Stone 588

by Gerald A. Browne

  "Janet wanted to give up on life, so some spirit on the other side agreed to take over her body and everything."

  "Like assuming a lease," Springer quipped.

  "You might say. Did you know some guy in Sweden is Einstein's walk-in?"

  "What about you?"

  "Huh?"

  "You're just the original you, aren't you?"

  "Must be. I've never given up. Where did you go tonight?"

  He told her.

  "Thought you might be having a go with some local piece."

  He got out of the shower. She tossed him a towel and used another to dry his back. She ran her lips over the knob at the base of his neck. When he was entirely dried off he yanked on the tie of the sash of her kimona. Slickly, willingly, it came undone, fell, and allowed the kimona to hang open in front. She merely relaxed her shoulders, and with a single shrug it dropped from her.

  She had on pale peach tap panties of lightweight silk. A lingerie seamstress in Paris made them especially for her by the dozens. They were bias-cut, purposely full in the leg and crotch, and instead of elastic at the waist they were held up by a mere loop around one tiny pearly button. Her matching mules had narrow four-inch heels.

  Springer rarely misread her at such times, her preference. He believed he recognized this one. He didn't touch her.

  She turned, left the bathroom. Her walk was for him to steal from the trimness of her legs, the natural tightening motions of her buttocks. She opened the French doors, slipped off her mules, and stepped out into the night.

  Springer clicked off the light and waited the required short while before going outside. It was a pure country night, the air a consistency that made it consciously a substance. The sky seemed not so high with more of it visible, cloudless except for a few wisps. The moon was only slightly elliptic. Audrey would be cold. Springer thought. It was something they had done twice before during the previous summer but it had been warmer then.

  He looked to the field. The grass was nearly three feet tall, thick with the fuzzy heads of rye. The disturbance Audrey had caused was a line that could be easily traced. He waded it at a deliberate and quiet stalk.

  Came upon her, captured her with his presence. Her bareness seemed luminous. She was lying on her side, arms wrapped, legs doubled up, possibly cowering. Springer loomed above her for a long moment. He reached down and found the waistband of her panties, yanked at it.

  The button flew.

  The silk tore down the side. The sound of tearing was a hiss. He tore the panties elsewhere and they were off.

  He lay down beside her. She unwound her arms and straightened her legs, allowing him to be full-length close. His mouth, as though drawn by some invisible attachment, went directly to her mouth, a light, brief placement. His hand flat on the small of her back pressed her to him. They held like that for a while before his hand began traveling.

  Her skin he found was wet, especially her lower legs and thighs, from having waded the dewy grass. His hand accumulated water as it skimmed her, and he felt the texture caused by the night's coolness that his touch could smooth away. His hand was both trespasser and owner as it circumspectly and yet surely moved over her surfaces, her rises and dips, slopes and turns.

  Without interrupting she rolled to be front up.

  He fingertipped across her abdomen and down along the fringes of her pubic hair. He burrowed a finger into the left and right creases created by the tangency of her mound and thighs, creases that disappeared, became sinewy sockets when she spread her legs and arched them up.

  It was ritual, not tease.

  He knelt up between her. He listened for her breath. She was holding her breath. She was already swollen and unfolded when he parted her more with his tongue. She was the fragrance of daffodils. Her hands held the back of his head as though it were a bowl feeding her.

  She came twice that way.

  Then, with her avidity primed, she wanted him in her.

  There was no need to guide him. However, she wanted to take hold of his hardness. She appropriated it, stroked herself with it, ran its head up and down in her wetness, and he withheld entering her. When she could no longer bear having him out she heaved up suddenly and slipped herself around him. She wanted him all in, all at once. He pushed his pelvis hard against her, grasped her by her hipbones to prevent her from moving. She understood and remained still. A mere clench might spoil it.

  Soon he stirred in her and his initial short thrusts became full length, which told her she could rely upon his control and it was liberating for her to be able to make contributions.

  'I love you," he said into her.

  She felt the breath of his words on the back of her throat.

  "I love you," she said into him.

  She had never been brought to feel what he made her feel. She shuddered whenever she thought how far short of her potential passion she would have spent her life without him. What tissue of inhibition there had been, he and his love and her loving response had easily broken through. They were, together, not subject to shame and therefore infinite.

  That night in their nest in the high grass, down among all the tinier creatures who run brave and wild after dark, they loved one way or another and another for as long as it took the moon to move halfway across the sky.

  Chapter 10

  The following morning Springer came up out of the kind of dream that needed the verification of touch. He reached with his legs for Audrey. She wasn't there. He opened his eyes, called out to her, and got no reply.

  Her Cartier travel clock on the nightstand told him ten thirty. He noticed his knees were extremely grass-stained. Some of the stains had rubbed off on to the sheet. There were fragments of straw and dry grass on her pillow. He got up for the bathroom, decided he wouldn't shave. He had to scrub vigorously with a washcloth to remove the green from his knees and, as well, from his chin.

  He went into the main area of the house, through to the kitchen, where he poured merely warm water into a mug and spooned in a couple of heaps of Folger's Instant. He heard voices from the side porch and decided he would go out to them.

  Mattie, Audrey, and Janet were seated on faded yellow canvas chairs around a glass-topped table. Springer lifted the back of Audrey's hair and delivered a good-morning kiss to the nape of her neck.

  "Tell your brother," Mattie said to Janet.

  Janet looked Springer's way, smiled, and said, "Good morning."

  "Something wrong?" Springer asked.

  "No," Audrey said.

  "Tell him," Mattie urged.

  "He'll think I belong back in the nut bin," Janet said.

  Audrey's Sweet 'n Swinging donuts were on a plate on the table. Springer helped himself to a couple. No matter how much he stirred his coffee the crystals wouldn't completely dissolve. He noticed a bordering bed of fat-headed zinnias enjoying the sun. He could have brought Jake along, he thought. He observed Janet. She was the same as she'd been yesterday, bright, relaxed, well in touch with herself. He recalled what Audrey had said about how thoroughly she'd been tested. Time would tell, Springer believed.

  Janet met his gaze. She smiled, aware that she was being evaluated.

  "What is it you're reluctant to tell me?" Springer asked her.

  "No comment until I'm done?"

  "Deal."

  She related the circumstances and what had occurred during that afternoon and evening a month ago at High Meadow when she had gone off the manic end. She'd been over it time after time in her mind, hadn't verbalized it until that morning. Now, in telling it again to Springer, she was able to remember more details. She did not spare herself, was graphic in her description of her provokings and violence and how she had to be placed in restraints. She had almost total recall of the sensations that had passed through her as she lay bound and alone, her inability to resist during the process her body underwent, the degree-by-degree repair that resulted in blessed mental clarity. She told how she'd discovered the stone was in her hand and her im
pression that it was instrumental in her recovery.

  Springer saw it now, resting on a paper napkin on the table. His father's reminder stone. He didn't quite know what to say. Perhaps he had misinterpreted Janet's words. Neutrally, he asked her, "Are you implying that you believe that diamond helped you in some way?"

  "She's not implying, she's saying," Mattie said.

  "It didn't help, it healed," Audrey put in.

  Janet nodded.

  Before joining them on the porch. Springer had thought perhaps their topic of conversation would be something only as incredible as, say, levitation. He asked Janet, "Have you spoken about this to Norman?"

  "Not yet."

  Springer picked up the diamond, held it up to the daylight as though seriously contemplating it. Actually he was using the time to decide how best to handle the situation. He knew the stone well, probably better than anyone. He knew it outside and in, because as a boy for practice he had examined it with a loupe countless times, gone over its surface and looked into it through its natural window, where one tip of its octahedral formation was chipped away. He had also used it to practice weighing, so, although over the years thousands of diamonds had passed through his mind and hands, it was still easy for him to remember this one weighed 56.41 carats. He put the stone down on the napkin and asked Audrey, "Have you tried your pendulum on it?"

  That surprised her. Perhaps, finally, Springer was admitting that her use of a pendulum had merit. She pulled her chair close to the table. From her shirt pocket she brought out a drawstring pouch of chamois which contained her pendulum: a ten-inch length of linen string with a small rectangular piece of polished ivory attached to one end and an emerald bead that resembled a child's marble held by a knot on the other end. The emerald was hazed with numerous internal fractures. Audrey had made the pendulum from scratch. The piece of ivory had been pried from the inlays of an Asprey letter opener left behind by Tyler. The emerald had been found in one of Aunt Libby's boxes of bits and pieces. Audrey was not aware, nor did Libby remember, that the emerald had once come loose from a third-century Hindu dancing girl's ankle bracelet, a tangling arrangement of rounded emeralds and rubies that Libby had donated years ago to the Smithsonian through her personal foundation.

  Audrey propped her elbow on the table and, holding the pendulum by its ivory end, suspended the emerald directly above the stone. She concentrated, seemed suddenly removed from her surroundings, as though she and the pendulum had become locked on some mutual frequency.

  Springer, as usual, had mixed feelings about the woman he loved doing such a ridiculous thing. Not because she was doing it but because she took it so seriously. Audrey believed the pendulum could determine just about anything. It worked like an all-knowing divining device, a bob of sorts that she could rely upon for guidance whenever she came up against indecision. She claimed that the Egyptians had used pendulums to find out whether or not their wine was spoiled or their food fit to eat. Hundreds of years ago in England children had more easily found pennies and other valuables in the gutters using pendulums made of a thread spool, common string, and any small weighted object. During the First World War a French brigadier used a pendulum to locate German sea mines. There were countless substantiated instances, Audrey claimed. She had read and reread her copy of T. C. Leth-bridge's The Power of the Pendulum, annotated and underlined it so much it looked like a scribbled coloring book. She insisted that Springer read it. Inasmuch as it was only 138 pages he obliged, skimmed through it.

  From what he gathered, an ultimate pendulum was precisely 40 inches long and worked on the principle of cardinal points and coordinates, like a compass. Every thought and substance had its particular coordinate, and, by playing out or winding up the length of string a fraction, the possibilities of determining things were endless. For example: The idea of love, according to Lethbridge, had the coordinates 20/20, which meant with love in mind and the string 20 inches long the pendulum always swung in the direction of 20 degrees. (That 20/20 also signified perfect vision occurred to Springer.) Sex was a 16/19 combination. The coordinates 29/29 were shared by femininity and danger, for some reason. Lethbridge contended that it all had to do with allowing a certain higher energy to flow and communicate through the super-conscious. So-called sensitives were supposed to be best at it. Springer knew for sure that Audrey was a sensitive, though perhaps not the sort Mr. Lethbridge had in mind. According to the book's jacket, the man had been Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge University.

  Audrey's use of the pendulum was not nearly so complicated. She asked only a yes or no from it. (Should they go to see that play? Had the housekeeper nipped and then diluted the cognac? Was the crabmeat salad fresh?) Audrey was by no means too dependent on the pendulum but she always kept it handy, a backup.

  Springer put no stock in any of it. Nevertheless he had to consider her pendulum his ally. No doubt Audrey had at various times asked it questions regarding him, and apparently so far it had responded in his favor. He hoped it never turned on him.

  Now, holding the pendulum above the diamond, she swung it a bit to get it started. The emerald bead rotated slowly. It seemed to be indicating a no. But then its motion gradually became elliptical and even more so until it was swinging straight back and forth. A definite yes.

  Audrey, satisfied, put the pendulum back into its pouch.

  Springer wanted to know what she'd asked.

  "I asked, Does this stone have the power to heal?"

  "The power to make right would have been more precise," Mattie said. "To the old mystics a healing was a righting, a correcting of physical faults."

  "Anyway," Audrey said, "you saw the answer."

  "It's by no means new that a stone should have such influence. The Incas strapped chunks of jade to their backs to dissolve kidney stones."

  "Topaz prevents epilepsy."

  Springer watched a pair of barn swallows playing jet fighter around the barn.

  "Some garnets can stop hemorrhaging. During the Crusades the Saracens rubbed them on their wounds."

  "Rubies are also good for that."

  "And spinels."

  Springer watched a dragonfly come in for a landing on the porch railing. Along the flagstone bordering the steps, a single file of ants was bound for some task or treat.

  "They say a sapphire held under the tongue will act like a tonic when someone's run down."

  "In India the Ayurvedic doctors use gems to cure everything from hiccups to leprosy. They bum the stones and mix the ashes into ointments and powders."

  "This very moment in India one could walk into any Ayurvedic pharmacy and buy ashes of pearls or rubies or whatever."

  "They call the ashes bhasmas. I remember because when Edwin and I were in New Delhi, he came down with terrible runs. An Ayurvedic doctor prescribed a tincture made from the bhasma of a five-carat emerald, and a pretty stone it was, I must add. After just two doses Edwin felt fit enough to go out for a huge curry dinner. From then on he swore by it. Never traveled anywhere without it. We used to send to New Delhi for it."

  Springer headed for the barn, a familiar red-peeling sanctuary. He thought he'd give the old tractor a try, not do any work with it, just take a ride on it to the lower meadow, see if the stream that ran through the property was right for fishing. He couldn't imagine his father gulping down a five-carat emerald no matter how bad he had the shits. Springer inserted a stick into the gas tank of the tractor. It came out dry. He wasn't about to go back to the porch for more of Mattie and Audrey's ridiculous volleying.

  Those swallows came swooping through the barn.

  Springer was hugged from behind. A long tight hug.

  It was Janet. She pressed her cheek against his back. Finally she loosened the hug and he turned to her. Her eyes asked to be looked into, wanting him to realize her equilibrium. She smiled to lighten the moment.

  "I know it must have sounded crazy to you, what I said about the stone."
>
  "Sometimes just believing enough in something can work wonders."

  "I was going to keep it to myself."

  "Why didn't you?"

  "It kept pushing at me to be told."

  "Well, whatever happened, Jan, I'm grateful to it and happy for you."

  "So am I," she said cheerfully, emphatically. "But I don't think it was merely a matter of believing. Maybe it was and I don't want to accept that because it's too tenuous. Anyway, do something for me?"

  "Sure. Anything."

  "Take a closer look?"

  She tucked their father's reminder stone into the pocket of Springer's jeans.

  Chapter 11

  A diamond can have a pedigree.

  Like some horses and dogs.

  In fact, getting a pedigree is much easier for a diamond. No concern, of course, with lineage and breeding. The only requirements are that the diamond be cut and polished, unmounted, and weigh at least one carat.

  Since 1952 the Gemological Institute of America has done a tidy business testing and grading diamonds for the trade and issuing pedigrees in the form of its own official-like certificates. Each certificate states what the GIA found — bad, good, or better — about a particular stone. Any diamond, especially one of importance, unaccompanied by such a GIA certificate is viewed with qualms. "Where are its papers?" a cautious buyer wants to know, suspicious that the stone may not be as fine as his personal appreciation says it is—or that the certificate is being held back because the rating the GIA put on the stone does not justify the price being asked for it. The GIA didn't invent the standards, but it defined them and took over as the authority. Its gemologists have more than good eyes and opinions. The most advanced testing and evaluating devices are used to put a diamond through its paces.

  At nine-thirty Monday morning it was only an elevator stop out of the way for Springer to go to the GIA. Its gem-testing laboratory was located on the second floor at 580 Fifth Avenue, in the same building where Springer & Springer had its offices. Springer was a longtime regular customer and therefore known by the receptionist on the other side of the eleven-sixteenths-inch laminated polycarbon-glass bulletproof window. A .357 magnum pistol fired point-blank at her might make her flinch but not bleed. As a concession to Springer, the receptionist relaxed her eyebrows. He asked to see Joel Zimmer.