Free The Breath of Suspension by Alexander Jablokov

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    I hurry down the path as quickly as I am able, brushing loose leaves with my cane. The apples have long since been harvested from the bare branches that overhang me.
    The note is in a woman’s hand, delivered by a wool-hatted country woman who did not stay for a reply. I’ve examined the note dozens of times. Somehow even the curves of the vowels seem sensual to me. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples... I can laugh at myself even as I hurry, as impatient as a lover heading to a tryst.
    “I have waited so long for news of him,” it says. “This was not what I wanted. You are his friend. Tell me how Thomas lives his life.” It needs no signature.
    She waits on a bench under a tree. For a second, from the reddish dark hair, I think it is Laurena. Laurena, whose sharp scent is lately on my pillow when I awaken from nightmares.
    She stands. It is not Laurena, but quite a different woman. She has the face that innocence leaves when it vanishes precipitately. Once round and cheerful, surrounded by masses of exuberant curls, it now shows the marks of care, like gullies on an untended field. Her hair is pulled back savagely, as if she is punishing it for her bad decisions. Her eyes are as blue as Thomas’s.
    “Janielle,” I say. She waits for more. “He is well.”
    “Well? I heard that Mark beat him. Beat him to shit.”
    I couldn’t tell if she was angry at her husband or proud of him. “As well as can be expected. He will heal. He will continue to do God’s work.” A black-cassocked crow with an Orthodox cross on his chest, I am suddenly a defender of the faith against this tired woman.
    Her shoulders slump. “He will. He will. Oh, damn him to hell, he will. My Thomas.”
    “Your Thomas?” I am desperately curious about the story.
    “Oh, yes. Does he ever talk about me?”
    “Often.”
    “You’re a liar.”
    I pause, considering. “He told me you made love behind Crofter’s silos.”
    Instead of making her angry, this melts her. “Yes. He caught a cold from the wet ground and stayed in bed. My mother saw my knees were wet. I told her I had been fishing. No fish, though. I broke my line.”
    There is a rustle in the orchard. She starts, prey, expecting her husband to stride across the fields and pick her up in his hairy hand. She smiles at her own fear and removes two clips, loosening her hair. It’s been a long time since a woman loosed her hair before me.
    “Why did you leave him then? Was it for Mark?” I imagine her tiring of the gentle Thomas, turning to the crude and vital Mark as a protection in this increasingly harsh world. Unattached soldiers move about the countryside, burning and looting. The Orthodox Empire is at last collapsing. It is no age for gentleness, and women are, if nothing else, practical creatures.
    I don’t expect her laugh. “Leave him? Is that what he told you?”
    “He hasn’t told me much.” I may as well admit it.
    “No, he hasn’t, if you believe that.” She takes a breath. “We loved each other. He loved me as much as I loved him. We were going to be married. Have... children.” She turns from me.
    “What happened?”
    “God happened.” She speaks the word viciously—the name of a rival. “He thought and thought, and decided that his life was meant to serve the Lord. He’d always been a little churchy. That was all right. But he left me. Walked out of my life and into your monastery. That’s when his life began and mine ended.”
    “And you married Mark for revenge.” Just like a woman to punish someone else by punishing herself.
    “I suppose.” Her own past motivations don’t interest her. “It’s not too bad. But I’ll never give him children.” Her voice is suddenly hard. “Never!”
    “Thomas will do well.” My voice is dreamy. “He has a vocation. He serves the Lord, unlike many of the rest of us. I don’t think I will tell him I saw you.”
    “It’s better that way. Thank you for your time, Brother Vikram.” She turns