Time’s Hostage
Brenda Kuchinsky
Copyright © 2016 Brenda Kuchinsky
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0997732601
ISBN 13: 9780997732603
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016911373
Brenda Kuchinsky, Boynton Beach, FL
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
William Faulkner
And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Every woman adores a fascist.
Sylvia Plath
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
CHAPTER 1
Sophia, an incessant muffled ringing and knocking burrowing into her consciousness, came to in the vichyssoise. She raised her head, her mahogany-red hair scattering bits of floury potato and leeks, her aquiline nose dripping, and her green eyes registering panic. She gasped raggedly for breath, drinking in air in greedy gulps like a diver surfacing after being submerged in the water too long.
“After ten years,” she muttered, exasperated. “Seizure free for ten years and they’re back,” she mumbled to herself, rushing to answer the kitchen door so that the infernal racket would cease.
“You saved my life,” she blurted out to the startled older man who stood at the door she had just flung open. He was petit and podgy with protuberant eyes, and he was nervously fingering a dog’s leash. “I was drowning in the soup. After such a long time, my seizures have returned to sabotage me. You woke me up with your annoying persistence,” she babbled. “I’m sorry. Let me pull myself together. What a way to go. Worse than drowning in your own vomit,” Sophia declared, shaky and unsettled, her heart still pitter-pattering. “Are you Peter Lorre? His son? A relative. You look just like him. The spitting image,” she said, reeling onto another tack.
Her head swimming, she was not fully present. The air was still redolent with the aroma of garlicky charred toast, as if her mother were toasting bread Polish shtetl style, holding the bread impaled upon a long fork over the open gas flames and then rubbing it with a clove of garlic before spreading it with butter.
“Who’s Peter Lorre?” the bewildered stranger asked.
This remark snapped her back to the present. “He was a wonderful character actor. Casablanca? The Maltese Falcon? He had a wacky voice, mellifluous and abrasive at the same time. Like crunchy honey. You even have the same voice. Weird.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
And at that moment, she noticed that he was not addressing her soup-speckled face but her breasts. Perhaps his height was to blame.
“Are you in the habit of answering the door naked?” he blurted out, continuing to stare helplessly at her generous breasts, toned by countless hours of yoga. They seemed to be saluting him, nipples erect, impossibly firm and full for a fifty-eight year old who hadn’t had surgery.
“Oh. Hang on,” she moaned, running for a robe. “Sorry,” she said as she returned, wrapping the terry robe tightly around herself.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” the puzzled Peter Lorre look-alike replied. “I came to your door because my darling Margarita, my min pin, got loose from her leash. I saw her scrabbling under your house and wanted to ask permission to search for her.
“Of course. Of course. Good luck. I would help if I weren’t so discombobulated.” He appeared to be frozen to the spot. Instead of shooing him off, she asked, “What’s a min pin?”
“A miniature pinscher,” he said, finally running off to search for his.
The jangling piano blues riff that was the signature tune of her husband, Bartholomew Royce, sounded on her cell phone as she was closing the door. Sophia dabbed at her face as she darted for the phone.
“I need you up here for critical advice, darling,” Barth said in his rich baritone voice, deepened by years of smoking. “And you know how good you are at being critical.”
“It’s just like you, Barth, to call rather than walking down the stairs. Indolence, extreme indolence. I think laziness makes you creative. You are constantly thinking up new ways to do less. I’m renaming shortcuts ‘Barthcuts.’” She ended on a note that combined petulance and pride.
“You’re not being fair. I’ve been working my ass off all morning, finishing my latest masterpiece. Anyway, I need your approval.”
While she continued to pat her face, she happened to spot her robed body in the full-length mirror opposite her. Unhappy at what she saw, she couldn’t resist one last gibe before shutting down the cell. “You can’t demand approval,” she jabbed.
“Oh, just come up here and stop criticizing,” he said.
“Wait, wait. I just had a seizure, and I’m drained. I came to in the vichyssoise. Peter Lorre saved me.”
“Have you lost your mind? Are you hallucinating? Peter Lorre is dead,” Barth said.
“Not Peter Lorre. A man who looked just like him was hammering away at the kitchen door. I didn’t realize I was naked when I came to and answered the door. He probably saved my life.”
“Don’t exaggerate, Sophia.”
“I’m not. And can you imagine? This man had never heard of Peter Lorre or The Maltese Falcon.”
“Not everyone is a film buff like you. Why were you naked? He saw you naked?” he asked incredulously.
“I was naked because I was puttering around in the kitchen bathroom after taking a shower because I was so hot from all the preparation for dinner tonight. It popped into my head that the vichyssoise might be bland, and I rushed out to taste it when all hell broke loose in my brain. Shit. I have to cancel dinner. I’ll be up after I call Amanda, Jack, and, of course, Lili,” she said, feeling her bone-deep weariness. She ended the call abruptly.
Even though she felt contacting her two friends and her daughter to cancel dinner on such short notice required her immediate attention, she stopped to sit down, remembering how friends and classmates had shunned her when she was diagnosed with epilepsy at age eighteen. Sophia managed to find strength in her newfound isolation. It was both a blessing and a curse. She felt it gave her a sixth sense at times, yet it set her apart.
That’s why I became a psychologist, she thought. It bestowed sensitivity on me.
Sophia called Amanda first, thinking that the woman was the most insensiti
ve psychologist she had ever worked with—Dr. Amanda Petersen, clinical psychologist, treating patients with herself always uppermost in her mind. Amanda would give her a hard time about the cancellation. She was hoping Amanda wouldn’t answer.
She answered immediately. Now came the walking on eggshells. The Amanda dance.
“Amanda, dear, it’s Sophia,” she said. “I have to cancel tonight’s dinner. I had a seizure, and I’m not feeling up to socializing. I’m so sorry.”
“But, Sophia, I was counting on it. I haven’t been out in ages. I haven’t seen Lili in the longest time. I’m here in the wine shop with Keith choosing a fabulous bottle for tonight. Can’t you pull yourself together? You’re used to these seizures. You weren’t diagnosed yesterday,” she said, sighing to emphasize her distress. She hadn’t taken a breath as the words poured out of her like a cascading waterfall.
“Now, Amanda, I just have to call it off.” Sophia was beginning to scan the room as if she were looking for an escape route from Amanda’s telephonic presence. “Don’t forget that we’ll see each other on Sunday at Barth’s gala. Bring Keith. You know your son is always welcome. I know you’ll make a stunning presence in your new gown.”
That was all the sycophantic chatter she could muster. It worked like a charm. Amanda backed off, and Sophia could feel fresh air returning to her nostrils. They ended the call on good terms.
Then she called Jack Ryan. She and Jack had the easiest, happiest, most satisfying friendship. He was thirteen years her junior, yet they had a perfect friendship fit.
Jack responded right away. “Hi, Sophia,” he said. “Is tonight off?”
“Yes, Jack.” He was the one person she had no reservations about seeing. Since his wife left him, they had become even closer. “I had a seizure, and I’m not up for entertaining.”
“Take care of yourself, Sophia. I will check in with you tomorrow,” he said, ending the call.
Now to tackle Lili, who would probably be relieved. Maybe she wouldn’t have shown up. Lili was an independent woman. She did what she liked.
“Lili, darling,” Sophia said the second Lili answered, “tonight is off. I had a weird seizure this afternoon. I’m going to relax and make an appointment with Dr. Clyde on Monday.”
“Are you all right, Ma?” Lili sounded concerned. “That Dr. Clyde is such a quack. Why don’t you find another neurologist? He is no Oliver Sacks. I am so glad I don’t have to put up with Keith, that pretentious sack of bullshit who takes after his insufferable mother. Where do you find these people? What a relief,” she wound down.
“I’m fine now. Just spent,” Sophia interjected before Lili could wind herself up again. “I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch at Van Dyke’s? Barth is going to try to make it.”
“Good. I can knock myself out and go to the Miami Beach Cinematheque to see Blue is the Warmest Color. I’m psyched, Ma. See you tomorrow at Van Dyke’s. All my love to Barth.”
CHAPTER 2
Barth stepped back from his painting, sweeping his overgrown golden hair from his forehead. His lanky frame, angular features, and elongated fingers created an aristocratic presentation that belied his humble roots.
The only offspring of an English father, an RAF pilot downed over Germany, and a German mother, who found herself falling for the man she was secretly nursing, Barth grew up in a bubble in Hamburg, where his parents’ marriage had been verboten until 1946. When Barth came along eleven years later, his parents were still nursing wounds.
Barth’s dark-chocolate eyes peered at his painting, annoyance vying with anticipation. He felt it had been hours since he had summoned Sophia. He was pacing.
Sophia, freshly showered once again and dressed only in the bright-red Chinese silk robe she had chosen over the toweling one, flounced into Barth’s study, stumbling over a few books strewn on the floor.
“Here I am. Sorry. I had to shower off the soup after my calls,” she said, competing with Loudon Wainwright’s velvet tenor wailing about love and loss.
She gazed out the large window, which was flanked by an articulated skeleton and a mannequin, to rest her eyes from the chaos in Barth’s studio. Art books, paints, canvasses, and several cameras all contended for space on the crowded floor.
The skeleton and mannequin always hooked her. The skeleton evoked death images etched into her brain by a book her parents left carelessly lying around, depicting Jews dead and dying in the Holocaust. The mannequin reminded her of her unwanted curves, desirable to many but anathema to her. She longed for an emaciated body. She looked away.
“You’re here now,” he said, turning off the music and getting her attention.
Slowly, allowing the suspense to build, Barth inched the concealing cloth down the length of his painting.
Barth and Sophia stood like two skittish thoroughbreds, haunches quivering, nostrils flaring, unsure whether to bolt to escape the threat in the air or to settle and face the danger.
She pulled at her left ear, an involuntary gesture when she was overwhelmed.
“Take your time. Take your time.” Barth put a cigarette to his lips and lit it in one swift movement.
Sophia continued to examine his work. She was flummoxed by the vision he had created. He had changed style radically.
He had used chiaroscuro, contrasting inky blacks with moonglow whites. It was as if Tim Burton and Rembrandt had met in the twilight zone to form an unholy alliance. The overall effect was like a film noir’s world of black and white.
Barth had begun pacing like a caged gibbon. He was smoking his cigarette with quick jerky movements.
“Here, sit down,” he said distractedly as he pushed a green suede upright chair up to her so that she plopped into it.
She continued to scrutinize the painting. The subject was a fleshy nude, her back to the viewer but with her bewildered face twisted forward, facing a mirror. In the mirror, the woman’s body had metamorphosed into a male’s body, muscles rippling under the taut skin.
Finally Sophia spoke, causing Barth to stop pacing and puffing as he looked at her.
“It’s beautiful, original—although I see the old masters and Art Deco in there—and uncanny. And here in South Beach, this gender-bender subject is near and dear to many hearts,” she said, pulling her robe tight. She took a deep breath before continuing. “What is going on, Barth? Who are you? Do I even know you? Where did this come from?”
“Hold on, hold on. Stop.” He put a hand to her mouth as he pulled her up and led her away from the painting. ”The main thing is that you love it.” He looked at her and rushed on before she could respond. “I don’t want your psychologist’s analysis, looking for hidden meanings, interpreting everything to death, leaving no stone unturned.”
“I told you it’s beautiful, stunning even. But you can’t change your style, your colors, and your subject matter and then expect me not to question it. What happened to your sunny tropical colors, your gorgeous women, the natural backgrounds humming with life? Butterflies, birds, flowers…” She trailed off. Then she gathered steam and continued like a runaway locomotive, “Are you not telling me something? Have you been diagnosed with a terminal illness? ”
“The only diagnosis is yours—terminal anxiety and paranoia, always thinking the worst, death and destruction. The end is near. The sky is falling.”
He stubbed out his cigarette, jabbing it into the ashtray. “I’m changing direction. I’m bored. I need a new focus. Let’s go out into the garden. To the gazebo. Enjoy the evening. Drink some champagne,” he said.
“Great idea. It’s December. It’s marvelous outside. I don’t know if alcohol is such a good idea, though, after my afternoon in the soup.”
“Nonsense.” Barth took charge. “Champagne is not alcohol. It’s good for you. And you can tell me all about the seizure. I’ll meet you at the back door in five minutes. Don’t keep me waiting, darling,” he said, already halfway out the door, ready to change the mood.
CHAPTER 3
Sophia
and Barth walked into the twilit garden. Sophia loved dawn and dusk. The moments of transformation. The interstices of time.
They walked in companionable silence, he carrying the two bottles of Moët, she carrying the champagne flutes. He topped her by six inches, a tall, angular figure contrasting with her voluptuousness.
“We should come out here more often. It’s perfect,” she said as they reached the gazebo.
“Here’s to your beauty,” Barth said after he poured the champagne and they were clinking glasses.
“Here’s to your genius” was Sophia’s classic rejoinder. This was the standard toast Barth had taught her. He liked predictability too. The clichéd toast comforted him.
As the dying light gave way to darkness, they sat sipping their bubbly, taking in the perfumed air, the lush greenery, and the downy doves foraging for stray seeds beneath the feeder before tucking themselves into their feathery beds.
Sophia broke their silence by apologizing. “I didn’t mean to overreact to your painting. I do think it’s wonderful. You just threw me. The sudden change.”
Sophia was thinking about Morton, her first husband, a painter and a habitual cheater. He was always changing things up, running off at the most inconvenient times, screwing his models, doing whatever he pleased.
Once, when she caught him with a model, he quoted Diego Rivera, that womanizing painter. Hands on hips, irritated, he tossed off, “Why Sophia. It’s just like shaking hands.”
Change made her paranoid. She expected the worst. To be the victim again. Barth had never given her cause to suspect him of womanizing. He was charming, and women loved his tall grace, but he never overstepped his boundaries.
“Now that we’re both in sync,” Barth began, a warm breeze ruffling his hair as he picked up his glass, “tell me about your seizure. I’ve been selfish again, thinking only about my painting.” He looked out into the darkness and sighed.
“You have been a little self-absorbed. But I don’t mind.” She shivered, chilled just thinking about the afternoon. “Let’s talk about your painting,” she said, dodging the subject of her seizure.
Time's Hostage: The dangers of love, loss, and lus (Time Series Book 1) Page 1
