His heart sank.
He re-read the memo twice more to see if he had understood correctly. A court-ordered appointment with Pope… The string of letters and numbers in the middle of the memo – “D7 H0930” – intimated that the court-ordered meeting was seven days from the day, at 0930.
Naomi coughed, diverting his attention.
He lowered his cell.
She coughed again, then again with increase.
“You are sick,” he said. “Again?”
She finished coughing and wiped the rice and spittle off her mouth.
“No,” she sniffed, “I’m OK.”
Her skin was not the same sun-kissed hue it once was.
He tucked the cell away, removed the smoking tray from the counter and doused the smoldering tobacco with water from the tap. Resolving to deal with the memo later, he scooped a portion of the quasi-edible glop and sat.
Naomi stared at the front door as she twirled around the contents of her plate.
“She will be here soon,” he assured.
Naomi tore her eyes away from the door and scooped up another spoonful and ate.
“Saul,” she spoke, after a brief silence. “Celyn never comes in.”
He sighed.
“I know.”
“Why not?”
“It is … difficult, little one.”
She looked away with a sad frown.
“Is it because of me?”
“Something like that,” he said.
“I don’t think she likes me.”
“No … I think she does.”
The conversation briefly ended.
A minute later, Naomi called again:
“Saul … Do you like Celyn?”
He was about to raise the fork to his mouth, but stopped with his mouth open. The question ran with his thoughts. He looked up at her.
The impish grin had returned to her face.
“You are asking many questions today, little one,” he said, with an ironic smile.
Naomi inclined and took another spoonful of her food.
“You know what Mommy says you should do when you like someone?” she asked, and, in the wake of his silence, proceeded to answer her own question. “She says you should give them something. She says you should give them something special – something that they’ll like. You should give Celyn something that she’ll like.”
He humoured her.
“Like what?”
The handle of the spoon chinked against the side of her plate and the little face pouted thoughtfully.
“Hmm… Oh! I know!”
The little blonde head suddenly disappeared behind the edge of the table. Naomi climbed down off her seat and tottered over to his side with both her hands behind her neck, and there was a jingling noise as she came forward with her hands behind her neck, drawing the necklace from under her collar.
“Here,” she said, holding up her small fist.
He watched the large gold pendant swing by the silver chain.
“Take it.” She tugged on his arm until he gave in to her small force. “I want you to have it.” Her little hands pried open his fingers and put the necklace in his open palm.
“This is precious to you,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But I like you…see?”
There was a tingle of warmth when the little hands closed his fingers around the pendant.
“… I see,” he said.
“It opens up. Look.” She took the necklace again and the pendant was a big lump in her hands, then she turned the pendant over and started to fiddle with it. “You just push this, here…” she murmured, “aaannd… there!”
There was a short, sharp click. The pendant divided and opened.
He took the open locket. Inside, there was a picture of a man and woman.
“Are these…”
The smiling little head nodded.
“Mom and Dad.”
He wiped the dirt off the glass glazing and studied the picture closely. The man in the picture was dark with a ruggedness softened by a gentle smile. He bore the aspect of one who had seen war, and might well have been a soldier… but not a martial. He could not have been a martial. At his right stood a beautiful woman, with platinum white hair and eyes like blue gems. He saw in both of their eyes that same spirit borne by their daughter: as plain and as blinding as suns. And he felt peculiarly acquainted with them, though he did not know them.
“I miss Mom and Dad…”
He regarded the girl, and the teary shimmer in her eyes. He closed the locket in a gentle fist.
“I cannot take this from you,” he said.
At that moment, the bell at the front door chimed.
Naomi straightened with excitement and made for the door at once.
He took one last look at the locket, sighed and tucked it in his pocket.
“Ask her to come inside!” begged Naomi as he approached the front door.
He hushed her and stood in front of her as he pulled the door open.
“Déjà vu.”
Celyn stood outside the door, a full haversack hanging by her hand, over the back of her shoulder. She flung the bag at his chest before he could greet her, half-winding him.
“Hi Celyn!”
“Quiet,” he hushed as soon as the little blonde head peeped out from behind the door. “Someone will hear you.”
“Saul, give it to her!”
The stifled voice kept insisting from behind as he held her back.
“Your man ran out of smokes,” said Celyn. “He says he’ll have more next week.”
He opened the bag and checked the contents.
“It is alright,” he replied.
He remained in the entrance, gazing back at her – at the long, thin ropes of hair, bound up and falling over her breasts, which swelled over the crossed arms, and the emerald glow of her eyes, and the caramel lips, and the thin battle-scars peeping out through the bare skin. The jasmine smell loosened him like an opiate.
“Is everything alright?” said Celyn with a dubious air.
He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the door opened and the little blonde head popped out again.
“We’re having dinner wan’a come in?”
The abrupt question was rapid, catching both of them unaware. Naomi tottered over the threshold before he could stop her and stepped up to Celyn, who looked back down, subdued by two large, pleading, upturned eyes.
“Saul, can Celyn stay?”
He looked from the girl to Celyn and back. “Ah…” he hummed and dug his fingers nervously into the hair on the back of his neck. “Only if she wants…”
“No,” Celyn blurted immediately, eyes flashing.
“Celyn?” Naomi came nearer to her and tilted her head all the way back. The pleading eyes looked up again. “Please…”
Like a rapt bird, Celyn’s head tipped to one side. He saw a curious smile tremble on the corners of her mouth. The girl grabbed hold of her fingertips and the next moment, Celyn sauntered right past him and over the brink
He shut the door and came near them, silently observing.
Naomi scampered back into the kitchen, climbed back up onto her seat and stuffed another spoonful of starchy rice in her mouth. Meanwhile, Celyn stood in the middle of the room, quiet as a misplaced soul, and her eyes would not yield from the girl. She appeared diminished, seized by some paralysing force roused by her touch.
As soon as he sat down, Naomi dropped her spoon into her plate and climbed off her seat. “I’m full,” she announced suddenly, then scuttled off to the living area before either of them could say a word.
He watched Celyn follow her with mesmerised eyes, and then, seeming to feel his stare, she looked away and nervously cleared her throat.
“You can sit,” he said, after a long pause.
It was awhile before she did.
He scooped a portion of rice onto a plate and set it before her before it could occur to him that he might have been better off not giv
ing her anything. She studied the contents of the plate dubiously before taking a fork and putting four grains of rice in her mouth, chewing through a suppressed grimace.
“So,” he began, slightly discomfited, “any news from the outside?”
She was slow with her answer. “Not much,” she said, and ate, and paused. “I heard the Scythe disbanded a few days ago”
“How come?”
“Not sure. I heard, through the grapevine, that they bit off more than they could chew with their last contract – some peacekeeping operation in Niger… Peacekeeping,” she snorted.
“You were not with them?” he asked.
“No.”
He peered up at her as he continued to feign eating.
“When was your last assignment…”
“How about we change the subject?” Celyn replied sharply.
He bit his tongue, but her evasiveness revealed much. It was strange to hear of goings-on in the war world again after what seemed like so long.
“Well, I would ask what’s new with you. Considering you haven’t stepped out of the house in a long damn time, I’m guessing there’s not much to tell.”
He stopped suddenly and was momentarily silent. “Actually, there is something,” he said.
Celyn raised a pair glowering eyes.
“It better not be another favour…”
“Ah – no,” he replied quickly.
Celyn looked up, the fork grazed her teeth as she inclined her head with a frown.
He settled the fork on the table and delayed, debating with himself the best way to say what he wanted to say.
“Do you remember what I had told you,” he began slowly, “about what happened in Kamchatka?”
Celyn nodded slowly.
“Something else happened,” he said. “Something I did not tell you, probably because it had not weighed on me so much at the time. But now…”
“What is it?”
Silence.
“I had this… dream,” he begun awkwardly. “At least, I thought it was a dream.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Another long silence.
“I am sure it was a memory.”
Celyn looked back at him, poking the bits of food on the insides of her cheeks, apparently unmoved.
“I do not know of what or where or when,” he continued, “but I am sure that it was before they cleaned me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“That is what I thought. But, I know it was not a dream.”
Celyn sighed and picked up her fork again. “You had half a cylinder of neurals in your system,” she said. “It was probably a hallucination.”
“I know I have heard the name before,” he muttered.
“What name?” Celyn looked back up with renewed interest.
Confronted with someone else’s questions, and thus compelled to relate things out loud, the whole thing suddenly seemed absurd.
“Vincent,” he answered.
“…Vincent,” Celyn repeated with a slow, perplexed nod.
“Look,” he started, “when the Commission clean you, they…”
“What are you doing?” she interrupted, shaking her head at him with a squint.
There was silence between them again. He did not know what she meant by the question.
After a while, Celyn straightened up with a sigh. “Alright,” she said, starting anew. “Suppose it really was a memory – which it probably wasn’t; why do you care? Ask yourself; what difference does it make?”
“I need to know.”
“No you don’t,” she said, her eyes suddenly severe.
“I have to know the truth.”
“The truth…” Celyn shook her head at the tabletop and started to snicker. “Alright, I’ll tell you something you already know,” she stated, categorically. “I don’t know what you saw and I don’t care. But if you keep going down this road and you’re not long for this world. That’s as true as anything you’ll ever know.”
He sensed a darker experience between the lines of her words.
“What am I supposed to do?” he said.
“Never underestimate the survival value of smoke and mirrors. You don’t know what any of it means. Make that your excuse if you have to, but let it go. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for her.”
Naomi was a short distance behind, in the living area, pretending to draw but really observing what was going on between them. Celyn was right, of course. She was more important than anything else. But, still, that fingernail grinding at his soul would not allay.
He nodded vaguely, not so much to concede as to terminate the discussion.
Silence befell them again.
“She adores you, you know,” he said.
Celyn looked up again. “What?”
“Naomi… she is very fond of you.”
Celyn peered over her shoulder and Naomi quickly turned away.
“You don’t say…”
“She asked me to make her hair like yours.”
Celyn raised her eyebrows at him and took a second look at the girl, noting her recent haircut.
“Please tell me you didn’t try.”
“It did not go well … I had to cut it off.”
She snorted a suppressed laugh, then gave in and started to chuckle. It was the first time he heard her laugh. It was the first time they laughed together. He eased into the strangeness of the interaction. After a while, the laughter died down and there was quiet again. This time, Celyn was the one who broke the silence:
“So, what does she do all day, anyway?”
“Art mostly,” he said. “She loves to draw.”
“What does she draw?”
“Animals.”
“Animals, huh?”
“Always animals.”
“Good place to start.”
He paused and looked up.
“You draw?” he asked
“I can,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “Is that a problem?”
“Not exactly essential for martial proficiency.”
“Neither is cooking, but it wouldn’t hurt if you worked on it a little”
The conversation rested once again.
“You can’t keep her locked in here forever,” said Celyn.
He didn’t answer. This time the silence went uninterrupted.
After a while he looked up as Naomi caught his attention over Celyn’ shoulder. She appeared to be mouthing something – something that he could not quite discern from the small, vague lips. But from the way she was drawing her fingers around her neck and down to her chest, he construed her message.
He reached into his pocket with a diffident sigh.
“I … have something for you,” he said, hesitantly.
Celyn looked up and saw the golden locket hanging by the silver chain in his fist. Her eyes refocused from the locket to his eyes.
“She gave it to me,” he said. “I want to give it to you.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“…Why?”
“To thank you,” he replied. “For taking care of us.”
The gold locket swayed from side to side, and after what seemed an age, Celyn’s hand slowly extended forward, as though she were reaching for a flame. She held the locket and examined it, running her fingers along the chain.
“How do you…”
“Ah… here,” he said, rising from his seat.
He gently took the necklace, let the chain hang in his fingers and felt for the clasp. He unhooked it and the chain separated.
She tensely drew the hair from over the back of her neck and leaned forward.
He brought his arms around her. A quiver of warmth rippled through him when his hands brushed against the arch of her shoulder like. For an instant, he lapsed back into that Russian wilderness conjured in his dreams, and that same yearning seized him right until the moment the clasp clicked and his hands glided over her collar.
The gold pendant hung right over the c
left of her breasts. He followed the line of her chest up to the two glowing eyes, and the black holes in the gemstone eyes dilated when their gazes met, sparking a vigour which started to blaze, but was doused instantly…
“Celyn.”
A twittering voice stole upon them. Naomi was standing at Celyn’s side, her large eyes turned up in the same pleading manner as before.
“Will you draw with me?”
She held up a lion drawing in one hand and a handful of crayons in the other.
Celyn seemed to look to him for approval – or disapproval. Whatever it was her vaguely despairing eyes sought from him, he tendered it with a silent nod.
She stood up from her seat and he watched her led her by the fingertips in a kind of hypnosis. There was a strange wisdom about the girl’s way, something implacable about her beyond their understanding, but the glimmers of which he could now plainly perceive, as he watched her wiles operate like a subtle magic, engrossing Celyn, ironing out the hard lines in her countenance, mellowing the callousness of her voice to honey.
For the succeeding hour or so, Saul kept to his seat at the kitchen table and occupied himself with a book and a glass of blended malt, which he intermittently topped up. The text was old and in Russian. A single line caught his eye on the bottom of the middle page, one which he kept coming back to over and over:
“One can fall in love and still hate.” He mouthed the line to himself over and over, shooting glances over the book.
Before long, the darkness was layered thick upon the night sky.
A UMC report muttered something about “new uprisings in the twilight of Russian Winter.”
Russian Winter…
He recalled the phrase from a while ago and glanced over the pages to the big screen, but his attention almost immediately shifted to Naomi, who was closely imitating every stroke of Celyn’s pastel against the drawing paper, turning up a bright smile whenever her mildest approval was forthcoming. Not a word was said between them.
After a while, he looked up at the wall. The chronometer showed 2340. He drank the last dribble of whisky and stared once more at the ominous line at the bottom of the page before he dog-eared the leaf, closed the book and stood up from his seat.
The big screen turned off. Celyn stood up on the floor.
“Just a little longer, please,” Naomi croaked with fatigue.
“You should sleep now,” he said. “You do not sound well.”
Naomi rubbed her tired eyes and yawned, coming to her feet, wobbly with fatigue.
“Thanks for staying with us.” she said, eyes turned upward.
Celyn looked down at her and smiled vaguely. Then, quite suddenly, as was her way, the girl came toward her, and as soon as the little arms wrapped around her, she hardened up, then melted away again when the embrace was released. The smile instantly vanished from her.
The a flash in the jade-colored eyes which did not escape Saul’ s attention. It happened in the inkling of an eye. “I will come soon,” said, his eyes fixed sideways on Celyn.
Naomi made her way down the corridor.
He waited a few moments after he heard the bedroom door open … and then close.
She remained still and speechless and her chest was rising and falling.
“I suppose I should thank you too,” he said, turning toward her.
She did not answer.
“Are you… alright?” he asked
“Wha-?” she voiced with a start.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Yeah – yeah, I’m fine.”
The moist film on her crown gleamed in the light. There was a tremble in her breath.
He approached her with caution.
“You know you can stay if you…”
“No,” she answered sharply. “No. I should go.” She put her coat around her and made straightaway for the front door, taking the empty haversack on her way out.
“Good night,” he said.
But the door had already shut.