DEVIN’S JOURNEY ~ PART 4

Story by Linda S Barth     Artwork by Carole W

~ Paris, France to Jelenia Gora, Poland ~

Moonstone

Devin wiped away a ring of cafe noisette and the last few drops from un ballon de rouge, then tossed the damp rag onto a nearby wrought iron table, narrowly missing another serveur.

“G’way outta that, Liam!” Aengus O’Neill scowled at an imaginary blot on his white shirt. “You nearly got me scuzzed, and you know I’m meeting Rachelle later at the disco.”

Devin laughed and pretended to loft the dregs of un verre de rouge at his friend. “That girl is so wild about you, she wouldn’t even notice if you were dangling naked off the Eiffel Tower, never mind a few drops of wine on your shirt!”

“You’re right about that, you mucker.” Aengus grinned as he untied his apron. “Hey, why don’t you come along with us? I’m sure Rachelle has a friend who’d love to meet a handsome fella like yourself.”

“Did you forget I’m on my way to Poland bright and early tomorrow morning?”

Aengus frowned. “You know, I had.” His grin returned in a flash. “Must be because I’ve got better things to think about!”

“No doubt. But too bad about all the other girls in Paris who’ll never know what they missed.”

“Yeah, shame about that. If Rachelle hadn’t captured my heart, I could have spread joy a bit further.”

“I meant me – not you!” Devin grinned at his pal. “Hey, what’s that Irish word again for someone who’s being a complete jerk?”

“Eejit, gobdaw, arse.” Aengus grinned back. “Take your pick.”

“For you, I’m going with all of the above!”

As they headed for the cafe’s storage room to drop off their aprons and order pads, Aengus’s laughter faded. “You’re sure about this and all, Liam? You’re doing me a grand favor, but you don’t have to, you know.”

“I’m sure.” Devin thumped his friend on the back, silently adding oh, but I do have to. “You’ve got something really good going with Rachelle, and I’m in the mood for a change of scenery. The semester here teaching six-year-olds, on top of working at the cafe, wore me out. So becoming the newest English teacher at a Polish high school actually sounds like a walk in the park.”

“Secondary school, not high school. Remember I’ve never lived in the States like you.”

He mentally reminded himself to be more careful, not only in the days ahead but right now. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess moving from Dublin to New York when I was only five did a lot to change the way I talk.”

“No bother though, right?  Maybe the actual words aren’t so important. It’s the way you say them.” He nodded firmly as if to convince them both. “And you’ve a flair for accents. That poor American lass the other night had no doubts you were a famous French film star.”

Devin shook his head but grinned nevertheless. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. But still, it worked out pretty good for her – and me.”

“Well, just be sure you don’t slip up in Poland, or everything’s going to go arseways.” His face darkened with worry. “You can do it, can’t you?”

“Do what? Sound like an authentic son of the old sod? No problem. I’ll just say stuff like Erin go bragh and top o’ the mornin’ to ya. That should do it.”

Aengus rolled his eyes at his friend’s wide grin and twinkling eyes. “Just don’t be making our countrymen sound like a bunch of bleedin’ leprechauns!”

“I’m counting on not a lot of people in a small city in Poland being experts on how a smart aleck Irishman sounds, so,” he shrugged, “not concerned, and the duplicate fake passport we got should work fine.”

“You’ll remember to destroy it when you leave Poland, won’t you, when you stop pretending to be me and go back to being Liam again?”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re not going to get arrested by Interpol! I won’t forget any part of our plan. The agency thinks you’re about to take a job in Poland, and that’s just what Aengus O’Neill is going to do. No one will know it’s not really you because no one checks up on these things. So nothing to worry about.”

“Easy for you to say…”

“Easy for both of us! You stay here in Paris with Rachelle, keep working under the radar at the cafe, and by mid-summer, it’ll look like you’ve finished up your teaching stint in Poland and returned to Paris. I’ve already sent the agency my resignation papers, so they won’t be looking for Liam Murphy again.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s like we’re double agents!”

“Yeah,” Aengus snorted a laugh. “That’s us. A regular pair of James Bonds! You know, you’d think the agency would be more careful about who they hire. Then again, I reckon they never figured on someone the likes of you.”

“What do you mean, the likes of me? I didn’t exactly have to twist your arm to get you to agree with this plan.”

Aengus nodded. “You’re right on that. I did jump at the chance, and isn’t it a funny coincidence how everything fell into place so smoothly?”

Devin thought of the stones he carried with him always. Maybe it wasn’t quite the coincidence his friend thought it was.

He signed off on the day’s duty roster for the last time and passed the clipboard to Aengus. “But tell me again what your name means. I remember you said it’s got something to do with some poet, so if I’m teaching literature at all, I better know what my own name means.” 

Aengus wrote his name in perfect penmanship and then glared at his friend. “Have a bit of respect! He’s not some poet. He’s one of the greats – a mythological Irish rock star! An actual god!”

Devin managed to mostly smother a snort of laughter. “Sorry, your Highness. Didn’t see that coming!”

“That’s not a surprise coming from you. But I’ll have you know the original Aengus, for whom I am most appropriately named, was a god of youthful love, poetic inspiration, and the most vivid romantic dreams of love and desire.”

“Romantic dreams? That’s what they call them in Ireland?” Devin smirked at his friend’s attempts not to laugh.

“Your poor students.” Aengus sighed dramatically. “And poor me. I’ll never get another teaching job after you ruin my reputation.”

“You’ll probably end up owning your own string of cafes and bistros in Paris and never even set foot in a classroom again. Remember, you’re not going to be able to raise a bunch of kids with Rachelle on a teacher’s salary.”

Aengus muttered something under his breath that Devin didn’t quite hear, but it made him smile anyway.

As they emerged onto the sidewalk, dusk was settling over Paris. “You know, I’m going to miss this place, but I’m ready to go.” The two friends clasped hands. “And thanks again for letting me take your place in Poland.”

“Thanks for doing it, mate.” Aengus smiled softly. “And maybe someday we’ll meet up again, back here or who knows where.”

Devin hesitated, then nodded. “Maybe we will.”

But he knew they wouldn’t.

* * *

His last transfer, a small local train, crossed the border from Germany into Poland and jolted him awake at his destination. He blinked hard at his first view of a small city that could have posed for illustrations in a book of folktales. Cream and cinnabar sandstone facades glowed in the late afternoon sunshine. Rippled rooftops framed against an azurite sky seemed drawn by the curve of an artist’s pen. And in the distance there were mountains, the kind he’d dreamed of but hadn’t seen until now.

At the sound of a warning buzzer, he hurled himself onto the platform just before the doors slid shut, and stepped into Jelenia Gora. He headed toward an exit sign, hoping  he wouldn’t have to convert too many of his hard-earned francs to zlotys for a taxi to the school principal’s house. He was just happy that room and board at his supervisor’s home was included for two semesters’ work.

“Panie Profesorze!” A teenager scooted up and grabbed his hand. She shook it firmly – several times – then quickly dropped it as her cheeks blushed crimson. “Panie O’Neill, I am sorry! But I am very happy to see you! Please forgive me.”

He smiled at the sparkle in her blue eyes and the lyrical sound of her accented English. “Nothing to forgive.” He pulled the memorized name from Aegnus’s tutorial. “You must be Miss Kaminski, the principal’s – I mean the director’s daughter.”

“Yes, I am Ania. My father and Andrzej – my boyfriend – are waiting in the car. It belongs to the school, but my father has permission to use it, especially on weekends.

We will walk to school each day, however, or ride our bikes. It is not far, and you will see some interesting things along the way.” She pushed open the station door. “We would like to invite you to do some,” she frowned for a moment and then her smile returned, “seeing of the sights while you are here. This is a beautiful area of Poland!”

They headed toward the parking strzezony, and when she paused for breath, he asked how she had recognized him. The photo in his phony passport was of him, but now he wondered if one of the real Aengus might have been sent on ahead in the paperwork. It didn’t seem so, and yet he felt a jab of panic.

“We were expecting you today, and you were the only stranger on the platform, so it was easy!”

Her smiling reply made him relax with relief that the scheme wasn’t already falling apart. He let himself shake off lingering doubts. He’d be able to handle things. After all, he grinned at the thought, at least being in school is something I have some experience with – not like that knife-throwing bit in Uruguay. Lucky I still have all my…parts…after that one.

On the short drive to the Kaminskis’ home, a few more questions were answered and potential problems smoothed away. Andrzej’s none-too-subtle grin and whisper to Ania – “He’s a lot older than I expected!” – conveyed the boy’s glee at not having a potential rival for Ania’s affections. The information that Devin’s students would be in the junior school and less well-versed in English than these two savvy sixteen-year-olds came as a happy surprise. And Dyrektor Kaminski was simply relieved that the teacher scheduled to begin classes in about fifteen hours had actually shown up and seemed ready to work.

‘Profesorze O’Neill’s” months in Jelenia Gora flowed by far more quickly than he might have expected, yielding a surprising realization of his talent and affection for teaching. Not so many years ago, he’d wanted nothing more than to escape a life of confinement and classrooms, had never for a moment guessed that someday he’d find himself happy and fulfilled in such a setting. But he didn’t need to ask himself why he felt that way. He already knew.

As he lay in bed in his room on the upper floor of the Kaminski’s house, he watched the full moon through a slice of space where he’d not drawn the curtains tightly enough. It seemed to glow, streaming light straight toward him, illuminating a moment deep in his heart. A moment he didn’t want to remember, yet one he didn’t want to forget.

All he’d wanted to do was find a way to offer to another kindred spirit an amazing experience, a glorious adventure, and, if just this once, a dream-come-true. Parts of it had been magical, wondrous…and parts had been dangerous, destructive. But both boys believed with all their hearts it had been worth everything. A light had been kindled that night, one which burned forever in both their souls, an understanding of what could happen, what might be, if only the opportunity was offered – and taken.

He’d never been able to create that magic for his brother again, but now in his classroom, he was offering it to his students. He sighed softly and felt a sense of peace envelope him. Each day with these children, eager and open to learning, was a revelation, a manifestation of possibility. But it was not only for them. It was for the heart memory of two children, one he’d left behind, one he’d carry with him always. One destined to know only candle and moonlight, the other freed to the light of the sun and the stars.

He felt his eyelids grow heavy and with a final long, lingering look skyward, he turned and nestled himself for sleep. And this time, he knew, if he dreamed of carousels and moonlight and the wondrous smile on his brother’s face, the memory would only bring far more happiness than regret.

Spring turned to summer and by June his time in Jelenia Gora was racing toward its final days. The second semester – and ‘Aengus’s’ assignment – soon would end, and there was no other choice but to move on yet again. During one of his last weekends there, the early summer rains stopped for a few days, time enough for an outing long planned by his host family and long anticipated by him.

While he’d enjoyed using much of his limited free time to explore the small city, savoring the beauty of parks and gardens, admiring the seventeenth century town hall and baroque churches, relaxing at an array of cafes and shops surrounding Market Square, he’d felt most drawn to the vista he could see from almost anywhere he wandered. Jelenia Gora’s location in a valley at the foot of the Karkonosze Mountains somehow seemed to him a starting point on another path he needed to take.

Ania’s parents promised to take him hiking there before the school year ended, and had dissuaded him from exploring the steep, challenging Polish side of the range on his own. Their stories only increased his desire to explore the lush pine and spruce forests, sparkling lakes formed eons earlier by glacial cirques, high rocky ridges, and peat bogs the family assured him might remind him of his home in Ireland. When at last the day for this adventure arrived, it surpassed his hopes and imaginings, leaving him refreshed and energized as if the sweeping winds and stirring sights had cleansed and readied him for what lay ahead.

The day also left him with another soul stone to add to his growing collection. Just as the sun was starting to set and he’d begun descending the mountain with Ania and her father, the girl skittered off the path in pursuit of something only she had seen. Her father immediately called her back, but she ignored him and ventured a bit further to crouch down and scoop up some hidden object from the moss-covered rocky ground. She scampered back and with a luminous smile, instructed Devin to hold out his hand.

The small, translucent stone seemed to glow, and instinctively he glanced skyward, expecting to see the source of the stone’s light. But there was no reflection of sunlight in its cloud-like depths, only a pale swirling of blue and white and grey, and if it hadn’t seemed impossible, he would have sworn he was looking into a fragment of moonlit sky. He let the stone slide along the curves of his outstretched palm, seeing its facets seem to give off a light of its own, just as the moon appears to do in the night sky.

He looked at Ania’s smiling face. “What is it?” His voice was oddly hushed. “And how does it seem to glow like this…like the moon?”

“That’s because that’s what it is – a moonstone. Even unpolished and uncut like this one is, still it is magiczny –” she hesitated, searching for the English word – “magical, just like the moon.”

“Magiczny,” he repeated softly, “just like the moon. But how? How can it look as if the light comes from within the stone, like it’s illuminating and moving across the sky?”

“Who can explain such things?” she shrugged as a dreamy expression shimmered in her eyes. “Maybe it’s just the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe we’re not meant to know why. Maybe we will see in it whatever we wish to see.”

Dyrektor Kaminski chuckled and offered an explanation far less fanciful than his daughter’s. “Liam, contrary to what our little czarownica might lead you to believe, this stone, while an unusually beautiful specimen, is not some magical talisman. The light is simply due to adularescence.” He smiled and waited for his captive audience to, in one case, ask for elaboration, and in the other, roll her eyes with exasperation at such an academic perspective.

“I’ve never heard of that. What does it mean?”

“It is the scientific word for an optical illusion. The stone cannot, of course, glow on its own. The light comes from external sources and scatters between layers of minerals within the stone itself. That type of structure diffuses the rays of light, making them seem to move, similar to light advancing through a prism.”

Devin nodded, still gazing at the stone. “I can see little sparks of color – green, yellow, violet, red – if I turn the stone in a certain way.”

“It’s a rainbow moonstone!” Ania said with pride in her voice. “A very special kind that is found in our mountains.”

“Transparent labradorite, to be exact,” her father clarified. “It’s a variation of sodium-calcium aluminum silicate in the mineral family Plagioclase Feldspar. So, strictly scientifically speaking, this is not a pure moonstone, but instead it is an example of labradorite.”

Evidently, The Old Man had a Polish twin. Devin smothered a snort of amused exasperation at hearing an echo from his past, then cleared his throat and looked up from his study of the stone in his hand. “Yes, I see. Thank you for explaining it to me. It all makes sense.”

Ania’s father laughed. “But even so, my friend, you would prefer to believe my daughter’s words to mine.”

Devin shook his head. “I think there’s merit in both.”

“Ah, you are becoming a diplomat.” He smiled as he began to lead them back down the mountain trail. “Sometimes the wisest choice is not to make a choice at all.”

Devin and Ania shared a conspiratorial smile behind her father’s back, then with undisguised reluctance, he attempted to return the moonstone to her.

She stopped and shook her head hard. “No, Profesorze O’Neill, you must keep it. I knew the moment I found it, it was not to be mine. It was waiting for you.” She watched his smile glisten as he carefully placed it in his belt pack. “Our moonstone has special properties, not just ones you can see. We cannot do anything to falsify them.”

“Tell me.”

“It is said and I believe it to be true…” She shot him an appraising look, then seemingly satisfied at what she found, continued to explain. “That the rainbow moonstone is a stone of protection. It can keep negativity away from our souls and it can clear clouds from our minds and make us see clearly the path ahead. Envision things that you might otherwise ignore. Possibilities that are there if you know how to look for them. But not with the eyes.”

“Then with what?” he asked softly.

“I think you know.” Her smile floated across her face, a bit like the colors in a rainbow moonstone. “Am I correct?”

“You are, Ania. I do know the answer. We must learn to see things in other ways, to follow the vision of our hearts…and to believe in what we find there.”

She clapped her hands together. “Yes, that is it exactly!”

Devin shared her smile. “I see the student has become the teacher. But what was it your father called you – a cha-rov-nee-something?”

She giggled and corrected his pronunciation. “Czarownica. It means sorceress.” She shrugged. “My father does not share my imaginative ideas, but I think he enjoys indulging me, even if he does not believe me.”

They waved to the figure waiting for them to catch up, and Devin lowered his voice as they approached him. “I think we’d all be better off if we believed someone like you.”

When a few weeks later, he shared farewells and good wishes with the Kaminski family and his students, he felt an unexpected pang of regret. Maybe this would be one place to which he would someday return. As he boarded a train going southeast, he thought of the moonstone now accompanying him on his journey and wondered if he’d find a vision of possibilities waiting within clouds at his next destination.