Eric van lustbader, p.5
Eric van Lustbader, page 5
“Look at you, weak as a newborn, you can’t even walk.” Still, his eyes would not let her go. At length, capitulating, she fetched a wheelchair, brought it around behind him. He sat down, and she pushed him forward.
Outside Emma’s room he held up a hand. “I don’t want to go in there like this. Let me walk.”
The nurse sighed. “In her current condition she won’t know the difference, Mr. Shaw.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but I will.” Hands on the armrests, he levered himself up. The nurse stood, watching him, arms crossed over her bosom, as he grasped the door frame and moved slowly into the room.
Emma, reclining on the bed, looked a mess. Not only her eyes but the upper half of her face was heavily bandaged. He sat on the edge of the bed, sweating alarmingly inside his gown. His heart was pounding so hard it threatened to squeeze through his rib cage.
“Bravo.” Emma’s voice, rich and musical, varied as an artist’s palette, rose to him, the one word like a song.
“I’m here, Emma.”
“Thank God you’re alive.” Her hand fumbled for his, found it and squeezed. “How badly are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing compared—” He barely had time to choke off the rest of the sentence.
“Compared to me, you mean.”
“Emma.”
“Don’t do that, don’t you pity me.”
“It isn’t pity.”
“Isn’t it?” she said sharply.
“Emma, you have every right—”
“Don’t be such a good sport!” She turned back. “Who should I be angry at, Bravo? Who did this to me?” Then she shook her head. “It’s disgusting. I’ve had enough of terror and anger and self-pity.”
With an enormous effort of will she smiled, and like sunlight flooding the room he saw her as she had been, carriage erect, her mouth open wide, honey-colored hair flying in the wind created by the stage fans, her huge emerald eyes, wide cheeks and generous mouth so much like their mother’s, one hand uplifted as the aria emerged from her, glorious and full-born, as he always imagined Puccini had heard it when he’d first composed it.
“I’ve waited two long horrible days to feel you, to hear your voice.” She took his hand again. “This makes me happy, Bravo, this cuts through my endless night. Even in my worst, blackest moments, I was able to rise above it long enough to pray for your recovery, and God heard my prayers and kept you safe.” Her smile widened. “So now I want you to do the same—to rise above your anger and your self-pity. I want you to have faith, Bravo, if not for yourself, then for me.”
Faith? Faith in what? he asked himself. His father had wanted desperately to tell him something, and because he had hardened his heart, because he hadn’t been able to forgive him for his manipulations, he’d never know what was so important. His jaw clenched. Wasn’t forgiveness a major component of faith?
“Emma, Dad is dead and you’re—” His throat was filled with bitter bile.
She placed her soft hands on either side of his face, as she had done when, as a child, he had become agitated and frustrated. She pressed her forehead to his. “I want you to stop and listen,” she breathed in a musical murmur, “because I’m sure that God has a plan for us, and if you’re filled with anger and self-pity you’ll never be able to hear it.”
His throat was clogged again with all the emotions boiling up from inside. “Emma, what happened that day?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I can’t remember.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a blessing.”
“I wish I could remember something—anything—about what happened.”
“A gas leak, that detective said. An accident. Put it behind you, Bravo.”
But he couldn’t, and he couldn’t tell her why.
“Now I need you to help me get to the bathroom,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
When Bravo stood up his legs felt stronger. They reached the bathroom without incident. She seemed strong to him, despite what had happened to her. Was that her faith he felt, deep and rippling like a stream at spring’s first thaw?
“Come inside with me,” she said, drawing him in before he had a chance to protest. She locked the door behind them, then opened her hand, revealing a pack of cigarettes and a small lighter. “I bribed Martha.” Martha was her personal assistant.
She sat on the toilet and with surprisingly little difficulty lit up, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs and holding it there. On the exhale, she said with a laugh, “Now you know my secret, Bravo. The smoke gives my voice that depth the critics so rave over.” She shook her head. “God works in mysterious ways.”
“What does God have to do with it?”
At once, she stood up. “Oh, Bravo, I hear the anger, you can’t keep it out of your voice. I wonder if you know how ugly it is, how it distorts the beautiful tenor of your voice.”
“It’s you who has the beautiful voice, Emma.”
She stroked his cheek with her fingertips. “We both have Mama in us, only maybe—just maybe—I have a bit more.”
“I know you thought Dad loved me more,” he blurted out, because it had been on his mind.
“No, Bravo. He loved me, too, but you and he had some—I don’t know—some special connection. It hurt me so to see the two of you at odds.” Her face turned up to his. “Have you cried yet, Bravo? I know you have.” Her fingertips traced the bandages over her eyes. “I envy you that luxury.”
“Oh, Emma.”
“The first few hours afterward when I was first hit with what I had lost I fell into a black pit. But faith is a tree, growing new branches even in the face of a storm. And when the time is right, those new branches bear fruit. It’s faith that sustains me, faith that makes sense out of chaos, faith that holds the world together in the face of crisis.” She took another, smaller drag from the cigarette. “I wish I could make you understand. When you have faith, despair is not an option. I grieve for Dad. Inside I’m crushed because a part of me has been ripped away and I’ll never get it back. That, at least, I know you understand. But I also know that his death, the loss of my sight, either temporary or permanent, is for a reason. There is a plan for us, Bravo. My faith shows it to me, even without the use of my eyes.”
“Was it God’s plan to have Dad blown up, for Mom to waste away?”
“Yes,” she said firmly and deliberately. “Whether you can accept it or not.”
“I don’t understand how you can be so sure. This is a part of you I never got, Emma. What if your faith is an illusion, what if there is no plan? That would mean that there was no purpose.”
“No purpose we can yet see.”
“Faith. Blind faith is as false as everything you rail against.” Bravo thought of what Detective Splayne had said, and his hands curled into fists. “How can you live in such a world and not be cynical?”
“I know your cynicism is a facade, because cynicism is just another word for frustration,” Emma said softly. “We spend so much time trying to maintain control over everything that governs our lives, but it’s futile—and terribly frustrating—because, really, what can we control? Almost nothing. And yet we still seek the impossible, even knowing that it’s a hollow pursuit. What can fill the void, can you tell me? No. But, listen, listen, when I let go of everything, when I sing, I know.” Her cigarette had burned down, unsmoked. She must have felt the heat on her fingers because she groped behind her, flicked it into the toilet. With a brief angry hiss, its lit end winked out. “Bravo, the explosion may have taken my sight, but miraculously it left me my most precious possession—my voice is unharmed.”
He held her tight then, feeling her substance, as he always had, ever since he could remember. “I wish I had your faith.”
“Faith is a lesson to be learned, just like everything else in life,” she whispered in his ear. “I pray that one day you’ll find yours.”
And in his other ear his dead father whispered: “Beneath the surface—where loss manifests itself—that’s where you must begin.”
* * *
Chapter 2
“Bravo, I am so relieved to hear from you,” Jordan Muhlmann said when Bravo finally returned his call. “I haven’t heard from you in days. I was going out of my mind with worry.”
“I’m sorry, the concussion has made things a little fuzzy,” Bravo said into the cell phone.
“Yes, of course. As long as I know you’re all right.”
“I’m fine.” He was walking down the street toward his bank. He had recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital and he was ready to leave New York; there was only one thing to consider—besides, of course, Emma.
“You can’t be fine, Bravo,” Jordan said. “It’s altogether understandable that you’re not.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“It’s not simply what I say, mon ami. It’s what I feel. You are family, Bravo, you know that.”
Of course Jordan would understand. Though he was six years younger than Bravo, they had bonded almost immediately. During one long drunken evening in Rome, when they had freely exchanged confidences, he’d told Bravo that he’d lost his father at an early age, and mourned him still. He knew about family and loss. All at once, Bravo missed Jordan, his life in Paris. They spent so much time together, had gotten so close in the space of just over four years, they were like family. “On that score, I have no doubt.”
There was a cop on one corner, leaning against his car, drinking coffee out of a paper cup. Across the street a little girl skipped along with her dog, her mother by her side. Just behind the girl and her dog, a man and woman held hands. They were young, both blond and blue-eyed. He wore black slacks and shirt, she a short skirt and sleeveless top.
“Listen,” Bravo went on, “I’ll be home in a couple of days. I want to get back to work.”
“Non, you have more important matters to deal with.”
A dam burst, and Bravo’s eyes abruptly filled with tears. “My father dead, my sister blinded—this is a nightmare, Jordan.”
“I know, mon ami. My heart goes out to you—Camille’s, as well.” Camille Muhlmann, Jordan’s mother, was his advisor, and an integral part of Lusignan et Cie. “She wishes me to tell you that she’s sick with grief.”
“As always, she’s exceptionally kind. Thank her for me,” Bravo said.
“Take your time. Do whatever you have to do. In all things you have my support, whatever you need you have only to ask.”
The woman laughed at something her lover said and glanced at Bravo. She had the face of a hungry cat.
“Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate… everything.”
“Ah, no. I just wish I could do more.”
The couple had stopped to chat with the cop, but the woman’s eyes remained on Bravo. She smiled a secret catlike smile behind her lover’s back.
“You scared the hell out of me, you know. You could’ve been jailed, and then where would I be?”
The lovers had moved on, but the woman’s smile lingered in his mind.
“Now listen to me, mon ami, you must take your time winding up your father’s affairs. We will manage without you. And, Bravo, remember, you must call on me if there’s anything I can do. Here in Paris, so far away, I feel helpless. It will be better for both of us if I can help in some way.”
He was outside the bank. “Merci, Jordan. Just talking to you… this connection. You know, I feel a whole lot better.”
“Then I am happy. Bon, a bientôt, mon ami.”
Putting away his cell phone, Bravo went through a glass door into the bank. As he crossed the marble floor he remembered his father taking him in here when he was eight, recalled with a startling vividness the confidence he felt with his hand clutching his father’s. Dexter had opened up the account for him. When he’d turned eighteen, at his father’s behest, he’d gotten the safety deposit box. Though he now lived a continent away, he’d never gotten rid of them. Their importance to him was immeasurable. Wherever he might be in the world, part of him always would remain here in New York.
At the rear of the bank, he asked to see the manager. Within moments, a middle-aged woman in a conservative business suit was escorting him downstairs to the vast vault where the safety deposit boxes rose in gleaming reinforced steel banks. The vault had about it the oppressive look and air of a mausoleum.
Inside, he sat in a curtained booth while she went to fetch the box. He knew he was lucky to have a friend like Jordan. They had met in Rome five years ago when Muhlmann had come to the university where Bravo was then working. Bravo had had a unique position in the department of medieval religions. He was not expected to teach but to research the ages-old mysteries that dogged his field. Though Bravo was then still in his twenties, he had already gained something of a reputation not only as a scholar but also as cryptanalyst. As it happened, that very field of knowledge fascinated Jordan, and he was eager to observe firsthand Bravo’s facility in decoding medieval texts and solving seemingly unsolvable puzzles.
Jordan had stayed in Rome six weeks. During that time, he and Bravo had struck up a close friendship based on common interests and outlooks. They had studied together, run track and hit the heavy bag together, had even squared off in fencing matches—remarkably, their skills matched each other in the épée and the saber. They went out to dinners and got drunk on good food, excellent wine and fascinating talk. Finally, Jordan had made Bravo an offer to join Lusignan et Cie. Bravo at first declined, but Jordan had persisted and, eventually, after some further back and forth, he had managed to persuade Bravo to come work for him.
The manager returned with a long flat gray metal box and, setting it down on the table in front of him, left him. He took out the key and opened it. Inside, he discovered stacks of money, neatly wrapped and bound, his secret fuck-you money. Yet another thing Dexter Shaw had taught him. There were two layers, each double bundle bound together. He untied the lower left-hand corner bundle, pulled from between them the key his father had given him six months ago.
The meeting had been brief but unprecedented inasmuch as Dexter had flown into Paris, something Bravo couldn’t recall him having done before. They hadn’t even sat down but instead at Dexter’s suggestion had crossed the Seine on the Pont d’Iena, walking briskly along the rather unlovely Quai de Grenelle. The morning was unnaturally warm for a normally raw and forbidding February, and people could be seen strolling happily with their winter coats open or slung over their arms. Once they passed the Hotel Nikko the tourists vanished and the natives dwindled, which was apparently the whole point of the exercise. That was when Dexter had handed him the key, an old-fashioned item, odd in both shape and design.
“If something happens to me,” Dexter had said, “you’ll need this.”
“If what happens? Dad, what are you talking about?” Another dark and unfathomable secret, another bit of shrapnel lodged in his chest so close to his heart he could feel it flutter.
The sky was the color of peat. The overheated weather was causing mist to rise off the river, smudging the outlines of the buildings on the Right Bank. Halos throbbed around the moving lights. A horn hooted mournfully as a barge slid slowly past them. Down on the lower quai a dog was running loose, its tongue out and lolling. The leaves of the horse chestnut trees rustled, as if anxious.
“Just listen, Bravo. Put the key somewhere safe, will you promise me that? And if something happens, take the spare key I gave you and go to my apartment.” Dexter Shaw had smiled, gripping his son’s shoulder. “Don’t look so stricken. Chances are it’ll never come to that.”
But now it had. Detective Splayne believed that the explosion had been caused by a gas leak, and that conclusion had been confirmed by the FDNY. Sitting here, staring at the key with the globular burr on the end, the seven incisions along its length, each in the shape of a star, Bravo couldn’t help but ponder what had been on his mind from the first—what if both Splayne and the FDNY were wrong? Six months ago Dexter Shaw had traveled all the way to Paris, a place he despised, in order to deliver to his son the presentiment of his impending death. Steeped in the real and true mysteries of medieval religions, Bravo was not a believer in the occult. His father wasn’t psychic—he’d known something, or at the very least had had a strong suspicion that his death was coming.
Shaking himself from the ominous web of his thoughts, Bravo pocketed the key, along with two packs of bills. Then he closed and locked the box and, emerging from the booth, handed it back to the patiently waiting manager.
Not for the first time, he considered the possibility that Dexter Shaw’s job at the State Department was only a cover and that he was, in fact, a spy.
“I think he’s yummy,” said the young woman with the face of a hungry cat.
Rossi shook out a cigarette and lit up. “Donatella, you surprise me. You need to be more discriminating.”
“Don’t be jealous, darling.” She ran her long fingers over his biceps. “I have no intention of leaving you for Braverman Shaw.”
“But a one-night stand wouldn’t be out of the question, hmm?”
When she reached for his black silk shirt, she used her nails so that he could feel her through the tissue-thin fabric as she drew them across his chest. “How nostalgic!” she murmured. “You remember our first meeting.”
“How could I forget?” Rossi glanced past her to the bank’s entrance.
They sat at a cafe diagonally across from the bank into which Bravo had vanished some ten minutes before. They had chosen a table situated slightly back from the window so that they could surveil the street without themselves being seen. Rossi and Donatella spoke perfect, unaccented English, but when no one else could hear they had fallen into the habit of communicating in the precise, almost formal version of the language used by all Romans.
All at once, he grasped Donatella’s porcelain wrist.
“You’re hurting me!” she gasped, but he did not relinquish his iron grip.
Slowly, he manipulated her wrist until her hand revealed what it held: the pendant at the end of the gold chain around his neck. “I told you, didn’t I? What did I say?”
