Forever (36 page)

The woman nodded. 'Please,' she said, 'if
you will follow me?'

She led Stephanie into a clubby-looking
room. All dark wood panelling, frosted etched glass, red leather
chairs, polished parquet. It was obviously some sort of lounge.

if you will take a seat,' she said, 'I will
inform Dottore Feltrinelli that you wish to visit the Signore. The
Dottore,' she emphasised with hushed gravity, 'is our esteemed
director!'

Stephanie smiled politely. '
Grazie
,'
she said, and the woman hurried out, leaving the door half open.
Stephanie unslung her shoulder bag, lowered it down onto the seat
of one chair, and sat down in another. She crossed her legs and
waited.

After a few moments, a man entered and
regarded her with interest. He was smallish and looked to be on the
other side of middle age with silver hair and a prominent nose and
glasses with black rims which refracted glints of light. He wore a
beautifully tailored, double-breasted blue suit with a fine chalk
pinstripe in it and a yellow silk tie. A matching yellow silk
handkerchief showed in his breast pocket.

'You must be the English lady visiting
Signore Guberoff,' he said.

Stephanie got up. 'American,' she corrected,
extending her hand. 'Virginia Wesson.' She smiled her very best
smile.

'I am Dr Feltrinelli, the director of the
Casa di Riposo.' He shook her hand and beamed. 'You are a friend of
the Signore's?' he enquired politely.

Stephanie shook her head. 'No, I'm afraid
not,' she said. 'I'm a friend of a friend. I'm just here to pass
along greetings and a gift.'

'I see.' He tilted his silver head. 'I am
delighted that you have come! Signore Guberoff does not get many
visitors, you know.' He added warmly: 'I myself will show you
upstairs to his room!'

'Why?' Stephanie asked anxiously with a
flush of guilt, 'Is he ill?'

Detlef von Ohlendorf's angina attack still
fresh in her mind, she thought grimly: That's all I need: someone
else collapsing on me. As if I were the Angel of Death!

'Oh, no, no, no,' the director assured her
as they left the lounge together and headed for a staircase, ill is
too strong a word. Signore Guberoff s health is overall quite well.
His arthritis is getting worse, of course, but then . . .'He sighed
and parted his hands eloquently. 'At such extreme old age,
deterioration is to be expected? No?'

She nodded. 'A pity it had to affect his
hands, though.'

'A tragedy, that! The Signore had the touch
of an angel. However, ageing has affected the talents of everyone
here. But not, thank God, their spirits! Listen!'

So saying, Dr Feltrinelli stopped walking
and cocked his head. Stephanie followed his example and listened
carefully.

A tenor was singing in the distance. But
soon, he was nearly drowned out by a powerful soprano with a still
achingly beautiful voice.

A battle of the vocal cords was in
progress.

The louder she sang, the more exuberantly he
belted.

The higher her notes and the longer she held
them, the more gusto and volume he put behind his.

And then, from elsewhere yet, came an
altogether different sound: a piano rippling, skipping, dancing,
swirling, pounding -

Dr Feltrinelli smiled at Stephanie.
'
Meraviglioso!
he whispered.
'Bello!
'

'Yes,' she said softly,
'bello!
' After
a moment, she asked: is it always like this?'

'Always,' he said as they continued walking.
'This building has as its soul the very essence of music - or, as I
personally like to put it - "One heart and many voices".' He
laughed and then glanced at her.

'Yes. A living legacy for musical flowers in
their last bloom.' He lowered his voice. 'Most, of course, were not
stars, but members of the chorus. But try telling them that!'

He chuckled softly as they clicked down the
inlaid floor of one of the second-storey wings, windows to their
right, doors to individual rooms on their left.

Every so often, Stephanie would notice one
of the doors on her left opening. Catching glimpses of the rooms
beyond, she was surprised. The rooms were real: untidy and
cluttered and overflowing with a lifetime's cherished treasures and
mementos. They weren't, she realised, so much rooms in a rest home
as real homes.

'Did you know,' Dr Feltrinelli continued as
they walked, 'Verdi was so beloved by the people of this city that
as he lay dying in his hotel room on the Via Manzoni, they actually
laid straw on the cobblestones outside his window so that passing
carriages would not disturb him?'

'How lovely!'

The words were barely out of her mouth when
Dr Feltrinelli stopped at a door.

'This is the Signore's room,' he said, and
knocked.

'Meneghini left me that chair,' Boris
Guberoff remarked, pride and fondness evident in his voice, it was
in her apartment, and I always used to admire it. "Then I shall
leave it to you!" she blurted on one occasion. And she did.' He
frowned. 'Onassis gave it to her, I believe.'

The chair in question was a creaky stately
throne: genuine
Louis quatorze
, all ornately carved walnut
arms and legs. Like everything else in the cluttered room, it was
coated with dust, which rose in silent little puffs when
disturbed.

Dust. It was everywhere.

Dust dulled the glass of the framed posters
which covered every square inch of wall space. Dust cloaked the
glossy black sheen of the concert grand and the treasures vying for
space on its cluttered top. Awards, engraved gifts, framed
photographs: Guberoff with Scriabin's daughter, with Tchaikovsky's
great- niece, with more presidents, prime ministers, kings and
queens than one could shake a stick at.

'You're sure it's all right for me to sit
down in it?' Stephanie asked anxiously, perching on the edge of the
precious chair and not daring to put her entire weight on it. Every
protesting creak of the ancient wood frightened her. 'I don't want
to damage it.'

Guberoff, swallowed up in the Victorian
tatters of what she guessed was his habitual chair, merely
shrugged; all he had eyes for was the scented scarf-enfolded
package on his lap. It enthralled him completely. Lovingly he began
to trace - slowly continued to trace - the elaborate Aubusson-like
pattern of the silk with a fingertip.

She held her breath and sat back slowly and
cautiously. She placed her hands lightly on the grandly carved arms
in order to distribute her weight more evenly. As the old man
continued to trail his finger around on the silk, Stephanie studied
him overtly. He wore an old-fashioned, wide-lapelled grey suit with
a bright- blue vest, white shirt, and a big red-and-green bow tie.
A lilac silk handkerchief stuck out of his breast pocket like the
petals of an exotic flower; his left lapel had several tiny medals
pinned to it, and his cufflinks were gold and shaped like miniscule
grand pianos.

He murmured, half to himself, 'But what can
be wrapped in Lili's beautiful scarf? What could she have sent
me!'

Boris Guberoff, born in Kiev in 1904, might
have left Mother Russia in 1926, but he had never lost his Russian
accent. His English was as thick as ever with rolling Rs and harsh
throaty consonants. He looked to be every one of his eighty-nine
years.

He was thin and had the profile of an
emaciated hawk. Thinning white hair combed straight back over his
ears, a balding pate, and a jaw that was almost simian. His dark
watery eyes were heavily hooded, and an age spot, the size of a
quarter, stained the right side of his forehead. Smaller age spots
splotched his face and hands like the colouring on a bird's
egg.

His neck was a wattle and his collar seemed
too large.

Like many people his age, he had the look of
being perpetually surprised - perhaps because he still found
himself alive and somewhat kicking.

'Tell me.' His acquisitive gaze was still
upon the silk package, his fingertip reluctant to stop its tracing.
'How is Lili? Is she well?'

Stephanie thought she had prepared herself
for the question, but now that it was posed she was appalled that
the practised phrases rose to her tongue but were smothered, as
though her mouth were filled with a thick sticky syrup. Quickly she
cleared her throat. 'She . . . she's younger than ever,' she
managed drily.

'Lili -
young?
' He frowned down into
his lap and, in the intervening silence, Stephanie could hear the
distant tenor and soprano still battling for vocal supremacy. After
a moment, Guberoff laughed softly. 'Oh, you mean she
looks
young.' He sighed and his voice tightened. 'Yes, Lili has found the
forbidden tree of knowledge and tasted of its fruit. But it is
dangerous knowledge! I warned her, you know.'

Stephanie's heart skipped a beat; shivers
went racing up and down her spine; chills lifted the fine downy
hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck.

So Lili is alive!
she thought with
exultation.
Alive and young! I'm not on a wild-goose chase! And
if what Guberoff just said really is true, then . . . why, then
Lili Schneider actually has found the fountain of Ponce de
Leon!

The fountain, a myth no longer.

Eternal youth -

- a reality!

For the first time, Stephanie found herself
truly, unequivocally and unquestioningly believing in its
existence.

Eternal youth! she thought incredulously. To
be young forever. The secret for which mankind has been searching
since time immemorial is - can it really be true - a reality!

Her folded hands trembled on her lap; her
mind was doing quantum leaps. It was the discovery of the
millennium! The biggest story she - or anyone else - had ever, or
would ever, investigate in a lifetime! And I'm the only one working
it! she thought. It's my exclusive!

'Y-you warned her?' she prompted the old
man, barely trusting herself to speak. Subdued excitement quavered
in her voice and she tried, futilely, to quell it. 'W-what did you
warn her about? What did you think she had to fear!'

But he was silent - enraptured now with
unfolding the square of silk. Slowly, neatly, he lifted one corner
at a time, smoothing one triangular section with the withered palms
of his hands before lifting another and smoothing it: north, south,
east, west. His progress was so slow Stephanie was tempted to snap
at him to hurry.

And then he gasped and his reaction was
everything she'd hoped for - and more.

The 'gift' she'd brought him - the
photograph of Lili Schneider posing with Madame Balasz, still in
its exquisite Faberge frame - gleamed richly on its bed of silk
like a priceless crown jewel.

He clapped his hands together in delight and
stared, mesmerised, down at the photograph. After a moment, his
eyes misted over and a wet sob, like a rapidly rising bubble, burst
up out of his chest. 'For me!' he whispered torturously, and
sniffled. 'For me . . .'

He trailed his fingertips along the
raspberry enamel frame with its splendid hand-worked filigree,
picked it up, and held it at various angles to study it.

To regain rapport, Stephanie leaned suddenly
forward. 'A memento,' she supplied softly.

'A memento,' he repeated in his frail old
man's voice, and nodded. 'Yes, a memento . . .'

'Lili wanted you to have it,' she said
huskily. 'When I told her I was coming to Milan, she untied the
scarf she was wearing - that very scarf - quickly wrapped the
picture in it, and instructed me to bring it to you. So here it
is!'

The words were barely out of her mouth when
his fingers seized the scarf, the sudden movement making it flow
magically, as though the colours were liquid. He lifted it to his
face, pressed his nose into the soft whispering folds, and inhaled
deeply of the faint lingering remnants of perfume.

'Lili? he whispered longingly in a strangled
voice. 'Lili . . .'

Stephanie, feeling like a Peeping Tom, had
to will herself not to look away. Guberoff's pathetic, love-sick
display agitated her guilt. It was a cheap, sordid trick she'd
pulled. And yet she'd had to play on the old man's emotions; she'd
really had no other choice. It was the only surefire method she'd
been able to think of with which to successfully breach his
defences.

And breach them it had. All it had taken was
a scarf and a few drops of lavender - she'd read in her
grandfather's manuscript how Lili had always favoured that
scent.

Yes. Just a scarf and a sprinkle of
fragrance. And reprehensible lies. . . lies.

She fought the smothering cloud of guilt by
countering it with mental images. By summoning to mind her
grandfather slowly twirling around at the end of the noose ...

. . . And Pham, devoted, young Pham,
survivor of bombs and napalm, swallowed up in that fireball of an
explosion . . .

. . . And Vinette Jones, a stranger found
dead in a hotel room, a hypodermic needle in her arm . . .

The mental images made deceit easier, swept
away the nagging load of guilt that accompanied duplicity. Like it
or not, she would - must continue to use any means necessary - no
matter how calculating or contemptible - in order to get the
information she required. Three people had already lost their
lives; she couldn't start worrying about wounding an old man's
feelings now. No. If she hurt him, then she was sorry; she didn't
intend to. But in this case, the end more than justified the
means.

'Lavender!' Boris Guberoff s voice was
muffled by the scarf he was still holding to his face. 'I can
actually smell her!'

Now!

She felt a bracing jolt of adrenalin.

Now was the moment for her to use the door
she'd wedged open in his mind; now, she knew, was the perfect
opportunity to trick him into confiding too much!