Unacceptable Risk (21 page)

"It's a new life, Sam. A natural wonder." She searched his eyes. "I hope you can be proud of it."

Grady and Michael arrived from Rio with so much luggage they took a separate cab. Sam was grateful for the privacy.

With Sam, major life events were contemplated—until now. He sat in the cab close to Anna aware that he needed to think about Gaudet, and to calculate the danger to Michael Bowden. He needed to hunt Gaudet even as Gaudet hunted Michael. Just as important he had to find Raval.

And yet there was a new life growing in the woman beside him and it was half his. Anna's eyes had that slick shining look that artists and storytellers alike portray as love or adoration or both. It was as if she were making her case for the baby, speaking without words even more effectively than Cat-man. Sam wanted a trip to Universe Rock; he wanted to speak with his dead grandfather; he definitely wanted to talk about birth control and the no-bullshit pact that he thought they shared. In the instant she'd told him she was pregnant, he had felt ripped apart, even betrayed. The whole thing was a whirlwind of complications. The child would need a father, not a ghost, and right now Sam was a ghost.

Grandfather. His mind went to Grandfather. He sensed he could be on the verge of a huge mistake.

Calmly, even warmly, she watched him and he could feel the question.

He forced himself not to mention that she supposedly took birth control pills. "I'm not sure how we are going to do this."

"The baby is coming. We'll figure it out." She settled back and closed her eyes. Then she stirred herself as if she had made a decision. "There is something you should know. I'm sure the child was conceived two months ago at the ranch. You said it was okay that I had forgotten my pills in LA, remember? You may recall that I missed two."

"At the ranch? I said it was okay?"

"Well," she whispered despite the glass partition, "I was still half asleep and you were playing in bed and driving me nuts with the foam as I recall, the mustache ... ?"

"I know. I told myself that foam and sponges are pretty effective."

"We got the five percent. Can you think of it as a wonderful accident?"

At once Sam remembered a day with Grandfather. Sam was twenty-three, and it was the fall of 1985, the year before he graduated from MIT. He had taken a little time toward the end of September to work on his thesis and he went to his cousin Kier's cabin in northern California. Kier was a rural veterinarian who sometimes lived wild, off the power grid, nothing but a diesel generator and a dirt road for coming and going. It was in the Wintoon River Valley over Elkhorn Pass by road and between the Marble Mountains and the Trinity Alps, or maybe in each, depending on who you talked to, though most thought it rightly belonged as part of the Marble Mountains. It was in the Salmon River country and all ran into the Klamath river system above the redwood belt, back in the mixed conifer zone. Although the cabin was marvelously crafted and an exhibition of one man's love of wood, there wasn't much there, other than one's thoughts, to keep you company.

Sam's grandfather had shown up—come down out of the mountains from the caves. Grandfather was a Spirit Walker, a
Talth,
and therefore a mystic. Spirit walkers, in addition to their communion with the spirits, were expert at surviving in the wilderness, exquisite at tracking and hunting. Mostly it seemed to Sam that Grandfather was a man who largely existed apart from his surroundings and whose sense of self and whose well-being were substantially disconnected from his earthly status or physical condition. Grandfather had genuine peace of mind, something that seemed to elude Sam and everyone else he knew.

Just sitting with the man used to please Sam. Most people who were not in the grip of their surroundings were also lacking in the essential charm of humanity—the ability to give for the goodness of giving. Grandfather was anything but inhuman. When he looked at you, it felt like the whole world was springing flowers around calm lakes. That's why he had shown the picture of Grandfather to Cat-man. He thought perhaps Cat-man would see something in the eyes, even in a photo.

The week that Grandfather showed up unannounced was warm and sunny, a time for Sam to stay in the shade and undertake his college studies—but Grandfather had insisted they should have an outing. The morning after his arrival, about a half hour before daylight, they started up the mountain with water and nothing else. Grandfather mumbled that too many beavers were shitting in the creeks. They climbed for four hours and Sam began to think the unthinkable—that Grandfather might have to slow down for him. Fortunately, the old man reduced the pace before Sam brought it up. Sam was never sure why.

After six hours of grueling climbing, they came out at an alpine meadow bordered above by a tiara of snow that melted water into the meadows and mixed with the sun to make the stuff of life. As they walked among the late bloomers of the wildflowers and passed the wizened stunted pines, it seemed they were under the eye of God. When they topped the rock knob, the earth dropped away in streaks of granite and ribbons of green trees and effervescent meadows. As the eye drifted down the mountains, the trees became larger, the greens deeper. They overlooked a valley and in its bottom the churning of the Wintoon River could just be heard, the white of its rapids imaginable as splotches, like flowers on a vine.

Grandfather took him around the rock on a tiny trail that put them on a ledge below the top of the dome, perhaps a hundred feet down the cliff. Here they sat. A hawk flew out over the abyss, giving their eyes perspective and their minds a fleeting reminder that some creatures could fly but men needed a contraption in order to soar. The grand quiet of the place and the slight breeze hushed the soul and seemed to bring them near creation, if not the Creator.

"This is Universe Rock," Grandfather explained. "We will sit and take this into our spirit so that we may later breathe it out."

Sam did not understand what he meant, but he did feel that which cannot so easily be felt with the hordes of mankind. Perhaps in part it was the scale of the place. How better to appreciate the vastness of space than to sit atop a mountain, a sort of kindergarten of the universe. Or if not a mountain, then the Tiloks' Universe Rock. Or maybe it was the solitude that was the chief ingredient. The subtleties of the soul were most likely lost in farting pistons, humming refrigerators, rolling wheels, flushing toilets, whizzing traffic, and talking toys. Maybe it was the beauty; it could be reflected in the soul that absorbed it but could not be created there.

"You must take what this place has to offer, put it within you and take it," Grandfather said. "There will come times, difficult times when people are pushing your feet out your ears. It is at those times that you must remember and quiet yourself. You must bring this place out from where you have hidden it and you must let it go out through every member of your body. And you must feel the peace that we feel here. Once you feel it, you must remember the eyes of your mother, the love that she felt when she knew you were alive. The white people call this compassion. We call it
we pac maw.
In
the place of peace you surround yourself with
we pac maw.
You become the center of a sphere and around you is
we pac maw.
When the man of wrath and scorn comes and you have centered yourself in peace and put on your
we pac maw,
then you do not think of him as other than yourself. There is no them and us. There is only a wounded friend.

"When you look at him, give him only
we pac maw
and he will see a reflection of himself. If the reflection is bad and his character is strong, his shame will not poison him and he will turn away from misdeeds and contemplate his place. If his shame is too great and he cannot turn around in his path, then he is a dangerous one. If he feels no shame, then he is a very dangerous one. Sometimes you must choose the least evil."

Sam tried to assimilate everything he was hearing. It was by far the most he'd heard Grandfather speak in one sitting. "What do you mean 'the least evil'?"

"Sometimes a man must step out of his peace and leave his
we pac maw.
It seldom happens, but if he must, then... to fight may be the lesser evil."

As Sam brought himself back to the here and now, he watched Anna's eyes begin to cloud with tears.

"Give me just a few minutes to think about this miracle growing inside you," Sam said. Then he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and tried to do as his grandfather had instructed him. He imagined himself centered in a sphere and possessed of the mountains' peace. Then he surrounded himself with the
we pac maw
of his mother's eyes.

At last he looked at Anna. He could see that she felt alone with her decision.

He smiled. "You are feeling the weight of motherhood. No?"

"I am. What are you feeling?"

"Right now I need to understand you."

"It isn't a feeling. Or maybe it is. It's more of a thought, I think. I'm scared. If we share this child, we will have to decide whether we will share together or apart. If together, we would be a family. Little families run on commitment. A man like you looks at long-term monogamy the way a thoroughbred looks at a fence. You will tell yourself the issue is anonymity, but I think it's deeper than that; it's what's inside you.... Anonymity isn't really the issue." She paused as the tears returned. "I think I'm afraid because I'm so very hopeful."

Sam knew his words had been right, but the little wrinkles on his brow were still betraying him. He would need to practice this
we pac maw
and figure out what lurked in the dark places of his mind.

Baptiste and Rene walked in the Menilmontant, in a neighborhood off Rue de Couronnes, on a small side street lined with middle-class flats. When they arrived at the Flower of Paris Apartments, they climbed the stairs to the first floor off the street and took the elevator to the third. It was a nice enough place for Paris, reasonably maintained but with tiny, single bedroom flats. Space in Paris was at a premium and one had to pay for it.

They knocked on the door of apartment number 7 and were greeted by an older woman obviously crippled from arthritis.

"Hello. I am Baptiste, Jean-Baptiste, and this is Rene, and we are from the government. May we talk to you for a few minutes?"

Baptiste showed his badge, as did Rene.

"Come in," she said, moving slowly back in small, awkward steps.

"We are here to inquire about Georges Raval. He is your son?"

"Oh no. That is my brother's boy. I'm Chloe Raval and I'm living in their apartment. Well, actually, I guess it's my apartment now. My sister-in-law and her son went off to America. Is there trouble?"

"Do you have an address for them?"

"No, I don't. It's strange. They send me letters but no address where I can write back."

"Do you have any of those letters?"

"The last one was a week ago, but someone else came and I gave it to them."

"Who?"

"Someone from his old company. They said their name, but I forgot it. It was very important that they find him right away or he might lose his pension, they said."

"What about the envelope? Was there anything on it that would indicate where he was?"

"I threw that away before the letter."

"Do you remember where it was postmarked?"

"No. I'm sorry, I don't. Are they in trouble?"

"Oh no. Not at all. In fact, they could be of great service to their country."

"How so?"

"By giving us information."

"Well, they call sometimes, and when they do, I will tell them."

"When did they last call?"

"Just two days ago."

"When they call again, would you ask that Georges Raval call this number?"

Baptiste handed her a card.

"Of course. There is one thing, though."

"What's that?"

"I have a sister who lives in New York. I think she might know where they are because sometimes she's on the phone with them."

"Where in New York does she live?"

"A place called Manhattan? Does that sound right?"

"Could be. What's her name?"

"Claudia Roche."

"Do you have her address?"

"Well, I have it somewhere. It's something Christopher or Christopher something."