Forever (91 page)

'But. . . whatever for?'

'For his wedding present,' Johnny said
darkly as they followed their luggage-bearing porters into the
lobby.

As their wedding present, Sammy had arranged
their entire honeymoon - air and ground transportation, hotel,
everything. 'Leave it to me,' the old man had said grandly. 'I am
quite the veteran traveller, you know . . .'

In the lobby, they were treated like royalty
and whisked up to their suite - the presidential suite. When
Stephanie and Johnny, who wanted to shut out the world instead of
letting it in, realised the suite came with a private telephone
line and fax, they exchanged narrow looks. And when they learned
that they had a butler and a maid to boot, they looked at each
other once more, read each other's minds, and waited for the
bellboy to depart.

Johnny got on the phone straight away. 'I
know just the place,' he told her.

With the operator's assistance, he got the
number, made some enquiries, and hung up.

Ah, yes, he was told, the Claverley on
Beaufort Gardens in Knightsbridge, reputedly the best
bed-and-breakfast in the entire city, did indeed have a large
first-floor room with balcony and adjoining bath available
immediately.

is it quiet?' Stephanie asked.

'Very.'

'Small?'

He smiled. 'And modest.'

'Good. I never realised how easy it is to OD
on luxury. Or how sick of yachts one can get.'

When they tiptoed furtively through the
lobby, carrying their own luggage, the concierge caught them. He
was beside himself. 'But sir! Madam! Is your suite not up to
standard?'

it's splendid, really it is,' Johnny
consoled the man. 'But you see, our stay was arranged by a
well-meaning relative.' Johnny palmed the concierge a folded crisp
new fifty-pound note. 'We don't want to be found by anyone or take
any calls. For all practical purposes, we are staying here, but are
always either unplugged or out.'

The concierge beamed. 'Of course, sir! I
quite understand!'

'And please. Don't breathe a word of this to
Mr Kafka, who arranged this. It's best if he believes we're very
pleased.'

'I quite understand, sir. Mum's the
word.'

*

'You genius!' Stephanie squealed once they
were alone in their room at the Claverley. it's divine, Johnny!
Really divine!' She flopped down on the romantic four-poster. 'I
love it! I do!'

Which was how, within ten minutes of their
arrival, their four- poster bed was put to good use.

It was a full day before they finally
surfaced and left the room.

London was a stately dowager of a city with
one foot in history and the other poised in the future. It was the
kind of place where you never knew what treasure might lurk just
around the corner, or what bit of ancient history your footsteps
accidentally retraced. Both Stephanie and Johnny had been there
countless times before, but they had never been there together, and
the city now wove its magical spell around the honeymooning lovers,
and they could have sworn this was their first true visit.

London was therapeutic, too - an escape from
the horrors and nightmares of the recent past. Neither of them was
ready to discuss what had happened in Brazil; it was as though by
mutual consent the subject was, for the time being at least, taboo.
They both seemed to realise that they had to let the horrors work
naturally out of their systems. When the time was ripe, they would
deal with it. For now, they wanted to be only blissful lovers.

Stephanie wished the rest of their lives
could remain this perfect, for ever and ever . . .

During the next few days, they played
tourists. The days went by in a pleasant blur, the evenings at the
theatre enthralling, the nights of lovemaking beyond compare.

It was the honeymoon of a lifetime, an
escape from reality.

And just before the week was up, Stephanie
said, 'Johnny? I think I'm ready to put the ghosts to rest.'

He took her in his arms and held her
tightly. 'Are you sure?'

He looked into her eyes and saw them shining
with strength and determination and wisdom.

And so they went to Cadogan Square. The
leaves on the trees surrounding it were a deep green, and the
elegant mansions and beautifully maintained townhouses and small
apartment buildings gleamed with paint and brass polish. Neither of
them spoke.

Stephanie stopped in front of a beautifully
restored wide house behind a tall iron fence. The front door was
mahogany, flanked by pilasters, and above it was a balustraded
balcony. The four storeys were brick, with exquisitely carved
creamy-white mouldings. Birds trilled in the leafy trees and the
sounds of traffic were very far away.

Stephanie said, 'It's a Grade II listed
Georgian, built circa 1810. Of course, it's had to be completely
restored. The fire gutted it from top to bottom.'

Johnny gazed up at the imposing house, hands
in his pockets.

'The house where Lili allegedly died.' She
turned to him. 'And from which ashes she rose, resurrected like the
proverbial phoenix.' She paused. 'Well, now I came. I saw. I'm
ready to leave.'

He took her hand and held it. 'Ready to bury
the past and lay the ghosts to rest?'

She nodded. 'Yes,' she said.

'Good, because I've booked us on a morning
flight,' he said, as they walked down the sidewalk.

Stephanie smiled, and it was a smile of
infinite sweetness. Then she hopped up on tiptoe and spontaneously
planted a kiss on his cheek. 'You always know the right thing to
do,' she said.

'I try,' he said.

'So the question now is, how do we pass the
time until tomorrow?'

They had stopped walking and were looking at
each other for a long silent moment.

'Silly question,' he said.

EPILOGUE

FUNERAL IN BERLIN

Berlin, Germany, 1993

There is something sobering about wandering
around the city of the dead. And a great truth comes as a
revelation. Death is not the great equaliser it is said to be. For
even in death, the social structure of society is strictly
observed. And the wealthy, in death as in life, occupy mansions
even in a necropolis.

Hand-in-hand Stephanie and Johnny strolled
slowly along one of the wide shady paths just inside the perimeter
of the cemetery. Leafy linden trees cast cool dappled shadows on
the large, well-tended mausoleums which bordered the surrounding
wall, and the birds in the branches serenaded the wealthy merchant
princes and lawyers, society matrons, and millionaires who lay
inside these marble and granite temples adorned with cornices and
columns, pediments, and carved friezes, their names chiselled in
gleaming gold.

Except for the birds, the silence was
unearthly.

Stephanie pressed his arm and said, 'Look,
Johnny! There's a funeral in progress.'

For a moment they stopped and watched the
solemn ritual from a distance. The mourners all in black. The giant
wreaths and opulent flower arrangements. The mahogany casket
gleaming richly. The priest leading a prayer.

Slowly they continued walking until they
reached the largest and grandest mausoleum of them all. It was a
half-circle of white

marble, with ten fluted Corinthian capitals
carved with olive leaves, a fancy rotunda, dome under which was
centred an above-ground crypt. An eternal flame flickered in front
of a white life-size marble statue of a woman with arms
outstretched.

Stephanie recognised it at once. 'This is
it,' she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence,
and she lowered it to a near-whisper. 'Eerie, how the sculptor
captured her likeness.'

Johnny smiled grimly. 'Yeah, but who's
buried in it?'

Stephanie sighed. 'That, I'm afraid, is
something we will never know.' She looked around, as though to soak
up the surroundings, to memorise them like a photograph. 'According
to Grandpa's notes, this is where it all began for him. The
mausoleum hadn't been built when he attended the funeral, but it's
what set the entire biography in motion. It's what got him
killed.'

'From the look of that statue, one would
think she was a saint.'

'She was a monster. But the one thing you
can't take away from her was her talent. She sang like an
angel.'

They fell silent as a stooped old man
approached. He was wearing a hat and holding the hand of a small
boy, his grandchild, Stephanie guessed. The boy was holding a bunch
of pink carnations. When the man reached them, he doffed his hat in
greeting.'Guten Mor gen,' he said, politely.

'Hello.' Stephanie smiled at him and Johnny
nodded. The boy laid the flowers on the steps of the mausoleum.

'You are English?' the old man asked.

'American,' Stephanie said.

'Americans saved us after the war with the
airlift. Us Berliners will never forget.' He paused. 'Strange, is
it not? The Wall has come down and the country is reunited.'

Stephanie asked. 'Do you come here
often?'

The old man smiled. 'I visit her grave every
day. You see, during the war, even as we were losing, her voice
gave us hope and strength. It is a tragedy she had to die so
young.'

Stephanie caught Johnny's glance. 'Yes,' she
said huskily, 'it's too bad.'

The old man doffed his hat again and took
the boy's hand and they walked off.

A tear sparkled in the corner of one eye and
slowly slid down her face. 'So many deaths!' she said quietly. 'And
for what? Vanity! The curse of eternal youth!' She shook her head.
'All those thousands murdered. And Grandpa. Vinette. Aaron
Kleinfelder. Astrid. Eduardo.' She stifled a sob as she uttered his
name.

Johnny said gently, 'Miss the
caballero?'

She blinked back her tears, then slid her
arm through his and smiled bravely. 'You're my caballero,' she said
huskily.

'Forever?' he asked.

'Don't use that word!' She gazed at the cold
marble statue and then pressed herself against the warm living
reality of his body.

'In that case, what if I settle for loving
you a lifetime?'

She smiled and held tightly on to him. 'Now
that,' she said, holding her face up for his kiss, 'is something I
think I can live with.'