Free The Mazovia Legacy by Michael E. Rose

they should go in.
    Someone calling himself a journalist, early forties, somewhat disreputable beard and indifferently cut brown hair, wrinkles around the eyes, not from laughing, aviator sunglasses, battered parka. What else? A former patient — client was the politically correct word now — a man who had come to her complaining of unease, inability to sleep, something close to depression. A man who had started to tell her a little about his life, about his own sense of loss, about his newly vivid dreams, and who had then just as quickly retreated, hurried back to his waking life, never, she had probably thought at the time, to be seen again. And now here they were together on some unlikely excursion that was leading, he realized, God knows where.
    â€œLet’s go in. See what we can find out,” he said, the no-nonsense reporter once again.
    The door of his old car creaked extravagantly as he opened it and this seemed to end the awkwardness that had descended on them. They walked up the few steps onto a broad porch and Delaney banged loudly on the door with the black lion’shead knocker. They waited a long time before a severe nun, perhaps in her sixties and wearing the full grey habit of the Ursulines, opened the door. She regarded them with suspicion through her convent-issue steel spectacles. The overheated foyer smelled strongly of furniture oil and floor wax. “ Oui? ” she said, unsmiling, not welcoming.
    â€œWe’re here to see Father Bernard Dérôme, please,” Natalia said in French. “We are friends of his friend and we would like to speak to him about something important.”
    The nun was taken aback. She started to say something and then did not. Her expression of surprise turned, Delaney thought, to annoyance. She stood with her hand on the inside door handle, and then said: “ Moment. ”
    She left the door slightly ajar and as they stood on the porch they heard her hard heels snapping at the hard wood of the hallway. She was gone a long time. Delaney and Natalia moved to the edge of the porch and looked silently out over the vast property. An old man in blue overalls and a faded red lumberjack shirt walked slowly up the driveway in the distance, a large shovel hoisted over his shoulder. The buckles on his rubber boots jangled faintly as he walked.
    â€œ Puis je vous aider? ”
    The priest who now stood in the doorway was as severe as his housekeeper, in the oldest of Quebecois clerical styles. He wore robes of intense, slightly iridescent black, as if they had caught him preparing to say a Mass. A large crucifix and chain in what looked liked chrome steel glinted at his chest. He, too, was wearing unfashionable steel eyeglasses and his face was ruddy and chapped from years of shaving too close and living in cold rooms. His very thick old man’s ears were also ruddy red. His lips, however, were pursed thin and bloodless. Delaney knew visiteurs were not at all welcome here.
    â€œYes, we are friends of Father Bernard and we have been trying to reach him to tell him some important news and we have been unable to do this,” Natalia said, a little breathlessly. “I have called many times and left messages and he does not reply. We would like to speak to him if possible.”
    The priest did not give them his name or invite them inside. His irritation appeared to increase. “I’m afraid that will not be possible,” he said.
    â€œWhy not?” Delaney asked, then realized this was perhaps not quite the moment for that tone, for journalistic proddings. He sensed that Natalia wished he would stay quiet. The priest looked intently at him. Something about the quality of Delaney’s French made him switch, in the baroque logic of Quebec social relations, to English.
    â€œ Monsieur, Father Bernard has unfortunately died,” the priest said.
    He had delivered the bad news to the other male in the group, as would have been his