MY HEART IN STONE

PART 25:

When Henri brought breakfast the following day, Cort greeted him by saying, "Out today!

I'm getting OUT of here today!"

Henri studied him thoughtfully.  "How out?"

"Completely out.  Out of Kamen."

Henri's eyebrows went up at this proclamation.  Cort had dressed in his black jeans, white

shirt and black vest.  He was obviously ready for an outing.

Cort's features softened a bit.  "Just a little while?"

Rachel smiled at the two of them, secretly hoping that Henri would agree, feeling a bit stir-

crazy herself, despite the fact that she had been considerably more mobile than Cort.  There

was much to do before everyone arrived.  Terry had indeed faxed paperwork needed for

filing with the American consulate, papers detailing Cort’s existence in the world to make

up for the fact that his previous existence had barely a history of its own.  There was also showing Cort the city of Hromada, picking out a dress, filling out more papers…

“Let the bear leave his cave, just for a bit, please?” she begged as prettily as she could

manage.

Henri almost chuckled.  "I think it might be arranged."  He had, in fact, anticipated Cort's request.  "My car is just across the bridge."  His eyes briefly sought Rachel's as though he

were seeking some approval from her before continuing.

“You’ll take us?”  Rachel beamed, delighted.  She didn’t know why she thought they would

walk all the way.  “Thank you!”

"There's a nice flat area near a small stream just a couple of miles from here.  I'll drop the

two of you off for a little stroll, perhaps a rest under a tree?"  He nodded a vigorous 'yes'

at Cort, hoping he would agree to the rest.  "Then I'll come back and pick you up.  It's

nearly all meadow.  Shouldn't be too hard on your leg.  Just take it easy. Go slowly.  Don't

push it."

He looked at Rachel again.  "You will keep an eye on him, I presume?"

Rachel was already gathering her hair into a low ponytail. “Every eyelash, every 

blink,” she told the doctor, grinning with silly pleasure at Cort.

Cort had insisted on the cane, saying that a crutch would just be in the way in the car. 

It was a lovely, warm morning as Henri sat at the wheel of his car, the door still open,

watching Cort take his first free steps in the Czech Republik.  He found that his heart

had followed the young man, hovering about him with paternal protection.  Then he

pressed his lips together hard and closed the door.  "Stupid man!" he berated himself. 

"If you can't bear to see him cross a meadow, how are you going to stand it when he goes

back to America?"

He started the engine then looked back one last time.  Rachel was holding tightly to

Cort's right elbow.  He smiled, blinking the moisture from his eyes.  She would take good

care of him.  He could trust her to do that for him.

“Such a lovely area!”  Rachel exclaimed as Henri drove away and they were left to soak

up the scenery of the crystal waters of the stream and a meandering dirt path that made i

ts way into wooded areas beyond their vision.  She slipped her hand into the crook of his

arm, more to make it seem like she was relaxing, but also to keep herself from bouncing

away.  As much as she wanted to frolic, she was acutely aware Cort would not be able to

do the same.  She carefully measured her steps, trying to make it seem like the cane that supported him was setting the pace.  “And the weather is just perfect for an outing!” she chattered as they rested at a boulder at the edge of the river. “Oh look!  Ducks!  I wish we

had some bread to feed them…”

Cort could tell that Rachel was deliberately taking small steps.  He decided not to say

anything.  The sun was on his face, she was at his side, and there were no stone walls

anywhere.  The lightness in his heart actually seemed to lessen the pain in his body and

he moved more easily than he had since the day Mikol had taken Rachel.  She made him

rest, still, after about every 50 steps...on large rocks, on stumps, on whatever was at hand.  Before either of them realized it, though, they had gone further than intended and were

ready to turn back when the soft sound of singing reached their ears.  It was a male voice, smooth and pleasant, and though he couldn't understand the words, Cort recognized

the tune.  It was a call to worship, usually accompanied by bells, that he had heard many,

many times.

"I have to," he said when Rachel hesitated, "I have to see who's singing."

They rounded a dense thicket of bushes and saw an elderly man dressed simply in dark

brown, sitting on a log that had fallen near the stream.  His shoes were off and he was

making little splashing noises with his feet in the places where bells would ring in what

he was singing.

When Cort saw him, he dropped his cane on the grass and stood there, startled, blinking.  "F...Father Michael?" he murmured, his lips widely parted as he stared.  He was only

dimly aware that Rachel was clutching his arm much more tightly now, looking worriedly

up at his face.  He could not take his eyes off the man.

The man stopped his song and turned, sunlight gleaming on his nearly-bald head, a broad

smile adding creases to an already-creased countenance.  He stood, the waters swirling

about his ankles, and clasped both hands together, shaking them.  "English?" he said, the

word heavily-accented.  "You were speaking English?"

Cort nodded, unable to reply for a moment.

“I’m afraid we don’t know much Czech,” Rachel replied.  She could tell by the slight shift

in Cort’s demeanor and dark tint his eyes were taking that the person was resurrecting

some long forgotten feelings.  The cane slid from his fingers and fell to the ground as he

reached and grabbed for the hand tucked into his elbow.  “How well do you know English?”

she asked, wanting to give Cort some time to collect his thoughts.

"Enough," the man smiled. "Nearly everyone in the world these days speaks...enough...

English, I find."  His smile broadened.  "It is the way of things."

"You...you reminded me so much, " Cort stammered, "so much of someone I once...knew." 

He was genuinely shaken by it.  Rachel picked up his cane, handed it to him, and guided

him toward the log so he could sit.

"Ah!" the man said, seeing the cane, the limp.  "You are injured?  Sit!  Please come and

share my log!"

"Just a little," Cort said, sighing as the weight came off his leg as he took a seat on the

smooth bark.  "I fell," he explained, adding, "on some steps."

"You are American, yes?  From the accent?"

"Yes," Cort smiled.  "Cortland Wells.  Arizona."  He took Rachel's hand.  "And my

fiancée, Rachel."

"How glad am I to meet you...both," the man smiled.  "I am Father Pavel.  My small parish

is just over that hill."  He pointed across the river.  "I come here often, " he continued,

tipping his head slightly side to side, "to watch the water, talk with God, sing my little

songs."

Cort began rubbing his palms up and down the tops of his thighs, not because they ached,

which they did a bit, but because his hands suddenly felt sweaty.  Looking at this man was bringing all his last memories of Father Michael into sharp focus.

Father Pavel, noticing the expression on Cort's face, asked gently, "Are you all right, my

young Arizonian?"

At the sound of 'Arizonian', Cort could not help but smile.  It was what Maximus had

called him.  He managed to keep smiling despite the sudden flash of worry for his counter-

part.  He knew all too well what it was like to be so totally away from all one was familiar

with.  How was it going for the General?  Damn, but he wished he KNEW!  That Sid had

him closeted away somewhere...he hated that.  He pressed those thoughts down as well as

he could now, though, turning to what lay at hand.

"Just a bit tired, I think," he replied to Pavel's question.  "It's the furthest I've walked

since...." his voice trailed off.

“Since his tumble,” Rachel softly broke in, sitting on the log next to her fiancé.  The

shadow on Cort’s face was growing a bit darker now, and his fingers were interlocking

with hers.  She had a fleeting thought to pull him back to his feet and lead him away,

knowing what pain he was re-experiencing.  Surely the man would understand if she said

they could only stay but a minute, that they were expecting to be picked up…?  “We were

just taking a walk around….”  She trailed off, now uncertain what to do.

Pavel had sat back down on his log, just to Cort's left.  He was about the same distance

away Michael had been that last day when he stood, looking in Cort's eyes as Herod

began his countdown.  He saw again that slight nod of Michael's head that said Yes, do

it!!  Pavel's eyes were the same color as Michael's, had about them that same wisdom

and experience of life blended with empathy and caring.

He couldn't help it.  Tears came, stinging and sharp, and he looked away toward the

stream, dashing at them with the back of his hand.  Rachel opened her mouth to tell Cort

they could leave if he wanted to, but she saw the look on Pavel’s face, and found herself speechless.  In a flash, she knew that all that Cort had kept within him was now bubbling

up and to interfere would do more harm than good. 

Pavel rested a palm on Cort's shoulder.  "You see something in my eyes, young Cortland,

something that is hard to see?"

Cort swallowed, keeping his eyes on the ripples of the passing water.  "I see...him," he

murmured after a long silence.

"He caused you pain?"

Cort's head swung back toward Pavel.  "I...I caused him...pain."  He closed his eyes. 

"And more, much, much more."

"And you have not forgiven yourself?"

"I...I don't really...know."  It was true.  He didn't.  He became aware that Rachel had

slid her arm under his right elbow and he cupped the fingers of his left hand over hers,

grateful for her presence close beside him.

Pavel's head was cocked, his deep brown eyes studying Cort.  "You have suffered much

because you do not know.  This is true?"

Cort nodded.

"This...pain...you caused, is it too big for God to forgive?"

Cort's jaw muscles were working.  "I think sometimes it...is."  His voice was barely

audible.

Pavel smiled.  "I have not met this God. Where might one find such a One?"

"Not...," Cort looked at Pavel, startled. "But you are a priest."

"Still," Pavel continued, "this God of Whom you speak...Him I do not know."

Cort was chewing his lip. "I don't...."

Pavel moved his hand to his own chest, spreading his fingers wide.  "The God I know,

the One Who lives always with me...here...He has never known a thing too big for Him

to forgive."

Cort looked back at the water.  "I killed him," he said flatly.  "He was a priest and I

killed him."

Pavel did not even blink at the words.  "And you think death is the ultimate pain?"

"I took his life from him.  What else is there?"

"And when you did this...taking, what was he doing?"

"He...he was looking at me, nodding for me to do it."

"And why would he be doing such a thing?"

Cort heaved a huge sigh.  "There was another man there, a man with a gun at the back

of my head. Counting."

"Ah," Father Pavel, said softly.  "And the priest, he cared for you?"

Cort nodded again, fresh tears welling.

"And he wished to give his life that you might live?"

"Something like that."

"And you wished to live?"

Another nod.

"So what you cannot forgive is that you chose your living over his?"

"That pretty much sums it up, Father."

"He was a good man, very close to God." Pavel smiled.

Cort blinked several times. "He was. That's what makes it so damn hard. I was...nothing.

He was everything."

"And so God loved him more than He loves you?"

Cort looked toward a passing cloud. "I would."

"A good thing, is it not, then, that you are not God, eh? And can you tell me, what part

of God incarnate was it that died for him and not for you?"

Cort was silent, staring at the cloud, licking his lip.

"You have asked for His forgiveness?"

He nodded, still not looking at the priest.

Pavel's lips curved again.  "Then you have it, my friend.  It is yours.  What you do not have

is your own forgiveness.  This is true?"

Cort pressed his lips tightly together, looking down at his lap.

"I can tell you without any doubt in my heart that the priest has forgiven you, that God

has forgiven you.  To be truly free of this terrible moment, you must find the capacity to

forgive yourself."

"It's not so...easy," Cort mumbled, his fingers playing with Rachel's in his lap.  "I've

tried. I even...," his voice broke slightly, "I even tried to give God back what I had taken

from Him."

"A priest or a life? Which?"

"A priest," Cort replied, finally looking back at Pavel.  "I became one."

Pavel's eyes lit with interest.  "And now you are not?"

"No. I am not.  The same man who wanted me to kill Father Michael.  He burned my

mission, took me away from that.  Now," he looked at Rachel, "I am in a new place,

beginning again."

"Do you think God wished you to give Him a new priest?"

"At the time it was all I could think to do," Cort sighed. "It seemed...right."

"Did it do what you hoped?"

"It seemed so...sometimes.  I thought I'd gotten past my old life.  But I was wrong about

that, too."

"So, you are getting married to this lovely young woman now."  Pavel looked at Rachel,

nodding approvingly.  "And you are starting over yet again.  A new life?"

Cort dipped his head slightly twice.

"Would you like to know what I think?"

Cort looked at Pavel.  Yes, he really did want to know.

"I think that God is more interested in your giving Him this new life than in your

replacing His priest. He has not lost that priest, you know, but has him with Him still.

It is your life that was lost that day. That is what you can give back to Him."

Cort bit his tongue softly between his lips, listening intently.  No one had talked with him

like this since Father Michael himself.

Pavel continued.  "Since that day you have tried, very hard.  I can tell this from what you

say.  But that is the source of the problem, young Cortland.  It is your very trying that

has kept you from what you really need."

Cort cocked his head, leaning slightly toward Father Pavel, something in him needing,

yearning to know what the priest would say next.

"You have...worked...to make your amends both to God and to this Father Michael. 

You have thought it was in your power to do this, but you have discovered over the years

that it is...not.  This, too, is true?"

Cort nodded, squeezing Rachel's hand.  Rachel leaned against his shoulder, listening,

tears of her own on her cheeks.  The truth of what Pavel was saying was sharp and

cleansing.

"This is a great truth you have reluctantly discovered.  Becoming a priest, running a

mission, while all well and good, cannot earn you what you need most...your own

forgiveness."  He shrugged broadly.  "It is simply not a possible thing.  Nor is it meant

to be."

"How...?"

Father Pavel stood, walking around so that he was in the water, facing Cort where he

sat on the log.  "Sometimes," he said, "we must see, must feel, the realities of God before

they become for us what they are.  If you will permit me...?"

Cort looked at the old priest, saw the sparkle of tears in the brown eyes, tears that

matched his own.  "Anything...." he whispered.

Pavel reached out, taking both of Cort's hands, forming them together in the shape of

a cup.  "Will you close your eyes for me, my brother?"  Pavel dipped his own hand into

the cool stream then and slowly let the water from it trickle over Cort's head.  He wet

his hand again and began stroking it across Cort's hair.  Cort swayed slightly under the

power of the gentleness of the touch. 

"Your Father and mine," Pavel said, his voice firm, clear, but filled with a strangely

powerful softness, "washes you now in living water, in living blood.  There is no

greater cleanness than the cleanness of His laver.  Nothing can withstand it.  Hear me,

nothing.  No sin, no grime, no filth remains at the touch of His washing.  He says to you

these words, I have washed you, my son, and you are washed. I have cleansed you and

you are cleansed."  Pavel's wet fingers tilted Cort's chin up, though Cort's eyes remained

closed.  “Stand you now before Me and all I will see is My own shed blood.  Let me love

you as the Father loves the Son. Love Me as the Son loves the Father.  Your sin is gone,

dissolved in My being and I remember it no more.  Give to Me now your life, free from

guilt, free from shame. It is that alone I require of you in this hour."

Pavel dipped both hands into the water, filling Cort's, lifting them higher.  "Fill my

cup, Lord," he sang softly, "I lift it up, Lord. Come and fill this aching of my soul." 

Though he sang in his native Czech, Rachel recognized the melody, knew that it was

a song of...receiving...that which had been given.  

"Look at me, my brother," he said, and Cort opened his eyes.  Pavel's wet finger made

the sign of the cross on Cort's forehead.  "I bless you in the name of the Father, and of

the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and I seal you into the life eternal."

Cort's chin trembled and tears over-brimmed his lids, sliding down his cheeks, dripping

into his cupped waters. Pavel smiled.  "The living waters of eternity find their source in

the Father's tears, you know."

Cort was completely unable to speak.  Somewhere, deep inside him, some iron rod of

pain that had been there all the long years, snapped in half.  He gasped with the

physicality of it, his hands parting, the waters falling onto his lap.  He turned toward

Rachel, his eyes swimming with emotion, put both his arms around her and buried his

face in her neck, just holding on. 

Pavel sat on a low rock, completely unconcerned that the stream wet his pants-legs

entirely. "Now," he said, "I think you are ready to be married, my brother."

Hot tears wet her neck as she held Cort, although Rachel was certain that hers

mingled quite freely with his.  For the moment, she forgot all about Pavel and the

surrounding meadows, just the piercing joy that now shook them both, joy that moments

before had been grief.  She wrapped her arms tightly around him, letting him hold onto

her for as much as she was able to support.

When she imagined joy, she had always thought it would be a gentle feeling that would

give her floating and peace.  Not so with this: the joy that shook them now was so

piercing and bright that for a few moments, she was quite sure her body would break

apart, disintegrate from its great power, like a thin shell from an explosion; and when

parts of her began to cry out at that possibility, only then did the Joy retreat.  Not to

fade away and disappear, but become something she could keep within her without compromising the fragile container of her body.  That amount of Joy is what is

promised, she realized.  Just not for now.  Not yet. 

Moments later, when she could feel the air go in and out of her lungs again, she was

able to turn to Pavel.  He still sat on the low rock, the stream rippling over his legs,

his eyes closed now, his lips moving soundlessly, whether in song or in prayer she

couldn't tell.

“Father Pavel,” Rachel ventured, when she saw his lips stop moving and felt she herself

could speak again.  Her voice sounded…different.  “We’re out and about today to look

for a place to have our wedding and…and…we need someone to perform it.  Would you...

will you you be able to…for us?”

His ear to ear smile, that was his reply, then he let his fingers trail through the waters

on either side of him, the shadows of them flowing light, then dark, now light again.

ON TO PART 26

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