Sustenance

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  D. G. A.

  4

  WINTER WAS making a last bid for attention, sending gouts of wind along the Parisian streets and over the waters of the Seine, whipping the surface into a grayish froth that made the wan light seeping through the lowering clouds seem even more threatening than it was in a city drained of color. From his small office in the Eclipse Press building, Szent-Germain stared out into the afternoon, a distracted air about him as he found himself recalling his stay in the city some two centuries ago when he was first introduced to Madelaine de Montalia: it was at a ball, and her aunt had introduced them; he clearly recalled how she had met his gaze directly, no sign of fear or dubiety in her knowing eyes. From that night until her death, she knew him for what he was and did not despise him for it, nor see him as the monster so many would do if they knew his true nature; he had not needed to tell her anything about his undead state, and yet she came to him willingly, eagerly. This recollection was anodyne to him, soothing his anxiety and giving him a clearer vision of his situation. The problems within his own company required immediate attention, he knew. “Back to the present,” he told himself in his native tongue. He had more urgent—and less pleasant—matters to attend to than memories of Madelaine in her breathing days: he concentrated on the last year, trying to sort through the most recent changes in his plans that the latest news from Cecil Tommerson would require; this was not the kind of misunderstanding that could be worked out over time: he needed to address it promptly. To add fuel to Tommerson’s accusations, Szent-Germain had received a letter from the factor in his South African office that left him troubled, and although the cold of his office did not bother him, he suppressed a shudder; he had already put in a telephone call to Hawsmede and would meet with him on Thursday in London, and he would need a day or two to assemble his records here in Paris as well as requesting information from Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Lisboa, Barcelona, Genova, and Venezia before he took the next step. Then there was the more delicate matter of Lord Weldon; he had let it be known that he had been trying to get news of him, and was considering venturing into Central Asia to find him, a prospect that gave him sardonic amusement. “A man in search of himself. How twentieth century of me.” An emotion compounded of despair and vast loneliness that was only slightly relieved by irony and mourning enveloped him, but he quivered it off him. A small electric heater provided a little warmth to the room, but he paid no attention to it, for the cold he felt was not the result of the weather.

  “Grof?” came Washington Young’s voice from the other side of the door.

  Szent-Germain shook himself mentally, and called out, “Come in, Young.”

  “I’ve just sent out the last Grimoire,” he said as he came through the door. “We’re planning a last meeting for mid-March, so you have a month to decide if you want to attend. Do you have any preferences for the date?”

  “Not at the moment, and it shouldn’t matter in any case; I’ve never been a member of your group, officially,” said Szent-Germain, indicating the chair on the far side of the desk from him. “But thank you for thinking of me. I’m glad you’ve come in; I know you’re busy.” He cocked his head in the direction of the sound of the big presses clanking away in the main room. “I have a proposition to put to you, and I trust you’ll consider it. A loyal Wobbly like you should find the opportunity acceptable.”

  “What kind of proposition?” Young asked, trying not to sound suspicious. “Are you going to include any others in the Coven in this offer?”

  “No; this is specific to you, having to do with these presses, and others like them, and the Guttenburgs especially. I hope that won’t be a problem for you with the Coven? I can see no reason why it should be, but if there is one, I hope you’ll let me know now.”

  “I’m the only printer in the group—that’s obvious. Okay, I’ll consider it, so long it’s none of your divide and conquer methods.” He realized what he had said, and changed his demeanor to something less confrontational. “I don’t mean your methods but that’s how some businesses go about union-busting.”

  “I’m aware of that, and I have nothing against unions; in fact, I think they’re beneficial.” He thought back to his centuries of dealing with working-men’s organizations: guilds in the Middle Ages, Artei in Fiorenze, Brotherhoods in France and Germany, Companies in Eastern Europe … He made himself address the present. “If the shops want to organize, they may do so, with my blessing, if they need it.”

  “That’s good to know,” said Young, not entirely convinced. “But about the Coven—”

  “I won’t know my schedule for another two to three weeks, but remind me, if you would, and I’ll ask Charis what she thinks.”

  “There aren’t likely to be many of us still here by the last meeting,” said Young, a little sadly as he sat down. “I don’t believe it’ll be much of a crowd.”

  “Very likely not,” said Szent-Germain. “The Praegers have already left, and Russ McCall; Mary Anne is pleased in her new work and, I think, tired of Paris, so she may not attend. I think she’s doing her best to break with the past, and that includes the Coven. We know Happy is set in Uppsala, and Win Pomeroy is out of the country,” said Szent-Germain, agreeing with Young as a way to show his concern more than to reiterate shared knowledge. “The rest aren’t likely to linger unless they have work here—”

  “Like I do, thanks to you,” said Young, a touch of anxiety in his voice. “Moira wants to stay here, and so do I.”

  “Then have Bethune review the contract and remain where you are, with my thanks.” He leaned back in his chair, wanting to put Young more at his ease. “Not all the Coven is gone; I’m assuming that now Boris King has opened his record shop in Rue de les Faisans, he and his wife will attend anything linked to the Coven. Happy says any of you who want to visit are welcome in Sweden, but he has no intention of coming back here except on holiday. Steve diMaggio’s business is flourishing, so he’ll be here for some time. Sam Effering doesn’t want the group broken up entirely—he was just getting used to it when it began to unravel—and is willing to come in from Luxembourg to help keep it going on a social level if nothing else, but he is in the minority. Axel Bjornson is bound for Kenya; maybe this time he’ll find what he’s looking for; the English don’t seem worried about his politics the way the Americans are.” He paused to allow Young to ask the question that was clearly burgeoning in his mind.

  Young coughed diplomatically. “What about Charis? Do you think she’ll join us at Chez Rosalie one last time?”

  “I don’t know,” said Szent-Germain, and wondered if he should ask her or advise her to decide for herself; she would get Young’s notice in a day or two, and would have many questions, provided she did not run into Young when she came to this office later this afternoon, in which case he would expect an immediate battery of questions.

  “Okay,” said Young. “She’ll follow your lead, I suppose.”

  For an instant Szent-Germain looked startled, but then achieved a neutral smile. “Why do you assume that?”

  “Cause that’s what women do. They let the man rule the roost. It’s what everyone expects.” He shrugged. “Moira isn’t like that, not after all those years taking care of Tim, but she’s told me how hard it was to stand against him, when he first started downhill, and would not deal with his condition. Her family kept telling her to do what Tim thought best, and for a while she did, until it became obvious he wasn’t improving, no matter that he said it was nothing to worry about, according to him. And he’s right—it’s nothing to him anymore.” He watched Szent-Germain out of the tail of his eye to see if this last observation had given offense.

  “It must have been very difficult, watching him fade away as he did,” said Szent-Germain as he took a large manila envelope from his central desk drawer, stood up, and held it out to Young. “The specifics are spelled out in the contract. It will give you authority to coordinate all my European printing and distribution standards, essentially putting all the br
anches under one publishing house, as well as establishing one standard of conduct and procedure and an equivalency scale of pay for all employees.” He saw Young’s black eyes light up, and knew he had made the right choice. “I’d appreciate an answer in a week, if that’s convenient.”

  “I can’t see any problem with that unless Bethune finds something wrong with the offer, and I don’t think he will; he says you’re a fair man—more than fair,” said Young, taking the envelope from him, hesitating as he tucked it under his arm. “You know, Grof, back home this wouldn’t be as easy to do. Putting a Negro in charge of so many branches of a business that isn’t a Negro business … it wouldn’t be welcome.”

  “Is that why you’re staying in France?” Szent-Germain inquired.

  “It’s part of it,” he said, and added thoughtfully, “More than that, most people back home wouldn’t like the idea of Moira and me as a couple. It’s illegal for blacks and whites to marry in a lot of states, and we’re still thinking about possibly getting married one of these days. I’d like it, and some days, so would Moira, but she’s close to her family and that makes for problems. The regular folk here in Paris don’t seem to mind so much here. We get strange looks now and then, and Regina isn’t very happy about it, but that’s not surprising: I doubt my kids will like it much when they find out.” He sighed.

  “Mightn’t it be easier to face them now rather than years from now, when they’ve locked themselves into position?” Szent-Germain remembered how dismayed Rakhel had been, twelve hundred years ago, when she had been expected to accept a step-family into her life.

  “Hell, Grof, they’ve all been locked into position since they were two—Negroes as well as whites.” He looked about nervously as if he still thought the room might be bugged. “You know why I want to stay, really? It’s not Moira, though I’d go with her to the ends of the earth or even Alabama. The reason is no one here calls me nigger.” Then, as if this admission had exposed a rift between them, he took a step back. “So do you think it likely that you’ll be here for the last meeting?”

  Szent-Germain looked about the room. “I may be away when the meeting happens.” He saw Young flinch, and added, “You needn’t worry. This has nothing to do with my publishing houses. There are some questions about what’s happening in one of my shipping offices.”

  “Venice again?”

  “No, not this time.” He shook his head for emphasis.

  “Then I won’t count on you.” He chuckled to cover his nervousness. “Count—Grof.” He opened the door. “Steve diMaggio’s going to visit Happy next weekend. He said he’d be … uh … happy to carry galleys to him if you’d like.”

  “Thank you; I’ll telephone him tonight and make arrangements.” He took a slow breath, and then said, “I trust you and Moira will be happy together, in spite of the difficulties you’re apt to encounter.”

  “Much appreciated, Grof; at least we both got our eyes open.” He went out and closed the door behind him, leaving Szent-Germain in the chilly isolation of his office.

  “It always bothers me when I talk to myself,” Szent-Germain remarked to the air. He was speaking his own tongue, relishing the rhythm of it, and the rolling cadences of its structure. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother; only Rogerian understands the language, and not very well. Who knows how much of it I have forgotten.” Even as he said it, he knew he continued to use the long-vanished tongue of his people as a gesture of continuity, a tie beyond blood that gave him a sense of endurance to serve as a tribute to his blood and his god. The loss of his language would be as great a sacrifice as the loss of Laisha had been. “Come, Ragoczy, you have work to do. There are more things to put in motion. Lord Weldon must vanish officially, and I must make the first statements of my intention to find him.” He reached into the top drawer on his right and pulled out a pad of lined paper, which he set in the center of his desk while he removed his fountain-pen from the small box containing several kinds of writing implements. Then he sat down and began to write in a small, precise hand. He would begin with Rowena Saxon in New Zealand, then James Emmerson Tree in Canada, and then Madelaine de Montalia in Central America; Rowena and James he addressed in English, Madelaine in slightly archaic French, telling them all of his plans for the next year or so, and reassuring them that the Blood Bond would keep them aware of one another and him. They were to pay no attention to any rumors of his death, or of his disappearance, for that was all they would be: rumors and gossip. If anything seriously wrong happened, Roger would notify them personally. He was in the middle of the last paragraph to Madelaine when there was an urgent knock on his door; he folded the letters and slipped them under the large, fresh blotter. “Yes?”

  “Szent-Germain, it’s me,” Charis called out somewhat unsteadily. “I’m a little early.”

  “Charis. Come in.” He rose and stepped out from behind the desk just as she flung open the door and rushed in.

  She was neatly dressed, but her well-cut simple page-boy hair-do was slightly awry, with tendrils twisted around her face—a sure sign of anxiety. She had not bothered to put on lipstick, which made her look paler than she was. “Thank God you’re already here. I thought I’d have to track you down all over the city.” She came up to him, embraced him hastily, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “Why? What’s the matter?” He guided her to his visitor’s chair. “Sit down, won’t you? and tell me what this is all about.”

  “It’s about that … that toad from the Embassy,” she exclaimed.

  “And which toad would that be?” he asked politely.

  In spite of her fury, she coughed up a chuckle. “You know him. Peter Leeland’s his name. I hate the sight of him.” Now that she had spoken the worst, she continued more companionably. “You’re right. They do have a lot of toads at the Embassy. Do they choose them for being like that, or is it an accident? Rothcoe is cut from the same cloth, only not so smooth a customer. There’s something ophidic about Leeland, and something—I don’t know what—about Rothcoe.” She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at her eyes with it; her hand was shaking.

  “I have no idea how they select them,” said Szent-Germain, half-sitting on the edge of the desk and taking her hand. “What has Leeland done now?”

  “He’s been at my flat, asking questions about where all the Coven members are—I don’t think he believes I don’t really know, but I don’t, and some of what I’ve been told is wrong on purpose.” She shook her head. “Today I realized he’s a lot like Harold—quiet and polite and scarey; not the way you are when you want to settle something that annoys you, or you distrust the person with whom you’re dealing. Leeland’s like Basil Rathbone: like a sharp knife on a whetstone: Rothcoe’s more like a rake on concrete. He—Leeland—tells me what happens to people who don’t cooperate with the US government. I wanted to scream. I know what happens. It’s happened to me. I’m not going to let it happen again.”

  “That is uncalled-for: Leeland’s conduct, not yours,” said Szent-Germain. “I’ll ask Bethune to have a word with him, and with Rothcoe, just in case. Bethune’s signing on with Eisley Butterthorn & Hawsmede; he’ll be able to handle Leeland, and probably any other … shall we say toads?”

  “He also wants to see pages from the book I’m working on,” she declared, her indignation returning. “He’s threatening to subpoena the manuscript, and any carbons. I put them in the safe in the bedroom closet before I left. Not the obvious one, the one behind the shoe-racks. I don’t think they’ll find it on a regular search.”

  “Well, he can’t see them, whether he finds them or not, so there’s an end to it.” Szent-Germain leaned over and kissed her gently, taking his time about it.

  “I’ll ask Bethune to handle it,” she said when the kiss ended, and took hold of his hand. “You don’t have to get involved with any of this.”

  “I’m your publisher; like it or not, I am involved.” He looked toward the window, and saw that the day had darkened. �
�How did you get here?”

  “I hailed a cab,” she answered. “I figure Leeland’s got someone watching the car, and I didn’t want to make things easy for him.”

  “He probably does,” Szent-Germain said with a world-weary sigh, continuing, “Have someone watching you.”

  “He’s probably got someone watching you and your Jaguar, too.” She bit the inside of her cheeks to keep from weeping. “I’m so sorry, Grof.”

  “You have no reason to be sorry, and an excellent reason to be angry,” he said, laying his small hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done nothing to bring any of this about, so you owe no one an apology. Leeland and Rothcoe certainly owe you one.”

  “I don’t want to see either of them ever again,” she informed him, beginning to feel cold now that her immediate anger was fading. “The Committee was bad enough: those two are like lethal kewpie dolls.”

  He got off the desk and went to his side-cabinet, taking out a beautiful glass bottle filled with a bright-yellow liquid. “May I ply you with some Strega? And then some advice?”

  “Yes please to the Strega; I gather that’s it in the bottle? Very pretty. I’m not so sure about the advice.” She tried to smile but it did not quite work.

  “As you wish,” he said, and filled a tulip-shaped liqueur-glass halfway. “There is more if you want it.”

  “I haven’t tried it yet,” she reminded him, accepting the glass. She tasted the buttery liquid, opened her mouth in surprise and in response to the intensity of the flavor. “Wow. That’s almost electric. That’s something else again,” she said, and put the glass down on the desk. “I’ll go at it slowly, I think. I can tell it’ll knock you endways.” She almost laughed. “Well, not you, specifically, but most simple mortals.”