by Ted Dekker
“You lost it all? Just like that?” She had cared for her mother too, Janjic thought. Just as Jan had cared for his own mother before the war in Sarajevo.
“Peter was robbing us blind. I never gave in to him; I want you to know that. The whole thing was about his demented obsession to make me his girl.” Helen shifted her eyes to the wall. “My mom died from an overdose. The way I figure it, Peter killed her with his drugs. The day after my mom’s burial he and I had a huge blowup. I hit him over the head with a two-by-four and took off. Never went back. We were dead broke anyway. Honestly, I think I might’ve killed him.” She grinned and shrugged her shoulders.
“Killed him?” Jan said. “You never saw him again?”
“Never. I hitched a ride to New York that same day. Never heard a thing. Either way, if I did kill him, I figured he had it coming. One way or another he’d killed my mom and trashed my life.”
She looked up at them with her deep blue eyes, searching for a nod of approval. But it wasn’t approval that Jan felt sweeping through his bones. It was pity. It was a biting empathy for this poor child. He couldn’t understand the emotions in their entirety, but he couldn’t deny them either.
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“You see, Janjic,” Ivena said, “she’s a child of the war as well.”
“You’re right. I’m so sorry, Helen. I had no idea.”
Helen shifted in her seat. “Relax. It’s not so bad. It could be a lot worse.”
“Poor child,” Ivena said. “You have never been loved properly.”
Helen straightened. “Sure I have. Love is the only thing I’ve had my fill of. They love me and they leave me. Or I leave them. Honestly, I do not need your sympathy.” She held up a hand. “Please, I don’t do sympathy well.”
Neither Jan nor Ivena responded. They’d both seen enough of the wounded to know that they all needed sympathy. Especially those who had persuaded themselves they did not need it. But it wasn’t a gift that could be forced.
“So how did you return to Atlanta?” Jan asked.
“I came back six months ago. But that’s another story. Drugs and love don’t always mix so well, trust me. Let’s just say I needed to get out of New York, and Atlanta seemed as good a choice as any.”
“And Glenn?” Jan asked.
Helen set her glass down and turned it slowly. “Glenn. Yeah, well, I met Glenn a while back at a party. He likes to throw these big bashes. Glenn is . . . bad.” She swallowed. “I mean he’s really bad. People think of him as the powerful city councilman; that his money comes from real estate . . .” She shook her head. “Not really. It comes from drugs. Problem is, anybody who crosses him ends up hurt. Or dead.”
“And have I crossed him already?” Jan asked.
“No. I don’t think so. This was my choice. I left him. It had nothing to do with you. Besides, he’s got no clue who you are.”
“Except that you came in my car. Except that you’re now in Ivena’s house.”
She looked at him but didn’t offer an opinion.
“And he’s your . . . boyfriend, right?”
Her eyes widened briefly. “No, I wouldn’t put it that way. He puts me up in this place of his. But no. I mean no, not anymore. Absolutely not. Nobody’s gonna hit me and think they can get away with it.”
“No,” Jan said. “Of course you’re right.” Heat flared up his back. Who could strike such a person?
Karadzic could, a small voice snickered. He shook his head at the thought.
“Helen would like to stay with me for a while,” Ivena said. “I have told her”— she looked at Jan—“that I would accept nothing less. If there’s any danger, then God will help us. And we’re no strangers to danger.”
“Of course. Yes, you should stay here where it’s safe. And perhaps Ivena can buy you some new clothes tomorrow. I’ll pay, of course. It’s the least I can do. We will put our ministry funds to good use.”
“You will trust two women with your bank account?” Ivena asked with a raised brow.
“I would trust you with my life, Ivena.”
“Yes, of course. But your money?”
“Money’s nothing. You’ve said so a thousand times, dear.”
Ivena turned to Helen with a sly smile. “There is my first insight, young woman. Always downplay the value of money; it will make it much easier for him to hand it over.”
They laughed, glad for the reprieve.
Jan left the house an hour later, his head buzzing from the day.
God had touched his heart for Helen’s sake, he decided. Maybe because she was an outcast as he himself once was. His odd enchantment with her certainly couldn’t be natural.
It had been God, although God had never touched him in such a specific way before. If only his whole ministry were filled with such direct impressions. He could touch a contract, say, and wait for a surge of current to fill his arms. If it didn’t, he would not sign. Ha! He could pick up a phone and know if the person on the other end was to bode well for the ministry. He could take Karen’s hand and . . . Goodness, now there was a thought.
Maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. Perhaps his emotions had gotten the best of him and caused some kind of hallucinogenic reaction, tripping him back to the weeping in Bosnia; another kind of war-trauma flashback.
But no, it had been too clear. Too real.
He drove the Cadillac toward Antoine’s where he’d agreed to meet Karen for dessert. And what should he tell her of this day? Of Helen? Nothing. Not yet. He would sleep on this business of Helen. There was plenty to talk about without muddying the waters with a strange, beautiful junkie named Helen. There was the engagement and the wedding date. There was talk of love and children. The movie deal, the book, the television appearances—all of it was enough to fill hours of talk by Antoine’s soft lights.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What is love? Love is kind and patient and always enduring.
Love is kisses and smiles. It is warmth and ecstasy.
Love is laughter and joy.
But the greatest part of love is found in death.
No greater love hath any man.”
The Dance of the Dead, 1959
IVENA MEANDERED through her kitchen at nine the next morning, humming the tune from “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Helen still slept in the tiny sewing room down the hall. Poor girl must have been exhausted. What a sweet treasure she was, though. Abused and dragged down life’s roughest paths to be sure, but so very sweet. Today she would take Janjic’s signed checks—he’d given them five—and shower Helen with a little love.
Ivena turned one of four taps by the greenhouse door and the overhead misters hissed inside. She opened the door. The musty smell of dirt mixed with flower scent always seemed to strengthen with the first wetting.
She’d shown Helen the garden yesterday evening and the flowers seemed to have calmed her. Ivena had known then, seeing the spindly gray stalks of her daughter’s rosebush, that it was for all practical purposes dead, despite the strange green shoot at its base. She was still having difficulty remembering if she had—
“Huh?” Ivena caught her breath and stared at the dead bush.
But it wasn’t dead! Or was it? Green snaked up through the branches; vines wrapped around the rose stalks and spread over the plant.
Ivena stepped forward, barely breathing. It looked as though a weed had literally sprung up overnight and taken over the rosebush! But that was impossible!
The bush had seven main branches, each one as black and lifeless as they’d been yesterday. But now the green vines ran around each one in eerie symmetry. And they all came from the base of the plant; from the one shoot that had been grafted in.
But you did not graft that shoot, Ivena.
Yes, I must have. I just don’t remember it.
Ivena reached her hand out to the strange new plant and ran a finger along its stalk. How had it grown so quickly? It had appeared yesterday, no mor
e than four inches in length and now it ran the height of the plant! The skin was very similar to that of a healthy rose stalk, but without thorns. A woody vine.
“My goodness, what on earth do we have here?” Ivena whispered to herself. Maybe it was this vine that had killed her rosebush. A parasite. Perhaps she should cut it off in the hopes of saving the rose.
No, the rose was already dead.
“Ivena.”
She whirled around. Helen stood in the doorway, her hair tangled, still dressed in her pajamas.
“Well good morning, my dear.” Ivena walked toward her, shielding the bush. “I would ask you how you slept, but I think I have my answer already.”
“Very good, thank you.”
“Wonderful.” They stepped into the kitchen and Ivena closed the door to the greenhouse behind her. “Now you’ll need some food. You can’t shop properly on an empty stomach.”
HELEN WATCHED Ivena with an odd mixture of amusement and admiration. The Bosnian woman wore her gray hair quite shaggy. She held her head confidently but gently, like her words. Both she and Janjic shared one stunning trait, Helen thought. They both had eyes that smiled without letting up, bringing on pre-mature wrinkles around their sockets. If there were other human beings with Ivena’s unique blend of quirks and sincerity, Helen had never met them. It was impossible not to like her. In the woman’s presence the small voice that called Helen back to the drugs sounded very faint. Although it was still there—yes it was, like a whisper in a hollow chamber.
They ate eggs for breakfast, and then readied themselves for a few hours of American indulgence, as Ivena put it. She seemed amused by the five checks she waved about. When Helen asked her why, she just smiled. “It’s Janjic’s money,” she said. “He has far too much.”
Helen insisted Ivena take her far from the central city district—with Glenn’s men on the prowl, anything within a five-mile radius of the Twin Towers was out of the question. Even here it took Helen a good hour to satisfy herself that the chances of Glenn finding her were nearly nonexistent.
Ivena drove them to a quaint shopping district on the east side, where most of the merchants spoke with heavy European accents. They parked Ivena’s Volkswagen Bug on one end of the district and made their way through the shops on either side of the street.
“Honestly, Ivena, I really love the halter top. It’s so . . . fitting, don’t you think?” Glenn will love it.
“Yes, Helen. Perhaps,” Ivena returned with a raised brow. “But the red blouse, it is a lady’s choice.”
“I don’t know, it looks a little old for me, don’t you think?” He’d kill me if I wore that thing!
“Nonsense, dear. It’s fabulous!”
They held the choices up to Helen’s neckline, each arguing their case; trying not to be too forceful. A moment of silence ended the debate. It was then that Ivena, the final judge, issued her verdict. “We’ll get both.”
“Thank you, Ivena. I swear I’ll wear them both.” Glenn . . .
Get a grip, Helen. Glenn’s history.
“Yes, I’m sure you will, dear.”
And so the day went, from shop to shop. With halters and blouses; with jeans and skirts; with T-shirts and dresses; with tennis shoes and pumps; with everything except for lingerie. In the end they spent a thousand dollars. But it was just money, Ivena said, and Jan had altogether too much of the stuff. They walked and they laughed and then they spent another hundred dollars on accessories.
The beauty salon presented a challenge because two choices simply couldn’t be made without resorting to wigs, and Helen would have nothing to do with wigs, despite Ivena’s urging. Helen favored the short sporty look. It was sexy, she said. “Sexy? And you think a full-bodied woman’s look is not sexy?” Ivena countered. The beautician tried to interject her opinion, but Ivena kept cutting her short. “It’s Helen’s hair,” she finally announced. “Do as she wishes.” And she retreated to a waiting chair. Helen walked out wearing a big smile and her hair just below the ears in a cropped style that even Ivena had to admit was “quite attractive.”
Three times Helen thought about the life she’d left, and each time she concluded that this time she would stay straight if it killed her. She couldn’t ignore the feeling of butterflies that accompanied the brief memories—a yearning for the drug’s surge of pleasure—but watching Ivena carry on about a dress, she could not imagine crawling back to her old life.
It was three o’clock by the time they returned to Ivena’s flower-laden home. It was four by the time Helen had wrapped up her fashion show, displaying every possible combination their purchases allowed and then some. Ivena looked on, sipping at her iced tea and boldly proclaiming how beautiful Helen was with each new outfit.
It was five when Helen began to come unglued.
Ivena had gone out to deliver a batch of orchids to a floral shop. “Make yourself at home—smell some flowers, warm up some sausage,” she’d said. “I’ll be back by six.” Helen retreated to her tiny room, Ivena’s sewing room actually, and sat on the bed, running her hand through the clothes piled beside her. She wore a dress, the one Ivena had proclaimed the winner of the bunch before leaving—a pink dress, much like the one Ivena had loaned her yesterday, but without all the frills.
She sat on the yellow bedspread in a sudden silence, with her legs swinging just off the floor like a little girl, feeling the fabric between her fingers, when her eyes settled on the blue vein that ran through the fold in her right arm. The room was dim but she could not miss the small mark hovering there. She pulled her hand from the clothes, opening and closing it slowly. The muscles along her forearm flexed like a writhing snake. It had been some time since she’d used the vein. Heroin was too strong, Glenn insisted. It ruined her. He couldn’t stomach a rag doll sapped of passion. With Glenn it was all the new rich man’s drug. Cocaine.
Glenn.
She blinked in the dim light and felt butterflies take flight in her belly again. She let familiar images crash through her mind. Images of the Palace, as he called it, where she’d lived for the last three months, on and off, but mostly on. Images of the parties, teeming with people under colored lights; images of mirrors mounded with cocaine and dishes with needles; images of bodies strewn across the floor, wasted in the wee morning hours. They were images that seemed ridiculous sitting here in the old lady’s sewing room. She’d heard of sewing rooms, but she’d never expected to actually see one. And now here she was, sitting in one, surrounded by a pile of clothes that were presumably hers.
What do you expect to do, Helen? Use these people the way you’ve used the rest?
Suddenly the whole thing felt not just silly but completely stupid. And just as suddenly a craving for the mound of white powder ran through her body. An ache rose to her throat and she swallowed against it. She closed her eyes and shook her head. What was she doing?
Helen lifted a hand to her neck and rubbed the bruised muscles near the spine. She had put up with her share of abuse no doubt, and she could give it as well as she took it. A slap here and little punch there; it was all business as usual. But this strangling business—Glenn had nearly killed her! She’d had no choice but to run.
Here where there were no people she let tears fill her eyes. Now what? Now she was a little girl sitting on the bed, swinging her legs, wanting to be rescued.
Wanting a hit . . .
And she had been rescued, hadn’t she? By a preacher, of all things. And his crazy old friend.
No, Helen, don’t think of them like that. These are good people. Precious.
“Precious? And what would you know of precious?” she growled. The tears began to slip down her cheeks and she wiped them angrily with her wrist.
Helen stood to her feet, and the sudden movement left her dizzy. She blinked away the tears and paced the room. Face it, honey, this is not your world. This life with the flowers and the sausage and the strange accents and the old woman’s crazy talk of love, like it was something Helen knew nothing o
f. All the hugs and the tears . . .
. . . and Jan . . .
. . . you’d think the world was turning inside out or something. Helen cleared her throat. Truth be told, she couldn’t see why Ivena’s daughter’s death was such a huge deal anyway. Sure it was bad enough, but when you got right down to it, a bullet to the head wasn’t so crazy. Not the big monstrous deal Ivena seemed to make of it. Like it was some new revelation of love or something. These two . . . weirdos . . . these two weirdos were just different, that was all there was to it. She was a fish; they were birds. And she was suddenly feeling short of breath up here with the weird birds. She needed to get back to her pond. After all, a fish could not live on the beach forever.
He’s what they call a gentleman, Helen. A real man. The kind you’ve never seen. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, girl.
“Shut up!” Goodness, he was a preacher! She felt heat flare on her cheeks. He’s not even American.
No, but he’s god-awful handsome and his accent’s pretty cute.
Helen hit her forehead with her palm. “You’re being an idiot!”
The truth of her own words struck her and she halted her pacing mid-stride. The images of the Palace mounded with Glenn’s drugs slid through her mind, whispering the promise of pleasure. Of heaven here on earth. The sound of her breathing filled the small room. Like that fish gulping up on the shore. She had no business here. This was a mistake, a stupid mistake.
Which meant she had to leave. And she wanted to leave, because now that she was allowing good sense to prevail, she knew that she had to have a hit. In fact, she wanted a hit as badly as she could ever remember wanting one.
It came roaring back. The urge rose through her chest with such force that for a moment she lost her orientation. She was in Ivena’s sewing room of all places, a crazy place to be. She didn’t belong here. She’d lost her mind!
