"American. He works here.'*
"In Amsterdam?"
"In the hotel. He*s the director of security.'*
Her color was high; she was waiting for him to make a comment. But he did not, and neither did Emily after a swift glance told her Paul would not be pleased if she said what she Siought about a Salinger socializing with an employee.
Allison stood abruptly as a tall man made his way to them. "Ben," she said, her voice a little higher than usual. "My cousin Paul Janssen. And Emily Kent. Ben Gardner."
They shook hands. The two men were the same height and had similar lean, muscular builds, but in all other ways they were different: Ben very fair, with blond hair and blue, heavy-lidded eyes behind hom-rimmed glasses; Paul very dark, his black hair thick and unruly, his black eyes deep-set and intense, his hands thin and restless. "I'm glad to meet you," Ben said, wondering about him. Paul Janssen. What did Laura think of him—and he of Laura? "Allison told me about you but I didn't know you were in Europe.'*
"My fault, I'm afraid. I've lost touch with a lot of people. Have you lived here long?"
*Two years in Amsterdam, five in Europe."
"A long time to be away from home."
"For you, too.'"
Paul shrugged. "I've always traveled. Where did you live before you came to Europe?"
"New York. Allison says your home is Boston."
"It was. I'm not sure where I'll go from here. It might be New York. Will you be going back there?"
"I don't know,"
"What about your family?**
Ben spread his hands.
"He hasn't any," Allison said. "I can't imagine what that would be like,**
"It wasn't large to begin with," said Ben. *Then some of them died and others . . . vanished.'*
Inheritance
*That's very dramatic," Paul said with a smile.
"It was. We had some stormy times."
"And so you came to Europe."
Ben nodded. "And you? Did you leave because of family storms?"
"I told Ben something about us," Allison said to Paul, almost apologetically. "But not about you and . . . Not much about you. If you want to tell about yourself, it*s up to you."
"Fd like to hear it," Ben said.
Paul shook his head. "Past history. It's not something I talk about. I'd like to hear about yours, though; it's not often an entire family disappears because of a . . . was it a quarrel?"
"Betrayal," Ben said, and saw the quick look of surprise, and then despair, that shadowed Paul's eyes. *The same thing that happened in your family."
"Maybe it's a trend," Allison said with a nervous laugh.
"I hope not," Ben said somberly.
Paul found himself drawn to him. He was a little too curious about their family, but he could be forgiven that by anyone who saw the intensity of his eyes when he looked at Allison. He had a kind of boldness that Paul admired, as if he were taking the measure of a world he intended to conquer, but there also was something of the searcher in him, looking for things lost or not yet attained. That was probably what drew Allison to him, Paul reflected. He hoped she wasn't rushing into yet another project to make someone's life better, but he thought it likely that she was. And for that reason, and because he ah*eady liked Ben Gardner, he wanted to know him better.
"Can we have lunch one day?" he asked. "Can you take time from the hotel?"
"I could, but I'm going to London tomorrow for two weeks."
"Damn. We're not staying that long."
"Well, next time you're in Amsterdam— '*
"Oh, Paul, stay here longer," Allison said. "What else do you have to do?"
"Paul wants to work," Emily said. "We both want to work."
"Work? Paul? Since when?" Allison saw Paul's quick frown. "I'm sorry, have you reformed?"
Judith Michael
"I'm thinking about it," he said mildly, and looked at Ben. "How often do you visit the States?"
"Now and then; not often. But I think that may change."
"If it does, look me up." He took out a business card. "This is my answering service in Boston; they'll know where I am."
Ben took out his own card. "If you get back to Amsterdam first." They smiled, liking each other, and Paul and Emily stayed longer than they had planned, the four of them talking of Europe, drinking wine, nibbling on Dutch cheese and crackers, until Emily said firmly, "Paul, we're expected," and they all rose and made their farewells.
Outside the hotel, Paul and Emily took a taxi, and Ben and Allison walked along the Rokin, their hands clasped between them. The rain had stopped and the air was fresh and chill. "You didn't tell them you're joining me in a few days in London," Ben said.
'There's time. I could tell that Paul thinks I'm rushing into something."
"And are you?"
"Possibly. I have something to tell you."
He felt a moment of alarm and stopped walking. "Has something happened?"
"You mean something bad? Of course not. You do that a lot, Ben; think about bad things happening. I want you to think of happy things." She took a breath. "I rented an apartment today."
His look sharpened. "You rented —"
"On the Prinsengracht. Very pretty and very small, but big enough for the two of us to get to know each other much, much better. "^
He was smiling; the smile broadened. "An American woman. You take things in your own hands."
"Is that all right?"
"It's wonderful. I've lived in Europe so long I've forgotten how wonderful it is. But what about Patricia?"
"She's going to Paris. She says six weeks is more than enough for Amsterdam. I don't agree."
Ben put his hand beneath her chin and searched her eyes. *This isn't a whim? This is something you really want?"
To herself, Allison said. You're what I really want. Aloud,
Inheritance
she said lightly, "Maybe it is a whim. But if it is, we ought to enjoy it while it lasts."
His look held for a minute. "Fd like to buy you something," he said. "I've wanted to for some time. Let's do it now, before dinner."
"I don't want anything," she protested. "Just for us to have more time together."
"You've taken care of that. Let me take care of this." He took her arm in a decisive grip, walking briskly down the Rokin.
"Ben, nothing is open now."
"They close in fifteen minutes. If we hurry we can make it."
"Who closes?"
He only smiled and walked faster, and in a few minutes AUison found herself beneath the huge marble arched entrance to the Amsterdam Diamond Center. Some of the cutters were already going home, but the managing director greeted Ben with a warm handshake.
"May I present Miss Salinger," Ben said. "Allison, this is Claus Cuyper. Are we too late to buy something for Miss Sahnger, Claus?"
"As long as you do not want the guided tour there is time."
"Good. Allison, do you want to choose?"
She shook her head. She was uncomfortable. From the moment she had told Ben about the apartment, everything had speeded up, and under Ben's direction, not hers. She didn't Imow if she wanted a diamond from Ben—at least she didn't know if she wanted one yet; she wanted to think about it. But she couldn't embarrass him in front of Claus Cuyper. "I'll watch the cutters," she murmured, and drifted off, leaving the two men to confer in private.
In the blindingly lit room, smocked men and women sat in armless secretary's chairs at long tables, cutting and polishing the diamonds that had been classified by examiners for weight and color and the way they would be cut. Allison watched some of the workers sawing the carats, others shaping the sawed gem by hand, and others polishing its facets.
"I hope you'll wear it," Ben said, breaking her reverie. "Claus had one already set and it was what I had in mind." He
Judith Michael
opened her hand and put the small piece on her palm. It looked like a Crystal, faintly tinted white, less than a carat, and nes
tled in a silver filigree as airy as lace.
"It's lovely," she said softly. And she knew she could not refuse it. It was modest, in perfect taste, and it was a pendant, not a ring. It was the gift of a good friend who had every reason to believe he would become a much closer friend. And it was the gift of a man who was happy. He is happy, Allison thought. Much happier than when we met. I've done that for him already. She fastened the silver chain around her neck. "Thank you. I'll probably wear it so often you'll get tired of seeing it."
"By then I'll have bought you another." He took her face between his hands and kissed her, briefly, because he was not a public person. "I love you, Allison," he said.
Carolers sang outside the Manhattan office of the fashion editor of Eye magazine, and in his reception room a polystyrene Christmas tree was hung with dozens of papier-mach6 eyes, pupils gleaming red, green, and white fi^om tiny light bulbs tucked inside. Emily had glanced at them once, seen that they were in dreadful taste, and looked the other way.
"Barry wanted me to come directly to you," she said to the fashion editor, who had been Jock Flynn in Little Italy but, on moving uptown to Rockefeller Center, had become Jason d'Or. "He said he wouldn't dare impose his wishes on you."
"He also told you not to tell me he said that," Jason said with a tight smile; his voice vibrated with a thin whine, "But you decided to because you thought it would establish a camaraderie between us."
Emily was silent. He was right, but he was in as bad taste as his reception room.
"Well, let's see what you have." His voice had turned brisk. "Barry doesn't send people to me with his bad jokes unless he's truly impressed." He opened the leather portfolio Emily had insisted on bringing over herself, even though Barry had told her it should come from his agency and she should stay home.
"I can't stay home," she had protested. "I do best with the personal touch. Look how well I did with you in Amsterdam."
304
I
Inheritance
'*Your friend Paul's photographs did well with me in ^n-sterdam," he had growled. He wanted to sleep with her but she stayed faithful to Paul, even though they were only living together. "The personal touch had nothing to do with it."
"You can't be sure. You were influenced by me. And Jason d'Or—my God, what a name—will be, too."
"Don't tell him you don't like his name. Or his Christmas tree."
"What's wrong with his tree?"
"You'll see."
Jason finished the portfolio and went back to the beginning, turning the pages slowly. "You're fortunate in your photographer," he said at last. "He's damned good."
*The photographs or the model?" Emily asked before she could stop herself.
"Both. There's a nice ingenuousness here, as if you're only pretending to be sophisticated."
"Or vice versa," she said gaily.
He shrugged. "I assume Barry told you we have models we call on regularly."
"He told me you're always looking for new faces."
"So we can call on them when the need arises."
Emily waited. "And when will that be?" she asked, strug-gUng to hide her growing anger.
"I have no idea." He closed her portfolio. "At the moment we're working on the May issue; I can't say what we'll need for June. We might be calling you." He opened the door to the reception room and stood there, holding it for her.
Stiffly, Emily picked up the portfolio. "Thank you for your time." She was properly correct, but inside she seethed.
"How dare he?" she raged to Paul when she returned to his apartment where she had been livmg since they came to New York from Europe. "Barry recommended me; I didn't come begging. And I'm a Kent from Boston, not just somebody who walked in off the street. Who does he think he is, treating me like that?"
Paul was holding a match to the fire; when the flames leaped up he pulled shut the glass fire doors and put his arms around her. Reluctantly, she kissed him. "Did you hear me?" she asked.
Judith Michael
"I did." He moved away. "A drink might help." At the small bar tucked into an alcove, he mixed two martinis. "Now come and sit down. It sounds as if you walked into the middle of a battlefield."
"What does that mean?''
"Your old friend Barry and your new friend Jason may be at war over who makes decisions, and Jason didn't appreciate Barry's sending you to walk in on him, instead of following the usual procedures."
"What usual procedures?" But she knew, and it showed in her face.
"Barry told you the agency should send over your portfolio."
Her mouth was stubborn. "With civilized people a personal approach is infinitely superior."
"You may be right. But he did warn you. Are they lovers?"
"I doubt it. Barry wants me."
"Does he? What a sensible fellow."
She laughed, feeling better. "He can't compare with you and he knows it, or at least he knows / know it. May I have another drink?"
He went to the bar. "I made reservations for dinner at Le Cirque."
"Impossible. You would have had to call three weeks ago."
"Two weeks."
"You really did? Is it an occasion?"
"Your birthday next week. Christmas three days after that. Do we need any more?"
"You might have wanted to ask me to marry you. Sorry," she added quickly. "That was as much in bad taste as Jason d'Or."
"You're never in bad taste, my dear," Paul said quietly.
Emily was silent and he stood at the bar, watching her as she gazed at the flames. She sat on a dark suede couch in the paneled library he had hung with Audubon prints and three of his portraits of Owen. A Bokhara in taupe and black was on the floor; the shelves were filled with leather-bound books. In that dark room, illuminated only by the fire, Emily's fair beauty seemed to shimmer in its own halo. But as Paul contemplated her, her features subtly changed in the shadows
Inheritance
thrown by the dancing flames, and he saw the other faces behind the public face of Emily Kent.
Her anger was still visible in the tight comers of her mouth-, but then it seemed to become willfulness, then arrogance, then, as swiftly, doubt. It was as if he were looking at a map of her emotions. He stepped back, increasing his distance and angle from the couch, and her face changed again, first calculating, then promising passion. And, as a log fell, sending; sparks against the glass fire doors, he thought he saw sadness.
And in that instant, Emily's face became Laura's, the comers of her mouth curved in sorrow.
Shaken, enraged, Paul flung his glass across the room where it shattered on the stone hearth. Emily cried out but he barely heard it. God danm it, a year and a half and he couldn't get her out of his mind. Every affair had an end; theirs was over. What the hell was wrong with him that he couldn't go on to other women without seeing her wherever he turned?
"Paul!" Emily was staring at him, and Laura's face vanished. "What in heaven's name is wrong? This isn't like you."
"Breaking glasses or thinking of something besides you?" he asked brutally. When she winced, he went to her, handing her her drink as he sat down. "I'm sorry. But you'll notice I threw my own, not yours. So I really was thinking of you, even in my most uncivilized moment."
"What were you thinking of besides me?"
"An old friend. And taking photographs."
"Of me?'*
He never had to fear, Paul realized, that Emily would probe very deeply into his thoughts; she was too absorbed in herself. In a way, it was refreshing: she could never be accused of pretending to be something she wasn't. "Of course of you," he said. "My favorite model."
"And companion."
"Yes." He was thoughtftil. "That's tme." Abmptly, he stood. "Let's have dinner."
"What time are our reservations?"
He had forgotten them. "Eight, but I feel like walking."
"What a good idea." She jumped up. "I'll get my boots; it was snowing when I came in."
Pa
ul smiled as he watched her leave the room. He knew she
Judith Michael
didn't want to walk from Sutton Place to the Mayfair Regent, especially in December, especially in the snow. But part oi Emily's charm and skill was perfect intuition. When she put' her mind to it, she knew exactly which of his moods and desires was important enough to outweigh her immediate comfort. And Paul, knowing how rare that was, appreciated it and was grateful for it.
They walked along the river and turned the comer at Fifty-seventh Street. Emily's face was outlined in fur, her fur-lined boots left small prints in the snow that drifted silently past streetlights and Christmas trees in apartment windows. The buildings all seemed to duplicate Paul's—closed-face high-rises, each with its own gold-braided doorman and glimpses of private lives through draped windows. He had bought his apartment years before, and the one-bedroom apartment adjoining it, as well, converting it to a studio and darkroom. After outfitting it, he seldom used it, but he lived in the apartment when he was in New York and loaned it to friends at other times. He and Emily had been living there for a month, and for the first time Paul was using the darkroom every day.
They had traveled together in Europe, Africa, and India for a month after leaving Amsterdam, and Paul had taken hundreds of photographs, mostly of Emily. For the first time he had used scenery, indoor settings, and other people as contrasts to her ingenuousness and sophistication, which he captured in a series of brilliant photographs—and he had felt a rush of pride when Emily told him Jason had seen it. He isn't as much a fool as she says, Paul thought wryly, if he understands what I was trying to do in those photos. And the sensual pleasure he felt in working, and the ability to lose himself in it, had lasted through most of that time.
Over the years his desire to work at photography had flared and died, like the flames of his fireplace, always giving way when his restlessness returned or his motivation disappeared: the children building the sand castle went home and did not return; Laura was gone; Owen was dead; his college friends, whom he had photographed at play and at their studies, had scattered. Now, walking beside Emily on the quiet street, glancing at her shadowed features, he thought of the many
Inheritance Page 33
