The Seven Veils

Early morning dew dripped off the statue, like bronze tears, of a life-sized nude young woman holding a baby. Her expression begging for recognition from the infant. She was located between the World War I statue of the Doughboy Memorial by the artist Frank Teich, and the Llano, Texas County Courthouse. Like the statue of the bronze Doughboy, she was facing east toward the rising sun. She had not been there the night before. The first person to see her was the Llano newspaper delivery boy, Mike Blevins, on his morning paper route. He had not ever seen a naked lady before and he couldn’t contain his excitement as he ran back to the paper office to tell his boss what he had discovered. Robert Rhodes, the editor of the paper, was busy setting type on the printing press when Mike came rushing into the print room. “Mister Rhodes there is a naked woman in the Town Square,” he managed to blurt out. Robert answered, “what do you mean a naked woman?” The young man exclaimed what he had seen was a statue of a naked lady. Reluctantly the editor stopped what he was doing and said, “let’s go take a look at what you have discovered.” They walked the two blocks down Main Street south to the courthouse. Robert struggled with a profound limp caused by an injury he had received the in the First World War, it was accompanied by a Purple Heart. When they arrived at the Town Square Mike pointed at the bronze statue. All the color drained out of Robert’s face when he saw statue’s features. He recognized her, she was the French Red Cross nurse who had helped him recover after he was wounded in battle eight years ago in France. It was 1918 and the First World War was raging. He was a member of The 1st American Army, allied with the 3rd Army of France, engaged in a battle near the French Village of Chatel-Chehery near the Argonne Forest. He had taken an enemy cannon shell’s shrapnel strike that caused extensive damage to his lower body. Unconscious and unable to walk, he was carried on a gurney, off the battlefield to a field hospital to the rear of the action. Robert was now trying to regain his composure and was struggling to make sense of this bizarre event. The concrete base she was mounted on appeared to be weathered and certainly did not look as if it was just poured. The patina of the statue looked as if it had been exposed to the weather for years. He couldn’t think of any reasonable explanation for her being placed on city property, or anywhere else for that matter. He did know, being on the city council, that he should call the mayor and inform him of their intruder. Robert laboriously walked back to his office and called Llano Mayor, Henry Fischer. Mike continued his paper route, but you can bet the image of the nude lady wouldn’t be dismissed from his mind any time soon. It took no time before he had told all his friends what he had discovered. It would take less than that before every male close to his age got to savor the nude statue. The news had scattered throughout the town like thrown wheat chafe into the Texas hill country wind. Henry, who owned the local hardware store was just about to open when he got the call. He showed up to the statue in no time at all and found Robert and asked, “what the hell is going on,” but when he saw the nude statue he didn’t wait for an answer, he stammered “how in the hell did this get here?” Robert replied, “I don’t have a clue, it was not here last night.” Henry was more than disturbed; he was visibly shaken about the nude statue being displayed on the courthouse lawn. In a barely audible voice he said, “I better get back to the store and call a city council meeting because the little old church ladies in this town will have a conniption fit when they see this.” He didn’t say another word; he just walked off down the street toward the hardware store. Robert was puzzled why Henry was so disturbed about the statue because he knew that there was no way that he could recognize the French nurse. Henry was beside himself trying to figure how a bronze nude statue of his deceased sister could end up in Llano County. She had been gone for a long time, and he had stopped speaking to her years before her death. An auto accident had taken her life and she left behind a new baby daughter and a young husband. Both of which Henry afforded the same silence as he had his sister. Trying to shake the feeling, he got to business and scheduled a board meeting for seven o’clock Friday evening. Most wanted it handled right away, but they were missing councilman, James Zinc, who wouldn’t be in town until Friday. News had already spread through the small town with the speed of a west Texas sandstorm. It took him nearly all morning to call all of the city council members, because between each call he would be interrupted by the local Sin Police either in the store or over the phone. The Mayor banged the gavel on the desk and brought the meeting to order. James Zinc just arrived from Houston, on a personal injury case and said, “I have not had time to see the bronze, tell me what it looks like?” Robert Rhodes spoke up and said “you need to see it for yourself.” This was an open meeting and the minister of the First Baptist Church, Reverend Byron Baker, and a member of their congregation, Mrs. Abbey Bueler were one of many representatives from the religious community attending the meeting. Mrs. Bueler wanted the floor as soon as the meeting opened. She was a newly converted Baptist on fire for her perceived righteousness. Her husband had passed away three years previous, and she could now devote all of her time to the causes that she knew came to her directly from God. Some of the locals thought Mister Bueler probably died in self-defense, to remove himself from her cutting hateful tongue. She was informed she could speak her piece at the end of the proceeding. She blurted “I didn’t care when, I speak but I will speak. You will hear my opinion everyday as long as that despicable, sinful statue remains in my town.” She said quite a bit more, but nothing worth mentioning, suffice it to say she was a bee in the council’s bonnet. Henry, graciously cut her off because he wanted James to see the statue before they continued. The mayor adjourned the meeting long enough for him to walk over and look at the main topic of the emergency meeting. The disgruntled Mrs. Bueler was harping all the time James was gone, only from her seat instead of the podium. While he was gone, each councilman wore the image on their minds, and it was heavy. Next to Robert, sat Carl Braunsfeld, the local druggist, was one of the councilmen. He wanted to see the nude before the meeting. He went to the courthouse and almost fainted when he saw the face of the nude. He wondered how in the world an artist could get his ex-wife Caroline, to pose for a nude statue. She would hardly remove her outer clothing to go to bed, let alone sit for someone completely nude was beyond belief. As far as he knew after the divorce, she still lived in North Hempstead, New York and would not be found dead in the state of Texas. Yet there she was in all of her radiant glory for every one to see. On down the line next to Carl sat Dr. Hiram Shubert Jr. Up till now he thought he had seen everything, but the nude gal on the courthouse lawn completely unnerved him. She had been a patient of his father’s when Robert Jr. had first received his medical license. Her name was Earlene Addleman, he had been asked to perform an abortion on her when she was in her early teens. He had made a drastic mistake in the procedure and she bled out on the operating table and died and having her show up in the form of a bronze statue on Llano County Courthouse lawn had him moved him a little closer down the line to mental instability.