Retribution And New Beginnings (1) The sign on the door of the gallery told passers-by that it was ‘Closed’. Not that there were any passers-by at three am. Apart, that is, from a lone figure standing on the opposite side of the road, the collar of his coat raised up to help insulate him from the bitter cold of the Canadian winter. He smoked a cigarette, which calmed his nerves a little, but cupping it in his hands, it also served as warmth for his bony old fingers. Tomorrow he would do it. Tomorrow would be the day that he had put off for decades. He felt sick, but his back was against the wall and his options taken from him. He was as good as his word and afterwards, he consoled himself, maybe he would be allowed to die knowing that he had completed everything that he should. "Find her." The voice replayed in his head. "Find her, and do what you should have done fifty years ago. Promise me." He had promised her. The wizened old country woman who had been his inspiration and mentor for the biggest part of his life. In promising her, he also released her from the frail, crippled body that had held her soul for well over ninety years. For the first time in his long life he experienced absolute loneliness: part of him had died with her. He finished his cigarette and flicked it into the gutter, climbed into his borrowed car and fired the engine. With one last look at the gallery by moonlight, he shifted the selector into ‘Drive’ and sped away, wishing that he would not have to return. Ten minutes later, he arrived back at the budget motel that had been his home for the last week. The heat hit him as he walked into his room, and despite the sparseness of the room itself, it felt welcoming after the night air. He stripped only as far as his thermal underwear and climbed into bed. He intended that it would be his last night there. Tomorrow he would do what he had come to do, then he would make a hasty retreat back home, never to return. He tried to sleep. *** Helen Strycek woke with a start as the car outside her bedroom window roared into life. Far from being annoyed, she was relieved because her dream had been broken. She was sweating and her heart was palpitating. She felt angry that the dream had returned recently on a nightly basis after so many years. She sat up in bed and lit a cigarette, then she poured herself a cup of coffee from the thermos that she always took to bed with her during the long cold winters. Steam rose quickly from the cup in the coldness of the room, and she sipped at it carefully whilst counting all the little blue flowers on her bedroom wallpaper, just as she had done for as long as she could remember. It helped her to forget the dream that she could not even begin to understand. So many questions entered her mind, yet no answers were forthcoming. The dream had her as a small child, but who was the woman that she was snuggled up to in the bed? It wasn’t her mother, of that she was sure. And what was the monster that she could never see clearly? Just a figment of a childish imagination she had put it down to, but why did the monster tear her in half? That was the bit that she didn’t understand, but even more strange was that half of her survived in her the dream, while the remaining half of her perished. ‘Like a worm!’ she muttered to herself. The dream always left her feeling like she was an incomplete person, that a vital part of her was dead. Her paintings occasionally reflected this, and she always listened intently when some visitor to her gallery offered an interpretation of her work, in the hope that their words may spark some distant memory that lay just beyond her reach. But it never happened. Her ghosts remained forever hidden in the secure closets of her mind, leaving only in the safety of the night hours to taunt and torment her. She finished her coffee and cigarette: unlike her past, they did have a beginning and an end. At least for that she could be grateful. *** Rudy Bauer, warm though he was in the comfort of his motel room, found that he couldn’t sleep. Having tossed and turned for a couple of hours, he gave up trying and made himself some tea. A generous slug of duty-free vodka made it more agreeable to his palate. He opened the curtains and looked out at the darkness, the street lights shone brightly, seeming to play merrily with the falling snow that blew and danced around them. Rudy felt a Christmas type glow, though the season of goodwill had passed by the previous month, albeit uncelebrated. He had no time for the pomp and ceremony of organised religion, and even less time for the hypocrisy concealed within it. If there were truly a God, would he really stand back and watch while … He thrust his thoughts out of his mind. He had witnessed so much ugliness during his lifetime that his faith in humanity and its ‘God’ had declined to zero. There were no redeeming factors, no hope and no future for the human race. From his point of view, the quicker the human machine pressed its self-destruct button the better. A second, but larger slug of vodka hit his tea-cup, then the bottle got put away. He would need a clear head for the afternoon, he thought, as the sun rose … *** … gently rousing a sleepy Helen Strycek from her now dreamless slumber. Her room felt a whole lot warmer than it had done when she had woken during the night. She praised the man who invented the concept of central heating and timing switches. Opening the curtains, she marvelled at the beauty of her adopted land as she did every morning, but more so when it was covered in a blanket of fresh snow. She thanked God not just for the vista, but for the freedom that this wonderful country allowed her. She secretly wished that she had had children, so that they could have experienced this freedom also. Freedom that she, as a child had been denied. Making her way down the stairs, images of her childhood flooded her mind. She made herself a pot of strong coffee, which she drank whilst eating bagels and cream cheese. The winter sun that morning was unusually strong for that time of day and it shone brightly through the narrow gap in her unopened curtains. A feeling of anxiety welled in the pit of her stomach as the image transported her back in time, and reminded her with clarity of the many times that she had been locked in the cellar of the small rural cottage where she had grown up. Memories of her mother, stern, authoritive and down right cruel if disobeyed invaded her mind without invitation. Anger followed, and she cursed the woman out loud for all she was worth as she parted the curtains with less than her normally gentle approach. How many times, she wondered, had she been locked in the damp and dark cellar? Her only source of light being a long but fine crack in the stonework at ground level where even the sunlight had to struggle to get in. And for what reason? Had she been a wicked child? She didn’t remember being so. All she remembered was being locked away for no reason and with no warning. How many hours had she sat there in the dark, afraid to shout or make any noise for fear of a beating? No food or water, or anywhere to relieve herself. How many tears had she shed alone in the darkness? She would never know, and she could not even guess. ‘But you survived it Helen.’ She told herself. ‘You survived it.’ ‘At what cost,’ she began to think, ‘but at what cost?’ *** Rudy Bauer took breakfast at a diner close to his motel. He chose a table at the back of the building and sat with his back to the other punters who had chosen to eat breakfast there. He was on his second refill of coffee, and almost through his ham and eggs when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "You are late." Said Rudy in perfect English, without even bothering to turn around. "Same old Rudy. Still forgetting even after all these years that I’m the one doing HIM the favour." The voice might have held more than a hint of sarcasm, but she was much too fond of him for that. She bent towards him quickly and kissed his bald head. "How are you, you old sour kraut?" He moved his head quickly away from her pursed and overly painted lips. "I wish you wouldn’t do that." He snapped at her. "It is why I do it." "Then I hope you enjoyed it because that was the last opportunity you will get. After today, you will never see me again. Our arrangement has now come to an end." "She’s dead isn’t she?" he nodded, his eyes not meeting hers "When?" "Three weeks ago. It was long and drawn out. She suffered greatly and it wasn’t pretty. Before she died she … she…" "Made you promise?" Once again with lowered eyes, he nodded. "Good!" she exclaimed. "You should have done it years ago. God knows it would have saved me a lot of trouble, befriending and ‘spying’ on her. Thank God it’s going to be over." "Thank God?" snapped Rudy with a viciousness that she had never witnessed from him before. "Thank God for what? My wonderful life? All my blessings? All the marvellous things that have happened to me? What has he ever done for me that I have to thank him for? Huh? Oh sorry! I nearly forgot. Perhaps I should thank him for the cancer that fills my body. How thoughtful of him to bring my miserable life to a close on that sadistic note." She was shocked and it was the last thing that she had expected him to say. Her mind whirled as she tried to find words that were momentarily escaping her. "I am so sorry." She said with tears in her eyes and a shocked, pained look on her face. "So sorry, Rudy, I am so sorry." "Don’t be. Sorrow and pity are a waste of time. Especially for me. It would go unappreciated." She dried her eyes with a napkin as the waitress came to remove Rudy’s plate. She asked for coffee – no, she needed regular not decaf – and Rudy got his third refill. The silence that followed his outburst grew embarrassing and he apologised to her. "I am sorry. You didn’t deserve that." She had never heard him apologise for anything before, and he made her feel humble in a weird sort of way. "I didn’t drag you all the way up here from Vancouver so early in the morning to discuss religion or to upset you. I wanted you to know that I am going to sort things out this afternoon and put this whole affair to an end. But also to thank you for all the years that you have helped me." "It’s okay, I never really minded." She considered her next choice of words for a few moments. "I am glad that you are putting it all to rest. I am glad that you are doing it for her. She will be able to rest in peace then." "She’s dead. How she rests isn’t my concern. I am not doing it for her. I am doing it for me." Giving her no chance to comment, he called the waitress and asked for his cheque. They sat in silence until the waitress reappeared, he glanced at the bill, and gave her $40 telling her to keep the change. The waitress looked very pleased with her large gratuity and she wanted to say so. He walked away depriving her of the opportunity. Rudy walked his friend to her car in silence. She got into the driving seat, started the engine and opened the window. "The package please." He demanded. Marie-Christine felt beneath her seat for the large bubble-wrap envelope, and handed it to him. He felt the shape, and slipped it inside his coat, without a word. "Rudy. Could I ask you just one question that you would promise to answer honestly?" He looked her in the eye, and did not answer. She took it as a ‘yes’. "All those years ago … if things had been different, if the situation, Heidi, the war … what I’m trying to say is … do you think … you know … you and me …could we have …" She had never noticed his eyes look so piercingly blue as they did that morning. He lowered his head to her and allowed her to plant a kiss, then she watched him walk away. *** Helen believed in the saying that to love others, you must first love yourself. She knew this to be true because it was why she had never had a relationship, not a true relationship with a man. She had never been able to find love, and for this she had her mother to ‘thank’. It was the price that she paid for being brought up by a woman with no ability to show love or compassion, affection or understanding. She felt tempted to keep the gallery closed for the day, but turned the sign to ‘Open’ anyway and unlocked the door. It was on days like this that she did not wish for customers. Most of them were strangers, stopping for a look to break up their journey from Vancouver to Whistler. Her work may be for sale, but each work of art was personal to her, and on low days she objected to total strangers invading her privacy and gawking at what she had created from her heart on canvas. She felt that they were getting a freebee glimpse into her insecurities and vulnerability: that she might just as well be standing in front of them naked and bearing her soul. Mentally, she shook herself and chastised herself for her own stupidity. She pulled herself together and donned her paint-stained apron, and continued with the painting that was almost completed on her easel, which she kept in her small studio at the far end of the gallery. After all, she thought, if a customer looked at the painting she was working on, he would see a solitary ramshackle cottage, a small herd of goats amidst delightful scenery. He would not be able to see the misery behind the walls, or the small child held against her will, or the dark dank cellar beneath the house, any more than he would be able to see the tormented soul that hid behind her own paint splattered façade. As her brush, complete with a small amount of yellow ochre touched the canvas, she knew that the painting would be finished within a few hours. Then she would hang it, sell it and then paint yet another that she would hang and sell. She called it her therapy, though she did get pangs of conscience occasionally because she was selling ‘misery disguised as chocolate box paintings’ for people to hang on their walls. When the painting was finished, she signed it ‘Helen Strycek 2001’ and titled it ‘The Great Escape.’ The customers liked that title and it helped to sell the paintings. As Helen knew, everyone is trying to escape from something. *** Rudy Bauer also knew all about escape. Little happened in his life that he did not try to escape from. Rudy had led a very successful life with regards to escape. During the war he escaped the front line due to a technicality, but then subsequently found himself in a hell beyond his then limited comprehension, that he did not possess the ability to cope with. Out of his depth, scared and without a single friend that he could trust, he frantically tried to find his way out and failed. Manacled in a machine that drove uncontrolled, he cried nights silently in his bunk praying to God for an escape that did not come for him. But he had escaped Christine earlier, and he re-ran the breakfast episode through his mind as he rested on his bed back at the motel. Had he escaped her, or merely evaded the embarrassing question that the poor woman had wanted to put to him for – how many years? Had he evaded the question, or in his silence had answered it more honestly than he ever could have done with words? He couldn’t think straight as he waited for the painkillers to take effect. Each attack of pain was getting worse and the medication was proving less effective by the day. He needed to get back home, and to specialist care. Suicide sprang immediately to mind at his most painful times, but he would rule that last resort out for as long as possible. He was an escapologist, not a quitter or a coward. He bit the pillow as his body curled into an inhuman shape as a spasm of fire burned through his body, from his stomach to his chest. Gasping for breath he found himself praying for a release without the agony that racked him. "If you are there, if you are anywhere, in the name that is all fair and holy, answer me. Just for once in my miserable fucking life, answer me!" The silence continued, as did the pain. Rudy Bauer suffered alone. *** Marie-Christine’s drive back to Vancouver seemed to take much more time than usual. She drove skilfully under the tearful circumstances, and she wondered if her tears would ever cease. Asking herself whether she was crying for him, for herself or for the both of them, she began to realise that most of all she was crying for what was fated never to be. She felt cruelly robbed of something that she had never had. It was the end of an era, the end of an affair that had never been and the end of a love story that had had no beginning and no middle. Just an end: nothing more. An apartment overlooking English Bay was where she had made her home, and she was relieved when she eventually arrived back there. Her apartment was warm and welcoming in contrast to the cold outside. Once inside, she removed her coat and kicked off her shoes, curled herself up into the foetal position on her favourite chair and wept until she ached. When she could cry no more, she fetched her dusty old photograph album, made herself more comfortable and reminisced. She loved her photographs. So many memories were held in them. Good memories, some not so good and some bad ones that were there to serve as a reminder to her that man is the most cruel of all Gods creatures. She wondered if Rudy kept a similar album, and then decided that he would have no use for it. There were more images and unwanted memories locked in his head than a thousand albums could hold. He had shared a few with her, but wild horses would never drag from him the horrors he had witnessed. Yet she loved him, and had done so for more years than she wished to contemplate. Poor Rudy. Poor deep, dark, secretive Rudy who exuded the warmth of, and personality of the Berlin Wall. All façade with fear behind, stripped of any emotion worth mentioning, and incapable of loving another living thing. But Marie-Christine knew better. She had known the real Rudy as a young soldier. When he was alive, and full of hope for the bright future ahead of him. He had told her about the Heidi incident and that was the real root of all his despair. If only she hadn’t died, maybe everything would have been different, despite the war. If only … She had no right to start with her ‘if only’ trains of thought and she knew it. So she tried to remove her thoughts from that particular direction as inevitably ‘if I had not wasted my life loving an empty shell, and for what?’ was at the end of that particular avenue. Acknowledging to herself that she had made her own choices, she turned to the last page of the old album and removed the picture of Rudy in uniform, kissed her finger and touched his lips. She closed the book, promising herself that she would never open it again. It was the end of something, the end of nothing and the end of the life an incredibly brave war hero. *** Helen felt particularly pleased with her latest painting of the house, and stood back from it to view it from a distance when it was hung. She decided it was her best yet, and she returned her paints and brushes into the box where they lived. There was not much traffic on the road that day, which meant few customers, and she welcomed the opportunity to spend the rest of her day quietly. Perhaps she would read or maybe bake. She hadn’t baked for a long time but she was also halfway through a James Patterson novel that had gripped her, but lack of leisure time lately had stood between her and her simple pleasures. Picking up a 50c coin that lay on the floor, she tossed it but had decided that the book had won even before she saw whether it was heads or tails. The rest of her day passed without customers, or any other distractions. She finished reading her book, (how she loved Alex Cross!) and she even managed to bake some blueberry muffins, albeit using her quick recipe – out of a box. Helen felt more relaxed than she had in a while, and she listened to Mozart as her muffins baked and fresh coffee brewed. Her clock striking ‘six’ came as a surprise as she had lost all track of time. She would close the gallery, put her feet up and start reading another Alex Cross story. And eat muffins! The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the gallery making Helen feel grateful for the small pleasures in life, and for a few moments as she looked out through the front windows of the gallery onto the snow covered beauty of Canada, she felt truly contented, and at peace with the world. Such was her temporary euphoria that she nearly missed the old face peering in through the glass of the gallery door. Key in hand, she found it hard to keep the look of annoyance from her face. "I’m closing now. It is six o’clock. I close at six." Alex Cross was beckoning, so were the muffins and coffee. The old man was unperturbed and opened the door anyway. "I must speak with you." His manner and speech abrupt, Helen took a few paces backwards, her heart racing. He turned around to the door, locked it and turned the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’. "This will not take long." His English was precise, but his voice, his accent chilled Helen. "We have some unfinished business to take care of." *** Although Rudy had managed to get some sleep after his attack had subsided, it was fitful and broken, which left him weak and drawn. Somehow he managed, with steely determination, to raise himself from his bed and change into a fresh set of clothes for his ‘meeting’ with Helen Strycek. Secreted in his suitcase was the package that he had been given by Marie-Christine. He opened it, tentatively slipped his hand inside and retrieved the Lugar. He checked it. Well oiled and the mechanism was as good as the day it was made. He had patriotic admiration for German engineering, and he was pleased to see that she had loaded it ready for him. He washed his face with cold water before leaving his motel room. He felt cold and shivery, and he knew that the engine of the car would take a while to warm up and that its heater would be inadequate. He was grateful for his warm coat, and he slipped the Lugar into its pocket. Rudy shivered as he drove, which he did carefully as his driving skills had become more and more limited with age, and icy roads for him did not make ideal driving conditions. He arrived at his destination just before six o’clock, and parked outside the gallery. An old mans memory being what it is, he checked the location of his Lugar, and got out of his car. Helen Strycek was about to lock the gallery door as he peered through the glass. It was the first time in many years that he had seen her up close, and she didn’t look too pleased. But then he wasn’t there to please her. *** ‘Unfinished business?’ Helens mind searched frantically for what he meant. What possible business, unfinished or otherwise, could this foreigner possibly have with her. Even though the stranger had turned his back to her, and was looking at the paintings on the wall, she still felt unnerved and afraid. "I … I don’t understand." She stammered. "What do you mean by unfinished business? Do I know you? Or …" "It’s still there, you know." What the hell is he playing at? She thought. Helen felt suddenly like she was in some weird game in an alternative dimension. "Pardon me?" "The house. It’s still there." Sweet Jesus! He was looking at ‘The Great Escape’! She felt cold. Shivers ran up and down her spine like roaches in a drainpipe. How the hell would he know whether it was there or not? Who was he and what was he doing in her gallery – in her home? She wanted him out of there. She craved Alex Cross and the simplicity of a good mystery that she could put down if it got too intense. She didn’t want this. Whoever he was, he had no right encroaching upon her privacy and no right to be in her gallery after it was closed. She started to feel anger and she wanted him to leave, whoever he was. "I don’t know who you are, but I want you to leave. Please go now. The gallery is closed." She was hardly assertive, and she knew it. The crack in her voice betrayed her nervousness and it told him that she was afraid. But she was angry as well. Angry that a frail old man could enter her premises and make her feel intimidated. What threat could he be to her? Yet a threat he seemed. "Look at me, Leibling. Look at me."
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