Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  “Altogether, these three cards tell me that you have been troubled, my dear. Trouble at home, perhaps? Trouble at work? Very sad? But you come here to Prague looking for answer, looking for end to your troubles. You hope, maybe? You hope to bring this answer home with you and to know what is important in order to keep these troubles, these doubts away and not attack you again.” Dusana looked into Sophia’s eyes.

  Sophia bit her lower lip and nodded, almost imperceptibly, in agreement before she glanced away. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  The others at the table shifted uneasily in their seats. Dusana picked up the three cards and reinserted them into the deck, pausing to look at one of them again. Hearing, but not listening to, George talk about the neighborhood in the Bronx where he taught, Magdalena noticed that the card was the Hermit. Dusana mixed the cards together again and handed them to the stunning redhead across the table.

  “Oh, thank you,” Elizabeth gushed. “I’ve never had my cards read before. What do I do first?” She reached out and took the deck Dusana offered her.

  “Just as I say before,” Dusana directed her. “Shuffle cards three times.”

  “Like this?” inquired Elizabeth, dividing the cards into stacks and recombining them.

  “In what way seems to you most right,” Dusana assured her. She drank from her ale again as Elizabeth struggled with the cards. Finally satisfied, she handed the deck back to Dusana and beamed proudly. Dusana took the cards, shuffled again and cut the deck. She lay out the three cards. George took a long drink from the mug in his hand (leaving a moustache of foam on his upper lip) and Magdalena took advantage of the opportunity to step to one side so she could see the cards more easily. She saw the Queen of Swords, the Fool, and the upside-down Five of Cups.

  Dusana knit her brow before speaking. “The Queen of Swords, she bring you here to Prague, my dear.” She looked at Elizabeth’s face. “She is proud, she is angry. She is in mourning. Perhaps she lies to get you here.” Dusana paused and everyone around the table sat in a tense silence. “Is she you, my dear? Is she someone else? I do not know you, it is difficult for me to see. You can better to tell us if this Queen is your own self or someone else has brought you here to serve her own pride, and her own anger.”

  Father George, next to Magdalena behind Dusana, whistled softly. “Sounds like quite a woman, don’t you think?” he whispered into his beer and then lapsed into silence.

  Elizabeth sat quietly, her hands folded on the table as she looked at the cards Dusana had spread out.

  “You brought here by the Queen of Swords. What you here for? This is Fool who is looking to make more experience, step out into air off edge of cliff and know that he will not fall. The universe will not let him to fall. Going ahead, you must deal with old friends as well as new. That is what Five of Cups, the backwards Five of Cups, tells us.” Dusana glanced over her shoulder at Magdalena. Then she turned back to Elizabeth.

  “You have questions about any of the cards?” the card reader asked the beautiful Irish professor.

  Elizabeth continued to look at the cards and then picked up her drink and sat back in her seat. She lifted the glass as a toast to Dusana and said, “I have been found out! You say that the Queen of Swords has brought me here with anger, deceit, and pride? Yes? The cards have announced to the world that I lied in the abstract I submitted to the conference and really have no idea if my argument makes any sense!” Her expression, solemn and serious, burst into ripples of laughter and hilarity. “I am proud of my abstract, nevertheless, and angry at the cost of the airfare from Dublin!” The sound of her laughter wafted across the night and everyone at the table burst into laughter with her, their tense silence dissolving into bubbles of relief and good humor.

  Magdalena smiled at the joke Elizabeth made of the dark reading Dusana had given her. “But I wonder,” she thought. If Dusana were a really skilled reader—and Magdalena had no idea if Dusana was a truly skilled tarot reader or rather a truly skilled party entertainer—then part of the interpretation of the Queen of Swords might easily describe Fen’ka. Angry, yes. Proud? Maybe. But deceitful? Magdalena thought not. But had Elizabeth come to Prague from Dublin in response to Fen’ka’s demand for justice, delivered by Flauros and Halphas at Magdalena’s request?

  Dusana laughed herself at Elizabeth’s joke and scooped up the cards to shuffle and cut before handing to the next questioner.

  Alessandro, sitting on the other side of Elizabeth from Sophia, took the cards and shuffled them, talking quietly to Elizabeth. Magdalena couldn’t quite make out the words but Elizabeth glanced down, smiled, and then looked back admiringly and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  Alessandro gave the cards back to Dusana, who once more shuffled and cut the deck. She paused and closed her eyes and muttered something under her breath, seemingly refocusing her attention, and then opened her eyes again as she laid the three cards out. Two of the three were Major Trumps.

  Dusana pointed to each card in turn. “The Two of Cups. It brings you to this moment, the Lovers tell what you will encounter here, and Judgment will follow when you go.”

  Alessandro laughed as he lifted his beer to his lips. “Sounds like a jealous husband to me!” he said and the table burst into guffaws.

  “Perhaps,” Dusana agreed. “The Two of Cups is your search for connection, for family, for someone to share with, a meeting of mind and heart. The Lovers—my, my—is the need, the… the drive? Yes, the drive of this search press strong on your heart, but its answer still hangs in the air. Judgment follows on heel of this search, it is the necessity to stand up and take responsibility for your words and actions. It is to say, ‘This is me.’ Perhaps this is new for you? Perhaps you like not to do this kind of thing?” Dusana smiled as she asked this last question and the table again laughed heartily as Alessandro’s soul was apparently laid bare.

  Dusana gathered her cards and moved to the next table, amid exclamations of “Thank you! Thank you for my reading!” Magdalena moved with Dusana to the table where several others sat, including the priest Dmitri. George slid into an open chair next to Dmitri.

  Dusana seemed to notice George for the first time. “Would you like reading this evening?” she asked in her accented English.

  “No, thank you.” George tipped his drink in her direction before sipping at the foam again. “Consulting card readers is forbidden to members of the clergy, I’m afraid. Soothsaying and fortune telling being denials of God’s sovereignty and all.”

  Father Dmitri turned to his new neighbor. “Actually, that has not always been the case,” he interjected. “In the Middle Ages, soothsaying was forbidden for both clergy and laity but consulting tarot cards was not considered soothsaying. Using the tarot cards, like astrology, was considered an acceptable way to discern the will of God. Do you know what was really very sternly forbidden?” He turned to the others at the table. “The method of fortune telling that was strictly forbidden was to open the Bible and pick a verse at random to read! That was the method of fortune telling most strictly forbidden, not the tarot cards!” The faces at the table looked impressed and nodded, murmuring their surprise.

  Dmitri turned back to George. “Go ahead, Father.” Dmitri gestured to Dusana. “Have your cards read.” Dusana was shuffling the cards as she listened and, rather than hand the Roman Catholic priest the deck, began to lay out the three cards herself, apparently certain that the priest’s curiosity would get the better of him once he saw which cards were placed on the table.

  “No!” exclaimed the Jesuit. “I said that I do not want my cards read!” He swept his arm across the table and scattered the cards Dusana had laid out onto the ground. The yard of people sat in shocked silence.

  George sat there, his face frozen in rage for a moment before realizing that everyone was staring at him because of his outburst. “It’s fine as a parlor game,” he relented. “No reason for anyone not to participate in a reading on that basis. But I cannot participate in good conscience, as a Ca
tholic priest.”

  Magdalena knelt down and gathered the cards before the evening breeze wafted them away. As she was giving them back to Dusana, Magdalena noted that she held the King of Swords, the Seven of Cups, and the World. She was unsure what the order of the three had been, and though both the King of Swords and the Cups cards were upside-down in her hand, it was impossible to know whether they had been laid out in a reversed position or had flipped over when thrown to the ground.

  “Well, I am happy to participate in a reading. On any basis,” Father Dmitri announced. He reached for the deck. “Shuffle them three times?” he asked.

  “Yes, ” Dusana replied, ignoring the outburst of a moment before. The others in the yard were still silent, unable to turn their attention away from the two priests.

  Dmitri shuffled the cards and returned them to Dusana who, as always, shuffled them again and cut the deck before laying out three cards. Dmitri leaned over the table to see them better.

  “Ace of Swords. Magician. Ace of Cups,” announced Dusana as she set out each card. Magdalena had always been intrigued by the last card, the Ace of Cups. She was eager to hear Dusana’s interpretation of it. Father George crossed his legs and turned himself slightly, facing away from the cards on the table. He lifted his glass.

  “Ah, the Ace of Swords,” Dmitri repeated. He pointed at the first card. He looked at Dusana. “That means a new way of thinking, a new approach to life. Does it not?”

  “Eh? Someone who knows the cards?” exclaimed Dusana. “Very good, Father! Very good indeed. This suit, the Swords, is all thinking, in the head, intelligent. The Ace does say a new chapter, a new start, a change in direction. It is this that has brought you here to Prague.”

  Dmitri pointed to the next card. “The Magician.” He glanced at his Jesuit neighbor and then turned his attention back to Dusana. “That stands for making something beautiful out of the materials that Providence has given you, correct? He has the four magical tools used by practitioners of the occult—the staff, the cup, the sword, the pentacle—which stand for all the gifts the universe has to offer. The card is not about magic, per se, but artistry.”

  Dusana laughed and set her glass down to clap. “Correct again, Father! Artistry! Beauty! Using what the universe, what she gives you. The cards you have been dealt.” Most people in the courtyard smiled and some even chuckled aloud at the pun.

  “And… Ace of Cups?” Dusana asked the Orthodox priest for his interpretation of the last card.

  “Cups are the interior life, the emotional and spiritual life and experiences. Aces are always about new chapters, new beginnings, new attitudes or approaches. So the Ace of Cups is a new spiritual exercise, a new chapter in my emotional life, a beginning or a major shift in my interior life,” Dmitri replied. It seemed like he held back, and Magdalena wanted him to expand on the meaning of the cards, but he kept it simple, much as Dusana kept her interpretations.

  Dusana gestured at the cards together. “How would you say together the message of cards tell the tale of your time in Prague?” Most of the people there, with the exception of the Jesuit who continued to sit and drink his beer as if alone in the yard, appeared fascinated to see a priest who knew how to read the cards.

  “Hmmm,” Dmitri muttered. He studied the cards again, then pointed to each card as he moved through his synthesis.

  “Driven by a new intellectual hunger, I have come to Prague, to these conferences, to demonstrate my skill at rearranging facts and theories in new ways and win renown—or gain notoriety!—for my intellectual artistry, hoping that this renown will enable me to make a much-needed change in my emotional or spiritual life.”

  Dusana drank deeply from her glass before retrieving the cards to shuffle again into the deck. “Well done, well done,” she clucked and then turned to the next questioner, a woman from Sweden who sat beside Dmitri.

  Magdalena was surprised at how much Father Dmitri knew about the tarot cards and how he had defended their use. “He even said they were an acceptable way to discern the will of God,” she thought. Very unlike her idea of what a clergyman might be like. There seemed to be a lot she did not know about the Orthodox. “Might he be one of those I am waiting to meet? Maybe even he and his wife together?”

  As the readings went on, people got up from their seats, ordered more drinks, stood around the tables in the yard and struck up conversations with others that had gone on the Ghost Tour. Magdalena mingled with them, ordering another drink for herself. She noticed, however, that as most people stood and mixed with each other, Alessandro from Australia and Elizabeth from Ireland remained in their seats. They seemed particularly delighted in each other’s company, smiling and laughing and nearly oblivious of the others around them.

  Magdalena also noticed that George, the Jesuit from New York, had gotten up from his seat and must have gone into the pub to either use the restroom or order another drink, as she did not see him talking with anyone. She spoke with some of the people from the tour that she had not had a chance to chat with earlier and nearly finished her drink. She looked around again, thinking it would be all right for her to go home at this point and leave the academics to their own devices.

  Alessandro was now chatting with Father Dmitri and Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. Had she gone inside or slipped into the night? Several of the academics seemed on the verge of heading to their hotels and were sorting themselves into groups in order to walk together. Magdalena set her glass down. She was tired but happy. It had been a long and exhausting day, but a rewarding one. She was ready for home. She stepped out onto the street.

  She saw no one on the street that curled around the rear apse of Our Lady of Tyn. Turning right, she followed the cobblestones as they led alongside the church, back to the Old Town Square. A shadow wavered on the wall opposite her and a priest in a cassock slowly emerged into the light, walking toward and then past Magdalena toward the tavern (and Lucrezia’s window!), nodding slightly to her. Magdalena, never given to noticing details of religious practice before this, noticed that he wore no cross around his neck as Father Dmitri did. She decided the man passing them must be a Roman Catholic priest like George, but a local man, since he was wearing a cassock and not an American suit with black shirt and collar. If not Czech, then at least he was European, and certainly not an American. The priest made his way past Magdalena and then stopped and lifted his face toward the window above.

  Magdalena emerged into the Old Town Square. A handful of people, standing about in knots, dotted the square. A few couples sat on the benches around the base of the Jan Hus Memorial at one side of the square. She began to cross the square, heading to the bridge and home.

  One man was walking toward her, seemingly headed to the alleyway along the church that Magdalena had just emerged from. But as he came closer, she realized it was the American priest from New York.

  “Headed home already?” he asked, a jovial smile spreading across his face as he saw her.

  Magdalena nodded, unsure how he had gotten to the square so quickly without going past her. “It’s been a long day,” she admitted to him. “See you in the morning!” She took a step away.

  “Come sit with me a moment first,” he invited her, reaching for her elbow and guiding her to an empty bench. His grasp, strong and determined, surprised her. They sat in silence and suddenly Magdalena realized who he was.

  “You!” burst loudly from her lips but then she lowered her voice and hunched forward conspiratorially. “You!” she repeated in a whisper. “Your voice! It was you that whispered in my ear at the wine reception! You are one of the people sent by Flauros and Halphas to help Fen’ka!”

  “Yes, I am one of those you have been waiting for,” George answered. “Did you think we would leave you wondering who we were until the end of the conferences?”

  “We?” asked Magdalena. “Please, tell me. Who else have the spirits sent?”

  “I needed to be sure who else here at the conferences had been summoned by yo
ur conjuring,” George explained. “The tarot readings were the perfect opportunity to see what had brought at least some of these people to the conferences and I was certain that our other colleague would be present for such an event, guided by the spirits to our little rendezvous.”

  “But… but you threw the cards on the floor and said that they were only good for games!” Magdalena sputtered.

  “A necessary ruse,” George explained. “I could not risk anyone else seeing what had brought me here to Prague or what I would be taking from the experience here.” He glanced around to be sure that no one seemed to be paying any particular attention to them. “That Orthodox priest is entirely correct. It is the casting of lots—not the drawing of cards—which is forbidden. He is right that the most forbidden form of casting lots was to use the verses of the Bible as random answers to questions posed.”

  “Who is the other person sent by the spirits?” whispered Magdalena excitedly. “I was also hoping that the tarot readings might reveal who had been sent to Prague by Flauros and Halphas but I couldn’t really tell. You could?”

  “The other person?” asked George. “The other whose assistance you crave was brought to Prague by the Queen of Swords. The Fool signified what she will find here. The Five of Cups, reversed, indicates what she will take away from Prague. It was obvious.” George shrugged his shoulders as if the answer were so simple as to not merit repeating or elucidation. Perhaps sensing Magdalena’s perplexity, he added, “It was especially the Queen of Swords having brought her here that identified her.”

  Magdalena searched her memory for whose reading had begun with the Queen of Swords. “That must mean it was….”