Free Knife Fight and Other Struggles by David Nickle Page A

different things than yours does.”
    “It’s all one God,” said Cheryl, and Lottie added: “Praise Be He.”
    “It’s not all one God,” said Lisa, “when you think about the Muslims and the Buddhists and the Hindus . . . the things they worship. Can’t be. And how can you say God is He?”
    “Oh, cut that out. I’ll tell your mother.” Cheryl wagged her finger and laughed. “It’s all one God,” she said to me, “when you get right down to it.”
    “Okay,” I said and nodded over Lisa’s shoulder. “I think your food is coming.”
    The plate for pancakes was larger than any of ours, and I had to move aside to make room for it. The waitress smiled as Lottie made an ooh-ing sound, and Cheryl said, “Better you than us, kiddo,” to Lisa. “That’d go straight to my thighs.”
    “Enjoy,” said the waitress, and moved off. Lisa just looked at it, hands in her lap.
    “What is it, sweetheart?” asked Lottie. “Bigger than you expected?”
    Lisa looked up at all of us.
    “It’s a miracle,” she said quietly, and pointed to the top of her pancake stack.
    We all looked. Cheryl said she didn’t see anything at first, but she was the only one.
    “It’s the face of Jesus,” said Lottie. Cheryl frowned and looked at it, and then at me. I nodded. There was a face, there, in the apples—strong cheekbones over deep-set eyes, brows of apple crescents, and the yellow sauce spilling down the edge of the pancakes in the unmistakable shape of a beard. It was a bright face, a Holy face—formed from apple on a young girl’s plate.
    Cheryl looked again and gasped.
    “You’re right, hon. It is a miracle.” Cheryl waved at the booth. “Hey! Rose! Come look what the Lord made your daughter!”
    Rose came over, and soon everyone from the other table was standing around, bearing witness to the miracle of the apple face on Lisa’s plate. The waitress stopped by to see if everything was all right, and when Carrie explained to her, she looked and agreed. Mobile phones emerged from purses and recorded the miracle through their tiny lenses.
    Lisa wondered what she should do with it, and it was finally Ruman who settled the matter.
    “You should eat it,” he said, “for God has delivered your Harvest, and it would be a sin to deny His bounty, yes?”
    That made Lisa smile. “Well, I don’t want to be sinning,” she said, and I suppressed a gasp as she cut into the apparition’s cheek with her fork.

    I didn’t have opportunity to speak with Ruman again that day. As lunch finished, it transpired that Rose had offered to drive Ruman home. The offer created complications, displacing one from that car—either Cheryl or Carrie—and Cheryl wondered if she could take Ruman’s place in mine. Of course I agreed.
    When in Radejast, I did not only visit the cathedral and walk at night at solstice. I was there for two weeks’ time, on my own, and the nights were long. I visited the taverns, and one night, I met a woman. She was no virgin, but not a whore either. I think she may have hoped I would bring her back with me, as my bride. But no words were spoken to that effect as we quit the tavern arm in arm, slipped through a dark alcove and into her rooms. When I left, there were no tears. She kissed me on the cheek and touched her forehead to my shoulder and sent me away.
    It was another matter with Cheryl.
    She lived on the second floor of a low-rise apartment building that overlooked a deep ravine. When I started to pull toward the front doors where the taxis would come and go, she told me the visitor parking was in back. “If you want to,” she said, and put her hand on mine. “It would be okay.”
    And so I came to Cheryl’s apartment. It was not much larger than mine, but she had made it far more pleasant. The television, the sofa, even the pictures on the walls—everything seemed new. The window gave a tantalizing view of the ravine through tree branches, and hid the view of the other high rises that