The Invasion of Heaven, Part One of the Newirth Mythology

by Michael B. Koep

  I pulled my ear away from him and studied his expression. It was the first time I’d seen Basil show soft sincerity. The cut on my palm stung like fire. I squeezed my fist tight and closed my eyes, struggling to come to terms with my covenant. Albion’s words, Basil’s words, my own words echoed,—more important than any of us. The speakers groaned and Radiohead’s vocalist, Thom Yorke, completed our refrain—I am born again.

  Basil limped to the other side of the table and lowered the volume to a tolerable level. “Well, nice sounding system,” he said loudly.

  “I don’t trust him either, Basil,” I said, “but how can we not take the chance—”

  “Either way,” he said, “you do what you’ve got to do, and I’ll do what I’ve got to do.” He smiled at me, and said, “Reason two, I’m feeling like helping out some sorry, screwed up bastards. And three, I have to paint. I have no choice.”

  I held his eyes. He nodded, “Don’t worry, Loche. I’m done with fear. Let’s do this thing. Get Miss Rentana in here.”

  As I moved toward the door Basil added, “And have Angelo send up some za.”

  “Za?” I said confused.

  “Dude,” he sighed. “Za. Pizza, you know?”

  Due to Rentana’s extreme disorders we were forced to use the glass room at the end of Basil’s studio. The enclosure was engineered to protect Basil and myself from our terribly disturbed, Saved patients. It was also the only way Basil could work without having resident supervision in the studio.

  Rentana mashed her cheek against the glass. Her hand fluttered up and down as if mocking Basil’s busy brush, smearing saliva across the pane. Basil’s quick glances at her were pained and uncomfortable.

  Rentana crooned with Basil’s cranked up music and occasionally slapped the glass with the flat of her wet hand. She looked to be in her mid to late forties. Dr. Catena’s record of her background was torn and gap-filled, but there were threads that told a bit of her story. She was liberated from a Serbian concentration camp just outside of Banja Luka by American Peace Keepers in 1995. The war in Bosnia during the early nineties—the war that was somehow overlooked by the international community—bred its share of psychological casualties. Serbian militants rose to yet another ethnic cleansing frenzy. Albion had provided literature prior to my meeting Rentana, and it outlined the horror that descended upon Banja Luka—a city of nearly 100,000 Muslims, Croats and those of mixed parentage. The city was subject to terror attacks by armed Serbian soldiers at all times of the day—rape, torture, mass murder, fear and suffering. Where was the world? The so-called leaders of freedom? What kind of God could allow such pain?

  The psychological damage that Rentana had sustained had left her without voice, reason or hope.

  It was uncertain that Rentana was indeed her real name. UN Peacekeepers had supposedly learned her name from another prisoner from the camp. She was brought to the EMHL in Italy and had been living out her days in the bleak torture of madness. But at least, as Dr. Catena said, she’s safe now.

  Saved.

  My mentor, Marcus Rearden, came to mind. If only I had his help right now. I had never been faced with such an extreme case of psychological trauma. And I, too, found myself pained, like Basil, watching her writhe behind the glass, imagining the unspeakable scenes that lurked in her memory.

  “Damn it,” Basil muttered.

  “What?”

  He glanced up at me, noting that I had heard him. “Nothing. I’m just getting warmed up.”

  “What does that mean?” My voice was laced with worry.

  Basil chuckled. “Easy now.” He reached for a rag and leaned into the standing easel. “Just a value thing—too much blue. Gotta fix it, nothing serious.”

  Observing him work I saw that his wonted casual manner was hidden. He looked strangely unfamiliar as he painted. Focused eyes, genuine expression and nimble movement combined with his ash green thobe and paint stained top hat gave him the look of some unlikely wizard in a fairy tale. The smell of the oil paints mingled with the stick of incense that smoldered in the far end of the room. I recall Basil telling me how much he loved the combination of the two lingering in the air. Now he smashed his brush into his pallet and stepped back and away from the work, angling his head slightly. He then pointed his brush back into the canvas with long and lyrical sweeps. Moving the brush to the hand that held the pallet, he reached for his cigarette. He stood up straight with a grin and stared thoughtfully at his work, “There, that’s better. Very nice.”

  I’ll never forget the final hours of that evening, most of which I spent pacing at the far side of Basil’s studio. The memory of my portrait—the swirling eyes like glinting flakes of gold, and the dark water of madness—I wondered what sort of hellish fright lay in store for Rentana.

  The music stopped.

  “I’m done.” Basil laid his brush down. His eyes remained rooted in the work.

  “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “Basil?”

  “Let’s do this thing,” he said.

  “Should we let Albion know that we’re—”

  “Nope,” he cut me off. “This one is for you and me to do. Whatever happens, we’ll have to own it.”

  On both sides of the easel were two long boards that pivoted up and away from the painting. He tightened the wingnuts keeping them taut. A sort of shelter. He then turned and from a drawer produced a shroud of black cloth and spread it over the boards and the painting below, being careful to keep the cloth from touching the wet surface. The shroud dangled over the angled boards like a curtain. He sighed. “I think you should go with her.”

  “What?”

  He rolled the heavy easel toward me. “She may need you in there. Maybe not. But I want to know what happens.”

  “Basil, I don’t think I can—”

  “You’ll be alright, Loche,” he comforted as he moved the easel into position before the glass room, angling it just so. “C-c-come on. I d-d-don’t know w-w-what’s going to happen here. If s-s-something goes wrong, m-m-maybe you can save it. Just tell me what you see when its all o-o-over.”

  Rentana was mumbling a string of sobs behind the glass. It had a humming quality, like a powerful machine warming up.

  “Get a chair,” Basil suggested. “You might want to sit down for this one.”

  I don’t remember moving the chair and placing it before the Center, but I found myself sitting there gripping the seat and slowly rocking my torso back and forth.

  With one hand on the shroud, and one hand gently knocking on the glass, Basil called to her, “Rentana? Look up here.” And then the break in his speech, “T-t-time to come b-b-bback.” Her eyes lingered on Basil’s face and then drifted to the shroud. I heard the cloth pulled from the easel. The sound of a parachute opening, I thought. Somewhere behind her blank expression was a rising gale of horror. Veins along her neck swelled and the pinkish flush of heated blood colored her cheeks. For a split second I thought I saw in her eyes a spark of cognition. Then her eyes widened, pupils dilating like an oozing wound beneath fabric. Her lower jaw sagged open, as she breathed out a single gasp. A fine strand of light lingered out from the Center and gently entered her left eye. The Silk.

  “Your turn,” Basil said quietly.

  What if I can’t help, can’t handle it, or I go in with them? My ears were thrumming as the fear took hold. The rectangular shape of the glass room and its parallel lines were like a line of fence along the ridge of a cliff. “Loche—” Basil’s voice was now shrill, “G-g-go with her!”

  I snapped my head in the direction of the painting.

  Silence.

  Flash.

  Gone.

  The sky was a bruised black and purple stain. It leaked out a flat, oppressive smolder of light, just bright enough to sting the eyes, lurid and dim. A hammer-like heat mingled with the glow and seared down on the powdered dust floor of a wide desert. It was as if the sun was veiled not behind clouds, but beneath the g
raveled crust under my feet. The landscape was a blinding, dirty yellow. Surrounding me were distant welts of low hills.

  Thirst.

  Some hundred yards from me was a barbwire fence line. Within its borders squatted several long metal shacks. I quickly scanned in search of Rentana. She was nowhere in sight.

  A cry reverberated from the camp, metallic and stifled. I ran toward it.

  My stride was heavy, and my feet crunched on the parched waste. A gate caught my attention. It was torn open. I curved my path toward it. The cry intensified.

  Just inside the gate I stopped. Squeezing my eyes shut I tried to let my ears discern the direction of my next sprint. There was now more than one voice wailing and each seemed to be coming from different buildings. What’s more, they seemed to repeat over and over, much like a scratched record. I fixed my eyes on the nearest building, and lurched toward it, feeling the pressing heat of the desert bear down on me.

  I rounded the corner and saw a short three-step stair and a closed sheet metal door. The sound from this shack was louder than the others now. It was a painful moaning mixed with anger —or resistance.

  I threw my body against the door and crashed through.

  The sharp stench of urine and shit hit me as the door fell from its flimsy hinges. On the floor was Rentana, naked save a torn dirty slip bunched around her middle. Each of her limbs was held tight by four uniformed soldiers, while a fifth, with his pants around his ankles, raped her, pounding into her without mercy. I watched in shock and horror. None of the soldiers heeded my presence.

  I hurled myself upon the rapist with an enraged scream, hoping to tear him from his victim, driving my knee into his ribs with killing force. There was no contact. I rolled across the floor and landed on my side against the wall. Beside me, the violence continued. Scrambling to my feet, I pivoted my body, and kicked at the head of the soldier that gripped her left arm. The blow met with nothing but air, and I again found myself on the stained wood floor.

  There was a flash. I blinked. Then the same scene replayed before my eyes, like a record had skipped. I waited. Every ten seconds the scene replayed again. A moan from my own lips echoed hers against the metal walls. I turned my eyes away.

  —You can’t stop it. The voice had an accent. European.

  Standing in the broken doorway was Rentana. She looked down without expression at her victimized self on the floor.

  —Nothing can stop it now, she said. She looked at me with a hint of a smile. Her eyes were clear and her long brown hair dangled over her shoulders. She wore a delicate white cotton dress.

  —You need to come away from here. Here it will stay.

  I picked myself up and slowly followed her through the door. The stink of the room evaporated leaving only the crushing heat. She stopped and faced me. Her face was peaceful and glowing.

  —Thank you. Thank you for trying.

  She raised both of her arms and spread them wide, pointing in both directions along the long barbed fence line.

  —Look.

  Staring out at the desert was a row of Rentanas, like the Rentana I faced. Each of them stood like an elegant statue, stoic and hopeful. Their faces pointed out to the scorched horizon. And the numbers grew. From each metal shack came a form of Rentana, stepping gingerly out of the crying rooms and finding their way to their place in the row. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning I saw Rentana again.

  —Thank you, she said. She exchanged a knowing glance with the form before me and moved on, joining the long procession.

  —What is happening? I said, or thought.

  —We are leaving now. We are leaving it all behind. Come.

  I followed my guide through the gate, and she set out into the wasteland. Behind us, the forms of Rentana followed. Once all had cleared the gate, the group assembled behind us. I gazed back at the desolate camp. The mournful cries continued to echo. The gate that was torn down was now intact and locked firmly. I blinked my eyes. I thought I saw a shape move. A blur of a light, like the smear of a body moving behind a fogged window. There was movement. The gate trembled. It rattled as if something was struggling to get out.

  —What was that?

  —I don’t know. Rentana looked back.

  Then there were several blurry shapes moving behind the fence. The gate rattled violently now. It was the sound of frustration—imprisonment.

  —Come, Rentana beckoned.

  Crusted earth and gravel stretched out before us, and the purple wound of the sky glowered down as we walked. The rattle of the gate and the cries faded away.

  The heat had become too much for me. My tongue felt cracked and swollen and breathing was difficult. I stumbled and fell.

  —We are almost there. Rentana stopped at my side.

  —I don’t understand. I shouldn’t be able to feel this place.

  She did not answer, but instead stood quietly before me and smiled.

  —We are far enough away now, I suppose. It is time.

  Rentana turned and motioned for her train to move to her. Each by each the forms of Rentana melted into one. She knelt down.

  —Let’s go home.

  “Here, Loche, take this.” It was Basil’s voice. “Take this.” I could feel his hand gripping my wrist. He was trying to wedge a glass of water into my lifeless hand. The cool moisture on my fingertips startled me. I was back. The room was cool, almost cold.

  I gripped the glass of water, raised it to my mouth and poured. The liquid streamed onto my parched tongue, and I guzzled half, the rest drooled down my shirt.

  Basil knelt before me. His eyes were concerned. Brother, I remember thinking. “More?” he asked.

  I shook my head and leaned back in the chair.

  “How long was I gone?” I choked.

  “A second. Maybe two. You blinked back yelling for water.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. The water dropped into my stomach and immediately calmed my senses.

  “But you wouldn’t take the water glass for three or four minutes. You just kept shouting for water. You were out of it for sure. How do you feel now?”

  I squeezed my stinging eyes shut and then opened them wide. “I’m good, I think.” My clothes still felt hot, as if the desert was trapped inside the fabric. Then, the memory washed over me —the gory sky, the crushing heat, the gun metal buildings— Rentana. Rape.

  “How is Rentana?” I cried.

  With a slight smile Basil nodded over my shoulder. “See for yourself.”

  I sat up and slowly turned to the glass room behind me. Rentana was standing with her hand spread out against the glass. Her eyes stared into mine. She was smiling. Her expression was the kind worn by a close friend that you’d not seen for many long years—inquisitive, hopeful and happy to see that you, too, had made it this far.

  Without words we knew each other.

  Dr. Angelo Catena’s excitement was almost comical. He threw his arms around both Basil and me, ranting in quick, jovial Italian phrases, interspersed with English.

  “It is good! She is better than expected!”

  Nearly a day had passed since Rentana’s viewing of Basil’s work. My experience inside the painting had left me exhausted, and I had slept long. I was roused in the late afternoon. We sat around a dinner table inside the gothic dining room—Angelo, with his assistant Corey, Albion Ravistelle and the two families from North Idaho.

  “Our interviews with her were incredibly positive,” Angelo kept on. “It is as if she has come to terms with her past.”

  “Does she remember any of it?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Angelo nodded. “After you retired early this morning, we brought in a Bosinan interpreter. Our interview lasted until noon. We kept her awake for too long, I think. My assistant here suggested that she get some rest. I was a bit overzealous, I admit. This is an exciting time. But yes, she remembers everything in extreme detail.” His smile took on a shadow, “Terrible things, Dr. Newirth. Horrible experiences. It is a wonder she survived
any of it.” His tone brightened, “But now it is a matter of watching her for some time—and learning from her.”

  I felt Helen’s hand grip mine under the table. She gave a gentle squeeze that said, You’ve done it. You’ve done it. I glanced at her with a smile in my eyes. But it wasn’t me, I thought. It was Basil.

  Basil sat opposite me. He was rolling the stem of his wineglass between his thumb and his index finger. He was deep in thought, his focus trained on the white tablecloth as if imagining his next work.

  “I would very much like to speak with her,” I stated.

  “You will. She will be joining us shortly,” Angelo said.

  Albion Ravistelle raised his wineglass, “A toast. To Dr. Loche Newirth and Basil Fenn. May this be the beginning of the end for the maladies of the human mind.” All, save Basil, raised a glass, and then drank silently.

  “However, Dr. Newirth and Mr. Fenn,” Ravistelle continued, “I would rather have been present for Rentana’s viewing. So too, I believe, would Dr. Catena. I needn’t tell you that we’ve great interest and care for this endeavor. Mind that nothing of the sort happens again, for if anything were to go wrong, we would like to be there to assist.”

  I looked at Basil. He was still spinning his wineglass, as if he wasn’t listening. A moment passed, and it was obviously too much for him to swallow. “Easy there Al baby,” Basil quipped. “I’ll tell you when you can be a part of it.” The air surrounding us grew thick. Ravistelle was unmoved. Basil flipped out a cigarette and lit up.

  Angelo broke the ice, “At this time, it is no matter,” he said genuinely. “Rentana is exhibiting health, and that is the mission for us all.” He nodded to Ravistelle. Ravistelle acknowledged the sentiment and looked at Basil, studying him with the hint of a smile. A smile of either suppressed rage or patient understanding. I wasn’t sure which.

  “Ah,” Catena sighed, “and here she is.” A finely dressed man in his mid twenties approached the table, and just behind him was our first patient. “Presenting Rentana Borna of Croatia. This is her translator, Adam.”

  “Excellent,” Albion said, rising to his feet. “Please join us.”