Riders of the Pale Horse (28 page)

When he first arrived at the outskirts of Tbilisi, Wade was of two minds. On the one hand, he had no idea what he should do next. On the other, there was the growing sense of ordered process, of a clear purpose rising from the chaos and confusion of his circumstances. Wade sat in the rear of the empty produce truck, jounced heavily by every bump in the road, surrounded by choking clouds of dust and diesel fumes, thirstier than he had ever been in his life, yet retaining a strong sense of determination and direction.

Tbilisi's architecture spoke of two distinct and clashing cultures. Ancient buildings climbed the steep-sided hills in the pattern of formerly walled enclaves, covering every possible inch of available land. Streets were narrow and winding and ever in shadows. The multistoried dwellings were brightly painted and well kept. Delicate balustrades curved into ornate balconies. Yet sharing the streets with these fairy-tale houses stood newer Communist structures, squat and stolid and featureless as tombstones. The newer buildings dominated much of the city like the foreign rule they represented—alien, unwanted, hated, scorned.

The buildings along the main thoroughfares showed scars from recent conflict. Windows blown to gaping holes. Facades stripped of paint and punctured by thousands of bullet holes. Whole structures reduced to ashes.

Also along these main streets were shops where men gathered and smoked and drank innumerable glasses of spiced tea. The truck halted outside a tumbledown department store.
Wade climbed down, thanked the driver, and headed into the cool depths of the nearest caf;aae.

Everyone spoke simultaneously. Faces were grim yet spirited. There were few smiles, yet none of the resigned hopelessness Wade had often seen in Russia.

Wade accepted his bread and tea from the counter and carried it back to a table by the wall. His arrival brought the usual frank stares. He responded with a greeting in Russian, this time strengthening his American accent as much as he knew how.

His efforts had the desired effect. After a proper pause for him to sip his tea and taste his bread, the nearest man, a grizzled elder with the nose of a hawk, asked, “The stranger is not Russian?”

Wade shook his head. “American.”

“Ah.” The news brought around the head of the other person at the old man's table, a younger man with the wiry strength of an underpaid day worker. The old man continued his queries. “Truly you are from the United States?”

“Yes.” Wade took another tentative sip from his steaming glass. “Forgive me for not speaking your own language, but I have just arrived in Georgia.”

“My own language was seldom heard outside the home for many years, and even now I speak the Russian tongue better,” the old man confessed. In the ways of his world, too many direct questions would be an offense, so he simply commented, “I have never had the pleasure of speaking with an American. Is it normal for Americans to know the tongue of our former oppressors?”

“I come from Grozny,” Wade said, supplying the desired information. “I worked with the sick and wounded.”

This the old man could understand. “We have many such in these troubled times.”

“My own brother lies wounded in the central hospital,” the younger man confirmed. “He has just this week been returned from the Abkhazi front.”

“It is a difficult time for our nation,” the old man agreed. “And yet at least we are a nation once again.”

“I have heard that yours is a land with a long and glorious heritage,” Wade said politely.

“Sakartvelo, it was known in the dim reaches of man and memory,” the old man replied, his eyes alight. “The land of the Kartvelian tribes. It was the very first of the northern lands to accept Christianity, when our king was converted in the year 337. Since that time, Georgia has had its own Orthodox church, its own patriarch, its own struggle against foes who sought to bury its name and its nationhood forever.”

Through the open door Wade could see a fire-blackened shopfront before which rested the remains of a burned-out bus. “You have had a hard struggle.”

“Indeed. Schevardnaze rules not one nation, but twenty, with all the old tribes now saying since we cannot trust Tbilisi to govern us fairly, then we will govern ourselves.”

“Civil war,” Wade interpreted.

“Chaos,” the old man moaned. “Chaos and bloodshed and hatred from which this land may never recover.”

Wade finished his tea and asked, “Where would I find the main hospital?”

“Just off the Rustaveli Avenue, not a kilometer from here,” the younger man replied. “And may you bring peace and healing to those who are in need.”

Before the trauma of independence, Rustaveli Avenue had been a main artery of Tbilisi. Its great trees had shaded thousands as they took their regular evening strolls. But recent battles had transformed the city's heart. Nowadays Rustaveli Avenue was a bombed and gutted ruin. Its length was no longer littered with the smoke-stained hulks of cars and buses and tanks and bodies, refuse from the civil war that brought Schevardnaze to power. Yet scarcely a building was left unscarred by shells and smoke. The central government building at the avenue's end was little more than a blackened skeleton.

Wade turned off the main boulevard and a hundred yards
farther entered the central hospital's main gates. After an interminable wait he was allowed to see one of the head doctors, a heavyset man with the girth and hands and rumbling voice of a human bear. Swiftly Wade explained his mission and asked if Red Cross personnel had appeared from the highlands.

“They were here,” the man replied, his eyes bearing the same fatigue smudges as every doctor Wade had met in these war-torn lands. “But they returned to the West.”

“When?”

The man shrugged. “Soon after they arrived. One was slightly wounded, and they stayed until she was well enough to travel on.” Clearly the exact date was unimportant to him. That they had left was all that mattered. “Are you a doctor?”

Wade shook his head. “A nurse.”

“Yes?” Gray eyes took on renewed interest. “We have much need for trained personnel. You will be staying?”

Wade hesitated, but not for long; the sense of being drawn forward was too strong. “If I did, I would be honored to work with you.”

“Honored, yes,” the doctor sighed. He understood the answer for what it was. He rose to his feet. “You must excuse me, then, I am seeing to the work of ten.”

Wade made his way out of the hospital and faltered.

He understood that even to hesitate meant to choose. He could not back away, could not turn around, could not ignore that simple fact. He could certainly refuse the challenge. He could pretend that it was none of his concern and do nothing. He could turn away from the silent call. But he was too honest to lie to himself, to believe that anyone else would pick up the fallen baton. It was him or nobody.

It was hard to cast off the blanket of anonymity that had sheltered him all his life. Harder still to see the cliff's edge there before him and step off. Hard to understand that the odds were infinitely against him, and yet still to go ahead and try, trusting in God to see him through.

So very hard.

His connecting flight from Istanbul was delayed, so Wade arrived in Amman long after the last bus had departed. The plane ticket had cost him almost every cent he had left, leaving him enough for bus fare to Aqaba and perhaps a few sparse meals. He purchased a sweet cake and Pepsi from one of the airport vendors and settled himself as comfortably as possible in a corner.

After the final tourist hordes had been processed and gathered and sent to their hotels, the airport belonged to the Arabs. Desert travelers too poor to afford city prices bedded down in family clusters. From time to time one of their number would approach a short-tempered clerk to whine and plead and shake fistfuls of grimy tickets and beg for things that Wade could not understand. Each departing traveler was escorted by huge extended families who had brought comfortable-looking carpets, copper-lidded food containers, radios, and even several goats. The air was full of smoke and talk and wailing babies. Wade ate his sugary supper, leaned back, cast a final glance around the cluttered hall, and fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning with every muscle complaining from the hard floor. Bright sunshine lanced through the smoke-filled air. The hall was already filled with bustling, jabbering, scurrying figures who paid scant attention to yet another road-worn traveler.

Wade collected his meager belongings and made his way to the toilet. After scrubbing his face and the back of his neck he raised his head and stopped. For a long moment he stood and stared in the mirror and wondered who was staring back.

Dark brown hair had been slicked back by countless motions of grimy hands too busy to bother with a brush. The bandanna knotted around his neck was matted with sweat and dirt. Hard travel and poor diet had honed down his
features, giving his face a leaner, tougher cast. His nose and cheeks were splotched by multiple bouts of sunburn. His five-day growth covered a jaw set in alien, determined lines.

But it was his eyes that held his attention. They burned with a resolute light. There was none of the doubt that had plagued his life for so many years, none of the hesitant worry. There was no longer room for any of that.

The wind still blew from the southwest—never varying, never ceasing. All the clinic staff spoke of it and complained of the accompanying heat. To Allison, the reddish dust, blown in from the distant African plains, was a far greater trial. It was red and fine and irritated her throat and nose. Her eyes looked as though she suffered from a perpetual cold. She kept a plastic bottle of mineral water by her at all times, so that she could sip continually and ease the dryness caused by breathing dust. But the bottle had to be kept tightly capped; otherwise a thin red sheen would quickly appear across the water's surface. The dust coated every surface, even her papers, and left her hands and face and clothes feeling perpetually grimy. The dust made the hottest part of the day almost unbearable.

The knock did not raise Allison's attention from the dusty pile of forms. Someone was always coming by, asking in that pleading tone she hated for things she could not understand. She was in the middle of counting down a long line of figures, so when the knock was followed by the sound of someone clearing his throat, she impatiently waved the person away.

But when the unseen stranger spoke, the sound of an American accent pushed the numbers from her mind. “What?”

“I asked,” the bearded, dirty young man stated, “if you were a doctor.”

“No, I'm, that is...” She hesitated. The young man exuded mystery. His clothes were battered beyond belief. His features were chiseled, his air raffish, his look tremendously determined. “Who are you?”

“My name is Wade Waters.” His voice was soft, almost apologetic. “I was wondering if you needed help—at the clinic, I mean.”

His appearance was a strange mixture. Piercing eyes, yet gentle voice. Rugged good looks, a determined presence, and an air of urgency.

She immediately assumed he was a doctor. “You are American?”

He nodded. “I've just—”

“I am Dr. Shannon,” said a voice from down the hall. “Can I help you?”

The young man turned and said, “I was wondering if I could work for you.”

Ben stepped into view, surveyed the young man, and asked, “Why?”

“I'm trained as a nurse, and,” the young man hesitated, then finished, “I'm hungry.”

Ben smiled. “That we can remedy. Forgive me for pressing, but a young American nurse appears out of nowhere seeking work—you must admit that a few questions are in order.”

“I trained in Illinois,” Wade responded. “I have a BA, a BSN, and two years experience at a U.S. hospital. For over a year now I have been a missionary nurse....” Again the hesitation.

“Where?” Ben pressed.

“Grozny,” the young man replied, almost a surrender. “It is the capital of Chechenya, north of the Caucasus Mountains.”