The Heaven Trilogy (72 page)

THE IMAGE of Helen, leaning over the table crying, had softened as Steve drove Jan across the city, but it still left its imprint and he couldn’t wrap his mind around the terrifying sorrow that had accompanied that image.

“So, Steve,” he asked with a thin smile. “What do you make of our daring rescue?”

The chauffeur chuckled. “She’s a feisty one, sir; that’s for sure.”

“You think she’s sincere?”

“I think she’s hurting. Hurting people tend to be sincere. It was good of you, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir, Steve. You’re my elder; maybe I should call
you
sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jan smiled and let the statement stand. It was a small game they played and he doubted it would ever change. The chauffeur pulled up to the ministry and parked.

Jan stepped from the Cadillac and walked toward the towering office complex, trying to shake the annoying little buzz that droned on in his skull. The city was hot and muggy. An old black Ford with whitewall tires moaned by. The sound of beating wings drew his attention to the roofline where two gray pigeons flapped noisily for better footing. It occurred to him halfway up the steps that he’d neglected to close the door. He turned and jogged for the car, grinning apologetically to Steve, who’d already opened the driver’s door to come around and shut it.

“Sorry, Steve. I’ll get it.”

“No problem, Mr. Jovic.”

“
Jan
, Steve. It’s Jan.” He shut the door and headed back. At times he was embarrassed to have a driver. True, in the beginning he could not drive in a country where everyone drove at double speeds, but that had been five years ago. Somehow the driver thing had just stuck. It came with the position, he supposed.

A large illuminated sign featuring a white dove hung over the brick entrance.
On Wings of Doves
, it read in golden letters. The name of his ministry. And what was his ministry? To quicken within the world’s heart the deep love of God—the same love shown by a little child named Nadia, the same love of Father Micheal. The same love Ivena suggested Jan didn’t really possess at all. Ivena, now, she had lost her daughter and the love poured out of her in rivers. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was to show the love of the priest anymore.

Father, show me your love again,
he prayed
. Do not allow this world to swallow the fire of your love. Never. Teach me to love.

An image of the woman, Helen, riding beside him in the car flashed through his mind.
“Do preachers always drive such expensive cars?”
she had asked.

He pushed into the office building and made his way to the elevators. Betty, the correspondence coordinator, was on the elevator, on her way to the mailroom to “set John straight,” she said.

“And what are we setting John straight about today?” Jan asked.

Betty grinned softly, bunching her round cheeks into balls. She was nearing sixty and John was half her age; it was a ritual, a mothering thing for Betty, Jan often thought. She had adopted the mailroom manager as her son. She, the short, heavyset, gray-haired wise one, and John, the tall bodybuilder with jet-black hair— mother and son.

“He’s gotten the crazy notion up his sleeve that we really can’t answer three hundred letters a day, and so he’s telling his people to send no more than two hundred letters down to our department on any given day.” She waved at the air. “Nonsense!” Betty leaned forward as if to tell Jan a secret. “I think he likes flexing his muscles, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, John does enough of that, doesn’t he? But be easy with him, Betty. He’s young, you know.”

She sighed as the bell for the sixth floor rang. “I suppose you’re right. But these young ones need some guidance.”

“Yes, Betty. Guide him well.”

She clucked a short laugh. “And congratulations again, Jan.”

“Thank you, Betty.”

She stepped off and Jan rode on, grinning wide. The thought that all those letters in dispute were requests rather than checks ran through his mind. The ministry was slowly being sucked dry by them. My, my . . . where had all the money gone?

They rented the five lower floors to tenants and ran the ministry from the top three, an arrangement that gave them office space at virtually no cost. It had been another one of Roald’s brilliant touches. Of course, they didn’t really need all three floors, but the space allowed Jan and Karen to occupy the whole top floor as well as providing Roald a spacious if temporary office for his frequent visits. The mailroom occupied the sixth floor and the administrative offices occupied the seventh.

Jan walked in and smiled at the office secretary, Nicki, who was filling her cup with fresh coffee. “Afternoon, Nicki. They say too much of that stuff will kill you, you know.”

She turned to him, flashing a broad smile. “Sure, and so’ll hamburgers and soda and everything else that makes this country great.”

“Touché. Any messages?”

“On your desk. Roald and Karen are waiting in the conference room.” She shot him a wink and he knew it was because of Karen. Their engagement would be a hit around the office for at least another week. The thought of seeing Karen again suddenly set free a few butterflies in his stomach. He smiled sheepishly and walked into his office.

Jan glanced over the large oak desk, empty except for the small stack of messages Nicki had referred to, and headed back out. The ministry’s administration was handled almost entirely by the staff now. And with Karen at the helm of public relations, he was relegated to showing up and dazzling the crowds, giving his lectures, but not much more. That and worrying about how to sustain this monster he’d created.

He opened the door to the conference room. “Hello, my friends. Mind if I join in?”

Karen stood from the conference table and walked toward him, brown eyes sparkling above a soft smile. Her hair rested delicately on a bright blue dress. Goodness, she was beautiful.

“Hello, Jan.”

“Hello, Karen. Welcome back.” She reached him and he kissed her cheek. The thought of an openly romantic relationship in the office still felt awkward. Although it hardly should; she was going to be his wife. “I missed you.”

“And I missed you,” she said quietly. She glanced over his choice of clothing and smiled, a tad disingenuous, he thought. “So I take it you’ve been playing today.”

“I guess you could call it that. I was at the park.”

She mouthed a silent,
Ahhh
, as if that put the puzzle together for her.

Roald Barnes grinned a pleasant smile with all the maturity and grace expected of a graying elder statesman. He wore a black tie cinched tight around a starched collar. “Hello, Jan,” he said.

Jan looked at Karen. “How was the meeting this morning? Still on speaking terms with our publisher?”

“The meetings, plural, were . . . how should I put it? Interesting.” She was slipping into her professional skin now. She could do it at a moment’s notice—one second the beautiful woman, the next a sharp negotiator leveling a rare authority. At times it was intimidating.

“Bracken and Holmes refused the seventh printing.”

“They did, huh? My, my. And what does this mean?” He crossed his legs and sat back.

She took a breath and exhaled deliberately. “It means we have to face some facts. Sales have faded to a trickle.”

He looked at Roald. The older man’s grin had all but vanished. “She’s right, Jan. Things have slowed considerably.”

“You think I don’t know this? What are you saying?”

“We are saying that
The Dance of the Dead
is nearly dead.”

“Dead?”

The word seemed to throw a switch somewhere in Jan’s mind. He buried an urge to snap at the man and immediately wondered at the anger he felt. The man’s choice of words could have been better, but he was only speaking the same truth that had lurked in these halls for weeks now.

“What happened to
May she live forever?
Things of this nature don’t just die, Roald. They have a life of their own.”

“Not in this country, they don’t. If people aren’t buying—”

“It’s not simply a matter of people buying. I’ve said so a thousand times. I say it at every interview.”

Jan was suddenly feeling very hot in this small room without really knowing why. Roald knew well Jan’s basic resentment with characterizing the success of the book in mere numbers. After all, the book was about God. Between every page there was the voice of God, screaming out to the reader; insisting that he was real and interested and desperate to be known. How could such a message be reduced to numbers?

“I think what Roald’s trying to say,” Karen interjected with a firm glance over to Roald, “is that on the business end of things our income’s drying up. Another printing would have helped.”

“You know very well, Jan, that what’s hot one year may be cold the next,” Roald said. “We’ve enjoyed five enlightening years. But enlightenment doesn’t pay the mortgage. And the last time I checked, your mortgage was rather significant.”

“I’m aware of the costs, my friend. Perhaps you forget that this story was bought with blood. With blood and five years in a prison that might leave you dead within a week. You may say what you like, but be careful how you say it!” Heat washed over his collar.
Easy, Jan. You have no right to be so defensive.

Roald became very still. “I stand corrected. But you also should remember that this world’s filled with people who don’t share your sentiments toward God. People who
committed
the very atrocities you’ve written about. And don’t forget, it was I who made this book possible in the first place. I’m not your enemy here. In fact, I’ve bent over backward to help you succeed. It was I who convinced you to publish your book in the United States. It was I who first persuaded the publisher to put some marketing muscle behind the book. It was even I who brought Karen on board.”

“Yes indeed, you did. But it wasn’t just you, Roald. It was the book. It was the priest’s blood. It was my torture. It was God, and you should never forget that!”

“Of course it was God. But you can’t just throw your own responsibility on God. We each play our part.”

“Yes, and my part was to rot for five years in a prison, begging God to forgive me for beating a priest. What was your part?”

“I don’t hear any complaints about the house. Or the car, or the rest of it, for that matter. You seem pretty comfortable now, Jan, and for that you may thank me and Karen.”

“And I’d give it up in a word if it mocked the lives that purchased it.”
Would you, Jan?
“If you don’t understand that, then you don’t know me as well as you once thought. This mountain of metal and mortar is an abstraction to me. It’s the love of God that I seek, not the sale of my books.”
At least for the most part
.

“If you drift off to obscurity, what becomes of your message then? We live in a real world, my friend, with real people who read real books and need real love.”

They sat staring at each other, silent in the wake of their outbursts. It wasn’t so uncommon, really, although rarely with this intensity. Jan wanted to tell Roald that he wouldn’t know real love if it bit his heart out, but he knew they’d gone far enough. Perhaps too far.

“Well, well,” Karen said softly. “Last time I checked we were all on the same side here.” She wore a thin smile, and Jan thought she might actually be proud of him for standing so firmly. It
was
inspiring, wasn’t it? In a very small way it was like Nadia standing tall in Karadzic’s face. In a very tiny way.

The heat of the moment dissipated like steam into the night.

“Now, like I was saying before this train derailed itself,” Karen said, “the meetings were
interesting
. I didn’t say they were disastrous. Maybe I should’ve been a little clearer; we might have avoided this robust philosophical exchange.” She stared Jan in the eye with those beautiful brown eyes and winked. “Bracken and Holmes may have turned us down, but there are other players in this big bad world of ours. And as it turns out, I just may have found a new life for
The Dance of the Dead
, after all. No pun intended, of course.”

“Which would be?” Jan asked.

She looked at Roald, who was now smiling. So he knew it as well. Jan stared at her. “What? You’ve been turned down by the publisher, so what was this other meeting? You’ve set up another speaking tour?”

“Speaking tour? Oh, I think there will be speaking tours, my dear.” She was playing it out, and in the echoes of Jan’s exchange with Roald it was playing like a sonnet.

“Then say it. You obviously know as well, Roald, so stop this nonsense and tell me.”

“Well, what would you suppose is the most ambitious way to present your book to the masses?”

“Television? You have another television appearance.”

“Yes, I’m sure there’ll be more of those as well.” She leaned back and smiled. “Think big, Jan. Think as big as you can.”

He thought. He was about to tell them to get on with it when it came to him. “Film?”

“Not just film, Janjic. Feature film. A Hollywood movie.”

“A movie?” The idea spun through his head, still not connecting. What did he know of movies?

“And if we play our cards right,” Roald said, “the deal will be ours within the week.”

“And what is the deal?”

Karen lifted her pen to her mouth and tapped it on her chin. “I met with Delmont Pictures this morning—the fourth meeting, actually. They’ve offered to buy the movie rights to the book for five million dollars.”

“Delmont Pictures?”

“A subsidiary of Paramount. Very aggressive and loaded with cash.”

Jan sat back and looked from one to the other. If he wasn’t mistaken here, they were telling him that Delmont Pictures was offering five million dollars to make a movie of the book.

“When?”

Roald chuckled. “Deal first, Jan. Schedules will come after a deal’s made. Actually, it’s a wonder we still have the movie rights at all. Most publishers take the rights when they first contract. There was a piece of divine intervention.”