Fire and Agate

by Andrew Grey

  The decoy, Chris realized. Briggs had to make sure Pavle wasn’t going to finger just anyone.

  “He take me to other room where he sit at table. He take me out to lobby. I happy when outside again. Then Briggs bring me here.” Pavle shook. “I no want go back there.”

  “You aren’t.” That Chris could promise him without any doubt. “He’s going to stay where he was.”

  The chime of the doorbell interrupted him. Chris squeezed Pavle’s upper arm and left the table. When he reached the door, he peered through the window. Marie stood on the stoop, nervously shifting her weight. Chris opened the door.

  “I heard that Pavle was at the police station this morning. Is he okay?”

  “Yes.” Chris motioned her inside. “Briggs was gentle with him. But the situation has upset him some. I’m about to make lunch. Come on in. You can talk with him. Friendly faces are what he needs.” He smiled and led her through the house. Marie dropped her bag next to the table, and Pavle stood as she entered the room.

  “I okay,” Pavle told her. “I talk to Chris. He help me.”

  “Yes. That’s good.” She sat in the chair Chris had vacated. “There are going to be plenty of times when you have to tell what happened.”

  Pavle nodded. “Chris tell me.”

  Chris noticed that Pavle’s gaze followed him as he moved through the room. He felt it almost as a touch.

  “That’s good. I’ve been thinking that at some point, Pavle might want to apply for asylum here.” She reached into her bag and pulled out some forms. “You will need to decide if you want to stay or if you wish to go home.”

  “This home,” Pavle said with a grin. “I stay with Chris.”

  Marie sighed. “Sweetheart, I mean, do you want to go back to Serbia? You were brought here, but illegally, so you can’t stay unless we go through a process.”

  “Then I stay with Chris?” Pavle pressed.

  “Pavle, Chris is protecting you so you can tell what happened to you to the police and in court. Once you do that, and if we can get an asylum hearing, then I will work with you to get a home of your own. That’s what these papers are for.”

  As Chris placed a plate of cheese and crackers on the table, Pavle’s expression fell like a collapsing soufflé. Chris glanced over the papers. “But he doesn’t have a lot of this information. How can we fill this out?”

  “I know.” Marie turned to him. “You need to get it from the man in custody. If those items still exist, then he might have them. Those papers are part of what gets traded at ownership… usually. He’s not going to give them up easily, but if Pavle wants to have any hope of an asylum hearing and staying in this country, then we need to find that information.” She picked up a cracker but didn’t eat it. “It can be done without them, but it’s a hell of a lot harder and with a lot more risks.”

  “I’ll tell Briggs. He can try to put some pressure on him.”

  “The most likely place would be a safe-deposit box. Those papers are treated like gold. With them he could trade and sell Pavle, control him. They are leverage against his behavior.”

  “Don’t talk like I no here,” Pavle said softly, his voice wavering.

  “I’m sorry, that was rude of me. We need to find your papers. That will help a lot. Chris is going to see if he can help. We both will.”

  “I want stay with Chris.” Pavle got up from the table and left the room.

  Chris followed him with his eyes and then turned back to Marie. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  She nodded slowly. “I’m concerned. Pavle is getting very emotionally involved with you. It happens sometimes.”

  “Of course he is. Pavle is a kind man, and I like him and care for him. He’s been through hell and come out the other side.” He hoped Marie didn’t think she needed to pull Pavle away. He leaned closer. “Is it so bad that he’s attached to me? There are worse people he could bond with.”

  “Of course there are,” she said gently. “But how does he know what he really wants?” She took a bite of cracker and chewed. “Can you imagine going through what he did and then having someone like you being kind and gentle with him? He trusts you, and it’s only natural that he might develop feelings for you.” She finished the cracker, opened her bag, and pulled out a notebook. “Is he even gay?”

  Chris nodded and looked toward the other room. “That’s part of his shame and why he was leaving Serbia, at least in part.”

  Her lipstick-pink lips parted and her eyes widened. “I see. Give him some time to work things through and talk to him. Encourage him to talk with his therapist about this.” She smiled. “I just want Pavle to be free to make his own decisions.”

  “That’s what I want too.”

  She seemed to relax a little and stood. “I’m going to leave these forms for you. Fill in as much as you can, and hopefully we can locate Pavle’s documents. Even if they’re expired, it will help a great deal in authenticating who he says he is.”

  Chris walked her out and closed and locked the door. He went upstairs and found Pavle in the third bedroom that he used as a sitting room, curled up in the easy chair, gazing out the upper window that overlooked the street.

  Pavle glanced at Chris as he entered the room. “I no want go somewhere else. I want stay here. I want this be my home.” He turned back to the window. “I cannot go back to Serbia. I never able go home. There I shame… always shame.”

  “Then we’ll make sure you don’t have to go back. I’ll help you.”

  Pavle turned toward him, looking more lost than he had when he’d first arrived. “I want to be here. I want stay with you and Nanna if I can.” He sighed, sadness in his eyes. “I know too much to ask. Marie right. I need to go.”

  “I never said you had to go. I like having you here. We cook and garden, and we have fun.” The fact that he’d had trouble sleeping ever since Pavle kissed him didn’t enter into it at all.

  “She say I go. Marie said. I hear. I want stay. I stay with you?” He seemed too hopeful.

  “Yes. You can stay. She is worried about what you might be feeling. That you are getting close to me.” Chris pulled up the other chair, ruffling the rug as he did. He sat down close enough that he could touch Pavle’s hands. “She’s afraid… and so am I… that you are developing feelings for me.” He was doing this all wrong, he just knew it.

  “What that mean?”

  Chris had hoped he could beat around the bush a little, but that wasn’t going to work. He laid it on the line. “She thinks you are falling in love with me and that I am falling in love with you.”

  “That bad?” Pavle asked. “I thought there no shame here.”

  “No. It’s not bad. Falling in love is wonderful and happy.” Chris smiled. “But I’m worried that, well, you’ve been through a lot.”

  “You think I stupid?” Pavle glared accusingly at Chris.

  “No. But I want you to know how you feel.” He waited and hoped. “Do you want to tell me?”

  Pavle nodded. “I no have words.” He lowered his gaze. “I want kiss you, hold you. I want spend night in same bed. No because you tell me. I want to. You make me safe and strong. I want to live with you and this be my home. Is that love?” He looked up at him.

  The truth was, it sure sounded like it to Chris. “What does your heart tell you? Close your eyes and don’t think. Just listen deep down and see what it says.” Chris did the same, almost afraid to open his eyes as peace and calm descended over him. He breathed deeply, letting his head and the whirl of confusion around what he should do simply fade away, like a tornado that had blown itself out.

  Slowly Chris opened his eyes to find Pavle leaning forward, looking at him hard enough that Chris could nearly feel it. “My heart say it want you.” Pavle closed the distance between them. Their lips touched gently, a simple caress they deepened slowly, growing in intensity. Pavle leaned closer, adding more pressure, winding his hand around the back of Chris’s neck.

  Chris returned the kiss, his own he
art fluttering with joy. But his head, well, that was another matter. The damn thing would not shut up. He gently placed his hands on Pavle’s cheeks, stilling him. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “You no want?” Pavle asked.

  “I didn’t say that. What I want isn’t the issue.” Chris placed his hands on top of Pavle’s, smoothing them back to his side. “I was in love before. It was a while ago when I was in college.” Chris entwined Pavle’s fingers with his. “I was so in love with Louis. He was cute and smart, funny because he had no sense of humor at all. He thought he was funny, but he wasn’t. Which was sort of funny in itself.” He knew he’d lost Pavle by his rather blank gaze. “I fell in love with him, and I thought he and I were going to be together forever.”

  “But you no?” Pavle asked.

  “No. He got a scholarship to another school and left. He went home for the summer, and we had plans to see each other, but then everything changed and he was gone.” Chris cleared his throat. “I thought losing him was the end of the world, but then I learned he was my first love. Both of us were so young. Louis and I had our whole lives ahead of us, and we didn’t know how much both of us were going to change in a short time.”

  Pavle narrowed his gaze. “What you mean?”

  “A lot of things are changing for you, and they will continue to change. And what you want today might not be what you want in a month or three months.” Chris gently squeezed Pavle’s fingers. “I’m saying that I think I love you, but that I love you enough not to hold you too tight. You should be able to experience some life and happiness before you make up your mind. See, when I fall in love, for real, I want it to be forever.”

  “You no fall in love with Louis?” Pavle sat back a little in the chair.

  “I don’t know now,” Chris answered. At the time, he’d thought he loved him, or he might have loved the feeling of being in love. Looking back, it was hard to know for sure.

  “He hurt you?” Pavle’s gaze hardened. “He here? In city? I rip face off for you.”

  Chris was speechless. His lips moved, but no words came out. “No,” he said, then cleared his throat to get it working again. “Louis is far away.”

  “Good, then face safe.” Pavle crossed his arms over his chest. Damn, he was cute when he was pissed off on Chris’s behalf. “I want love too. Longtime love like Nanna. She say her and Poppy have wild… monkey… love. Whatever that is.” For a second, after Chris stopped swallowing his tongue, he wondered just how much Pavle and Nanna had talked about. Or maybe he needed to rethink Nanna and Pavle spending so much time together. Nanna told tales, and Pavle certainly didn’t need to know about his grandparents and anything involving monkeys in any way. “Nanna get weird look on face when she talk about him, like this.” Pavle leaned back, looking like he was completely relaxed and about to light up a cigarette.

  Chris coughed and had to catch his breath. “Good God, please.” He needed eye bleach.

  “I want look like that too.”

  Didn’t everyone? Lord, Pavle and Nanna had had the talk about the birds and the bees and then skipped right to what made one’s eyes roll to the back of their head.

  “Okay. That’s enough. I get the idea.”

  “No. I want make you look like that.” Pavle still sat with his arms over his chest, leaning forward. “That what I want.”

  Jesus, Nanna and Marie had said to listen to what Pavle told him he wanted, but holy cow, he didn’t expect Pavle to put things so eloquently, or graphically. Chris fanned himself with his hand as sweat broke out on his forehead. “How about you and I take things carefully?” One thing was for fucking sure, he was going to have to turn in his stud card if he wasn’t careful. “You say you know what you want, and, well… I want to make sure that we don’t regret things… so how about we learn about each other and see where things go?”

  Pavle shook his head and then shrugged. “Sometimes you talk way too fucking much.” He kissed Chris again and then backed away. “Did I say right?” He smiled, and all Chris could do was nod.

  Yeah, Pavle had it about right. Sometimes talk was just overrated.

  Chapter 7

  “I GET it,” Pavle said when the doorbell rang.

  “Okay, just be careful,” Chris cautioned from the kitchen. He’d been doing a lot more cooking lately and found he didn’t mind spending so much time in the kitchen. Chris turned down the heat under the pot of hamburger-vegetable soup to let it simmer and followed Pavle’s path through the house.

  “Reverend,” Chris said as Pavle was about to close the door on the people he didn’t know. “Please come in.”

  “Tyrone, please,” the reverend said with a smile. “And you must be Pavle.” He didn’t seem upset that Pavle had nearly slammed the door on him. “This is Anika, my wife, and our son, Isaac.”

  Chris knew the instant Pavle recognized the toddler.

  “You… you save me.” Pavle smiled and sank back onto the bench Chris kept in the entryway.

  “I’d say you saved yourself,” Anika said. “I found your note when I was getting Isaac up one morning.”

  “I know… I no write good.” Pavle bit his lower lip as Chris offered him a hand for support.

  “Your note was fine. We knew you needed help and called the police. They found you and saved you.” She offered Pavle a hand, and he released Chris’s to take hers. “Tyrone and I want to help others. It’s why he became a pastor and partly why I married him. A life of service is what we chose, but it’s so rare to see the help we give someone pay off so quickly.”

  “I thank you for help,” Pavle said formally. “I there long time.”

  “We had no idea. I was just assigned to rebuild this congregation a few months ago,” Tyrone said.

  Chris motioned them toward the living room. “Please come in.” They took seats, with Pavle next to Anika, who still held his hand. He was so pleased Pavle wasn’t scared of them and accepted the comfort and care they exuded from every pore. Chris left the room to set up a tray of lemonade and cheese and crackers in the kitchen. He brought it in as Pavle told his story, or at least an abbreviated version.

  “I open window, throw note, close again. Then pray,” Pavle was saying as he returned and put the tray on the coffee table. “People no know there more like me here. They need help, but hard to find.”

  “Yes, they are. And the neighborhood near our church is a good place to hide.” Reverend Tyrone took a glass of lemonade and handed it to Anika. “I want to work to help build a sense of community around us.” He looked over at Chris. “Do you have any suggestions to help us get started? Since you’ve been here longer than we have, that would be helpful.”

  “Have you contacted the garden people?” Chris asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “They are the ones who built and maintain the gardens and trees in the park area. I bet they would be willing to help you. They love that neighborhood and would probably work with you to spearhead your cleanup campaign. The leader is Marilyn Smith. I can get her number for you. I’m sure they would appreciate your help.”

  Tyrone nodded enthusiastically. “Common goals. I love that.”

  “Yes, and I can put you in touch with Red. He was the police officer with me when we visited. I’ll help too. We are all interested in cleaning up neighborhoods. The stronger the community, the less crime and issues we all have.”

  Tyrone smiled brightly. “I wasn’t expecting so much support. It seemed like a daunting task.”

  “I help too,” Pavle offered.

  “Excellent,” Tyrone said. He turned to Pavle. “They are going to tear down the house next to ours.”

  “Has the church contacted the borough? They could donate it to the church or sell it to you. Then you would have control over it.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I thought it was owned by someone.”

  “It was, but they probably signed it over to the borough so they don’t have to incur the direct costs of tearing it down and cl
eaning up the mess. They would have had to if things are moving that quickly with removing it.”

  “We could add the lot to the community garden space… or build one of our own for our parishioners.” Tyrone seemed to have plenty of ideas.

  “I wanted to invite you to come to church with us on Sunday,” Anika said quietly, during a break in Chris’s conversation with Tyrone.

  “That very nice,” Pavle said. “I no go out much. Men trying to hurt me. They scared because I know them.”

  Both Anika and Tyrone turned to Chris, probably for an explanation, who in turn looked at Pavle. He seemed to be struggling for words. “Will you tell?” Pavle asked.

  “He’s been able to describe all the people he’s come in contact with, and it seems they are tracking him down. So we don’t get out much, for his protection. I think it would be good for him. Pavle, if you want to go, I will take you.”

  “Will they like me?” Pavle turned to Chris, eyes filled with doubt and, damn it all, shame. Chris could see the insecurity rising inside him.

  “Of course we will,” Reverend Tyrone said. “Our church is inclusive, and we believe that all people have a right to dignity and love.” He reached out to Pavle. “It is my belief that God made man in his own image and that God is perfect. But the rest of us, we need support and his love to overcome what life throws at us. So yes, you will be welcome and your life celebrated, just like those of everyone else.” He turned to Chris. “We are Methodists, and views differ widely, but that is what I believe and what I teach.”

  “Then I come.” Pavle smiled and leaned in to Isaac, who grinned when Pavle tickled him a little. “You a happy small man.” Pavle tickled him again, and Isaac slid off his mother’s lap and onto the sofa, then climbed onto Pavle. He plopped himself down, grinning up at Pavle as though he hung the moon. Pavle smiled as Isaac giggled louder.

  “He likes tickles,” Anika said.

  “He good boy,” Pavle said, and turned to Chris. “You got toys?”