by Wilson, Eric
“I suppose,” he told Helene, “I’m happy to be starting over. The best tuica, it lays the memories to rest. So there it is. I have no more use for it. I apologize if I left you in an awkward situation last night, but I had to test the quality of the case. I must’ve passed out on the pew. When I awoke, I was curled up and shivering, all alone, but satisfied once and for all.”
“Is that so? I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“Multumesc.”
“You’re welcome, Ben. I make it my goal to deliver the best.”
“There is one other thing, you know. A cloudy scene in my mind.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just that you’re a single woman, quite attractive, and I can’t expect you to remain detached from your feelings when we keep meeting like this. Yet, I am married. No way around the fact. And yes, if you don’t mind me mentioning it, I’m quite sure you gave me a kiss before you left the chapel.”
“On your foot, you mean.”
“Your lips, Helene—they’re quite soft.”
“You were nursing a limp. I meant it as a friendly gesture.”
“Good, then. We have an understanding.” He drew up his shoulders. “Maybe in another life, there could’ve been something between you and me.”
“Dear, sweet Ben.” With eyes impish and round, she leaned forward and rested a hand on his arm. A trace of brackish odor reached his nostrils.
Was that him? He should shower when he got home this evening.
“You have only one life to live,” she said. “Don’t squander it.”
Only one life . . . only one . . .
As he left her office, his ears rang with those words. They were barbs, hooked in and tugging. A warning, of course, but also an invitation to come away from the drudgery. What husband didn’t wonder if he still had the goods to snag a desirable woman’s attention? It was a survival trait, an aging male assuring himself he could still attract, still perpetuate his line.
One life . . . Don’t squander it . . .
Had Benyamin done just that? Squandering what had been given him? True, he’d put a roof over his family’s heads, but he had little connection with his son, Dov. It’d been two years since their last camping trip. As for him and Dalia, they functioned more as tolerating flatmates than loving husband and wife.
Dear, sweet Ben . . . only one life . . .
He paused at the end of the hallway, turned, then headed back toward Helene’s office. He would go in, close the door, and make himself available.
One step closer. Two. Left, right, left.
He pulled up short. What was he thinking? How easily an epiphany could fall by the wayside.
He swiveled back around and darted up the stairs to his superior’s office on the third floor. The boss was still in chambers.
Benyamin picked up the phone and dialed Dalia. He caught her as she was coming in from the morning errands. When he apologized for his behavior the previous evening, she broke down in tears. She was a stalwart woman. Never much of a crier. He fumbled with his response, better equipped to handle harsh exchanges than to soothe the sensitivities of a female.
It was a good sign, though. She still loved him, still cared.
“We should go out as a family,” he said. “Every day you cook for us, putting hearty meals on our table. You know, I think it’s time we dine out in style.”
“Are you saying you don’t appreciate the—”
“Not at all,” he cut her off. “I only mean to give you an evening off.”
“Please,” Dalia said. “Don’t kid around, Benyamin. Enough of this.”
“I’m serious. We could go tonight, but I have an appointment, a possible side job to earn us some extra money. Perhaps Friday, then. Dov won’t have any school the next morning, so we can stay out late. Even catch a movie if you like.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Come on,” he said. “Live a little. It’ll be good for Dov.”
“A good example is what he needs, not some filth on the screen.”
He lowered his voice. “It’d be nice to see you dressed up, with high heels.”
“Heels? Honestly, Ben. Are you all right?”
“And maybe a dab of that perfume you used to wear.”
“I . . . Well, it has been months since I let my hair down.”
“I like it long.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Friday, Dalia. Six o’clock? Yes, six should work. I’ll be sure to get off early and come by for the two of you.”
She agreed; then emotion welled again in her voice.
Please, Ben thought, not another outburst. After making it this far through the conversation unscathed, he feared disrupting things with a wrong tone or misfired word. Best to stop while he was ahead. “Good-bye,” he said. And hung up.
Predator and prey. The age-old dance.
“You say she was coming this way?” Erota double-checked.
“Chugging along on those stubby legs of hers,” Domna said. “She’s not fast, but the old cow’s steady. She’ll be rounding that corner any moment.”
Erota and Domna had skipped ahead, anticipating Dalia Amit’s movements. Earlier, the woman had unloaded her groceries at home, then returned on foot to the wide stretches of Revolutiei Boulevard. She was now heading toward this piata, this square, on the other side of the impressive State Theater.
The sisters were seated on a bench that faced the war monument, watching shoppers and businesspeople bustle by. On overgrown grass, lovers reclined with eyes only for each other, while a couple on the monument’s concrete steps perused a tourist map and argued in English.
Erota couldn’t place the accent. American? Australian? When she got to the States, she would practice to differentiate such things.
All in good time. Which she had plenty of.
Though time was a factor for any Collector, its importance was tempered by a patience unknown to their human hosts. Another few minutes? A week? A year or two? In the expanse of history, it was all relative. Ariston and his small cluster had waited nearly two millennia for an opportunity outside the Akeldama caves. Prior to that, each of them had spent time in restless wandering, each had blundered, even endured a brief porcine detour at the Sea of Kinneret.
Humans, on the other hand, seemed controlled by the clock. It measured their accomplishments and intensified their failures. It added worth to relationships, while sapping monetary value from most inanimate things. People were paid according to time clocks. Awakened by alarms. The city trolleys ran on posted schedules.
“Look at them,” Erota said now to her sister. “Hurrying, always hurrying. Do they think they’ll outrun time?”
“Don’t waste energy trying to understand the way their brains work.”
“But it’s helpful, Domna. Anything for a peek into their motives.”
“Who needs a peek?” The younger teen flaunted her legs and tossed back her brunette waves. “They’re not half as complicated as they like to believe. Food, shelter, a good romp in the sack, and a few pats on the back . . . What else do they need?”
“Years of therapy, when we’re done with them.”
Domna laughed.
“There she is.” Erota combed back her own hair. “Where’s she going?”
“Stop already, stop.”
“What?”
“You’re trying to get inside her head again. You and your hunger for details. Just watch, Erota. She’ll make her intentions clear. You’ll see.”
Thirty seconds later, the sturdy Mrs. Amit was standing before the window of Coandi’s ice cream shop, on an avenue along Avram Iancu Square. She seemed to be debating with herself, pacing past the entry twice. At last, she nosed inside.
“What’d I tell you?”
“Okay,” Erota said. “But what now, O great strategizer?”
“We’ll wing it.”
Erota rolled her eyes. As her vision swung back down, she caught slight movement in the lawn beside the
park bench—a brown-black oval, crablike, no bigger than a peppercorn. She remembered Megiste’s reference to ticks and thought back to the research she’d done on these efficient little bloodsuckers. Parasites, in general, were one of her most cherished subjects.
She propped sunglasses on her forehead. “I have a better plan,” she said.
“Do I even want to know?”
“See that tick, on that blade of grass? In this cold season, I’m sure it’s hungry. When Mrs. Amit comes out, I want you to drive her past this spot. I’ll be waiting.”
“You’re kidding? That’s disgusting.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Any suggestions,” Domna asked, “on how I get her over here?”
“Be creative. You want me to do all your thinking for you, little sis?”
Domna curled her lip and started to respond, then pointed out a dog that was panting on the steps beneath the statue. “What about him? I could use him to chase her across the square.”
“Too mild. Look, he’s not even worried about those pigeons there.”
“I’ll get him to do what I want.”
“If you say so.”
Domna did manage to catch the creature’s eye, but he glanced away in bland rejection of the gesture. Even a witless fourlegger had his standards.
“Fine.” Domna flipped her hair. “What about that mutt beneath the trees?”
“He’s growling, at least. And ugly as sin.”
“Good.”
“Once we’ve switched hosts,” Erota said, “it’s going to appear that we’re just two teenagers snoozing in the sun. We’ll be vulnerable out in public like this, so you’ll have to return quickly. If you drape an arm over me, that should keep passersby from interfering with my abandoned shell. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“I hope so. If not, I’ll have to cart your body to the Cetatea for the night.”
“You’d never make it.”
Domna glanced at her sister. “You really think this’ll work?”
“Sure. I mean, if Ariston can put a mosquito to use, I know I can work with a tick. They’re active all over Romania, so I’m sure this one will know exactly what to do. All that’s required of me is to hang on for the ride.”
“Ughh. Erota, you really have no shame.”
“One of my very best qualities.”
Dalia examined the flavors on display in the glass case. Coandi was her favorite ice cream shop. She’d browsed along the boulevard, found an atomizer of the perfume her husband liked so much, and was now ready to treat herself. A mild winter day would not stop her.
“Cantaloupe and melon,” she ordered.
The first nibble from the spoon waltzed with subtle sweetness on her tongue. After months of deprivation, it was a sensory overload. Fruits and sugars in a delightful blend.
“Mmmm.”
Another, slower, more tantalizing taste.
“Este foarte bun,” she exclaimed.
Very good, indeed. Yet her own sounds of pleasure worried her. A woman in strict control of her urges, she considered diet a spiritual and practical reflection of her beliefs; thus, in her mind, this indulgence bordered upon carnality.
Perhaps if she had waited for her son Dov to get out of school, she could’ve brought him along and justified such enjoyment for his sake. She’d justified the perfume purchase with thoughts of her husband’s appreciation.
But she had not waited. Her selfish desire was exposed for all to see.
She took three more bites before deciding she was done.
Heaven help her. Dalia Amit reminded herself that she was a woman of moral fortitude and that such indulgence was obscene. She wetted a napkin, wiped her lips, then headed for the door. As she escaped Coandi’s tasty temptations, she took with her a bittersweet sense of victory. She was denying her flesh. Her walls were back in place, patched, so that few would ever know how close she’d come to crumbling.
Well, yes, she felt good about that. Rather smug, in fact.
That’s when she spotted the dog, a mangy beast with a predatory stare above bared yellow canines. It crouched, hairs bristling and ears laid back.
“Good girl,” Dalia said.
The creature snapped its fangs.
Dalia backed her way around a parked car, clutched the bagged per-fume to her chest, and fled in a stiff-legged gait toward the nearby square.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Chattanooga
Gina stared at the pregnancy test, watched the indicator window respond to the hormones in her urine. Although these things could be inaccurate, it was hard to deny matching responses from three separate brands.
Knocked up? Check.
With child? Check.
El prego? Read the rosy-red plus sign and weep.
In this same bathroom where the little tyke had first made his or her presence known, Gina felt a gasp/cry/laugh catch in her throat.
Would she be a good mother? Or another Nikki?
She clasped a hand over the thin scar on her arm. Then, reaching down, she plucked her dagger from its sheath, let it rattle into the sink, where its blade bounced coins of light from the overhead vanity. She thought of hiding the weapon, even burying or locking it away.
What if being a parent made you go loony? What if you found yourself doing anything in your power to curb your child’s negative inclinations? Could an infant’s needs in the womb throw off your own chemical balance, until later, after the delivery, you found yourself capable of doing crazy things, out-of-control things, like those mothers you saw on the news, who caved beneath the expectations?
Nikki had been over the top in her attempts to shield Gina, to enforce religious extremes upon her. Gina knew she would not do that to her child.
Faith was to be shared, not shoved.
Though part of Gina wanted to toss out belief along with the superstitious ways of her mother, she could not deny a sense of the divine hidden deep within her. She feared embracing it. Would it burn her? Would it demand more than she was capable of ? Would it corrode her mind and encourage an existence bereft of intelligent interaction?
Scarier still, would it mold her into a fanatic?
Gina knew she could never allow that, could never wield a knife and tell her child it was God’s will. She would rather die first.
As of yet, no one knew she was pregnant. With a withdrawal from her savings and a “routine” doctor visit, she could sweep this away. Her stomach was still flat and tight, her breasts still small, with no indications of becoming milk wagons.
Would they ever get bigger? She seemed to be a late bloomer.
She braced her arms on either side of the sink and, despite the internal tug-of-war she’d anticipated, felt nothing. With so much at stake, she was immobilized.
She didn’t have to rush, she told herself. She could just sit tight. For all she knew, this baby could be fated for greatness. Wasn’t that a reason for keeping a child? Imagine if Bach had never entered the world? Or Shakespeare?
I could also be carrying the next Hitler.
Gina broke away from that thought, disturbing on so many levels.
She turned instead to the mystery of chess, where no two games were alike, where risk was involved at every turn, and brilliancy often revealed itself in the most desperate of moments. She pictured herself sitting at the checkered board, then toppling her king in resignation before committing to even one move.
But where was the adventure in that?
Nope. Not her style. The royal game, like life, was an act of calculated recklessness. Despite the best-laid plans, life surprised you. And when it did, you adjusted and made a decision and saw it through to the end.
A rule of chess: If you touch it, you move it. No take backs.
She ran her fingers beneath her shirt, resting her palm over her navel in hopes of detecting some proof of life. Her stomach was warm, expanding slightly as she breathed. Was there a baby in there? It seemed unreal.
“
Hi there,” she whispered.
Even though she felt nothing, she believed.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Arad
Any moment now. Erota was on the alert. In most scenarios, predators were superior to their prey—stronger, larger, faster—but none of that applied here. If all went as planned, Mrs. Dalia Amit would be herded in this direction shortly, an easy target for a diminutive hunter.
Erota was a tick. A hard-bodied Ixodes ricinus. From the park bench, she had eyeballed this opportunistic little beast and found herself a new host.
She was now clinging to a blade of grass in the lawn that bordered the plaza. Her world had shrunk in size, her perch swaying in a breeze that seemed like a hurricane wind but was probably the draft of a passing truck.
Thunderous vibrations. Were those approaching footsteps?
Drawing closer, almost here.
She quavered. Her front legs contained sensory structures that were sensitive to every variance in thermal and chemical stimuli. She felt the ambient temperature rising, even as the tremors reached earthshaking proportions. She registered tart odors that could be signals of fear—from Mrs. Amit?—or the aggression of a dog.
Do your job, little sis. Herd her right past this spot.
Beneath Erota, around her, the host was tensing for an ambush. The timing would have to be impeccable. Erota was trusting the tick’s natural instincts as much as her own. She knew these things could latch onto a victim’s skin in fractions of a second.
She smelled blood now. Recognized it as human.
Pumpity-pump.
The tick let go.
Tiny legs found purchase on a passing giant of a person. From this vantage point, everything lost perspective. The massive mound of flesh swung through the air, then pounded down—swung, pounded, swung. Erota could only assume they had hooked onto Dalia’s leg as she was chased by Domna’s snarling host.
The tick was moving up, up, up. After weaving between fields of course thread, it ducked into a humid patch of black hair and fatty rolls.
The armpit. A favorite location.
Together with her host, Erota dove headfirst into her work. There was little else to consume their shared, primitive will.