by Bunn, Davis
The ambassador’s wife listened to Elena’s report, then said, “Can we be certain that the information will go no further?”
“I have no idea.”
She sighed. “My husband warned me this would happen.”
“I’m so very, very sorry, Sandra.”
“For what? You accepted a stranger as a patient. You helped me when no one else could.”
Only then did Elena realize what she had failed to ask that morning: “You didn’t have a nightmare last night?”
“For the first time in a month, I slept through the night.” Sandra was silent, then said, “I will clear this with Lawrence. Go ahead and tell the detective who I am.”
Elena went back next door and announced, “I have a new patient. Her name is Sandra Harwood. Her husband is the United States ambassador to the Court of Saint James.”
“Oh, my sweet stars above,” the detective groaned.
Nigel Harries said, “The intelligence services must be notified immediately.”
The detective groaned once more.
“I can take care of that little chore, if you like.”
“That was your former bailiwick, was it?”
Nigel Harries did not respond.
“Oh, all right. Just give me a moment to phone this in.” The detective headed for the door. “Is there—”
“The office next door is free.”
“And here I was thinking I’d been called out to a nice simple burglary.” As he left her office, the detective muttered, “Why did this have to happen on my watch?”
11
FRIDAY
Before her first patient Friday morning, Elena took a moment to phone the name her pastor had supplied. The cardinal had a slightly accented and honeyed voice. “Brian Farringdon spoke ever so highly of you, Dr. Burroughs. When can you stop by?”
Elena hesitated. After sleeping poorly all that week, she was desperately tired. But she had no real interest in going home. The anniversary of Jason’s passage was not a time she wished to spend alone. But with everything else going on, she had made no plans. “My last appointment is over at five this afternoon.”
“Splendid. I will be waiting for you. Have the bursar explain how to find me.”
New College was for Elena a truly splendid place. She had attended several events there, most recently a banquet in the Founder’s Library, a peaked chamber in the college’s oldest building. The grounds included portions of the original Roman wall, which curved and weaved with an utter disregard for logic. As a result, no college passage ran straight, nor any path or quadrangle. The bursar was accustomed to guiding those easily lost, and used a photocopied map and a highlighter to show how Elena could reach the professor.
Cardinal Brindisi resembled a bricklayer far more than a Vatican official. He was big in a very solid manner, with a massive girth and arms like knobby tree limbs. He appeared to be aged somewhere north of sixty, and he was dressed in dark trousers and an open-necked shirt and frayed jacket. His overlarge hands were surprisingly gentle. They took hold of her own and blanketed them with warmth. “Dr. Burroughs, it is seldom that my friend the vicar speaks so highly of someone as he has of you. Will you take tea?”
The priest’s offices dated from the era when professors could not marry until they gave up tenure. They lived in quarters behind their offices, only moving off campus once they retired. The stone-walled double chamber was high-ceilinged and rimmed by stained-glass windows that were open to the night breeze. She sighed contentedly.
“A tiring day, Dr. Burroughs?”
“No. Well, yes. But that’s not … I was just thinking how good it is to be alive.”
“What a delightful thing to say. May that sentiment mark every hour we spend in each other’s company. Do you take sugar?”
“No thank you.” She watched the priest settle into his chair. “Did Brian tell you why he suggested I see you?”
“Only that you sought wisdom.” He tasted his tea, but Elena had the impression he had poured his cup out of politeness. “The ancients tell us that the beginning of wisdom is a good question asked by a listening heart and directed to the proper source.”
Elena sketched out the events much as she had for the vicar, then finished with “I want to know what God’s purpose is in all this, and how I can be certain this is God at all.”
Brindisi’s nod required a motion of his entire upper body. “That,” he said, “is a very good question indeed.”
His desk was planted on the side wall, facing the open window and the darkening sky. Footfalls and young voices drifted into the rose-tinted sunset. The priest said, “There are three Hebrew terms used in the Bible for sin. The first is chet, which refers to missing the mark. A believer knows the right action, but goes off on a wrong tangent, usually from selfish motives. The solution to chet begins with repentance, or acknowledgment that a wrong action has taken place. This grows naturally into turning away and improving, and thus making the mistake a part of progress.”
The priest set his cup on the edge of his desk and went on, “The second term is avon, from the root verb ava, which means to take a crooked path. These sins refer to habitual error. Again, the answer begins with repentance, but here it is far harder because the desire is to explain, justify, excuse, and keep going. Smoking and drinking to excess are examples of avon.”
Elena sipped from her cup. She heard a choir practicing in the chapel across the quad. The breeze through the open window carried the fragrance of blooming roses. Elena was suddenly filled with the sensation that her husband was in the room with them. Listening. And approving.
“The third term is pesha, or rebellion. The sinner knows his actions are wrong. But he does it anyway. Here again, the answer begins with repentance, recognizing there is a genuine wrongness and seeking to turn away. But with pesha, this turning is very hard indeed.”
Elena watched the professor rise and cross the room to his overcrammed bookshelves. The sensation of having a third person in the room left her scarcely able to breathe. And yet, there was a deep sense of rightness. As though some major event was about to take place. One that required her to remain just where she was. Listening. Aware.
The priest resumed his seat and shifted his cup so that he could settle the worn book on the desk between their two chairs. His fingers turned the pages, which Elena saw were written in Hebrew. She saw how his fingers touched only the edges of each page, such that they did not handle the written letters. She saw how his lips pursed as he turned, as though mentally speaking certain words he found upon each page.
“Here we are. Do you speak Hebrew, Dr. Burroughs?”
She licked her lips but found herself unable to reply. For at that moment the room’s other guest moved closer still. And settled a hand upon her shoulder. She was certain of it. As though he was leaning over to examine the page with her.
“No. Of course not. Perhaps you will allow me to translate, yes? Here in the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus, verses six and seven, we see that all three types of sin are mentioned. ‘And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving chet and avon and pesha, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.”’”
The professor was so absorbed in what he read that his voice took on a chanting cadence, as though he was speaking Hebrew in his mind. As though he spoke in prayer.
“Much more than these three names for sin are lost in most translations. You see here, the verses chop up a sentence. This is very rare, especially when quoting God. But in Hebrew the reason is very clear. Because the first two words of verse seven, which is usually translated in English as keeping mercy, in Hebrew reads chanun v’rachum. This means literally ‘the grace of the womb.’ In other words, the Lord shows to the faithful believer the compassion of a mother for her unborn child
.”
Elena wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder. Take hold of the invisible hand resting there and never let go. Even if it meant following this guest away from the physical realm entirely. Just let go of her body and her life and all the impossibilities of her daily existence. Leave it all. Now.
“The priests have spoken long and hard about why the Lord first says he is so compassionate, and then he is visiting the sins of the fathers on four generations. How can this be?”
The priest was silent almost too long. Elena felt a need in her to cry out. To call to her husband. To beg him to take her with him. To end this lonely quest. No matter what she might be called into by the Lord they both adored. Her heart chanted loudly in the silence, filled with a longing for all that was no more.
“There can be no confusion here. This is God speaking. He does not create confusion. He clarifies. So what does this mean?”
The priest grew silent again. Only this time, Elena understood. Not the priest’s purpose, but rather the answer that lay within the silence. The Lord clarifies. And here was indeed an illumination.
“Remember what I said when you entered, about the true pursuit of wisdom. It requires the proper question, asked from a listening heart, toward the true source of all answers.”
Elena was nodding now, rocking cadence to the priest. She knew the answer, though she could not shape it consciously. And this certainty left her able to accept the experience with a new totality. The very air vibrated with a power she could not name, nor did she need to.
“The teachers say the answer lies in this question: How many generations are alive at any one time? Three, perhaps four of any family. So what does God mean here? That if man sins, it is not just that man who suffers. The sinner burdens his family with the results of his sin. They all suffer because one man has failed. Because one man has sinned.”
The priest ceased his motions in gradual stages, as though finding it difficult to draw his attention away from the text. Finally he turned toward her, blinking slowly, focusing upon her once again. “Now what do you think God would want of you?”
Only then did Elena realize she still held the cup. She gently set it on the desk next to the Bible and replied, “To help people avoid sin, and where they do sin, to help them see the need to repent.”
His gaze rested upon her. She realized there were tiny dark flecks in his gray eyes. She had the impression that the same ink that was there upon the page had somehow been transferred to his gaze. As though his study were so intent, so constant, that the words had become inscribed upon his eyes.
The priest asked, “So how might you know that God is using you here, that it is God who speaks?”
It was Elena’s turn to pause. But not because she needed to search for the answer.
The room’s other guest was leaving.
She met the priest’s gaze, but her attention was focused upon the departing visitor. He moved to the door. Then he turned. And smiled at her. And in that smile, Elena knew.
Jason was gone from her.
This realization was the real purpose behind this sense of a third guest to the evening’s discussion. Elena had needed to accept that not merely her time with Jason had ended. But so had her time of mourning.
The priest and his discussion were not merely a clarification of a Bible passage. They were a revelation.
Elena leaned over the open Book. It did not matter that the words were written in a language she could not read. She knew this passage. It sprang vividly to her mind. The Lord was passing before Moses. He was presenting himself.
Elena had the impression that the same thing was happening here. And for a very real purpose.
She was being called.
The priest’s words formed a portal. The door to a future without Jason and, more important, beyond her loss.
In truth, the transition had already taken place. She was moving from all that had once been, into … what?
She realized the priest was still waiting for her reply.
Elena felt herself draw a trembling breath. The tremors touched the words that emerged: “I must further God’s desire to draw man near to him. To clarify God’s direction. And to shield and comfort his followers here on earth.”
The priest had a smile as gentle as the spirit that filled his chamber. He rose from his chair. “Such a pleasure to meet another who searches after eternal wisdom.”
She rose with him. “May we speak again?”
He enfolded her hand in both of hers. “My dear doctor, I would count it an honor.”
12
SATURDAY
Saturday morning, Elena stood outside her front door and watched a pair of robins quarrel over her feeder. English robins were smaller than their American cousins, scarcely larger than sparrows. Their brilliant coloring was heightened by flashes of gold on either the male or the female, she could not remember which. The kitchen breakfast alcove had two windows, facing north and west. She had fastened a total of six feeders on the closest trees, so that she would be greeted each morning by the sound of feathered company.
At precisely seven thirty, the limo pulled up in front of her house. The black Mercedes looked no more inviting now than it had when she last rode it from her office to the hospital. The bodyguard-driver settled her into the rear seat, then returned to his position behind the wheel. He pulled away from the curb and asked, “Would you like some music?”
“No thank you.” Elena pulled her minilaptop from her purse. “How long will it take?”
“Ninety minutes, perhaps a little less.” He powered the overweight car down the winding road with a pro’s smooth skill. “Depends upon traffic.”
Elena had intended to use the time on her administrivia. She had become an expert at using paperwork to hide herself from silent hours. But today she could not focus. When she lifted her eyes from the computer screen, the bulletproof glass constricted the size of the window and left her feeling as though she were viewing the outside world through the wrong end of a telescope. The car was so silent that she could hear the dashboard’s ticking clock. The protective metal plate resulted in a boatlike ride, spongy and rocking. She heard herself puffing softly, as though she could not draw a decent breath.
The ambassador’s wife had phoned as Elena was preparing for bed, inviting her to join them for lunch. Afterward Elena knew she would not sleep easy. So she returned to her desk and, after a long moment’s hesitation, opened the ancient tome. And felt nothing.
She had studied the image for almost half an hour. Praying occasionally. Waiting. The night had remained silent.
Elena had then pulled her digital camera from the drawer and taken several photographs. She had selected the best, one where the plate filled the entire screen, and downloaded it to her computer. As she settled back into bed, she wondered if perhaps she had done something improper, extracting the image from between the book’s protective covers and drawing it into the modern age. Now, as she sat in the limo’s rear seat and pulled the glowing image onto her laptop, she wondered the same again.
Elena scarcely saw the image at all. Instead, she recalled sitting in the priest’s chambers at New College and heard again his gentle instruction. Once more she found herself filled with the sense of her husband’s love and his departure from the room.
At the time, the two experiences had been so deeply intertwined as to be one and the same. Yet now, in the limousine’s rear seat, she could only recall one at a time. It was, she decided, like studying a dual image, at one moment a face and the next a pair of vases. As she reflected upon one memory and then the other, she suddenly realized why the two had come together. The message was the same as she had sensed when seated with the priest. Either she could remain with the past, with the mournful loss of her husband, or she could move on.
She already knew the answer. It was as vivid now as it had been when she was seated beside the priest. The question now was, move on toward what?
When she looked up, Elena found
they were driving beside a shoulder-high stone wall. The wall was fashioned in the ancient drystone manner, set in place without cement, and covered with centuries of lichen. Sandra Harwood had explained that a British industrialist had offered them the use of his Cotswold estate. This was only the second time they had managed to go there since arriving in England two years earlier.
The limo turned into an entrance flanked by matching gatehouses and passed beneath an archway crowned with a gleaming coat of arms. They entered a vast arboretum, a garden of trees. Elena spotted a quartet of redwoods, the tallest of which stood well over two hundred feet high. As slow as those trees grew, it suggested the seedlings had been brought back by one of the earliest explorers of the California coast.
The house was simply massive. The cars parked in the graveled forecourt looked like metallic minnows hovering beside a beached stone whale. Elena knew enough to name the style as Regency, a short-lived period between the Georgian and Victorian epochs. All four floors were framed by Corinthian columns, carved in bas-relief from the exterior stone. The windows were tall and peaked and rimmed by stained glass. As the limo halted before the entrance, a butler in striped trousers and a long formal cutaway jacket paraded down the front stairs. He opened the car’s rear door and pronounced, “Welcome to Berkeley Park, Dr. Burroughs.”
“Thank you.” She rose from the car and gave the house an astonished moment.
“The ambassador and Mrs. Harwood await you in the library.”
A white-gloved attendant in a liveried jacket of maroon and gold ushered her inside. Elena passed through an atrium with a floor of polished marble and a domed ceiling. She climbed a grand curving staircase behind the servant and was ushered through two gilded doors.
The library spanned the entire front of the house, perhaps a hundred feet long. One wall was flanked by a half dozen windows, each ten feet wide and twenty high. The other walls held three floors of bookshelves, with iron balustrades and curving staircases. Brass and crystal chandeliers marched down the gilded ceiling. Several dozen people were sprinkled around the room. The ambassador glanced her way, a single heated glare, then turned back to his conversation. Sandra Harwood waved from her seat beside her husband and motioned that she would be just a moment.