Conchita, but she ranks higher. Rank must be earned, by service as well as faith and study. Your time will come, I’m sure. Mainly, Cindy, you are to keep silence. You may not speak a single word to anybody, ever, about who my guest was or anything else you might happen to see or hear. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’m.”
“Good. Now be off with you, child. Oh, and do work harder on your English. You’ll never get anywhere in the world unless you sound educated. Are educated. Master Thomas tells me you aren’t deing so well at arithmetic, either. If you need extra help, ask him for it. Teaching isn’t just his job, it’s his calling.”
“Y-yes, ma’m.”
Laurace inclined her head and half closed her big eyes, as if listening. “Your good angel hovers near,” she said. “Go in peace.”
The girl trotted off, pert in her starched uniform, radiant in her sudden joy.
Alone, Laurace prowled about, picked up objects, fiddled with them, put them down again. She had made this room Victorian, oak wainscots, heavy furniture, thick carpet and drapes, glass-fronted cabinets for carefully chosen curios, a shelf of books still more select, on top of which rested the white bust of a man who had been black. Electric bulbs in a glass chandelier were dim; rain’s twilight crowded close. The effect was impressive without being overly strange.
When, from a bow window, she saw the car she had dispatched arrive at the curb, she set restlessness aside and straightened. Most would depend on what impression she herself made.
The chauffeur got out, unfolded a large umbrella, came around to the right side and opened the rear door. He escorted his passenger to the porch, where he rang the bell for her. Laurace didn’t see that, but she heard and knew. She likewise knew of the two maids who received the visitor, took her coat, and guided her down the hall.
As she entered the room, Laurace went to meet her. “Welcome, welcome,” she said, and clasped both hands in hers.
Clara Rosario’s fingers responded only slightly, as did her mouth to the smile offered her. She seemed alien, her own finery a little too bright-colored. Though her hair was marcelled midnight, skin tawny, lips full, she was of white race, hazel-eyed, straight-nosed, wide across the cheekbones. Laurace stood three inches higher. Nonetheless Clara carried herself boldly, as well she might, given a figure like hers.
“Thank you,” she said, with a staccato accent. Glancing about: “Quite a place you got here.”
“We’ll be private in the sanctum,” said Laurace. “It has a liquor cabinet. Or would you prefer tea or coffee? I’ll order it brought.”
“Uh, thanks, but I could use a drink right now.” Clara laughed nervously.
“You can stay for dinner, can’t you? I promise you a cordon bleu meal. By then we should have completed our ... business, and be able to relax and enjoy it.”
“Well, not too late. They expect me there, you know? I jolly them along and— Could be trouble, too, for me to head off. Men are kind of on edge these days, wondering what’s going to go wrong next, you know?”
“Besides, we don’t want anybody wondering what you’re up to,” Laurace agreed. “Don’t worry. I’ll send you back in plenty of time.” She took Clara’s arm. “This way, please.”
When the door had shut behind them, Clara stood a while, tensed. Between curtained windows, the smaller room was wholly foreign; Straw mats -covered the floor, leopard pelts the curiously shaped chairs. Two African masks dominated one wall. On a shelf between them rested a human skull. Opposite stretched an eight-foot python skin. At the farther end stood a marble altar. Upon its red-bordered white cloth were a knife, a crystal bowl full of water, and a bronze candlestick with seven twisty branches. Lighting was from a single heavily shaded lamp on a table beside silver boxes for cigarettes and matches and an incense holder whose smoke turned breath pungent. Almost lost in their everydayness were the cabinet and console radio that flanked the entrance, or the coffee table which near the middle held glasses, ice bucket, seltzer, carafe, ashtrays, small dishes of delicacies.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Laurace. “You must have seen magicians’ lairs in the past.”
Clara nodded. “A few times,” she gulped. “You mean you—”
“Well, yes and no. These things aren’t for use; they’re meant to convey sacredness, power, mystery. Also,” Laurace added matter-of-fact!y, “nobody would dare open that door without my leave, under any circumstances whatsoever. We can talk in perfect safety.”
Clara rallied. She would not have endured through her centuries without ample courage; and her hostess offered nothing but friendship, of a sort and provided it be possible. “I guess we’ve gone mighty different ways, you and me.”
“Time we bring them together. Would you like some music? I can get two good stations.”
“No, let’s just talk.” Clara grimaced. “I don’t need music all the time, you know? I run a high-class house.”
“Poor dear.” Much sorrow was in the gentleness. “You don’t have it so easy, do you? Have you ever?”
Clara lifted her head. “I get by. How about that drink?”
She chose a strong bourbon-and-branch, together with a cigarette, and settled onto the sofa before the table. Laurace poured a glass of Bordeaux and sat down on a chair across from her. For a space there was silence, apart from the dulled noise of the rainstorm.
Then Clara said, half defiantly, “Well, what about it? What are we going to talk about?”
“Suppose you start,” Laurace answered, her words continuing soft. “Whatever you want. This is just the first of pur real meetings. We’ll need many more. We have everything to learn about each other, and decide, and finally do.”
Clara drew breath. “Okay,” she said fast. “How did you find me? When you showed up at my apartment and, and told me you’re immortal too—“ It had not brought on hysteria, but Laurace had soon realized she’d better go. Afterward it had been a matter of three careful telephone conversations, until now. “I thought at first you were crazy, you know? But you didn’t act it and how could a crazy person have found out? Later I wondered if you wanted to blackmail me, but that didn’t make sense either. Only ... all right, how do you know what I am, and how can 1 know you really are what you claim?” She raised her glass in a jerky motion and drank deep. “I don’t want to offend you, but, well, I’ve got to be more sure.”
“Naturally you’re cautious,” Laurace said. “Do you think I’m not? We’ve both had to be, or die. But look around you. Would something like this belong to any criminal such as you ever knew?”
“N-no... Unless the prophet of a cult— But I never heard of you, and I would have, as rich as you must be.”
“I’m not. Nor is the organization I lead. It does require me to maintain the appearance of, m-m, solidity. As to your questions, though;” Laurace sipped of her wine. Her voice grew slow, almost dreamy:
“I don’t know when I was born. If any record was made, I couldn’t tell where to find it, and probably it’s long lost. Who cared about a pickaninny slave? But from what I remember, and what I deduced after I began to study, I must be about two hundred years old. That isn’t much, set against your age. Fourteen hundred, did you say? But of course I wondered, more and more desperately, whether I was quite alone in the world or not.
“Any others like me must be hiding the fact like me. Men can go into a variety of occupations, lives. Women have fewer opportunities. When at last I had the means to search, it made sense to begin with the trade that a woman might very well, even most likely, be forced into.”
“Whoredom,” said Clara starkly.
“I told you before, I pass no judgments. We do what we must, to survive. One such as you could have left a trail, a trail often broken but perhaps possible to follow, given time and patience. After all, she wouldn’t expect anybody would think to try. Newspaper files, police and court records, tax rolls and other registers where prostitution had been legal, old photographs—things like that, gathered, sifted, compared. Some of my agents have been private detectives, some have been ... followers of mine. None knows why I wanted this information. Slowly, out of countless fragments, a few parts fitted together. It seemed there had been a woman who did well in Chicago back in the nineties till she got into some kind of trouble, curiously similar to one in New York later, in New Orleans later still, again in New York—”
Clara made a slicing gesture. “Never mind,” she snapped. “I get the idea. I should have remembered, in fact. It happened before.”
“What?”
“Back in Konstantinopolis—Istanbul—oh, Lord, nine hundred years ago, it must have been. A man tracked me
