“What now?” he thought. “Leave me alone, will you?” But said nothing and turned his back to her.
“Perhaps he’s seasick, or just an oddball.” Marcus whispered.
“Nigel did mention that he was a bit paranoid,” Nico added.
Undaunted, Pauline came back with razor and scissors, handing both over to Leo. He could not be bothered.
“If you like …” she began, then exchanged a glance with Sophie.
“To hell with it,” Leo thought, and relented.
A turquoise towel wrapped around his neck, Sophie first cut Leo’s beard and mustaches with the scissors as closely to the skin as she could. The yacht rocked a little, so there were a few close calls, followed by a “oops!” Both women were atwitter, chirping and giggling as they groomed him. Just then, the coastguards were looking through their binoculars at the many yachts and boats plying the waters, deciding which to pick for an inspection. Leo caught sight of them in the distance, but there was nothing he could do.
Oblivious to the spying eyes, Pauline claimed the honor of performing the “surgery.” Sophie lathered Leo’s cheeks and part of his neck for what seemed to him an eternity. He smelled distinctly of lavender, the soap he had used, and sandalwood, the lather. Pauline bowed and began to shave him.
The coastguards kept observing them. The Englishmen were enjoying every second of it.
The high-powered boat began to move their way, picking up speed.
“Here they come, look out!” said Marcus.
Leo looked at it with the corner of his eye, and his heart sank. As the boat got nearer, he said to himself, “Fuck it, I’ll go to jail, I don’t care.”
Pauline kept shaving him, oblivious to it all.
The coastguards’ boat suddenly decreased its speed. Leo looked at it directly, no longer afraid or even worried. It began to turn, in the direction of a rickety fishing boat.
“Who knows?” thought Leo, who could not believe his eyes, “maybe by zooming in on two beautiful women shaving a colorfully dressed dandy, the coastguards have dismissed the rich and idle, and focused instead on some potential smugglers.”
“We did it!” Marcus said twenty minutes later, triumphantly. “Look over there, that’s Cap d’Ail; we’re in French territorial waters.”
“Like that,” thought Leo, “no customs, no immigration, no passports checked. Child’s play.”
Pauline was giving her last touches to Leo’s shave. She was so close to him that he could have counted her every freckle. He stared into her big brown eyes, and smelled not only her perfume, but her breath too. The situation presented such a contrast with what he had gone through during the last several weeks that he finally closed his eyes. Pauline took it as a cue. “Voilà, handsome!” she exclaimed, and leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the lips.
He did not stir; as soon as she moved away from him, he got up.
“Is there something to eat?” Leo asked. “Bread would do.”
“We’ll be grabbing a bite soon,” Nicky replied, feeling uncomfortable in the presence of this sullen stranger. Something about him reminded him of an intractable, untamed beast.
“You must forgive us; Englishmen always remain schoolboys,” explained Teddy after they had anchored for a snack—fresh French bread, cheese and olives. “They’re always trying to outwit the masters.”
Leo did not comment; he was devouring the bread, barely registering what they were saying. He felt so tired that he had to struggle to keep his eyes open, yet he was anxious to see Orsina. He had been anticipating this moment for fourteen days and nights, and he knew that it was now close.
Shortly after eight in the evening, Antibes witnessed the arrival of Lusimus, and the putting ashore of Leo. He kept his old leather jacket and battered backpack.
“A plastic bag would be better than that thing,” sniffed Nico. “What do you want it for? Wow, it’s heavy. There must be—let me feel—I’d guess a family bible and a two-foot spanner inside it. And I thought that hippies traveled light.”
“I’ll dump the wrench,” said Leo, extracting the oversize tool without explanation and tossing it overboard, “but I’ll keep the family bible. I promised my old mother it would never leave my side.”
“Oh,” said Nico, not quite sure if this was a joke. Sophie smiled on as Pauline giggled.
Orsina, he was told, had asked to be phoned as soon as the Lusimus was an hour from Antibes. Leo was standing in the bows and saw her from afar: an unmistakable figure under a lamppost—or was it her aura that he sensed, before he even caught sight of her?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Leo thanked the maid and closed the door of the guest room assigned to him. Like everything in Nigel’s Provençal farmhouse, it was impeccably furnished with well-buffed antiques and every modern comfort. Farmhouse it may have been once upon a time, with its peasants working the vineyards and olive groves as far as the distant forests to the north, but “château” would not have been an overstatement.
Leo looked longingly at the bed, on which he could happily have flopped and slept for a night and a day. But it was not to be. Nigel had contrived to combine the perfect haven for an exhausted guest with the most unwelcome treat: a party. Leo reluctantly opened the towering armoire to drop off his precious backpack, and found hanging there a blue suit, shirt, socks, black shoes, tie – even underwear, with a card pinned to the lapel of the jacket. “Look your best tonight. O.”
He took off the outfit that Marcus had given him on the boat and put on the more understated garb. As he checked the result in the mirror, he wondered whether, when he got home, he shouldn’t dump his worn professorial wardrobe and make a habit of elegance. Then he thought of his students sniggering behind his back if he started showing up in Dolce & Gabbana, and laughed at his own conceit.
Downstairs the guests were thronging the entrance hall, talking at the tops of their voices. He could see Nigel chatting with Teddy, Marcus, Nico, and their wives in a cluster around the champagne buffet. Then he saw Orsina, conspicuous in a short black dress.
As their eyes met, he knew that she was an internal exile in her own home, wanting nothing so much as to be rid of this forced jollity. She crossed the hall to join him.
“I missed you, Leo.”
“I missed you too, Orsina. You’re looking well.”
“I’ve put you next to me at the table. I think we’ll survive it.”
“I actually look forward to the food.”
“We’ve both lost a lot of weight.”
“True. This beautiful suit has a little room for growth; and thank you for thinking of it.” He wanted to end the sentence with amore mio, my love. It came so naturally to him, but he restrained himself.
“I’ve been thinking about little else for two weeks.” She turned away, on the brink of tears, then bravely added: “I don’t mean the suit, that was an impulse-buy, yesterday afternoon in Nice.”
“You even knew my shoe size. How do you do it?”
“Women notice things. I think … it’s time to go in to dinner.”
The table was set for twenty-four, and the dinner was a gourmand’s feast of fruits de mer. Huge platters of crushed ice punctuated the table, each supporting a mountain of crabs, crayfish, prawns, oysters, whelks, mussels, and whole coquilles Saint-Jacques with their brilliant orange roe. The champagne continued to flow, until the diners sat back in their chairs contemplating the empty and shattered shells like victors of some undersea battle. Nigel chose the moment to say a few words.
“Dear friends, it’s been my pleasure to host the annual ‘Fuck the Frontiers’ feast. As you all know by now, this year’s winners are the crew of the good ship Lusimus. So here’s to my dear friends Teddy, Nicky, Nico, Marcus, not forgetting their wives Sophie and Pauline, who I’m sure did most of the hard work.”
The French wives looked at each other and smiled.
“But there is much more to celebrate,” Nigel went on. “Since we were last together, Orsina and I hav
e been through hell and back.” He paused for a moment, the mood of the room becoming suddenly somber. “I’m sure you’ve read the newspapers. You may or may not believe what you’ve read there. Some of it’s true, some is just journalism of the worst sort. The one thing you won’t have read about is the part that Leo Kavenaugh has played in all this. Leo, come here!”
Leo wasn’t expecting this; he reluctantly came to Nigel’s side.
Nigel held out his hand, then awkardly embraced him. There was uncertain applause. “Leo, I want to thank you for saving Orsina’s life, nothing matters more. And then, for saving me from a lifetime of remorse, should something—” his voice breaking with emotion, “have happened to Orsina. That’s all.”
The conversation was muted for a while, and by the time the party spirit had revived, Leo had already crept away.
Returning from the toilet, he took a wrong turn and entered a small library with an irresistible sofa. He sat down on it, then lay down, and fell instantly asleep.
Orsina left the party soon after, stepped into her study, and found Leo there. She pulled a blanket over him, kissed him on his forehead, and there he slept untroubled.
****
Leo woke around ten, and felt embarrassed when he remembered where he had spent the night. He hurried up to his own room, and first of all checked that the Forbidden Book was still where he had put it. It was. He then showered, and put on the informal outfit topped with his old leather jacket.
In his guestroom he found a small refrigerator with all he needed for a simple breakfast. After the last two weeks, every little luxury seemed like heaven. Looking out of the window, he did seem to have come home to Paradise. Two gardeners were at work on the laurel hedges. Beyond these stretched a long field dotted with a flock of black sheep. Orsina, he thought, where was she?
Leo went downstairs, through the echoing hall, and down into the graveled courtyard before the house. On the north side was a long, low block, in the same brick and stone style as the main building, with squat slate-roofed towers at each end. The wide doorways indicated that this was a stable or coach-house. Peering through the windows, he saw Nigel’s famous collection of vintage sports cars.
Rounding the corner, he wove his way between the laurel hedges and looked back at the perfect building. While this place bore the stamp of Nigel, it also carried the perfume of Orsina’s presence; surely it was she who had planned the gardens.
As this thought occurred to him, he saw a ground-floor window push open, and there she was, waving to him. She looked gorgeous in her simple floral dress. He hurried back to the house and looked up at the window.
“Good morning,” she said, and smiled.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep in your study; you should have woken me up,” he began.
“It’s a comfortable place,” she replied. “I’ve often read myself to sleep on that sofa. Do you feel better now?”
“I feel reborn,” he said. Then, after a pause, “This place is so beautiful. Are the black sheep yours?”
“No, they belong to a farmer. He uses our grounds.”
“Are the other guests staying in the house?”
“No, they’ve all left. Nigel’s still sleeping it off.”
“Orsina, there’s something very important I’ve got for you. Do you mind if I go and get it?”
“Of course not. I can’t think what it could be—you arrived with almost nothing; but come down here, to my morning room.”
As he mounted the stairs two at a time, Leo thought of all the things he might have said better, just now and also the night before.
Orsina’s morning room had a single window facing east over the park. She sat on a sofa to one side of the mantelpiece; Leo in a chintz-covered wingchair opposite her. Without a word he opened his backpack and handed her the Forbidden Book. Then, as she appeared too stunned to speak, he started to tell her all that he had done since returning to Venice.
There was no tactful way of revealing how Angela had died, but he felt that her sister must know. He told Orsina what he had seen in his vaticination. At this, she began to weep uncontrollably. Leo left his chair to join her on the sofa, embracing her tenderly. When she had calmed down, he went on:
“After I left you at the train station, knowing that the police were looking for me, I wasn’t able to move around freely. I knew that eventually I’d have to get out of Italy, God knows how. But I had two weeks for my mission: to make sure that your uncle was neutralized. I’d seen what he had done, and I’d learned about his powers over people. I knew that with Angela gone, he’d soon be after you. Yes. His sort of magic required a companion of the same blood. Incest, in fact.”
Orsina’s memories of her captivity came back to her, and she suppressed a shudder.
“No human justice,” Leo resumed, “would ever understand what your uncle was about, and it looked as though they’d never even suspect him. He’d literally got away with murder. But I’d taken an oath to protect you, and as long as he was at large, you were in mortal danger.”
She said nothing, and eventually gestured to continue.
“Your uncle couldn’t trust you anymore because of the Book. He knew that you’re gifted in a way that he isn’t, and he himself urged you to study it. Before all this happened, he’d given you the clue to the Cave of Mercury, knowing that it would eventually lead you to the secret shrine. Obviously he had you marked out as his occult successor, but after Angela’s death all that went wrong for him.
“The more gifted you were, the more likely you were to discover the first fruit of the Tree of Life, vaticination. And then the past would be opened up to you. He couldn’t let that happen, so first he stole your book. But he couldn’t be sure that you hadn’t already internalized it. He must’ve been consumed by worrying about that. And he also needed you desperately to aid him in his magic.”
By now, Orsina had settled herself with her head on Leo’s lap, her eyes closed. “What did you do?” she asked, without opening them.
He held her closely, and answered: “From Milan, I took the bus to Verona and hiked out to the forest, the one around the hunting lodge. I stayed in the woods in an abandoned woodshed for two days and a night, watching for him to come or go. I went back to the city once a day to eat and check the newspapers.
“L’Arena carried the story that the Baron had suffered a stroke in his own home. Ironically, I’d missed this completely—that day I was roaming the grounds looking for a way around the security guards. The next day, all the major papers reported the story in detail. Inspector Ghedina, pursuing a lead on the Riviera murder case, had discovered him in his hunting lodge, just in time to save his life. They said he’d been hospitalized in Verona’s main hospital, in critical condition.”
“I know. And then?”
“By this time I mistrusted everything. A man who can stage a kidnapping as he did might equally stage a stroke. He’d already put on a whole repertory of suitable reactions to Angela’s death, hadn’t he?
“So I went to the hospital. I was looking pretty seedy by that time, but I introduced myself with an appropriate accent as the under-gardener at the Villa Riviera. I went on about how the Baron had been like a father to me, and a nurse brought me in to see him.
“He was conscious, and for all the nurse could tell, he recognized his devoted gardener, because he tried to raise one hand. Half of his face was paralyzed, and he couldn’t get out anything but grunts. I could tell that it made him furiously angry, but the nurse said ‘that’s all he can say to anyone now.’
“They were feeding him intravenously, and while she was fussing with the apparatus I chatted her up, told her how good he’d been to my mother and so on. Then I asked if there was any hope for his recovery. She shouldn’t have, but she told me confidentially that the doctors had examined his test results that morning, and that his heart was in poor shape. ‘But one never knows: there’s always hope for a miracle, and I’ve seen a number of them in my life,’ she said. Somebody called
her then from the hallway: some sort of emergency with another patient.
“I couldn’t believe I was standing there, alone, with the monster. As I bent over him, it came to me how easy it would be to kill him right then and there, using his own method against him. He looked as though he knew what I was thinking. Then I said clearly into his ear: ‘I have seen you meet the god Mithras, and I have seen you kill Angela.’ Leo paused.
“And then what happened?”
“Eventually, I heard footsteps in the hallway. The nurse was coming back. I bowed down as if to kiss him, then got up. ‘He’s fallen asleep,’ I said, and the nurse replied, ‘Good, he needs all the rest he can get.’ I thanked her and left. That was all.”
“They tell me that he died peacefully that afternoon.”
Leo looked away for a moment, then added: “Finally, thanks to your husband, I got here safely.”
Orsina let it all sink in. At length, she pulled his arms more tightly around her.
How was she coping with what she had gone through? He did not dare ask.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she put in. “What can I say? I’m happy to be alive.” She breathed deeply, and rephrased. “I must be happy to be alive. I must stop thinking that he could have taken my life instead of Angela’s, and maybe should have. I should have known what was going on. I had the means to do so. I should have met him on his own magical ground. If I’d been studying The Magical World since my wedding, I could have destroyed him. Instead, I was playing the chatelaine.
“I still can’t believe that monster could violate Angela, God knows for how long. And then me, too.” She looked him in the eye: “Yes, Leo, he tried to …” She was on the brink of tears, again. Must she really do this to herself, wondered Leo? What for?
She regained control of herself, and explained. “I was kept sedated most of the time, and always in the dark. Once, I was only half conscious, I heard Uncle’s voice. He was whispering absurdly sweet words in my ear. Then he began to touch me, to fondle me. I could hear him panting, and feel his weight over my body. I could smell his breath, feel his sweat on my face. His hands were under my nightdress, Leo.”
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