Something was going on at the bar, where most of the clientele was gathered. Some kind of drinking contest. Lined up on the bar was a collection of shot glasses. A large man, shouting in an Australian accent, was stumbling against the bar even as he raised his hand and blindly fumbled for his next drink.
Indy moved nearer. A drinking contest. And he wondered who the Australian's opponent might be. He pushed his way through, trying to get a look.
When he saw, when he recognized the opponent in the contest, he felt a moment of dizziness, a giddiness that was tight in his chest, a stab, a quick ache. And for a second the passage of time altered, changed like a landscape painted long ago and left untouched. An illusion. A mirage. And he shook his head as if this movement might bring him back to reality.
Marion.
Marion, hethought.
The dark hair that fell around her shoulders in loose, soft waves; the same large intelligent brown eyes that surveyed the world with a mild skepticism, an incredulity at what passed for human behavior-eyes that always appeared to look inside you, as if they might perceive your innermost motivation; the mouth -perhaps only the mouth was a little different, a little harder, and the body a little fuller. But it was Marion, the Marion of his memory.
And here she was involved in an insane drinking contest with a bear of an Australian. He watched, hardly daring to move, as the throng around the bar made bets on the contest. Even to the most innocent spectator, it must have seemed wildly unlikely that the Australian could be outdrunk by a woman barely more than a couple of inches over five feet tall. But she was throwing back drinks, matching the man glass for glass.
Something inside him, something that lay hard in the center of him, became suddenly soft. He wanted to drag her away from the lunacy of the place. No, he told himself. She's not a child anymore, she's not Abner's daughter now-she's a woman, a beautiful woman. And she knows what she's doing. She can take care of herself-here, even in the middle of this motley crew of burnt-out cases and bandits and boozers. She tossed down another drink. The crowd roared. More money was thrown down on the bar. Another roar. The Australian staggered back, reached for a drink, missed and toppled backward like an axed tree. Indy was impressed. He watched as she tossed her black hair back, picked up the money from the bar and shouted at the drinkers in Nepalese; and although he didn't know the language, it was obvious from her tone of voice she was telling them that their sport was over for the evening. But there was one glass left on the counter and they weren't going to move until she'd drunk it.
She stared around them, then she said, "Bums." And she drank the glass down. The crowd roared again, then Marion waved her arms in the air and the mob began to disperse, grumblingly, moving toward the door. The barman, a tall Nepalese character, was making sure they left, ushering them out into the night. He had an ax handle in one hand. In a joint like this, Indy thought, you might need more than an ax handle to ensure closing time.
Then the bar was empty, the last stragglers having gone out.
Marion went behind the bar, raised her face and looked at Indy.
"Hey, didn't you hear me? You deaf or something? Time's up. You understand? Bairra chuh kayho?"
She began to move toward him. And then, the light of recognition on her face, she paused.
"Hiya, Marion," he said.
She didn't move.
She simply stared at him.
He was trying to see her now as she was, not remember her as she had been, and the effort was suddenly difficult. He felt tight again, this time in his throat, as if something had congealed there.
"Hello, Marion," he said again. He sat down on a barstool.
For a second he imagined he saw some old emotion in her eyes, something locked there in her look -but then what she did next astonished him. She made a hard fist of her hand, swung her arm at great speed and struck him with a solid right to the side of his jaw. Dizzy, he fell from the stool and lay sprawled across the floor, looking up at her.
"Nice to see you, too," he said and, rubbing his jaw, grinned.
She said, "Get up and get out."
"Wait, Marion."
She stood over him. "I can do it a second time just as easy," she said, making a fist again.
"I bet," he said. He rose to his knees. The jaw was damn sore. Where had she learned to hit that way? Where had she learned to drink so well, come to think of it? Surprise, surprise, he thought. The girl becomes a woman and the woman turns out to be a terror.
"I don't have anything to say to you."
He rose now and rubbed dirt from his clothes. "Okay, okay," he said. "Maybe you don't want to talk to me. I can understand that-"
"That's insightful of you."
That bitterness, Indy thought. Did he deserve that bitterness? Yeah, maybe, he realized.
"I came to see your father," he said.
"You're two years too late."
Indy was aware of the Nepalese bartender nursing his ax handle. A menacing character altogether.
"It's okay, Mohan. I can handle this." She gestured contemptuously at Indy. "Go on home."
Mohan laid the ax handle on the bar. At her nod, he shrugged and left.
"What do you mean 'two years too late'?" Indy asked slowly. "What's happened to Abner?"
For the first time something in Marion softened. She exhaled slowly, breathing out an old sadness. "What do you think I mean? An avalanche got him. What else could get him? It's only fitting-he spent his whole damn life digging. As far as 1 know he's probably still up the side of that mountain, preserved in the snow."
She turned away from him and poured herself a drink. Indy sat down on the barstool again. Abnerdead. It was inconceivable. He felt as if he'd been struck again.
"He became convinced his beloved Ark was parked halfway up some mountain." Marion sipped her drink. He could see some of her hardness, some of that exterior shell, begin to crack. But she was fighting it, fighting the display of weakness.
She said, "He dragged me, a kid, halfway round the world on his crazy digs. Then he pops off. He didn't leave me a penny. Guess how I lived, Jones? I worked here. And I wasn't exactly the bartender, you understand?"
Indy stared at her. He wondered what he was feeling now, what kind of strange sensations were moving inside him. They were unfamiliar to him, alien. She suddenly looked terribly fragile. And terribly beautiful.
"The guy that owned the place went crazy. Everybody goes crazy here sooner or later. So when they dragged him away, guess what? He leaves me this place. All mine for the rest of my natural. Can you imagine a worse curse?"
It was too much for Indy to absorb at once, too much to take in. He wanted to say something that might comfort her. But he knew there weren't any words.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Big deal."
"I'm really sorry."
"I thought I was in love with you," she said. "And look what you did with that sacred piece of knowledge."