Abroad (32 page)

“Is it? Why are you here? Why did you even come here at all?”

I hesitated. “To be someone … different from who I was.”

“Different.” He looked at me. “You girls have everything. Education. Money. Study and work, and you’ll get any job you want. We
smashed
those glass ceilings for you, baby. And you want to be something different?”

I looked at the professor. His used-up face, his withered hands.

“I think it’s the wanting,” I said, finally. “It doesn’t matter when it is or who we are. The wanting never stops.”

Professor Korloff had no reply to this.

“All right,” he said, after a moment. “So now, voilà, you got what you wanted. You’re
different
. Just get this crap away from my goddaughter.”

“Okay.” I felt myself physically drain, as if someone had pulled out a stopper in a tub. “But I’m going to the hotel to say goodbye. You don’t believe me, but I didn’t have anything to do with her trouble.”

“Then who did?”

I hesitated. The answer was obvious, but the fact was that I was still in love with the idea of Jenny and Luka. “I don’t know.”

Professor Korloff waved his arm at me, as if shooing me away. “You know what? I don’t give a shit. I just need to get Anna out of here.”

“Where is she?”

“Room 406.” He looked so tired then. And sad. “Just knock. She’s completely fried. Jesus, she’ll probably let you right in.”

*   *   *

Given the staggeringly high prices of its rooms, the security at Hotel Nysa isn’t exactly top-notch. I breezed past the front desk, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and knocked. When there was no answer, I went back downstairs and told them, in Italian, that I was Anna Grafton’s sister. Without comment, they handed me a key.

I opened the door slowly. Anna was on the bed, eyes wide, watching television. She didn’t even look over at me.

“Anna?”

She nodded, her eyes still on the screen. Encouraged, I stepped into the room.

“Are you all right?”

Another nod.

“How are you? I haven’t seen you in forever.”

Anna swiveled her head at me, her eyes loose.

“Oh, Mum,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m feeling under the weather, and Ginger’s foot is off. Can’t we ride another day?”

“Anna. It’s Taz.”

“Oh!” She got up and beamed, as if I had just come in. “Where have
you
been?”

“At home. Well, around. Listen, how high are you?”

She laughed. “Kiss me, you fool.”

“Zanopane?”

“What? Never. Jenny would never let us.”

“You sure?”

“Nasty stuff. And the thing with Eleanor was so
frightful
.”

I looked at her closely. Maybe she was sober after all?

“Would you like to—”

“I told you, I don’t
want
to go riding. Stop making me do these things I don’t want to
do
.” She threw herself on the bed again.

“Okay, Anna. Who gave you the—”

“I’m sorry about Julian, Mummy. It just started happening, you see. For a long time. And then one night I climbed into his bed, you see, and…”

“Stop,” I said. “Don’t tell me.”

She nodded, frowning as if perplexed. “Luka was right. We should have done this ages ago.”

“Luka? Did Luka take it, too?”

“Of course. Coffee and wafers. She came over this morning. She’s over there.” Anna gestured at the empty corner. “Oh. I suppose not.”

“Anna.” I sat on the bed. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Of course it is. Arthur’s rescuing me. King Arthur! He went out for the banquet meat. Hunting the boar.”

“He says he’s taking you away.”

“Yes, getting me
out
of this mess. Messy messy, messy mess.” She laughed, then looked at me and paled.

“Eleanor?”

“No, Anna. No. See? I’m Taz.”

Anna shot up off the bed, looking down at me with terror. “Eleanor, I’m so sorry. We didn’t know how … how bad off you
were
.”

“Anna—”

“I would have called the doctor. I thought you were sleeping. Eleanor—”

I rushed over and grabbed her arms. “Anna, calm down.”

She screamed now and jerked wildly. “Oh,
God
. The shades. Shit.
Shit
. I’m so sorry, Eleanor.”

I backed away, unable to speak. She looked up at me and grabbed my hands.

“El, you must tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tantalus. Is he
there
?”

“I can’t—”

“Is he?”

“I…” There was no reasoning with her.

“Is he desperate?”

“Wouldn’t
you
be?” I asked.

Anna put her head in her hands. “I don’t know. What’s going to happen?”

“Anna, I’ve got to go.” I didn’t really have to leave, but she was scaring me. “I’ll call you tonight. I promise.”

“You do? You swear it?”

“I swear.”

I led her to the bed and tucked her in tightly. Then I took the bag, tiptoed out, and shut the door.

Eleanor, 21st century AD

The others weren’t tempted to try it. They knew what it was, where it came from. But Eleanor always prided herself on her democratic sensibility. Before she got involved, it only seemed right, sampling the product.

She didn’t know that she’d been born with only three heart chambers. She’d always breathed a little heavily, but it was … nice, really. It gave her voice a throaty quality that boys adored. Killed any interest in athletics. Anyway, she was slight, so she attributed it to that. “Eleanor!” the other girls trilled admiringly. The waif with a hollow leg. She loved her drink, and had no trouble keeping up with the others in that sport. Jenny Cole said she was the best weekend companion she knew.

When assembling her group, Jenny forbade them all to take it, ever. But Eleanor wasn’t going to take orders like the others did. Anna was all over the place. She needed managing. And though Eleanor was enjoying the fling she was having with Luka, the girl was a drunk. No, Eleanor had a mind of her own, which is why before going out one night, she took a wafer alone in her room.

Anna and Luka came into the room a little while after. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. The high was maddening. Eleanor knew something was wrong. Her heart was crawling out of her chest. Still she could hear them. She knew they were there. She heard Luka shout.

Darling, did you—

Of course she did. Bloody idiot.

Anna, she’s blue! Call an ambulance!

We’ve got to get it all out of here first. They’ll look everywhere.

But—

She hardly wants to go to prison, Luka. Whatever her state.

Their voices faded. The organ, which she could feel swelling against her skin, strained and burst. She heard the sick popping sound, felt it go limp, felt the air whistle out of her body. Eleanor was drowning. She reached for the others, but they weren’t there, weren’t there.

The girls came back in, panting.

Oh my God, oh God, is she—

No no no no no—

Eleanor Peterfield, twenty-one years old, 21st century AD

25

When I walked outside, the afternoon was already waning. Even though the satchel weighed at least a stone, I ran the entire way to the farm. A couple of cars passed me, but no one looked twice, as I must have looked like a schoolgirl returning home for her mother’s evening meal. The windows in the houses were all shut; I could see slices of light glowing inside the latched shutters.

The farmer’s house was dark, and his truck was gone. My hands were trembling, but I didn’t slow down until I was at the tomb behind the old stable. Taking baby steps, I inched down the ramp until I was in the main chamber. The darkness was, if possible, even more all-encompassing than before. Strangely, though, I wasn’t frightened.

Perhaps that zanopane is still in my system after all
, I thought.

I thought I heard something scuffle in one of the corners. Certainly just a drip of moisture from the weather outside, but it was enough to remind me that I was sitting alone in a tomb that almost no one knew about. The fear that was missing before now flooded in, filling my belly with panic. I dropped the bag onto the ground and pushed it under the stone bench in one of the old side chambers, then turned and ran out of that desecrated place, back into the comparatively blinding light of the late afternoon.

It was four-thirty when I arrived home, and, to my relief, no one was there. I was filthy, so I took a quick shower and changed into jeans, an athletic jacket, and trainers, then picked up the phone and called Luka, who, of course, didn’t answer. I tried Jenny as well but she, too, failed to pick up. I had class to attend at five-thirty, but knew I was too worked up to sit in front of my art history professor’s slide projector. Instead, I wrapped my scarf around my neck and rushed outside, then threw myself into a search of Jenny’s usual haunts.

Most of the bars were empty, save for students drinking the late afternoon hours away. Had they skipped town, I wondered? Fleeing to Rome, Paris, or home? Finally, as a last effort, I went to the Club and leaned on the bell. To my surprise, Luka greeted me politely over the crackling speakerphone and an instant later, buzzed me in.

I slipped into the room, ruddy and damp. Jenny was sipping a glass of white wine; Luka had draped herself over the couch, an empty tumbler perched on her knee. Neither looked surprised or pleased to see me.

“Hello, dearest,” Jenny said wearily. “We’ve got a pizza in the oven. Looks fairly disgusting, but we’re trying to budget.”

“Drink?” Luka said.

I sat on the windowsill, catching my breath. For one moment, I wondered if it all might be a mistake.

“I saw Anna earlier,” I said. “Have you spoken to her?”

“Of course not,” Jenny said.

“What do you mean?”

“After going through all this trouble to get her home,” Jenny said, “why would I call her now?”

I gripped the sill, leaning against the cold window.

“So you did call Arthur. And told him … what did you tell him?”

In a swift, graceful manner only a certain type of woman can pull off, Jenny sat up, finished her full glass of wine, and placed the vessel delicately beside her.

“Luka,” she said, patting her chest delicately. “Do you mind going out for some more of that Montefalco?”

“Well … normally, I’d tell you to fuck off. But.”

“Yes, exactly.” Jenny smiled.

“All right. I’ll be back.” Luka looked at me, then bundled up laboriously and clattered loudly out the door.

Jenny rose and crossed over to the kitchen. She pulled down an empty glass for me and poured us both drinks.

“All right, Taz. First, just hear the story. It’s not as bad as you think.” She smiled and pushed the wine toward me.

“Okay,” I said. I took the glass and settled into one of Luka’s overstuffed chairs, as if Jenny and I were about to settle into one of our intimate gossip sessions. For a fleeting moment, I again rode that bubble of hope that all of this was a mistake. “So?”

Jenny installed herself on the sofa. “I’m sure you’ve seen how Anna’s been acting.”

“She’s been really upset.”

“Upset and unreasonable. Having an awful time. I kept encouraging her just to go home, but she wouldn’t. She’s unstable, Taz. A bit ill in the head, poor girl. So I had to solve the problem.”

I looked at my wine, which seemed darker than it should have been. Burnished. “It seems to me you could have just called her mother.”

“Too complicated. There was that ugly thing with her mum, you see. Hard to get over, when your daughter sleeps with your husband. Excusable as it is, with her horrible childhood. Poor girl watched her father suffocate. Lung cancer, you know.”

“I didn’t.” I could hear a rumbling nearby. Thunder? Maybe a sweeper, cleaning the street. Two pigeons huddled on the iron balcony outside. There were a few untended flowerpots lining the railing, covered in their droppings.

“Besides, we know Arthur already, don’t we? And it had to be something serious. Something to get him physically
here
.”

She looked at me expectantly. I said nothing, which seemed to distress her.

“Truthfully, Taz, Anna did this to herself. She’s got quite a self-destructive streak, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“But she’s your friend.” The words came out sharply, like bullets.

Jenny got up and looked at one of Luka’s paintings. “Oh, she was begging for this, Taz.”

“Didn’t seem that way this morning, when I found her out of her head.”

“Trust me, she wanted out,” Jenny said. “This was the nicest thing we could have done. Look, Luka said you overheard it. Anna said, on no uncertain terms, that she was out of the arrangement. Which was so silly, because she really didn’t have to do anything. When I told her it wasn’t a great idea, she threatened to go to the police. I had to protect her.”

“And you think she won’t go to the police now, after this?”

“She might,” Jenny said, moving to another picture. I noticed the apartment was dirtier than I’d ever seen it. There were dishes piled in the sink, and a thin coat of dust on the television and shelves. “But what credibility does she have? Her godfather and mother clearly think she’s a dealer. Arthur found all of that evidence. So who’s going to believe her now?”

“But—”

“Listen, I love Anna. I was looking out for her. I could have called the police and just had Anna’s place searched. With that much stuff, she’d be in an Italian prison for quite a while. Nasty places, I hear.”

“I could tell on you. Luka could.”

Jenny looked at me thoughtfully, then turned again to the painting. It was Luka’s rendition of the lovely girl on the bathroom floor. “Do you know who this is?”

“No.”

“Sure you do.”

I put my fingers to my lips.

“… Eleanor Peterfield?”

Jenny nodded.

“I guess I did know,” I said, after a moment.

“And you know who she was?”

“The girl who died at our uni.”

“No, Taz. She was our
you
.”