always had such fun playing with your cousins, Rob," his mother stated. "Remember how you and Charris would hide in the trees, swinging on Ida's branches? Eying her apples."

"Yes, mom, I remember," Robert answered. "I just don't think the Colonel would be pleased at the potential theophanous gatherings."

"Why not?" his Mom asked, baffled. "Not? No?"

Robert sighed, explaining the matter to his mom again; she kept forgetting this: "Colonel Montoya, like the other Spanish administrators, uphold the Christian Church's creed."

"Oh," Mom said. Then, rubbing Rob's head, mussing his hair, "You always were more knave than fool, Robert," smiling.

Rob didn't bother to ask where she was quoting from this time.

In greeting, Rob gave his mother a kiss on the cheek - not both like some states on the italian penninsula.

"You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest," his mother said.

"Quoting British writers, mom?" Robert asked, a simple inquiry.

"How do you know that I didn't just make that up on my own? All mine, yes?"

Rob grinned. "Because you gave me that book on the birthday before I left Europe."

"Oh yes, so I did. Indeed, so that's so."

Letting his mother go and peruse his bookshelf while he put their luggage in the spare room, Robert sighed wearily.

When he was done that task, looking out the window, Rob rested his elbows on it. "All my life I wanted to be somebody," he muttered. "Now I see that I should have been more specific."

~~~

end.