Florian's Gate
Page 1
© 1992 by T. Davis Bunn
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
eISBN 978-1-4412-7087-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All scripture quotations, unless indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. NIV ®. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.© Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Reviewers acclaim T. Davis Bunn’s
first novel, The Presence
“Davis is a masterful storyteller. His first book promises to be an international bestseller. . . . It will leave you deeply and spiritually moved and challenged.”
KEN CORLEY
Full Gospel Business Mens
Fellowship International
Naples Chapter
“Bunn uses a fresh approach for fiction and turns readers toward the presence of God. Compelling writing blends humor with a stirring plot to make this book a good choice.”
Moody Monthly
“I admire its vivid characterization and conversational language, the sincerity of its message. Truly a parable.”
ANTHONY NYE, S.J.
Head of the Jesuit Diocese
London
“The Presence is a great novel portraying the power of the Lord in the life of a public official. It leaves me more determined than ever to seek His presence continually.”
LAWRENCE DAVIS
Chairman North Carolina
Democratic Party
“. . . interesting, entertaining, inspiring and instructive. I highly recommend it.”
CAROLYN R. ALBERT
Lutheran Libraries
“It’s a great book.”
JACK BUNDY
Naples Daily News
“A well-written, gripping exploration of relationships, this story is one you will want to read and reread. I could hardly put it down.”
CLYDIA D. DEFRESSE
Church & Synagogue Library Association
“His premises are fascinating . . . a major talent with great potential in our market.”
BOB HUDSON
Co-Editor
A Christian Writer’s
Manual of Style
“The Presence is powerful, refreshing. . . . We can look forward to more writing from Bunn. . . . There is great value in well-crafted fiction that embraces a Christian world view.”
LIS TROUTEN
Twin Cities Christian
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO MY WIFE’S FAMILY
AND TO THEIR POLISH HERITAGE.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Endorsements
Dedication
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Author
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate
of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may
tread safely into the unknown.’ And he
replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put
your hand into the hand of God. That shall
be to you better than light, and safer
than a known way.’”
MINNIE LOUISE HASKINS
Quoted by King George VI in his annual Christmas
address to the British nation in 1939, on the
eve of World War II.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
All antiques mentioned in this book do indeed exist. Prices quoted here are either the result of recent sales or current market estimates.
CHAPTER 1
Jeffrey Sinclair swung around the corner to Mount Street in London’s Mayfair district and greeted the wizened flower seller with, “It looks like another rainy day, Mister Harold.”
The old man remained bent over his rickety table. “Too right, Yank. Mid-June and we ain’t had a dry day since Easter. Don’t do my rheumatics no good, s’truth.”
“How much for the white things up there on the shelf?”
“I can’t say what’re you on about now?” The man straightened as far up as he was able, shook his head, said, “Chrysanthemums, Yank. Chrysanthemums. Didn’t they teach you anything?”
“I can’t say that before coffee. How much for a bunch?”
“A what?” The man squinted at Jeffrey’s double armful. It was an Edwardian silver punch bowl, chased in gold and sporting a pair of intricately engraved stags locked in mortal combat. It was filled with disposable diapers. “Got old Ling in there?”
“Yes.”
The old man snorted. “Better bed’n I’ve ever seen. How much that thing worth?”
“It’s priced to sell fast at seven thousand pounds.” About twelve thousand dollars. “Maybe your wife would like it for her birthday.”
That brought a laugh. “The old dear’ll be gettin’ the same as last year, a pint at the pub. You’re a right one, walkin’ ’round these streets with a silver jug for a birdbath.”
“It’s not a jug.” He spotted Katya walking toward them and felt his heart rate surge by several notches. She was sheltered within a vast gentleman’s anorak, which she wore to hide the fancy clothes required for working in his shop. The hood framed a pixie face.
She greeted him with a smile that did not reach her eyes, said “Good morning, Mr. Harold.”
“Hello, lass.” Wizened features twisted into a delighted smile. “Been keepin’ you waitin’ again, has he?”
She shook her head, said to Jeffrey, “I’m doing research at the library this morning, and I need a book I left at the shop.” She peered into the vessel, asked, “How is Ling?”
“ ’Ere, let’s have a look.” The old man’s blackened fingers peeled back the upper layer, exposing a baby bird about three weeks outside the egg. “Blimey, he’s a runt. What you figure him for?”
Jeffrey knew at a glance that he would have to reply. Katya had a way about her on days like this. She moved within an air of silent sorrow, a shadow drawn across unseen depths. Jeffrey could do little more than watch and yearn to delve beneath the surface and know the secrets behind those beautiful eyes. “Katya thinks it’s a robin, but we’re not sure.”
The bird was sleeping, its gray-feathered body breathing with the minutest of gasps. Its wings were nothing more than tiny stubs covered with the finest of down. It looked far too fragile to live.<
br />
“What’s he eat?”
“The vet said we ought to buy this special formula, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. So Katya’s mixed up baby food with birdseed and some mineral drink. Ling eats enough of it, that’s for sure.
“The girl’s right, Yank. Never did trust them doctors.” He reached out one finger and nudged the little body. Immediately the bird leapt upright, its tiny beak opened just as wide as it could, its scrawny neck thrust out to a ridiculous length.
“Look what you did now.” Jeffrey’s exasperation was only half-faked. “He’ll drive me crazy until I can get the shop opened and his formula heated.”
The old man remained bent over the tiny form, a smile creasing his unshaven features. “Reminds me of how my littlest one, Bert, used to go on. Lad could eat a horse. Mind you, he made a lot more noise than this runt, Bert did.”
“I’ve got to go now, Mister Harold.” Jeffrey said, and started down Mount Street. “Bring a bunch of those white ones by the shop, okay?”
“I would, Yank, if I could figure out what in blazes you’re goin’ on about,” the old man replied, turning back to his table. “Around these parts we sell flowers by the dozen.”
The bird kept up a continual high-pitched tweet the entire way down the block. Jeffrey handed the bowl to Katya, fished in his pocket, drew out and inserted the round ten-inch strong-box key in the special slot. He turned it once, punched the four numbers in the alarm box set in the red brick wall, turned it a second time, and sighed with relief when the locks unsheathed with a loud click. A year on the job, and he still got the jitters every time he had to open early.
Nine months previously he had forgotten the numbers, and while he was fishing around in his wallet and trying to remember what different sequence he had written down—subtract one, add two, do the first last, whatever—the sky had split open and the gods of war had been set loose. Alarm bells shattered the quiet of the six o’clock street, lights flashed, and a loud wailing began to slide up and down the scale. The racket caused him to drop his wallet into the slush of yet another half snow, half rain that had turned his first winter in London into a seemingly endless grayish hue. Heads popped out of louvered windows to scream abuse. The police raced up with yet more flashing lights and wailing sirens, and it was only after another half hour of browbeating from all sides that Jeffrey managed to break away, slip inside, and begin another day at the office.
That morning all went as it should, except for Ling’s endless cry and Katya’s silent distance. Ling had been named by Katya, who had said The Ugly Duckling was too long for something that tiny. Katya was his sort-of girlfriend. The sort-of was from her side, not his. As far as he was concerned, today would have been a fine time to set up house. This morning, in fact. Right now, not to make too big a point of it. But he couldn’t—make a point of it, that is—since Katya made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t interested.
Hers was not a lighthearted attraction, but rather one which remained surrounded by walls and hidden depths even after seven months of their being together. Her hair was very dark, almost blue-black in color, and cut very short in what used to be called a page-boy style and what now was referred to as functional. It was very fine hair, and it framed her face with a silky aura that shimmered in the light and shivered in the softest breeze. Her eyes were wide and grayish violet and very expressive, her mouth somehow small and full at the same time. Hers was a small, perky face set upon a small, energetic body. He loved her face, loved the quiet fluidity of her movements, loved the way she smiled with her entire being—when she smiled, which was very seldom. Katya was one of the most serious people he had ever met.
Only once had he seen the seriousness slip away entirely, when they had gone to Hastings for the day and spent an unseasonably hot early May afternoon on the beach. After a laughter-filled swim in absolutely frigid water, she had toweled her hair and left it salt-scattered, happy enough to be warm and wet and in the sun for a while. From behind blank sunglasses Jeffrey had examined this strange woman in her brief moment of true happiness, and wondered at all that he did not know of her. Her mysterious distance was a crystal globe set around the most fragile of flowers, protecting a heart from he knew not what. And as he looked, he yearned to come inside the globe, to know this heart, to taste the nectar of this flower.
That time on the beach remained one of the few moments of true intimacy they had ever shared. And even then Jeffrey had almost managed to mess it up—without intending to, without understanding what it was he had said, without knowing how to make things better.
They were lying on a shared beach towel after their swim, enjoying the rare day of summer-like heat that warmed away the water’s chill. Katya sat supported by her arms, with her head thrown back, her uplifted face and closed eyes holding an expression of earthly rapture. Jeffrey lay beside her, turned so that he could watch her without her seeing him, knowing that he should understand her better to feel as he did.
She opened her eyes, squinted at the sky, then pointed upward and said brightly, “Look, that’s where God lives.”
“What?”
“Over there. See the light coming through the clouds like that? When I was a little girl I decided that it happened when God came down and sat on the clouds. That’s why they lit up with all those beautiful colors. And that big stream of light falling to earth was where God was looking down at people to see if they were behaving.”
“Do you believe in God?”
She turned and looked at him with clear gray-violet eyes that gave nothing away. “Don’t you?”
“I used to. I used to feel as if God was around me all the time.”
“He is.”
“Maybe so, but I couldn’t ever seem to find Him when I needed Him.” Jeffrey settled his hands behind his head. “I guess I stayed really religious for about three years. Then when I was seventeen I started going through some bad times. I ended up deciding that if God wasn’t going to help me more than He was, then I needed to stop relying on Him and learn to help myself. So I did. I didn’t mean to let religion slide, but I guess it has. No, I know it has. It just never seemed to matter very much to me after that.”
She looked down at him for a very long moment. “That is the most you have ever told me about yourself.”
You’re not the most open person either, he thought. “I guess I’ve never had anybody seem all that interested before.”
She kept her solemn eyes on him, and for a moment Jeffrey thought she was going to bend over and kiss him. Instead she turned her face back to the sky, said, “I ran away from home three times when I was six. That’s what my parents called it, anyway. What really happened was I went running over to where God was looking down. I wanted to ask Him to make the bad things go away. But I never could get there in time. Sooner or later the light would go out and I knew God had gone to watch other people somewhere else.”
He lay and looked at the still face, with its delicate upturned nose and upper lip that seemed to follow the same line of curve. Her chin, too, rose just a little bit, as if carefully planed by a gentle artist. “Did you have a lot of bad times as a kid?”
She lay down beside him, her breath causing her breasts to rise and press against the suit’s flimsy fabric. Jeffrey decided he had never seen a more beautiful woman in all his life. “I didn’t have anyone to compare with,” she replied. “It seemed pretty bad to me.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
She met him once more with that same level gaze, as though searching inside him for something she couldn’t find. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever thought about giving God another chance in your life?”
“No,” he replied honestly.
“Why not?”
“What for?” He turned his face to the sky. “Why should anything be different this time?”
“Did you ever think that maybe you’d understand why
you had to go through what you did, if you’d give Him a chance to explain?”
“Why didn’t He explain it then?”
“I don’t know, Jeffrey,” she said, her voice as calm as her gaze. “Maybe you weren’t listening. Or maybe you were listening for something that He didn’t want to tell you.”
For some reason that struck a little close to home. He countered with, “What about you? Did you find all the answers you were looking for when you were little and hurting and went looking for God?”
“No,” she replied. “But I kept looking, and now I do.”
“You mean you found an excuse.” Her certainty irritated him. He sat up, said, “You went looking for a reason to believe in a God who let you be hurt when you were a little defenseless kid. So you found one. If I wanted to, I could come up with a thousand perfectly good reasons. But it doesn’t mean God exists.”
She raised up to sit beside him. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right.”
“I found understanding because I let God heal the pain. That’s when it started to make sense, Jeffrey. So long as I was still hurting, I couldn’t see beyond my pain. But when the wounds healed and the pain left, I was able to see the real reason. The only reason. You can too.”
“You really do believe, don’t you?”
“With all my heart,” she replied simply.
He shook his head, turned to face the sea. “Crazy. I thought I’d left all that stuff back home.”
She rose to her feet in one fluid motion. “I think I’m ready to go now.”
“Why?” He looked up at her. “There’s another two or three hours of sun left.”
“I’m going home, Jeffrey.” She began slipping back into her jeans. “Would you please take me?”
* * *
Jeffrey entered the shop and watched Katya walk to the back, retrieve her book, and leave with the fewest of words. He stood for a moment in the center of the shop and felt the vacuum caused by her silent passing. He sighed, shook his head, and carried Ling’s bowl back to the cramped office space behind the stairwell. He set the bowl carefully on a Queen Anne rosewood table and turned on the hotplate. While he prepared the formula and washed the eyedropper, he occupied himself with a rundown of the week’s activities.