“I call it for zee only woman I ever love,” said Effecto.
Priscilla bandalooped out of bed.
For fifteen minutes or so, the former genius waitress paced the floor. Then she got the idea to telephone Ricki.
“Hello.”
“Bartender, I'd like some Alpo on the rocks with a twist of railroad spike.”
“I don't make house calls. Who is this?”
“You don't recognize the one who did you wrong?”
“Pris! Maybe I do make house calls. Where are you?”
“Still in Louisiana. Ricki, it's so good to hear your voice.”
“It's good to hear you. You asshole.”
“I'm sorry, Ricki. I was positive you had my bottle. I'm prepared to eat a lot of crow.”
“I'd rather you eat something else.”
“You're a dirty-talking woman.”
“It's not just talk.”
“Can you forgive me, Ricki?”
“Hey, I was a jerk myself. But, look, the Daughters got another grant coming up. This time—”
“No, I don't need it anymore. How're things at El Papa Muerta, by the way? Customers still complaining that there're only nine hundred islands in their thousand-island dressing?”
“Yeah, they don't realize the peso's been devalued.”
“Ricki, you want to go to Argentina?”
“Does the Pope want to play Las Vegas? What're you talking about?”
“I'm not kidding. I'm going. You would not believe the past four months of my life. The people I've met, the stuff I've learned, the things that have been happening to me. . ”
“Try me.”
“Okay, what would you say if I told you a dying god knocked me down and broke my perfume bottle?”
“'Don't cry for me, Argentina.'”
“You want to go to Argentina?”
“What's happened to your junkie boyfriend?”
“He's not a junkie, and he's not my boyfriend! I guess he never was my boyfriend. I don't know anymore. He's amazing. Incredibly amazing. But he's sure not in love with me. He came to New Orleans Friday and then turned right around and left, without seeing me. I think it has something to do with his daughter—”
“The gift of the Magi.”
“What?”
“In the Bible. The Magi brought frank incest and mirth.”
“Ha ha. I didn't know you read the Bible.”
“Only the good parts. There's a lot about me you don't know.”
“You want to go to Argentina tomorrow?”
“I'm off tomorrow. Why not? Why're we going to Argentina?”
“To join my ex-husband.”
“Wait a minute. Are we talking ménage à trois?”
Priscilla paused. “I'm not sure what we're talking. I only know that I seem to require a man of a certain age — and that you're the only real friend I have. I don't know what we're gonna do in Argentina, but one thing I can tell you. .”
“What's that, Pris?”
“Whatever it is, it may be possible to do it for a long, long time.”
The night sky over Paris was the color of beet juice, a result of red lights and blue lights reflecting upon the gun-metal gray of the clouds. The sky was sorrowful and disheveled, like the head of an old musician. Heavy with music, it nodded uncontrollably, strands waving, as if keeping time, against its will, to the cabaret piano that was the heartbeat of Paris. Through breaks in the overcast, a dandruff of pale stars could be seen.
Emerging from the dim lobby of the LeFever Building into the dimmer street, Claude LeFever didn't notice the sky, but looked first left, then right, then left again. He knew that he was early, but he hoped that his car and driver might be early, as well. No such luck.
Claude turned up the collar of his cashmere topcoat. It might have been spring in Nice, but winter winds had not moved completely off the rue Quelle Blague. Chilled and impatient, still Claude was fond enough of the street to stand in it, his back to the edifice that smell had built.
Although the law prohibiting skyscrapers had been amended for thirty years, the LeFever Building remained the sole high-rise in that neighborhood. The rest of the block was oblivious to what, in the modern world, passed for progress. With a mixture of frustration and affection, Claude surveyed the cafés and bicycle shops, and the cathedral, of course, and wondered how a city whose name meant fashion to the world could, decade after decade, get away with conforming to archaic ideas. Paris was like his cousin Bunny, he thought: faithful to tradition, on the one hand, in a constant state of upheaval on the other.
As his eyes swept the street, the door of the darkened bicycle shop next door creaked slowly open, and a somnambulistic figure, as evocative as a silhouette in a period cinema, joined him on the rue Quelle Blague. Claude thought the person might be a burglar, his outlines distorted by a sack of loot, but instead of hurrying away, the figure stood there, drinking in the neighborhood as Claude himself had done.
Since the figure was not threatening, was, in fact, compelling, Claude approached it. He was instantly glad, for it proved to be a woman, a dark, Asian woman, quite beautiful, but dressed in a seventeenth-century costume and behaving as if drunk or drugged. When the woman saw Claude, she drew her hand to her mouth and gasped. Evidently, he appeared as odd to her as she to him, yet she did not seem overly afraid.
“I thought I was back,” the woman said. Her French was formal, old-fashioned. “But now I am unsure.”
“What do you mean?” asked Claude.
“It is not the same as it was. My shop is full of silver wheels. There is a tower next door so tall I cannot find its top. And you, sir. .”
She seemed actually in shock. She must be on some drug, Claude thought. Got loaded at a costume party, no doubt, but what was she doing in a locked bicycle shop? “Uh, how long have you been gone?” he asked.
“Only an hour or two.”
He chuckled. “Well, my dear, nothing's changed in the past couple of hours, I assure you.” He told himself that he should walk away, but he stayed. She was so exotic, so lost and lovely. Despite an otherworldly aloofness, she radiated an erotic heat that melted his customary caution and reason. Even should she prove to be an actress on heroin, and not the creature of marvel that she seemed, he nevertheless craved her company. His loins tingled, not merely with lust but with a kind of spiritual adventurism, almost Promethean in character, as if he might steal something from her (from her lips, her breasts, her breath) that would allow him to surpass himself. He hoped that his limo was stuck in traffic again.
“Where have you been?”
Kudra didn't hesitate. “I have been on the Other Side,” she said. For the first time, she looked into his eyes.
Claude felt weak. It was a result of the eye contact, not her reply. He thought that she meant the other side of the Seine.
“And how are things on the other side?” He hoped he didn't sound flip.
“Oh, sir. .” A tremor ran the length of her, causing her voluptuous flesh to quiver like the throat of a lovesick frog. Her bustle gown was lacy and had three-quarter-length sleeves, with which she wore neither muff nor gloves. Assuming that she was cold, Claude draped his topcoat about her shoulders.
“Actually,” said Claude, “I much prefer the Right Bank. Did you really find it so unpleasant over there?”
“Oh, I would not describe the Other Side as unpleasant, sir. It is quite beyond the scope of words such as pleasant or unpleasant.”