Black as Night: A Fairy Tale Retold

by Regina Doman

  Fish drove them to a local Italian bistro, and they had a quiet lunch. Bear picked at his food and made a show of eating. He had a feeling Jean was doing the same.

  Afterwards in the car, Fish brought up the matter of the Ecstasy drugs that were still in Blanche’s room.

  “It’s best to do something with them soon,” Fish said, glancing at Jean who was sitting next to him in the front passenger seat. “If that anonymous source who tipped the DEA on to us is still operating, they’re likely to do the same to you. Especially when they find out that Blanche might not be wanted by the police for embezzlement any longer.”

  “But what can I do with them?” Jean asked.

  “Flush them down the toilet,” Fish said.

  “That wouldn’t be right,” Rose objected from the back seat. “We should turn them over to the police as evidence.”

  “But if you do that, you’re liable for that evidence being used against you,” Fish said calmly. “Or against Blanche.”

  “But still—”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with doing that myself,” Jean said. “After all, if Blanche has been framed, wouldn’t this be evidence that someone was trying to frame her? And if we destroy the evidence, mightn’t we also be destroying things like fingerprints that might lead the police to the criminals?”

  “Yes, you would be,” Bear said with a sigh.

  “The first question we should be asking is who put the drugs in our house? Who is trying to frame Blanche?” Rose asked, tapping her fingers on the seat. “And why?”

  “That, my lady, is the ten million dollar question with the washing machine and the microwave thrown in,” Fish said, switching lanes.

  “We have to find someone who has a grudge against her for some reason,” Bear said. “So far we haven’t found one. The only thing we know about this person—or persons—is what they’ve done to frame Blanche.”

  “Well, let’s go through the events. How would an intruder get the keys to your apartment?” Rose wanted to know.

  “He could have either made a key, or he had a key. Any professional thief could do that. Getting by the doorman is what would be hard,” Fish replied. “Ahmed has worked there for years, and it’s his job to weed out actual visitors from potential burglars. He knows everyone who’s ever lived in that building and would be sure to detain someone he didn’t know.”

  “And how could someone get into our house?” Rose asked.

  Bear shrugged. “Same way—make a key. Maybe someone even took the keys out of Blanche’s purse while she was working, made a copy, and returned them before she realized they were missing.”

  “Blanche had the key to your house, right? So actually, if someone took her keys, they could have copied your key at the same time?” Rose queried.

  “Ah. Also true,” Fish said. “What we should do is go back to the banquet hall and try to get into that room where Blanche kept her belongings. I bet you it’s not secure.”

  “But you said that the manager wasn’t very helpful at all,” Rose said.

  “We’ll just have to go back when he’s not there,” Fish said. “Maybe that girl Rita can help us out.”

  Because of his wary feelings, Bear had been periodically glancing in the rearview mirror since they left the bistro. “Don’t anyone turn around,” he said sharply. “Fish, keep an eye on that gray car back there. It’s two cars behind us now.”

  “Think we’re being followed?”

  “I’m pretty sure. It’s been making every turn we make.”

  Everyone in the car was silent, and Bear pressed his hands together, wishing again that he had never gotten the Briers involved with him and his brother.

  “Look Jean,” he said at last. “I want Fish to drop you two at your house. We need to talk more, but I don’t like this kind of shadowing. We’ll try to lose this guy and meet up with you later.”

  “That’s fine,” Jean said quietly.

  “I don’t like that idea,” Fish said suddenly. “How do we know who this guy is tailing? Maybe he was tailing Blanche. You think he’s tailing you and me. But suppose we drop the Briers off and he starts going after Jean and Rose?”

  “You’re right,” Bear said. He waited until Fish got off the expressway, and kept his eyes on the rearview mirror. The gray car exited the expressway after them. Bear caught a fleeting glimpse of the driver. It was the big man.

  “Fish, pull over on the next block and let me out,” he said abruptly. “Let’s see who he’s really after. You drive the Briers home and stay with them. I’ll get back there when I can.”

  Fish sighed and pulled out his cell phone. “Better take this with you. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Bear glanced at the Briers. “It’ll be all right,” he told them. “You two pray for me, okay?”

  “I already am,” Jean said with a half-smile, but her eyes were worried.

  “Mom, he’ll be okay. He’s Bear, after all,” Rose said confidently, and squeezed his arm. “See you soon, Bear.”

  “Right,” he said. Fish pulled over, and Bear got out of the car onto the sidewalk, and shut the door behind him. Since he had picked the spot completely at random, he realized he was in a not-so-nice section of town. He told himself this was a good thing. Maybe it would encourage the man to keep shadowing him.

  He started ambling off towards the north, the general direction of the Briers’ house, keeping completely aware of his surroundings.

  Up ahead of him, he saw the gray car turn off on a cross street and tensed. Fish and the Briers should have continued straight on this road for a while. Unless he was completely missing the mark, Bear guessed the car was after him and would show up again.

  Chapter Twelve

  It had been a close call, almost too close. The girl couldn’t stay in bed, despite her weariness. Not wanting to be alone again, she got up and slowly made her way back to the church. Perhaps if she sat for a while in the stillness, she would feel better.

  She opened the sacristy door and walked through into the main body of the church. It was afternoon now, and the sun came in through the stained-glass windows, touching the pews with soft tones of purple, blue, green, and gold. Brother Leon was walking down the aisle towards her, holding a guitar. Seeing her, his black brows furrowed. “Hey, you’re not trying to get back to work, are you?”

  “No,” she assured him, smiling at his concern. “I’m just going to sit.”

  “Good,” he said. “That will help.”

  Just then she noticed Brother Herman sitting on a jury-rigged scaffold made of a board and two ladders before the statue of Mary. His bare feet dangled in the air as he drew on the top part of the niche behind the statue with chalk.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked, puzzled.

  Leon glanced at Brother Herman and smiled. “He’s getting ready to paint. It’s his job to repair some of the cracked parts of the plaster and paint around here,” he said. “Me, I can’t even draw a straight line, but he’s a real good artist. You’ll see.” Nodding, Leon loped away and vanished into the sacristy, guitar in hand.

  Interested, the girl genuflected towards the tabernacle, and hesitantly made her way over to the homemade scaffold. She saw that the bearded friar was concentrating on transferring a sketch from the large piece of paper in his lap to the gray plaster of the niche.

  He looked down as she drew near. “Go ahead and watch if you want. It doesn’t bother me,” he said heartily, and kept sketching out his planned painting with a thick stub of white chalk. The girl watched as beneath his deft fingers, slender curved lines became the long stems and petals of lilies, arching like a crown over the Mary altar.

  Engaged, she sat down on the edge of the sanctuary, leaning against the marble altar rail. “That’s lovely,” she said when the friar stopped to look at his work.

  “God’s gift,” Brother Herman said. “My vocation, and definitely my way of having fun.” He glanced at her again. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She smi
led. “Much better, thank you.” She watched him work for a few moments in silence.

  “How did you know you wanted to become a monk?” she ventured.

  “A friar?” he grinned down at her, and she realized her mistake and colored.

  “Yes, a friar.”

  “‘I went seeking Beauty, and Beauty, He found me,’” Brother Herman was apparently quoting something. “I went to art school, thinking I wanted to be a classical artist. Then on a trip to Greece, I encountered icon writers for the first time. In the Eastern churches, many icons are written—we would say painted—by monks. That first got me thinking of religious life. But in the end, I discovered that even though I enjoyed monastic life, I was more attracted to the Franciscan charism. So I ended up with the Capuchins, and when Father Francis started his order, I joined up.”

  “Hm,” the girl said. “Can I ask you another question?—this may sound silly.”

  “I enjoy silly questions,” Brother Herman said solemnly.

  “Is it safer to be a monk?”

  “A friar?” he teased her again.

  “Yes, of course—I meant, a friar?”

  “What do you mean by safe? Safety of the body or of the heart?”

  He understood what she was asking, and she was relieved. “Of the heart, I guess.” She hesitated, trying to find the words without sounding corny. Perhaps it was better to say it simply. “Last year I fell in love.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Brother Herman said, with feeling.

  “But the guy I’m in love with has gone overseas and I’m not sure when he’ll come back,” she said. “And meanwhile, I’m having all these problems. I have this sense of danger hanging over me.” She paused, hoping she wasn’t bewildering the old friar. But he was nodding, and she guessed that he could see that her mugging and her recent attack today were enough to justify her feeling paranoid.

  “What I really, really want is for him to just come back and make it all go away. But of course, even if he could just appear here today, it doesn’t mean he could solve it all for me.”

  The friar nodded. “It doesn’t really sound like it is something a human can save you from.”

  “That’s what I’m starting to realize. So what I’m wondering is—have I made a mistake, loving him? I mean, if I had just focused on loving God somehow, then I wouldn’t have these tremendous expectations of a very imperfect, very human guy.”

  “God can disappoint us too,” the friar pointed out.

  “Oh, I know,” the girl bit her lip. “I think I first recognized that when my dad died. But on a percentage basis, God is going to disappoint you a lot less than human beings will. Isn’t that true?”

  Brother Herman cocked his head. “I suppose it is. But you don’t choose whom to love on the basis of safety. Or because it’s useful to you.”

  “I know. It’s just—I keep wondering, if I wasn’t in love, would it be this hard? If I weren’t in love with a man, I wouldn’t be expecting to be rescued. I’d just sort of be resigning myself and trying to tough it out. But because I let my heart become tender towards him, it’s gotten so much harder for me and so much more disappointing. Isn’t it better just to not depend so much on another person in that way at all?”

  The friar was silent as he worked. The chalk made scraping noises on the wall. She looked over at the tabernacle again.

  It’s foolish to depend on unicorns. After all, what is a unicorn but a mythical beast that’s always running away when you try to catch it? Maybe it’s better to live your life without unicorns.

  “Unicorns?”

  She blushed, not realizing she had spoken aloud. “It’s just an analogy.”

  “Have you ever seen the Unicorn Tapestries in the Cloisters? Beautiful,” Brother Herman said.

  She felt a sudden warmth. “Actually, we went to see them together, my boyfriend and I.”

  A smile creased Brother Herman’s round red face. “You know, I had a deeply profound encounter with the Spirit of God when I first saw those tapestries, back when I was an art student, before I became a friar. It’s a fascinating meditation on the Incarnation and death of Christ. You know the unicorn represents Christ?”

  She hadn’t read all the material in the museum, and shook her head.

  “You know the famous final tapestry of the ‘Unicorn in captivity?’ Where the unicorn sits surrounded by a round fence, tethered to a tree, but looking peaceful and happy?”

  “Of course. I saw it. It was lovely.”

  “That’s an allegorical representation of Christ, who became a willing captive to the small circle of a woman’s womb. Just as a unicorn gives up its wild freedom to lie in the arms of a virgin maid, Christ gave up his Godhead to sit in Mary’s arms. And to become our Savior.”

  “Oh,” she said. “ I didn’t know that.”

  “There are layers and layers to the story. Human love and marriage, men and women, God and the soul. On the exterior, the tapestries are about human beings hunting the unicorn. But if you scratch the surface, you find it’s really a story about the unicorn hunting us, out of irresistible love. And when the unicorn finds you, your life is changed forever.”

  “Sometimes I wish I never met him,” the girl said, her throat contracting suddenly. “I wish I’d never known what a unicorn was like. Then maybe—”

  The friar held up a finger to his lips. He cocked his head, listening.

  Pausing, the girl became aware of the sound of a guitar, and someone humming in a soft voice.

  Brother Herman stroked his long beard, picked up his chalk, and struck out in a new direction on the plaster. “Listen to the words,” he directed the girl in a whisper.

  The girl strained, listening as the voice began to sing.

  Sometimes, it amazes me

  How strong the power of love can be

  Sometimes it just takes my breath away.

  You watched my love grow like a child,

  Sometimes gentle and sometimes wild,

  Sometimes you just take my breath away.

  And it’s too good to slip by,

  It’s too good to lose,

  It’s too good to be there just to use.

  I’m going to stand on a mountaintop and tell the good news

  That you take my breath away.

  Finished, Brother Herman climbed down from the ladder, and said in a confidential hush to the girl, “Let’s go find him.”

  II

  Your beauty is there in all I see

  And when I feel your eyes on me

  Sometimes you just take my breath away.

  Since my life is yours, my heart will be

  Singing for you eternally

  Sometimes you just take my breath away.

  Leon missed a chord and swiftly tightened a peg. The old strings on Matt’s guitar were giving out again. Sitting cross-legged in a corner of the sacristy closet, he regularized his picking again. The battered plaster statues of the saints stood around the little space, their graceful heads inclined towards him, as though they were listening. Closing his eyes, he sang softly,

  And it’s too good to slip by,

  It’s too good to lose,

  It’s too good to be there just to use.

  I’m going to stand on a mountaintop and tell the good news

  That you take my breath away.

  At last he receded, and let his picking linger to a stop. When the last string had stopped vibrating and stillness filled the closet again, he looked up to find he had a live audience as well. Brother Herman and Nora were leaning against the wall of the sacristy, listening.

  He was embarrassed. “Just giving a private concert to your invalids, Brother Herman,” he said, nodding towards the statues that the artist friar was planning on repairing.

  “Beautiful,” Brother Herman said. He glanced at Nora, who still hadn’t moved.

  “Yes,” she said at last. She took a deep breath. “Is that a religious song?”

  “It’s just a folk song from the 70�
�s I learned growing up,” Brother Leon said. “No, it’s not really religious.”

  “But it’s a true love song,” Brother Herman said, patting Nora’s shoulder. “And hence, deeply religious.” He nodded his head towards the sanctuary. “Come and see?” he invited Leon.

  A bit puzzled, Leon set down his guitar and followed them both out to the Mary altar. He looked up to see the dove’s wings that now embraced the space over the statue of the Virgin Mary. Ten minutes ago, that space had been barren cracked plaster. Leon was silent, marveling at how Brother Herman’s creations seemed to spring out of nowhere.

  “Thanks for the inspiration, Leon,” Brother Herman said. He glanced at Nora, and said softly,

  “Better to see and desire than never to see!

  Better to die from desire than never to see!”

  Leon was not sure what he was talking about, but Nora apparently did. She nodded, wiped her cheek, and took another deep breath.

  “You may be right,” she whispered.

  III

  Bear kept on walking steadily, giving his tail—if it was a tail—a chance to locate and catch up with him. The sidewalk was dirty, the edges covered with trash blown by the wind and trapped in the crevices. Most of the stores he passed were boarded up or unoccupied. A dead section of town along a main road.

  Making his way towards the Briers’ house, he stopped and crossed the main road, heading west. After crossing the first lane of traffic, he stood on the median, looking from side to side, waiting for a chance to cross, and watching for his shadow.

  Then he caught a glimpse of a broad-shouldered man coming up the street. It was him. Apparently he had left his car to follow his prey on foot. He stood a few blocks down from Bear, waiting to cross the street with a group of people. If Bear hadn’t already been looking for him, he might never have noticed the man.

  The old, once-too-familiar fear of being hunted came over him with a chill. Who is he? A drug dealer from my past who found out I’ve got money now and stumbled onto Blanche as an easy way to get to me? But he kept his pace steady.

  Calculating the risks, Bear hurried across the traffic to the far side and started heading up the side street. He decided it was worth the risk to get a good look at this guy.