by Rob Swigart
Defago was seated once again on the stool at the head of the tub. He thought this was a long speech for one so tired as Sister Teresa Williams. “No, my flame, my sword, we will show them no mercy. We will smite them – you will smite them – and the war will, finally, be over. You are Tisiphone, my Fury, my avenger. Come, let me dry you.”
33.
Lisa sat up in the dark.
There was nothing but velvety darkness. The space was close but not suffocating. Gradually it came to her that she was in the apartment by the Montparnasse Cemetery.
“You’re awake.” Steve was right beside her, in the bed!
She sat up. “What time is it?”
She could hear him move, check the glowing dial of his watch, a faint cool green blur in the dark. “Morning, almost eleven.”
“I must’ve sleepwalked in here. I don’t remember. God, I was tired.” She imagined his face. His forehead was broad and smooth, his nose straight and thin, aristocratic. She was on the point of confessing these thoughts but caught herself. It would sound foolish in the dark, and besides, it was un-American. So she asked how he was feeling.
“Better, thanks.” He snapped on the light and rolled toward her. The skin of his muscular shoulders was white and smooth, like porcelain. And damn it, his nose really was aristocratic!
She was sprawled on top of the bedspread, her dress tangled around her waist. Her long legs were bare. Her foot twitched. “I must look awful,” she murmured with a laugh, smoothing her dress.
He laughed with her. “You do,” he agreed. “And you haven’t even been shot.”
“Right, not yet, anyway.” She got up. “But I was shot at, you may remember. And you saved my life.” It felt good to repeat this, so she did. “You saved my life, but if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll freshen up…”
She returned in sweat pants and a t-shirt. He whistled.
“Whistling? That seems so American,” she chided. Idiom must be on her mind.
“International,” he corrected. “You looked better before you cleaned up! Your hair looks like a wig. You could be a sans logis.”
She did a little curtsy. “Thank you. I can pass for homeless if I need to.”
“Do you need to?”
“After I fix lunch I’m going out to check around and get some supplies. No one notices a bum.”
“Bums don’t go shopping.”
“I said nothing of shopping. I’m going to forage. No shops, no surveillance cameras, no witnesses.”
“You’re a glaneuse?”
She nodded. “I scavenge, yes. It’s an old Parisian custom, a form of recycling, very honorable, I assure you. Plenty of good food gets thrown away at the end of a market day and the sellers are always glad someone will collect it. Don’t worry, it’s fresh and edible enough. Say, shouldn’t Alain have called by now?”
“I suspect he was letting us sleep. We did have a long day.”
She prepared some frozen food while he cleaned up. He came out of the bathroom in trousers with a towel around his shoulders. “Sorry, but I couldn’t get a shirt on by myself.”
“The Pythia is always ready to help.” She stopped. “I can’t believe I said that.”
“You’re the Pythia now?”
“I guess I am. Well, as I say, always ready to help.” She appraised him. “On the other hand, maybe I’ll keep you that way, helpless and dependent.”
“Would you really want to do that?”
She turned serious. “Not really. I’m scared, Steve. They’re so… relentless.”
Before he could answer the phone buzzed. “Alain,” he mouthed, picking up the receiver, holding up his hand. “Yes.”
He listened for a long time, said yes again and cradled the receiver. “Tomorrow morning at ten you have the lab at Orsay,” he told her. “It seems you have whatever you need: X ray fluorescence, synchrotron radiation, UV.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Alain tells me someone gave the lab a substantial donation on the condition that it be available at short notice. Your name was specifically mentioned. They’re expecting you.”
“Raimond? He did plan ahead, didn’t he? What is it?” Steve was staring. She took a step. “Steve?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. You’re so…” Unable to finish, he cupped her chin with his good hand and lifted her face, examining it as if for the first time. “T’es belle, tu sais,” he murmured.
She moved forward until she could feel his breath on her lips. She looked into his eyes and a shock ran down her spine, a continuous current.
She tore herself away, breaking the spell. “There are things I need to tell you,” she said huskily.
“It doesn’t matter.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
She shook her head. “It does, but there isn’t time now. It’s almost two and I have to get to the market at Villemain by two-thirty. The homeless walk slowly, you know.”
“I could go with you.” He was reserved and under control again, his voice casual. It was just an offer.
“No.” She pulled a light windbreaker inside out and shrugged into it. A cap shaded her eyes. “We can’t go out together; they’ll be looking for a couple. Besides you have to rest; I’ll need you tomorrow. We have to find out what was on Procroft.”
He nodded assent.
She collected a plastic bag full of packaging from their frozen meals. “We have to neutralize the Order. I don’t know why the Delphi Agenda is so important, but they certainly believe it is. Think about it. I’ll be back by four.”
She was out the door before he could react.
Lisa hesitated just inside the garage. Someone from one of the front apartments on the second floor clattered down the stairs opposite the elevator and walked to a car, taking out his keys. She waited until the garage door began slowly creaking open and the car started up. When tires squealed on the cement floor she followed it down the ramp and slipped outside. She slouched along the wall toward the concierge entrance. The garage door creaked shut behind her.
The impasse was only a block long but it was a cheerful Sunday afternoon and it had the usual complement of pedestrians, including a pair of older ladies fussing over their dogs. Now that the luncheon rush at the restaurant on the corner was winding down, a pair of shopkeepers stood in front of their stores watching a waiter smoking by the curb at the edge of the terrace. Someone signaled; he shrugged and tossed his cigarette into the street. A young couple in front of the building next door to the safe house punched in the door code, exchanging jokes. Soon they were gone.
She approached the man reading a paper next to a shop called Eros Boutique. He might be their police escort from the other day, but no, no raincoat, no hat, no glasses, a stranger. He glanced over his paper without curiosity and showed himself much older, overweight with hair so thin it seemed transparent.
She was just another homeless person with an uneven gait carrying a bag of trash. He sniffed as she went by as if he knew she was drunk.
She mumbled to herself the length of the rue de la Gaité. Once she banged into a signpost and cursed loudly. People looked away or hurried past, heads down. She was invisible. Rue de la Gaité was lined with peep shows and sex shops on both sides. She hesitated in front of the Palais du Plaisir for a moment, wondering what it was like inside. When a man appeared in the doorway she limped away.
A few minutes later she approached the outdoor market between Villemain and Alesia. The metal frames of the canvas awnings over the stalls were already half-dismantled. At the curb men were loading delivery trucks with unsold clothing, CDs, books. Wooden boxes half filled with leftover produce or flowers were scattered around the area. She dumped the sorted load into the recycling bins and began rummaging through the market’s discarded food, her hands choosing and rejecting with practiced ease. Three other gleaners joined her. The others were regulars and traded banter with the vendors while they picked the market clean.
A small green Propreté de Paris cart
drove down the aisle, spraying the trash into the gutter where it was collected by two large garbage trucks.
It was summer in Paris, a balmy June afternoon. She started back toward the safe house, her sack slung over her shoulder. They would eat fresh vegetables tonight.
She decided to go east on Alesia and take Didot north to break the pattern, not to follow the same route, use small back streets. She did this without thinking.
Once off the main road she proceeded with more confidence. A feeling of contentment filled her. Gleaners were part of the life cycle of the great city; they collected and used what would otherwise be thrown away. She was glad to be part of it.
She began thinking about the Order of Theodosius, which was proving an implacable enemy, long-lived, single-minded, and self-perpetuating. The Pythos was the same. The two were locked in a constant cycle of cat and mouse, attack and protect. In this game the Order had the advantage. Their goal was to destroy, to root out and kill the Pythos. They were the hunters. They had weapons and the fanaticism to use them.
The successors to the great Oracle of Delphi, on the other hand, had to live in the shadows. They had to take whatever the Church, the Inquisition, and the Order of Theodosius did to them. Despite its great influence and the power it wielded, the Oracle at Delphi never took sides, never fought back. It was this impartiality and honesty that maintained its prestige. A single act of revenge would kill it.
The Pythoi were careful whom they dealt with. After all, they could see the warp and weft of the future and know which clients they could trust. They would uncover any attempt by the Order to infiltrate or coerce. So the Order had to come after them in other ways.
Even after the Inquisition burned Giordano Bruno, his successor did not retaliate. The Pythos existed because the Delphi agenda still offered impartial advice. People trusted it. Violence, even in the name of justice, would destroy that trust.
Everything depended on point of view. The members of the Order felt justice was on their side and acted in good faith. A supplicant might well agree. If the Oracle retaliated, it wouldn’t just look like revenge – it would be revenge, pure and simple. Her predecessors certainly understood this through the millennia.
Yet she had to react. She couldn’t stay on the run until they managed to kill her and everyone around her. The Order thought she was the key to a secret. They wanted it.
It had to be something simple, profound and effective, but she had no idea what it was or where to find it. It certainly wasn’t inside her, despite Raimond’s admonition to know herself.
It must lie elsewhere, perhaps in Raimond’s apartment? Had she overlooked something simple? It was possible.
Foix had certainly chosen her for this task. He’d been preparing her for fifteen years, knowing he couldn’t live forever. He had, in fact, lasted longer than one would expect. In spite of that, he had never told her what he expected of her, but he believed she could handle it. Otherwise he would never have left all those clues for her to follow.
His clues were, in fact, her final test.
How was she doing?
She wasn’t sure. True, she had solved some of his little puzzles; others were still pending, yet others seemed out of reach.
For instance, there must be some pattern to the books he had placed on the floor, something that had to do with their titles, authors, colors, positions in the bookcase, number of pages, trim size, binding material, type of paper, publication dates … Yes, she was certain there was something about the books.
She shook her head to dispel the cobwebs that seemed to obstruct her vision. A woman passing in the other direction stopped for a moment, then hurried on.
The woman’s hesitation reminded Lisa she hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. Something told her she should. Not fear, but a sudden sense of caution.
Was someone following her? She hunched down inside the windbreaker, pulled the hat lower over her eyes, and let her steps slow. She would wander a bit, stopping often to look around as though trying to find her bearings in a strange place.
So she made her way into the Cimetière du Montparnasse along the rue Emile Richard. Scattered clouds fractured the faultless blue of the sky, and swift shadows passed over the tombs. She spent several minutes wandering among them, as though seeking a loved one. The back of the safe house presented only blank and indifferent stone. There was nothing to be seen. No one looked at her. As she made her way back to the road she thought her hands were far too clean; they would be a dead giveaway if the enemy spotted her. She stopped to rub some of the soil beside Baudelaire’s tomb on her hands and face.
Traffic on the boulevard Edgar Quinet was thick, and the sidewalks were crowded. A space opened around her, as if she radiated a bad smell. She stumbled several times, muttering. The space around her grew larger. There was an open-air art market. She walked slowly along the central aisle looking at paintings of clowns and street scenes and huge rectangular abstracts. The tables were covered with small sculpture, figures of blown glass or carved wood.
Near the metro station something made her turn her head. Opposite the entrance where the rue Delambre merged onto the boulevard a gray van was parked at the curb.
Where had she seen one like it?
She paused beside one of the clear plastic trash bags that had replaced the opaque ones so convenient for Algerian bombs in the ’80s and ’90s. After a moment she started rummaging through its contents, just another homeless person looking for the next meal, or the one after that.
No one was visible in the van. She pulled her hat down and trudged toward Delambre, clutching her bag of scavenged food under her arm, dodging cars. Heat still radiated from the engine. She glanced at the dark gray AGON painted on the side.
AGON meant struggle. Was it an acronym? She had no idea what the initials meant. She continued around the block, returning down the rue du Montparnasse. The van was still there.
She remembered the same model and color van parked near Ted and Marianne’s house in Mirepoix. She closed her eyes and pictured it. Yes, on the side were words: La Lutte Contre La Pauvreté, muted orange on gray.
Meaning bound them together. La Lutte Contre La Pauvreté, the Struggle Against Poverty. It was the kind of charity an Order of the Church might sponsor. AGON probably stood for some charity, but it really meant that the nun and monk were nearby!
Of course they would know she and Steve were in the area. The parade trucks had all returned to the Avenue du Maine. Their adversaries would be patrolling. How many could they put on the street? Could they recognize her in this disguise?
She had little gift for intrigue and suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable. There was nothing she could do, though. She had to believe she was just another homeless person limping slowly toward the square named after the day General De Gaulle started the French Resistance with a radio broadcast from the BBC. She shuffled across the rue du Départ and circled the Galeries Lafayette and black monolith of the Tour Montparnasse, stopping frequently to look behind her, muttering and shifting her heavy sack.
She saw them, the nun and the monk, beside the carrousel kiosk in front of the train station, lit by a momentary shaft of sunlight. The monk was speaking close to the nun’s ear, invisible under the coif and veil of her habit. The carrousel started up with a jaunty melody that urged on the bobbing horses and fanciful Jules Verne submarine. The plaza was filled with tourists looking up to catch some sun or standing in small groups consulting maps.
She hesitated. She’d have to walk past them to regain the safe house. She could retreat to the square and come back down the street, but it seemed better to keep going.
The nun touched her companion’s arm with a gloved finger, looking up. Sunlight flashed off the lenses of her yellow-tinted glasses. He straightened, tugged a cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open.
The nun’s eyes caught Lisa’s, pinning her in place like an insect. Certainly they had spotted her and the monk was calling for help.
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To cover her confusion Lisa pulled a head of lettuce from her plastic bag and examined it carefully. She replaced it and glanced sideways at the pair.
The nun’s eyes had already slid away, empty of curiosity. Lisa limped past them, muttering the lyrics to a Charles Aznavour song. The monk was frowning. Someone seemed to be yelling at him on the phone. This close Lisa noted an ancient scar that tugged at his lower eyelid before disappearing into the clipped gray beard.
She let Aznavour fade away. During a break between songs from the carrousel the man said very distinctly, “Oui, Eminence.” He snapped the phone shut angrily as the music started again. The man (the monk – she now remembered seeing him yesterday wearing worker’s overalls in place of the ill-fitting dark suit he wore now) said something to the nun and they began moving east, toward Edgar-Quinet. No doubt they were returning to the van.
She crossed the rue du Départ again, and two blocks later gained the safe house.
It was late and she was still anxious and uneasy. The Order might have other people on watch. After loitering until she began to attract the attention of a gendarme she walked purposefully to the door and slipped inside. There was no one around. She entered the garage and took the elevator.
Steve met her at the door. “I was getting worried. You look awful.”
She put the groceries on the counter and grinned. “The dirt? Disguise. I saw them, the monk and nun, by the carrousel. They didn’t recognize me, but they’re watching.”
He nodded. “When it gets dark we’ll leave.”
