‘Never mind. Did you read the book I gave you?’
‘Now’s a fine time to ask,’ she said, ‘but as it happens, I did. I even practiced a bit with the cards.’
‘Excellent. We will now establish your reputation as a psychic, and the assembled multitude will soon be lining up for a reading. Just tell them what they want to hear, and resist the temptation to tell them the truth. Remember the Sibyls’ lament.’
‘The Sibyls …?’
‘The Sibyls were a group of women in ancient Greece who possessed the ability to foretell the future.’
‘Yes,’ Patricia said. ‘I read about them.’
‘Unfortunately they could only tell the truth about what they saw. The “Sibyls’ Lament”, by some unknown poet, goes something like:
“Our gift is to know what you do
Our fate is to speak what we hear
Our curse is to tell only true
Our portion is hatred and fear.”’
‘Poor women,’ Patricia commented. ‘They didn’t use tarot decks back then, did they?’
‘I believe they used pigeons.’
‘Pigeons? What did they do with them?’
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘And their, ah, clients didn’t like what they heard?’
‘Often,’ Isaac said. ‘There is a price for knowledge, on the other hand there is a far greater price for ignorance.’
‘Why is philosophy always so dour?’ Patricia asked. ‘Whatever happened to “happily ever after”?’
‘It burned up in the Reichstag fire,’ said Isaac. ‘Now, whom shall we importune first?’
Patricia settled in an easy chair with a coffee table between her and a chaise longue in a corner of the reception room. The sister of the Bulgarian consular officer, a slender woman of serious aspect in an ill-fitting beige dress with puffy sleeves, was the first to sit across from Patricia and her artistically tattered tarot deck. Her name was Magda, and she was delighted to learn that she would soon meet a tall man who would become important in her life. ‘You see your card is Temperance,’ Patricia told her, ‘which shows that you are moderate and thoughtful in everything you do.’
‘Perhaps too thoughtful,’ Magda agreed seriously.
‘And this card, one away from yours,’ Patricia said, turning the card over, ‘represents the man. Ah, the Seven of Cups. Good.’
‘How good?’
‘This indicates the man is reasonably wealthy, and since seven is an old number, it probably means inherited wealth.’
‘I do not care about such things,’ Magda said.
‘Of course not,’ Patricia agreed, ‘but given the state of the world today, it may become important.’
‘Yes,’ Magda said thoughtfully, ‘that is so.’
‘And separating you,’ Patricia turned over the cards separating them, ‘well!’
A clot of diplomats passed, laughing uproariously at who knows what. Magda waited impatiently for them to recede far enough for conversation to resume, and said, ‘Yes?’
‘It’s the Magician.’
‘So something magical …’
‘Actually no,’ Patricia said. ‘It signifies progress into the future.’
‘Ah! So we will have a future. That’s nice. And how long before I meet this man?’
Patricia took up the cards and shuffled the deck. ‘Here, pull out one of the cards – any card.’
Magda closed her eyes and pulled a card from the offered deck.
‘The Four of Pentacles,’ Patricia said, turning the card over. ‘You will meet the man, or perhaps realize how important he is if by chance you have met him already, in four—’
‘Four?’
‘Days, weeks, months, I cannot be sure. But certainly not years. So by summer at the latest.’
‘Thank you,’ Magda said. She stood. ‘It was … interesting. I don’t really believe any of this, you know.’
‘Of course not,’ Patricia agreed.
By the third reading – a young lady named Anna Metzl, who was a secretary at the Austrian Embassy – Patricia had a grasp on what she was doing and had to remind herself not to become overconfident. Although it seemed that if you told people good things about their future, they would figure out some way to believe them. Anna was most concerned about whether she would have a job next week, when the Nazis finished taking over the Austrian Foreign Service. In the course of the reading Patricia managed to slip Anna a card with her phone number. It might be useful to befriend a former secretary at the Austrian Embassy. And perhaps she wouldn’t lose her job, which would make her even more useful.
As Anna got up Patricia saw a tall dark-haired man standing behind her, a plate of pâté, cheese, and thickly sliced bread in one hand and a glass of prosecco in the other, apparently waiting. Patricia gestured to the empty chair, but the man shook his head. ‘Excuse me, but you are Lady Patricia Saboy?’
‘That’s right.’ Now that she had a good look at him, Patricia decided that it would be quite nice were he to sit next to her. She repeated the gesture. ‘Sit,’ she said.
‘I knew your husband in the war,’ he said, this time accepting her offer and dropping into the empty chair. ‘And I was in touch with him for some years after. I had hoped to see him here. That is, if he is Lord Geoffrey and not some other Saboy entirely. My name’s Welker.’ He put down the prosecco and extended his hand. ‘Jacob Welker.’
‘You’re American?’ she deduced, taking the hand, holding it for perhaps a bit longer than absolutely decorous, and then releasing it.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I worked liaison with Lord Geoffrey’s field intelligence outfit for a while. We both spent much of our time trying to convince our superior officers that everything they knew was wrong.’
She laughed. ‘Did you succeed?’
He grinned. It was a grin that would serve usefully in a variety of circumstances. ‘Almost never,’ he told her.
‘He doesn’t talk about the war much,’ she said.
‘No.’ The grin went away. ‘Most of us don’t.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet one of his companions. And what are you doing now, in the absence of war?’
‘Until quite recently I was an operative for the Continental Detective Agency,’ he told her.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Do I detect a theme in your choice of professions?’
He laughed. ‘Inadvertent,’ he said.
‘So. Has the man chosen the job or has the job chosen the man?’
‘I think we hunted each other through a thicket of distractions. And I must congratulate you.’
‘How pleasant. And what am I to be congratulated for?’
‘You are the first person, I believe, who didn’t immediately respond either “That must be very interesting,” or “You must have some fascinating stories to tell,” when I told them I was with the Continental.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘That must be very interesting. I’ll bet you have some fascinating stories to tell.’
‘Properly embellished,’ he told her, ‘they could hold your attention for minutes at a time.’
She smiled at him. ‘You must visit us,’ she said. ‘I’m sure my husband would be pleased to be back in touch with you.’ She riffled through the tarot deck until she found the Three of Cups and wrote on the face with her pencil. ‘Here,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘Our address and phone number here in Washington. Actually Georgetown. Do call.’
‘Won’t someone miss the card from the deck?’ he asked, taking it and sticking it in his pocket.
‘Not likely,’ she said. ‘Besides, I would have no idea what to say if it turned up, so it’s better for all if it doesn’t.’
‘Ah!’ he said. He produced a card of his own from a vest pocket and passed it to her. ‘Turnabout,’ he said.
‘New York?’ she asked, reading it.
‘I have to go back this evening,’ he told her. ‘But I’ll be back in DC next week. Let’s see if we can have di
nner then. I’d like to chat with Lord Geoffrey about a few things of, ah, common interest.’
‘The Office of Special Intelligence,’ she read. ‘What is that?’
‘A boring government agency,’ he told her. ‘The name was picked to impress people I have to talk to.’
‘I’m impressed, so it’s working,’ she said. She tucked the card into her cleavage, noting with pleasure how his eyes followed her hand. ‘Well, I must get back to foretelling the future.’
‘Are you good at it?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ she told him. ‘I predict that we shall meet again soon. What do you think?’
‘I’d like that,’ he said. With a quickly disappearing sad smile, he got up and walked toward the bar.
His place was quickly taken by a short lady with a thin face and a wonderfully pointed nose, who reminded Patricia of a sparrow as she perched precisely on the edge of the chair. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘it’s so good of you to do this. Of course, most people here will think of it merely as entertainment, but we know better, don’t we?’
Patricia looked inquiringly at her. ‘A pleasure to meet you,’ she said. ‘I am Lady Patricia Saboy. And you are?’
‘Oh, yes. Silly me. Monica Withers, but you must call me Birdie. Everyone does.’
‘Birdie,’ Patricia acknowledged.
‘Do you get good results with the tarot?’ Birdie asked.
‘It depends,’ Patricia said.
‘Yes, of course. I’ve never had much luck with the tarot. I prefer the yarrow stalks.’
‘The yarrow …’
‘Yes. You know. The I Ching. I swear sometimes I think there’s a little old Chinese man somehow on the other side of the book guiding the falling of the stalks, telling me what I have to know. I mean it’s uncanny at times, positively uncanny. My husband actually consults it all the time for his work. It’s uncanny, I swear.’
‘Your husband?’
‘Yes, you know, Sir Daniel.’
‘Ah,’ Patricia said, the light dawning. ‘Sir Daniel Withers, the Australian—’
‘Ambassador, yes that’s him.’ She pointed across the room. ‘The one with the pint in his hand. I keep telling him, at these events, champagne or white wine or even a cocktail, but no – he will have his pint. Especially when he can get some beer that isn’t American. You should hear him go on about American beer. “Call themselves a great country,” he says, “and they can’t even make a decent pint.”’
‘So, shall we do a reading?’ Patricia asked.
‘Oh no, no!’ Birdie brushed aside the thought with a wide gesture. ‘I just thought – you know, two souls beating as one and that sort of thing. There is so much more’ – another wide gesture – ‘out there than we are aware of without a little assist from the Ching, or the crystal, or, to be sure, the tarot; the little invisible hands that guide the fall of the cards or the yarrow stalks. Really, there is so much to know and so little time. And we are surrounded by unbelievers. Surrounded.’ She stood up. ‘You must come over. We have a little society that meets every so often. Call me at the Embassy.’
‘Yes,’ Patricia agreed. ‘I believe I shall.’
EIGHTEEN
With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal
In silence dread, our cautious way we feel
No sound at all, we never speak a word
A fly’s foot-fall would be distinctly heard
– Gilbert & Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance
By Patricia’s fifth reading there was a small clutch of people around her little table waiting their turn to discover what the unseen spirit guiding the fall of pasteboard cards from a shuffled tarot deck could tell them about their futures. By now the party had gathered steam, the nine-piece orchestra was playing operatic favorites, the chatter was pitched above the music, and there was no way a quiet conversation could be held anywhere in that room. Patricia sought out some likely looking embassy official – not Marcello, who seemed to be avoiding her, but Signore Sabatini, a short, important-looking man who had a spade beard and wore across his jacket a red sash with several medals pinned to it. She explained the problem and asked for clearance to go upstairs and set up a table in the second-floor hallway. Sabatini laughed. ‘Certainly. I will send someone to assist you in setting these things up. And you will read my wife’s cards and tell her that she really must go visit her mother in Como, who misses her dreadfully, will you not?’
‘Of course,’ Patricia agreed.
‘Come.’
Walking up the stairs with Signore Sabatini, the first break she had had from practicing her new avocation in over an hour, she realized that she was really enjoying herself. There was the challenge of interacting with her clients (‘In the trade they’re called “johns” or “marks” or “fish”,’ Isaac had told her, ‘but not to their faces’) and telling them what they wanted to hear – at first a generality that sounded ever so specific to the one hearing it: ‘The cards say there is something troubling you, something of a very personal nature.’ Who didn’t have something of a personal nature troubling them? And then let the subject expound and expand, going where she will, and follow so closely as to seem to be leading. ‘And here is the Knight of Staves, representing an important man. Notice the card is reversed, which means he is turned away from you. Any idea who that could be?’ and pretty soon they were treading an unexpected byway, and the cards somehow came to mean what they had to mean. Patricia realized that one could actually do good with these readings, and that one had to be careful not to do harm.
They went upstairs and located a solid-looking folding table with a chess board incised in the top and two comparatively lightweight chairs with leather seats and backs. Sabatini helped Patricia set them up in the hallway at the head of the stair right across, as it happened, from the ambassador’s office, the left wall of which contained a Rabson Twenty-Oh-Seven wall safe.
Uncle Isaac came up a minute later, bringing the next client, a slender young American in tails at least one size too big for him, who told Patricia that his friends Johnny and Swet had dared him to get the reading, and there was only one question he needed answered.
‘We can do that,’ she assured him. ‘And what’s your name?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’m Izzy. Izzy Haist. My friends call me Izzy Ridiculous. Except some call me Izzy Wizzy, and they’ve made up a rather rude limerick about it.’
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly,’ he said. She thought he blushed, but the lighting in the hall wasn’t strong enough to be sure.
‘Well, all right then,’ she said, ‘but I’m very disappointed. I’ve always wanted to hear a dirty limerick.’ She shuffled the tarot deck one, two, three times. ‘You sound American,’ she told him. ‘Are you with the government?’
He thought that over for a minute and then leaned forward. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘Oooh,’ she said, leaning in until their heads almost touched across the table. ‘A secret! I love secrets. I’ll do my best.’
‘We don’t belong,’ he said in an intense but slightly squeaky undertone.
I’ve often had that feeling, she thought. She said, ‘I see. In what sense?’
‘We, my friends and I, are party crashers,’ he told her.
‘Really?’ she asked, actually surprised, remembering the three guards at the door. ‘How ever did you manage that?’
‘We came in with the caterers. I took a case of champagne off the truck and brought it in, and Swet had a long roll of, I guess, pâté.’
‘And Johnny?’
‘He started talking to one of the waitresses and walked right in with her. He’s good at talking to girls.’
‘Very resourceful,’ Patricia told him. ‘I commend you and your friends.’ She leaned back and shrugged her shoulders to relieve the muscles tensing up below her neck, then gave the deck one last shuffle and handed it to him. ‘Here, cut the cards.’
He
did so adroitly, cutting the deck in half and then sliding some from the middle to the top, and then cutting it in half again. He had learned to play poker, she surmised, with some people who had concerns about the forthrightness of their opponents.
She took back the deck. ‘What is your question?’ she asked.
‘Oh no,’ he said. This time she was sure he blushed. ‘I mean, it’s, ah, private. Very private.’
‘All right,’ she said, dealing five cards down in a row on the table. ‘Not a problem. We’ll let the tarot decide.’ She glanced up at Isaac, who was standing behind Izzy Wizzy’s chair. ‘Close your eyes,’ she told Izzy, ‘and concentrate on your question.’
Izzy scrunched his eyes closed. Isaac sidled over to the right and turned to the door to the ambassador’s office. He took a couple of slim, simple-looking instruments from his pocket and went to work on the lock.
‘Try to picture your question as concretely as you can – concentrate on the image,’ Patricia said, talking to keep Izzy concentrating on something other than any noises he might hear from behind him. ‘If there’s a person involved in your question, see her standing in front of you.’ Patricia thought the ‘her’ was a safe guess.
Isaac had the door open and slipped through it, closing it silently behind him.
‘Now,’ she said, making it up as she went along, ‘with your question firmly in mind, reach out and touch one of the cards.’
‘Can I open my eyes?’ he asked.
‘If you wish.’
He opened his eyes and scrutinized the five cards as though one of them held the door to his future happiness. Finally he put his forefinger on the second card from the left. Patricia dealt another five cards face down on that one, carefully lining them up, and then paused for a moment to figure out what she was going to do next.
Izzy looked expectant, like a dog who just knew that there was a treat in your hand and you’d open it any second now. ‘What now?’ he asked.
Patricia turned the small stack of cards over. ‘Let’s see,’ she said.
The newly revealed card was the Hanged Man.
‘Oh gosh!’ Izzy said.
‘It doesn’t mean what you probably think it does,’ she told him, heading off his reaction. ‘It is usually a very favorable card to get.’
The Bells of Hell Page 14
