In the hospital, there was much whispered discussion of Mircea’s wounds and police involvement. The mention of police made a lot of people nervous; even the doctor who had a stack of x rays to go through blanched at the word. Having been both intermittently unconscious and the given pain medication made the world terribly foggy and unrecognisable to Mircea; he wasn’t sure which hospital Michael had taken him to. If it was the out of the way one, where the drunken head surgeon was, that would get back to Piotr straight away. If Piotr already thought he was gay, what would he think of a missionary bringing him in for emergency treatment? He tried to ask where he was, but the drugs and his swollen face made him incomprehensible.
Michael tried to calm him. “Take it easy. I’ll make sure you will be okay,” he promised in a whisper. The thought of Michael being nice to him, and understanding his concerns made Mircea groan. He was supposed to be the hard man, not a Church charity case. Again, he drifted off into unconsciousness, Michael clasping his hand.
He awoke later in a public ward, Michael sleeping in a chair beside his bed. Mircea felt groggy, and his body felt like it was encased in cotton. An experimental feel revealed to his numbed fingers that his chest had been wrapped in bandages, which he assumed meant broken ribs. As he tried to open his mouth, he realised his jaw was bandaged as well.
Michael was awaked by Mircea’s yelp of surprise. “It’s okay,” he told Mircea. “Don’t move too much. You’re safe.” He glanced around at the other beds in the ward, where other patients were mostly sleeping. Mircea figured it must be late at night, but wondered why Michael was allowed to be there.
“I couldn’t get you a police guard; they want you to make a statement first,” Michael whispered to him. “I pushed the hospital to let me stay with you, so anyone who wants to finish you off will have to go through me to get to you.”
Mircea moaned. Why was Michael doing this? Why couldn’t someone else have stopped, and just dropped him off in the emergency room?
“You’re really in bad shape,” Michael informed him. “Your internal organs shouldn’t have to take such a beating, but it’s your mouth which is raising the most concerns. You have some really nasty swelling and misalignment going on there.” He stopped to pull Mircea’s hand away from his face. “I wondered why you broke Milla’s jaw,” He admitted. “I figured someone like you would give a girl a good beating to shut her up…break her arms and legs, maybe slash he pretty face up. But you went for her jaw…because evidently, you know how painful that is.”
Mircea wished he could tell Michael to shut up. Don’t analyse me, you priest-kissing goody two shoes!
Michael looked around the ward. “So much suffering going on here,” he commented. “I’m probably adding to yours by telling you that in a roundabout way, Milla saved your life tonight.” Michael paused to bring his chair over closer to the bed. “Someone at the club called to tell her you got your come-uppance,” he went on. Probably Oleg- he seems to love calling people on the phone to tell them about me! Michael snorted softly. “They didn’t know that Milla is in Germany. Her mobile phone is here, with her grandmother. Whoever called to gloat told Milla’s grandmother about you lying beaten in an alley. Milla’s grandmother is a good woman. She called the Church, to let us know someone needed help.”
Mircea wanted to cringe, but his bandaged face didn’t allow too much movement of expression. He moaned again instead. Michael nodded at the sound.
“I talked to Milla in Germany while you were sleeping. I imagine you’ll be happy to know she still hates you. She can’t talk, thanks to what you did, so she writes it down and someone who can read Russian tells me. She says she wishes her grandmother left you to die in that alley. She tried to convince me that it’s only because with you gone, there will be one less person to coerce young girls into prostitution, but we all know that doesn’t mean much.” Michael sighed. “I prayed for absolution for Milla, but I understand her anger.” He ran a finger along the bandage on Mircea’s face. “You can too, I’m sure.”
Mircea twitched, trying to move away from Michael’s touch. Michael removed his finger, and sat back in the chair. “We’ll move you to Germany,” he told Mircea. “You’ll get better care there, and more importantly, you’ll be out of danger.”
Mircea twitched again in exasperation. Why wouldn’t Michael simply go away? Germany? He grunted in frustration. Who would pay for this expensive treatment?
“No one is forcing you to go, Mircea,” Michael told him, backing away from the bed, hands raised. He scoffed. “It’s not like you have a lot of other choices open to you, but I understand. You’re a proud man. You were once an important gangster, and you don’t want to see yourself as a charity case. But I have to ask you, what reality are you living in? You’ve done something to anger the people you worked for. They left you for dead, and given any opening, they will finish the job off. I’m offering you care and sanctuary. The choice is obvious to me: you can die in a ditch here somewhere, probably very painfully, or you can accept the help and care of the Church. The only thing you have to lose is your pride.”
Tears pricked Mircea’s eyes. He felt like he did when the bouncer was holding his arms pinned and Piotr was pounding on him. He hated feeling helpless, but Michael was speaking the truth. Mircea did not have a lot of options open to him.
Michael reached over and patted his arm soothingly. “Let me help you.”
Mircea was glad his head was bandaged so he didn’t have to speak. No one had ever offered to help him before, not in his whole life. He never allowed himself to feel self-pity before, but the tears began to drip from the eyes he was squeezing shut. Michael offering a hand out to him touched a nerve in a closed off part of his brain. The memories he stamped down of being cold and hungry as a child, of being vulnerable and picked on in school for having good grades rushed forward, flooding his brain. He never had anyone to care for him; his grandmother hadn’t wanted to “coddle” him as he was growing up, lest he didn’t learn to toughen up. His mother didn’t really even notice him, unless it was to use him to get things. How often had she coaxed him to look helpless, so someone would take pity on him? And on the rare occasion someone had, his vulture of a mother snatched away whatever food or money he’d gotten. And when he grew too old for the cute beggar routine, the only people who reached out to him were only ever after what meagre possessions he had, slapping or punching him and then rifling through his ragged pockets. He learned how to fight back, but he also learned to never let his guard down.
Michael pressed a tissue to Mircea’s eyes, and was gently shushing him. “It’s okay; no one can see,” Michael assured him in a whisper. He wiped the tears away, patting his arm again. “Let me help you, and get you out of this place. Let me do this.”
Mircea had no idea why Michael was doing this. He felt humiliated and helpless, but Michael was not laughing at him, pressing his advantage. Mircea opened his eyes and saw Michael looking down at him with genuine concern. It wasn’t an expression he had encountered often in his life, but he recognised compassion when he saw it. With a jolt, Mircea realised that Michael was asking his permission to help him; stifling a sob, Mircea nodded. Michael took his hand, and Mircea felt like he had just caught a lifeline that had been thrown to him.
“It will be all right now,” Michael promised, and Mircea swallowed his suspicions and believed him.