"I've always wanted to visit New York."
"You'd be disappointed. It's a frightened city in which everyone is in hot and narrow pursuit of money: the bankers, the muggers, the businessmen, the whores. If you walk the streets and watch their eyes, you see two things: fear and fury. They are diminished people hovering behind triple-locked doors. They fight with men they don't hate, and make love to women they don't like. Asea in a mongrel society, they borrow orts and leavings from the world's cultures. Kir is a popular drink among those desperate to be 'with it,' and they affect Perrier, although they have one of the world's great waters in the local village of Saratoga. Their best French restaurants offer what we would think of as thirty-franc meals for ten times that much, and the service is characterized by insufferable snottiness on the part of the waiter, usually an incompetent peasant who happens to be able to read the menu. But then, Americans enjoy being abused by waiters. It's their only way of judging the quality of the food. On the other hand, if one must live in urban America—a cruel and unusual punishment at best—one might as well live in the real New York, rather than in the artificial ones farther inland. And there are some good things. Harlem has real tone. The municipal library is adequate. There is a man named Jimmy Fox who is the best barman in North America. And twice I even found myself in conversation about the nature of shibui—not shibumi, of course. It's more within the range of the mercantile mind to talk of the characteristics of the beautiful than to discuss the nature of Beauty."
She struck a long match and lighted a lamp on the table before them. "But I remember you mentioning once that you enjoyed your home in America."
"Oh, that was not New York. I own a couple of thousand hectares in the state of Wyoming, in the mountains."
"Wy-om-ing. Romantic-sounding name. Is it beautiful?"
"More sublime, I would say. It's too ragged and harsh to be beautiful. It is to this Pyrenees country what an ink sketch is to a finished painting. Much of the open land of America is attractive. Sadly, it is populated by Americans. But then, one could say a similar thing of Greece or Ireland."
"Yes, I know what you mean. I've been to Greece. I worked mere for a year, employed by a shipping magnate."
"Oh? You never mentioned that."
"There was nothing really to mention. He was very rich and very vulgar, and he sought to purchase class and status, usually in the form of spectacular wives. While in his employ, I surrounded him with quiet comfort. He made no other demands of me. By that time, there were no other demands he could make."
"I see. Ah—here comes Le Cagot."
Hana had heard nothing, because Le Cagot was sneaking down the stairs to surprise them with his sartorial splendor. Hel smiled to himself because Le Cagot's preceding aura carried qualities of boyish mischief and ultra-sly delight.
He appeared at the door, his bulk half-filling the frame, his arms in cruciform to display his fine new clothes. "Regard! Regard, Niko, and burn with envy!"
Obviously, the evening clothes had come from a theatrical costumer. They were an eclectic congregation, although the fin-de-siècle impulse dominated, with a throat wrapping of white silk in place of a cravat, and a richly brocaded waistcoat with double rows of rhinestone buttons. The black swallowtail coat was long, and its lapels were turned in gray silk. With his still-wet hair parted in the middle and his bushy beard covering most of the cravat, he had something the appearance of a middle-aged Tolstoi dressed up as a Mississippi riverboat gambler. The large yellow rose he bad pinned to his lapel was oddly correct, consonant with this amalgam of robust bad taste. He strode back and forth, brandishing his long makila like a walking stick. The makila had been in his family for generations, and there were nicks and dents on the polished ash shaft and a small bit missing from the marble knob, evidences of use as a defensive weapon by grandfathers and greatgrandfathers. The handle of a makila unscrews, revealing a twenty-centimeter blade, designed for foining, while the butt in the left hand is used for crossed parries, and its heavy marble knob is an effective clubbing weapon. Although now largely decorative and ceremonial, the makila once figured importantly in the personal safety of the Basque man alone on the road at night or roving in the high mountains.
"That is a wonderful suit," Hana said with excessive sincerity.
"Is it not? Is it not?"
"How did you come by this... suit?" Hel asked.
"It was given to me."
"In result of your losing a bet?"
"Not at all. It was given to me by a woman in appreciation for... ah, but to mention the details would be ungallant. So, when do we eat? Where are these guests of yours?"
"They are approaching up the allée right now," Hel said, rising and crossing toward the central hall.
Le Cagot peered out through the porte fenêtre, but he could see nothing because evening and the storm had pressed the last of the gloaming into the earth. Still, he had become used to Hel's proximity sensitivity, so he assumed there was someone out there.
Just as Pierre was reaching for the handle of the pull bell, Hel opened the door. The chandeliers of the hall were behind him, so he could read the faces of his three guests, while his own was in shadow. One of them was obviously the leader; the second was a gunny CIA type, Class of '53; and the third was an Arab of vague personality. All three showed signs of recent emotional drain resulting from their ride up the mountain road without headlights, and with Pierre showing off his remarkable driving skills.
"Do come in," Hel said, stepping from the doorway and allowing them to pass before him into the reception hall, where they were met by Hana who smiled as she approached.
"It was good of you to accept our invitation on such short notice. I am Hana. This is Nicholai Hel. And here is our friend, M. Le Cagot." She offered her hand.
The leader found his aplomb. "Good evening. This is Mr. Starr. Mr. ... Haman. And I am Mr. Diamond." The first crack of thunder punctuated his last word.
Hel laughed aloud. "That must have been embarrassing. Nature seems to be in a melodramatic mood."
PART THREE
Seki
Château d'Etchebar
From the moment they had the heart-squeezing experience of driving with Pierre in the battered Volvo, the three guests never quite got their feet on firm social ground. Diamond had expected to get down to cases immediately with Hel, but that clearly was not on. While Hana was conducting the party to the blue-and-gold salon for a glass of Lillet before dinner, Diamond held back and said to Hel, "I suppose you're wondering why—"
"After dinner."
Diamond stiffened just perceptibly, then smiled and half-bowed in a gesture he instantly regretted as theatrical. That damned clap of thunder!
Hana refilled glasses and handed around canapés as she guided the conversation in such a way that Darryl Starr was soon addressing her as "Ma'am" and feeling that her interest in Texas and things Texan was a veiled fascination with him; and the PLO trainee called Haman grinned and nodded with each display of concern for his comfort and well-being. Even Diamond soon found himself recounting impressions of the Basque country and feeling both lucid and insightful. All five men rose when Hana excused herself, saying that she had to attend to the young lady who would be dining with them.
There was a palpable silence after she left, and Hel allowed the slight discomfort to lie there, as he watched his guests with distant amusement.
It was Darryl Starr who found a relevant remark to fill the void. "Nice place you got here."