Gibraltar Passage (11 page)

“It is the truth, Pierre.”

Slowly, gradually, as though raised by unseen hands, Pierre's head rose back up to reveal a gaze torn to heart level by doubt and confusion and pain. “How can you say this?”

“I say it because it is the truth,” he replied. “I have seen how she loves you.”

Pierre shivered under the weight of those words. “But I heard—”

“Listen to your heart,” Jake urged quietly. “It will confirm what I am saying. I
know
this, Pierre.”

He waited until his friend was focused upon him before saying as forcefully as he could, “Jasmyn loves you too much to lie.”

The desert night lay unbroken across the city when the train pulled into Marrakesh. Feeble lanterns glimmered from some hands, and a few flickering headlamps bumped their way down deeply rutted roads. Otherwise the brightest lights were the ones glittering overhead.

The only taxi outside the station was a vintage Model-T flatbed truck. Piles of carpets lined the back, where passengers could sit or sprawl as they chose. Jake and Pierre flung their cases on board while the driver fluttered officiously, proud of his Western patrons. Pierre started off in French, and Jake caught the word
hotel.

“No hotel,” Jake said, pushing himself onto the truck. The carpets were kept soft and well preserved by the dry desert air.

“Where do you expect us to sleep?” Pierre demanded. “Under a date palm?”

“No hotel,” Jake repeated, glad to see a spark of the old Pierre surfacing. “What if the Tangiers authorities have passed on information to the wrong people?”

Pierre nodded at the sense of this. “What did you have in mind?”

“I was told to find somebody called Father Mikus.”

The taxi driver started to full alert. “Le Pere Mikus. L'homme de Dieu. Oui, oui, je le connais.”

Pierre's eyes remained fastened upon Jake. “Jasmyn?”

He shrugged. “Who else?”

“Tell me what she said.”

“Only that we would be safe there.”

Pierre stared at him a moment longer, then nodded. “We go.”

The ride was brief yet exhilarating. Jake saw little of what they passed—shadows upon shadows, starlight etching strange silver forms which he assumed were houses and mosques. The truck bounced and squeaked down empty streets, grinding gears and sending up great oily plumes with the dust. But the chilly air was spiced with the fragrances of the unknown, and every dark corner held the promise of untold mystery. Jake clung to one side post and raised himself to his knees, so that his face was above the cab and exposed to the fresh night breeze. He took great drafts of the cold, dry air and felt that he had never been so alive.

The ancient car chugged to a halt outside a crumbling clay-brick home. The aged structure was set into one corner of a square turned silver and weightless in the moonlight. “Mikus, Mikus ici,” the driver cried, climbing from the cab.

As Jake was clambering down, an irascible voice called out in heavily accented English, “Who dares to disturb the night?”

“Friends,” Jake called back.

“I'll be the one to decide that.” A burly figure in a full cassock stumped through the gates. He raised his lantern high enough to reveal a heavy-jowled face with bristling eyebrows. As the visitors came into view, gray eyes popped wide open and his free hand reached up to clutch at his chest. “Patrique!”

“No, monsieur,” Pierre said. “I am his brother.”

The priest squinted and stepped close. He gave Pierre's
face a careful inspection in the lantern light. “Incredible,” he murmured. “For a moment I thought—”

“Were it only so,” Pierre said solemnly.

The priest stepped back and motioned brusquely. “Pay the man and come inside. Quickly now. The night is full of prying eyes.”

The priest heard them out in impatient silence. When Pierre faltered, which happened several times, Jake picked up the pace, filled in the gaps, watched his friend with worried eyes. Finally Mikus waved his hand for silence. “Enough, enough. Two people telling the same tale is worse than no tale at all. You are tired, yes? You need a bed, a bath, food? Very well. All else will wait for the dawn. Come along.”

The walls were of hard-baked brick, roughly plastered about great half timbers. Threadbare carpets covered the uneven floor. The only light was the priest's flickering lantern, which he held before him as he stumped up two flights of stairs. He flung back a creaking door and motioned them into the low-ceilinged space under the eaves. “Mattresses and blankets there in the corner. The pitcher holds water. Use it with care. Water must be brought from the well at the far end of the square.” He motioned for Jake to follow him. “You can come for the food and save me another trip.”

As Jake followed the priest back down the stairs, he said, “It is very kind of you to help us.”

“I am not the least bit kind,” Father Mikus snapped back. “I am disagreeable, and I am impatient. The great Lord above no doubt finds me difficult. But Patrique was a friend, and there are few of those about in this evil time.”

The kitchen was a crude brick annex fastened to one wall of the cluttered house. Everything in it was battered and used long beyond its natural life. The grizzled man moved about, setting bread and cheese and olives and dates upon a simple wooden platter. “This water is twice boiled. Drink nothing else.”

“Again, thank you,” Jake said, taking up the tray.

“Wait.” Steel-gray eyes fastened upon him. “What is the matter with your friend?”

“He is troubled,” Jake said simply.

“His brother?”

“Not only.”

The priest nodded as though satisfied. “It is a troubled world. I myself am from Austria, the land that spawned the evil called Hitler. I stood and watched my beloved land prostrate itself before the monster, and I did the only thing I could: I condemned all who chose to follow him. I barely escaped with my life. Patrique brought me here, arranged for me to take over this work for the local Red Cross. Do you understand what I am saying? Your friend's brother saved my life and then gave me a reason to continue living.”

“I understand,” Jake said quietly.

“Whatever you need,” Father Mikus said. “Whatever I can do. Now go and see to the needs of your friend.”

It was not a peaceful night. Jake lay awake in the dark and listened to Pierre toss and turn and heave deep sighs. Finally he asked, “You want to talk about it?”

The silence lasted so long that Jake took it for the answer. But then Pierre said, “I feel as though my mind and my heart are being torn in two.”

Jake searched the dark before his eyes, waiting for the sense of being guided toward a response. He sat up, feeling as though something was coming, something greater than either of them, greater than the problem, greater than the very night.

“One side of me yearns to hold her,” Pierre moaned. “I feel the need in my very bones. And yet I cannot.”

A silent herald called to Jake's heart. All he said was, “You're trapped.”

“It is an impossible life. Everywhere I turn I am faced with the daggers of an enigma for which there is no answer. No
matter what I do, I am pierced to my very soul.” Pierre beat the mattress with a feeble fist. “I cannot go on. This much I know. I cannot live with this. I cannot. I lie in the darkness and know a thousand deaths.”

A flame ignited in Jake's heart. A power so vast it filled his being with strength that could not be denied. The instant of its coming lasted less than the span of a heartbeat, yet in that immeasurable moment he saw his own life linked to Infinity. The flame was a gift, one somehow granted through his meager faith and his love for a friend, given so that it might be shared.

“There is an answer,” Jake said softly, and in the moment of speaking felt the light of his heart illuminate every shadow.

Pierre responded with a groan of defeat. “Impossible.”

“Listen to me, Pierre. The answer is yours for the asking. I
know
this. All you have to do is turn and ask.”

The mattress next to his grew still. “What are you saying?”

“You are lost because you insist on going through this alone. But God has an answer for you. There is someone there, waiting for you to open your heart and your mind to Him. I feel this with every fragment of my being, Pierre. He knows your distress and wants to offer you peace. Healing. He waits to offer you
hope.
”

The stillness lengthened, then, “You truly believe this?”

“With all my heart.”

There was a shifting in the darkness. Then the broken voice of his friend asked, “What must I do?”

“Pray,” Jake said. “Ask for His help and guidance. Confess to your own failings. Turn to the Son and ask Him into your life.”

A time passed, measured in waiting breaths, before Jake heard shaky murmurs in French. A love so strong it could not be contained filled his heart. A love meant not for him, but for his friend. Jake sat and added his own silent words to those of his friend and felt the freedom of hope fill the night.

Chapter Twelve

The next morning Jake clattered down the stairs to find Father Mikus seated at the rough-hewn table. He sipped from a glass of tea and asked, “How is your friend?”

“Still asleep.”

“A good sign. Sit, sit. Do you take tea?”

“If it's not too much trouble.”

“All life is trouble in troubled times.” The priest rose to his feet, moved to the coal-fired stove, grasped a singed towel, set the blackened pot in place. “You come from Gibraltar, did I understand that much?”

“Yesterday. Then the night train from Tangiers.”

“And you found no sign of Patrique?”

“Nothing except the hunters.”

“Then I fear the worst.” He inspected a glass, decided it was clean enough, dumped in a fingerful of shredded leaves, and added water. “Bread and dates and goat's cheese are all I have to offer.”

“That sounds fine. Thank you.”

“Patrique told me he was headed for Gibraltar.” He sipped noisily. “There he would find safety, he said.”

Jake blew upon his glass. “Safety from what?”

“He would not tell me. He said the less I knew the safer I would remain. Two nights after he vanished the third time—”

“The
third
time?” Pierre appeared in the doorway.

“That is what I said.” The priest waved Pierre toward the only other chair. “I suppose you'll be wanting tea as well.”

“He can have mine,” Jake offered.

“Nonsense. The air is dry, and so the body is fooled, but this desert chill can seep into a man's bones.” Mikus hovered over the stove and filled a third glass. He returned to the table, set it in front of Pierre and said, “Twice before, Patrique disappeared, and each time there were rumors of his death.
Each time he was brought back by something that troubled him greatly. The third time was to see if word had arrived back from Marseille. He had sent a messenger, he told me, a young girl—”

“Lilliana,” Jake offered.

The priest gaped. “You know of her?”

“That is why we came. We told you last night.”

“Last night you spoke gibberish. Lilliana is alive?”

“She is in a camp in Badenburg. I have a letter for her parents. She has suffered from a fever but is recovering and soon should be well enough to travel.”

But Father Mikus was already on his feet. “Up, up, leave your breakfast. We must hurry.”

Pierre protested, “But we have questions—”

“Questions we shall have until the day we die,” the priest snapped. “A good family has suffered the agony of the damned. I shall not force them to wait a moment longer for this news.”

“I'll go,” Jake said, patting his friend on the shoulder as he rose. “You take it easy until we return.”

“Just one question,” Pierre demanded. “How did Patrique know of this danger?”

“The second and third times he returned and spoke of it, I have no idea. The first time, he knew the same way he learned to escape from Marseille when he did.” The priest impatiently reached from the door. “From Jasmyn. Is she not your woman? Do you not hear these things from her?”

The news shook Pierre to his deepest foundations. “Jasmyn?”

Father Mikus loomed large and crooked in the doorway. He turned back to Pierre. “What is this I hear? You do not honor the woman who has twice saved your brother?” Then he gave his head a curt shake. “No, no, that too can wait. This news cannot. Do you have the letter? Good. Then we go.”

The priest set a hasty pace across the dusty square. Although the sun had not yet risen high enough to crest the
surrounding buildings, already the night's chill was fading. All the buildings Jake could see were alike—low and brick and daubed with yellow clay and roofed with dry thatch. Walls ran around many of them. Portals were arched in the form of the Orient. The doors themselves were thick and studded with iron.

In the square's far corner, beyond the well, stood a squat building with a pole set over its door; from the pole hung a Red Cross flag. As they approached, a gang of young children came squealing into view and danced a joyful racket around Father Mikus. He ignored them completely, and they paid his scowl no mind whatsoever. All of them were barefoot, all wore the simple cloth shift of the desert Arab, all laughed and danced and tried to work eager fingers into the priest's pockets.

“Wait here,” he said gruffly to Jake, and disappeared into the building. The children knew better than to enter with him. They stood around, eyed Jake with shy curiosity, peered through the open door. A moment later Mikus appeared and announced, “Too early. He is still at home. Come.”

The children ran and chattered about them as the priest hurried down narrow ways. After several twists and turns Jake was completely and utterly lost. Suddenly their passage opened into a main thoroughfare that ran parallel to a tall city wall. Already the street was busy with vendors and merchants and herdsmen and donkeys piled high with wares.