He saw her ahead, running fast in the moonlight and then disappearing around a billowing hydrangea. “Helen!”
Jan reached the bush, but she was not in sight. He ran on, looking in all directions for her, but she had vanished. “Helen! Please, Helen!”
The night echoed his call and fell silent. Jan pulled up, panting hard. He clutched his gut against a sharp pain that had speared him there. His vision blurred with tears, and he mumbled, “Oh, God, my God, my God, what have you done?”
The sound of a soft cry drifted to him and he spun to a row of gardenia bushes. He released his stomach, the pain forgotten, and he stumbled forward. The sound carried on the night, a soft gulping sob.
He rounded the flowers and stopped. She sat on a bench, head planted in her hands, crying. Jan walked to the bench on shaking legs. He sat and swallowed.
“I am so sorry for your pain, Helen. I am so very sorry.”
“You don't understand. I'm no good for you,” she said softly.
“I will decide what is good for me.
You
are good for me. You are perfect for me!” He placed a hand on her shoulder.
She pulled back. “I'm dirty. I'mâ”
“You are clean and you have stolen my heart!” he blurted. “Helen, please look at me. Look into my eyes.” He shifted around and lifted a hand to her chin.
She looked up, her face wrinkled in shame, her eyes swimming in tears.
“What do you see, Helen?”
For a moment she didn't speak.
“What do you see?”
She spoke very softly. “I see your eyes.”
“And what do they say to you?”
She wiped her face, breathing steadily, catching her breath. “They say you're hurting.”
“And why? Why am I hurting?”
She hesitated. “Because your heart aches.”
He held her eyes in his stare, begging her to say more. To see more. A knot rose to his throat.
My poor Helen, you are so wounded
.
She had settled and she blinked. “Your heart aches for me,” she said.
Jan nodded. “Put your hand on mine,” he said, reaching his right hand out, palm up. She did so gently, without removing her gaze from his. Her touch seemed to run right up his bones and lock itself around his heart.
“Do you feel that?”
She didn't respond, but she moved her hand slightly. Their breathing sounded loud in the night.
“What do you feel?”
She swallowed and he noted that both of their hands were trembling with the touch. Her eyes were pooling with tears again.
“How does it feel?”
“It feels nice.”
“And when I speak to you, when I say, â
I am mad about you,'
what do you feel, Helen?” He was having difficulty speaking for the pounding of his own heart.
“I feel mad about you,” she said. He couldn't be certain, but he thought she might have leaned forward slightly, and that made him dizzy.
Jan reached his free hand to her cheek and stroked it gently. He slid his other hand up her arm now, and every nerve in his body screamed out for her love. She
was
leaning forward! She was leaning forward and the tears were slipping silently down her cheek.
Jan could not hold himself any longer. He slid his arms around her shoulders and drew her against him. The tears flooded his eyes then. She pushed him back and for one terrible moment he wondered what she was doing. But her lips found his and they kissed. They held each other tenderly and they kissed deep.
It was as though he had been created for this moment, he thought. As though he were a man parched bone-dry in a desert, and now he had fallen upon a pool of sweet water. He drank deep from that pool, from her lips. From this deep reservoir of love. The moments stretched, but time had lost itself in their passion.
It is only a whisper of how I feel, Jan.
The voice again. Softly. Gently.
Jan released her and they played with each other's fingers, lightheaded, shy. “It feels too good to be true,” Helen said. “I've never felt this kind of love.”
He did not respond but reached for her and kissed her lightly on her lips again. His heart was kicking madly against his chest; if he wasn't careful he might fall over dead right here in Joey's Garden of Eden.
Jan rose to his feet and pulled her up. “Come.”
They walked through the hedges, hand in hand, lovers numb from each other's touch. Everything they saw now had a heavenly glow. The flowers seemed unnaturally bright by the moon's light. Their senses ran sharp edges, feeling and tasting and smelling the air as if it were laden with a potion concocted to squeeze their hearts.
They walked laughing and giggling, stunned that such care had been taken for their benefit. Anyone watching might very well see them and think them drunk. And truth be told they
were
drunk. They had sipped from each other's lips and were inebriated beyond their reason. It was a consuming love that swept them through the garden. They might have tried walking on the pond had it come to mind.
And yet for Jan, it was all just beginning. He had not brought her to the garden for this alone. Not at all. They reached a white metal pillar at the end of a long flowered archway and he knew it was time. If it was not now it might be never, and it definitely could not be never.
He gripped the pole and swung himself around to face her. She pulled up, surprised, with not an inch to spare between them. Her musky breath covered his nostrils. Her eyes flashed blue, and her lips impulsively reached forward and touched his. “I love you, Jan Jovic,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“Then marry me,” he said.
She froze and pulled back. Their eyes held each other, round and glazed. Jan pushed a strand of hair from her cheek with his thumb. “Marry me, Helen. We are meant to be one.”
Her mouth opened in shock, but she could not hide the smile. “Are you serious?”
“I'm madly in love with you. I've been madly in love with you from the time you walked up to me at the park. I can't imagine spending my days without you. I am meant to be with you. Anything less would destroy me.”
She blinked and looked into his eyes. “I . . . I don't know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
He kissed her. His world began to explode then, and he knew he could not contain the passion that racked his bones. He had to do something, so he stepped back and leaped into the air. He whooped and beat the air with his fist. Helen laughed and hopped on his back. He cried out in surprise and not a little pain, and then collapsed to the sod. They lay there panting, smiling up at the stars and then at each other.
It was the end of a long journey, Jan thought. A very long journey that began with the priest's departure to heaven and now deposited him here, in a heaven of his own.
But it was also just the beginning. He knew that too, and a fleeting terror sliced through his mind. But the intoxicating lips of his new bride-to-be smothered him with a kiss, and the terror was lost.
For now, the terror was lost.
THE PHONE rang five times before Ivena picked it up. “Hello.”
“Morning, Ivena.”
“Good morning, Joey.”
“How's the garden?”
“Good. Very good.”
“And the flowers?”
“Growing.”
“The tests came back today, Ivena.”
She didn't respond.
“It's an unknown species.”
“Yes.”
“They're . . . extraordinary, you know.” He cleared his throat. “I mean very unusual.”
“Yes, I know.”
“My flower has taken root.”
Silence filled the phone.
“Ivena?”
“Then guard it well, Joey. It's not for everyone to see.”
“Yes, I think you're right. Do you want to hear what I found?”
She hesitated. “Not now. Come over and explain it to me sometime. I have to go now, Joey.”
“You okay, Ivena?”
“I've never been better. Never.”
“As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.”
I
SAIAH 62:5 NIV
“I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me . . .”
J
EREMIAH 2:2 NIV
Three Months later
GLENN LUTZ stormed through the walkway between the Twin Towers like a bull, panting from the exertion, his hands red with blood. The passage was not air-conditioned and Atlanta's late-day heat pressed through his skin. He was slipping into the boiling waters of madness and there was no life preserver in sight. Even the violence he periodically delivered to some unsuspecting soul who crossed him no longer eased his fury. Detective Charlie Wilks had approached him three times in the last month, begging him to ease up. Well now he could expect another call, just as soon as the detective learned of the whipping he'd just administered. Beating the mayor's third cousin to a pulp had a ring of absurdity to it, which was perhaps why Glenn had not been able to resist.
Maybe one day he would take his whip to old Charlieânow there would be a smart move. His relationship with the man wasn't as cozy as it once had been. One of these days Charlie might forget their past altogether and send in a hit squad. Which was why Glenn
had
gone easy. Which was why he had left the preacher alone. Which was why he hadn't gone out with a Tommy gun and sawed through Jan.
Glenn slammed through the door to his office. “Beatrice!” She wasn't here. He swore, crossed to his desk and punched the intercom. “Beatrice, get in here. Bring a towel.”
He held his hands up, careful not to make too much of a mess. His knuckles glistened red; half of the blood was probably his own.
Beatrice walked in, took one look at his hands, and
tsked.
“You really should stop this nonsense, you know. Let her go.” She tossed him the white towel. “You have a luncheon tomorrow; you think people won't notice skinned knuckles?”
He wiped his hands without answering her. Beatrice was growing as bold as Charlie. She sat in one of the guest chairs across from his desk and studied him condescendingly, as if she were his mother. He slid into his chair. It was an odd relationship, this depending so completely on someone you detested so much. And in truth, besides Helen, she was his dearest friend. It was a horrible thought.
“But I take it you aren't going to let her go her way, are you?” Beatrice said.
“Her way is my way.”
“On occasion, obviously, or she wouldn't keep coming. But she is married to another man now. She's been married to him for two months, and I don't see divorce papers floating around anywhere. She's chosen him.”
Glenn crashed his fist on the desk. “She has
not
chosen him! He's a witch!”
“He's a religious man,” she corrected. “And I thought I was the witch.”
“Same thing. No one could have swept her off her feet like that.”
“Maybe it would be best if she was faithful to him. Best for you, that is.”
He stared at her and scowled.
They sat in silence for a few moments, she swinging one leg over the other with hands folded; he mulling over a mental image of his fists smashing into that long face.
“You should find yourself another woman, Glenn,” Beatrice said.
“And you should find yourself some sense, Beatrice. There is no replacement for Helen. You know that.”
“Why? Because of something that happened twenty years ago? Because you were called Peter then and were possessed by an adolescent obsession for her? You're no longer fifteen, Glenn. And Helen is no longer the prom queen. I could find you a dozen girls far better than her.”
“Uhhh!” He grunted and slammed both fists on the desk top once. Then twice. He frowned at her. “Do you know why I make in a single day what you'll never make in your entire life, Beatrice? I'll tell you why. Because I know how to get what I want, and you don't even
know
what you want! Because I
am
obsessed! And you are possessed.
I
own you. You remember that.”
She blinked at the reprimand.
He leaned back and closed his eyes, furious with her. In fact he did feel possessed at times, unable to function for the voices in his head. But it had been the same for as long as he could remember. When he first caught sight of Helen across the hall in junior high, for example, wearing her navy skirt and sucking on a lollipop.
Her image danced over the rope in his mind's eyes, blue skirt flapping in slow motion.
One, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, close the door; five, six, peek-a-boo, guess who I am; that's right, and you ain't seen nothing yet.
“I'm going to help her out,” Glenn said, shifting his eyes toward the glass wall on his left. It had been two months coming and now it was time. Charlie could go suck on a tailpipe. He'd played by the fool's rules long enough.
“You're going to help her out? And how are you going to help Helen out?”
Glenn did not look at her. “I'm going to give her a little motivation.”
“The movie deal?”
“Yes. But . . . more.”
He could hear her breathing in the stillness now. It was the way he said
more
, he thought. As in, much more. As in terribly much more. He faced Beatrice now, pleased that she had kept silent.
“They say that the path to some women's hearts runs through the skull,” he said quietly.
“They say that?”
“I say that.”
“Charlie won't sit by if you hurt the preacher.”
“Who said anything about the preacher?”
She shifted in her seat, all two hundred pounds of her, squirming. Glenn smiled and spoke softly before she could ask another question. “I'm telling you this so that you'll quit flapping your jaw, Beatrice. Soon this'll all be over. I'm going to force the issue. So you can shut your hole, and be a good witch.”