When Heaven Weeps (5 page)

But these were not laughing. These were seated, or standing against his legs, some staring quietly to their mothers, others whimpering. Nadia the birthday girl sat stoically on the end, her jaw clenched, her hands on her knees.

When Father Michael looked up his eyes met Ivena's as she trudged under her cross. They were bright and sorrowful at once. She seemed to understand something, but he could not know what. Perhaps she too had heard the song. Either way, he smiled, somehow less afraid than he had been just a minute ago.

Because he knew something now.

He knew there were two worlds in motion here.

He knew that behind the skin of this world, there was another. And in that world a man was singing and the children were laughing.

JANJIC LOOKED at the women shuffling across the courtyard and bit back his growing anger with this demented game of Karadzic's.

He'd dutifully kicked over three gravestones and hefted them to the backs of terrified women. One of them was the birthday girl's mother. Ivena, he heard someone call her.

Janjic could see that she'd taken care to dress for her daughter's special day. Imitation pearls hung around her neck. She wore her hair in a meticulous bun and the dress she'd chosen was neatly pressed; a light pink dress with tiny yellow flowers so that she matched her daughter.

How long had they planned for this party? A week? A month? The thought brought nausea to his gut. These souls were innocent of anything deserving such humiliation. There was something obscene about forcing mothers to lug the ungainly religious symbols while their children looked on.

Ivena could easily be his own mother, holding him after his father's death ten years earlier. Mother, dear Mother—Father's death nearly killed her as well. At ten, Janjic became the man of the house. It was a tall calling. His mother died three days after his eighteenth birthday, leaving him with nothing but the war to join.

The women's dresses were darkened with sweat now, their faces wrinkled with pain, their eyes casting furtive glances at their frightened children on the steps. Still they plodded, back and forth like old mules. Yes, it was obscene.

But then the whole war was obscene.

The priest stood still in his long black robe, hunched over. A dumb look of wonder had captured his face for a moment, then passed. Perhaps he had already fallen into the abyss, watching the women slog their way past him.
Pray to your God, Priest. Tell him to stop this madness before one of your women drops her cross. We have a march to make.

To his right the sound came, like the sickening crunch of bones, jerking Janjic out of his reverie. He turned his head. One of the women was on her knees, trembling, her hands limp on the ground, her face knotted in distress around clenched eyes.

Marie had dropped her cross.

Movement in the courtyard froze. The women stopped in their tracks as one. Every eye stared at the cement cross lying facedown on the stone beside the woman. Karadzic's face lit up as though the contact of cross with ground completed a circuit that flooded his skull with electricity. A quiver had taken to his lower lip.

Janjic swallowed. The commander snorted once and took three long steps toward Marie. The priest also took a step toward his fallen sheep but stopped when Karadzic spun back to him.

“When your backs are up against the wall, you can no more follow the teachings of Christ than any of us. Perhaps that's why the Jews butchered the man, eh, Paul? Maybe his teachings really were the rantings of a lunatic, impossible for any sane man.”

The priest's head snapped up. “It's
God
you speak of!”

Karadzic turned slowly to him. “
God
you say? The Jews killed
God
on a cross, then? You may not be a Franciscan, but you're as stupid.”

Father Michael's face flushed red. His eyes shone in shock. “It was for
love
that Christ walked to his death,” he said.

Janjic shifted on his feet and felt his pulse quicken. The man of cloth had found his backbone.

“Christ was a fool. Now he's a dead fool,” Karadzic said. The words echoed through the courtyard. He paced before Father Michael, his face frozen in a frown.

“Christ lives. He is not dead,” the priest said.

“Then let him save you.”

The burly commander glared at the priest, who stood tall, soaking in the insults for his God. The sight unnerved Janjic.

Father Michael drew a deep breath. “Christ lives in me, sir. His spirit rages through my body. I feel it now. I can hear it. The only reason that you can't is because your eyes and ears are clogged by this world. But there's another world at work here. It's Christ's kingdom and it bristles with his power.”

Karadzic took a step back, blinking at the priest's audacity. He suddenly ran for Marie, who was still crumpled on the cement. A dull thump resounded with each boot-fall. In seven long strides he reached her. He swung his rifle like a bat, slamming the wooden butt down on the woman's shoulder. She grunted and fell to her belly.

Sharp gasps filled the air. Karadzic poised his rifle for another blow and twisted to face the priest. “You say you have power? Show me, then!” He landed another blow and the woman moaned.

“Please!” The priest took two steps forward and fell to his knees, his face wrinkled with grief. Tears streamed from his eyes. “Please, it's me you said you would beat!” He clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “Leave her, I beg you. She's innocent.”

The rifle butt landed twice on the woman's head, and her body relaxed. Several children began to cry; a chorus of women groaned in shock, still bent under their own heavy loads. The sound grated on Janjic's ears.

“Please . . . please,” Father Michael begged.

“Shut up! Janjic, beat him!”

Janjic barely heard the words. His eyes were fixed on the priest.

“Janjic! Beat him.” Karadzic pointed with an extended arm. “Ten blows!”

Janjic turned to the commander, still not fully grasping the order. This wasn't his quarrel. It was Karadzic's game. “Beat him? Me? I—”

“You question me?” The commander took a threatening step toward Janjic. “You'll do as I say. Now take your rifle and lay it across this traitor's back or I'll have
you
shot!”

Janjic felt his mouth open.

“Now!”

Two emotions crashed through Janjic's chest. The first was simple revulsion at the prospect of swinging a fifteen-pound rifle at this priest's deformed back. The second was the fear at the realization that he felt any revulsion at all. He was a soldier who'd sworn to follow orders. And he had followed orders always. It was his only way to survive the war. But this . . .

He swallowed and took a step toward the figure, bent now in an attitude of prayer. The children stared at him—thirty sets of round, white-rimmed eyes, swimming in tears, all crying a single question.
Why?

He glanced at Karadzic's red face. The commander's neck bulged like a bullfrog's and his eyes bored into Janjic.
Because he told me to,
Janjic answered.
Because this man is my superior and he told me to.

Janjic raised his rifle and stared at the man's hunched back. It was trembling now, he saw. A hard blow might break that back. A knot rose to Janjic's throat. How could he do this? It was lunacy! He lowered the rifle, his mind scrambling for reason.

“Sir, should I make him stand?”

“Should you
what?”

“Should I make him stand? I could handle the rifle better if he would stand. It would give me a greater attitude to target—”

“Make him stand, then!”

“Yes, sir. I just thought—”

“Move!”

“Yes, sir.”

A slight quiver had taken to Janjic's hands. His arms ached under the rifle's weight. He nudged the kneeling priest with his boot.

“Stand, please.”

The priest stood slowly and turned to face him. He cast a side glance to the crumpled form near the commander. His tears were for the woman, Janjic realized. There was no fear in his eyes, only remorse over the abuse of one of his own.

He couldn't strike this man! It would be the death of his own soul to do so!

“Beat him!”

Janjic flinched.

“Turn please,” he instructed.

The Father turned sideways.

Janjic had no choice. At least that was what he told himself as he drew his rifle back.
It's an order. This is a war. I swore to obey all orders. It's an order. I'm a soldier at war. I have an obligation.

He swung the rifle by the barrel, aiming for the man's lower back. The sound of sliced air preceded a fleshy
thump
and a grunt from the priest. The man staggered forward and barely caught his fall.

Heat flared up Janjic's back, tingling at the base of his head. Nausea swept through his gut.

The father stood straight again. He looked strong enough, but Janjic knew he might very well have lost a kidney to that blow. A tear stung the corner of his eye. Good God, he was going to
cry!
Janjic panicked.

I'm a soldier, for the love of country! I'm a Partisan! I'm not a coward!

He swung again, with fury this time. The blow went wild and struck the priest on his shoulder. Something gave way with a loud snap—the butt of his rifle. Janjic pulled the gun back, surprised that he could break the wood stock so easily.

But the rifle was not broken.

He jerked his eyes to the priest's shoulder. It hung limp. Janjic felt the blood drain from his head. He saw Father Michael's face then. The priest was expressionless, as if he'd lost consciousness while on his feet.

Janjic lost his sensibilities then. He landed a blow as much to silence the voices screaming foul through his brain as to carry out his orders. He struck again, like a man possessed with the devil, frantic to club the black form before him into silence. He was not aware of the loud moan that broke from his throat until he'd landed six of the blows. His seventh missed, not because he had lost his aim, but because the priest had fallen.

Janjic spun, carried by the swing. The world came back to him then. His comrades standing by the wall, eyes wide with astonishment; the women still bent under stone crosses; the children whimpering and crying and burying their heads in each others' bosoms.

The priest knelt on the concrete, heaving, still expressionless. Blood began to pool on the floor below his face. Some bones had shattered there.

Janjic felt the rifle slip from his hands. It clattered to the concrete.

“Finish it!” Karadzic's voice echoed in the back of Janjic's head, but he did not consider the matter. His legs were shaking and he backed unsteadily from the black form huddled at his feet.

To his right, boots thudded on the concrete and Janjic turned just in time to see his commander rushing at him with a raised rifle. He instinctively threw his arms up to cover his face. But the blows did not come. At least not to him.

They landed with a sickening finality on the priest's back. Three blows in quick succession, accompanied by another snap. The thought that one of the women may have stepped on a twig stuttered through Janjic's mind. But he knew that the snap had come from the father's ribs. He staggered back to the wall and crashed against it.

“You will pay for this, Janjic,” Molosov muttered.

Janjic's mind reeled, desperate to correct his spinning world.
Get a hold of yourself, Janjic! You're a soldier! Yes indeed, a soldier who defied his superior's orders. What kind of madness has come over you?

He straightened. His comrades were turned from him, watching Karadzic, who was yanking the priest to his feet. Janjic looked at the soldiers and saw that a line of sweat ran down the Jew's cheek. Puzup blinked repeatedly.

The priest suddenly gasped.
Uhhh!
The sound echoed in the silence.

Karadzic hardly seemed to notice the odd sound. “March!” he thundered. “The next one to drop a cross will receive twenty blows with the priest. We'll see what kind of faith he has taught you.”

The women tottered—gaping, sagging.

The commander gripped his hands into fists. Cords of muscle stood out on his neck. “Maaarch!”

They marched.

IVENA SLOWLY lowered the book with a quiver in her hands. An ache swelled into her throat, threatening to burst out. After so many years the pain seemed no less. She leaned back and drew a deep breath.
Dear Nadia, forgive me.

Ivena suddenly leaped from her chair. “March!” she mimicked, and she strutted across the cement floor, the book flapping in her right hand. “Maaarch! One, two. One, two.” She did it with indignation and fury, and she did it without hardly thinking what she was doing. If any poor soul saw her, marching through her greenhouse like an overstuffed peacock in a dress, they might think her mad.

The thought stopped her midmarch. But she wasn't mad. Merely enlightened. She had the right to march; after all, she was there. She had staggered under her own concrete cross along with the other women, and in the end it had liberated her. And now there was a kind of redemption in remembering; there was a power in participating few could understand.

“Maaarch!” she bellowed, and struck out down the aisle by the tulips. She made the return trip to her chair, smoothed her dress to regain composure, glanced about once just to be sure no one was peeking through the glass, and sat back down.

Now where was I?

You were marching through your greenhouse like an idiot,
she thought.

“No, I was putting the power of darkness back in its place. I know the ending.”

She cracked the book, flipped a few pages to find where she had left off and began to read.

CHAPTER FOUR

FATHER MICHAEL remembered arguing with the commander; remembered Karadzic's rifle butt smashing down on Sister Marie's skull; remembered the other soldier, the skinny one, making him stand and then raising the rifle to strike him. He even remembered closing his eyes against that first blow to his kidneys. But that blow ignited the strobe in his mind.