ISABELLA WATCHED MAX PASS DIRECTLY BENEATH HER, GRIPPING HIS father. She forced herself to her knees and crawled after him until the water had carried him beneath the wall of the chapel. Then she clambered to her feet and staggered out of the exit. She looked in the direction of the current, to where the lake joined the distant channel to the sea, but all she could see was an unbroken expanse of ice.
The current seemed to be accelerating but she followed Max as far and fast as she could, watching him glide beneath her. Eventually she fell exhausted to the ice and saw him look up over his father's shoulder. He was smiling at her -- a serene, peaceful smile. At that moment, when everything trivial had been stripped away, she knew, with a certainty she had never experienced before, that she not only loved but forgave him. True love was forgiveness.
But it was too late now. As she watched him slip away from her, she cried out, with all her remaining strength: 'Max! I love you, Max! I love you!'
Phoebe, the bridesmaids and some of the braver guests ran to her across the treacherous ice, but she was oblivious of them. Even as Phoebe wrapped her in a dry coat, Isabella stared out across the vast frozen lake and screamed her love for Max, hoping he would hear her before he died.
UNDER THE ICE, HELMUT KAPPEL STARED INTO HIS SON'S IMPLACABLE eyes and realized it was futile to struggle any more. Even if he escaped Max's steel grip there was nowhere to go. As Isabella's muted cries of love reached his ears, an expression of peace came over Max's features and Helmut knew he was looking into the face of a man unafraid of death.
The bitter pill of contempt burst on his tongue. The man he had raised as his heir had become his nemesis. However hard he had tried to deafen Max to love's siren call, his son had still succumbed to it. Even at the point of death, Max believed that love gave his life meaning. The fool probably thought he would live on in Isabella's heart. But she, too, would eventually die and then what? Max still didn't understand that love was just an ingenious trick of nature -- a sick delusion to ensure that humans reproduced.
But as his lungs. Ballooned in his chest and the impulse to breathe became impossible to resist, Helmut felt his certainties slip away. Suddenly he realized that for all his dreams of immortality, he was going to die alone and forgotten, with no one to grieve his passing. He would vanish from the face of the earth as though he had never existed.
As extinction approached, cold and dark, overwhelming panic welled within him. Suddenly he coveted Max's certainty and peace. He gripped his son, staring into his face, desperate to feed off his serenity and courage.
The first reflexive gulp of icy water made Helmut gag and convulse, but Max's hold was firm. As he choked on the water, Helmut saw a spark of compassion in his son's eyes, but that provided him with little consolation. In his heart, he felt only black despair as the water enveloped him in its dark, cold embrace.
Then there was nothing.
AS HIS FATHER'S BODY FLOATED AWAY, MAX BECAME ACUTELY AWARE of the water flowing past and under him. He felt lighter, almost buoyant, as if the icy current was washing him clean of his past sins. He had the bizarre sense that he was reborn, and the irony that this should come at the point of death made him smile.
He thought of Isabella's final declaration of love and sadness penetrated his meditative calm. He didn't deserve it, but he wanted her forgiveness, even though there wasn't time now to earn it. All he could do was forgive himself.
He consoled himself with the sudden insight that her feelings for him weren't what mattered. True love was about loving unconditionally, not just being loved. It was about giving, not receiving. His love for Isabella had made him strong, and proved that love wasn't something to be feared or controlled with a drug, and giving it endowed life with meaning. His mother had understood that, and now he did too. He was grateful that Isabella had reminded him of it before it was too late.
He wondered how long he had been submerged. He had slowed his heartbeat and wondered if the cold had done the same with his metabolism, further reducing his need for oxygen. Or perhaps it was just hypothermia -- or even that he had entered the early stages of oxygen starvatio'n and was experiencing hypoxic euphoria. Either way, he felt calm. The ice appeared to clear for a moment, revealing the bright sky above. When he looked up he thought he saw the distorted silhouette of an eagle following him. Then the image disappeared.
He looked around him and realized the ice was thicker here, the water darker. Ahead there were three channels. He wondered which led to the canyon-like inlets at the side of the lake, dead ends where his body would lie frozen and undiscovered for months, if not years - and which led through the narrow fjord to the sea, where the ice gave way to the river that flowed into the Gulf Stream.
As he pondered this, not really caring which route he took, a white figure rose from the depths beneath him. He recognized his mother and knew that hypoxia had taken hold. She smiled and held her arms wide -- so different from the avenging presence she had been when he had last seen her. He was glad she'd come for him, and wanted to reassure her that he understood now what she had tried to tell him all those years ago in the boat off Hawaii: without love we are nothing.
As though she could hear his thoughts, her smile broadened and she placed a finger over her lips. Then she took his hand and led him down the left channel beneath the ice. The light ahead told Max he was approaching death, but he still wouldn't relinquish control of his body and surrender to the impulse to breathe. I did that once before and I'll never do it again, he thought. He felt relaxed, at peace, ready to die. He closed his eyes and let his mother's presence guide him. The numbing cold seemed to grow marginally warmer, and he imagined he was returning to the womb. Then his mind folded in on itself and he felt no more.
odin used valhalla's single satellite phone to call for help, but because it was New Year's Day there was a delay in the rescue services reaching them. Confused guests wandered around the palace. A dazed, bloodstained Warren Hudsucker was seen hovering around the boiler-house, asking where the chapel had gone. Some just stared out silently to where the helicopter had crashed into the lake. Others sat in huddles, asking each other what had happened. Klaus Kappel and the Kappel Privatbank clients retired to their rooms to pack. They wanted nothing to do with the police and the other authorities when they arrived. Even as they waited to evacuate the palace, the gaps in the ice were closing and refreezing, healing the lake's wounds.
Isabella's wounds would take longer to knit. A doctor stitched her face and temporarily sutured the gash on her shoulder, but she didn't care about the pain in her body. All she could think of was Max's once warm flesh cooling under that sheet of ice. A solitary eagle soared above the lake, heading for the fjord and the sea beyond. She wondered if it was the same eagle she had seen the day she thought Max was going to shoot her. Perhaps it could see Max under the ice, had witnessed his death, as she had once thought it would witness hers. An almost unbearable sadness weighed down on her. She felt as empty, flat and desolate as the lake itself. She only hoped that Max had died knowing she loved him.
Phoebe sat down beside her and held her hand. 'You okay?'
She nodded, feeling anything but.
'What the hell happened,Isabella ?' Phoebewhispered . 'Why can't I recognize anyone's face? What do we tell the police or whoever comes to get us?'
Isabella was too tired to explain anything, and she wasn't sure she wanted the police to know about Venus or Ilium, or that she had drugged everyone last night. The fewer people who knew of the drugs' existence the better -- it was too easy to abuse them and had caused enough heartache. What was the point in telling people anyway? Helmut was dead, and she would only drag her father's name through the mud. In time she would decide what to do. But not now.
She looked up at her best friend. She was sure that once the temporary prosopagnosia passed, the obsessive cycle would have been broken, leaving Phoebe and the others who had been dosed with the NiL drug free of their fixations. 'Shock does strange things, Phoebe. But
, trust me, the face-blindness will pass. I'll explain it later, but for now be glad you had a lucky escape.' It was best if everyone believed they were simply in shock. And it wasn't too far off the mark, considering what had happened: people had been drunk last night; the Northern Lights had upset everyone's brain chemistry; and Phoebe's wedding had ended with a traumatic bang. She tried to smile but she felt like crying.
Phoebe squeezed her good hand. 'Thank you, Izzy. Thank you for rescuing me from Helmut.'
'It was Max. He rescued all of us.' Isabella looked out across the frozen lake and felt a pain more acute than any inflicted by Helmut Kappel's knife. 'He wasn't like his father.'
Phoebe put an arm round her. 'I'm so sorry, Izzy.'"
As she listened to the whup, whup, whup of approaching helicopters, Isabella felt the tears come. 'So am I,' she said quietly.
EPILOGUE:
FOUR MONTHS LATER
IT'S REMARKABLE, DR BACCI, QUITE REMARKABLE.' ROBERTO Zuccatto, head of neurology at MilanUniversityHospital, adjusted his pince-nez and pointed to the illuminated region of the subject's brain on the PET scan monitor. 'Look at how the whole area of her inferotemporal cortex lights up when she recognizes a face. I've never seen this before with a prosopagnosic'
Through the glass partition Isabella kept her eyes on Sofia. All traces of the little girl's accident were gone. Her hair had grown back and there was no visible scarring. But that wasn't what made today so remarkable. The child wore a headset and sat in front of a large television screen as a series of human faces flashed before her. Her friends, family and herself were interspersed with strangers. And each time someone connected to her appeared, the area of her brain dedicated to face recognition lit up on the monitor. Sofia, who had been face-blind since her accident, was again recognizing the faces of those she knew and loved.
'I still don't understand how you managed to make so much progress in just a few months,' Zuccatto said.
'My father helped me,' Isabella said. 'He was working on a related area before he died, focusing on stimulating the facial-recognition area of the brain.'
"You should be proud of him.'
'I am.'
She was glad that something good had come of her father's misconceived love drug. It helped her forgive him for his betrayal and understand that although he had done wrong it had been for the right reason: to bring happiness. The prosopagnosia folder he had created for her had revolutionized her treatment of face-blindness, saving her decades of research. The treatment she had developed from his notes was still in the trial phase and the effects were only temporary, but in due course she was sure it would cure Sofia's and other sufferers' prosopagnosia. That was her father's true legacy -- the real love drug.
When she returned to her apartment that night she took pleasure in the fact that it was hers. She had enjoyed sharing with Phoebe, but it felt good to have her own place and move on with her life. Her left arm twinged as she poured herself a neat Scotch on the rocks -- an acquired taste that reminded her of Max. The severed tendons had healed but it would be some time before the pain and stiffness left her. She saw her reflection in the glass cabinet by the fridge and paused to study the thin silver scar that ran from her cheekbone to her jaw. The sharpness of Helmut Kappel's blade had meant that the scarring was minimal, but she was still conscious of it.
The evening was unseasonably cold and she lit the fire in the lounge. As she sat down, Phoebe's face stared out at her from one of the magazines on the coffee table. Like the others, Phoebe had recovered from her prosopagnosia with no trace of the NiL drug effects. If anything, her career had benefited from the mystery surrounding her aborted wedding and Helmut Kappel's death. Isabella reached for the red corner of the magazine beneath Phoebe's Vogue cover. Time showed a picture of Helmut Kappel captioned: Was this the face of the Swiss Mafia?' She turned to the cover feature. On its second page there was a blurred photograph of Max. As she read the article, she struggled to reconcile Max the killer with the man 'she had loved.
The article focused on the now famous sea-green folders, which had begun to arrive at Interpol's Paris headquarters shortly after the aborted wedding in Valhalla. Each folder contained incriminating evidence on Kappel Privatbank and its Comvec offshoot, itemizing laundered money, secret accounts and other nefarious activities. One by one, the folders had incriminated each family member -- Helmut, Max, Joachim and Klaus -- in the most damning terms. To save himself, the last surviving Kappel, Klaus, had made a deal with the prosecutors and handed over all information relating to their clients. According to Time, almost eighty per cent of the bank's client base was engaged in criminal activities. Warren Hudsucker was thrown out of the Senate and jailed. Others, including Lysenko, were in hiding. For a time she had worried that Klaus might send someone after her to punish her for wrecking Ilium and the Kappels' plans, but it seemed he had more important things to worry about. Last month he had been sentenced to life imprisonment for a litany of crimes, including murder.
Isabella's lawyers had also received a folder, but there was no mention of this in the press. It contained a letter, advising her that Kappel Privatbank and Comvec had signed over all the rights in her father's work to her. She had closed down the Turin laboratory, sold off all the equipment and - apart from research relevant to her prosopagnosia work -- destroyed his samples and records.
The Time article made no mention of her father or his drug. There was also no mention of Ilium or Venus. However, it highlighted two outstanding mysteries.
The first concerned what had actually happened at Valhalla. Unsurprisingly, once the guests' prosopagnosia had faded, none had wanted to tell the police much or, indeed, had had much to tell. It wasn't the kind of publicity Odin wanted and the Kappels' clients had their own dark secrets to hide. Phoebe, Claire, Kathryn and Gisele were more than happy to forget the episode and get on with their lives, and Isabella was no different. She had no intention of saying anything that might expose the existence of her father's nature-identical love drug. The latest theory, which the Time article explored, was that Joachim and Max Kappel had been engaged in a long-term power struggle over who should succeed Helmut. This rivalry had exploded into violence when their father had changed his mind over who should be his best man and heir.
The second mystery interested Isabella more, because it was also a mystery to her: who had sent the folders? A disgruntled employee or ex-employee?A rival bank? Or even a vengeful client?
Numerous candidates had been put forward but the truth was still unknown.
For a time Isabella had toyed with the notion that Max had somehow survived and sent them. She recalled watching him dive in Antibes and fantasized that he had been able to hold his breath under the ice until he reached the warmer outlet to the sea. His body had not been found. But that meant nothing - his father's body was missing too.
She placed the magazine on the coffee table, lay back on the couch and looked into the fire. Gradually her eyelids lowered, and as she dozed the dream returned. It had visited her countless times since she had returned from Valhalla. But this time it seemed even more vivid and complete.
She is an eagle soaring high above a frozen lake, looking down on a man trapped beneath the ice, moving where the current takes him. He is Max Kappel. As she descends to take a closer look, he opens his eyes and she sees his pain, reads his thoughts.
He has held his breath for minutes and is now blacking out. His first involuntary breath fills his mouth with water, choking him, shocking him back to consciousness. It is as though his body won't allow him to be absent from his own death and forces him to fight for survival-- whether he wants it or not. He retches and convulses as he swallows more water, then gags and, in a final bid for life, inhales one last time.
Bracing himself, he waits for his chest to fill with water and his lungs to collapse. But it doesn't happen. Instead, he vomits the water he has swallowed. Coughing and spluttering, he breathes in, gasping. He opens his eyes. He is on his back, surround
ed by light. Suddenly he feels cold-- not the numbing chill of before but a dry, stabbing cold. And pain. His body is consumed with it.
Suddenly, mercifully, everything goes black. Then the pain returns and he is again retching water. He loses track of how long he lies there, passing in and out of consciousness. Eventually he looks up and sees that the light has faded. He raises his head and a rushing sound fills his ears. He extends his arms downwards, through the racing current, and his fingers scrape the river. Then his shoulder jars against something hard. The current accelerates around him -- and he realises its speed hasn't changed. Instead his body has stopped moving.
He blinks and tries to sit up. His entire frame aches and his skin burns with cold, but no bones seem broken and his tortured muscles obey him. He finds himself sitting in an eddy of water, bounded by rocks, in the shallows of a river. High mountains loom to his left, and on the right bank a broad area of snow-covered open ground leads to a dark forest of dense firs. When he looks downriver, he sees only a flat plain in the far distance. The sea. He turns his head. Behind him there are more mountains, bisected by a a narrow fiord where the river cuts through from the lake.
True (2004) Page 29
