Florian's Gate

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Certain women are attracted by guys with those kinds of problems,” Katya said. “They usually have a tough external shell, and this type of girl wants to work her way inside. It’s almost a motherly sort of reaction.”

  “You’ve met guys like this yourself.”

  “Every girl has. She can be attracted by the toughness, and maybe pride herself on her ability to understand this man that the rest of the world can’t. Women in such situations put up with an enormous amount of abuse—physical or emotional—infidelity, unreliability, whatever. And still she works very hard to keep pleasing this man. She’s never confident of her hold on him, except for this idea that she alone understands the soft, inner, hidden man.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Jeffrey said.

  “It’s tragic,” Katya corrected.

  “No, I mean the way you expressed it. Your insight.”

  She did not deny it. “Sometimes I feel as though I can see things and understand things that the rest of the world just keeps on trying to shut out. Maybe it’s part of the gift of learning compassion, coming to understand more through trying to care more.”

  He turned and looked away.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No,” he sighed. “It just really hit home.”

  She waited a moment, and when he did not go on, she said, “Finish your story. Please.”

  “About two months after I started classes,” Jeffrey continued, his voice a monotone, “I got a call from Mom. All the time she’d spent and the work she’d done to rebuild her life had been destroyed. She was crying so hard she couldn’t talk, and finally had to give the phone over to Dad. He sounded worse than she did, really hollow. At two o’clock in the morning, Charles had gotten drunk at some party and climbed a tree. And he’d slipped out and fallen on his back and broken his spine.”

  “Oh, Jeffrey.”

  “He was paralyzed from the waist down,” he went on, rushing now, pushing it out. “I listened to Dad tell me, and I wasn’t thinking about Charles or Chuckie or whoever he was. I was thinking about my folks. And me. If they weren’t strong enough to do the obvious, I was. I just cut him out. Right there. Cut him out completely. I didn’t have a brother anymore. My folks were just too weak to do it. So I was going to do it for them. I told my dad I wasn’t coming to the hospital, not then, not ever. And I didn’t want them to mention his name around me ever again. As far as I was concerned, my brother was gone. Dead. Out of my life forever.”

  “What did your parents say?”

  “That’s a funny thing. Dad didn’t object, and Mom never mentioned it. Not ever.”

  “And you never saw your brother again?”

  “Once. I went to see him once more.”

  It was after his grandmother asked him, just before his departure for England. His brother was back in the hospital for surgery. All those years of sitting in a wheelchair had given him bedsores, and they’d become infected.

  That was the worst part of going to see him, having to do it in the hospital. It was almost as though his grandmother’s request had rolled back time, pushed him back nine years to the hospital visit he’d refused to make.

  Charles was parked in a special air-bed, an incredible contraption with a pump built into its base. It pushed air continually up through a load of silicon sand into a bottom sheet of fine-mesh nylon; it let the air out in a continual cool blast that ballooned the sheet’s slackness up and around Charles’s limp body.

  The years had softened Charles’s features, but not as much as Jeffrey had expected. There was a slight blurring to the strong lines, but part of this was caused by the Demerol that Charles had control over. He had an electric pump connected to his IV, and every fifteen seconds or so Charles would push the button and give himself a dose. Jeffrey couldn’t help but grin when he finally figured out why Charles kept such a grip on the button; at first Jeffrey thought it was for calling the slowest nurse in history. Charles would wait until a bleep announced that his next dose was up and charged. Knowing Charles, he’d have told the doctors he was in terminal pain. Giving that guy control over his own drug supply was the silliest thing Jeffrey had ever heard of.

  That set the tone for their meeting, at least on Jeffrey’s side. Charles acted as though he had seen his brother the day before—sort of bored and casual and not really concerned one way or the other. Jeffrey was standing there, trying to come up with something to say, when he caught sight of himself in the mirror across from Charles’s bed.

  His button-down Oxford shirt was crumpled from a day of running around, his top button undone and his tie at half-mast. His shoulders were hunched up as though he were getting ready to charge the line, and there were worry-frowns creasing his forehead.

  Then his mother had appeared in the door, all bright and brown from her daily tennis and solid in her happiness. That amazed Jeffrey more than anything, how both his mom and his dad had somehow recovered from all the stuff life had thrown at them, and kept hold of both their happiness and their love for each other.

  His brother took his cue like a consummate actor and folded inside the bed’s balloon-sheets like he’d been hit with a sudden attack of real live pain. Jeffrey stepped back, watched his mother straighten her shoulders and take a breath and do the bravest thing he’d ever seen her do, which was meet her son with a smile. It was a forced smile, and the brightness had a brittle, lacquered quality to it. But it was still a smile, and the determination that she showed in not allowing Charles to drag her down into the pit again left Jeffrey speechless.

  He left the hospital that day absolutely certain that his mom and his dad had found a strength that he didn’t have, and hoped he’d never need. Not ever. For him the best way of dealing with his brother was by continuing to deny he even had one.

  Katya drew him back with, “Do your parents believe in God, Jeffrey?”

  “Not before all the mess with Chuckie started. Church was a place to go and make some social contacts, you know, help us get settled in. That’s how I got into faith in the first place. I was just looking for a nice group of kids. Sometimes it was easier to find people to talk to a new kid at church than at school. But then I met this Sunday-school teacher who was really on fire.

  “When I started reading the Bible and going to weeknight services and talking about getting baptized, my folks treated it like just another phase I was going through. They trusted me, and even though they didn’t understand what I was doing, they figured it was okay since it made me so happy.

  “The co-dependency group my parents started with in Jacksonville was connected to a church. The Al-Anon support group, too. And the more time they spent with the people in those groups, the more their conversation got sprinkled with these spiritual terms. Their new spirituality came at the same time when I was putting the lid on my box, so I made it clear that I didn’t want to hear anything about faith. They still referred to it every once in a while, just letting me know it was there if I want to talk about it. But I’d just ignore it or change the subject, and that was it.”

  He watched her for a moment, savoring this feeling of closeness and friendship. This is what a true love ought to be, he decided. A best friend. He asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “You probably won’t like it,” she replied.

  “But it’s something I ought to hear, right?”

  “I can’t decide that for you, Jeffrey.”

  “I trust you,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “Somewhere along the way,” she said quietly, “people have come up with the impression that if they believe in Jesus Christ, they won’t have to suffer.”

  Her words did not need volume to have impact. Jeffrey shifted in his chair.

  “Then when something hits them,” Katya went on, “they question themselves and they question their faith: What have I done to deserve this? Has God found doubts in me, reasons to condemn me for my lack of faith, flaws in my beliefs that I have tried to hide even from myself?

  �
��Then comes rage: I held up my part of the bargain, and look what you’ve done to me. But the Bible doesn’t promise total protection, Jeffrey. Not even to the righteous man does it promise that. Look at Jesus Christ. Look at the apostle Paul. Look at Job. The Bible says that Job was an honorable, righteous man. A man who avoided evil. A man who honored God. And yet God allowed him to suffer terribly. There is no clearer message to me in all the Bible than this, Jeffrey. We see that even the most righteous man on earth is open to the pain of life.”

  Her eyes were wide open, her gaze seeking out the deepest wells of his heart. “Listen to me, Jeffrey. If we are faithful to Jesus Christ only when our lives are in the sunshine, then we do not truly love Him, no more than a true love on earth exists only when times are good and the couple live in harmony with each other. Genuine faith, and genuine love, does not always guarantee total protection from the risks and turmoils of life.

  “Genuine faith consists of loving God no matter what the circumstances. We accept that our life is in His hands, no matter what the chaos of this world might bring, no matter what troubles confront us at the moment, no matter how we might hurt. We have placed our life in His hands and we keep it there.”

  She sat and watched him in silence, as though sensing that he had been stripped bare and needed time to put himself back together. When his eyes turned outward once more, and he truly saw her, she asked quietly, “Will you pray with me, Jeffrey?”

  “Not now, okay? I want to think about this some first. Maybe later, but not now.”

  She did not try to hide her disappointment. “I will wait for that day as I have waited for nothing else in my life.”

  “When you talk like this you sound a thousand years old.”

  “Love is eternal, Jeffrey. Whoever loves in His name knows the gift of love’s eternal wisdom. There is no other way.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Jeffrey was coming to love these walks alone in early-morning Cracow. His days began with a quick breakfast, a telephone call to Katya’s room to outline the day, and then off to Gregor’s. On pretty days he stretched the walk by a dozen or so blocks, walking and watching and thinking.

  This morning, however, a mist hung heavy over the city, muting sounds and closing off vision to ten paces ahead. People appeared first as gray-black shadows, firming into living shapes at the last moment, then disappearing just as swiftly. Jeffrey examined the faces and thought of all that had filled his past weeks.

  Gregor greeted him with the casual air of a dear friend. Jeffrey pulled up a chair close to his. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

  “That is the best news I could possibly hear this morning,” Gregor replied. “Except for the news of Christ’s return.”

  “I was just wondering,” Jeffrey said, “how you came to be religious.”

  “I don’t know that I am what you would call religious,” Gregor told him. “Being religious is in my view an external action, something I would do for the outside world. I find myself too busy to pay such things any mind.”

  He settled deeper into his pillows. “As for coming to faith, that happened in the darkness of the Nazi occupation. In those days, every Polish family had a Bible. And in almost every family, the Bible always remained on the shelf. I started reading the Bible during the war, not out of faith, but out of the need for distraction.

  “I stayed in Cracow during the war. Our own house, quite a beautiful place, was taken over by the Nazis for use as a local office. We took what we could carry and moved to our cleaning lady’s flat nearby.”

  “What happened to the cleaning lady?”

  “She was there with us. She had two sons who were missing. Many young men simply disappeared during those dark times. We were all the family she knew, and when we lost everything, she simply took us in. She was embarrassed to have us stay there—after all, she had been the one who had scrubbed our floors. She treated us like privileged guests for more than three years. That was an eternally long period to a young teenager full of life and energy.

  “I was fifteen when the Germans invaded, and it was dangerous to go out with the curfews and the uncertainty. Because all the schools had been closed by the Nazis, I finished high school by taking private lessons in a small group that met at the local seamstress’ house. I felt a constant restlessness then, a frustration over not being old enough to fight, and not being well enough to rebel against my parents’ wishes and fight anyway. Even then I had this problem with my joints. I would have liked to die fighting for my country, especially after Alexander was taken. It was very hard to stay home and hide and do nothing to bring Alexander back.

  “Our cleaning lady, Pani Basha, was not an educated woman. In her house were only three books—the first and last volumes of Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy, which is a sort of novelized summary of Polish heritage, and a leather-bound Bible. I turned to that book not out of faith, certainly not seeking guidance. What on earth could a book written two thousand years ago teach a young boy who was bored and distracted and worried and hungry and afraid? No, I turned to it out of restlessness.

  “I read it like a novel, beginning with Genesis and finishing with Revelation. Then I read it more slowly. Then I began reading books out of sequence, and gradually I found myself absorbing different messages. The sheer complexity of the book astounded me. No matter how much I studied it, nor how often I read and reread a passage, there was always something which I had missed before. Another lesson. A deeper meaning that I only then was beginning to understand.

  “When you have troubles, especially troubles which are so big that you know before you begin that you cannot conquer them, you feel as though you are the only one. No moment could be darker than the present moment. But I found the Bible to be full of war and destruction and hunger and suffering. And as I burrowed deeper and deeper into its pages, I also found that there were answers—not just to their pain and their distress and their distant troubles, but to mine.

  “These men cried out to God, ‘Father, do not forsake me.’ And so, in my own small way, as a restless teenager caught up in a crisis not of my making and certainly out of my control, I too cried out. And God listened.”

  Gregor pointed toward his empty glass. “Do you think you might make me another tea?”

  “Sure,” Jeffrey said, rising to his feet.

  “You are a good and honest man,” Gregor said. “Alexander is fortunate to have you as an assistant, and a friend, if I may add.”

  “He is my friend,” Jeffrey replied, hiding his embarrassment behind the alcove curtain. “Besides Katya, maybe my best friend.”

  “How wonderful for him. This makes what I am about to say all the more easy. I would like to lay my own responsibility upon you, if you will allow it.” Gregor waited until Jeffrey reappeared. “You may call it a duty of our own partnership, if you will.”

  Jeffrey returned and set down the steaming glass. “Fire away.”

  “I want you to promise me that each and every day you will pray for Alexander’s salvation.”

  Jeffrey hesitated. “After all these years, I would have thought you’d have given up by now.”

  “One never gives up. One never loses hope. One continues to petition the Maker of all miracles, and one hopes for those who have not yet learned how to hope for themselves.”

  “After all that he’s been through, I’m not surprised that he doesn’t believe.”

  “That is indeed true,” Gregor replied. “There are many people such as our Alexander, who have felt the need to cast away all semblance of faith in order to survive their ordeals. They have managed to survive where all but a handful were crushed and killed—or worse—because of simple strength of will. There is no denying the power and the self-confidence that they have earned. Yet I have also seen such people reach a crossroads where they come to recognize a need for power greater than what they themselves hold.”

  Gregor’s eyes held a luminous quality. “There is always hope, my dear boy. Always. So long as there
is life and the presence of the Lord in your heart, there is always hope. I am called to remain here with my arms outstretched, just as Christ did throughout His life and on unto death, and hope. And pray. Yes, that most of all.”

  Jeffrey found his eyes drawn to the simple crucifix hanging from the wall. “I’ve never thought of it in that way before.”

  “There are an infinite number of lessons to be drawn from the cross, my boy. Just as there are an infinite number of paths that lead man toward salvation.” Gregor himself turned to face the crucifix. “All human hope lies at the foot of the cross. In the two thousand years since it first rose in a dark and gloomy sky, it has lost none of its luster, none of its power, none of its divine promise.”

  Jeffrey turned back to Gregor. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  “Think carefully on this, my dear boy. This is a vital decision. You are accepting a duty that you will carry with you for as long as you or Alexander lives.”

  He nodded his understanding. “It’s okay. I accept.”

  “Excellent.” Gregor positively beamed. “I feel most reassured by your help.”

  Jeffrey rose to his feet. “I’ve got to meet our painter Mr. Henryk again. He’s supposed to get me some information Rokovski needs. When Katya gets here, tell her I should be back in an hour. We’ll need to go straight on to our next buy.”

  “I will do so, my dear boy. And know that you go forth with my prayers accompanying you.”

  * * *

  It was a moderate palace, as palaces went. The cream-and-white exterior gave it a fairy-tale lightness, accented by vast sweeps of windows. Dual exterior staircases with curving balustrades led around the ground-floor ballroom to a porticoed and pillared entrance on the second floor. The grounds were unkempt and barely a step away from forest, save for one sweep of still-green lawn directly in front of the palace.

  Katya and Jeffrey entered through gates so rusted and decrepit that no amount of effort could close them. Jeffrey tried to focus his mind on the business at hand, but found it next to impossible. The information he had received from Mr. Henryk was nowhere near as complete as he had hoped.