Forever (69 page)

As Eduardo led the way to the door, she
shouted, 'Where does this lead? Into a cave?'

'Not really,' he shouted in return and
handed her his flashlight. While she held one in each hand, he
began to attack the tenacious vines clinging to the door. When they
were loosened, they blew like giant streamers of seaweed in the
wind, and he grabbed hold of the great iron handle of the door.
Struggling against the gusts of wind, he pulled it open.

'Go in!' he shouted.

Stephanie looked at him, then went slowly
inside, cautiously playing the flashlight beams around.

She was in a low, narrow subterranean tunnel
which sloped gently down into the hillside. The floor was slippery,
a gurgling wash of wet stone, as were the walls. The ceiling was of
wooden beams and boards, much like in a mineshaft. With her lights,
she tried to pierce the darkness at the end of the tunnel, but it
curved out of sight.

Eduardo came in, stamping his feet. Behind
him, the wind slammed the door shut with such force that debris
drizzled down from between the planks overhead.

Instantly, Stephanie raked the ceiling with
swathes of light. She eyed it with distrust.

Eduardo took his flashlight from her. 'You
needn't worry,' he assured her. 'Structurally, it is quite sound.
This was built to last several lifetimes.'

His voice sounded loud and hollow, and she
suddenly realised how quiet it was in here. The storm seemed far
away, shut out by tons of rock and earth, and she could now
differentiate between the various sounds: the rapid babble of water
flowing downhill, the symphony of wet plops, as if an attic roof
had sprung a thousand leaks, the rasp of her own breathing and his.
The combination of smells - of earthiness and stagnant water - was
repugnant.

Suddenly she shivered. The tunnel was cold,
too - a good ten degrees lower than it was outside.

She was about to lower her flashlight when
she noticed a thick electrical cable and, at intervals along the
wall, large, old- fashioned lightbulbs screwed into fixtures behind
rusted grills. And there, practically beside her, the
lightswitch!

'Look!' she said, reaching out to flick the
switch. 'We can turn on the lights!'

Wo/' Eduardo bellowed, and leaped at her,
tackling her with such force that they both crashed against the
opposite stone wall. Her flashlight fell from her hand, hit the
stone floor with a dull thump, and rolled back and forth in an arc.
He let out a deep breath of relief. 'I should have warned you, but
I forgot.' He helped her regain her balance, plucked the flashlight
up off the floor, and handed it back to her. Then he moved the beam
of his along the electrical cable.

'Do not touch any light switches, outlets,
or wiring,' he said. 'The electricity has never been cut off in
here, and it's quite dangerous. I'll show you.'

He looked around, spied a stick wedged
behind a loose stone, and picked it up.

'Watch.'

He tossed the stick against the electrical
cable.

The moment it made contact, a crackling web
of thin, bright blue light danced along the cable.

'Good Lord!' she exclaimed. 'That's an
accident waiting to happen. Why haven't you had it fixed?'

'For one thing, no one comes here any more
except me. Everyone else seems to have forgotten about it.' He led
the way downhill through the tunnel. 'During childhood this place
was my playground, my very own secret castle. Here, by myself, I
pretended to be a knight under siege, and a superhero rescuing
miners buried under cave-ins, and the lone survivor of a starfleet
battling vicious aliens.' He laughed softly. 'I had quite a vivid
imagination.'

'But you had to play here by yourself?' she
asked. 'Didn't you have any friends?'

'No,' he said over his shoulder, his face
bright in the wash from her flashlight. 'Not when we were here, on
the island.'

Her heart went out to him. How awful to have
had to grow up like that! She couldn't imagine periods of a
childhood spent without the company of friends.

'At any rate,' he said, 'I was actually
quite happy. But enough of that subject. I want you to guess where
this tunnel leads.'

'Down to a bomb shelter?' she ventured.

His laughter echoed, bounced off the stone
walls. 'Not quite,' he said.

Then they rounded another corner, and there
it was. The last thing on earth she'd expected.

'A grotto!' she breathed, pushing past
Eduardo into the large, high-ceilinged cave of a room. She uttered
a squeal of delight as the soft spray from a fountain, activated
when she stepped on a slab of marble, drizzled her from all
sides.

'My God!'

Flashlight held straight out in front of
her, she turned around and around on the spot.

'Eduardo! There must be a hundred
fountains!'

He smiled. 'A hundred and seventy-five, to
be exact. I counted them when I was eight.'

Falling into a strange, reverential silence,
she walked slowly around the central fountain and its dozens of
thin jets of inward-arcing water. Her beam of light searched out
the recesses of four alcoves, then the high dome above, so that the
details of the grotto revealed itself in glorious bits and pieces.
Never in her life had she seen such a magnificently baroque, or
prodigally opulent visual feast!

It was unbelievable - unimaginable - this
fantasy. Every square inch of the walls was intricately decorated
with glass slag and mosaics of rare and beautiful shells. There
were elaborate niches with shell-clad busts, pilasters encrusted
with shells, composite figures of shell: fantastical parrots, human
faces that recalled Archimbaldo's famous fruit and vegetable heads.
And inside each of four recessed alcoves frolicking marine beasties
with crustaceous breasts, ears of conch, beards of scallop.

Oh, it was magical and fantastic, this
grotto, almost beyond comprehension in its beauty.

'Oh, Eduardo,' she cried, 'it's heaven!' She
lowered her flashlight and looked at him open-mouthed. 'I had no
idea places like this existed!'

He came towards her, the pressure-activated
jeux d'eau drenching him with spray. 'Actually,' he explained,
'this is a replica of a grotto the Margravine of Bayreuth had
built.'

'And those gruesome follies we passed?' she
asked. 'That fountain . . . those deformed caryatids and that . . .
that wall with all the hideous faces?'

'Also replicas from Bayreuth.'

Outside, lightning flashed, and for a few
seconds the entire grotto was lit up in throbbing blue. Now
Stephanie could see that the centre of the dome was open to the
sky; when morning came, it would allow daylight to pour in - not
that she wanted to see it then; she imagined it would be at its
most romantically magical by flickering candlelight.

She explored some more, studying the details
in one of the recessed niches.

'Careful,' Eduardo cautioned a bit anxiously
at one point.

She looked beside her. The electrical cable
was a mere six inches from her elbow and the condition of the
wiring horrified her. It was worse in here than it was out in the
tunnel.

'You really should have that rewired,' she
said disapprovingly.

He said, 'Now that I know you like this
grotto and might come here every now and then, perhaps I will.'

She looked around and frowned, if the wiring
is in such a rotten state,' she asked thoughtfully, 'how do the
fountain pumps keep on working?'

'Simple. They are built directly on top of
an artesian well and do not require electricity.'

'Mm,' she said, 'clever.'

And looking around, she added, 'Do you know,
I do believe this place is so utterly extraordinary that it's
actually worth going past those hideous follies just to get here?
It's almost as though the contrast between the ugly and the
beautiful makes the beautiful seem even more beautiful!'

He smiled. 'I was hoping you would think
that. Now then. We really should be getting back. If you wish, we
can come here tomorrow.'

'I'd like that,' she said, and suddenly
yawned. 'Now that you mentioned it, I do think I'm starting to
fade.' She kissed him lightly on the lips. 'And after seeing this
heavenly place, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than go to
sleep. I know I'll enjoy the sweetest dreams I've ever had!'

But she didn't have sweet dreams. The storm
raged on into the night, and she tossed and turned the whole time.
Nightmare followed nightmare.

Bang! The explosive noise reached all the
way down through her sleep and jerked her awake. Eyes snapping
open, she uttered a sharp cry and sat bolt upright in bed. She was
breathing heavily and felt drenched with sweat. For a moment, she
looked around in fear, but the ghastly faces of her nightmare were
gone.

She slumped against the headboard in relief.
I'm awake now, she assured herself, and everything's all right. It
was just a dream, a bad dream . . .

She could hear the rain, driven by ferocious
winds, still slashing at the French doors. But surely that wasn't
what had awakened her? So what had?

Bang! The explosive noise, loud as a
gunshot, came from just outside the French doors. For a
heartstopping instant, everything inside her froze. Then the noise
came again and she recognised it. She chided herself with a soft,
deprecatory laugh.

How silly of me to jump out of my skin!
she.thought. It's a shutter, just a shutter which the wind has torn
loose from its hook . . .

Without bothering to switch on the lamp, she
got out of bed and groped her way over to the French doors. She
could see absolutely nothing. The night was black, utterly pitch
black and toneless, without lights, without shadows, as black as
only a stormy night far from city lights can be. She felt for the
door, opened it, and stepped out onto the verandah.

Rain blew at her with the velocity of
hailstones, hitting sharp as needles against her bare skin. The
wind had picked up considerably, and it was cold. Very cold.
Shivering, she felt around for the flapping shutter and caught it.
Groped for the hook and secured it to the wall. Then, teeth
chattering, she rushed back inside, closed the door, felt her way
to the bed and jumped underneath the warm dry covers.

But she could not get back to sleep
again.

Believing herself to be the only one awake,
the soft taps on her door came as that much more of a surprise. She
frowned and switched the bedside light on and got up and slipped
into her robe. Belting it around her, she padded barefoot to the
door and opened it.

It was Zaza.

'Did I awaken you?' the old lady asked in a
hushed voice.

Stephanie shook her head. 'I couldn't
sleep.' She opened the door wide.

Zaza rode into the room and said, 'Neither
could I.' There was a silk blanket over her knees, dark and
jewel-like, which did not go with her pale flowery nightdress, and
she looked very sallow and very old, and for the first time, very
much the invalid.

Stephanie asked, 'Can I offer you
something?'

Zaza shook her head, and there was something
about the grim set of her face which Stephanie found peculiarly
disturbing. She wondered to what she owed this visit, but she
didn't want to rush the old lady and sat down on the edge of the
bed and waited.

She'll tell me in her own good time,
Stephanie thought, aware that Zaza was struggling inwardly with
something. I mustn't rush her.

Finally Zaza took a deep breath. 'What I am
about to tell you,' she began slowly, 'is not only for your own
good, but for the good of us all.'

'I gather,' said Stephanie softly, 'that you
have come to warn me off?'

Zaza was not surprised by Stephanie's guess.
'You are a very astute and clever young lady,' she said. 'I only
hope you are as wise.'

Stephanie held her gaze. 'Why?' she asked
quietly.

'Why? Because it is in the best interests of
-'

'No, no, no,' Stephanie said irritably.
'What I'm asking is, why, specifically, should it be in everyone's
best interests that I make myself scarce?' She raised her chin.
'That is what you're suggesting I do, isn't it?'

Zaza did not beat about the bush. 'Yes,' she
said simply.

'Then I think you owe it to me to at least
tell me why. Perhaps if I knew the specifics of what I've done ...
or seen ... I would feel more inclined to listen to your
advice.'

'Why must you be so stubborn!' the old lady
hissed. 'Can you not tell when something is in your own best
interests?'

'But how can I possibly know that?'

Zaza's face went from sallow to white, and
her lips tightened into a thin, hard line. She whispered shakily,
'Goodnight, Ms Williams, and farewell. I am afraid we have nothing
more to say to one another.'

Stephanie watched the old lady manoeuvre her
wheelchair around and then she got up to let her out. The
wheelchair whirred as she rode off.

With a sigh, Stephanie shut the door and
leaned thoughtfully back against it. Try as she might, she couldn't
make head nor tail of Zaza's visit. Something had to have triggered
it - but what? Just what I need, she thought sardonically as she
went back to bed and turned off the light. Yet another mystery . .
.

When she finally nodded off, she was no
closer to solving it, and sleep was fitful, filled with more
disturbing dreams and eerie faces of stone. Needless to say, after
she awakened she couldn't remember any of it, which was probably
just as well. But at least the weather was nice. The skies had
cleared and a fugitive sun was burning off the early morning
mist.

On her way down to breakfast, Stephanie
decided to take Zaza aside and ask her outright about her
middle-of-the-night visit. But that, she soon discovered, was
easier said than done. The old lady did not show up for breakfast,
nor did she come down for lunch. And in the afternoon, when the big
executive helicopter came to fly them back to Rio, Zaza still
hadn't put in an appearance.