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 biento^t, 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
