“So they are. I’d forgot. Another example of seemingly useless information proving relevant.”
“Yes; one never knows when one might want to poison an acquaintance. Here.”
John studied the object dubiously. “What is it?”
“Gingerbread. Schmidt kept forcing it on me last night.”
“I loathe gingerbread. What’s that white on it?”
“I guess some of the tissue I wrapped—”
“Hand it over.”
I went on rummaging while he munched. His eyes widened as the pile of edibles mounted up. An apple, two- thirds of a fruit-and-nut chocolate bar (large size), more gingerbread, little packets of sugar (with pictures of Alpine scenes) and artificial sweetener, and two tea bags. I’m sure it was the tea that wrung an involuntary exclamation of admiration from John.
“O goddess! Lady of the Sycamores, Golden One, who gives food to the hungry and water to the thirsty —”
“It’s nothing,” I said modestly. “I thought I had…Oh, here it is. I’m afraid it’s a little stale, and some of the jelly seems to have oozed out…. If you can find a container, we might have a spot of tea.”
John surged to his feet. “There are a few broken flower pots in the sacristy. And God knows there is plenty of snow.”
I don’t think he got all the encrusted dirt out of the pots, but as he said philosophically, it gave a spurious look of strength to the tea. He was fascinated by my hoard.
“Are you clairvoyant, or do you always prepare for blizzards?”
“I always carry artificial sweetener. Not all restaurants have it.”
“Then why the sugar?”
“I can’t resist the pretty pictures on the packets. I’m making a collection.”
John nodded gravely. “Of course. And the apple—the chocolate—?”
“Doesn’t everybody carry things like that around?”
He dropped his head onto his raised knees, sputtering with helpless laughter.
“Have another piece of gingerbread,” I said hospitably.
Life never ceases to amaze me. In my wildest dreams or nightmares, I had never expected to spend Christmas Eve in an abandoned church with an unreformed and unrepentant thief, dining on stale gingerbread and muddy tea. And I certainly would not have expected to enjoy it.
We talked for hours, huddled in front of the little fire, wrapped in cobwebby curtains and sipping tepid tea. He kissed the crumbs from my lips and held me close, for warmth, but we didn’t dare lie down for fear we’d fall asleep and the fire would go out. It was as if two opposing armies had declared a temporary truce. He talked more easily than he had ever done, and I tried to avoid questions that would raise the barriers again. We talked about everything under the sun—even the weather.
“I’ve never seen anything like that moving wall of snow.”
“And you are from the wintry wastes of Minnesota.”
“Have you?”
“Once. That’s why the sight of it petrified me. It was in the so-called mountains of western Virginia.”
“What were you doing in Virginia?”
I slipped then, but instead of clamming up, he answered readily, “Visiting a friend. I do have a few, you know. I was only a few feet from the lodge—bringing in wood—when it hit, but for a few memorable moments I didn’t think I was going to make it back.”
And about abstruse academic subjects.
“Who is the Lady of the Sycamores?”
“Hathor, Egyptian goddess of love, beauty, and so on. I may have misquoted. My specialty is classics, not Egyptology.”
“Greats,” I said. “Isn’t that what you call it? You went down with a first in Greats?”
“Well, not exactly,” John said, amused. “It cannot be said that I went down from university, as the idiom has it; rather, I was pushed off the ladder of learning.”
“Far be it from me to ask why.”
“It wasn’t extortion or fraud, if that’s what you are implying. Just a little matter of a tutor arriving home before he was expected.”
“I’m sure there is an Old Testament parallel.”
“Oh, quite. Potiphar’s wife. I was very young and naive. I didn’t take up a life of crime until after that,” John went on cheerfully. “Someday I must tell you about my first scam. I don’t believe I have ever equaled the sheer splendid lunacy of that concept. It didn’t come off, unfortunately, but I’m still immensely proud of it.”
And about his family.
“Is your mother’s name really Guinevere?”
“It really is.”
“I’d love to meet her.”
“You wouldn’t like her.” After another of those meaningful pauses in which he excelled, he added, “She wouldn’t like you either.”
But not about the gold of Troy.
We recited poetry and sang, to keep awake. I taught John all the words to Schmidt’s favorite Christmas carol, which he approved—“kitsch at its finest”—and he taught me the second part of the glorious duet in Bach’s Cantata 140, where the soprano’s “
“Isn’t that a little romantic for J. S. Bach?” I asked.
John was trying to play the oboe obbligato on a tissue-covered comb. He broke off long enough to remark, “Your theology is deficient, duckie. It’s not a love song, it’s all about the marriage of the faithful soul to Christ.”
“It sounds like a love song.”
“So it does,” John said agreeably. He returned to the comb.
I fell asleep in the middle of a long lecture on horticulture—I remember he waxed eloquent on the subject of double digging, a technique on whose details I am hazy, but which, he said, his mother insisted upon—and did not waken until he moved to put more wood on the fire. I rubbed my eyes. “Sorry. I’m so tired….”
“You’ve had a busy day. Why don’t you lie down?”
“The floor’s too cold,” I mumbled.
“Come here, then.”
He was still holding me when I woke again to find that the darkness had been replaced by gray gloom. At first I thought the bright yellow streaks across the floor were paint.
“Sunlight,” I muttered.
“It’s morning,” said John. “‘Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.’ Come on—be a big, brave girl—don’t topple over—”
I was so stiff I could hardly move. Stiff, cold, hungry…I looked up at him from under my hair. He had risen to his feet and was methodically flexing his arms, grimacing as he moved them.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“How could I? ‘my strength is as the strength of ten,’” John chanted, stamping his feet in cadence, “‘because my heart is pure.’”
The truce had lasted only one night, and the barriers were up again. I had expected it, but that didn’t keep me from resenting it. Silently I extended my hand; briskly he pulled me to my feet, turned me around, and gave me a hearty slap on the backside.
“Dusty,” he remarked. “Let’s have a look outside. At this moment, I’d trade you and the gold for a hot
