“I don’t doubt that a bit,” she said.
The wind was fierce, so I sheltered her with my body. It’s funny, but there is a kind of intimacy that vanishes along with one’s clothes, and that can sometimes become stronger as more layers are added. Walking beneath the new moon, huddling against the wind and the occasional streetlights, I almost felt as if we were a single person, intertwining our emotions with our hair, her breath steaming around our heads.
She said, “There’s something fey about you, you know.”
“Fey?” I laughed. “I’ve never been called fey before.”
“You haven’t? I’m surprised.”
“I must say I prefer it to some of the things I have been called.”
She chuckled into the collar of my coat. “Don’t tell me,” she said, her voice muffled. The top of her head looked very charming that way.
“I shan’t.”
We found a restaurant called the Nawlins, which was a storefront with too many tables and not enough waiters for the space, and I bought her some shrimp Creole and a beer, which she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. After the beer she switched to coffee, and I joined her with my usual half-cup. She seemed to think that was funny.
She asked about my love life, which threw me for a bit, but I ended up telling her about Kellem, although in general terms and not by name. Susan thinks Kellem is very frightened, and wants a man to make her feel secure, but is afraid to trust anyone enough to make a difference. I almost laughed at this, and then I began wondering if there wasn’t some truth in it. I still wonder.
We drifted onto other subjects, and I cannot for the life of me remember what we talked about, but we suddenly noticed that everyone else had left and the busboy, a college-aged kid who’d gone to the Art Garfunkel school of hair fashion, was giving us significant looks. I left an extra tip for his trouble and helped Susan with her coat.
“Back home?” I said. “Or is there somewhere else worth going?”
“I wish it were summer so we could walk along the lakeshore.”
“We can anyway. Stand on the rocks and watch the waves crash while the wind-”
“Freezes our cute little behinds off. No thanks.”
“You have no trace of romance in you,” I said.
She smiled at me. “Wanna bet?”
“Right. Home then.”
We made it in spite of the powdered snow that the wind threw into our faces, though my hands were thoroughly chilled. When we got inside, I said, “You’re going to have to warm me up.”
“Let’s check on Jill, first,” she said.
“All right.”
So we did, and decided that she seemed to be breathing a little easier, though she still didn’t wake up. Then I took Susan’s hand and led her into the bedroom.
All right, yeah, she did have some romance in her, after all.
EIGHT
troub·le n. 1. A state of distress, affliction, danger, or need. Often used in the phrase in trouble. 2. Something that contributes to such a state; a difficulty or problem: One trouble after another delayed the job. 3. Exertion; effort; pains. 4. A condition of pain, disease, or malfunction: heart trouble. -v. troubled, — ling, — les. — tr. 1. To agitate; stir up. 2. To afflict with pain or discomfort. 3. To cause distress or confusion in.
I had finished typing up the tale of yesterday and was preparing for sleep when Jim came up and told me that Kellem had been over looking for me. I cursed under my breath and said, “Did she say what she wanted?”
“No,” said Jim. “She didn’t seem upset that you weren’t here.”
“Did you invite her in?”
He nodded. “She insisted.”
“What did she do?”
“Looked around a little, complimented me on the woodwork and the fixtures.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Jim didn’t seem happy about it, but, come to that, he has been very moody since the visit of the police; I don’t know if he is worried on my behalf, or upset about having his home invaded. Perhaps some of each. I would like to go down and make a fire, but I don’t dare; the smoke might be seen. Instead, I will spend some more time going over the newspaper articles, useless as I now think that will be.
I wish I could find a way to learn or deduce what Kellem has done that worries her so. If I could find a means of protecting her that would not cost my life, I could perhaps convince her to accept it, in spite of what happened the last time I tried to speak to her.
And why shouldn’t she be willing to grant me my life, if she can do so at no cost or danger to herself? It isn’t as if she has never cared for me. Years ago, we used to spend a great deal of time together-more than she would have had to. But I was utterly taken with her, and I think she enjoyed being worshiped as intensely as I worshiped her.
We would spend hour after hour just walking and talking, me eagerly asking questions about her life and the ways of her world, and she would take me to the theater and hold forth on philosophy or tell me stories of people she had known. Her decision to leave London, and, in fact, the British Isles, came a few weeks before the battle of Atbara, and she helped me through that first horrible winter crossing of the Channel.
On the Continent, however, I at once fell in love with the European railways, and in this way we traveled together for some months or years. I took her to my boyhood home, to which I had not returned in quite some time, and she showed me Paris. I remember very little of that city, except that I can recall thinking that it would be wonderful if there weren’t so many Frenchmen there. But mostly I was still involved with her, and I doted on her every word and action.
I remember her saying, “Things aren’t like they once were, and for that you ought to be grateful. For years, for decades, I would spend my time in the shadows of the great cities, only occasionally daring to venture out into the light of society, and then never for long. Now we can walk the streets, shop, visit the theater, and it is as if we exist within a shelter. The old terrors that hardened me and trained me are gone, and I wonder if you will ever appreciate the life you enjoy.”
I can remember looking at her as she spoke; she wore a dark tailored green dress, very tight at the waist, belted, with a long fur around her neck like a scarf. The hemline came above her ankles, but she wore very trim black boots with pointed toes and square heels. I wore a long coat with eight-inch fur cuffs, a large fur collar, a white silk cravat, and a top hat, I believe. She had picked the clothes out for me with care that felt loving to my befogged brain, and perhaps it was.
I remember these things, and what she said, and that it was late autumn, and that we were in Paris, yet I cannot remember what the streets looked like, or if we were sitting, standing, or walking. No, now that I think of it, I believe we were walking through a park and there was no one around, and no sounds except our speech, the faint clop and squeak of someone’s private coach a few hundred feet away, the songs of night birds, and, very faint, the titter of the rats of Paris, whose conversation never altered. The moon shone very bright on Laura’s face, giving it an odd yellowish tint and highlighting her arching eyebrows and deep-set, narrow eyes that were always so cold and blue.
I considered her words, and tried to imagine what it would have been like living in the times she spoke of, and at last I asked, “What changed?”
“Time,” she said. “The advent of this modern, scientific age.” There was more than just a hint of derision in her voice as she spoke.
“Will it last?”
“I believe it is very nearly ending already, more’s the pity.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You haven’t been keeping up with contemporary literature.”
“I never do, Laura,” I said. “I like older work.”
“Then you’re a fool,” she snapped. “There is no better way to keep track of the thinking of men, and if you don’t know what men are thinking, you don’t know what precautions to take.”