Would this last woman never end her catalogue of trivial omissions? Evening was setting in, deepening the gloom of the ancient church, and he was feeling the pangs of hunger. Just before this self-pitying chatterbox had squeezed her bulk into the confessional, he had peeked out and discovered that she was the last of the penitents. He breathed a sigh and cut into her stream of petty flaws, calling her his daughter and telling her that Christ understood and forgave, and giving her a penance of many prayers, so she would feel important.
When she left the box, he sat back to give her time to leave the church. Undue haste in getting to a free dinner with wine would be unseemly. He was preparing to rise, when the curtain hissed and another penitent slipped into the shadows of the confessional.
Father Xavier sighed with impatience.
A very soft voice said, “You have only seconds to pray, Father.”
The priest strained to see through the screen into the shadows of the confessional, then he gasped. It was a figure with a bandage around its head, like the cloth tied under the chins of the dead to keep their mouths from gaping! A ghost?
Father Xavier, too well educated for superstition, pressed back away from the screen and held his crucifix before him. “Begone! I! Abi!”
The soft voice said, “Remember Beñat Le Cagot.”
“Who are you? What—”
The wicker screen split, and the point of Le Cagot’s makila plunged between the priest’s ribs, piercing his heart and pinning him to the wall of the confessional.
Never again would it be possible to shake the villager’s faith in the superstition of the Sagara, for it had proved itself. And in the months that followed, a new and colorful thread was woven into the folk myth of Le Cagot—he who had mysteriously vanished into the mountains, but who was rumored to appear suddenly whenever Basque freedom fighters needed him most. With a vengeful will of its own, Le Cagot’s makila had flown to the village of Alos and punished the perfidious priest who had informed on him.
New York
As he stood in the plush private elevator, mercifully without Musak, Hel moved his jaw gingerly from side to side. In the eight days he had been setting up this meeting, his body had mended well. The jaw was still stiff, but did not require the undignified gauze sling; his hands were tender, but the bandages were gone, as were the last yellowish traces of bruise on his forehead.
The elevator stopped and the door opened directly into an outer office, where a secretary rose and greeted him with an empty smile. “Mr. Hel? The Chairman will be with you soon. The other gentleman is waiting inside. Would you care to join him?” The secretary was a handsome young man with a silk shirt open to the middle of his chest and tight trousers of a soft fabric that revealed the bulge of his penis. He conducted Hel to an inner reception room decorated like the parlor of a comfortable rural home: overstuffed chairs in floral prints, lace curtains, a low tea table, two Lincoln rockers, bric-a-brac in a glass-front étagère, framed photographs of three generations of family on an upright piano.
The gentleman who rose from the plump sofa had Semitic features, but an Oxford accent. “Mr. Hel? I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I am Mr. Able, and I represent OPEC interests in such matters as these.” There was an extra pressure to his handshake that hinted at his sexual orientation. “Do sit down, Mr. Hel. The Chairman will be with us soon. Something came up at the last moment, and she was called away briefly.”
Hel selected the least distasteful chair. “She?”
Mr. Able laughed musically. “Ah, you did not know that the Chairman was a woman?”
“No, I didn’t. Why isn’t she called the Chairwoman, or one of those ugly locutions with which Americans salve their social consciences at the sacrifice of euphony: chairperson, mailperson, freshperson—that sort of thing?”
“Ah, you will find the Chairman unbound by conventions. Having become one of the most powerful people in the world, she does not have to seek recognition; and achieving equality would, for her, be a great step down.” Mr. Able smiled and tilted his head coquettishly. “You know, Mr. Hel, I learned a great deal about you before Ma summoned me to this meeting.”
“Ma?”
“Everyone close to the Chairman calls her Ma. Sort of a family joke. Head of the Mother Company, don’t you see?”
“I do see, yes.”
The door to the outer office opened, and a muscular young man with a magnificent suntan and curly golden hair entered carrying a tray.
“Just set it down here,” Mr. Able told him. Then to Hel he said, “Ma will doubtless ask me to pour.”
The handsome beachboy left after setting out the tea things, thick, cheap china in a blue-willow pattern.
Mr. Able noticed Hel’s glance at the china. “I know what you’re thinking. Ma prefers things to be what she calls ‘homey.’ I learned about your colorful background, Mr. Hel, at a briefing session a while ago. Of course I never expected to meet you—not after Mr. Diamond’s report of your death. Please believe that I regret what the Mother Company special police did to your home. I consider it unpardonable barbarism.”
“Do you?” Hel was impatient with the delay, and he had no desire to pass the time chatting with this Arab. He rose and crossed to the piano with its row of family photographs.
At this moment, the door to the inner office opened, and the Chairman entered.
Mr. Able rose quickly to his feet. “Mrs. Perkins, may I introduce Nicholai Hel?”
She took Hel’s hand and pressed it warmly between her plump, stubby fingers. “Land sakes, Mr. Hel, you just couldn’t know how I have looked forward to meeting you.” Mrs. Perkins was a chubby woman in her mid-fifties. Clear maternal eyes, neck concealed beneath layers of chin, gray hair done up in a bun, with wisps that had escaped the net chignon, pigeon-breasted, plump forearms with deeply dimpled elbows, wearing a silk dress of purple paisley. “I see that you’re looking at my family. My pride and joy, I always call them. That’s my grandson there. Rascally little fella. And this is Mr. Perkins. Wonderful man. Cordon-bleu cook and just a magician with flowers.” She smiled at her photographs and shook her head with proprietary affection. “Well, maybe we should turn to our business. Do you like tea, Mr. Hel?” She lowered herself into a Lincoln rocker with a puff of sigh. “I don’t know what I’d do without my tea.”
“Have you looked at the information I forwarded to you, Mrs. Perkins?” He lifted his hand to Mr. Able, indicating that he would forego a cup of tea made from tea bags.
The Chairman leaned forward and placed her hand on Hel’s arm. “Why don’t you just call me Ma? Everyone does.”
“Have you looked at the information, Mrs. Perkins?”
The warm smile disappeared from her face and her voice became almost metallic. “I have.”
“You will recall that I made a precondition to our talk your promise that Mr. Diamond be kept ignorant of the fact that I am alive.”
“I accepted that precondition.” She glanced quickly at Mr. Able. “The contents of Mr. Hel’s communication are eyes-only for me. You’ll have to follow my lead in this.”
“Certainly, Ma.”
“And?” Hel asked.
“I won’t pretend that you do not have us in a tight spot, Mr. Hel. For a variety of reasons, we would not care to have things upset just now, when our Congress is dismantling that Cracker’s energy bill. If I understand the situation correctly, we would be ill-advised to take counteraction against you, as that would precipitate the information into the European press. It is currently in the hands of an individual whom Fat Boy identifies as the Gnome. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s all a matter of price, Mr. Hel. What is your price?”