by Ruth Wind
* * *
As we settled into the plane, the cabin was dimmed for takeoff, and Paul closed his eyes. I looked out the window, but it was the past I saw. Felt.
When I was seventeen, Paul had stayed with me for three days, cheering me up with little jokes and plenty of cheese and fruit and wine, which he'd never withheld and now said I was old enough to gauge if I wanted a second glass. I did, but not a third.
The last afternoon, we packed a picnic. Patches of heather were still black on the hills, but spreads of gorse were beginning to bloom, and here and there were scatters of daffodils, dizzyingly yellow against the dun and green of the land. On the top of a cliff, we spread out the picnic on a cloth and ate bacon rolls and potato scones, which made me think of my mother.
"Sometimes, I really miss her a lot," I said, gazing toward the water, blue against the rocks far below. "It doesn't seem fair, does it, that she got killed like that?"
"No, it does not."
I looked at him. Directly, I asked a question I'd held for a long time to myself. "Did you love her?"
"Of course I did."
"I mean love her, love her."
He met my gaze. "No. We were fine friends, but no more than that. She loved your father."
I jumped up, moving toward the edge of the land. The wind was blowing, and it made my eyes water, or so I told myself. I turned to find I was too close to the edge of a section of crumbling rock. A bit heaved, rumbled, something under my feet, and I screeched and leaped toward solid ground.
And as always, there was Paul, grabbing my hand, pulling me to safety. We tumbled to our knees, and I fell against his chest.
My heart pounded in reaction, and I lifted my head. "I'm sorry. That was stupid."
"It was," he agreed thunderously, gripping my hand too tightly. "You must stop being so heedless."
I don't know what made me do it. Maybe it was the daffodils, so yellow against the sky, or the feeling of his hand, or something hot and dangerous in his eye. I moved over him and put my hands on his face. I honestly do not think he had any idea what I was going to do until I did it.
Until I bent my head to his and kissed him.
I had been waiting all my life for that kiss, and the instant my lips touched his, it was as if the sky itself exploded, or maybe it was just me. His mouth was just…exactly right. His lips fit mine perfectly, and at first, that's all it was, just our lips touching, me draped halfway across him, his strong chest against my breasts, his cheeks in my hands.
"Sylvie!" He lifted me away from him, bodily, as if I were a pillow or a slight piece of lumber, instead of a tall, strong young woman.
I flung an arm around his neck. "Please don't push me away," I whispered. "I can't bear it."
"You are only lonely, my Sylvie. It will get better."
"No." I pressed closer, touched his face, his mouth, with my fingertips, and said, very seriously, "I have loved you all my life."
He made a low noise, protest and hunger mixed in a heady brew, and instead of pushing me away, he relented, pulled me closer, tucked my head into the crook of his elbow. Our eyes met, electrically, and I had a sense of sunlight making a nimbus around his head, as if he were a saint, and a gust of wind touched our clothes. Under his breath, he swore, and then his free hand cupped my face and his lips came to mine, and he kissed me.
Kissed me.
His full lips claimed mine as if there were no other lips in the world, and behind that, his tongue swirling into my mouth, all the way in, and coaxing mine out, drawing me back into his mouth, then back across the tight bridge. He tilted his head, dove deeper, kissing me and kissing me and kissing me until I thought I would faint of love and pleasure.
I had been kissed many times. I had had my young lover.
But they had all been boys. Paul was a man. I'd never been kissed like this. It had never felt like this, so rich and right, as if everything aligned in the world with our touch, as if time itself shifted. I put my hands in his thick hair and pulled him closer, tighter arching upward against his body—
He pulled away violently, pushing me away. "Sylvie, we must not, this is—"
As if he could not bear the sight of me, he got to his feet and strode away. I leapt to my feet. "That's not fair!" I shouted. "I am a woman. I love you!"
He whirled. "You are not a woman! You are a girl who wants to love someone, who wants someone to love her back."
"So? Isn't that what everyone wants?"
"Yes, but—"
Seeing my tears, he came close, put his hands on my arms, pulled me into his embrace. His hand in my hair pressed my face into his chest.
I clung to him, fighting tears.
"Oh, God, what have I done?" He clasped me close, murmured into my hair, "Oh, my sweet child, I am so very, very sorry." He pressed his cheek into my hair, a fierce and tender gesture that nearly liquefied me. "I am not rejecting you," he said. "It is only that you are the dearest thing in my life and I cannot bear to sully you this way. I am far too old to be your lover."
I started to move, push away, protest. He held me close. "No, Sylvie, listen to me closely. I will never say this again. I could not bear to see your eyes turn slowly to disgust as I grew older and older and older. You do not know what I know of the world. You must trust me."
"Paul—"
"No." His hand in my hair, his lips on my temple. "Promise you will forget this."
I squeezed my hands into fists, took a breath. How could I? But the alternative was to lose him, I could feel that very strongly. I let my tears well up again. "Will anyone ever love me, Paul? Will I ever be first?"
"Yes, ma poulette. There is a great love waiting for you, I promise. And—" he pulled away, turned my face up to his "—you are always my first concern. You are my heart. Always. Okay?"
I nodded. "Okay."
He let me go. "Come. Let's go find some vigorous thing to occupy us, and then, I think it's time we went back, don't you?"
Chapter 20
The diamond is believed to make the wearer unhappy; its effects therefore are the same upon the mind as that of the sun upon the eye, for the latter rather dims than strengthens the sight. It indeed renders fearless, but there is nothing that contributes more to our safety than prudence and fear; therefore it is better to fear.
—Cardano ("Philosophi opera quaedam lectu digna," Basileae, 1585. "De gemmis.") from www.diamongeezer.com
What would have been different if I'd insisted, right then? It was impossible to know. Like the plane lifting off, leaving land behind, I left the memories behind in Scotland as we settled into our flying altitude.
I have always liked flying in the evening hours. The cabins are quieter, somehow more serene. Everyone has a blanket, a civilized pillow, a nice glass of wine with dinner—it was such a surprise to actually be served dinner that I was taken aback. "You don't get food on American planes anymore," I said.
"Not at all?"
"Well, I'm sure first class is served something on long flights, but no, not really."
"A shame, isn't it?"
Under the roar of the engines, he said, "Tell me about the Katerina, Sylvie. What was it like to hold her?"
I grinned at him. "Wickedly, wickedly wonderful."
"Yes?"
"Yes." I held up my hand, indicated the jewel's size on my palm. "She filled my palm, nearly, and the color is absolutely flawless, as if the purest water was frozen very quickly."
He listened intently, his nostrils flaring in hunger. "And the ruby? Is it really a pigeon's blood red?"
"It is, and it's almost a perfect teardrop." I raised a brow. "It really is one of the most beautiful jewels I've ever seen." I curled my hand into a fist and punched it into the other one. "That bastard! Dragged me into the whole mess, lets me fall in love with the damned thing, then takes off."
Paul narrowed his eyes. "Do you think he really wants to give it to the authorities in Romania?"
Without hesitation, I answered, "Yes. He wants to be
a hero, like his father."
"And what, pray tell, did his father do?"
"He was a hero of some uprising, some valiant attempt to keep the Communists at bay or something. I don't know."
"Hmmm." Paul gave me a measured look. "You know a lot about him for such a short acquaintance."
"It's the war zone thing—close quarters, high stakes." I lifted a shoulder. "You talk."
"Is that so?" Casually, he sipped his scotch, put it down. "What will you do when you get the jewel back?"
I looked at him. "Take it to the Scottish authorities." I frowned, feeling the wrongness of that option. "Or not," I admitted. "I don't know. She kept leaping out of my hands—"
"Leaping?"
"Something. I dropped her three times."
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "It is a very cursed stone."
"I know." I put my palms together, remembering the vivid vibrational qualities. "It's also a very powerful stone. It should have gone to a sorcerer."
That amused him. "The Sorcerer's Stone?"
"Yeah." I laid my head back against the seat and yawned. "I'm tired now. I'm going to sleep for a while."
"All right."
I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall, feeling the cold through the metal.
Next to me, Paul raised the armrest dividing our seats, and pushed his tray into the upright position. "Come," he said, and patted his chest. "Rest here."
For a moment, I hesitated, then slid forward and nuzzled in to the hollow just below his shoulder. His arm, big and comforting, fell around me, a protection. I closed my eyes, feeling his breath move in and out, in and out. I heard the tinkle of ice in his glass when he lifted it and swallowed.
When I was a child, his was the lap I was most likely to choose to sleep in. I'd crawl up and put my head on his shoulder, as now, and go instantly, immediately to sleep. He would hum under his breath, stroke my hair, rub my toes or my wrists, and I'd sail away to dreamland, protected and comforted.
Two decades had gone by, and it had not changed. His voice started to rumble out of his chest, very low, almost subvocal, some lost French folk tune from his childhood that he always sings under his breath.
A thousand phrases passed through my mind. Why have you never married? What do you really do for a living? Have you ever seen me as a woman? Will you ever?
But the past forty-eight hours had been very intense, and my body's need for sleep was higher than my mind's need for answers.
When I awakened, the lights in the cabin were dimmed, and apart from the white noise of the engines, there was hardly any sound. For a moment, I was disoriented, knowing it was a plane, that I'd fallen asleep. I could hear a low rumbling of two Scottish voices a few rows behind me. I couldn't make out the words, just the rolling lilt of the rhythm, the song of their accent.
Last was my realization that I'd fallen asleep on Paul's shoulder, and he'd fallen asleep, too. He snored, very lightly, over my head. It made me smile.
As gently and slowly as possible, I disengaged from his heavy arm, and he stirred, resettled, but didn't open his eyes.
It gave me a chance to just look at him. The high-bridged nose and exquisitely cut mouth, the thick, wavy hair. His hands were long and graceful, and I wanted to put my lips to the hollow of his throat.
What had he said to me that day on the cliff in Arran? That he would not be able to bear seeing me grow disgusted with his aging.
I looked at him seriously, constrasting him with the young, vigorous Luca. Paul was not a young man anymore. I didn't know exactly how old he was, but he'd been racing some years when my father met him, and he had to have been in his late twenties at that point. He was younger than my father, but not very much.
And it wasn't as if he were aging like a movie star. Here and there, the sleek waves of his hair showed threads of glittery silver. The temples would be quite silver before much longer. In the skin around his eyes were weathered lines from laughing, and the marks of time in a thousand tiny places on his face, neck, hands.
I felt around inside my chest for revulsion over those signs of age and felt none. Each thing was only Paul, dear because it belonged to him.
My feelings for him had never shifted, never changed. I loved him. I wanted him.
A hollow feeling invaded my upper stomach. He had almost been lost to me this last time—my own snit—and I couldn't bear to have another misunderstanding. I'd flung myself at him just before my wedding, and he had resisted, refusing to either be my excuse for ending the ruse that was my wedding, or relenting enough to give his blessing. He'd only said that Timothy was using me, and put me away from him quite firmly.
Terrible scene. And I should have had the courage to walk away from the impending wedding, but I didn't.
Paul shifted beside me, his hand reaching for mine even in sleep. Suddenly, my wish to possess him seemed madness, the madness of youth, a petulant desire to have everything my own way. I turned away, stared out the dark window, seeking signs of life. I spied a string of little villages, likely scattered down the length of a river, and a road or two. In the distance was a city of some size, shining white across a bend on the horizon. I wondered what it was.
The world was so huge. In every one of the villages were particular lives, with mothers and fathers, weddings and births and love affairs, tragedies and dramas. Each little village. Each neighborhood in that white city.
And what difference did my story, my loves, my drama make?
Paul stirred next to me. I didn't turn, afraid my dark thoughts, my insecurity and indecision, would show on my face. His fingers moved against my palm, and I allowed it, clinging to the sturdy broadness. He was the single steadiest thing in my life. I would not risk it.
I looked over at him. Our eyes met, and he lifted my hand to his lips.
We did not speak, only traveled the rest of the way in quiet.
Chapter 21
Until the 15th century only kings wore diamonds as a symbol of strength, courage and invincibility. Over the centuries, however, the diamond acquired its unique status as the ultimate gift of love. Indeed it was said that Cupid's arrows were tipped with diamonds which have a magic that nothing else can ever quite equal. Since the very beginning, diamonds have been associated with romance and legend.
—www.costellos.com.au
Bucharest was freezing cold, and a heavy, wet snow was falling. As we headed for a cab, I shivered into my coat. "I haven't had the right clothes on this entire trip," I said. "I need jeans and a down vest."
"We'll be going into the mountains in the morning," Paul said, and gestured for me to get into the cab ahead of him. "There is no point going tonight, so we'll have some supper, and in the morning find you something to wear that's warmer. I've arranged for a car to be delivered to the hotel."
"You made reservations already?"
He gave me a slight smile. "Of course, my dear. One would not want you left out in the cold."
"I see." The cab was warm and my body relaxed a little. "Have you ever been here?"
"No."
"Do you know where we're going to try to find Luca?"
"He's from a village in Moldavia. The weather has been stormy the past few days, so with any luck, he's not made it home yet. We'll hope to reach it first."
I nodded.
"Do you know," he asked, folding his glove-clad hands in his lap, "what you'd like to do, once you have the jewel?"
"There's really only one answer—I have to call the Scottish police and let them know. I already left a message on the voice mail of the inspector who gave me this job."
"I see."
"Are you going to be angry with me?"
He looked at me. "No." He lifted a shoulder. "Disappointed."
I narrowed my eyes. "Oh, don't do that. Don't give me that disappointed thing."
"Would you rather I lied to you?"
"I don't know. No. Yes." I scowled. "No. But don't make me feel lousy for doing what I think is right."
/> "I am not the one who is concerned." He cleared his throat. "What if I am the first to get to him? What if I take possession of it? Will you feel required to tell the police where it is?"
"That's not fair."
"But why not? I have been working a long time to find the Katerina. I very nearly succeeded in possessing her, and now she slips through my fingers at the very last moment?"
"I don't want you to have her," I said, my chin jutting out.
"Why not?"
"The curse! You should see Luca. He looks awful, and he's nearly been killed three times since he stole the jewel."
"Come now, Sylvie, you don't really believe in the curse?"
"I don't know. I told you there is a very strong feeling to her. I don't know that the stone itself is malevolent, but there is definitely a lot of negative emotion attached. I don't want you to be hurt or killed."
"What about you? You've been injured since she was in your possession, too. How will you avoid the curse yourself?"
"I don't know. Maybe I won't. Maybe it will be like some dark fairy tale. Rapunzel lets down her hair and the dragon eats her anyway."
Gruffly, he said, "Do not say such things."
I looked out the window. It was too dark to make out much of the city itself, but I saw nineteenth-century buildings mixed in some weird way with Stalinesque abominations, and very modern office sorts of buildings. The indelible gray finger of communism is hard to erase. "Then don't ask me to imagine a fate like that for you."
He was silent for a moment. "Do you know the legend?" he asked.
"Yes. A prince brought it to his bride. She was murdered. He killed himself. It was buried with her, and then some priest ordered it to be dug up. Forever after, it brought bad luck and death."
"Only partly correct."
I looked at him. "What is the rest?"
"It is said that true love will break the curse. That one who loves truly, giving it to the object of that affection, will end it."
