His parents and sisters cheered as he spoke at graduation. Traditionally, the salutatorian’s speech was the only part of the ceremony in Spanish and it fell to David. The other orator they were interested in was the guest speaker who, astoundingly, was world-renown writer Jorge Luis Borges. Of course, they were just a small part of the proceedings: procession, speeches, diplomas, awards and recession. The whole thing seemed to last forever, especially to five-year-old Nancy. Just when it looked like it was finally over, a woman took the stage to give a long and mournful rendition of Climb Every Mountain. For months afterwards, humming the opening bars of that song was enough to send the little girl into a frenzy of irritation.
David turned eighteen in July and dutifully registered with the U.S. Selective Service, which gave him a student deferment. This was important because the Viet Nam War was in full swing. In December of 1969 the order of call for military service for all men born between 1944 and 1950 was determined by a draft lottery. Three hundred sixty-six blue capsules, one for each birthdate of the year, were placed in a water-cooler sized jar and then removed, one by one, and listed in order of appearance, from 001 to 366. The first third corresponded to the draftees, who were sent off to war; the middle group, with numbers 120-240, had a 50/50 chance of being drafted the next year, while the last group was not drafted at all. David’s birthday drew number 023, which meant that he would surely have had to go to war when his deferment ended had it not been for his leg, for which he sought and received a IV-F classification, that is, not eligible for military service. As the doctor put it, “The military will not want to bother with you.” The slight case of polio in his early childhood kept him from having to make a terrible choice between duty and conscience, a luxury denied to so many young men. Remembering the life-long effect that serving as a medic in World War II had on Ben’s brother Ira, the Bedfords were profoundly grateful.
All too soon, the family was gathered at the airport to see David off to college. True to his wish, La Nell made it through the last hug, the last backward look and the last wave without shedding a tear. Afterwards, it was another story.
From Hero to Villain
Braced between forked branches, Ben hugged the trunk with one arm while he reached for a twig with several leaves on it with the other. Through the foliage, he could see cars zoom by beneath him on the General Paz beltway. He climbed down and got into the car, which was rather precariously perched on the bank. Nelda received the vegetable offering gratefully and jotted down the time and place of collection.
This was the latest addition to her herbarium, the Botany class project which required each student to make a book with some fifty specimens, neatly labeled with specific characteristics. They learned that leaves have an astounding number of features. Their arrangement on the stem (phyllotaxis) can be alternate, basal, cauline, opposite, whorled or verticillate, rosulate or row. Their blades (laminae) can be simple or compound and, in the latter case, palmately compound, pinnately compound (odd or even), bipinnately compound, trifoliate or pinnatifid. Their edges can be entire, ciliate, crenate, dentate, denticulate, double serrate, serrate, serrulate, sinuate, lobate, undulate or spiny/pungent, and there are just as many types of tip, base, surface, hairiness, timing, vein patterning and size.
The catch was that no more than two specimens could be collected at the same place or time. This was unfortunate because the Bedfords’ huge back yard probably would have yielded every type of leaf required. As it was, the entire family was on the lookout whenever they went out and Ben’s intrepid forays into the urban jungle made him a veritable hero to his eldest daughter.
The pedestal on which she usually placed her daddy crumbled to dust when he and La Nell imparted the plans for the upcoming year. The family would be moving again in January, since the house in Ramos Mejía was needed for the Garners, the new West Zone area missionaries. After a decade of heading the Publication Board, Billy Graves was turning over its reins to a national director, Aldo Broda, and he and Chris were vacating the Mission apartment in the heart of Buenos Aires to do field work in Misiones, so the Bedfords would go there.
That wasn’t so bad, but the next item was a bombshell: they would be enrolling Nelda at Lincoln. Neither pleading, nor tears, nor rage were to any avail. Not only would she have to leave her beloved Colegio Ward, which she had considered the perfect stepping stone to university in Buenos Aires, but she would be going into the belly of the beast, thrust into the environment she most wanted to avoid. To add insult to injury, Nancy would be allowed to remain at Ward.
For their part, Ben and La Nell reasoned that at the end of the next year they would be going on furlough and, judging from past experience, it would be easier for Nelda to make the transition if she was prepared for the new system. Besides, they suspected that she would never give the U.S. a chance unless she was forced to do so, and they wanted her to be acquainted with and appreciate their native culture. Then she would be able to make an informed decision about her future.
So Nelda sought solace in her books and records, reading mystery novels and listening to the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds, and Simon & Garfunkel, courtesy of her big brother who had left her his record collection.
Apartment 3C
Apartment 3C was reached by an elderly elevator with classic double manually-operated scissor-type doors. The ground floor had no number, European-style, so it was actually on the fourth level. Although the building was rather nondescript, with nothing much to distinguish it from hundreds and thousands of others, the apartment itself was roomy and beautiful, boasting a small entrance hall, study, living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a balcony. There were parquet floors, a hatch connecting the kitchen and the dining room, and a small metal door to the incinerator chute in the kitchen.
It was located in the barrio of Balvanera, in the section known as Once, only a block and a half from the Pasteur subway stop of the B Line that runs underneath Avenida Corrientes, so that it was quite easy to get almost anywhere from there on public transportation. Now it was Nelda’s turn to learn the stops on which to make connections with other subway lines, trains or buses. On weekdays, she rode the subway for three stops, caught a bus one street over, and got off two blocks from school after a forty-five-minute ride.
Meanwhile, every morning La Nell got Nancy ready for her school day. Having their third child had been pure joy. She was a bright spot in every family member’s day and kept them all entertained with her precocious vocabulary and insightful opinions. They told people she was their yapa, the extra loaf in the “baker’s dozen.” But now it suddenly dawned on La Nell that they would have to do first grade all over again! She wasn’t sure she could handle it. However, she had already taught Nancy to read in English, which she did beautifully, and they asked the kiosquero36 to save them a copy of Anteojito and Billiken, weekly children’s magazines that contained stories, games and, most importantly from a parent’s point of view, articles and illustrations that followed the school curriculum.
It was a rare and precious time for Ben, because he got to share quality one-on-one time with his little daughter while they drove to and from school. Besides lively general conversation, he would tell her Bible stories and she would grill him on the whys and wherefores. He also sang to her. Although he had a beautiful voice, carrying a tune was not his strong point, probably because of his lack of musical education as a child. As La Nell put it, “Never mind, if you were a great singer on top of everything else, it would just be too much,” and, anyway, Nancy assured him that she liked his version of many of the hymns and choruses better than the originals.
Murals, Clock Chains and Soccer Scores
As always, the Bedfords entertained frequently, both for business and pleasure, and there were many memorable occasions. One of these took place on the Sunday that the Plunks—a missionary family serving in La Plata, the capital city of Buenos Aires Province—visited them for lunch after Mel preached at the morning service in Solano. The two oldest boys, Jamie and Danny, rode back with the Bedfords. The children played while La Nell put the finishing touches on the meal and they waited for the rest of the guests to arrive.