by Ted Dekker
HELEN SET the breakfast table carefully, humming absently. Outside, the morning birds chirped and skittered about the large willow’s branches. It had rained in the night, leaving the air cool and the shrubs glistening, washed of the summer dust. A scattering of leaves drifted on the pool’s glassy surface. I’m home, Helen thought. This is my home.
It struck her that the tune she’d been humming was the old hymn Ivena often sang: “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Antique lyrics but a rather catchy tune once you let it set in. To think that two months ago she’d never even heard the tune. And now here she was, bouncing around Jan’s kitchen—her kitchen—wearing a pink house robe, arranging place settings and orange juice for two.
She had heard of whirlwind romances before but hers and Jan’s had been a tornado. A storybook affair, scripted perfectly with everything except the glass slippers. Even the wedding had been fanciful, under a bright sun in that very garden—Joey’s Garden of Eden—with a minister and thirty or so witnesses, exactly four weeks to the day after Jan had asked for her hand. And these first seven weeks had drifted by in a hazy bliss. Nearly perfect.
Nearly.
“Good morning, dear.” Helen started and spun to his voice. Jan stood less than a step from her, smiling warmly, dressed to kill in a crisp white shirt and a red tie. A dusting of gray swept along the sides of his wavy dark blond hair, disheveled above those bright hazel eyes. Her handsome Serb.
He stepped forward and kissed her forehead. “How’s my peach tree?”
She chuckled and kissed his chest without answering. He was like this always—loving and warm and saturated with passion for her. His love leaked from every pore of his body. And she was not worthy of it. Not she.
“Good morning. Sleep well?”
“Like a baby. You know I still haven’t had the dream—not once in three months. Twenty years like clockwork, and then you walk into my life and the dreams end. Now tell me you’re not a gift from God himself.”
“What can I say? Some of us have it and some of us don’t. I made us some breakfast,” she said, grinning. He slid onto his chair at the table’s head and lifted his glass of orange juice with a wink. “And you most definitely have it.” He took a long drink and set the glass down with obvious ceremony and a long sigh.
“Perfect,” he said. “It’s the perfect drink for the occasion.”
“Occasion? What occasion?”
“It’s been seven weeks. Seven. The number of perfection, you know. They say that if your first seven weeks go without a hitch, you’re in for another seven years without a single conflict.”
She smiled. “I’ve never heard any such thing,” she said.
“Hmm. Maybe because I made it up. But it’s a good saying, don’t you think?”
She joined him, laughing now despite herself. “You see things too simplistically, honey.” Honey. She was calling this man such an endearing term and it suddenly struck her as odd, in light of what he did not know. But he was that and more. Far more. A perfect man. He was looking at her now, across the table as he often did, obviously pleased at the sight of her. She tried not to notice, but failed with a blush.
She directed the conversation to more rote matters. “So what do you have on your plate today?”
“Today. Today it’s business as usual, but I have to fly to New York on Friday.”
Helen blinked. “Again? You were just there three days ago.” Her heart quickened at the revelation.
“Yes, I was. And I’m sorry to leave you alone in the house again so soon. But Delmont Pictures called last night and insisted we make this meeting. I’m sure it’s nothing. You know these movie people; everything’s always urgent.” He grinned as if she should find some amusement in that. But her mind was already nibbling at the notion of having another weekend alone.
“Perhaps Ivena could come and stay the weekend with you,” Jan suggested, biting into his cereal.
“No. No, I’ll be okay.” Helen returned his smile. “I might as well get used to it. It comes with marrying a star, I suppose,” she teased.
He tossed his head back and laughed. “Nonsense. And if you married a star, then I married a queen.”
She giggled with him and picked at her breakfast. Oh, dear Jan, please do not leave me alone!
“Besides,” she said, “I’m not sure Ivena would cotton to being torn away from her garden for a whole weekend. Is it just me or is she obsessive?”
Jan chuckled. “She is taken with it, isn’t she? You know, since our marriage I don’t think I’ve even been in her greenhouse. In fact I’ve only been in her house once or twice. We really should visit her more often.”
“She visits us all the time. I think she likes it that way. But still, she seems to have changed.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. She always seems to be in a hurry to get home. Preoccupied.”
“I haven’t noticed. But then my mind’s been on another woman these past few months.”
“Well, at least you’ve got that right.” They laughed and picked at their breakfast.
“You’re all right when I leave you, aren’t you, Helen?” Jan asked.
“Yes, of course. Sure, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He grinned. “A beautiful woman like you? If another man even glances in your direction while passing on the street, you tell me. I will discipline him, I promise. With my belt or a paddle.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll do no such thing.” He was such a lovely man. In moments like this he could take her breath away with those crazy comments.
“Still, you are a beautiful woman. Please be careful.”
“Don’t worry, my ever-protective lover. I will behave.” Helen said it and then diverted the discourse again. “Roald will be there?”
“In New York? Roald and Karen both.”
“Karen?”
“Yes, Karen.”
“So you’ll see her again.”
“In a matter of speaking. At a meeting. She is still the agent of record on this picture, and she stands to gain or lose a tremendous amount of money, depending on how well it does. Not that money was ever Karen’s primary motivation.”
“No, you were,” Helen said with a smile. “Or maybe your status was.”
“Perhaps. Betty tells me that she’s seeing someone in New York. A producer. It was just as well she moved back.”
“Well, you don’t need her in the office anyway. You have Betty and the others.”
“It’s still a bit quiet. Roald’s been to the office only twice since . . .”
“Since you married the tramp,” Helen filled in.
“Nonsense!”
“You know that’s how he feels. Don’t worry, I’m used to it.”
“And you shouldn’t be used to it.” His face was suddenly red. “Ever!”
“Okay, Jan.” She couldn’t help her smile.
He exhaled and continued. “Anyway, you’re right: the others have been very supportive. It’s nearly like the old days, only without Roald and Karen. And actually, you’d never know anything had changed by the flow of money. I’ll tell you, Helen, I’ve never seen so much money. When you deal in millions, the world changes. Speaking of which, your Mustang is due in at the dealership today. Should I have it picked up?”
“Serious?”
“It is what you asked for, isn’t it? A red convertible?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s in. I’ll have Steve pick it up.”
She looked at him with a sense of wonder. It was hard to believe that she actually owned half of what he did, which was a lot now. And it wasn’t bothering him one bit. The Mustang was the least of it. They had spent the first week in Jamaica and there Jan had begun with the gifts, each given as if it were but a small token of his love. A diamond necklace over a candlelight lobster dinner, a pair of sparkling emerald earrings on a moonlit beach, impossibly expensive perfume under her pillow. A dozen others. But it was the new home he had conceived
for her—the castle, he liked to call it—that often lit his eyes. A home twice the size of this meager cottage. One fit for his bride, nothing less would do. He’d already purchased the forty acres on which construction was slated to begin in one week. Two months ago the expense would have been unthinkable. But to hear Jan speak of it, now anything less would be beneath them. It consumed most of his energies these days. The book, the movie, the money; they were the fruits of love. And there seemed to be no reasonable limits to his desire to express his love. She was his obsession.
And not his alone.
Jan looked out the window. “You know, if it wasn’t for all this money, I wonder if Roald would have carried out his threats. I think he and his boys are still fuming under their collars, but the money has silenced them. Not that I’m complaining; they’ve done well to keep the matter private. Karen too. But I wonder where they would be without the money.”
“You question their belief in you?”
“I never would have thought so, but I don’t know now. Not everyone is as understanding or noble as you, my dear.”
Noble? No, Jan. I may have captured your heart, but I am not noble.
“Money is the glue that holds us all together now,” he said. “The ministry, the movie, the book—it all seems to have boiled down to a few million dollars.”
“Wars have been fought for less,” she said.
“True enough. But I think that when this movie is over, both Roald and Karen will be out of our lives. Of course, we won’t need them, will we? We have enough now to live our lives out in comfort in our new home. I will be free to travel at leisure, speaking as I like. Not even their rumors will affect us.”
“Sounds good to me.” She stopped. “What rumors?”
He blinked. “Rumors. They’re nothing.”
“They’re about me?”
He hesitated.
“They’re about me. Tell me.”
He sighed. “An article was written in a leading evangelical periodical, casting suspicion on any religious leader that would marry a woman with . . . how did they say it . . . questionable morals. You see, that is what they say. But they don’t know you. And they certainly don’t know me. And besides, like I said, as soon as the movie is made, it won’t matter.”
Heat washed over Helen’s face. They were asinine! Hypocrites! When had one of them ever reached out to her with Christ’s love? Even after she’d publicly prayed for forgiveness in Jan’s church. And she had done it with complete sincerity, yet now these leaders were turning on her, openly questioning her morals? Men were such pigs. Churched or unchurched, they were evidently all the same. Except Jan, of course. Guilt nipped at her.
And if he were to discover the truth she might have to slit her wrists!
“You’re right,” Jan said to her silence. “It’s absurd. It means nothing. Helen, look at me.”
She did, feeling small and dumb at his table, but she did look at him. His eyes were sad and his mouth held a slight smile. “You must know one thing, my dear Helen. You are more precious to me than anything I could possibly imagine. Do you understand? You are everything to me.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know that. But the world obviously doesn’t share your feelings. It’s a bit awkward being the hated half of a celebrity known for his love.”
“No, no, no. Don’t say that. Some love my book; some hate my book. It’s not me they love or hate. And just because a few religious men take exception to you doesn’t mean the whole world hates you.” He grinned mischievously. “In fact, sometimes I think my own staff prefers you to me.”
“Yeah, well that’s Betty and John and Steve. But I swear, the church people . . .” She shook her head.
“And the church leaders are not the church, Helen. We are all the church. You and I. The bride of Christ. And you, my dear, are my bride.”
His smile was infectious and she returned it. Jan threw his napkin on the table. “I have to go.” He rounded the table and took her face in both of his hands. They were large, tender hands that had been brutalized by war and now took nothing for granted. “I love you, Helen,” he said.
“I love you, Jan.”
“More than words,” he said, and he bent down.
She closed her eyes and let him kiss her lightly on her lips.
If you only knew, Jan.
He released her face and when she opened her eyes, he was already at the front door. He turned there. “Helen, when I am gone, be careful. Guard your heart. I could not bear to lose it,” he said. Then he smiled and left without waiting for a response.
Helen was not so accustomed to praying, but she prayed now. “Oh, dear God, help us. Please, please, help us. Please help me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
IVENA STEPPED from her home Friday evening and took a long pull of fresh air into her lungs. The heat had been tempered by rains over the past few days, and looking at the boiling skies, she thought it would rain again tonight. Janjic had gone off to some meeting in New York again. Perhaps she would call Helen and ask her if she would like to come for a visit later. She was a bottle of heaven, Janjic’s girl. And in some ways she was Ivena’s girl too.
Ivena locked the door and stepped past her rosebushes onto the sidewalk. A black car rolled by slowly, headed in the same direction as she, toward the park three blocks west. A man looked absently at her from the side window. Thunder rumbled on the far horizon. The breeze swept through a row of huge leafy spruce trees across the street, like a green wave. Yes, it would rain soon but she wanted to walk for at least a few minutes.
Her mind buzzed with the awareness that he was near. That God was near. In fact, not since the days following Nadia’s death so many years ago had God been so close. And when God was near, the human heart did not fare so well, she thought. It tended to turn to mush.
Ivena looked back to her small house with its greenhouse hidden behind the tall white fence. He was certainly in there, crawling all over his jungle of love. She stopped and faced the house, tempted to return to the garden. To the flowers and the aroma that could no longer be contained by the glass walls. The green vines had taken over not only the garden but her own heart, she thought. To step into the room was like entering the inner court, the bosom of God. She’d smelled the flowers a block from home once and feared someone had broken in. She’d run all the way only to find them swaying in the light breeze that sometimes moved through the room. She never had found its source.
Ivena turned and continued on her walk; she needed the exercise.
She could not be gone from the garden too long without being overcome by a yearning to return. And she had noticed something else. She was remembering things very clearly for some reason. Remembering the expression on her daughter’s face when that beast Karadzic had pulled the trigger. Remembering the even drawing of Nadia’s breath. And the slight smile. “I heard the laughter,” Nadia had said.
“Oh, Father, show me your laughter,” she mumbled quietly, walking with her arms wrapped around herself now.
Boom!
Ivena flinched. It was thunder, but it might as well have been the bullet to Nadia’s head.
She sighed. “You know that I love you, Father. It still does not seem right that you’ve taken Nadia before me. Why must I wait?”
One day she would join her daughter and that day could not possibly come quickly enough. But it would not be today. For one thing, her body was showing no signs of slowing down. It might be another fifty years before natural causes took her. For another thing, she had a part to play in this drama about her. This passion play. She knew that like she knew that blood flowed through her veins, unseen but surging with life.
Nadia had heard the laughter of heaven, and the priest had laughed the laughter of heaven, right there on the cross, begging to go. Now Janjic had heard the heavens weeping.
And then Christ had planted his love for Helen in Janjic’s heart.
Once Ivena understood that, she’d known that she was in a passion play. T
hey were walking through Solomon’s Song. Solomon’s garden, more likely. A sprinkling of love from heaven, for the benefit of the mortals who wandered about, oblivious to the desperate longing of their Creator.
“And what of me, Father? When will I hear so clearly?”
Nothing but distant rumbles answered her. She reached the park’s entrance and decided to walk once around before returning home, hopefully before the rain.
This drama unfolding behind man’s eyes was a great thing. Much greater than the building of grand cities or towering pyramids. Greater than the winning of wars. It had a feel of far loftier purpose. As if the destiny of a million souls hung in the balance of these few lives. Of Janjic’s story, The Dance of the Dead. Father Micheal, Nadia, Ivena, Janjic, Helen, Glenn Lutz—they were the main players here on earth. And the masses lived in ignorance of the struggle, while their own future was being decided.
The how and why were lost on Ivena. Only this vivid sense of purpose. But one thing she did know: This passion play was not over. Janjic may make his movie, but the story was not yet complete. And now she was being called to play a larger role. She did have the benefit of the garden, but as astounding as that was, she yearned for more. For a glimpse of heaven itself.
“Show me, Father. You cannot show me? You showed Nadia and Father Micheal and Janjic. Now show me. Don’t leave me out here in the wind by myself.”
The park was vacant except for her, she saw. That car she’d seen drive by sat parked near the outbuildings to her right, but she saw no people. It was a warm wind that blew through her hair, carrying the smell of freshly mowed grass. It reminded her of the smells from the garden in which Janjic and Helen were wed. A smile bunched her cheeks at the memory. Janjic had invited some of his closest friends and all of his employees to a dinner party, explained his heart and then presented his fiancée.
They were a conservative lot for the most part, and they had gawked at dear Helen as if she were from a newly discovered culture. But Betty, the motherly one, had given a rousing speech in the defense of love. It had quelled their doubts, she thought. At least some of their doubts. The rest had slowly faded in the weeks following. It was not every day that a man as respectable as Janjic reversed his engagement for another woman. Especially after only two weeks.
