Shibumi (43 page)

Hel thought of the alpha timbres he had been intercepting.

“I couldn’t sleep. I got up and wandered around your house in the dark. Then I went to the garden. The air was cool and there was no breeze at all. I sat by the stream, and I could see the dark flicker of the water. I was staring at it, not thinking of anything in particular, then all at once I… it was a feeling I almost remember having when I was a child. All at once, all the pressures and confusions and fears were gone. They dissolved away, and I felt light. I felt like I was transported somewhere else, someplace I’ve never been to, but I know very well. It was sunny and still, and there was grass all around me; and I seemed to understand everything. Almost as though I was… I don’t know. Almost as though I was—ouch!” She snapped her hand back and sucked the singed finger.

He laughed and shook his head, and she laughed too.

“That was a stupid thing to do,” she said.

“True. I think you were going to say that it was almost as though you and the grass and the sun were all one being, parts of the same thing.”

She stared at him, her finger still to her lips. “How did you know that?”

“It’s an experience others have had. You said you remembered similar feelings when you were a child?”

“Well, not exactly remember. No, not remember at all. It’s just that when I was there, I had the feeling that this wasn’t new and strange. It was something I had done before—but I don’t actually remember doing it before. You know what I mean?”

“I think I do. You might have been participating in the atavistic—”

“I’ll tell you what! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you. But I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s like the very best high on pot or something, when you’re in a perfect mood and everything’s going just right. It’s not exactly like that, because you never get there with hooch, but it’s where you think you’re going. You know what I mean?”

“No.”

“You never use pot or anything?”

“No. I’ve never had to. My inner resources are intact.”

“Well. It was something like that.”

“I see. How’s your finger?”

“Oh, it’s fine. The point is that, after the feeling had passed last night, I found myself sitting there in your garden, rested and clear-minded. And I wasn’t confused any more. I knew there was no point in trying to punish the Septembrists. Violence doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s irrelevant. Now I think I just want to go home. Spend a little time getting in touch with myself. Then maybe—I don’t know. See what’s happening around me, maybe. Deal with that.” She poured herself out another glass of wine and drank it down, then she put her hand on Hel’s arm. “I guess I’ve been a lot of trouble to you.”

“I believe the American idiom is ‘a pain in the ass.’”

“I wish there were some way I could make it up to you.”

He smiled at her obliquity.

She poured another glass of wine and said, “Do you think Hana minds your being here?”

“Why should she?”

“Well, I mean… do you think she minds our spending the night together?”

“What does that phrase signify to you?”

“What? Well… we’ll be sleeping together.”

“Sleeping together?”

“In the same place, I mean. You know what I mean.”

He regarded her without speaking. Her experience of mystic transport, even if it was a unique event prompted by an overload of tension and desperation, rather than the function of a spirit in balance and peace, gave her a worthiness in his eyes. But this new acceptance was not free from a certain envy, that this vague-minded muffin should be able to achieve the state that he had lost years ago, probably forever. He recognized the envy to be adolescent and small on his part, but this recognition was not sufficient to banish the feeling.

She had been frowning into the candle flame, trying to sort out her emotions. “I should tell you something.”

“Should you?”

“I want to be honest with you.”

“Don’t bother.”

“No, I want to be. Even before I met you, I used to think about you… daydream, sort of. All the stories my uncle used to tell about you. I was really surprised at how young you are—how young you appear, that is. And I suppose if I analyzed my feelings, there’s a sort of father projection. Here you are, the great myth in the flesh. I was scared and confused, and you protected me. I can see all the psychological impulses that would draw me toward you, can’t you?”

“Have you considered the possibility that you’re a randy young woman with a healthy and uncomplicated desire to climax? Or do you find that psychologically unsubtle?”

She looked at him and nodded. “You certainly know how to put a person down, don’t you? You don’t leave a person much to cover herself with.”

“That’s true. And perhaps it’s uncivil of me. I’m sorry. Here is what I think is going on with you. You’re alone, lonely, confused. You want to be cuddled and comforted. You don’t know how to ask for that, because you’re a product of the Western culture; so you negotiate for it, bartering sex for cuddling. It’s not an uncommon negotiation for the Western woman to engage in. After all, she’s limited to negotiating with the Western male, whose concept of social exchange is brittle and limited, and who demands earnest money in the form of sex, because that’s the only part of the bargain he is comfortable with. Miss Stern, you may sleep with me tonight if you wish. I’ll hold you and comfort you, if that’s what you want.”

Both gratitude and too much wine moistened her eyes. “I would like that, yes.”

But the animal lurking within is seldom tethered by good intentions. When he awoke to her attentions and felt emanating from her the alpha/theta syncopation that attends sexual excitation, his response was not solely dictated by a desire to shield her from rejection.

She was exceptionally ripe and easy, all of her nerves close to the surface and desperately sensitive. Because she was young, there was a bit of difficulty keeping her lubricated, but beyond that mechanical nuisance he could hold her in climax without much effort.

Her eyes rolled back again and she pleaded, “No… please… I can’t again! I’ll die if I do again!” But her involuntary contractions rushed closer and closer together, and she was gasping in her fourth orgasm, which he prolonged until her fingernails were clawing frantically at the nap of the rug.

He recalled Hana’s injunction against dimming Hannah’s future experience by comparison, and he had no particular impulse to climax himself, so he brought her back down slowly, stroking and cooling her as the muscles of her buttocks, stomach, and thighs quivered with the fatigue of repeated orgasm, and she lay still on the pile of pillows, half-unconscious and feeling that her flesh was melting.

He washed in frigid meltwater, then went up to the overhanging balcony to sleep.

Some time later, he felt her approach silently. He made space for her and a nest in his arms and lap. As she dipped toward sleep, she said dreamily, “Nicholai?”

“Please don’t call me by my first name,” he murmured.

She was silent for a time. “Mr. Hel? Don’t be scared by this, because it’s just a passing thing. But at this moment, I am in love with you.”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“Do you know what I wish?”

He did not answer.

“I wish it were morning and I could go out and pick you a bunch of flowers… those Eyes of Autumn we saw.”

He chuckled and folded her in. “Good night, Miss Stern.”

It was midmorning before Hana heard the splash of a slab of rock into the stream and came from the château to find Hel rearranging the sounding stones, his trouser legs rolled up, and his forearms dripping with water.

“Will I ever get this right, Hana?”

She shook her head. “Only you will ever know, Nikko. Is Hannah safely set up at the lodge?”

“Yes. I think the girls have heated the water by now. Do you feel like taking a bath with me?”

“Certainly.”

They sat opposite one another, their feet in their habitual caress, their eyes closed and their bodies weightless.

“I hope you were kind to her,” Hana murmured sleepily.

“I was.”

“And you? How was it for you?”

“For me?” He opened his eyes. “Madame, do you have anything pressing on your schedule just now?”

“I’ll have to consult my
carnet de bal,
but it is possible that I can accommodate you.”

Shortly after noon, when he had reason to hope the local PTT would be functioning at least marginally, Hel placed a transatlantic call to the number Diamond had left with him. He had decided to tell the Mother Company that Hannah Stern had decided to return home, leaving the Septembrists unmolested. He assumed Diamond would take personal satisfaction in the thought that he had frightened Nicholai Hel off, but just as praise from such a source would not have pleased him, so scorn could not embarrass him.

It would be more than an hour before the viscous and senile French telephone system could place his call, and he chose to pass the interval inspecting the grounds. He felt lighthearted, well-disposed toward everything, enjoying that generalized euphoria that follows a close call with danger. For a whole constellation of impalpable reasons, he had dreaded getting involved in a business that was trammeled with personalities and passions.

He was wandering through the privet maze on the east lawns when he came across Pierre, who was in his usual vinous fog of contentment. The gardener looked up into the sky and pontificated. “Ah, M’sieur. Soon there will be a storm. The signs all insist on it.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yes, there is no doubt. The little clouds of the morning have been herded against the flank of
ahuñe-mendi.
The first of the
ursoa
flew up the valley this afternoon. The
sagarra
turned its leaves over in the wind. These are sure signs. A storm is inevitable.”

“That’s too bad. We could have used a little rain.”

“True, M’sieur. But look! Here comes M’sieur Le Cagot. How finely he dresses!”

Le Cagot was approaching across the lawn, still wearing the rumpled theatrical evening dress of two nights ago. As he neared, Pierre tottered away, explaining that there were many thousands of things that demanded his immediate attention.

Hel greeted Le Cagot. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Beñat. Where have you been?”

“Bof. I’ve been up in Larrau with the widow, helping her put out the fire in her belly.” Le Cagot was uneasy, his badinage mechanical and flat.

“One day, Beñat, that widow will have you in the trap, and you’ll be… What is it? What’s wrong?”

Le Cagot put his hands on Hel’s shoulders. “I have hard news for you, friend. A terrible thing has happened. That girl with the plump breasts? Your guest?…”

Hel closed his eyes and turned his head to the side. After a silence he said quietly, “Dead?”

“I’m afraid so. A
contrabandier
heard the shots. By the time he got to your lodge, she was dead. They had shot her… many, many times.”

Hel took a long, slow breath and held it for a moment; then he let it out completely, as he absorbed the first shock and avoided the flash of mind-fogging fury. Keeping his mind empty, he walked back toward the château, while Le Cagot followed, respecting his friend’s armor of silence.

Hel had sat for ten minutes at the threshold of the
tatami
’d room, staring out over the garden, while Le Cagot slumped beside him. He refocused his eyes and said in a monotone, “All right. How did they get into the lodge?”

“They didn’t have to. She was found in the meadow below the ravine. Evidently she was picking wildflowers. There was a large bunch found in her hand.”

“Silly twit,” Hel said in a tone that might have been affectionate. “Do we know who shot her?”

“Yes. Early this morning, down in the village of Lescun, two outlanders were seen. Their descriptions are those of the
Amérlo
from Texas I met here and that little Arab snot.”

“But how did they know where she was? Only our people knew that.”

“There is only one way. Someone must have informed.”

“One of
our
people?”

“I know. I know!” Le Cagot spoke between his teeth. “I have asked around. Sooner or later, I shall find out who it was. And when I do, by the Prophetic Balls of Joseph in Egypt, I swear that the blade of my
makila
will puncture his black heart!” Le Cagot was ashamed and furious that one of his own, a mountain Basque, had disgraced the race in this way. “What do you say, Niko? Shall we go get them, the
Amérlo
and the Arab?”

Hel shook his head. “By now they are on a plane bound for the United States. Their time will come.”

Le Cagot smashed his fists together, breaking the skin over a knuckle. “But
why,
Niko! Why kill such a morsel? What harm could she do, the poor muffin?”

“They wanted to prevent me from doing something. They thought they could erase my debt to the uncle by killing the niece.”

“They are mistaken, of course.”

“Of course.” Hel sat up straight as his mind began to function in a different timbre. “Will you help me, Beñat?”

“Will I help you? Does asparagus make your piss stink?”

“They have French Internal Security forces all over this part of the country with orders to put me away if I attempt to leave the area.”

“Bof! The only charm of the Security Force is its epic incompetence.”

“Still, they will be a nuisance. And they might get lucky. We’ll have to neutralize them. Do you remember Maurice de Lhandes?”

“The man they call the Gnome? Yes, of course.”

“I have to get in touch with him, I’ll need his help to get safely into Britain. We’ll go through the mountains tonight, into Spain to San Sebastian. I need a fishing boat to take me along the coast to St. Jean de Luz. Would you arrange that?”

“Would a cow lick Lot’s wife?”

“Day after tomorrow, I’ll be flying out from Biarritz to London. They’ll be watching the airports. But they’re spread thin, and that’s to our advantage. Starting about noon that day, I want reports leaked to the authorities that I have appeared in Oloron, Pau, Bayonne, Bilbao, Mauléon, St. Jean Pied de Port, Bordeaux, Ste. Engrace, and Dax—all at the same time. I want their crosscommunications confused, so that the report from Biarritz will be just one drop in a torrent of information. Can that be arranged?”

“Can it be arranged? Do… I can’t think of an old saying for it just now. Yes, it can be arranged. This is like the old days, eh?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You’re taking me with you, of course.”

“No. It’s not your kind of thing.”

“Holà! Don’t let the gray in my beard fool you. A boy lives inside this body! A very mean boy!”

“It’s not that. If this were breaking into a prison or blowing away a guardpost, there is no one I’d rather have with me. But this won’t be a matter of courage. It must be done by craft.”

As was his custom when in the open air, Le Cagot had turned aside and unbuttoned his trousers to relieve himself as he talked. “You don’t think I am capable of craft? I am subtlety itself! Like the chameleon, I blend with all backgrounds!”

Hel could not help smiling. This self-created folk myth standing before him, resplendent in rumpled
fin-de-siècle
evening clothes, the rhinestone buttons of his brocade waistcoat sparkling in the sun, his beret tugged low over his sunglasses, his rust-and-steel beard covering a silk cravat, the battered old
makila
under his arm as he held his penis in one hand and sprayed urine back and forth like a schoolboy—this man was laying claim to being subtle and inconspicuous.

“No, I don’t want you to come with me, Beñat. You can help most by making the arrangements I asked for.”

“And after that? What do I do while you are off amusing yourself? Pray and twiddle my thumbs?”

“I’ll tell you what. While I’m gone, you can press on with preparations for the exploration of your cave. Get the rest of the gear we need down into the hole. Wet suits. Air tanks. When I get back, we’ll take a shot at exploring it from light to light. How’s that?”

“It’s better than nothing. But not much.”

A serving girl came from the house to tell Hel that he was wanted in the château.

He found Hana standing with the telephone in the butler’s pantry, blocking the mouthpiece with her palm. “It is Mr. Diamond returning your call to the United States.”

Hel looked at the phone, then glanced down to the floor. “Tell him I’ll get back to him soon.”

They had finished supper in the
tatami
’d room, and now they were watching the evening permutations of shifting shadow through the garden. He had told her that he would be away for about a week.

“Does this have to do with Hannah?”

“Yes.” He saw no reason to tell her the girl was dead.

After a silence, she said, “When you get back, it will be close to the end of my stay with you.”

“I know. By then you’ll have to decide if you’re interested in continuing our life together.”

“I know.” She lowered her eyes and, for the first time he could remember, her cheeks colored with the hint of a blush. “Nikko? Would it be too silly for us to consider becoming married?”

“Married?”

“Never mind. Just a silly thought that wandered through my mind. I don’t believe I would want it anyway.” She had touched on the idea gingerly and had fled instantly from his first reaction.

For several minutes, he was deep in thought. “No, it’s not all that silly. If you decide to give me years of your life, then of course we should do something to assure your economic future. Let’s talk about it when I return.”

“I could never mention it again.”

“I realize that, Hana. But I could.”