Sue woke in her usual, “How can it be morning already?” mode, but then she remembered the little bird. “How are you today, little one? Any better? Are you hungry?”
The bread crumbs Sue had left in the nest the night before appeared untouched.
“She’s still breathing.” Sue leaned close but didn’t touch the bird so as not to frighten it.
“Give her another day,” I suggested. “She might be building up her strength by sleeping a lot.”
“Today is the last day the men are here, right?”
“Yes. I told Sam we would prepare a large breakfast before they all left. We should get going to the panetteria.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sue said. “Maybe the gondolier will be back today, and I can watch him flirt with you.”
“Don’t count on it.”
My words turned out prophetic. No gondoliers lined up at the bakery.
Lucia cheerfully greeted us and held up a round loaf of bread with a nice brown crust.
“Si,” I said, not knowing what type of bread it was but feeling confident it would be delicious. We bought nearly as much bread as we had the day before since the men had eaten every crumb.
I paid Lucia and wished I knew how to tell her that this was the last day we would be buying for an army. Piecing together an awkward sentence with the few Italian words I knew, I said to Lucia, “Domani, solo due. No nove. Si? Solo due.”
Lucia nodded and said “ciao.” I hoped she understood because I didn’t want her to fire up the oven the next day for an extra large batch of daily bread.
Sue and I took off once again looking like the neighborhood bakery bandits, our shopping bags stuffed to overflowing.
A block away we were greeted by an aging Italian woman wearing a scarf over her head and pulling a wheeled shopping tote. Inside the squeaky-wheeled shopping tote was a stuffed gunnysack tied at the top with rope. She stopped walking and eyed Sue and me expectantly.
“Uvas?” she asked.
Sue and I smiled and nodded slightly in an attempt to be polite. She seemed too nicely groomed to be a beggar. We would have gone around her, but she was blocking the walkway.
“Due?” She tilted her head and added a string of other Italian words.
We recognized the Italian word for “two,” and I nodded again that, yes, there were two of us.
“Are you tracking with this woman?” Sue asked.
“Not yet.”
“Due uvas?” she asked.
I tentatively said, “Si?”
The woman responded with a look of satisfaction and a nod.
“Does she want money?” Sue asked.
“I don’t think so.”
The woman reached into the gunnysack and the bundle of something inside rustled around. Sue and I exchanged confused expressions and took a step back. The sound of a chicken cackling caused us to reach for each other at the same time and nearly drop our shopping bags bulging with bread.
“Ah!” The woman extracted her hand and jubilantly offered us an undeniably fresh egg. She placed it in Sue’s hand.
Sue looked as stunned as I felt. “Jenna, it’s still warm. Creepy warm.”
“Don’t drop it, whatever you do,” I muttered back to her.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Just hold it and keep smiling.”
The woman again reached into her bag of chicken tricks, and with only a funny squawk to once again prepare us for the glad event, another warm brown egg magically appeared. This one was handed to me.
“I think I’m supposed to pay her,” I said, not sure how I was going to pull out my wallet while juggling the bags of bread and the fresh egg.
“Here,” I said to Sue, rolling the egg into her hand, as if we were playing some sort of mixer game. “Hold this for me, will you?”
“Jenna!”
“Hang on.” I put down one of the bags of bread and pulled out some coins. I had no idea what the going street value was in Venice for two hot eggs.
The woman was now fiddling with a cardboard box under the wiggling gunnysack. She lifted up the box to me and opened the lid, as if seeking my approval for the contents.
The box contained more eggs. At least twenty. All brown and stacked neatly so as not to break.
Sue peered into the box. “Maybe the due meant two dozen and not just two eggs. Maybe the two I’m holding are just the samples to prove her eggs are fresh.”
“A baker’s dozen?” I speculated. “Or should I say a baker’s two dozen? Is that what I agreed to buy?”
The woman was watching us converse, waiting for me to take the two dozen eggs. As soon as I took the box, she held out her hand for her payment.
I gave her all the coins I had. She flipped through them with her thumb and appeared satisfied with the amount I handed her. Business transaction satisfactorily completed, she bid us a buon giorno, turned, and made her way down the cobblestones with the poor, clandestine chicken being jostled in her hideaway gunnysack.
Sue and I stood there watching her go.
Glancing down at the two brown eggs in her hand, Sue asked, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to take these home to hatch or scramble them up with a little cheese and fresh basil.”
“I would advise against the hatching option,” I said. “Our Fine Feathered Friends Convalescent Ward is occupied at the moment.”
“What are we going to do with all these eggs? We already have enough for omelets.”
“We’ll think of something.” I juggled everything and picked up the pace. “We need to start breakfast for the men before they have to leave!”
Sue and I entered the apartment as the men were singing the same hymn we had heard them sing their first morning together. We had missed Malachi’s devotional reading of the Scriptures again, and I was sad about that. Sad and grumpy. If we hadn’t dawdled with the crazy egg lady, we might have been back in time.
Kicking into high gear, Sue and I went to work in the kitchen. Instead of making individual omelets, we threw all our prepared ingredients into our three frying pans along with the eggs we had in the refrigerator. The scrambled eggs were ready the same time the coffee was. Sue and I hurried to finish our preparations for the Last Breakfast, as we were now calling it.
I went into the dining room and placed the dishes around the table, adjusting each place setting to just the right angle for the accompanying chair. I used linen napkins and folded one in a triangle on top of each china plate. I wanted this meal to be nice for these men.
The uneven floor made me smile as I moved around behind the table. Who had dined in this room in the ages past? Who had served them? Who were the people who had put their feet beneath this table, and what had happened to them? Did they ever gather in the large sitting room to pray, as these men were doing now? Or did they gather there only in the evenings while a string quartet played Vivaldi?
This was a special place. And these past few days had been special. Even if diabolical deeds had been done at one time under this roof, I firmly believed the invisible territories had been reclaimed through worship and the reading of God’s Word that had echoed off the high ceilings the past few days.
I poured grape juice into each of the crystal glasses. From the other room I could hear the men conversing with each other after their morning prayers. They were affirming each other, encouraging each other, and blessing each other’s ministries. This wasn’t a meeting of competitors. I felt as if I had been in the company of mighty warriors for the kingdom of God. These men were going from this sacred place today as a united group, ready to do damage to the kingdom of darkness.
I breathed in deeply the same way I’d breathed when Marcos told us about the gold that disappeared from the Ca’d’Oro. Now I wasn’t hoping to breathe in gold. I wanted to absorb one of the many blessings being passed around in the adjoining room.
Just as Sue and I finished dishing up the food, the men entered the dining room. The table was ready and waiting for them. Th
e fresh bread was on a cutting board in the middle of the table. Each plate had been served with a generous portion of the steaming scrambled eggs. Sue and I paused before entering the kitchen, making sure the salt and pepper were on the table as well as milk and sugar for the coffee.
Nodding to each other that all the essentials were covered, we turned to go into the kitchen. But Malachi stopped us by meeting our gaze and motioning for us to pause. We waited for him to indicate what was missing. He motioned for both of us to come over to the table.
“What can we get for you?”
“Two more plates of eggs, please. And two more forks. And two more glasses.”
We returned to the kitchen to fetch the two plates of eggs Sue and I had scooped for ourselves. We didn’t mind giving up our breakfast. It just seemed odd.
“We can make some more,” Sue said to me. “We have plenty of eggs, that’s for sure.”
“But why does he want these? Is someone coming we didn’t know about?”
She shrugged. I followed her into the dining room with two more crystal goblets, linen napkins, and two sets of silverware.
Malachi had made room on either side of him for the two extra plates. I set up the silverware, napkins, and goblets. The other men looked up. Apparently they didn’t know what Malachi was doing, either.
“Please.” He rose from his chair and held out an open palm to Sue and me. “Come and eat breakfast.”
The conversations were silenced, as all eyes turned to Sue and me. Sergei rose and went to the corner of the room where several extra chairs were lined up against the wall. He brought two of them over to the table, as the others made more room for us.
Sue shot me a look of subdued astonishment. It took me a moment before I remembered that those were the words she and I had read yesterday morning from John 21. Jesus had invited His disciples to come and have breakfast with Him. Now Malachi and the other men were extending such an invitation to Sue and me.
We took our seats quietly. Extravagant hospitality can certainly catch a person off guard. I felt as if I had stepped into a painting that we had seen at the Accademia. Like the women in that painting, we were unexpected subjects in a familiar composition. The original title of the huge art piece had been The Last Supper. The title was changed to “The Feast of the House of Levi” because the artist had included so many people around the table who weren’t present in the biblical account of the Last Supper. Like one of the subjects in that painting, I felt that I didn’t belong here. And yet I’d been welcomed to come and dine as an equal.
Sam passed the loaf of bread to me. I broke off a portion and took a bite. I reached for the glass of grape juice Malachi had filled for me, pouring from his own glass. I took a sip and recognized the elements, the combination of tastes in my mouth, the sensation in my spirit. Without orchestrating it, we were gathered together in the name of Christ and breaking bread in remembrance of Him. Communion. A table where all are welcome. Even me.
The moment pressed itself into the eternal part of my spirit. I still carry it there.
I took a bite of the scrambled eggs. Immediately I knew what to do with the double dozen we had purchased from the gunnysack lady.
An hour later, as Sue and I were finishing up in the kitchen, the sound of luggage wheels rolling over the marble floors echoed around us. All of those suitcases were heading for the front door.
I was wiping the last of the dishes and had a knife in my hand when Sergei stepped into the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow, and I quickly put down the knife with a chuckle just begging to leak out.
“Please give my love to Deborah and your children. Tell her I will e-mail as soon as I get home.”
“I will. Would you mind if I took a picture of both of you? For Deborah. She asked.”
Sue and I looped our arms around each other’s shoulders and turned toward the camera.
“Is my hair a fright?” Sue asked.
I don’t know why she only asked that question when picture-taking was involved. Certainly she had to know that her hair almost always was a little disheveled, a little on the fright-side of the measuring stick.
“You look fabulous,” I said, without turning away from Sergei’s camera and keeping my grin fixed. It was my signal to him to hurry up and take the picture before Sue started fussing with her lobster locks.
“Oh, who cares,” Sue said. We froze our pose together beside a stack of pots and pans.
I felt so happy. It made little sense. Such simple moments didn’t usually overwhelm me with such a feeling of pure delight. But my emotions were off-the-chart elevated. Nothing this day had been simple or common. Everything around us felt sacred. Even these pots and pans and the yellow apron I wore with stains from the sauces I’d prepared. I felt like I was now the Italian mama welcoming and sending away visitors with hugs and tears and doing it in such a way that the scent of garlic and onions lingered long after the guests were out of the kitchen.
“I have a favor to ask.” Sergei put away his camera.
“If you’re going to ask if y’all can have some sandwiches to take with you on the train, we already made them, and they’re waiting on the table by the front door.”
“Thank you. But I was not going to ask about sandwiches. I wanted to ask if you would consider something. I know this is a very big favor.”
“That’s okay,” Sue said. “What is it?”
“Would you consider coming to Kiev sometime to take my wife out laughing?”
I loved the way he said “take my wife out laughing,” as if that were something women did naturally, just as young lovers go out dancing and lonely men go out drinking.
“Yes,” was my immediate answer.
“Take your wife where?” Sue asked.
“Out laughing,” I repeated. “We would love to come to Kiev and take Deborah out laughing, Sergei.”
Sergei looked pleased. “This is good. You, both of you, coming to see her. Yes, this would be good medicine.”
“Are you saying you want me to come, too?” Sue asked.
“Of course. The two of you are a team, are you not?”
Sue looked to me, and I put my arm around her shoulder again, even though we already had posed for the picture. I looked at Sue with admiration. “Yes, we’re a team.”
“This will mean very much to Deborah. And to me. I believe that you, both of you, can give to my wife what I cannot give her, as much as I have hoped and tried.”
Sue jutted out her chin. “No offense, but that’s because you’re a man. Laughing is a job for a couple of Sisterchicks.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You tell Deborah that the Sisterchicks will be coming her way.”
Sergei looked amused now. “Okay, I will tell Deborah the superchicks are coming one day to visit.”
“No, not superchicks. Sisterchicks,” Sue corrected him.
“Neither of us is very ‘super,’” I said. “But we are sisters.”
Sergei liked that. He stepped forward, and both of us took a step forward. He hugged us firmly while issuing a succession of Russian words over the top of our heads. I didn’t have to ask what he was saying. I knew he was blessing us. And I took it.
“Grace on you, brother,” I murmured in return. “May goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life.”
He nodded, accepting my attempt at a blessing, and left the kitchen with one of his cautious grins trapped behind his teeth and barely leaking out.
As soon as I was sure he was all the way out of the kitchen, I pressed a big, smacky kiss into the palm of my hand and tossed it after him.
“What was that?” Sue asked.
“That was a big fat baci.”
She paused as if trying to remember what a baci was. “Well, you better watch what you’re throwing at that kitchen door.”
“Oh, this from the woman who nearly used that same door for a knife-throwing contest yesterday!”
Sue gave me a wild look of mock indignation. “I told you it w
as a butter knife.”
“Sisters?” Came a deep voice from just inside the door. Malachi was standing back, seeming to assess the situation before entering through the door that was the topic of our banter.
Sue and I both laughed, and Malachi looked relieved. “I have come to say farewell to you both.” He held up his large hands, with the palms toward us, and said, “May the peace of Christ be upon you.”
“And also with you,” I said.
“We have something for you.” Sue went to the side counter and picked up a box containing twenty-six well-packed hard-boiled eggs. More than double what Malachi had arrived with.
“An offering for your wife,” I said. “We were blessed with more than we could use.”
Malachi didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
Seventeen
It was over. The retreat had ended, and all the men had filed out with their luggage. The front door closed behind them, leaving Sue and me alone in the huge palace apartment.
“You should have married a missions director,” Sue said. Then catching herself, she froze and said, “I didn’t mean …”
“I know what you meant; you don’t have to explain. It’s okay.” I hesitated and then confessed, “I’ve thought the same thing more than once. And you know what? The reality is, I didn’t marry a missions director. I didn’t do a lot of things. But this is my life now, and I’ve begun to realize that I have options. Lots of options.”
“Like going to Kiev someday.”
“Yes, like going to Kiev someday.”
“You know what?” Sue said as we walked back to the kitchen. “I’m going to miss those guys.”
She and I didn’t have anything particularly urgent to do in the kitchen. It just had become instinctive for us to go there.
Sue sighed. “When the men first arrived, I couldn’t wait for them to leave so you and I could come up with our own schedule and not have to sleep on the roof. Now I wish they weren’t leaving.”
She and I probably would have broken down into a full-on melancholy fest, but we both spotted something that captured our attention. Netareena was out of her nest and hopping around on the kitchen floor.