EIGHT
troub·le n. 1. A state of distress, affliction, danger, or need. Often used in the phrase in trouble. 2. Something that contributes to such a state; a difficulty or problem: One trouble after another delayed the job. 3. Exertion; effort; pains. 4. A condition of pain, disease, or malfunction: heart trouble. -v. troubled, — ling, — les. — tr. 1. To agitate; stir up. 2. To afflict with pain or discomfort. 3. To cause distress or confusion in.
I had finished typing up the tale of yesterday and was preparing for sleep when Jim came up and told me that Kellem had been over looking for me. I cursed under my breath and said, “Did she say what she wanted?”
“No,” said Jim. “She didn’t seem upset that you weren’t here.”
“Did you invite her in?”
He nodded. “She insisted.”
“What did she do?”
“Looked around a little, complimented me on the woodwork and the fixtures.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Jim didn’t seem happy about it, but, come to that, he has been very moody since the visit of the police; I don’t know if he is worried on my behalf, or upset about having his home invaded. Perhaps some of each. I would like to go down and make a fire, but I don’t dare; the smoke might be seen. Instead, I will spend some more time going over the newspaper articles, useless as I now think that will be.
I wish I could find a way to learn or deduce what Kellem has done that worries her so. If I could find a means of protecting her that would not cost my life, I could perhaps convince her to accept it, in spite of what happened the last time I tried to speak to her.
And why shouldn’t she be willing to grant me my life, if she can do so at no cost or danger to herself? It isn’t as if she has never cared for me. Years ago, we used to spend a great deal of time together-more than she would have had to. But I was utterly taken with her, and I think she enjoyed being worshiped as intensely as I worshiped her.
We would spend hour after hour just walking and talking, me eagerly asking questions about her life and the ways of her world, and she would take me to the theater and hold forth on philosophy or tell me stories of people she had known. Her decision to leave London, and, in fact, the British Isles, came a few weeks before the battle of Atbara, and she helped me through that first horrible winter crossing of the Channel.
On the Continent, however, I at once fell in love with the European railways, and in this way we traveled together for some months or years. I took her to my boyhood home, to which I had not returned in quite some time, and she showed me Paris. I remember very little of that city, except that I can recall thinking that it would be wonderful if there weren’t so many Frenchmen there. But mostly I was still involved with her, and I doted on her every word and action.
I remember her saying, “Things aren’t like they once were, and for that you ought to be grateful. For years, for decades, I would spend my time in the shadows of the great cities, only occasionally daring to venture out into the light of society, and then never for long. Now we can walk the streets, shop, visit the theater, and it is as if we exist within a shelter. The old terrors that hardened me and trained me are gone, and I wonder if you will ever appreciate the life you enjoy.”
I can remember looking at her as she spoke; she wore a dark tailored green dress, very tight at the waist, belted, with a long fur around her neck like a scarf. The hemline came above her ankles, but she wore very trim black boots with pointed toes and square heels. I wore a long coat with eight-inch fur cuffs, a large fur collar, a white silk cravat, and a top hat, I believe. She had picked the clothes out for me with care that felt loving to my befogged brain, and perhaps it was.
I remember these things, and what she said, and that it was late autumn, and that we were in Paris, yet I cannot remember what the streets looked like, or if we were sitting, standing, or walking. No, now that I think of it, I believe we were walking through a park and there was no one around, and no sounds except our speech, the faint clop and squeak of someone’s private coach a few hundred feet away, the songs of night birds, and, very faint, the titter of the rats of Paris, whose conversation never altered. The moon shone very bright on Laura’s face, giving it an odd yellowish tint and highlighting her arching eyebrows and deep-set, narrow eyes that were always so cold and blue.
I considered her words, and tried to imagine what it would have been like living in the times she spoke of, and at last I asked, “What changed?”
“Time,” she said. “The advent of this modern, scientific age.” There was more than just a hint of derision in her voice as she spoke.
“Will it last?”
“I believe it is very nearly ending already, more’s the pity.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You haven’t been keeping up with contemporary literature.”
“I never do, Laura,” I said. “I like older work.”
“Then you’re a fool,” she snapped. “There is no better way to keep track of the thinking of men, and if you don’t know what men are thinking, you don’t know what precautions to take.”
“Is that why we left England?”
“It was time to leave the English-speaking world for a while. I don’t know for how long.”
“Fortunately, you like French novels, too.”
“Yes, but French drama is impossible.”
“Still-”
“Yes. I’ll have a pretty good guess when it’s time to leave. But will you?”
“I? Won’t you be-”
“Not forever, Agyar Janos. How well can you read French?”
“Well enough.”
“Good. That may save you.”
“I’m glad you care what happens to me.”
She laughed, which for some reason I took as reassurance, although I cannot now imagine why I did.
We create our own omens, I think, and then mystify ourselves trying to understand their significance. That is, it feels very like an omen that this conversation has just now returned to me, in Technicolor and Dolby stereo, but I cannot imagine what it portends.
Jim keeps trying to understand what Kellem is up to. For that matter, so do I. He said, “I can’t figure out what she was hoping to get from having all of those policemen look at the house, or the reason for her visit.”
“I can’t either,” I said. “If I knew what she was trying to do, I could…”
“You could what?” he said.
“I don’t know. I’d feel better.”
“Well, it doesn’t make sense; no sir, it just doesn’t. If she wanted them to find you, she could have made you be more obvious, right?”
“Right.”
“And if she didn’t, what was the point?”
“To scare me, maybe; to get me to make a mistake.”
“Why go through all that to get you to make a mistake, when she could just tell you what mistake to make, and you’d have to do it?”
“There’s that,” I said.
“Maybe she isn’t after what you think she’s after.”
“Maybe.”
His eyes focused on me for a moment before shifting away again. “You look, I don’t know, younger than you did.”
