Love's Golden Spell

by William Maltese

  She didn’t see Christopher until he spoke. He was off the trail in the shade. Even in shadow, however, his hair glowed golden, his skin glowed bronze. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, stepping into the sunlight. Apollo in the sacred grove, Janet thought whimsically. He conspired with nature to make the day brighter, the greens greener, the browns browner.

  After the false alarm on the trail, Janet wasn’t expecting him. “Yes, I imagine you’re very surprised,” she said, glad her voice functioned on command. For a brief moment it had caught in her throat. “Especially since you knew we were here.”

  “You’ve caught me in that truth,” he admitted with mock chagrin, “so there’s no use continuing any attempt at ruse. Yes, I knew you were here. It was a case of the mountain not coming to Muhammad, so.…” He shrugged his broad shoulders, letting Janet fill in the rest of the time-worn expression.

  “I haven’t the time nor the inclination to play your games this morning,” she said, proud of her control. She derived strength from Craig beside her. “I’m here to see Victoria Falls with Captain Sylo. So if you’ll excuse us.…” She hooked her arm through Craig’s. It wasn’t only a signal for Christopher to leave. It was a bid for needed support.

  “Haven’t you already seen Victoria Falls with Captain Sylo?” Christopher asked. “Unless things have changed, the falls are that way, aren’t they?” He nodded in the direction from which Janet and Craig had come.

  “I’m sure you know what I mean,” Janet said, not amused. “There’s more to Victoria Falls than the falls.”

  “In truth, I felt it best to see you while Captain Sylo was standing guard,” Christopher said. “Knowing you’re afraid to talk with me alone—”

  “I’m not afraid!” she interrupted him. It was a lie. What’s more, she was wasting her breath trying to convince anyone otherwise.

  “I figured you would he more comfortable with him in attendance,” he completed his sentence.

  “I don’t need a bodyguard or a chaperon!” Janet snapped. He smiled. He had anticipated her response. She played mouse to his cat every time they met, and she hated the role.

  “Then maybe he’ll excuse us for a couple of minutes?” Christopher suggested. He hadn’t missed the opening. “I promise not to keep you long.”

  She glanced nervously at Craig for help. “I could take the slickers back to the hotel and wait for you there?” he proposed. He was no help at all! He was the sheep dog turning over his charge to the wolf from the woods. Janet’s panic showed through. “Or maybe you’d rather put off discussions with Mr. Van Hoon until later,” Craig offered quickly. “Maybe even indefinitely.” It was the out she wanted. His initial response, she suspected, had come from their mutual concern for wildlife. Janet was their hope of persuading Christopher to join their side.

  “I suppose I can spare Mr. Van Hoon a few minutes,” she said reluctantly. Her heart beat faster. The sun was overly warm against her face “If you’re sure you don’t mind, Craig.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind?” Craig double-checked. He was chivalrous to the last, thinking of her sensibilities. He wouldn’t condemn her if she decided not to take the risk.

  “This won’t take long,” Janet said, committing herself. She wanted Christopher converted to the cause. If she could bring him around—without compromising herself—she owed it to the dwindling animals of Africa to give it her best shot. However, she admitted to herself that her excitement had nothing to do with the possible salvation of any four-legged beast.

  Slickers in hand, Craig diplomatically headed up the path toward the hotel. “I don’t particularly care for that man,” Christopher said when Craig rounded a bend in the trail and disappeared. Janet was furious at his unwarranted attack. The nerve!

  “I don’t find your dislike surprising,” she said sardonically. “He’s all that you’re not—gentle, kind, courteous, caring.”

  “You think so?” Christopher asked. He was doubtful. Of course he was. Craig was strong, good-looking, and he stood between Christopher and what he wanted. “I’m a good judge of character,” Christopher said. “I’m wrong sometimes, but seldom. I’d watch myself with Captain Craig Sylo if I were you.”

  “I can take care of myself, thank you!” Janet said, her voice trembling with anger. “If you’re here to bad-mouth Craig behind his back, we can call our conversation quits as of this moment.”

  “I didn’t come to bad-mouth Craig,” Christopher said, taking her arm. He nudged her toward the falls.

  “I can walk perfectly well on my own!” she said, jerking her arm away. “Or hadn’t you noticed?” Her arm tingled where his fingers had been.

  Christopher seemed to be somehow in mysterious communion with Mother Nature. The mist cleared before him, baring segments of path whipped by soaking spray seconds before. The falls emerged, unveiled and beautiful, sunlight enmeshing in the webs of fog to add the right touch of rainbow enchantment.

  They passed Devil’s Cataract and moved on to the ninety-three-meter-high Main Falls. Their view of the gorge was breathtaking. Across the way was Livingstone Island, where its namesake had canoed to peer over the lip of the chasm. When Janet and Craig had passed the spot, the rumble of the water had been a deafening thunder. Now the roar was muted, blown away with the spray.

  “I haven’t been here for sixteen years,” Christopher said. Janet’s heart rose to her throat and stayed there.

  “That’s a long time,” she managed finally, hoping the thunder of the cascading water was loud enough to conceal the break in her voice.

  Luckily, Christopher didn’t notice. He was lost in his thoughts. “Every place a person visits becomes a backdrop for memories,” he continued. “Memories good, bad, indifferent.”

  “And Victoria Falls?” Janet asked, wishing she were less curious. “What kind of memories does it hold?” What if he said bad ones?

  “Good ones,” Christopher said. “So good that I was reluctant to return today for fear that meeting you here might taint them.”

  Janet was simultaneously thrilled and heartbroken—thrilled that his memories were good, heartbroken that he thought her capable of damaging what her presence had conjured up sixteen years before. Good memories weren’t easily destroyed. They held on tenaciously—sometimes for longer than a person wanted. Her good memories were still strong, further intensified by Christopher’s nearness. Sixteen years seemed like yesterday.

  “I came to Great Zimbabwe and to Victoria Falls to find you, because I felt something for you from beginning,” he said. He folded his arms across his chest.

  “What you feel is a desire for revenge,” Janet said. She was familiar with the emotion. She had lived with it for years, although there was something about the present scene, about Christopher, that diminished that drive in her.

  “Not just revenge,” he contradicted, “although I wasn’t too pleased to realize what you and your camera crew were up to.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not just revenge’?”

  “I’m not sure I know what I mean,” Christopher admitted with a nervous laugh. “For a time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either.”

  “Something changed your mind?” Janet asked, her heart pounding, her throat dry despite the surrounding water.

  “You were the catalyst who brought back memories of a time in my life I’d almost forgotten. Maybe it was your crusade against killing animals, or the way you looked so ridiculously sexy sliding down the banister at Lionspride. Maybe it was your name.”

  “Were you here with that other Janet, Christopher?” she asked, willing to face the danger inherent in what he might answer.

  “Some memories aren’t shared!” he said tersely. For him, she was a burglar caught in the act. He didn’t know his memories were already hers. “Hell, why not share them?” he amended, which cut Janet to the quick. He was right in what he said about memories. He should no more expose precious times to her, thinking her a complete stranger, than Janet was willing to reveal the
m to Craig. She prayed for the mist, the gusting wind, the noise to shut out his words. “I’ve always felt guilty,” Christopher said, plowing ahead. Janet couldn’t stop him without running away or revealing her secret.

  She did neither. She needed to hear him out. She wanted her ghosts put to rest, and maybe this was a solution. She doubted it, but nothing else had worked. “She was only thirteen,” Christopher continued. “It made little difference that I was only five years older. She was vulnerable with childish thoughts. I was already a man.”

  He felt guilty? Oh, the silly fool! He was tormented because he thought he had taken advantage of a young girl. What he had done was to give her the happiest moments of her life.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong!” he said quickly. He didn’t know she was fully aware of how wonderfully harmless it had all been. “It wasn’t anything deliberately sexual. No matter the playboy I became—” he gave a sad smile “—I assure you, I wasn’t one at the time.”

  A faint gust of wind blew up from the gorge, baptizing them in a short-lived sprinkle of mist. There wasn’t enough dampness to keep his hair down. Silky strands lifted to accept more haloing sunlight.

  “I thought she would be around forever,” he said. “This goes to prove I was as much a child as she was. I thought there would be plenty of time to sort out confusing emotions. As it turned out, there was only one summer—one very short wonderful summer. You’d think memories would pale after sixteen years, wouldn’t you? You’d think remembering wouldn’t be so easily triggered by meeting someone called Janet, long after the fact,” he said. He faced her with an unexpectedly tender expression on his face. “I hated you for making me remember,” he said simply. “I hated you, because I’m old enough to know there’s no bringing back the past, and the memories made me want a return of that one summer of my childhood, although that other Janet wouldn’t thank me for the replay.”

  He was wrong—even if she had come to Africa to erase the memories. “Somewhere there’s a young woman, once thirteen, who’s thanking you for that one cherished summer,” she said.

  He shook his head. He didn’t believe her. Why should he? She had never left a clue, had cut him off without a word, without reading his letters. She had feared he was writing about how foolish he was to love her. She had mistaken him for a man who would recover more easily than she would. She had mistaken him for a man who was as glib about kisses and whispers of love as those men in Janet’s life who came after. But at eighteen he had still been a boy in many ways. Would Christopher lie about love at eighteen when he refused to lie at thirty-four?

  “I don’t believe in love at first sight,” he had told her. “I don’t believe in love in two days’ time, either.”

  “I loved her,” he said, another gust of windy spray tousling his gilt-edged hair. “A few kisses, a few good times, a tragic end, and I loved her. I haven’t loved anyone since. Maybe I did use the motive of revenge to rationalize my attempts to seduce you, but really I was hoping you could do more than trigger memories. You have the same name, the same coloring, the same need to condemn the slaughter of wildlife as she did. You slide down banisters as she did. If there’s no reliving the past, there is the present, isn’t there?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. He was right. She had come to the same conclusion. What was done was done. Fools spent lifetimes looking back, hoping for a return of the past. She’d been a fool.

  Keep the good memories, she saw that now. Savor them. But they were so precious only because they were one of a kind, not to be lived again.

  “I want to explore the present, Janet,” he said. “I want to sort out whatever it is that draws me to you. I want to know if it’s only memories of another Janet, or if I’m rediscovering feelings buried so long I can’t remember them. I want a little of your time, not to maul you at every opportunity but to get to know you better. You needn’t feel anything in return. You can go your way when your project at Great Zimbabwe is finished. I’ll be satisfied with the inner knowledge that something vital inside of me didn’t die when I was eighteen. That’s not too much to ask if I behave like a gentleman, is it?”

  She closed the space between them. She looked into the deep gold of his eyes and slid her hands around his hard waist. “No, it isn’t,” she said, her lips inviting his to kiss them.

  “You won’t regret your generosity, Janet,” he said, touching her mouth in a tender exploration that recalled the joys of kissing when the experience was new and full of wonder. It was an exquisite resurrection of pleasure that left her hungry for more—much more—of the same. “You see, you needn’t think I’ll try to devour you like a beast at one sitting,” he said.

  He bent his head to offer a gentle kiss. Her mouth eagerly responded, her body molding itself closer to his. Her hands caressed the contours of his hard and muscled back.

  The wind changed, hurling a curtain of spray over them. They didn’t move, oblivious to everything but the ecstasy of the moment.

  When they came apart, it was with mutual wonder at the miracle of pleasure enhanced by invisible bonds between them. For a moment, she had reclaimed her past, relived a moment of first love on the edge of the gorge.

  She was happy.

  He took her hand, laughing as he rushed with her to the shelter of sunshine beyond the enveloping mist. She ran with him, fleeing the premonition that such uninhibited innocence and childlike joy couldn’t last.

  * * * * * * *

  “YOU DIDN’T TOSS him over the falls, did you?” Craig asked, greeting her return to the lobby of the Victoria Falls Hotel.

  “No,” Janet said, laughing. It had turned into a wonderful few moments! Her clothes, drenched during those final seconds on the lip of the gorge, had pretty much dried during her walk back. “Surprisingly, Mr. Van Hoon was downright civil.”

  “Is that the comment of someone trying to hide the blame for his disappearance?” Craig asked, making an exaggerated search of the area for Christopher.

  “He’s alive and well,” Janet assured him in continuing good humor. She would have been on her way to the airport with Christopher if she hadn’t been obligated to Craig. She wasn’t the kind of woman who came to a party with one man and left with another, even if her escort probably didn’t care. More to the point, she wanted a little time away from Christopher to analyze this new turn of events. It was so fantastically wonderful, and she couldn’t believe it was true. Christopher was drawn to her without realizing he had known her before. There was a chance for them in the present, as there had been in the past. That was as frightening as it was exciting. Disaster was on the horizon. The gods wouldn’t let her remain this blissfully happy for long. She knew from experience.

  “So, how did it go?” Craig asked, walking back with her to the main door. Her meeting with Christopher put them behind schedule; it was time to leave. She had come to cancel memories, and she had ended up gathering a whole new beautiful bouquet of them.

  It had gone better than she had hoped—even the part that interested Craig. “He said he’d have his people look into it,” she said, running her hand through her damp hair to further dry it in the brilliant sunshine that greeted them. “They’ll come up with the best way for him to help. He made no promises to follow through on any of their suggestions, mind you, and I didn’t feel it wise to press him at this stage of the game. But he seemed receptive.”

  “I’m glad for the wildlife he’ll be helping,” Craig said, signaling for a cab.

  “So am I,” Janet said. Craig didn’t know how glad.

  The airstrip was a short drive from the hotel. Christopher had taken off in his private plane by the time they got there. Within minutes, they were in the air and circling the falls for a final goodbye. The deep scar on the earth boiled its puffs of ominous white-to-gray spray.

  Craig flew upriver to where a group of hippos wallowed in deep clear water, visible like submarines. He veered southeast for Great Zimbabwe.

  They didn’t talk much, Craig occasionally
pointing out buffalo, kudu, and waterbuck on the landscape below. It was after they had left Victoria Falls miles behind, farmland heralding their approach to Great Zimbabwe, that Craig inadvertently dropped his little bomb. Janet didn’t miss the irony, either. After all, Craig was chiefly responsible for Christopher and her making a new beginning at the falls.

  “Damn!” Craig said, priming the explosion. He shook his head, and for a moment Janet thought something was wrong with the plane. “Sorry,” he said, seeing her worried expression. “I didn’t mean to disturb your snooze.”

  “Actually, I was just resting my eyes,” Janet confessed. She had feigned sleep, because she preferred savoring her recent memories of Christopher in silence. It didn’t look or sound as if there was any problem with the aircraft.

  “I’ll check with Christopher’s people when I get back to Great Zimbabwe, but it would have been better for me to talk with Christopher in private,” Craig said.

  “Talking to him about what?” Janet asked. Craig wouldn’t likely have brought the subject up if it was a purely personal matter.

  “‘I need to know where his people are off to tomorrow,” Craig said. Alarm bells went off in Janet’s head. Somehow this sounded like a warning—and she didn’t want to know what she was being warned of. “They’re supposed to file daily reports,” Craig continued, “but they’ve been straying from their official projections as of late. I’m technically responsible for everyone’s safety, including theirs. It’s difficult when I don’t know where they are. Poachers aren’t above killing men as well as beasts.”

  “Christopher’s people?” Janet asked. The term he’d used came off as a strange one. There were Craig’s people, and there were government people at Great Zimbabwe. Even her people were probably there by now. But Christopher’s people?