Sam was off in one corner of the main salon, huddled with two or three of the other power players in the real estate game, no doubt hammering out the plans for another office tower, shopping center, or New Jersey mall. She waved three fingers at him as she passed by, but he didn’t even seem to notice her.
Other men, she was pleased to see, still did.
She was wearing a scarlet chiffon, off-the-shoulder Thierry Mugler, bare in the back, slit up the side, with her hair drawn up in a tight chignon offset by a diamond-and-ruby clasp shaped like a rainbow. The mayor himself had lingered longer than necessary when kissing her hello, and Kimberly had seen a wary look cross his “campaign treasurer’s” face. Don’t worry, Kimberly thought, I’ve got bigger fish than this to fry tonight.
The next time she checked, he was standing in the foyer, handing his long black cashmere coat to the attendant. He was wearing a dark suit again, and his eyes were again concealed behind the round glasses, with amber-colored lenses. He turned his head, with his chin raised, like a blind man trying to sense his surroundings, as Kimberly went to greet him.
“I’m so glad you could make it, Mr. Arius,” she said, offering her hand and cheek.
“Thank you. For inviting me,” he said, taking her hand, but remaining otherwise aloof. “I am happy to be here.”
What was it, she thought, that was so strange, and so strangely alluring, about this man? The way he spoke, in those odd cadences, as if English were something he’d only learned in school; the way he kept his eyes concealed; the way his hand felt—as cool and as smooth as glass—when taking her own? (And had she noticed something odd about one of his fingers?) He even had his own faint aroma, unlike any aftershave or cologne she could identify; it seemed instead to be somehow organic, something that emanated from his very skin, and hair, and breath.
“Let’s go inside,” she said, “and I’ll introduce you to some of the other guests.” She slipped her arm through his and led him into the next room, feeling as if she were escorting a movie star. The other guests reacted as if she were, too, parting to make way for them, stopping midconversation, wondering out loud, “Who is that man Kimberly’s with?” Arius himself seemed unaffected by it all. If introduced to someone, he was polite; if not, he was silent. Either way, he said very little. His answers were courteous but brief, and always somewhat vague or evasive. After listening to him field half a dozen inquiries, Kimberly felt that she knew no more about where he was from, what he did for a living, or where he was staying in New York than she had when he arrived. Even Sam couldn’t get more than a few words out of him, and Kimberly knew perfectly well what his take would be on him. Longish white-blond hair, arty glasses, the fact that he’d been first introduced to his wife by the flamboyant Richard Raleigh? Sam would lump him in with her hairdresser, her decorator, her antiques advisor, and all her other gay friends. And as far as Kimberly was concerned, that couldn’t be better.
Unless, heaven forbid, it turned out to be true.
As for that little shit Ezra, he’d made his obligatory appearance, and even, so far as Kimberly knew, thanked the mayor for his help in getting him out of jail after that UN park fiasco. He was nowhere to be seen now, and unless Kimberly missed her bet, he was back in his room pursuing whatever pointless exercise he called his “research.”
The caterers seemed to have everything else under control—the drinks were flowing, trays of canapés and appetizers were being passed everywhere, a lavish buffet had been spread out in the dining room, and every time she passed the foyer the elevator doors were opening and admitting another half a dozen guests. She’d even bagged Katie Couric for about a half hour—and that, she was sure, was bound to get the party some media attention the next day.
The only person who didn’t appear to be having a very good time was her mysterious Mr. Arius. Reluctant as she was to let go of him at all, she did have duties to perform, so she’d had no choice but to set him adrift. Whenever she spotted him, he was off by himself, holding a champagne glass that seemed always to remain full, strolling alone on the terraces, or coming inside to study a painting or sculpture with deep interest. Maybe he really was some kind of serious art collector with a vast château in the south of France, filled from floor to ceiling with famous paintings and beautiful statues. On a sudden impulse, seeing him inspect a nothing-much little oil that Sam’s first wife had bought, she glided over to him and said, “You really are the art connoisseur, aren’t you?”
“I appreciate beauty,” he said, slowly, “in all things.”
Was that some subtle encouragement she’d just heard? “Then let me show you something that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.”
She turned to go, but he remained in place. “Follow me,” she told him, crooking her finger. “I won’t bite.”
As discreetly as she could, she ushered him down the hall, and then swiftly around the corner to her bedroom door. There she stopped and said, “Now this is for your eyes only. Even my husband doesn’t know that I bought it yet, so I’m trusting you with my life.” She laughed gaily, but he only smiled politely in return.
As soon as he’d followed her in, she closed the door behind her—and locked it, to her own surprise. What did she think was going to happen? In the middle of her own party yet?
She led the way across the vast master bedroom, past the huge canopied bed, the Louis XVI armoire, the Scalamandre armchairs, and into her own completely private realm—her wardrobe closet and bath. The dimensions of her dressing area, she often reminded herself, were exactly the same as the first apartment she’d lived in when she came to New York—and even then she’d had to share the space with a roommate.
This had once been a kind of sewing room for Sam’s first wife, but Kimberly had persuaded her husband that she needed her own area to keep her clothes, to do her toilette, to be by herself while she dressed and made herself beautiful for him. As a result everything had been torn out, and all this—mirrored walls and marble counters in the bathroom, track lighting and built-in cedar racks in the dressing room—had been installed. But it was Kimberly’s decision alone to acquire the gorgeous little Degas, of a woman emerging from her bath, for the spot beside her makeup table. “The owners were going to put it up for auction at Sotheby’s,” she confided, “but Richard Raleigh, the sweetheart, was able to persuade them to sell it to me directly instead,” she said.
She stopped beside it, turned toward Arius, and raised an open palm. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you anything about what you’re looking at. In fact, you can probably tell me a few things!” Calm down, she told herself, you’re sounding like a schoolgirl.
Arius had never seen a work like this, but when he did look, he instantly absorbed and inventoried everything about it. The arts, after all, were one of the many gifts that he and his kind had bestowed, so it was a delight to see the countless cunning ways in which they had since been used. This particular painting before him now, apparently a Degas, was a very fine and expressive example. He was learning something every second, even if it was only the name of an artist, a word, or the meaning of a look, and his thirst for more was unquenchable.
The look he saw on Kimberly’s face right now, for instance . . . that was a look whose meaning he already knew. Perhaps she was unaware of the fact that, even as he pretended to study the painting, his eyes, behind the tinted glasses, were devouring her reflection in the neighboring mirror. She was looking at him, and he could see in her eyes that she was curious, attracted, afraid—all things that she had every right to be.
Long ago, during his vigil, he had seen that look often . . . and he had resisted its summons. For a time.
And after?
He had endured solitude beyond imagining, a cold and barren night without end . . . a night that, until now, had never fully lifted.
He turned away from the painting, and looked at her, wordlessly. Was this, then, how it would begin?
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, a nervous flutter in her
voice.
“Yes.”
“I had to have it.”
Though his eyes were still hidden behind the amber lenses, he knew that she could feel the intensity and penetration of his gaze. She stepped back, a little unsteadily.
“Maybe we should get back.”
He didn’t answer.
“To the party.” But she didn’t try to move past him. She stayed rooted to the spot, her bare back reflected in the mirrored wall behind the vanity table.
“Yes,” he said.
But the way he said it, Kimberly wasn’t sure what he meant. Yes, they should go back to the party? Or yes . . . something else?
She found herself thinking, nonsensically, about his aroma. It had seemed so subtle when she first met him, so delicate, but now it seemed to be so much more powerful . . . overwhelming.
“May I,” she said, putting one hand on the vanity table to steady herself, “ask you a favor?”
He nodded.
“May I ask you to take off your glasses?”
“Why?”
“I’ve never seen your eyes. I need to see your eyes.”
He smiled. Of course she did.
She laughed, mirthlessly. “I’m still not sure how smart this will be, but I do want to do it. I feel like I don’t even know who you are yet.”
So, this would indeed be the way it would start.
He came closer, bending his head above her like a great, golden bird of prey, and took his glasses off . . . and in her eyes he saw the surprise, the fear . . . the mute incomprehension.
His hands went to her shoulders and her skin was hot; he could feel the blood pounding just below the surface. He slipped the crimson dress, as light as a butterfly’s wing, down her body, down to the floor. He undid the diamond clasp and let her hair cascade down to her naked shoulders. He bent low and pressed his own cold lips to hers, her throat, scented with hyacinth, arching upward.
He shrugged his suit coat from his shoulders, and then with one hand unfastened his collar and the buttons below. He sucked the hot breath from her body as her hands fumbled blindly at his belt and trousers.
In his head he heard the whistling of wind, the crack of lightning. He saw a rain of fire, like arrows of flame, howling down through a limitless black expanse of sky.
Kimberly slipped backward against the edge of the vanity; bottles of perfume fell tinkling onto their sides, while others tumbled and spilled onto the thickly carpeted floor. She heard only the rushing of her own blood, she smelled only a summer garden after the rain, she saw only his eyes, drawing her in, as if into a secret pool of honeyed light. Her arms went up to him, to his smooth, his flawless skin . . . but what she felt was ice. Hard and cold as the diamond clasp that lay on the floor. And when his hands went to her breasts, she shivered at their touch.
“Arius . . .” she breathed, bewildered, “you aren’t even a . . .”
No, he whispered into her reeling mind, I am not.
And then he took her, like a hawk swooping in for the kill. She felt herself carried helplessly into the widening pool of his eyes, into the verdant aroma of rain-washed leaves. Light, too bright to behold, was flooding the room, like a star exploding . . . exploding all around her, exploding inside her.
Oh dear God . . . she thought with dread, as the light embraced, enveloped, and then overwhelmed her . . . Oh dear God, what have I done?
PART THREE
TWENTY-SEVEN
Even though the fire department had cut off all the electric lines to that part of the building, there was still enough light in the makeshift lab for Carter to grope his way around. But there was far more wreckage, more broken equipment and twisted blocks of metal, than he could understand. He didn’t remember this much stuff ever having been in here in the first place, so where had it all come from now?
In the dead center of the room, where the fossil had been entombed in its slab of stone, the depression in the floor was deeper than he remembered it, too. He walked to the lip of the crater, and looking down, he was reminded of the Well of Bones, the pit he’d descended into in Sicily. Like the Well, this, too, had walls of rock and earth, and it smelled of ancient dust and mortal decay. But there was something that he hadn’t seen before, something small and glistening, at the bottom of the hole, and he squatted down to get a better look.
It was about a foot long, dark but polished, the way a walking stick might be. But he still couldn’t quite make it out. Carter put his hand down to balance himself, then slid down into the pit. It was farther than he thought, and his fingers scrabbled at the dirt walls as he went down. He landed on the ankle he’d once injured playing basketball, and he winced. Shit, he thought, that’s all I need. He looked around the dirt at his feet, scorched black from the fire, and saw the glistening object again. He bent down and picked it up, and when he straightened up again, he was pleasantly surprised to see that he wasn’t in a pit at all anymore. He was in his boyhood bedroom, outside Chicago, the one where he’d recuperated from the mumps.
So that was it! This wasn’t real—it was a dream. It just didn’t feel like a dream, any more than the object in his hand felt like a figment of his imagination.
But the bedroom was exactly as he remembered it. The trophy he’d won in the Westinghouse science contest sat atop the battered dresser. The poster from Raiders of the Lost Ark adorned the closet door. And in the old armchair, under the eaves, a woman was reading to a little child.
Now he knew it had to be a dream. He’d never once taken a girl up there, much less one with a toddler.
But when he went closer, the woman, while still reciting from the book, looked up at him, smiling. It was Beth. But whose child was this, then? Was it his? He thought that was supposed to be impossible. But maybe it wasn’t, maybe the doctors were wrong! He was suddenly so happy, and so relieved.
“Is he . . . ours?” Carter asked, of the little boy whose blond head nestled in the crook of Beth’s arm.
But she didn’t answer; instead, she just kept reading from the book, which, to his astonishment, he now saw was Virgil’s Aeneid—the very copy he’d read at Princeton. Since when was that a bedtime story?
“There was a wide-mouthed cavern,” she read aloud, in a soft singsong, “deep and vast and rugged . . .”
Carter bent closer, to see his son.
“. . . sheltered by a shadowed lake and darkened groves . . .”
His hair was blond, almost white, and hung in delicate tendrils.
“. . . such vapor poured from those black jaws to heaven’s vault . . .”
But when he raised his sleepy head, all Carter could see, where his eyes should have been—
“. . . no bird could fly above unharmed . . .”
—were two gaping holes, burned like hollows into his head, and blazing with fire.
Carter choked and bolted upright in the bed, his heart pounding so hard he felt as if it would burst from his chest. His body was cold and covered with sweat.
“What’s wrong?” Beth said, frightened.
He swallowed hard, and shivered.
Beth sat up, in her favorite leopard-print pajamas. “Are you okay?” she said, pulling the blanket around his shoulders.
“I’m okay,” he gasped.
“You had a nightmare?”
“The worst ever.”
She blew out a breath. “It must have been.”
He shivered again, and drew the blanket closer.
“Want to tell me about it?”
He shook his head. “I’d rather forget about it.”
She rubbed his back, soothingly. “Maybe that’s a better idea.” In the faint blue light from the digital alarm clock, she saw something in his hand. “What’s that you’re holding onto?”
He didn’t know what she was talking about.
“In your hand—you’re clutching something.”
Carter looked down, and saw now that he was indeed gripping something in one hand. He opened his palm, and let it fall on the blanket.
“It’s a crucifix,” Beth said, puzzled. “Where did that come from?”
“It’s Joe’s.”
“Why are you holding onto it?”
Carter didn’t know. He didn’t even know where he’d found it.
“If it’s Joe’s, he might want it,” Beth said. “Maybe we should bring it to him in the hospital.”
Carter looked at it in amazement. “Yes. I will,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
After all that, Carter knew there was no chance of falling back asleep. He put on a robe over his T-shirt and boxer shorts, slipped on his rubber thongs, and went to the kitchen. His throat felt sore, maybe from the labored breathing, and he took a beer out of the fridge. A cold one might soothe his throat . . . and take the edge off things a bit.
But man, what a nightmare that had been. In his entire life, he’d never had one as bad as that—or as real. Where had it come from? And why—even if it had been only a dream—was Beth reading the Aeneid, of all things? True, he’d studied it in college, and even written a couple of papers on it, but he hadn’t thought about it in years. In fact, he wasn’t even sure, now that it had come up, where his annotated copy was anymore.
He went into the living room and, while sipping his beer, scanned the rows and rows of books that lined the cinder-block shelves. Most of Beth’s books—oversized art history texts—were arranged on the lower shelves, and most of his, which ranged from The Origin of Species to ornithological field guides, were arrayed on the top. But when he and Beth had gotten together, they’d quickly realized that there would never be room enough for all of their books in one place, so a lot of them had wound up stored in boxes. Boxes now stacked in the basement of the building.
One of them, he figured, held his old copy of the Aeneid. In the morning, he’d go looking for it.
Out of idle curiosity, he picked up one of Beth’s books on Renaissance art and took it to his wingback chair. He leafed through it, glancing at the curious mix of biblical and mythological themes, sipping his beer. But his thoughts kept returning to the Aeneid, to the lines he dimly remembered—and was already starting to forget—from his dream. Something about a shadowed lake, and poisonous air rising up from it. He wondered if he was actually remembering the lines with any accuracy. Had the poetry sunk in that effectively during his undergraduate years? Or was he way off base? He wondered again where that copy of the book had gone. He wanted to see it, and for some reason he wanted to see it now.
Vigil Page 24
