Saint Stephan reclines in chains against a basement radiator in Northern Podil. His head’s hung forward, in line with a single raised knee, hard bent to steady his otherwise limp and enervated frame.
The last rays of daylight peek through the barred and dust-smudged window like children at play, expecting at any moment to be hollered home by their mother.
A rat rustles through trash out of sight behind the furnace. A spider awaits its prey from a silk-spun constellation stretched across some ceiling beams, a death trap of geometrical splendor.
The floorboards creak beneath weighted feet overhead, voices hushed beyond the upper walls. A heavy iron door stands sentry in eyesight, admitting no body, releasing no soul.
The prisoner sighs, but no relief arrives. His moans only echo in his heart. His eyes, too full and languid to face the next descent into darkness, lie buried in the bend of his elbow.
Life, the living, Kyiv remain perceptible to his senses, but as vivid images of the mind, fine sounds from the depths of memory, the smell of flesh and flowers, the touch of kindness and care…
The bolt of the heavy iron door slides back, hinges swing loose, and a small figure enters.
It’s The Ferret.
He’s dressed in a waistcoat with a pocket watch tucked inside, and is wearing a head mirror.
Stephan soon finds himself being questioned about the state of his health. How long had he been feeling poorly? Could he not venture to suggest a cause? There’s plenty of illness going ‘round these days. Heaven only knows. If it weren’t this or that, then certainly it might be the other. At any rate one can’t leave one’s well-being to chance – that’s for sure. So trust in one’s local professional is a must.
Then just hope for the best, because no one is perfect. If a prescription were needed, it could be filled on the spot, but don’t let that get around to anyone else. Not that The Ferret could guarantee full success. He wasn’t a faith healer, after all. Some patients don’t take their medicine or were bound to die anyway. Could he be held responsible for death?
Stephan turns away from The Ferret to reveal a jagged-edged knife wound in the back. That’s where he’d been stabbed and left to die on Kyiv’s left bank, betrayed by his colleagues and coworkers at the Kyiv Poster, who’d plotted the vile deed in concert with the sole motivation of ridding themselves of an unwanted chief editor.
The Ferret takes out his pocket watch, notes the time, then collects his turtle-skin medical bag and waddles out through the heavy iron door, held open by a large clumsy hand.
Shortly thereafter, Stephan receives a second unexpected visitor through the heavy iron door.
Welsh Losser is wearing a derby and a monocle over his false eye. And he’s carrying an expensive walking stick.
Stephan has lowered his head again, so Losser speaks down to him.
As the object of obviously unjustified incarceration, Stephan was surely in need of sound legal counsel, and Losser just happened to be available for the job.
Yes, he’d reviewed all the case materials in intimate detail and was hopeful of a favorable outcome. The key to a vigorous defense, it seemed to him, was in the plea. Why argue in the face of justice, rage against the machine, when an easier solution could be found? Insane you certainly are Stephan and should say as much on judgment day. Now I know you’re no madder than I am. We’re much the same, you must know. You too have some legal education, I’m told, and dreamed of being a writer one day. Why, we’re both left-handed, born on the seventh of the month! No matter that I eventually self-published after staking my claim as a PR executive. Life’s not fair – at least not to you. Don’t fight it, admit you’re a freak, a social cripple, a loser in the game of life.
The heavy iron door swings open and Losser leaves under escort, wiping his flushed face with a handkerchief, halting halfway out, turning beetle-browed to discern a change of heart, a moment of doubt, any subtle sign that the prisoner had conceded the hopelessness of his situation as Losser had so plainly laid it out.
Stephan shows no motion. The iron door swings closed and the bolt slams into place.
It’s almost dark now, but light in Stephan’s mind’s eye. He’s sitting in a brightly lit roadside diner somewhere in the American Midwest. Outside though, beyond the glass near his booth, it’s black. The parking lot, the road and other features of the barren landscape are but indistinct shapes, the flit of shadows.
“Not much to see this night, I’m afraid,” says the older still well-built man, now standing over Stephan with a steaming plate of hotcakes and sausage.
The door swings open and Stephan looks up. It’s Josh Davies, now standing before him in the basement cell.
His body, young and strong if small, carries his old head in its hands, and it looks up at Stephan with a mockingly curious smile. The hair is tangled, gray and wet.
“I trust they’re treating you well, Stephan. Heaven knows, this place is nearly hell. I hope you don’t mind my dropping in on you like this. We’re neighbors of sort, you should know. One can never really tell who his neighbors are in life, and that’s even more true in death. Someone’s always coming or going, checking in or out, trying to better their predicament in the process. Life’s about change to be sure, but here it’s about seating, so to speak. Even if you’re placed in the darkest of aisles, well below the balcony and even the orchestra pit, there’s always a chance to take someone else’s chair, especially if he’s not shown up, hesitant to claim his rightful spot. Gullibility, willful naiveté, feigned faintness of heart are sins in their own right, or at least they should be as far as I’m concerned. In any case, if you don’t have a ticket or opted for open seating, it’s every man for himself.”
Stephan raises his head, then his eyes, but not much else. His body is lifeless, almost unattached, like the one that’s addressing him.
To be continued
Filed April 27, 2015