by Bunn, Davis
Andrew Kerr was seated on a folding chair at a sixty-degree angle to Lawrence. They had decided to shoot with just natural lighting. Janine, the producer, Elena, and Shirley all held reflectors. They were given terse instructions by the cameraman as he adjusted angles. A growing number of shelter occupants and churchgoers came up the stairs and gathered along the side wall. Antonio and Gerald stationed themselves by the stairwell entrance and kept silent order.
When they were ready, Andrew Kerr asked, “How should I refer to you?”
“Lawrence has worked well enough all my life.”
“As you wish, sir.” He said to the cameraman, “Ready?”
“We’re rolling.”
“Lawrence, less than a week ago you were the United States ambassador to the Court of Saint James. Reportedly the President had tapped you to become his running mate. Then you gave this up in order to become the first chairman of a commission intended to rein in the banks. But the bankers disliked your brutally frank accusations of misdeeds within the financial industry. Their lobbyists pressured allies in Congress until you were fired. And the same fate has awaited your friend and associate, Antonio d’Alba, who also yesterday was dismissed from his position as chairman of the European commission.”
Andrew Kerr turned to the camera and said, “Cut. Where is Mr. d’Alba?”
“Over here.” Antonio waved from his place by the stairs.
“Pan over and get a shot. No, no, if you people would remain exactly as you are now. Yes, with the children. That’s splendid. Thank you.” To the cameraman. “Did you get it?”
“In the can.”
“Back to me.” Kerr said to Lawrence, “Now here you are, reduced to volunteering in a shelter for families left homeless by the crisis. Surely you must feel considerable resentment and frustration over watching all your ambitions and aspirations being ground into the dust.”
Lawrence replied, “I am exactly where I am meant to be.”
“I find that very hard to believe, sir. In fact, if you will excuse me for saying, it sounds like you’re trying to sell sour grapes as vintage champagne.”
Lawrence’s face was turned to stonelike severity by the sunset shadows. “I accepted the finance committee chairmanship because nobody is looking out for the common man. I saw it as my duty to protect the American family and the American dream. My aim was to shield them from the selfish and morally perverse actions of our banking system.”
He turned and stared at the people clustered by the side wall. “If I cannot work for the commission, then my place is here. My duties remain exactly the same.”
41
For the evening service, Elena settled into the rear row along with her friends. The makeshift chapel was encased by sunset hues. The light through the covered windows was gentle enough to complement the candles that rimmed the gathering. Eleven tall candelabra had been stationed at each corner, along the central aisle, and at either end of the altar table. Brian was joined at the front by two assistant pastors and Janine. The four of them were dressed now in formal robes of white, adding an august mystery to the moment.
Andrew Kerr was seated next to Antonio. Sandra sat to Antonio’s left, then Lawrence. She held the hands of both men. The cameraman drifted in and out of Elena’s vision. She found it increasingly easy to ignore him entirely.
When Brian gave the formal invitation to join in the Communion, her entire being seemed to resonate with the vicar’s words. “Come to this table, not because you must but because you may. Not because you are strong, but because you are weak. Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come, but because you need mercy and help. Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more.”
As they gathered at the end of the service, Janine walked over, still in her robes. “The families were wondering if we were still planning to hold the encounter group tonight.”
Elena had forgotten about it entirely, but could think of no reason to say anything other than “Of course.”
“I could tell them to come back tomorrow.”
“No. Lawrence was right.” Elena felt as though she were slowly coming back to earth. “Show them back to my cubicle. We need to set chairs in a circle.”
“My name is Janine Featheringham. Welcome to our gathering of hope.”
Elena was one of twenty-six people seated in the circle of folding chairs. A second semicircle was gathered back along the walls. Antonio, Lawrence, Andrew Kerr, Shirley, Sandra, and Brian. All of them had wanted to be a part of this. The cameraman, sound technician, and producer stood on the partition’s other side. Janine had started by introducing the others and asking if the group minded being observed and filmed. She said it was entirely their choice. If anyone objected, they would return to the standard approach of privacy and confidentiality. Elena was as surprised as anyone when the group nodded in unison.
Janine continued, “Dr. Elena Burroughs is our leader. She is a clinical psychologist. I am a social services professional. You may think of me as the group’s sergeant at arms. There are several ground rules that you need to be made aware of. First of all, no whining.”
Janine showed both Elena and the group a new face. She had only told Elena that she wanted to start the evening with a wake-up call. Elena had been too caught up with everything that had happened that day to disagree. The best word to describe herself that evening was detached. The force that had carried Elena through the day remained with her still. The events connected to the fire and the eviction were hazy now, as though they had happened to another person.
Janine went on, “Some of you may be expecting to use this as another opportunity to complain. You are angry, which is understandable. But you have become so accustomed to your anger that it defines you. In selecting this group, I have tried to weed such people out. But if this is the way you have come to see the world, and if you are not willing to leave that attitude behind, you are not welcome here. Please leave.”
Shirley Wainwright was seated on the outer perimeter, in the corner where the partition met the storeroom wall. She sat very erect, her hands folded in her lap. Whatever she thought of the gathering was hidden behind a visage of stern weariness. Nigel Harries was seated beside her. For the first time that Elena could recall, the man’s features were stained by all that the day had held.
Janine continued, “Some of you do not believe in God. That is not the issue here. What is important is that you are willing to accept that your attitude toward our Lord may be wrong. That if God shows himself to you, you will acknowledge your need of him. If this is unacceptable, you need to leave the group now.”
Elena inspected the group. None of them seemed surprised by Janine’s confrontational tone. Many seemed pleased. Antonio caught her eye from his place by the rear wall. His look was so deep, his expression so caring, she felt it in her bones.
Janine turned to her and said, “Elena?”
She forced herself to ignore Antonio and focus on the group. “Most of you are surrounded by confusion and helplessness. You feel that your life has spun out of your control. You played by the rules. You did your best to fashion a home and a future for your family. Yet you find yourselves caught in a crisis that is not of your making. You don’t understand what is happening, or why. Of course you are angry. It is natural.”
Several of the women reached into their purses and came out with tissues, which they crumpled and pinched to the sides of their eyes. The actions were so habitual that none of the rest of the group gave them any notice. Elena went on, “Most of you also recognize that this undirected rage has become a destructive issue within your own lives. Your frustration and your helpless anger is a poison. The slightest thing can set you off. Your families carry wounds that you have caused. Your own hearts are injured. And with each passing day, your sense of helplessness grows, because you can’t control your interior rage any more than you can control your exterior lives.”
The group was very mixed. There were tw
o Jamaican couples, one Indian, and the rest extremely British. Several couples were well dressed and carried themselves with a refined, upper-class manner. All of the faces, however, were streaked with the same tragic brush.
Elena went on, “Our goal is to establish a haven where you are able to step outside your current situation and reexamine your lives. Find areas where you can retake control. And do so with God’s help.”
She had never before invoked God’s presence within a group counseling session. But after the day’s experiences, it felt utterly right. “Our goal is to help you rebuild hope. My friends and I have faced our own impossible moments. And our experiences have revealed to us that the way out, the path to a true healing, one where scars and past mistakes are miraculously mended, only comes with God’s help.
“Our sessions will follow a standard course. We will open with a Bible passage and prayer. We will then ask if anyone has experienced a miracle that week, a point in their lives where a new seedling of hope has taken root. We will then go around the room and ask each of you to name one specific issue where you have lost control, and where you want God’s help in regaining order and stability. It is important that you make note of this issue, and that you remind yourself daily that this is an area where you are seeking God’s help. These sessions will be all about building a clear recognition of God working in your lives.
“In the run-up to this session, one thing has become very clear to me. This is a house of miracles. We invite you to be a part of this process. Open yourselves once again to the transformative power of our dear Lord. God is waiting to reveal himself. I urge you to expect miracles.”
Elena gave that a moment, then quoted from memory the same passage she had used in that day’s noontime gathering. She then led them in a brief prayer and asked, “Who would like to start us off by naming a specific issue where they want hope or relief or just a clear answer?”
In group therapy, this was a critical and defining moment. Most patients did not fit the requirements for joint counseling. They wanted to be coddled, to have someone else do the heavy lifting. And most people were afraid to reveal themselves to strangers. Group counseling only worked when everyone participated willingly, and did so in the public eye.
Group therapists were trained to begin with an innocuous question and lead up to personal revelations. Only after this happened would the leader state the real purposes for the group. Elena’s method went totally against the grain. Not to mention the famous newscaster seated next to the former ambassador. Or the cameraman who drifted around their perimeter. Elena held her breath. And prayed.
The woman seated to her left said, “I want my husband to stop shouting at me and the kids.”
Elena shook her head. “Your husband’s actions are not under your control. Look at yourself. The issues you face internally. Name one that is of critical—”
“I want to remember how to smile.” The woman choked on the last word.
“That’s fine. Next?”
Her husband nodded slowly. “She’s right. I’m shouting. At everything. Don’t really need any reason to shoot off.”
“State this as an objective. Something you want God to help you achieve.”
His swallow was audible to the entire group. “Like Masie says. I want to laugh again. With my wife. And my kids.”
“Good. Very good. Next?”
The next seat was occupied by a man with refined yet ravaged features. His voice came out at a reedy crawl. “I want to sleep through a night.”
Several heads around the circle nodded. Another man said, “I’m with you there, mate.”
A woman said, “Without the nightmares.”
Elena felt a slight chill. Not in anticipation. At being brought full-circle. She licked her lips but did not speak.
They continued around the group until they came to Janine, who stared at the floor and said, “My problem isn’t regaining control. It’s giving control up. I’m getting married in seventeen days. For the first time. I’m forty-three. I am the product of a purely horrid upbringing. I never thought I would heal to the point where marriage was even conceivable. I am so scared.”
Elena said softly, “State this as a goal. As something definable, a means by which God can reveal his purpose and his love.”
Janine murmured, “I need something to show me that I’m right to hope. That I’m going to be a good wife. That I deserve a man like Brian.”
Elena smiled beyond the circle to where Brian wiped his eyes. “Remember what I said at the beginning. Expect miracles.”
Brian gave up his home to them. The Saint Aldates vicarage was a Victorian residence of honeyed Cotswold stone, situated on a quiet lane two blocks from the church. Brian could not stay with Janine sleeping over. The older church wags would have had a field day. He and his son moved in with the associate pastor responsible for the shelter. No one felt any need to ask how long this might go on. People in shelters managed by living day to day, hour to hour. Elena decided the sentiment was probably contagious.
She and Shirley Wainwright and Janine shared the top-floor loft, a large sloped-roof chamber Brian and his son had fashioned into a mini-apartment. Back during their counseling sessions, Elena had urged them to take on such a joint project to help them through the conflict period and reknit their lives. By the time the project was finished and the boy moved in, father and son had become friends again. Shirley took the narrow bed while Elena and Janine prepared pallets on the floor. As Elena pulled up the covers, she felt a quiet pride in helping two such fine men find a new peace.
Afterward it seemed as though the dream had been there waiting for her. One moment she was drifting into sleep. The next, she was back inside her darkest hour.
The week after Jason’s funeral remained a very dim memory, as though the world’s light had been papered over. In her dream Elena saw it clearly for the first time. She stood by the dining room window, staring at her front lawn and passing cars and a world to which she had lost all connection. She had stood like that for hours. In the dream, she felt only a trace of the old pain. What held her most was the expanse of time between that moment and this night. In her dream she asked aloud why she had been brought back here.
Then Antonio was there. Standing beside her. Observing the scene with her. And he spoke. Such simple words. Yet it felt as though she had waited five long years to hear them.
Antonio said, If you don’t want to see this anymore, then come with me.
And she did.
She took his hand and she turned away. And it was gone. The image and the memories. Vanished.
As simple as that.
The dream ended. But Elena did not awaken. Instead, she found herself standing downstairs in the vicarage kitchen. The room held a thoroughly unkempt and masculine air. Elena knew Janine was itching to redo the place, strip out the cheap cabinets and linoleum counters and prehistoric stove. In her dream, Antonio and Lawrence and Sandra sat around the battered central table where Brian and his son ate every meal unless they had company. Janine hated that table most of all.
In her dream, Lawrence and Antonio held large sheets of paper, big as posters. She could not read the words. She did not need to. She knew they declared that the pair had been crushed into dust. Vanquished. Obliterated. Left to crawl on their bellies in shame.
She was drawn over to the kitchen’s rear window. The walled garden was another project Brian and his son had always intended to take on but never did. But Elena did not see the garden. Instead, she stared over a field of battle. The house was no longer in Oxford at all, but rather stood alone and isolated upon a high hill. Arrayed against them was a vast army. It was raining and the vision was without color. The army stretched out to where it joined with the mist, a sea of fury and death. And it was coming. For them.
Then the rain ended and the clouds began to break up. The sun lanced through the clouds. More brilliant than anything Elena had ever seen before. So powerful it seared her heart.
; Wherever the sun touched, the army melted away. The clouds dissolved. The enemy was gone.
A new light entered through the kitchen window, bathing Elena in joy and triumph. She felt herself flooded by peace, by victory. The emotions were so strong they lifted her up, out of the house, carrying her away into the sky.
She woke and lay on the pallet, listening to the rain patter against the roof overhead. She heard the other women’s quiet breathing. The joy remained a living presence. She had no idea how long she lay there. Hours, perhaps. Breathing in the peaceful presence with each breath. Finally she closed her eyes and slept deeply.
Dawn came gray and gradual. Elena awoke but lay where she was, drifting upon a beautiful calm. Another overfull day called to her. But she did not want to let the feeling go. She lay on her pallet and listened to the rain and the quiet shuffling footsteps as either Shirley or Janine padded to the bathroom. She felt filled with a languid disregard for the hour or the pressures soon to come. Then sleep returned, and with gentle fingers it tugged her away from the morning.
The dream was over almost before it started. Which was very good. If it had lasted any longer, Elena’s heart might have exploded from her chest.
They were seated on a bench. Antonio was there beside her, to her right. Elena could not see him. But she could feel his arm and shoulder touching her. The heat between them was palpable, the energy. Elena felt her tummy tremble slightly, like she was a teenager again, on a date with the guy of her dreams.
Antonio was speaking to her. Elena could not make out the words, and in her dream she did not care. She heard the warmth and affection in Antonio’s voice. The words were a gentle wash over her, like the sound of the ocean on a moonlit night.