Forever (50 page)

In the private red damask box to stage
right, on the first tier between two massive Corinthian columns
trimmed in gilt, Zarah was seated well back in the shadows. As soon
as the lights had come up, she had quickly popped her upswept
sunglasses back on. In front of her, to her left, sat Ernesto; to
her right, also in front, sat Boris Guberoff. Behind her, his arms
crossed in the small of his back at parade rest, Colonel Valerio
stood guard at the door, his formal attire doing little to lessen
his unmistakable military bearing.

As Ernesto stopped clapping, he leaned
sideways to say something in Guberoff s ear, but the old pianist,
not expecting a sudden voice, practically jumped out of his
skin.

Zarah, always keen to the slightest change
in someone's demeanour, frowned, pulled her glasses down an inch on
her nose, and eyed Guberoff reflectively.

There's something wrong
, she
thought
. He's been acting strange and out-of-sorts all
evening
. Earlier, during a sublime dinner, his ebullient
conversation had struck her as . . . yes, almost as forced and he
had eaten furtively, guiltily, as though he had something to hide.
And his laughter had sounded false and contrived . . . unusual to
say the least. But even more worrisome for her, throughout Act One
he had drummed his fingers - drummed them like a fidgety, bored
schoolchild! - on the damask ledge of the box!
Really, such
distraction was simply intolerable! Unforgiv
-

She stared at the back of his head, at the
thinning white hair with patches of liver-spotted pink skull
showing through.

Or was there a good reason he should be so
agitated?

But what can that reason be? Something to do
with . . . me?

Dear God!

The box was suddenly stifling; already, she
could feel the threatening presence of something malignant and
unknown growing in the shadows, towering high as the ceiling. With
trembling fingers, she took off her sunglasses and held them by one
earpiece. 'Boris!' she said.

At the sound of his name, Guberoff jerked,
then turned half around, his eyes sliding sneakily in her
direction.

'Boris, you must tell us what is wrong!'

The arthritic old pianist drew a deep
breath, dug out his handkerchief, patted his glistening brow.

'Boris . . .!'Her whisper was urgent,
panicked.

He let out a bursting sob, and, to Zarah's
embarrassment, his composure crumbled, it was the
lavender!
he moaned, the wattle at his neck quivering. 'I would never have
been fooled otherwise!'

Lavender . . . fooled?
For one long,
horrible moment, the opera house seemed to tilt, seemed on the very
verge of collapse. 'Boris? What are you talking about?'

Zarah moved forward, sitting on the edge of
one of the delicate chairs she herself had chosen for this box -
when? Thirty years ago? Forty?

'The woman!' Guberoff blurted, his hooded
dark eyes leaking tears. 'The one who came to visit me!'

'
What
woman?'

Guberoff sniffed, dabbed his eyes, tried to
compose himself. 'The American who brought me the picture of you,'
he whispered miserably.it was in a genuine Faberge frame, and she
told me you had sent her with it as a gift! It was in a scarf
dabbed with lavender! Don't you see? It was the
lavender
which convinced me! The damned lavender-'

'But ... I didn't send you anything!' The
glasses slipped through Zarah's fingers, fell soundlessly to the
carpet at her feet. An American woman -

Monica Williams, perhaps?

'Boris!' Groaning, she reached out and
clutched his arm.
'Per amor di Dio!
she whispered, giving
him a shake. 'What did you tell her? What-?'

'I ... I don't remember . . .'He was sobbing
quietly, his face screwed up in pain and self-pity.

'Boris. You must!'

'She called you Lili!' The words burst forth
miserably, like a lanced boil. 'She knew all about you

' What?' Zarah uttered an appalled gasp and
let go of his arm as if she'd been scalded.

'She even knew about the time I was on the
yacht,' he whined, 'when I played "
Was ist Silvia
", and you
sang.' His voice sounded accusing now, as if he was trying to
transfer the blame.

'But how can she have known?' Zarah's
bejewelled fingers scrabbled at her throat, diamonds flashing.
'Boris! Who told her?
You . . .?
'

'No. I swear it wasn't me! I don't know how
she found out!'

She stared at the old man in disgust. No,
not man, she corrected herself, that is pushing it; the pathetic,
shrivelled, old facsimile of one is more like it! The frail chair
creaked as she slumped back, trying to distance herself from the
sour smell of old age which emanated from him. How could I ever
have considered him a real friend? she wondered.
How could I
have been so naive, so stupid, so asinine, as to have shared my
secret with him?

And now he had told, or had at least
confirmed, someone's suspicions. But whose? Monica Williams's? Or -
someone else's?

She gazed out past him, beyond the
luxuriously draped confines of the cossetting plush red box.
Directly opposite, across the proscenium on the left of the stage,
someone raised opera glasses in her direction; in the centre aisle,
a cluster of people huddled in conversation all seemed to turn and
look up at her; the magnificently swagged and tasselled maroon
stage curtain billowed malevolently, as though someone - or
something - was moving stealthily behind it, coming closer, closer
. . . Zarah shuddered and rubbed her arms briskly. Menace was
everywhere she looked - and nowhere as apparent as in the Judas
sitting before her.

'Boris.' She clasped her hands in her lap.
'I think you had better start at the beginning. You must tell us
everything! Everything!''

'Yes, yes!' he said, eagerly grasping the
thin thread of confession as though the severed umbilical cord of
their friendship could still be salvaged. And in a whiny voice that
taunted her patience, he told her about the visitor he'd received,
about the woman who called herself Virginia Wesson . . .

Zarah listened in silence. How she despised
his sudden puppyish eagerness to make amends, his pleading eyes
which begged for absolution, as though she was his confessing
priestess. Oh yes, it was so easy to despise him - so easy to
despise everything about him! That simian jaw of his - a monkey's!
His Russian accent, which once she had found exotic and amusing,
and which now grated in her ears and on her nerves. His
affectations - those silly gold cufflinks shaped like grand pianos,
those tiny medals he wore proudly pinned to his lapel - as if
having been a virtuoso pianist was not proof enough of his
accomplishments. How, how could she have endured his friendship for
so long? He was pathetic -
pathetic!
Zarah looked away in
revulsion, unable to bear the sight of him any longer.

'. . . took the picture and the scarf and
left . . Finally finished, Guberoff fell silent.

Now Zarah snapped questions at him: What
colour was Virginia Wesson's hair? What colour her eyes? How tall
was she?

He blurted the replies, then cried: 'You
must believe me, Zarah! She already knew everything! I didn't tell
her anything she didn't already -'

'Yes, but you confirmed my existence,
Boris,' she whispered, sounding all the more theatrical for the
nearby stage. 'How could you do it, Boris - how could you?'

'Zarah -' he sobbed, and reached out
beseechingly, touching her sleeve as though it were the hem of a
saint's tunic.

By reflex, she snarled and pulled away,
snatched the tulle from between his desperate fingers.

He began to cry again. 'Don't hold this
against me! Please, Zarah -'

Zarah's lips lifted in a sneer and she raked
him with her eyes, taking satisfaction in his misery, gloating over
how he seemed even more shrivelled and shrunken than before, as if
in the last few minutes he'd grown even smaller, even older inside
his baggy tuxedo. Then, re-establishing her regal composure, she
turned to Ernesto and effortlessly switched from perfect Italian to
perfect Portuguese, if this Virginia Wesson and Monica Williams are
one and the same . . .'

'But you heard him,' Ernesto murmured
reassuringly, 'Her hair, her eyes - they do not match.'

'Those can easily be changed, Ernesto. No
one knows that better than us.' She communicated the rest through
her eyes and a bitter smile. 'We must get back to the yacht at
once. Yes. We must find out whether Ms Williams and Ms Wesson are
one and the same.' She felt beside her for her jewelled,
butterfly-shaped minaudiere and started to rise.

Calmly Ernesto took her wrist, made her sit
back down. 'Wait until the intermission is over. That way, we do
not have to fight our way through the crowds.' He twisted around in
his seat and switched to English. 'Colonel.'

'Sir!' Colonel Valerio stepped forward.

'Use the walkie-talkie to call the
chauffeur. I want the car waiting outside. And call the pilot. Tell
him to stand by for immediate takeoff.'

'Where are you going?' Guberoff whined.

'We,' Zarah snapped. 'We are going, and you
are coming with us. There is a woman aboard the yacht, an American.
We need to know whether she is this Virginia Wesson who visited
you.' The sneer was back on her lips. 'You do not find that
inconvenient, I hope?'

'No, no. Anything. I'll do anything to make
up -'

'Boris?'

'Yes?'

'Do shut up,' she said wearily.

Ten minutes later, they were in the black
limousine, hurtling through the dark streets, headed for the
airport.

Capri

Johnny Stone was one hell of an SOB - and
that, Stephanie concluded, not for the first time, was being kind.
She had almost forgotten about his smug air of superiority and that
infuriating habit he had of thinking he was always right. Now,
reminded of it once again, she fumed, pained at having to share her
hard-earned information with him. So she retaliated the only way
she could under the circumstances: by being icily aloof and
maddeningly, haughtily evasive.

'Getting anything out of you,' he said at
one point, 'is like pulling goddamn teeth!'

She had tossed her head and retorted with
cold dignity, 'Thanks! I'll accept that as a goddamn
compliment!'

And they'd glared at each other like
nose-to-nose drill sergeants.

Johnny backed down first. He could see no
sense in making an already uphill battle even steeper; things were
quite bad enough.

'All I want to know,' Stephanie demanded
after he'd coaxed another few morsels of information out of her,
'is how you found out I was alive and kicking.'

He smiled sardonically. 'Thought you'd
covered your tracks pretty well, huh?'

'Oh, cut the crap, Johnny!' she said
testily, in case you've forgotten, I've got to leave in a few
minutes.'

'Okay, okay,' he said placatingly, and his
voice became soft. 'Sammy gave you away.'

Sparks practically scattered from under her
feet as she whirled at him. 'Uncle Sammy, did you say? My Uncle
Sammy?'

'He's the only one I know of.'

'Sammy didn't mean to,' he admitted. 'He put
on a good show, but he just wasn't devastated enough to convince me
of your, ah, "demise".'

'Should've guessed,' she said, glaring at
him. 'Always luck out, don't you?'

'Yeah,' Johnny drawled. 'Got the luck of the
devil, the two of us. Think that's why we love each other so
much?'

She turned her back on him.

With all the verbal slings and arrows
flying, it was a miracle that they somehow managed to fill the
other in on what each had been up to.

Grudgingly, Stephanie gave Johnny a rundown
on Vinette Jones and the baby she claimed the CRY orphanage had
lost, and Vinette's subsequent OD and Aaron Kleinfelder's hit and
run 'accident'. She recapped her visits to Madame Balasz and Detlef
von Ohlendorf and Boris Guberoff.

Johnny, in turn, told her how he'd tracked
her first to Budapest, and then to Salzburg and Milan and
Marbella.

'In Milan, I even followed you on foot from
the Casa di Riposo all the way back to your hotel.' His voice was
filled with a triumph so self-complacent and absolute that it took
every vestige of her self-control not to smack him resoundingly
across the face. 'Just think, Stephanie!' he crowed, rubbing salt
into an already smarting wound. 'If you'd have turned around, we
could have waved to each other!'

'Bastard!' she hissed from between clenched
teeth.

It was as if he hadn't heard. 'But what I
can't understand,' he continued thoughtfully, 'is the de Veiga
connection. How do they figure in all of this? And what steered you
to the
Chrysalis
in the first place?'

'Would you believe,' murmured Stephanie
hopefully, 'it all came to me in . . . in a dream?'

'Give me the truth, you devious lying bitch!
Out with it!' He grabbed her arms and gave her a good shake.

She stared up at him. 'I don't know why you
won't believe me,' she groused. Then, sniffing virtuously, she gave
a deep sigh and yanked her arms out of his hands and glumly
explained about Alan Pepperberg and the Schneider-Guberoff
recording, and how it had allegedly been recorded aboard the yacht.
She ended up telling Johnny nearly everything, withholding only a
single and, she told herself, very, very
mundane
detail... a
little titbit of a thing he really had no need to know - Lily's
search for the fountain of youth and the possibility of its
existence.

'So you think Lili Schneider is alive?' he
asked.

'Don't you?' she replied, deflecting the
question with a question, and feeling more determined than ever to
hoard and protect her precious nugget. See if you'll ever get that
out of me! she gloated with poker-faced triumph. Because, she
thought with a surge of warm satisfaction, as any interrogator
worth his salt knows, an interrogation is only as good as the
interrogator's questions. Everyone understood that what wasn 't
asked for needn 't be volunteered.