Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet (20 page)

  
“Hi., Celyn!”

  
“Quiet,” he hushed as soon as the little blonde head peeped out from behind the
door.   “Someone will hear you.”

  
“
Saul, give it to her!
”

  
The stifled voice kept insisting from behind as he held her back.

  
“What’s she talking about?”

  
“Ah, nothing.”

  
“…Right,” Celyn nodded with a sceptical frown.

  
He opened the bag and checked the contents.

 
“Your man ran out of smokes.  He says he’ll have more next week.”

  
“It is alright,” he replied.

  
He remained in the entrance, gazing back at her -- at the long, thin ropes of
hair, bound up and falling over her breasts, which swelled over the crossed
arms, and the emerald glow of her eyes, and the caramel lips, and the thin
battle-scars peeping out through the bare skin.  The jasmine smell loosened him
like an opiate.

  
She looked at him askance.

  
“
Is
everything alright?”

  
He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the door opened and the
little blonde head popped out again.

 
 “We’re having dinner wan’a come in?”

  
The abrupt question was rapid, catching both of them unaware.  Naomi tottered
over the threshold before he could stop her and stepped up to Celyn, who looked
back down, subdued by two large, pleading, upturned eyes. 

  
“Saul, can Celyn stay?”

  
He looked from her to Celyn and back.

  
“Ah…” he hummed and dug his fingers nervously into the hair on the back of his
neck.  “Only if she wants…”

  
“No,” Celyn blurted immediately, eyes flashing.

  
“Celyn?”

  
The pleading eyes looked up again.   Naomi came nearer to her and tilted her
head all the way back.

 
 “Please…” she begged. 

  
Like a rapt bird, Celyn’s head tipped to one side.  He saw a curious smile
tremble on the corners of her mouth.    Naomi beamed happily and grabbed hold
of her fingertips and the next moment, Celyn moseyed right past him. 

  
Naomi scampered back into the kitchen, climbed back up onto her seat and
stuffed another spoonful of starchy rice in her mouth.  He shut the door and
came near them, silently observing.   Celyn stood in the middle of the room,
quiet as a misplaced soul, and her eyes would not yield from Naomi.  She
appeared diminished, seized by some paralysing force roused by the girl’s
touch.  As soon as he sat down, Naomi dropped her spoon into her plate and climbed
off her seat. 

  
“I’m full,” she announced suddenly, then scuttled off to the living area before
either of them could say a word. 

 
He watched Celyn follow her with mesmerised eyes, and then, seeming to feel his
stare, she looked away and nervously cleared her throat.

  
“You can sit,” he said, after a long pause.

  
It was awhile before she did. 

  
He scooped a portion of rice onto a plate and set it before her before it could
occur to him that he might have been better off not giving her anything.  She
studied the contents of the plate dubiously before taking a fork and putting
four grains of rice in her mouth, chewing through a suppressed grimace.

  
“So,” he began, slightly discomfited, “any news?”

  
She was slow with her answer.

  
“Not much,” she said, and paused.  “I heard the Scythe disbanded a few days ago”

  
“How come?”

  
“Not sure.  I heard, through the grapevine, that they bit off more than they
could chew with their last contract – some peacekeeping operation in Niger…
Peacekeeping
,”
she snorted.

  
It was strange to hear of goings-on in the war world again after what seemed
like so long.

  
“You were not with them?” he asked.

  
“No.”

  
He peered up at her as he continued to feign eating.

  
“When was
your last assignment…”

  
“How about we change the subject?” Celyn replied sharply.

  
He bit his tongue, but her evasiveness revealed much.  It had been more than seven
months.  Had she not procured an assignment since Nova Crimea?

  
“Well, I would ask what’s new with
you
,” she said.  “Considering you
haven’t stepped out of the house in a long damn time, I’m guessing there’s not
much to tell.”

  
He stopped suddenly and was momentarily silent. 

  
“Actually, there is something,” he said.

  
A pair of glowering eyes peered up.

  
“It better not be another favour…”

  
“No,” he replied quickly

  
There was silence.  He settled his fork on the table and delayed, debating with
himself the best way to say what he wanted to say.

 
 “Do you remember,” he began slowly, “what I had told you the first time you
came here?  About what happened in Kamchatka?”

  
“You OD’d on neurals.”

  
“…Yes,” he said.  “Something else happened.  Something I did not tell you,
probably because it had not weighed on me so much at the time.  But now…”

 
 Celyn looked up, the fork grazed her teeth as it came out and she inclined.

  
“Alright,” she said.  “What is it?”

  
“I had this… dream,” he begun awkwardly.  “At least, I thought it was a dream.”

  
“What was it?” she asked.

  
There was a nervous pause. 

  
“I am sure it was a memory.”

 
 Celyn looked back at him, poking the bits of food on the insides of her
cheeks, apparently unmoved.

   
“I do not know of what or where or when,” he continued, “but I am sure that it
was before they cleaned me.”

  
“That’s impossible.”

  
“That is what I thought,” he said.  “But, I know it was not a dream.”

  
Celyn sighed and picked up her fork again.

 
 “You had half a cylinder of neurals in your system,” she said.  “It was
probably a hallucination.”

  
It was the dismissive reply he expected, for it was the one he had given
himself in the beginning.  And yet…

 
 “I know I have heard the name before,” he muttered.

  
Celyn looked back up with renewed interest.

  
“What name?” she asked.

  
He paused again.  Confronted with someone else’s questions, and thus compelled
to relate things out loud, the whole thing suddenly seemed absurd. 

  
“Vincent,” he answered.

  
“…Vincent,” Celyn repeated with a slow, perplexed nod.

  
“Look,” he started, “when the Commission clean you, they…”

  
“What are you doing?” she interrupted, shaking her head at him with a squint.

  
There was silence between them again.  He did not know what she meant by the
question.  After a while, Celyn straightened up with a sigh.

  
“Alright,” she said, starting anew.  “Suppose it really was a memory, which it
probably wasn’t; why do you care?  What difference does it make?”

  
“I need to know.”

  
“No you don’t,” she said, her eyes suddenly severe. 

  
“I have to know the truth.”

  
“The truth…” Celyn shook her head at the tabletop and started to snicker.  “Alright,
I’ll tell you something you already know,” she stated, categorically. “Look, I
don’t know what you saw and I don’t care.  But if you keep going down this road
and you’re not long for this world.  That’s as true as anything you’ll ever
know.”

  
He sensed a darker experience between the lines of her words.

  
“What am I supposed to do?” he said.

  
“Never underestimate the survival value of smoke and mirrors,” Celyn answered. “You
don’t know what any of it means.  Make that your excuse if you have to, but let
it go.  If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for
her
.”

  
Naomi was a short distance behind, in the living area, pretending to draw but
really observing what was going on between them.  Celyn was right, of course. 
She was more important than anything else.  But, still, that fingernail
grinding at his soul would not allay.  

  
He nodded vaguely, not so much to concede as to terminate the discussion.

  
Silence befell them again.  After a while, his lips curled into a coarse
smile. 

  
“She adores you, you know,” he said.

  
Celyn looked up again.

  
“What?”

  
“Naomi … She is very fond of you.”

  
Celyn peered over her shoulder and Naomi quickly turned away, pretending to
draw. 

  
“You don’t say…”

  
“A few days ago she asked me to make her hair like yours.”

  
Celyn raised her eyebrows at him and took a second look at the girl, noting her
recent haircut. 

  
“Please tell me you didn’t try…”

  
“I had to cut it off.”

  
She snorted a suppressed laugh, then gave in and started to chuckle.  It was
the first time he heard her laugh.  It was the first time they laughed
together.  He eased into the strangeness of the interaction.  After a while,
the laughter died down and there was quiet again.  This time, Celyn was the one
who broke the silence: “So, what does she do all day, anyway?”

  
“Art mostly,” he said.  “She loves to draw.”

  
“What does she draw?”

  
“Animals mostly.”

 
 “Animals, huh?”

  
“Always animals.”  

  
“Good place to start.”

  
He paused and looked up.

  
“You draw?” he asked

  
“I
can
,” she replied, matter-of-factly.  “Is that a problem?”

  
“Not exactly essential for martial proficiency.”

  
“Neither is cooking, but it wouldn’t hurt if you worked on it a little”

  
His brow knotted in response.  He never thought he would feel as affronted as
he did in having his ability to care for the girl called into question.  The
conversation rested once again. 

  
“You can’t keep her locked in here forever,” said Celyn.

  
He said nothing, and this time the silence went uninterrupted.  After  a while
he looked up.  Naomi caught his attention over Celyn’ shoulder.  She appeared
to be mouthing something to him – something that he could not quite discern
from the small, vague lips.  But from the way she was drawing her fingers
around her neck and down to her chest, he construed her message.  He reached
into his pocket with a diffident sigh. 

  
“I … have something for you,” he said, hesitantly.

  
Celyn looked up and saw the golden locket hanging by the silver chain in his fist. 
Her eyes refocused from the locket to his eyes. 

 
“She gave it to me,” he said.  “I want to give it to you.”

  
Her eyes narrowed.

  
“…Why?”

  
“To thank you,” he replied.  “For taking care of us.”

  
The gold locket swayed from side to side, and after what seemed an age, her
hand slowly extended forward, as though she were reaching for a flame.  She
held the locket and examined it, running her fingers along the chain.

 
 “How do you…”

  
“Ah… here,” he said, rising from his seat.

  
He gently took the necklace, let the chain hang in his fingers and felt for the
clasp.  He unhooked it and the chain separated. 

  
She tensely drew the hair from over the back of her neck and he leaned forward,
brought his arms around her.  A quiver of warmth rippled through when his rough
hands brushed against the supple skin on the arch of her shoulder.  For an
instant, he lapsed back into that Russian wilderness conjured in his dreams,
and that same yearning seized him right until the moment the clasp clicked and
his hands glided over her collar.  The gold pendant hung right over the cleft
of her breasts.

 
 He followed the line of her chest up to the two glowing eyes, and the black
holes in the gemstone eyes dilated when their gazes met, sparking a vigour
which started to blaze, but was doused instantly…

  
“Celyn.”

  
A twittering voice stole upon them.  Naomi was standing at Celyn’s side, her
large eyes turned up in the same pleading manner as before.

 
 “Will you draw with me?”

  
She held up a lion drawing in one hand and a handful of crayons in the other. 

  
Celyn seemed to look to him for approval – or disapproval.  It was not clear
what she wanted at that point, caught between two opposing forces heaving on her
like the shackles on a rack.  Whatever it was her vaguely despairing eyes
sought from him, Saul tendered it with a silent nod.