Blue Fire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  He climbed easily and reached her with no loss of breath. His eyes were as intensely blue as she remembered them—no less so in the man than in the boy. There was an eagerness in him too and her heart thumped foolishly at the knowledge. This meeting could mean nothing, she reminded herself. A rocket could not stay its flight, and Susan van Pelt would never return to South Africa.

  In his arms Dirk held an extravagance of yellow roses and she took them from him, letting her pleasure shine in her eyes. He followed her into the apartment, looking only at her.

  “There were no proteas to be had,” he told her.

  The word, so long forgotten, brought a bright recollection of South Africa’s flower—the fabulously beautiful and exotic protea that grew there in endless variety.

  “Please sit down,” she said, shyly formal. “I’ll be only a moment. I want a vase for these roses.”

  In the kitchen she filled a pale-green vase with water and arranged the flowers tenderly, her fingers a little clumsy with excitement, fearful as always lest she break something. That moment with the camera today had frightened her badly. Her neurosis! she thought wryly, and hoped Dirk had not noticed.

  When she carried the vase back to the living room to set it on the coffee table, she found him standing before a row of photographs on the wall. It pleased her to see that he had singled them out for his attention, since these pictures were Susan and not Claire.

  There was one dramatic shot she had taken of a fire which had damaged a West Side tenement some months ago, another of an excursion boat loading children at a Chicago River landing. And one of a snowy night on Michigan Avenue with shop windows magically ablur through the storm. The one she liked best, however, was a study of an elderly newspaper dealer at his sidewalk stand. The play of light and shadow was exactly right, the composition perfect. She had been proud of the result and pleased to sell it to a national magazine.

  Dirk studied the pictures and she was glad of the opportunity to study him. The charm he had held for her as a child was still there, but magnified as the boy had matured into a man. How very attractive he was, not only because of his fair good looks but in the kindness he showed her, in the quick intelligence that was so evident in him—all adding up to an appeal so strong that it dismayed her a little.

  “Do you enjoy this sort of work?” he asked, still considering the pictures. “I should think it might be hazardous and a bit rigorous for a woman.”

  “I love it,” she said fervently, but she liked the fact that he was thinking of the girl behind the photos. “Before I went to the newspaper I sold photographic supplies in a store in the Loop, and I never really liked that. I always wanted to be out taking pictures.”

  “These are good,” he said, and she warmed to his approval.

  He turned to look directly at her and there was an appraisal in his eyes that made her a little self-conscious. She chose a chair in a shadowy corner and let him take the sofa facing the light. She did not want to be looked at and measured too closely, but only to look, to fill her eyes with the bright dazzle of him. This moment was one she would treasure and remember when he was gone.

  “There’s a great deal to photograph in Cape Town,” he reminded her, a faint amusement underlying his tone as if he sensed something of the effect he had upon her and rather enjoyed it.

  But that was a road she would not follow. “It’s no use,” she said firmly. “I’m not going back, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Have I asked you to?” The timbre of his voice had changed with the years. It was no longer a boy’s voice, but that of a man, deep and vibrant: “I told you I wanted to see you for my own pleasure first of all. The rest can wait a bit.”

  She brought him a drink and as they sipped companionably, she asked him about his work for her father in Cape Town.

  “You were always going to be a famous hunter someday,” she reminded him. “Or discover a fabulous vein of gold.”

  He laughed aloud, pleased that she remembered. “I’m afraid my present hunting is on the prosaic side, though it has its moments of interest. After—what happened—your father sold his home in Johannesburg and moved to the Cape Town house, where he has lived ever since. He has become an exporter of native craft work and has two shops as well. His store in Johannesburg is particularly fine, and there’s a smaller one in Cape Town. My hunting these days consists of going out to places he can no longer reach—in the Transkei, Zululand, Northern Rhodesia. Your father’s standards are high—we don’t look for cheap things, but for real native art work. It’s remarkable how keen he has remained, how alive he is.”

  She did not want to hear about her father. “I can barely remember the house in Jo’burg,” she said. “It was always the Cape Town house I loved best. Protea Hill! Such a lovely name for it. When we went there for the December holidays in summer I had a room with a wonderful view.”

  Dirk set down his glass, his eyes holding hers. “A view that’s still waiting for you, Susan. I doubt that it’s changed in the slightest.”

  “I know,” she said. “The mountain wouldn’t change.”

  She excused herself, went off to the retreat of the kitchen to put the steaks under the broiling flame and toss the salad. But he would not remain a guest in the parlor. He joined her and carried in plates and glasses as though he enjoyed helping her, though he must be accustomed to servants.

  When they had settled down to the meal, she asked him more about his own life so that he would open no further dangerous doors.

  “What did you do before you went to work for my father?”

  His smile was rueful. “When I finished school I got the diamond fever so you see it was diamonds by then, instead of gold. I did a little prospecting on my own, though not very successfully. Your father still owned land around the Kimberley area at that time and he told me I could have anything I discovered there. He was mainly interested in quenching my fever, I suppose.”

  He reached into a pocket and drew out a leather wallet. From an inner fold he took a small packet of paper.

  “I still have one of the stones I found at that time. I’ve kept it for a lucky pocket piece and to prove I’ve been a digger.”

  She bent her head to watch as he unfolded the square of paper, and was aware of his own fair head so close to hers that his breath touched her cheek.

  “There,” he said. “I’ll wager that’s like no diamond you’ve ever seen.”

  The tiny stone shone orchid pink and translucent against the white paper and was irregular in form. The rough natural shape of the diamond was revealed, but it lacked the brighter sparkle of a cut diamond.

  “This is what they call a fancy stone,” Dirk told her. “Fancies are odd, off-color diamonds. Perhaps pink or green or yellow. Sometimes even black. This one isn’t large enough or perfect enough to be of any great value, but I have a certain sentiment about it. Of course it’s uncut, or I would have been breaking the law by bringing it into this country. Only uncut stones come in duty-free.”

  Susan picked up the little stone and nested it on her palm, seeing not the diamond but a very young man with a hunger for adventure in his heart, working for a dream that had never materialized.

  “I thought De Beers owned all the diamonds in South Africa,” she said. “How is it you were permitted to do any prospecting on your own?”

  “The syndicate owns the important holdings,” he explained. “But there are still diggers who work their own claims and sell what little they find to De Beers. As a matter of fact, it’s against the law to possess an uncut diamond in South Africa unless you are an authorized person. As a licensed digger who found this stone myself I’m able to keep it.” He returned the pink diamond to the paper and folded it away in his wallet. “Have you ever heard of the Kimberley Royal?” he added.

  She shook her head, fascinated by this talk of diamonds and of a South Africa she had long ago put away from her and reconciled to painful memory.

  “The Kimberley Royal was one of the gr
eat finds,” Dirk said. “A remarkably beautiful and valuable stone. Bigger than the Hope diamond and nearly flawless. I saw it once as a boy. The very machinery that sorts diamonds these days may crush or damage the unusually large stone, but that’s a chance that has to be taken. The present system is geared to a realistic commercial output. It takes, on an average, four tons of rock to give one carat of diamonds. But now I’m getting a bit technical.”

  She did not mind. She loved to listen to him and she gave him her absorbed attention all through the meal. Later, when he had gone, she would think about everything he had said.

  When dessert was finished and she had cleared away the dishes, they sat among the pale pinks and baby blues and drank large cups of American brewed coffee. But now Dirk seemed restless, as if he felt time was slipping away and the subject for which he had really come had still not been opened between them.

  In this mood his appeal for her was more disturbing. There were contrasts in this man, vibrant changes that would ask much of any woman who cared for him. But the thought of caring for him seriously was ridiculous and she dismissed the notion impatiently. She must be on guard against herself if her thoughts followed such a course.

  He set down his cup and moved about the room again, glancing once more at the photographs, picking up a small carved antelope figure from the bookcase and holding it out to her with a smile.

  “So you still keep a bit of Africa around?”

  “It’s an impala,” Susan said, the remembered name coming back to her unbidden.

  He studied the stripe-grained golden wood of the carving, turning it about with experienced fingers. Tall lyrate horns rose from the slender, gracefully turned head. The ears were pricked, the muzzle delicate, the eyes long and luminous, even in a wood carving. The figure was at rest, its forelegs curled beneath the body, the haunches smoothly rounded, with the strong hindquarters of a leaping animal. The curving grain suggested the haunch stripe of the impala and about the whole was an air of life and sensitive alertness, as though the creature might at any moment leap from its oval stand and go flying out of Dirk’s fingers.

  “A good piece,” he said in approval. “The artist has caught the feeling of a wild thing, even at rest.”

  Susan stared at the figure. Until Dirk held it up the carving had meant nothing in particular to her and she had not thought of its name in years. Her mother had never connected the carving with South Africa. Yet suddenly knowledge was there, rising without warning from the forgotten past.

  He set the figure down, moving closer to her, and this time he picked up a book from a table at her elbow and turned it over with a low whistle of astonishment.

  “You want nothing to do with South Africa, yet you read the books of John Cornish?”

  “Someone on the paper recommended it,” Susan told him, a little startled by his tone. “The jacket flap says that his mother was an American, like mine, and I believe he lives in America now. Except when he’s off to get material for a new book. That one is about Algeria.”

  Dirk turned the book over and studied the face pictured on the back of the jacket with an air of displeasure.

  “Cornish used to write about South Africa,” he said. “That’s where he grew up. In fact, it was an article of his that helped to send your father to prison. Did you know that?”

  She had not known it and she sat staring at him in silence.

  “Cornish is back in the Union now,” he went on. “The Johannesburg papers were running pieces about him when I left. I even ran into him one day there in the Carlton Hotel. It was not a fortunate meeting. I hope he’ll stay away from Cape Town.”

  She wanted to ask more about John Cornish and her father, but remembered in time that these were matters in which she had no interest.

  Dirk put down the book and came toward her, stood over her, so that she had to look up into his face. “Why are you so afraid of returning?” His gaze commanded her, yet there was a gentleness in him that kept her from turning away.

  “My mother told me a few things about my father,” she said. “He really cared very little for us. There’s no reason to go back just because he’s lately changed his mind about seeing me.”

  “But it was your mother who ran away at a time when he needed her most,” Dirk said.

  Indignation flared in her. “That’s not true! He didn’t need her, didn’t want her. She was thinking of me, of getting me away from what might happen to us because of him.”

  He countered calmly with a question and she saw pity in his eyes. “Didn’t she ever tell you why your father went to prison?”

  “She said it was best that we both forget. For years it’s never been mentioned between us. Anyhow, all that has nothing to do with me now.”

  The truth behind her willing ignorance was something she could explain to no one. There was about it a faintly nightmare quality she knew better than to rouse.

  “I know enough,” she hurried on. “My father must have been an important man in his day. Mother told me he was well-known in the diamond world—one of the most valued men with De Beers. He ran for the South African Parliament at one time too, didn’t he? He was a leader, a respected person. Yet he threw it all away. Threw his family away—everything!”

  “Listen to me,” Dirk said, and the gentleness had gone from his manner. “It’s time you knew the story. It’s true that he broke the law, and no one knows why. But he’s paid for that mistake a good many times over. So it would be a fine thing if his daughter—”

  Susan jumped to her feet, familiar panic rising in her. “I don’t want to hear!” she cried. “If you go on, I won’t listen.”

  He looked clearly astonished at her show of emotion. Quietly he sat down on the sofa, and drew her to the place beside him, put a quieting arm about her shoulders. She shivered at his touch, all too conscious of his warmth and nearness. It was dangerous to get too close to a rocket. The tears she had been holding back since her mother’s death welled up in her eyes. Softly, helplessly, she began to cry. He turned her head so that her cheek was against his shoulder and his fingers smoothed the bright hair back from her warm, damp brow.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d forgotten that you’ve had a bad time lately. I’m not sure what it is you fear and I suspect that it’s unreal. But I won’t trouble you about it now.”

  She suffered herself to rest against his shoulder for a few blissful moments and then raised her head and gave him a wavering smile.

  “There—I’m all right now. And terribly ashamed. I didn’t invite you here to be cried on.” She blew a nose that she knew was pink, dried her eyes, and silently despised herself.

  Dirk glanced at his watch and stood up. “I mustn’t forget that you’re a working girl and probably have to be up early in the morning. I appreciate your good dinner. It’s been wonderful to see you again, Susan.”

  He was impersonal now and almost brusque. She knew she had sent him away with her tears, her nonsense. “Wh-when are you returning to Cape Town?” she asked, her voice fainter than she intended.

  “At the moment I’m not sure,” he told her. “This assignment may take me longer than I’d expected. To be perfectly truthful, I’m going home just as soon as you’re ready to go with me.”

  He waited for no answer to that, but kissed her lightly on the cheek and took his departure before she could summon words to answer him. She stood frozen in the doorway, and listened to the sound of his steps as he ran lightly down the turning stairs. Before he reached the bottom he began to whistle and the tune touched some chord of memory in her mind. When the street door opened and closed, she went back into the apartment and stared about her vaguely. Somehow the place had a different look to her now. The valentine touches no longer mattered. Dirk had known they had nothing to do with her.

  On the table lay the book by John Cornish. She picked it up and, as Dirk had done, turned it over to study the face portrayed on the book jacket. The picture was a candid shot and she had not thought it p
rofessionally good. It showed the rather brooding face of a man in his early forties or late thirties—a face with a strong bone structure beneath the flesh, the eyes deeply set beneath heavy brows. The mouth was straight and unsmiling, with a relentless quality about it, yet there was a mark of sensitivity to the lips. It was a face worth photographing skillfully, and this had been a haphazard shot.

  What role had this man played in her father’s life? She knew of him only as a highly respected writer on African affairs. Today America regarded him as an American. She put the book aside abruptly. She did not want to read John Cornish after what Dirk had told her about him.

  She reached for the carved impala and sat on the sofa holding it tightly in her hands as if for comfort. She knew very well what it was she tried to postpone, to fend off. In spite of the fear that had its roots in her half-forgotten childhood, there was a faint edge of eagerness encroaching upon her resistance. Was it possible that she might in the end give in and go back to South Africa with Dirk Hohenfield?

  She shook her head stubbornly, fighting off the thought. No, certainly she would never go back. Not if it meant any contact with Niklaas van Pelt, who was her father.

  The tune Dirk had been whistling still haunted her memory, running through her mind over and over again. The words came back to her suddenly.

  I’ll think of my darling as the sun goes down,

  … Down, down below the mountain.

  * From “As the Sun Goes Down.” New words and new music by Josef Marais. Copyright 1956 by Fideree Music Corp., New York, N.Y.

  2

  Afterwards Susan would always think of the days that followed as the time of the pink diamond.

  In the beginning she tried to steel herself against Dirk and his confident, persuasive ways. But she could not refuse to see him, did not want to, and with each new meeting her defenses crumbled a little more. He behaved as if all the time in the world were at his disposal and he could afford to wait. The late August days were hot in Chicago and some evenings, when she was free from her work on the paper, they would walk down Michigan Avenue together or perhaps find their way to the lake front along Grant Park. During these walks he would often speak of South Africa, of Cape Town, and a long-forgotten homesickness began to stir in her. With it there came, in spite of herself, a softness and a yearning that warned her of what was happening.