Sons

by Michael Halfhill

  “Lose again at chemin de fer in Monte Carlo? Hmm…?” Jan mocked.

  “Monsieur! If that was an attempt at humor, it failed.”

  Ignoring the cardinal’s fury, Jan said, “Well, if your prospective buyer is a devout Catholic, as so many of the French are, I can see why he would be reluctant to pull down God’s house by himself. It seems appropriate that he should turn to your Eminence to get the job done.”

  Jan thought the skinny old man was going to have a conniption. The cardinal’s face turned as scarlet as his hat.

  Before the cleric could regain his composure, Jan added, “I have a proposal that may suit us all.”

  He looked at the cardinal for a sign of compromise. “Shall I proceed, or do you prefer to prolong this charade?”

  By now, the mayor, a balding, rotund man of fifty or so years, had extracted himself from the police van and joined them. He nodded to Jan but did not offer his hand. He seemed unsure whether, under these circumstances, Jan was friend or foe.

  Jan motioned to Kevin to join them and whispered in his ear, “Bring me my briefcase, please. I’ll need you to stand by too.”

  Taking the cardinal and the mayor by the elbow, Jan led them to a nest of unoccupied picnic tables and chairs. Safely out of the mob’s earshot, Jan asked, “Has the prospective buyer signed anything in the way of a contract for this land?”

  “How do you know about this?” the mayor snapped.

  “I told him,” said the cardinal.

  The mayor immediately backed down like a dog with the spirit whipped out of him.

  “As of now, there is no contract,” replied the cardinal. “The buyer refuses to sign anything as long as the chapel remains.”

  “I see,” Jan said. “Well, Eminence, how much is he willing to pay for the land once the church is gone?”

  “That is between the Church and the buyer! It is no concern of yours,” the cardinal said imperiously. A hint of color returned to his cheeks.

  Jan turned toward the mayor and narrowed his eyes. “How much?”

  Prelate and mayor shifted uncomfortably. The cardinal gave the mayor a warning look.

  “How much!” demanded Jan, raising his voice.

  The mayor owed his position as much to Jan as to the cardinal. Frightened, he looked to the clergyman and then to Jan, unsure which was master of the situation. Finally, he murmured, “A half million Euros.”

  Jan whistled his surprise.

  “A tidy sum, and how much do you, Monsieur le Mayor, get for supporting this bit of larceny?” Jan said.

  The mayor leapt from his chair in righteous indignation.

  “Larceny! That is a legal term! A criminal term!”

  Jan offered a sardonic smile. “Yes, Monsieur, I am, after all, a lawyer. I also know the duke ceded this ground to the town of Christ a Amélioré in 1750.”

  “The City of Arles annexed this land forty years ago. The village has no claim to it!” shouted the mayor defensively.

  Ignoring the man’s outburst, Jan said in a calm even tone, “What I propose, gentlemen, if I may use the term, is this: I will buy the land and the chapel as it stands today, for the sum of seven hundred thousand Euros.”

  The cardinal and the mayor exchanged glances. Jan could almost hear the sound of cash registers ringing in their greedy heads.

  “Well?” Jan said. “Do you accept my offer?”

  The cardinal spun the amethyst ring he wore on his right hand. He looked out over the river and said, “I will consult with the parish council, but I’m sure there will be no obstacle.”

  The three men stood in a close knot. The cardinal nodded and offered his hand, as did the mayor, sealing the bargain. Jan wondered if there was enough holy water in the chapel font to wash his hands. It would take the sanctified liquid to remove the unclean feeling he now felt.

  Jan motioned for Kevin to bring the briefcase and join them.

  “Let’s just write a little contract now, and our attorneys can pretty it up later,” Jan said.

  Kevin handed Jan a blank sheet of paper, and he quickly jotted down the terms of their agreement. The cardinal signed below Jan’s name. Kevin and the mayor signed as the witnesses.

  The cardinal walked a short distance and lifted his arms, quieting the angry mob.

  “You may all return home now,” he told the villagers. “It is concluded. God’s light has shown us what to do here. There will be no destruction of the chapel.”

  A shout went up from the villagers as they congratulated themselves for preventing a disaster.

  “What about my crew?” the demolition foreman shouted. “Is the Church going to pay for our time?”

  The cardinal looked at Jan.

  Jan nodded.

  The priest drew his scarlet cape around himself. Mustering feigned humility, he made a slight bow toward Jan and spoke to the workmen. “Le seigneur is responsible for your fee. Apply to him for payment.”

  The mayor, wishing to make a quick exit away from the situation, had already left the churchyard. The cardinal, his cape billowing like a red sail, was right on the mayor’s heels.

  Jacques Malreve hurried to Jan’s side.

  “Jan? What does this mean?”

  “It means, Jacques, my old friend, that the church will stand, and I’m even more land poor than I was this morning.”

  “You purchased the chapel?”

  “It would appear so.” Jan sighed. “I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with it!”

  “My son, God will reward you in more than this!” the old man said, wringing Jan’s hand.

  “Mon père, it is nothing. I must go now. We will meet again before I leave.”

  “Leave? You are going away so soon? You only just arrived!”

  “Yes, I’m going to Paris for a few days on business, then on to the states. Michael is in China. He’ll return home to Philadelphia soon, and I want to be there. We’ve been apart too long,” Jan said.

  “As always, Saint Sebastian’s will miss you. May I light a candle for you, my son?”

  “Make it two, okay? One for me, and one for Michael.”

  “You know, Jan, Saint Michael’s obedience to God made him the first saint in heaven. You love this man?”

  Jan smiled. “He’s my very heartbeat.”

  “Then I’ll light two candles,” Jacques said, smiling. “Oh, Jan, umm, before you leave, please come to the monastery… at six o’clock tomorrow morning? I have something important to discuss with you.”

  Jan nodded. “Of course I’ll come. Wait! You don’t have another church you want me to buy, do you?”

  Jacques shook his head gravely, “No, it is nothing like that.”

  THAT afternoon at the château, Jan sipped tea in the main salon and reflected on the years since Tim Morris’s death and on his chance meeting with Michael Lin one foggy night in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. Life was good, even peaceful, considering the tortured world Jan and his Mundus associates wrestled with on a daily basis. For all that, he remained passionately in love with Michael. He had health, and, what seemed to others, an unnaturally youthful appearance.

  Then there was the money, obscene piles of it. Some impertinent asshole once asked how much he really had. Jan answered that he had no idea since he never counted it!

  Kevin stepped quietly across an intricately woven Tabriz carpet and whispered into Jan’s ear, “Jan, they’re here.”

  “Who’s here?” Jan asked, puzzled.

  “The delegation from the village, of course. The chapel, remember?”

  The afternoon’s peace dissolved into memory.

  “Christ in heaven!” Jan spat. “What the hell do they want from me now? They got their church. Damn it! Am I expected to assist at Mass too?”

  Kevin looked down at the floor. A sincere churchgoer, he hated it when Jan swore. “I’m sorry. I’ll send them away.”

  “No, no… damn it! Show them in,” Jan said wearily.

  Four men and two women stood agape as they s
tared at the salon’s interior. To their right, a long wall of polished chestnut embraced a huge fireplace, carved from a single block of sapphire colored marble. Ceilings high above were painted with allegories depicting the French New World in all its early wildness and now vanished savagery. Books aligned on floor to ceiling shelves occupied the two end walls. An entire wall of French doors faced the fireplace in a glittering jamboree of beveled glass. Braided cord held back heavy damask drapes, allowing sunlit prisms to reflect on the parquet floor. The smell of ripe fruit wafted from an immense crystal bowl.

  “Mes amis, welcome to my home,” Jan said. “What, may I ask, is the reason for your visit? I thought—”

  “Pardon, mon seigneur,” Juliet Dufort spoke, interrupting Jan. “If you please, it is the custom of our village to work the fields on the church property. We pay rent each year to the cardinal. We wish to know if you will continue this same amount or if you will increase our rent. We must make arrangements if there is an increase.”

  Even now, her tone was combative. Jan had rescued her church, her livelihood, and perhaps even kept her out of jail, but here she stood, hands on hips like a reincarnated Madame Defarge. This was one revolution he was determined to defuse.

  Jan rubbed his fingers over his brow and sighed. He thought of Kevin, standing at the far corner of the large room, mutilated at age nineteen by the slave traders. That event had caused Jan to launch Project Scimitar against the slave trade in Sudan. Scimitar, Jan’s first Mundus operation, was a spectacular success in its objective, and yet for Jan, it was a crashing failure, one he would always regret.

  Rent! Throughout the world, men, women, boys, and girls are enslaved every day. Children everywhere are kidnapped, raped, and murdered while many are hideously mutilated for God only knows what purpose, and these people standing here in health and wealth can think of nothing but their rent!

  Jan gazed at them with barely disguised displeasure. “How much did you pay His Arro… His Eminence?”

  The woman stepped forward and said, “There are sixty farmers who work the land. Each pays one thousand Euros per year. The rest we make up in what we grow. Last year we paid the Church one hundred pounds each of wheat, barley, and lavender in addition to the money.”

  Jan looked into their expectant eyes. He thought a moment and then looked at Kevin’s hopeful smile.

  “Very well then, this will be your new rent. Every year I am to receive a single Euro from each man who tills the soil. Along with this, I require one sheaf of wheat, one of barley, and a sprig of lavender. Kevin will draw up the lease, and we will meet again later this evening to sign it. Thank you for coming. Now please excuse me.”

  Amid claps on the back and thanks mixed with “God bless le seigneur,” Jan left the salon and their happy jabber. He pulled his shirt collar tight around his neck against the cooling afternoon air. Snow swirled in haphazard squalls as if nature herself was unsure if she truly wanted winter to begin. Jan pushed his hands into his pants pockets and slipped out onto the terrace. He walked down the broad marble steps, along the white gravel path that led to the formal garden of ancient boxwoods. At the center, hidden in a maze of twists and turns and abrupt dead ends, all of which Jan knew by heart, stood the de Main family mausoleum. Generations of the Dukes of Guyencourt were here, along with one American interloper, Timothy Harold Morris of Little Fork, West Virginia. Tim. Jan’s Tim. The man who gave Jan a life beyond anyone’s imagination lay here too. Jan had not visited the tomb for over a year. To do so was to acknowledge for the umpteenth time that, despite his almost palpable presence, Tim was gone. Yet today, Jan felt differently. It was an anniversary of sorts. After years of postponed testimony at the World Court in The Hague, The Mundus Society’s Project Scimitar finally closed with a guilty verdict against the slave trader known as the Pasha.

  Kevin Andrew’s horrid mutilation at the hands of the slave trader stood avenged. Not everything had gone the way Jan would have liked, but to the outside world, a great thing had been done.

  The fall of the Soviet Empire, peace in Kosovo, all were Mundus initiatives, yet, in Jan’s eyes, the secret society had failed in so many ways. The resorting to violence and the loss of innocent lives tarnished whatever good he had accomplished. Any goal, no matter how nobly conceived or dedicated, derived through violence, is an illusion, he reasoned. Still, Mundus’s North American Chapter, with all its power and responsibility, was his to command without question. Power and responsibility were the twin beams of a cross he carried with equal reluctance.

  Today, too, he managed to make a grudging peace with the cardinal, something he thought would never be possible. And then there was Michael. Jan’s heart swelled whenever he thought of Michael.

  A few more steps and there it was, an exact replica of the Arles Cathedral in miniature, a spire and gargoyle embossed box of weathered basalt.

  Jan pushed aside the heavy bronze door, stepped inside the cold vault, and switched on a tiny lamp, expelling shadows from their customary homes. Jan ignored the rows of ducal sarcophagi and walked straight to a brightly polished gold plaque imbedded in the granite floor. Jan paused as he approached the spot where Tim lay and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. He cleared his throat.

  “Hey, Tim. It’s me, Jan. Got a minute? Sorry I haven’t been around much. Listen, guess what happened this morning. You know that chapel by the river….”

  Two

  JAN arrived at Saint Sebastian Monastery at six o’clock the following morning. He stopped, closed his eyes, and cocked his head as he listened to the monks chant Lauds, translating the Latin in his head: Deus, Deus meus, ad te de luce vigilo. “O God, thou art my God, early will I seek Thee.”

  The plain, haunting Gregorian melody pulled him back to his childhood at Philadelphia’s Saint Dominic’s Academy and mornings like this, the choir singing the first Mass of the day. What ever happened to those innocent days?

  He walked along the narrow gravel path that belted the ivy-clad stone walls. The ivy, brittle from the morning frost, made soft clicking sounds, much like a child just learning to snap its fingers. The heavy vines curled around iconic runes, hiding them from all but the most inquisitive and tutored eyes. Unknown to most, Saint Sebastian’s was once a Templar priory—the symbols were Templar.

  Jan wondered how many times he had walked this path. How many times had he smiled knowingly at the meaning of the coded messages—more than fifty, a hundred, two hundred?

  It seemed to him that he had always known this place, yet it was just after his eighteenth birthday that Tim first introduced him to Jacques Malreve. The idea was that Jacques would teach Jan French, and in return, Jan would answer the abbot in Latin. It was a language Jacques loved dearly yet feared was in peril of extinction. Tim also knew that Jan was a deeply religious boy and that he longed for the comfort and warmth of, what seemed to Tim, an often aloof and cold religion. Needs denied often return in hideous forms, Tim reasoned, and so, on an early winter’s day, he brought Jan to Père Malreve.

  The monastery had eight gates, one for each of its eight walls. All were closed at this hour. Jan chose to enter by the “Lesser Gate” so called because in medieval times it was through this gate that serfs, in need of sanctuary, fled the uneven and oftentimes capricious hand of feudal laws. He pulled the bell cord, and a jangled noise rang in the cloistered courtyard beyond the big oak door. The Judas gate, set into the large ancient portal, opened on iron hinges made quiet with the application of large amounts of tallow. A novice of not more than seventeen greeted him with an unspoken gesture, beckoning him to follow. Jan had visited the monastery many times over the years. He knew the monks observed a rule of silence until eleven o’clock, when they broke from morning work to pray before the noon meal, after which their self-imposed rule would begin again until sunset. The novice led Jan to the abbot’s study where Dom Père Malreve, bishop and abbot of Saint Sebastian waited.

  Jan walked across the smooth stone floor
laid down at the time when every European monarch owed his crown to the Pope. As he walked to where the abbot stood, Jan smiled when he noticed a statue of Saint Michael the Archangel. Two red votive candles twinkling at the statue’s base illuminated an inscription: “He Will Command His Angels Concerning You, To Guard You in All Your Ways. Call Upon Me Sayeth the Lord and I Will Answer.”

  “Jan,” he said softly. “Come in, please. Sit down.”

  “Aren’t you a bit chatty for this hour of the morning?” Jan chided.

  “I just gave myself a dispensation. As you American’s are fond of saying, I am the top dog around here. Umm, Jan, the reason I asked you to come here this morning, I—”

  “Jacques, before we get into what you want, I was thinking on the way over that, unless you have any objections, I want to deed the Transfiguration Chapel and its land to the monastery, with the stipulation that it cannot be resold or divided. I also have made a rental agreement with the villagers. I would expect that it be honored for at least ten years.”

  “Jan, that is very generous. I know Saint Sebastian’s looks wealthy, but our monks come from all walks of life. They are stonemasons, plumbers, farmers, and carpenters. It is their talent and sweat that makes all this possible. There is no real wealth here. What I am saying is, I’m not sure we can afford your gift.”

  Jan gazed into the dead hearth for a moment and considered his options.

  “How about this. I’ll endow the chapel with a trust that insures its upkeep. The villagers can take care of the land and chapel with the monastery as guardian.”

  “Yes. Yes, that would work,” the old monk said, nodding his head as he sought out any flaw in Jan’s plan.

  “Good. Then it’s settled,” Jan said, relieved.

  “Jan, I know when Tim died he left you a wealthy man. I want you to know that you have been a good steward. This gift, and your rescuing the chapel from destruction, is the mark of a man who walks with God. As your confessor, I know too the burden you carry with Mundus. God regards the motives of your heart, rather than the deeds of your hand.”