“I believe the American idiom is ‘a pain in the ass.’”

“I wish there were some way I could make it up to you.”

He smiled at her obliquity.

She poured another glass of wine and said, “Do you think Hana minds your being here?”

“Why should she?”

“Well, I mean… do you think she minds our spending the night together?”

“What does that phrase signify to you?”

“What? Well… we’ll be sleeping together.”

“Sleeping together?”

“In the same place, I mean. You know what I mean.”

He regarded her without speaking. Her experience of mystic transport, even if it was a unique event prompted by an overload of tension and desperation, rather than the function of a spirit in balance and peace, gave her a worthiness in his eyes. But this new acceptance was not free from a certain envy, that this vague-minded muffin should be able to achieve the state that he had lost years ago, probably forever. He recognized the envy to be adolescent and small on his part, but this recognition was not sufficient to banish the feeling.

She had been frowning into the candle flame, trying to sort out her emotions. “I should tell you something.”

“Should you?”

“I want to be honest with you.”

“Don’t bother.”

“No, I want to be. Even before I met you, I used to think about you… daydream, sort of. All the stories my uncle used to tell about you. I was really surprised at how young you are—how young you appear, that is. And I suppose if I analyzed my feelings, there’s a sort of father projection. Here you are, the great myth in the flesh. I was scared and confused, and you protected me. I can see all the psychological impulses that would draw me toward you, can’t you?”

“Have you considered the possibility that you’re a randy young woman with a healthy and uncomplicated desire to climax? Or do you find that psychologically unsubtle?”

She looked at him and nodded. “You certainly know how to put a person down, don’t you? You don’t leave a person much to cover herself with.”

“That’s true. And perhaps it’s uncivil of me. I’m sorry. Here is what I think is going on with you. You’re alone, lonely, confused. You want to be cuddled and comforted. You don’t know how to ask for that, because you’re a product of the Western culture; so you negotiate for it, bartering sex for cuddling. It’s not an uncommon negotiation for the Western woman to engage in. After all, she’s limited to negotiating with the Western male, whose concept of social exchange is brittle and limited, and who demands earnest money in the form of sex, because that’s the only part of the bargain he is comfortable with. Miss Stern, you may sleep with me tonight if you wish. I’ll hold you and comfort you, if that’s what you want.”

Both gratitude and too much wine moistened her eyes. “I would like that, yes.”

But the animal lurking within is seldom tethered by good intentions. When he awoke to her attentions and felt emanating from her the alpha/theta syncopation that attends sexual excitation, his response was not solely dictated by a desire to shield her from rejection.

She was exceptionally ripe and easy, all of her nerves close to the surface and desperately sensitive. Because she was young, there was a bit of difficulty keeping her lubricated, but beyond that mechanical nuisance he could hold her in climax without much effort.

Her eyes rolled back again and she pleaded, “No… please… I can’t again! I’ll die if I do again!” But her involuntary contractions rushed closer and closer together, and she was gasping in her fourth orgasm, which he prolonged until her fingernails were clawing frantically at the nap of the rug.

He recalled Hana’s injunction against dimming Hannah’s future experience by comparison, and he had no particular impulse to climax himself, so he brought her back down slowly, stroking and cooling her as the muscles of her buttocks, stomach, and thighs quivered with the fatigue of repeated orgasm, and she lay still on the pile of pillows, half-unconscious and feeling that her flesh was melting.

He washed in frigid meltwater, then went up to the overhanging balcony to sleep.

Some time later, he felt her approach silently. He made space for her and a nest in his arms and lap. As she dipped toward sleep, she said dreamily, “Nicholai?”

“Please don’t call me by my first name,” he murmured.

She was silent for a time. “Mr. Hel? Don’t be scared by this, because it’s just a passing thing. But at this moment, I am in love with you.”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“Do you know what I wish?”

He did not answer.

“I wish it were morning and I could go out and pick you a bunch of flowers… those Eyes of Autumn we saw.”

He chuckled and folded her in. “Good night, Miss Stern.”

Etchebar

It was midmorning before Hana heard the splash of a slab of rock into the stream and came from the château to find Hel rearranging the sounding stones, his trouser legs rolled up, and his forearms dripping with water.

“Will I ever get this right, Hana?”

She shook her head. “Only you will ever know, Nikko. Is Hannah safely set up at the lodge?”

“Yes. I think the girls have heated the water by now. Do you feel like taking a bath with me?”

“Certainly.”

They sat opposite one another, their feet in their habitual caress, their eyes closed and their bodies weightless.

“I hope you were kind to her,” Hana murmured sleepily.

“I was.”

“And you? How was it for you?”

“For me?” He opened his eyes. “Madame, do you have anything pressing on your schedule just now?”

“I’ll have to consult my carnet de bal, but it is possible that I can accommodate you.”

Shortly after noon, when he had reason to hope the local PTT would be functioning at least marginally, Hel placed a transatlantic call to the number Diamond had left with him. He had decided to tell the Mother Company that Hannah Stern had decided to return home, leaving the Septembrists unmolested. He assumed Diamond would take personal satisfaction in the thought that he had frightened Nicholai Hel off, but just as praise from such a source would not have pleased him, so scorn could not embarrass him.

It would be more than an hour before the viscous and senile French telephone system could place his call, and he chose to pass the interval inspecting the grounds. He felt lighthearted, well-disposed toward everything, enjoying that generalized euphoria that follows a close call with danger. For a whole constellation of impalpable reasons, he had dreaded getting involved in a business that was trammeled with personalities and passions.

He was wandering through the privet maze on the east lawns when he came across Pierre, who was in his usual vinous fog of contentment. The gardener looked up into the sky and pontificated. “Ah, M’sieur. Soon there will be a storm. The signs all insist on it.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yes, there is no doubt. The little clouds of the morning have been herded against the flank of ahuñe-mendi. The first of the ursoa flew up the valley this afternoon. The sagarra turned its leaves over in the wind. These are sure signs. A storm is inevitable.”

“That’s too bad. We could have used a little rain.”

“True, M’sieur. But look! Here comes M’sieur Le Cagot. How finely he dresses!”

Le Cagot was approaching across the lawn, still wearing the rumpled theatrical evening dress of two nights ago. As he neared, Pierre tottered away, explaining that there were many thousands of things that demanded his immediate attention.

Hel greeted Le Cagot. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Beñat. Where have you been?”