LIGHT OF DAY

by Ruth Wind

  He touched her hair. "I asked you where you would go and what you would do if you could do anything. Remember?"

  Lila nodded.

  "If it were left to me, I would stay here with you. But sometimes God only gives a little time. And that has to be enough."

  "Take me with you," she whispered. "I'm strong. I could help you."

  Roughly he pulled her into his arms. She buried her face in his chest, smelling wood smoke in his clothes. Beneath her ear his heart beat hard against his ribs, a sound like the eternal rhythm of the sea. His lips caressed her hair. "You are strong," he murmured against her ear. "And brave and true. You have restored me, Lila. But I cannot take you." His arms nearly crushed her, and she welcomed the embrace, dreading the moment she would no longer feel him against her.

  Lifting her head, she pressed her mouth to his fiercely. Then, swallowing to dislodge the thick emotions in her throat, she forced herself to drop her hands, step back, let him go. "Walk in balance, Samuel," she said, and her words were husky.

  He stared at her, his face as grim as she had ever seen it. Then he nodded. "I will try." He dropped his head, began to turn away.

  Impulsively she cried, "Wait!" Fumbling with the clasp on her chain, she hurried to him and fastened her necklace of talismans around his neck. "You need it more than I do."

  Gravely he fixed his black eyes on her face. Then he touched the charms around his neck, and she knew he would wear them. "God keep you, Lila Waters."

  And then he climbed into the big car and fit the key into the ignition. The engine awakened with a purr. Samuel slammed the door, and without another backward glance, drove out of her life as abruptly and completely as he had come into it. She watched the red taillights until the fog swallowed them up.

  It was hours before her numbness shattered. She cleaned the cabin, stowing away dishes and quilts, fed Arrow, made an inventory of food that might spoil. Then she walked to town and called Allen, who agreed to fetch her from the cabin, a request he granted without asking a single pointed question. Only, "Lila, are you all right?"

  "Yes," she told him in a flat voice. "I'm fine."

  The call left her nothing else to do. She prepared a lunch she did not eat but fed to Arrow instead. The dog, seeming to sense her departure, stuck close to her, giving her hand affectionate licks from time to time. She was glad of his company.

  And glad, too, of the comfort he lent as night crawled into the cabin. She went upstairs to the loft, curling on the bed under the window to look at the fog-draped treetops, and Arrow settled next to her. For the first time in her life, she thought God had been terribly unkind. What point had there been to this interlude? She fell asleep with her head against the glass, Arrow's soft, broad head under her hand.

  Her dreams were troubled but vague—bombs and shouts and guns—and she awoke abruptly from one, her legs jumping. One arm was fast asleep, and she moved off the bed to shake it awake.

  In the gloom she tripped over something and bent to see what it was. Her hand closed on the soft velveteen of Samuel's robe. As her arm tingled painfully to life, she bent her head to the lush fabric, rubbing it against her face as if it were the man himself, and the smell of him enveloped her so acutely that she felt as if she'd been stabbed. Clasping the robe to her chest, breathing in the fragrance of the man who had taken his leave from her, Lila crumpled to the floor and finally wept.

  Her weeping carried her away from the cabin, into a cocoon of sorrow so deep that she did not hear the car outside until Arrow started growling next to her. A pounding sounded at the front door, and for a moment Lila's heart leaped in hope. It was Samuel come back to take her with him, after all.

  But, of course, it was Allen, big and wild haired, who took one look at Lila's face and gathered her into a bear hug. "Oh, honey, you fell hard when you fell, didn't you?"

  He smoothed her hair, murmuring quieting phrases, meaningless and warm, as he rocked her in his friendly arms. Bit by bit Lila felt the first rush of horrible realization—Samuel was gone—ease away, until she could dry her eyes and let go of Allen.

  "I'd like to report that your sourdough starter is fresh and foamy, just as you requested."

  "I trusted you," she said.

  In a quieter voice he continued, "I am also to be married in one short week. Can you make it?"

  "Of course."

  And so, with little things, she was reminded of the life she had left behind, the life she had forgotten, the life she was forced, now, to make sense of somehow. She smiled ruefully. "I think I know what you meant now about normal life." She sighed. "Picket fences look pretty good right about now."

  His eyes met hers over the table. "I know."

  They left at dawn the next morning, on a day as clear as the one before had been thick. The mood of the bright, clear sky did not suit Lila at all. She had brought nothing with her, and so had nothing much to take back, except the robe Samuel had left behind and the turquoise turtleneck he had given her. "Come on, Arrow. I have to get you home now."

  But the dog would not budge. Stubbornly he settled down in front of the door and didn't move.

  She crossed the muddy yard and knelt next to him, putting her arms around him, resting her head against the fur of his great neck. "I'm going to miss you a lot this time, baby. Don't make it any harder than it has to be. Let me take you back home to your real master."

  Finally, reluctantly, he rose and trotted behind her, jumping dutifully onto the back seat.

  They drove on the rutted road to the hermit's house. As was the custom, Lila called out for John Handy. He emerged from a stand of trees, a pack of malamutes in his stead. "Brung him back, have ya?"

  "Yes. I have to go back to the city."

  He nodded. "Come on, Arrow. Fellas been missing you."

  Lila squatted for one more hug, feeling sorrow well up again at the thought of being completely alone. "You be good, baby. I'll be back soon."

  Arrow licked her hand in farewell, and Lila turned quickly away. As she reached the car, he howled eerily, mournfully, the sound an exact replica of the pain in her heart. Blinking back tears, Lila whirled and ran back. Arrow raced toward her, gleefully jumping at her as she closed the distance. "Can I take him with me?" she asked the hermit.

  "I reckon Arrow already made up his mind about that. He always howls for days after you go." He whistled at the other huskies and headed back into the woods.

  Looking into the yellow eyes of her dog, Lila felt an unexpected pang of regret that she had never seen how much this animal loved the human he'd adopted. It seemed careless, the way she'd left him behind so often. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, kneeling in front of him. "I didn't understand before."

  He moaned softly in forgiveness. They walked back to the car.

  "Good for you," Allen said. "You always miss that dog so damn much when you get back to Seattle that you drive me crazy."

  Lila looked over the seat. Arrow sat up straight, shoulders squared, huge chest thrust out. His tongue lolled out cheerfully.

  Allen shifted his hands to the steering wheel, as if to adjust his next words. "I think there are a few things you need to know."

  She frowned. "What?"

  "When The Shell and Fin was bombed, people were looking for you. They came to see me, both the police and somebody else. The police just wanted to talk to you, because they talked to everyone connected with the restaurant. When I told them I didn't know where you were, they went away." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "But these other guys came back a couple of times, and once I saw them following me."

  "What did they look like?"

  "Young. Arabs." He cleared his throat. "And one other thing. Somebody tore your house to pieces."

  Stunned, Lila could only stare at him. "When?"

  "Had to have been the night before last, because I was there to water your plants earlier in the day, and by the time I got there yesterday, it was destroyed."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I mean
pillows sliced open and drawers on the floor and everything out of the cupboards. Like they were looking for something."

  "Looking for what?" Lila shouted.

  "You tell me."

  His voice was just dull enough that she realized he thought she knew something. "I don't know." And then her eyes closed in sudden fear. "Maybe," she said slowly, "they just wanted to know where I was." She licked her lip. "There wasn't an older Arab man, sort of dignified looking, very tall?"

  "No. These two were young, like I said."

  Of course, she thought. Hassid would hardly do legwork himself if there were others who could do it for him. Fear filled her mouth, nameless and vague.

  "Do you know who they are?" Allen asked.

  She nodded. "I saw them, I think, at the airport." She didn't know how much to say, how much would be a betrayal. But she trusted Allen completely, and she needed to talk. "I think they were there to kill him. That's why I took him to my cabin, to protect him."

  "God, Lila." Allen expelled a hard breath. "Did he blow up the restaurant?"

  "No. We were here already."

  "Good." He shook his head. "What a mess."

  They lapsed into silence after a time, and Allen turned on the radio. They rounded a bend in the highway, coming around a sloping hillside into which the road had been cut. Below was the sea, pounding hard against black cliffs. Allen suddenly shifted his foot from the accelerator to the brake. "Whoa," he said. "They might have given us a little more warning."

  Several police cruisers were clustered in a line along the road, gathered in a hollow around another car. Seeing it, Lila shrieked, "Stop the car!"

  "I can't, not right here!"

  As they passed the flashing lights and milling officers, Lila's voice caught in her throat on a sob. "Allen," she cried. "Stop!"

  He slowed just beyond the line of cruisers, and pulled over. "They won't let you near that—"

  But before he could finish, Lila opened the door and ran toward the black Mercedes, still smoking, at the edge of the road. Dry grasses and the skeletons of wildflowers had been singed black by the fire in the car, and between the shoulders of two uniformed policemen, Lila could see the peeled paint, bubbles outlined by the bright morning sun. It had burned virulently, leaving nothing but the unmistakable shell. Her first thought was that Samuel had worked so hard to restore it, and now it was destroyed.

  She frantically grabbed an arm of the man in front of her. "Was anyone in there when it burned?"

  "No ma'am. Weirdest thing. Nobody saw the smoke till this morning, but it burned a while." His young eyes sharpened. "You know who it belongs to?"

  She came to her senses with a wash of cool fear, seeing ahead of her a dozen questions she couldn't answer. She stepped back, shaking her head. "No. I thought it was a different car, but it isn't. Thank you."

  She ran back to the car. "Let's go."

  Allen complied. "Is it his?"

  "Yes." Her mind raced with possible explanations, a deep illness growing in her stomach. Nothing she came up with boded well for Samuel. All she could think of was that he had been kidnapped for some reason. But they had wanted to kill him, so why would they bother to take him from the car?

  Unless they hadn't wanted the body to be found.

  She swallowed. Hassid had obviously engineered the bombing of The Shell and Fin, then attempted to connect Samuel to it. Perhaps there was more violence in the works, violence for which the missing Samuel would be blamed.

  She felt suddenly hollow, as if all the vital portions of her body had drained out through her feet. Her hands trembled, and her stomach churned. "Allen," she said weakly. "Please stop again."

  One glance at her face was all he needed. Lila jumped out of the car a second time, and rid herself of the bitterness in her belly.

  They reached Seattle late in the afternoon. Allen would not hear of her staying in her own house, and headed for his own.

  "Did you get my car, Allen?" she asked, suddenly remembering her station wagon.

  "It's at my place. You were right. It had a bad starter. It's fixed."

  "I'll pay you tomorrow. I don't have any cash on me." They climbed the hilly territory that had once cradled The Shell and Fin. "Allen, I want to see the restaurant."

  He frowned uncertainly. "No, you really don't."

  "Will you stop trying to protect me?"

  "All right. It's your life, after all."

  Lila didn't bother to comment that it had always been her life, for as he drove along the boulevard toward the site, she was remembering the first day she had seen Samuel in his beautiful car, was reliving the drive back to her house that evening, when she'd been enveloped by violins and the sound of rain. How safe she had felt in that car, she thought. What an illusion it had been.

  Police tape encircled the former Shell and Fin, and Allen pulled up alongside it. "There it is," he said. "Or rather, there it was."

  It wasn't a pile of crumbled rock, as Lila had expected. The roof was mainly gone, doors had been blown outward and several walls leaned at dangerous angles. But that made it all the worse. An unexpected pang of loss touched her at the sight of the broken building. "I worked there a long time," she said quietly.

  Then, in the parking lot, she spied a crushed bit of metal and glass beneath a huge chunk of roof. "Oh, no! My bike." It had been sitting there since the night Samuel had taken her home—thousands of years ago. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "What would have been the point?"

  She looked at him. "I guess you're right."

  "I know it's hard to believe at this point, but things will work out, in time."

  Lila closed her eyes, leaning her head against the seat as Allen turned the car around and headed for his house.

  Things would not ever be the same again. Not ever again.

  In a city thousands of years old, Samuel waited in an alleyway. A rooster crowed, impatient for the sun to appear, and not far away a car maneuvered along the narrow street. It was cold.

  Beneath his coat the comforting bulk of a .45 automatic rested against his ribs, heavy and cold—and deadly, should the need arise. He wished for a cigarette but did not light one, preferring to keep himself hidden. From a window two stories above, a harsh argument in a guttural tongue rang out.

  He shifted, rolling his shoulder against the stiffness that was setting in after the long wait. It had healed, but the strength of it was still small, and the cold made it ache. Like Lila's back.

  He wondered what she was doing now, if she had left the cabin or stayed there, if she had seen the bombed-out car at the side of the road, and what she had thought of it. It had disturbed him to do that, to leave the car so conspicuously, for in sending a message to the assassins, there was a chance Lila would have received it, too. And she would believe him dead.

  It pained him to think of her sorrow. But perhaps it was best. Perhaps the accident that had joined them was a cruel joke, and the sooner it ended the better.

  And yet he wanted to live more certainly than he ever had. Lila had renewed him, giving him back his wonder and his hope, a hope he clung to even in this dim place with the sound of an argument over his head. For her, for his love of her, he wanted to live.

  The sound of boot heels on the street alerted him, and he faded more deeply into the shadow of the doorway, waiting until he could see the face of the man who had entered the alley before he showed himself. In the darkness it would be impossible to pick out anyone but Mustapha.

  But even in the darkness Mustapha was unmistakable. His long stride and broad shoulders could have belonged to any number of men, but the quirky double click of his heels on the stones of the alley told Samuel it was his brother. It had annoyed Samuel as a child, but he was glad of it now.

  He emerged from the shadows to stand in Mustapha's path. "You've come."

  "Alone, as you asked," he said. "This is very dangerous for you, Samuel. There are assassins who have been paid to kill you."

  "You knew."
Samuel turned, gesturing for his brother to follow as they walked.

  "Only recently. Surely you do not think I would hire them?"

  "No."

  "Then why are we here?" Mustapha paused in the alleyway. "I apologize for the actions of the League, but it will not help if you are shot."

  Samuel drew out a cigarette and lighted it. "You have been marked, as well," he said.

  Mustapha had grown cagey over the years. He glanced away, down the alley, then back the other way before he looked back at Samuel. His eyes showed nothing. "If that were true, what would your people offer me?"

  Samuel shrugged. "What do you want?"

  "Asylum. In America. A hidden place, a new name."

  "And in return?"

  "The names of the others." Now his eyes were bleak, and Samuel felt much the older of the two. "I did not know the real truth of the League when I became involved, Samuel." He bowed his head. "I have been a fool, but never a murderer."

  Impatiently Samuel wanted to ask, What did you expect? but he knew it was a futile question. Mustapha had expected power. It made him sad. "I wish," he said quietly, "that you could have lived in France with me. It would have helped."

  "Perhaps." He sighed. "We all have a fate we are meant to fulfill. Perhaps this is mine."

  Samuel dropped his cigarette and ground it out beneath his heel. Fate. The word disturbed him. "All right," he said. In a quiet tone he outlined the plan to spirit Mustapha to America, a plan that had been worked out in advance with Organization leaders. "I will not see you until you are cleared for immigration."

  Mustapha nodded. "Thank you, my brother."

  In the split second it took to turn from Mustapha toward the end of the alley, three shots rang into the stillness. One tore into Samuel's right arm. Another thudded into the stones of the ancient building behind him. Samuel scrambled for his gun with his useless arm, but in the slow motion reserved for such moments, saw Mustapha draw and fire.