Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 37

As she did each and every year, Marta Janus carefully removed the tissue-wrapped ornaments from the packing crate. First she unwrapped the six handblown glass angels from her native Poland. Next she unwrapped the tartan-clad Santas. As always, she found the green-and-blue-plaid porcelain figures slightly grotesque. But Sir Kenneth was inordinately proud of his Scottish forebears, and so each year she hung the gaudy ornaments on the tree. One plaid Santa for each crystal angel.

Sir Kenneth always protested the dressing of the tree, claiming it a strange ritual for a woman who professed to be a devout Catholic. Marta simply turned a deaf ear. After twenty-seven years in Sir Kenneth’s employ, she was no longer affected by his condescension. She’d built a wall around her heart. Brick by brick, the mortar so thick as to be impenetrable.

When she first arrived in Oxford, she believed Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown to be a kind and generous man. Although many intellectuals professed sympathy for the dissident movement, few were willing to take in a Polish refugee who spoke but a few words of English. Sir Kenneth had no such qualms. He pointed; she cleaned. For the first year they had no verbal communication whatsoever. And then one day she awoke to find handwritten signs taped to nearly every piece of furniture. Her grace period having abruptly expired, the lord of Rose Chapel expected her to master the English language. At first, it had been nothing more than a silly game of butchered phrases and garbled sentences. Then it went from game to something deeper, more complex; Marta was determined to prove her worth to the man who’d plucked her from the ashes of fear and uncertainty.

She had been one of the lucky few who managed to escape Poland, having paid an exorbitant fee to a “guide” who smuggled her out of Gdansk in the hull of a fishing vessel. Her husband, Witold, had not been so fortunate. Ensnared in the crackdown imposed by the Communist bosses, he’d been sent to prison for crimes against the state. He was a bricklayer by trade; his only crime had been to dream of a Poland free of Communist rule. Sentenced to ten years of hard labor, he lasted but three. Marta did not receive word of his death until he’d already been dead and buried sixteen months. She spoke of his death to no one. Not even Sir Kenneth, obeying what was an unspoken rule in Rose Chapel: Never speak of matters of the heart.

She supposed the rule came about because Sir Kenneth did not possess a heart. Or if he did, it was in rare evidence. In twenty-seven years, there were only two occasions when Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown exhibited any sort of tender regard. The first occasion was when, having read of her plight in a local newspaper, he rang up the Catholic charity that had sponsored her when she first arrived in England, informing them that he would provide gainful employment for as long as need be. Nearly ten years would pass before the second occasion.

Although there were countless incidents in between—incidents that bespoke a decadent and depraved existence. Many nights Sir Kenneth did not return to Rose Chapel. Many nights were spent in drunken revelry. One such night she happened upon two naked, giggling girls in the kitchen smearing butter on each other’s bare breasts. Another night she went to turn down the bed, only to discover Sir Kenneth and a muscular black man committing an unspeakable act. Some nights she thought him the devil incarnate. Other nights, a beautiful Bacchus.

He’d certainly been beautiful that long-ago December eve, attired in a crisply tailored black tuxedo, his gray curls gleaming like polished pewter. He’d returned early from a party, claiming that it had been a “ghastly bore.” Marta offered him a cup of mulled wine and asked if he would like to help trim the Christmas tree. He laughed at the invitation, but loosened his bow tie and helped nonetheless. He’d even steadied a chair so she could place a twinkling star atop the tree. But the chair wobbled and she accidentally fell into his arms. Before she knew it, they were rolling together on the recently vacuumed carpet, pulling at each other’s garments like two crazed animals. She had not lain with a man in the ten years since she’d left her native Poland. In that impassioned instant, Sir Kenneth ceased to be the master of Rose Chapel. He was simply a man. Forceful. Hard. Commanding. She’d cried out, the pain so exquisite, she thought she would be torn asunder.

The next morning silence returned to Rose Chapel. Not unlike the first year of her tenure, Sir Kenneth did little but point and mutter. She did nothing but sweep and vacuum. No mention was made of the previous night’s passion. Had it not been for the crystal angel smashed beneath the tree and Sir Kenneth’s bow tie entangled in a tree limb, she could almost believe it had never happened. The broken angel went into the dustbin; the satin tie into her keepsake box.

One week later, on Boxing Day, when masters traditionally gave gifts to their servants, a small box wrapped in plain brown paper mysteriously appeared on her dresser. Inside was a handblown crystal angel. There was no card attached to the gift.

Each year the mystery angel was the first to be unwrapped. And each year, despite his protests and complaints, Marta trimmed a Christmas tree, forcing the master of Rose Chapel to remember their night of passion.

She’d long since given up any hope that Sir Kenneth’s soul could be saved. For to have a soul, one must first have a heart. Heartless man that he was, she feared the day would come when she would be replaced with a younger woman. A woman whose hair had not turned gray, whose body had not gone flaccid. Marta feared what would become of her if she were made to face the wolves, penniless and pensionless.

But there was a way to avoid the wolves.

An American angel had come to deliver her from that which she most feared. She could now leave Rose Chapel on her own terms, her gray head held high.

It required but one phone call.

Reaching into her apron pocket, Marta removed the scrap of paper with the scrawled mobile phone number. For two days she’d carried the slip of paper in her pocket.

Staring at the mobile number, she hesitated. Uncertain what to do. Assailed with the memories of that long-ago December eve.

Like a woman lost in a dazzling white blizzard, Marta turned her gaze to the neat line of Christmas ornaments waiting to be placed upon the tree. In the kitchen, a buzzer noisily pealed. Time to take the buns out of the oven.

Marta turned away from the table with the neat line of ornaments. As she did, her hip jostled the edge of the table. One hideous blue-and-green Santa rolled to the edge, falling to the stone floor.

Marta stared at the broken bits of porcelain.

No longer uncertain.