Forever (24 page)

'I'm sorry,' she murmured after a while. She
had stopped shivering and her pounding heart was back under
control. She pulled away from him and sniffed and wiped her nose
with her handkerchief. 'I -1 really don't know what got into me.'
She sniffed again. 'Something always seems to be frightening me.
Sometimes it is the fear of dying - and if not that, the prospect
of living forever and watching everyone around me die . . . I don't
think I'll ever get used to that . . .!'

Dr Vassiltchikov had been observing her in
silence. Now she smiled gently. 'Zarah, Zarah,' she chided softly,
clucking her tongue. 'How often must I tell you? Of course you will
get used to it.' She reached out to stroke the soft young face
almost lovingly. 'Because so long as you are
vorsichtig
-
careful - you will have all the time in the world to get used to
it.
Endlose Zeit
, Zarah ... do you hear? All the time in the
world . . . '

New York City

The memorial service was held at Town Hall.
All of the orchestra seats and most in the mezzanine were filled.
Banks of pale-pink peonies and branches of fragrant lilac, heavy
with blossoms, were artfully arranged across the stage.

The entire production crew from
Half
Hour
had turned out to eulogise Stephanie, as had
representatives from many of the two hundred independent television
stations that carried the show. Ted Warwick,
Half Hour
's
producer, sat in the front row. On his immediate left was a
grim-faced Johnny Stone; on his right, Christy Mason, a beautiful
redhead from Kansas City with a high sincerity quotient and a low
recognition ratio. She looked nervous and had every reason to be:
it wouldn't be easy to fill Stephanie's shoes as the show's new
anchor.

Sammy Kafka was onstage, dwarfed by the
profusion of flowers, his chin barely reaching above the polished
oak lectern as he looked out at the sombre sea of upturned faces.
He couldn't help but wonder where all these people had come from;
was thinking how few of them had really been Stephanie's friends;
was aware, above all, how woefully inadequate words were to sum up
a person's life. For how could he be expected to express, in a
string of mere sentences, the sunshine Stephanie's presence had
brought into his life? Or the fighting spirit, which had always
been such an integral part of her character, which he'd so admired?
Or the love they'd shared, so toasty-warm and secure it had never
needed verbalising, which made him feel like he really had been her
uncle, and she his own very favourite niece?

Words, his sole means of expressing all
this, seemed so insufficient. So wanting.

But they needed to be said, and the audience
was waiting. So he cleared his throat, adjusted his bow tie, and
recalled his favourite anecdotes. Trying to flesh out his Girlie
that way.

His eyes were moist. He was saying, as he
fingered away the tears,' . . . she had her whole life ahead of
her. God only knows what she might have accomplished. What
happiness she could have found. What a marvellous mother she would
have made - ' And then his voice cracked, and for a moment, he
couldn't continue.

In the front row, Johnny couldn't bear
hearing another word. Abruptly, he jumped up from his seat and
lurched blindly along the aisle to the rear of the auditorium, his
heart on fire, his raging lungs demanding air, cool clear bracing
fresh air. He nearly howled aloud, so great was his anguish. He had
loved her, dammit! He had wanted to live with her, to father their
children!

Outside, on the sidewalk, he ground his
teeth in painful frustration, turning small, aimless circles, to
all appearances a drunk on a binge. But he was stone-cold sober,
his drunkenness rooted in primeval despair.

Because if only he'd listened to his heart
and not taken Sammy's well-intentioned advice; if only he'd gone up
to see Stephanie instead of pacing indecisively opposite the
building, then she might not have been inside the apartment when
the explosion occurred - that terrible explosion which had
destroyed everything, her included; that massive explosion which
had left no real human remains behind . . .

In the mezzanine, one of many anonymous
faces took the opportunity to slip out unnoticed.

The Ghost was holding a red rose and
twirling it. Feeling satisfaction and thinking: People may think
it's easy to kill and do a first-rate job. But I know differently.
It takes a special talent to be the angel of death . . .

Near West Cornwall, Connecticut • New York City

Traffic was thin but slow; a zipper of
lightning rent the sky ahead. Inside the Lincoln Town Car, the
closed windows were half misted over; outside, relentless rain
lashed the windshield. The arcing wipers, working overtime, swished
and thudded metrono- mically, barely managing to keep up with the
deluge.

The car had stayed in the slow right lane of
1-684, its headlights on. At Brewster, New York, it had swung onto
1-84 and had crossed the state line into Connecticut. Now, after
Danbury, it left the interstate and slowly commenced north along
the Housatonic on the small, twisting country road that was Route
7. The downpour cut down on visibility, the shroud it created
isolating the car and shutting it off into an eerie world of its
own. Quaint townships with Anglican names came and went - New
Milford, Boardmans Bridge, Gaylordsville, Kent, Cornwall Bridge . .
.

Just before West Cornwall, the Town Car
turned left onto a narrower and even more remote country road,
drove sedately along it for two winding miles, and then slowed to a
crawl and made a sharp left turn into a steeply graded, uphill
gravel drive, both sides of which were meadows of wildflowers being
thrashed flat by the rain. A quarter of a mile further, and the
drive ended at that most incongruous of structures in this
decidedly Yankee setting - a small Palladian villa.

The car stopped and the driver twisted
around in his seat. 'Here we are,' he said cheerfully.

Sammy Kafka squinted at him from the
mouse-coloured velour of the back seat. 'Since when,' he demanded,
'do I need to be told I've arrived where I've asked to be driven?
Eh? Eyes I've got, and a nursemaid I don't need.'

'That's for sure,' the curly-haired young
driver laughed. He threw open his door, popped a huge black
mushroom of an umbrella, and was quickly out to hold the rear door.
But he stood well back, knowing better than to help the old
man.

Sammy slid out from the seat and carefully
held onto the door as he tested his land legs. They felt stiff from
sitting for so long, but were steady enough. That confirmed, he
reached inside the car for his own ivory-handled English umbrella
and opened it without haste. Then, while the driver went to unload
the luggage from the trunk, Sammy, with a stab of nostalgia, gazed
at Carleton Merlin's country house.

The mere sight of the shuttered villa
released a potent flood of memories, brought a lump into his
throat. The beautifully proportioned folly was such an anomaly amid
the Currier and Ives landscape that he'd always loved it all the
more. Constructed of grey-stuccoed brick, it was one-storey and
authentically proportioned. The perfect symmetry delighted the eye:
two identical pilastered wings with tall French windows extending
from a central pedimented portico. To soften what would otherwise
have been a mausoleum-like austerity, creepers - wisteria and ivy -
had been left to their own devices and allowed to run riot,
clinging thickly to the walls. A procession of stately stone urns
marched across the top of the roof cornice, and there were two
chimneys.

But despite its having been beautifully
maintained, the house now had that forlorn aura of uninhabited
buildings, its green shutters closed to the world. One was loose
and flapped, banging in the wind. To Sammy, the noise sounded
plaintive, as though the building were alive and wailing for
someone - anyone - to come and open it up and breathe life into it
once again.

Shaking his head mournfully, he climbed the
shallow broad steps to the sheltered portico, closed the umbrella,
and shook off the excess water. His eyes misted as he unlocked the
double doors, turned off the alarm system, and stepped into the
foyer. Sighing heavily, he stuck his umbrella in the familiar
blue-and-white umbrella stand just inside the front door and
switched on the lights. Then, while waiting for his suitcases to be
brought up from the car, he looked around.

It was almost eerie, he thought. Absolutely
nothing had changed since his best friend's death, as though this
were some sort of shrine: the impressive foyer was exactly as it
always had been, a testament to Carleton's exceptional taste and
indulgence for luxury. Suitably grand, and furnished in an
exuberant melange of periods - English Regency, Imperial Russian,
Neo-classical, the odd touch of Napoleon III. A blue-striped fabric
from Madeleine Castaing covered the walls, and gilt-framed
portraits of noblemen, hanging one above the other, made the
fourteen-foot ceiling seem to soar even higher.

There. That's it.' The driver deposited the
fifth and last of Sammy's brown, 1920s alligator suitcases inside
the door. 'Should I carry them to some particular room?'

'Just leave them right there, Mendel,' Sammy
told him. 'I can take care of them from here on. I'll phone when I
need you to come and pick me up. It will probably be in a day or
two.'

Sammy waited until the car was out of sight.
Then, satisfied that he was alone, he backed into the foyer, closed
and locked the front doors, and plucked his umbrella back out of
the blue-and-white stand. Quickly now, he pushed aside another door
and passed into the dark living room, flipping a light switch as he
went.

Instantly, the giant Directoire billiard
lamp above the centre table clicked on, flooding the porphyry urn
with its masses of dried hydrangeas and the stacks of books,
arranged to radiate outwards from its hub, with two soft pools of
light. But Sammy didn't waste a moment admiring the splendid
tableau or anything else in the beautiful oval room. Marble,
mirrors, carpets, paintings, memories: for the time being, he
shelved them all, darting past antique chairs and treasure-laden
tables to his destination, one of the three sets of French doors on
the curving opposite wall.

With practised flicks of his wrist, he
yanked aside two pairs of blue brocade curtains, unlatched the
French doors at both top and bottom, pulled them open, and unhooked
the dark-green shutters. He shoved them wide.

Weak grey daylight and the soppy, wet sounds
of rain filtered into the room. A leaking drainpipe poured a thin
waterfall.

The weather hadn't let up at all.

Snapping open his umbrella, he held it high
and started jauntily off, looking up at his destination.

There it was. A hundred yards uphill, set
slightly back. Eerily misted, and paled to the point of looking
mysteriously washed-out by the rain.

It had been Carleton Merlin's pride and joy,
the one-room library-cum-guesthouse up there - a larger but
otherwise authentically detailed replica of the Treasury of the
Athenians at Delphi. Complete with pediment, Doric pillars, and
triglyph.

Like the main house below, it was yet
another wonderful anomaly here, amid the rolling green hills of
northwestern Connecticut.

Sammy hiked uphill through the long sodden
grass, low-hanging leafy branches whipping at his umbrella. It was
a short but rather steep climb which, despite his incredible health
and vigour, never failed to make him aware of every one of his
seventy-seven years.

His handsewn shoes, silk socks, and trouser
legs were soaked through when he had reached the portico. He slowly
went up the three steps and in its shelter he stamped his feet and
shook his umbrella out vigorously.

Just as he turned to the front door, it
opened soundlessly from within and a single cobalt-blue eye stared
suspiciously out through the three-inch crack.

'Your driver's gone?* a voice whispered.
'You're alone?'

Sammy nodded. The door closed, he could hear
the clink of the safety chain being removed, and a woman opened the
door wide.

He could only stare.

'What's the matter?' asked the dark-haired
young woman with the silky Louise Brooks cut. 'This is the third
time you've reacted to me in this way. The third time!'

'That, Girlie,' he said gently, reaching out
and touching her cheek tenderly with his fingertips, 'is because I
still can't get used to this new you. But for your voice . . .
'

'What about it?'

He sighed sadly. 'I could have passed you on
the street and never even recognised you.'

'Well?' demanded Stephanie Merlin, her gaze
and voice so implacably level, and her smile so emotionless and
bleak, that he felt thoroughly chilled. 'Isn't that the whole
point?'

Then she grabbed him by the arm and yanked
him forward.

'Now hurry up and get in here!' she hissed.
'You're late and we've got work to do!'

Just then Waldo's shrill, demanding squawks
started up and suddenly everything was back to normal.

Her voice softened and she even sounded like
her old self. 'But first, you'd better get out of those wet
clothes. Uncle Sammy,' she said huskily, bending down and planting
a noisy kiss on the top of his head. 'If you don't, you're liable
to come down with a nasty cold.'

'That'll be a dollar thirty.' The waitress
set down a plastic cup of coffee and a powdered jelly doughnut
wrapped in a sheet of grease-proof paper.