It was actually good that Mircea wasn’t expected to spend that much time in Cyprus; he found he didn’t know how to take a vacation, or spend time with regular people. The debacle with Astrid proved that. At the airport in Ercan, Mircea ignored the sight of the taxi driver who had driven them to The Swan. He thought he was safe behind sunglasses, but the driver called to him, whistling the Internationale. Mircea realised he shouldn’t be calling so much attention to himself, not in the business he was in. He darted into the departures terminal, only to be stopped to have his luggage x-rayed.
“I’m not carrying any contraband,” he tried to argue.
Irritatingly, the taxi driver came in behind him. “Hey, comrade!” he called, clapping Mircea on the back. “Where are all the pretty girls?”
People in the airport were turning to look at them. “I don’t know what he is talking about,” Mircea said to the people working the x-ray machine stiffly. The driver threw up his hands, saying something in Turkish. Mircea realised he wasn’t going away…and worse, people were listening to what he was saying. Something Mircea didn’t understand.
“Okay, okay,” Mircea said, pulling the taxi driver aside. He reached for his billfold. “What do you want?”
The driver was all over Mircea. “What’s this in your mouth?” he asked, indicating the splints. Mircea shrugged dismissively, trying to squirm out of the driver’s grasp. He brought out this billfold and held it up, but the driver shook his finger dismissively at it. “I want to get in that nightclub you wouldn’t let Hikmet into,” the driver said with a lascivious grin.
“I’ll arrange it,” Mircea said, repocketing the billfold and trying to get away. The driver stopped him, offering his mobile phone. Mircea declined, getting out his own. There was no way he would try to call from a number they wouldn’t recognise. He quickly scrolled through his contacts, and selected the club icon, getting through to Nikita’s office. Smiling at the driver, Mircea told them in English he was sending someone over. He asked the driver his name, and told the bouncer at the club to expect Tolga the driver.
“Thank you my friend!” the driver sang, holding out his hand. Mircea grumpily got out the billfold handed him some money. The taxi driver again clapped Mircea on the back, and finally walked away. Once he was out the door, Mircea called the club again and told them to deal with that obnoxious fool of a driver in Russian. They needed the message to get out that blackmail would not get you into The Swan.
Smiling stiffly, he collected his luggage, which had been x-rayed. Grunting, the guard indicated that Mircea should open his carry-on bag. “What? I don’t have anything.” The man grunted again, insistently pointing to the bag. Aware that people in the queue behind him were looking, Mircea tried to laugh nonchalantly. He opened his bag, trying to think if he had anything even vaguely illegal in it. The guard pounced on the tube of sunscreen he had bought the day before. “Is that all?” Mircea asked loudly, holding up the sunscreen so everyone could see he didn’t have anything threatening. He went to throw it away, but the guard pointed to Mircea’s suitcase. “I don’t need it,” Mircea said, throwing the sunscreen into the bin. Giving everyone around a big smile, Mircea gathered his luggage and went to check in.
Even though it was only eleven am, Mircea headed for the bar in the departures lounge. He recognised some people from the hotel Astrid had been a guest in; nervously he looked around, hoping she wouldn’t be there as well. He was having a hell of a time trying to leave this island! Fortunately, Astrid wasn’t there, and the people from the hotel didn’t seem to be able to place Mircea, or even take much notice of him. They were obviously trying to enjoy the last drink of their holiday, concentrating on raising the glasses to their lips. Mircea ordered a double vodka, and downed it in one smooth movement. It was the mass-produced American stuff, so it went down without much of a sting. He paid for it and left a small tip, then headed for the duty free shop. He couldn’t head back to Ukraine empty-handed.
By the time he landed in Kiev, he was ravenously hungry. The girls were right- the food they served on the plane was disgusting. He had a two hour wait until his flight to Vinnytsia took off, so he had time to go to a restaurant in the transit area. The domestic area of the airport was not as nice and clean as the international departures area. Most people would take a train to Vinnytsia, but Mircea couldn’t be bothered with Ukrainian Rail. He went into the grubby cafeteria and got a bowl of grey potato soup and some perogies. He sat down at a dirty formica table, but felt eyes on him. He looked up to see a Catholic priest and that German missionary, Michael, staring at him from across the cafeteria.
It seemed Mircea would not be allowed to travel incognito today. He saw Michael whispering away to the priest, but wondered if there was anything he could really do. He carefully took the splints out of his mouth, as he found that if he ate while wearing them, he would be tasting his meals for hours afterward. He had carefully laid them on a paper napkin, and was spooning the soup into his mouth when Michael came over to him.
“We meet again.” Michael stayed standing over him.
Mircea was too tired for any kind of confrontation. He continued eating the soup.
Michael folded his arms across his chest. “It’s no use ignoring me; we’re probably going to be on the same flight to Vinnytsia.”
Mircea sighed. “So what, you want a lift to the church? Will we car pool?”
Michael’s dark expression didn’t change. “You should come to the church with me. See the damage you’ve done…and how we’ve cleaned it up. We’re getting new windows put in, to replace the ones that were smashed.”
“So no harm done, then,” Mircea said pleasantly. He finished the soup and started on the perogies. Michael didn’t move. Mircea looked up at him, and saw he was looking down at the splints on the napkin. He grabbed them and put them into his pocket.
“I see you’re getting your teeth treated,” Michael commented. “Is your pain gone?”
Mircea remembered himself on his knees in front of this guy, howling with pain. He pushed the perogies away and got up.
“Your pain may be taken care of, but what about the girl?” Michael asked as Mircea tried to walk away. Mircea stopped and looked back. What girl?
“The girl whose jaw you broke. They’ve had to reconstruct her whole mouth, with dentures and a prosthesis. I raised funds to bring her to Germany for the procedure.”
So she’s getting a nice vacation out of it, Mircea thought. He turned away again, but Michael caught his arm.
“She’ll have to learn how to talk again, with a new jaw. It will take months of therapy.”
Mircea thought how he would have to wear splints for months to end his pain, so he wasn’t particularly moved. He tried to shrug Michael’s hand off his arm, but the German’s grip was strong.
“I find it interesting how you gave the girl the pain you yourself are suffering from,” Michael said to him in a low voice. “Instead of an eye for an eye, it was a jaw for a jaw? What wrong had she committed to deserve such punishment?”
“It was business,” Mircea told him quietly. “My business…none of yours!” Again he tried to remove his arm from Michael’s hold, but to no avail.
“She came to us for help,” Michael said simply. “She came to us for the help we give anyone. If you came to us, we would help you.”
Mircea violently wrenched his arm free. “You don’t help for free!” he spat at Michael. “You say you help the poor, but all you do is take their pennies while your priests live a lavish lifestyle in their velvet-lined golden palaces!”
Michael was unmoved by this outburst. He gestured to the ugly cafeteria they were standing in. “We are not in a golden palace here. I see no velvet.”
“You can afford to fly down to Vinnytsia,” Mircea pointed out. “What about your vow of poverty?”
“I’m using my own money to fly,” Michael answered. Mircea looked back at the priest. “He’s coming to assess the need here in Ukraine, to admire your handiwork and the likes of others like you.” Michael anticipated Mircea’s next barb. “The Church in Munich is paying for all of it…we’re not taking any kopeks from poor Ukrainians.”
Mircea didn’t have any smart retorts for what Michael was saying. The German stood proudly in the cafeteria, calmly looking down at Mircea, an almost pitying expression on his face. The few transit passengers were taking the whole scene in, looking from Mircea and Michael to the priest who sat silently in the shadows. Mircea found himself turning and fleeing from Michael, not knowing what to do. Michael was too big…there were too many witnesses…it looked bad.
In the grimy men’s toilet, Mircea pulled his splints from his pockets with shaking hands. To his horror, he dropped them to the filthy floor. He crouched down and picked them up, washing them in the thin stream of water that came from the sink. He hated to think of putting them in his mouth, but his jaw was aching. He fitted them over his teeth, the stale taste of the rusty water filling his mouth. With a cry, Mircea realised he had forgotten his bag in the cafeteria. His things! His duty free! He leaned over the sink and pressed his forehead into the cracked mirror. He had to think of how to get out of this.
A scrawny teenager wearing an apron came into the men’s room, carrying Mircea’s bag. “Hey, friend,” he called to Mircea, holding out the bag. “The priests say you forgot this. Lucky for you they were there, otherwise someone would have taken it!” Mircea recognised the teenager as one of the servers in the cafeteria. The skinny kid handed him his bag and went back out – obviously he was still on duty and had to get back.
Mircea held his bag to his chest like a life-preserver. I have to get out of here. There is no way I can get on that plane with Michael and the priest. He dug into his bag, hoping for some toothpaste to take the taste of the splints away, but of course the liquid ban meant he didn’t have any. His heart was pounding, and he felt dizzy. He took deep breaths to calm himself down, but the strong smell of urine sickened him. He pushed his way out of the restroom, and headed straight the entrance to the terminal, as there was no exit.
“I need to get out of here!” he told the guards. He kept his eyes focused on them, not wanting to see the people in the terminal watching the commotion, not wanting to see Michael. “I need to cancel my flight!” The guard grouchily offered to escort Mircea to the transit desk, which he gladly accepted. Just getting out of there, away from Michael was the top priority for him at that moment.