After all, let’s face it, it’s not the most believable story in the world. And it wouldn’t be the guillotine for me. Nothing that tidy.” She chuckled. “I’m sure that if Katya were here she’d be unable to resist a pun about ‘losing one’s head.’ No, it wouldn’t be the guillotine for me. And the prospect of my wallowing in the filth of some asylum is beneath consideration. Imagine the quality of the conversation—to say nothing of the food!” She chuckled again. “No, no, it won’t do at all.” She mounted the two steps to the summerhouse, took up the pistol from the wicker chair, then sat in Paul’s sprawling, careless way. “Fortunately, gentlemen of my class have prescribed responses to awkward situations of this kind. Katya was right about the advantages of being a man in this society. Now I really think you should be on your way, Doctor. You’re looking a little pallid. Loss of blood will do that, you know, even to the notoriously full-blooded Basques.”
I knew that she—he was right. There was no other way. Katya living on as a spectacle in some asylum? Like Mlle M.? No. Oh, no. And the fact was, Katya was already dead, lying on her bed up in the house.
Drained, adrift in a vertigo of hopelessness, I turned to leave.
But I was arrested by Paul’s lazy drawl. “Oh, by the way, here’s a little something Katya wanted me to give you.” He tugged a small silk drawstring bag from his coat pocket. “They’re yours, I believe.”
“No, not mine. They were gifts to Katya.”
“Oh, really?” He examined one of the pebbles with mild disrelish. “Well, no one could ever accuse you of being a mad spendthrift when it comes to gift-giving.”
“No, I suppose not. Paul? Would you do me a favor?”
“So long as it’s something slight, old fellow.”
“Would you keep those pebbles for me? Just hold them in your hand… for remembrance?”
His metallic eyes softened for just a second; then he grinned. “If that would amuse you… why not?”
“Thank you.” I turned and walked up the overgrown path.
The sun was setting in a russet flush along the horizon as I drove the trap down past the ruined garden wall. The poplars lining the lane were suffused with an amber afterglow that seemed to rise from the earth. The mare’s ears flickered at the sound of the shot.
I remember once describing the Basques to Katya as men who never forgive. Never.
During the course of my medical practice, fate delivered a slightly wounded rapist into my hands.
He did not survive treatment.
