The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  A moment later, her poor truck smashes into the flaming truck, overturning it, sending the object flying. Airbags deployed, Peter is smothered while Zara claws her way out into a torrential downpour with her two Spetsnav weapons spewing death. The assassins flee, clearly in a panic. Lightning out of nowhere, and then the truck overturning. Zara shoots as many as she can as she runs to Jean-Paul’s cage, where the downpour is rinsing the gasoline off the good Father, who looks up into a veritable waterfall washing out his eyes.

  She takes a defensive position as the remaining mud-covered assassins take cover in the farm. Peter finally claws his way out of the airbag maze, retrieves Rohat’s gun from the backseat, and slips and slides to Zara’s position. He shows her proudly that he has a gun. Little consolation to her, but she attaboy pats him on the back.

  Peter will follow her anywhere, and where it is now is not so good, as she says to him to get Jean-Paul out of the cage. She lays down suppressing fire as Peter helps a very battered Jean-Paul limp to cover behind the object.

  He asks Zara, “Now what? I think we’ve run out of lightning bolts.”

  Zara, quite perturbed—not at him, but at herself for the rashness of this plan—says, “We hold out here until our next miracle comes. If not, you are going to need to fire that gun shortly.”

  The sound of several single shots rings through the air. Zara tries to identify where these shots are coming from, and then it goes silent. A haunting pallor overcomes her anguished face. Her teeth clench as she scans the farm with her sniper scope and sees a dark figure running away. She knows this profile. She aims and fires, nicking his buttocks. He falls but scampers away on all four. She laughs. “That should smolder your burning fires to enslave your poor cousin into a pitiful marriage with you. Second wife, indeed.”

  From the farm emerge men covered from head to toe in black commando suits, with their weapons and arms raised in the air. The leader says, “Don’t shoot us. We are on Jean-Paul’s side. We are his friends.”

  With aim on them while still staying behind the object, Zara says for them to come forward. They remove their black masks and approach. At twenty meters, she tells them to stop and identify themselves.

  Jean-Paul weakly clambers up on the object and says, “Zara, they are my friends. As you had suspected, I did signal for them to come and save us if a situation like this arose.”

  And so his comrades come forward to help support Jean-Paul. Major Buchli of the Swiss Guards introduces himself to Zara and Peter, followed by Petrus, Guillaume, Pedro, and Simon. Peter chuckles as they introduce themselves. Former Jesuit priests just like Jean-Paul. That means they are still priests, Peter muses as he calls each of them Father.

  The major signals for Pedro, Guillaume, and Simon to secure the area as he and Petrus check Jean-Paul’s condition. The major says to Jean-Paul, “You need immediate medical attention in a hospital. We can have a helicopter here in twenty and fly you to Ankara and then back to Rome. His Eminence would want to see you and affirm that you are well.”

  Jean-Paul shakes his head and replies weakly, “My mission is incomplete. I need to remain here with Peter and Zara. Take me to where Zara specifies in her hometown. His Eminence will understand. I still work for MoxWorld Holdings.”

  As the rain begins to let up, Guillaume and Simon bring back a guest, a mud-covered, cowering one. Peter cries out, “Mr. Ivy League himself. Fancy meeting you out here. Tell me, please, the final test results are in and I’m fired and released from my contractual obligations with MoxWorld.”

  Zara is not as amused as Peter, but then again, she did not interview with this miserable mole for five hours. Mr. Harlan Chapwell the Third stands slouched in his bulletproof vest in front of her. She puts her AK-9 in his chest. “Peter, why do you not explain to your friend here what happens when a subsonic nine-millimeter is fired at a bulletproof vest? Or maybe, Mr. Mole, you should tell me who you are working for. Alexander?”

  Harlan shakes his head. “That man has no respect. He lets losers like Peter on the payroll. And he lets his sex toys like you run the roost. I know for a fact that you are on the payroll as his mistress. Don’t play coy with me.”

  Infuriated at his accusation, Zara hits him in the gut with the butt of her rifle. As he folds over, she demands, “Who wants the object? Who is bombing us? Who are you working for?”

  Harlan lifts his head, groaning, and peers at Peter. “How can you blindly follow a woman with severe PTSD? Everything she has told you is half reality, half protective fantasy. How can you truly believe in what she is telling you? She’s only using you to placate her disturbed fantasies.”

  Not amused, Zara hits him again with the butt of her rifle. “Stop stalling. Tell us who are you working for.”

  With a cough and a look at Jean-Paul, Harlan replies, “Ask your Vatican friends here. Did you ever wonder why there are so many priests with guns in the midst of Kurdistan and Turkey?”

  And before Zara can stop him, he crunches his molars, says goodbye in Russian. Harlan froths at the mouth as the cyanide hidden in his molar begins to take effect, and he crumples to the ground. Zara searches him and finds items of interest only to Jean-Paul, which she palms. She takes his MoxWrap, which is still transmitting, and stops it, searches for where it was transmitting to. Her heart stops when she spies two MoxWrap addresses, both belonging to men she knows, Anatoly and Dan.

  She woefully glances at Peter. “Why? Why? They want the Americans and Russians to go to war.”

  As they wait for Major Buchli’s helicopter to come and take Jean-Paul to receive proper medical care, a dusty rose pickup truck, the same model as Zara’s crushed red one, appears on the horizon. The major signals for the former priests to deploy in defense, but Zara says it is only her friends, bringing her backup truck. And Peri, Sana, and Firya exit the truck armed to the hilt and run to hug Zara once they affirm all is well.

  After a heated debate with the major, who explains that the object can be lifted by his helicopter, the group loads the object onto the second assassin truck, to be driven by Zara, with Sana and Firya riding literal shotgun. In the pink backup truck, Peri will drive Peter and ex-Father Petrus. Two of the other ex-priests will drive their vehicle, while the major and Guillaume fly Jean-Paul in the helicopter, an old one at that. Peter wonders if the rumors of the Vatican riches are indeed false if they could only send a sixty-plus-year-old helicopter to save Jean-Paul.

  In the pink mobile, it is very clear Peri has taken a liking to Petrus, who sits between her and Peter. She has her hand on his thigh, squeezing it, and lets him know in no uncertain terms in what ways she likes him. She asks, “So if you are no longer a priest, you are free to be with the woman of your choosing, no? Ever thought of marrying a nice Kurdish woman? Your French accent is so sexy.”

  Peter comes to this poor ex-priest’s rescue by interrupting, “Petrus, how do you know Jean-Paul?”

  “Jean-Paul and I came from the same military school in France,” Petrus answers in his newly discovered sexy French accent, relieved for the moment not to have to answer Peri’s proposal. “And then we were together teaching in the Philippines, and again in Mali with Guillaume.”

  And Peter gets the same background on the others. Pedro and Simon were in the Congo and Nigeria with Jean-Paul. As Peter probes further, he realizes that the dates when they were in each of these countries coincided with wars or military actions. Soldiers of the pope, he quips to himself.

  Peter asks, “So, Nigeria—what was Jean-Paul doing there?”

  Petrus smiles and says, “My dear Jean-Paul has a soft spot for redheads, especially ones with good singing voices.”

  “Oh, you mean Mylène,” Peter replies proudly, showing he knows something of Jean-Paul’s predilections.

  Petrus shakes his head. “Mylène Farmer? Non, mais non. Not the singer, but Sister Magali. I thought they were having an affair in the Philippines when he was nearing the end of his Regency, but in the end, they both took their full vows. But
he never stopped loving her. She was teaching in Nigeria, and the Boko Haram took a busful of her kids. It took one phone call, and twelve hours later, Jean-Paul is down there with Pedro and Simon. Fourteen hours later, the kids were returned safe and unharmed.”

  Mystified, Peter says, “I never heard of this incident.”

  “The good Sister explained to the kids later that it was a training exercise for them to know what to do if the Boko Haram ever came. And their kidnappers—well, Jean-Paul is very thorough about disposing of waste. Magali, he loves her so much, he would do anything for her.”

  Now Peter understands better his love of Mylène. She is his safe love substitute, as his love for the redheaded Sister is of the untouchable kind. The stuff of the romance novels he tried his best to edit.

  Peter just has to ask, “Father Petrus, ex-Father Petrus, please tell me this—why would priests operate like Special Forces commandos?”

  Petrus simply smiles, so serenely, as Jean-Paul would do. “The work of the Lord takes many forms.”

  Chapter 37

  The things that we love tell us what we are.

  —Saint Thomas Aquinas

  5:30 a.m. GMT+3, May 28, 2021

  Siirt, former Turkey, now Anatolian Kurdish State

  Peter slowly opens his eyes, never having felt better. No fog. No haze. Just peace and beauty. He tries to remember this really important dream. But alas, that has not changed, as he cannot. Blurry-eyed, he spies the ceiling of Zara’s brother’s room.

  But then, a fuzzy black head pops over him. Slurp. My lips. And here’s a lamb greeting him to gates of heaven. Was that all a dream? Did they save Jean-Paul or did he really die in a hailstorm of bullets? But then he feels the heat. Was his mother right? He didn’t confess enough and he’s headed the other way.

  Then his eyes pop wide open as he senses the body heat next to him. Zara is in bed with him. She was that dream? Did they really do it last night? He lifts up the bedcovers to find out if his boxers are still on.

  Zara glares at him lifting the covers, hits him, and covers herself. “What are you doing? What did you think we did last night? Certainly not that.”

  And before he can reply, the other little lamb, the white one, crawls under his bedcovers to look at what he was looking at. With a little white woolen tail wagging under his nose, Peter sneezes and then uncontrollably laughs as Zara’s little friend administers tickle torture.

  Years and years without laughter. True laughter. Zara breaks open as her little lamb’s assault of this banana slug man is the funniest thing she has seen in years.

  But her little lamb, never having heard such noises, hides under Peter’s armpit while the black one dives under the covers as well. He lifts the two quaking creatures up and hugs them, much to the delight of these little woolen balls as well as to the woman next to him.

  “They both like you. That is a good sign,” Zara asserts, petting the heads of her surrogate daughters. “I raised them to be picky about the boys they cuddle with.”

  After much petting, of the little lambs that is, Peter starts to say, “Not that I mind at all waking up to your little friends, or you at all—”

  “I heard you fighting in here,” Zara interrupts, still smiling. “I though you deserved a peaceful sleep after what we have been through.” She pauses, glances aside, and says, “And with you saving me yesterday, I thought you deserved to sleep well.”

  “I’ve never felt better. But I had this dream,” says Peter. “I thought it was about us. Maybe not. But it was very, very important.”

  Zara watches her little lambs, the young ladies of great discrimination purring in the arms of the man next her. And to his surprise, she takes her petite puffballs out from his arms to lay them on the floor. She then leans over, kisses his forehead, and rolls the bedcovers down to his waist, draping his growing point of embarrassment. She kisses his chest over his heart, wets her palm, and rubs this special spot slowly with her palm as she kisses his forehead. She pulls his head to her neck, letting her hair drape over him. She whispers for him to smell her.

  At the risk of forever losing this long-awaited cherished moment, Peter pulls back from her. “Zara, you don’t need to do this to access what is in my head, my dreams.” He touches her temples and says, “You can touch me here and the same will happen.”

  She smiles and touches his temples. “Are you happy now?” And she lifts his head and kisses him, softly, and then with her mouth open. She breaks for but a moment and says, “I do this because I want to.” And Peter returns her kiss.

  As peace transcends and their minds clear, they both observe images of a woman being tortured by giants. Zara wants to flinch and pull away as she has seen too much of the same, but for real, in her life, but Peter holds her tight, with the warm hug that has always settled her. They listen to the lead giant call the woman Ramana, daughter of Ki, the killer of their father. They see Ramana’s memory of her mother, Ki, shooting an arrow through her oldest daughter out of compassion and mercy. Another image that forces Zara to pull back in tears. Zara pulls her head away from Peter and cries, “I cannot watch this. I cannot.”

  From laughter to tears, Peter quickly reframes and tries to put his hands around her tear-covered cheeks, but Zara bats them away. She tries to get up out of the bed, but Peter grabs her and wrestles her back down. He is on top of her, and she fights her instinct to knee him in the groin as she says, “Do not do that with me. You do not understand what I have been through. Do not pin me down with your weight.”

  He rolls back. “Then come back with me to the dream. We need to understand what your voice is trying to tell us through the dream.”

  She sits up, staring at her nightgown covering her legs. Minutes pass as she finds that courage within to witness another woman suffer what she did, what her sisters did. She reengages with Peter with the touches that bring them closer to the voice, to the dreams. She finds that he is there with her, and his warmth and strength bolster hers to watch this tormented woman being forced to tell this giant what he wants to learn about the object.

  Ramana says there is another object from her granduncle Namu, whose son married her aunt Sarpani. Namu’s boat had been crushed upon the rocks arriving on this side of the lake. With the object lost in the shallow waters off the coast, Namu became so depressed that he drank wine for the rest of his days until, at his wife’s request, his sons built a boat to trawl for the object. After many sun cycles, they snagged part of the object, which had split on the sea floor.

  Her granduncle again heard a voice that told them to bring the object away from the lake to a high mountain overlooking the fertile plains where their descendants would create a new, prosperous world.

  Zara flinches again as the images show the giants gathering to violate this woman. Peter holds her tight as the lead giant turns and shows his face. And the vision reveals the face of Alexander, who yells to the others that he wants this object. He wants to rule the new lands with this object. The other giants cower in fear of the lightning god who strikes those who defile the object, and they proceed with their defilement of Ramana, away from the object.

  Having relived the trauma that she had buried deep in her psyche, Zara breaks down in tears, soaking Peter’s bedclothes, once her brother’s. He tries to comfort her, whispering, “You are my brave, beautiful, strong, and wise Zara. You were so brave.”

  Peter strokes her head as her tears subside. He empathetically says, “I can understand if your relationship with Alexander makes this dream even more terrifying. I can understand if your relationship with him means you cannot be close to me. I have come to know your soul, so beautiful, so wise, so brave. And there is a spot I cannot touch, your most private thoughts about Alexander.”

  Her eyes red, from the tears, but now more out of anger at his implications, Zara scolds him. “What do you think? I am having sex with Alexander? Is that how shallow you think I am?”

  Sitting back and putting his hands on his belly, Peter meekly
replies, “I meant no disrespect. You must understand how deep my respect is for you. You are everything to me. I want you to know there is no shame about your relationship with Alexander. I just wanted to say I understand and respect your privacy.”

  She teeters on being mad. A red flush passes her cheeks. The mehhhs of her daughters interrupt her thought. She sighs and inhales. “He is not my lover, and I am not his mistress, his sex thing.” She glances away from him. “He is like what you would call a godfather, of sorts. He is Sara’s nephew, her brother’s son who married a Russian woman.”

  She turns back to him, her arms folded in front of her chest. “He sent me to school. He sent rescue teams to save me from those monsters. He looked out for me as I recovered. He still looks out for me.”

  Peter is floored. But now Alexander’s parting comments to him in Luxembourg start to make sense. He loves her, as he would his own daughter, and thus he envisioned Peter as the prospective son-in-law. Thinking Alexander implied Peter was always destined to be with her, Peter reaches out for Zara, who turns away from him. Peter softly asks, “Why? If it’s not Alexander, why?”

  Avoiding looking into his eyes, she says, broken up as she stares into his chest, “For the voice, I must let you in. I am so vulnerable with what you can touch in me. The woman in your dream, she witnessed her mother kill her daughter and niece. Killed out of mercy. How do you think her mother felt doing that? The guilt of killing your most cherished ones. The choice of death or worse. The same I had faced with Jean-Paul.”

  “But you didn’t need to kill him. You prayed for the rain instead and you saved him,” Peter says, trying to comfort her.