Miracle

by Deborah Smith

  She was very perceptive. Sebastien nodded. “I demanded too much. I gave too little in return. I waited too long because I didn’t have enough faith. But the mistake is made now and can’t be changed.” He couldn’t even get permission to leave this damned country for a few days so that he could try. Fate was against him.

  “The gris-gris,” his interpreter reminded him. “Madame won’t let you treat anyone unless you wear it.”

  “Tell her that my magic is here.” He held out his hands. “And here.” Sebastien pointed to his head. “And there.” He pointed to his medical kit and the case of supplies sitting beside him on the hut’s wooden floor. “I don’t need any help from a gris-gris.”

  She spoke, spit again, then pointed to the empty spot between the breast pockets of Sebastien’s khaki work shirt. The interpreter sighed. “She says your magic has to be in your heart as well as everywhere else. It’s no use arguing with her. If you want to treat the villagers you’ll have to wear your necklace.”

  Sebastien bit the inside of his cheek and fought the sour, short-tempered impatience that threatened his control more and more lately. Waiting for his attention was a child who had been gored in the stomach by a bull, a pregnant woman suffering from toxemia, at least a dozen people infected with venereal disease, and other villagers with assorted minor ailments.

  “Tell Madame Toka that my gris-gris no longer holds magic for me,” he instructed. “Perhaps she can give me a new one.”

  But his diplomatic maneuvering fell flat. The medicine woman spoke at length this time, and finished by smugly shoving away the gifts. “Madame believes that you are in danger without your protective charm,” the interpreter explained. “She says you are a strong man who draws the attention of jealous evil spirits. She can’t have you working around her people in that condition.”

  “Ah. I see. I might contaminate them. I’m infested with demons. What nonsense.”

  “Monsieur le docteur, I’ve never heard you make light of the people’s religion before. I’m a Muslim, but even I don’t look down on the beliefs of the villagers.”

  “I apologize. The heat is severe today. It bothers me,” Sebastien hadn’t noticed the heat any more than usual; he was merely offering an excuse, while he considered the absurdity of the situation. He was wasting time over his own ridiculous wounds when he could be treating the wounds of others, an infinitely easier task. And why was he arguing? For his pride’s sake, and no more. His pride over a brief affair that a grown man should dismiss with a sigh and a shrug. C’est la vie.

  Sebastien nodded to the medicine woman. “Madame Toka, if you consider my gris-gris important, then I will wear it.”

  The interpreter told her, and she nodded back to Sebastien, then smiled. Sebastien went to his truck, searched in its glove compartment, and returned to Madame Toka’s hut carrying the long silver chain and its charm. He hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to throw them away. He knelt in front of Madame Toka and held the charm out for her to see; she waved her hand over it and said something.

  “She feels the magic. It’s still there,” the interpreter noted.

  No, Sebastien told her silently. He grimaced at the faded video token that Amy had given him so long ago. The cheap finish was worn off of it; it was dimpled from the knife attack two months ago. It was hardly recognizable as the shiny trinket he’d once loaned to a dying child. But indeed, it was powerful. It had kept him celibate for almost two years. It had kept him enchanted. No more.

  But to placate Madame Toka, Sebastien slipped the chain around his neck again. He was startled when a distinct sense of comfort came over him from the slight pressure of the token against his chest. Madame Toka nodded sagely. Sebastien ignored her but didn’t protest. Slowly he touched the cheap, tarnished metal. Today was his birthday. For a moment he did not feel quite so alone, and for that, at least, he was grateful.

  Sebastien moved forward, angling between people, taking energy from the challenge of the crowd at the airport. He tapped his folded sunglasses in the callused palm of a hand that was darkly tanned from the equatorial sun. And he scanned the in-coming passengers.

  He was spending half of his working days in the villages and half at the hospital. One day a week he lectured at the university. He had come directly from a visit to one of the villages and was wearing baggy white trousers and a native shirt of indigo-blue wax cloth that hung to his thighs.

  When his sister appeared at the far side of the room she spotted him immediately. Their eyes connected over the heads of the crowd, one tall person to another. Sebastien braced himself before Annette reached him, her dark hair flying and her zaftig figure pushing aginst the confines of a rumpled white dress suit. She laughed as she dropped her travel bag and flung her arms around his neck.

  “Sebastien! What has become of you? You look like a calypso singer! I wish that Papa could see you! He’d stop thinking that you should be a businessman!”

  “Perhaps I’m bored with my conservative image.” He staggered from her size and enthusiasm but hugged her happily and returned the kisses she pecked on his cheeks. Annette, big, blustery, a powerhouse of intelligence and charm, was absolutely determined to head all the family businesses. Sebastien approved. The only thing standing in Annette’s way was their father’s unending determination to put Sebastien in charge.

  She stepped back and scrutinized his face. “You can wear a native shirt but you can’t change your image,” she said, frowning a little. “You’ll always be The General to me. You look tired. And thinner. And too solemn, as always. But then, I’m becoming rather solemn myself these days.”

  “She’s trying too hard to please the old man,” a petulant male voice interjected. “But aren’t we all? God, this place is awful. I hope you’ve got a car waiting. I want to get to the hotel and take a bath. Why didn’t you warn us that it would be like this? Shit!”

  The whining roused Sebsatien’s temper even before he frowned past Annette at his younger brother, who had just arrived behind her. “You look like a man now, Jacques. But you complain like a child.”

  Sebastien stared sternly into eyes that were lighter than his own but just as stubborn. He and Jacques hugged, briefly, stiffly.

  “You talk like Father,” Jacques retorted. “I’ve always said that you’d turn out to be just like him.”

  Annette stepped between them. “Brothers! I don’t think you two know how serious your teasing sounds!”

  “He’s in shock from seeing me,” Jacques said. “Since it’s been three years.”

  “Ah, but you’ve avoided me and devoted all your time to leading the life of a decadent college student,” Sebastien answered. “I’ve been waiting for you to outgrow it.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to develop a sense of humor.”

  Annette clapped her hands firmly. “Enough!” She looked nervous and distressed.

  Sebastien put his arm around her, sorry for letting his disapproval of Jacques upset her. Annette was going through a bad time; with her prestigious record from one of France’s most esteemed business schools she could have had her pick of corporate positions. Instead she had gone to work for their father, and so far he had given her little more than secretarial duties.

  “Come. My car’s close by,” Sebastien told her and Jacques. “This is a terrible place for a family discussion.”

  Jacques hooted. “But we’re a terrible family.” Thin and muscular, with a face more boyish than Sebastien’s had ever been at twenty, Jacques was a beautiful young animal. He wore tight jeans and a T-shirt bearing the seal of the Sorbonne, from which he had recently been expelled. He ran both hands through hair that he’d had lightened from dark brown to a reddish mink color. It curled in soft waves against the back of his neck. “We came to talk to you about the old man,” Jacques announced. “Shit. Let’s get it over with.”

  “Not here!” Annette ordered. “We’re standing in the middle of bedlam, and we haven’t even gotten our luggage yet.” She grasped Seb
astien’s arm. Her smile had returned, but it was too bright. “Besides. I have a surprise for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Your surprise left her bag of books on the plane and had to go back after it,” Jacques noted. “God knows that she couldn’t survive without her books.”

  Sebastien gave his sister a wary, questioning look. “What is this surprise?”

  “It’s not a what, Sebastien, it’s a who. Someone I know you’ll enjoy seeing again.”

  “There she comes,” Jacques added. “One of the truly intellectual people of the world. But she has all the vivacity of a rock.”

  Puzzled, then profoundly pleased, Sebastien started forward. ‘Watch out. The widow wants a new husband,” Jacques called in warning.

  Sebastien met the black-haired, blue-eyed, extremely beautiful woman and clasped the hand she extended with regal aplomb. He took the black leather tote that held her beloved books. Though their families had been neighbors in Paris and he had known her since childhood, he didn’t hug her. Marie d’Albret was a close friend of Annette’s, but she never invited public displays of affection, even from Annette.

  He was shocked when she looked up at him now with eyes that brimmed with greeting, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. Perhaps Jacques was right—the widow was anxious for a new husband. But even that wouldn’t account for such a dramatic change in behavior.

  “Don’t look bewildered,” she teased, stepping back and straightening her shoulders. “I wanted to get away from Paris for a week. I asked Annette if I could come along. Do you mind?”

  Sebastien took her elbow. He didn’t mind if she had ulterior motives. Everyone had ulterior motives. Even Amy, he thought with a swift stab of anger. Here was a beginning, a direction, a way to fill part of the void. He had not thought about Marie in years, but suddenly he wanted her to erase his sentimental disappointments. “I don’t mind at all,” he told her. “You have perfect timing.”

  Their father had been diagnosed with skin cancer. Sebastien stood stiffly in front of the window of his sister’s hotel room. He found himself studying a palm-lined plaza many stories below while another part of his mind dealt with an excruciating mixture of emotions. Behind him on a damask-covered couch, Annette huddled in dignified misery. Jacques lounged on the floor, hands latched behind his head, bare feet crossed casually, his face a mask.

  “It’s not fair,” Jacques murmured. “The old bastard should die fighting something he can see.”

  “He isn’t going to die!” Annette exclaimed. “The doctors think they removed all of the melanoma. They took the birthmark off his neck and sent him home. His chances of surviving are very good!”

  “The old man should die in a way befitting a grand old veteran of the war,” Jacques insisted. “He should die at the office doing what he does best: ordering his assistants around like soldiers and kicking German bankers in the ass.”

  “Not the Germans,” Annette corrected. “We’re counting on them to invest in that factory we just bought in Marseilles.”

  “Pardon me. I don’t have your aptitude for putting business ahead of feelings.”

  “You don’t have any aptitude for anything that involves using parts of your body above your waist,” she teased. “But believe me, little brother, you’ll pay attention when I turn that factory into a successful venture.”

  “May I remind you that it will belong to Sebastien if the old man dies? You’re only the old man’s daughter, remember? And I’m only the old man’s extra son, the one who doesn’t matter.”

  Sebastien had heard this kind of talk too many times to feel more than dull disgust. “I will give it all to you. I’ve never wanted it.”

  “Father doesn’t care what you want,” Jacques retorted. “Now he’s going to die and leave everything to you, just to spite your uncaring attitude.”

  “So how do you two expect me to react to his illness? Do you expect me to run home and play the dutiful son? I doubt that he is in danger of dying. He will use any ruse to get me home.”

  “Father isn’t calculating,” Annette insisted. “I know he can be distant and stern, but I respect him, and you should too—”

  “You don’t know him the way I do. Either of you. You’re both too young.”

  “For God’s sake, Sebastien, what did he do then that he doesn’t do now?”

  “I shouldn’t really need to explain why I have no affection for a man who treats his children like chattel to be spied upon or ignored.”

  Sebastien walked to a bar and poured himself a stiff drink of brandy, slamming the bottle down when he finished. He had often debated whether to tell Annette and Jacques the truth behind the deaths of their mother and siblings. But he couldn’t do it. They didn’t remember anything about her, but they cherished the idea of her. They even thought that Father had loved her. Sebastien would never take that away from them, or her. They would never know that they had only been the result of their father’s mistake.

  “What does he want from me now?” Sebastien asked. “Why does he want to see me?”

  “To talk to you about taking over the businesses,” Annette said wearily. “He doesn’t give up.”

  Jacques continued to stare at the ceiling, his face impassive, but his voice tinged with sadness. “His own mortality frightens him, I suspect. And it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that he loves you, you know. You’ve always been his favorite.”

  “No. I’ve been his eldest surviving son, whch made me the favorite by default. Antoine was his favorite. That is the sort of thing I remember, and you don’t.”

  “You’re jealous of a brother who died almost twenty years ago?” Annette asked.

  “No. Never. You cannot understand why not, because you never knew Antoine. Or Bridgette. You never knew how different the family was before they died—before our mother died.”

  “You’re saying that Papa changed after their deaths? Of course he did; he was nearly destroyed with grief! I love him for the way he cared about them!” Annette jumped to her feet. “I knew you’d be sullen about this. But now I see why! You are jealous! All these years you haven’t had the honesty to admit it! You’re jealous of our dead brother and sister, and you hate Papa for the way he withdrew from the family after they and Maman died! You’re a bitter, petty person, Sebastien, and now you won’t even admit that you’ve been too harsh on Papa! You won’t go to see him when he needs you!”

  Sebastien looked grimly at his sister. “I’m glad that you love him. He doesn’t deserve it, but it makes you happy. Just don’t ask me to love him.”

  “You cold bastard! I can’t believe you’d continue this feud now! Don’t do this, Sebastien! Don’t do this to the family!”

  Jacques sat up, scowling. “She’s right. If you try to mend things with him, maybe it will be better for all of us.”

  “No. It won’t. This is wishful thinking.”

  “You absolutely refuse to go see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll be finished here in a few months. What then?”

  “I’m going home. I’ve already had invitations from several surgeons who want me to join their practices.”

  “But surely you’ll go see the old man when you get home?”

  “No.”

  “Not even if the cancer returns?”

  “Not even then.”

  “You’re awful,” Annette said, her voice low and vibrating. “You want Papa to suffer for his faults, but you refuse to admit that you have any faults yourself. I’m tired of your arrogance. It’s not fair! Papa wants you to take over the businesses and all you do is throw your hatred in his face! While I love him, and he doesn’t care! Get out! Get out of my sight!”

  “I will call you this evening,” Sebastien told her calmly, though he was upset at the way this visit had degenerated into a fight. “Perhaps tomorrow we can—”

  “I’m going home. On the first flight I can get.”

  He went to her and grasped he
r shoulders. “Annette, I won’t pretend to love our father, not even to make you happy. But I don’t want you to accuse me of motives—”

  “I despise your pride! I despise you!” She flung herself away from him, dark hair flying around her face.

  “Annette, try to accept the way I feel—”

  “Heartless bastard!”

  “You’d better leave,” Jacques said, rising and coming to her. “I can’t say that I don’t agree with her, but I’ll try to calm her down.”

  Annette burst into tears and covered her face. “Father could be dying of cancer! But Sebastien doesn’t care!”

  Sebastien hesitated for a moment, thinking about the past, analyzing the unforgiving bitterness of a small boy who had cradled his mother’s bloody head and watched her die begging his father to forgive her for deliberately killing herself and their children. Then he remembered his father’s mistress, la comtesse, who had come to the funerals. She had stayed at their home in Paris the night afterward, and he felt certain she had not slept alone.

  Sebastien touched Annette’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “But you’re right about the way I feel toward our father. I don’t care if he dies. And I’m certainly not going to make it more pleasant for him by pretending to care.”

  He left the room to the sound of Annette’s sobs and Jacques’s muttered obscenities.

  Marie was formal and solemn, not prim in the way the nuns had intended to make her at school, but of a serious nature that rebuked the world for being frivolous. Her exquisite heart-shaped face and willowy figure rescued her from a look of severe reserve, and she was beautiful despite the tailored black dresses that she had favored all her adult life.

  Sebastien had last seen her three years earlier at her wedding to an English financier. Her husband’s death in a boating accident the past fall had added an appealing aura of sorrow to her dignity.

  When he took her out to dinner she talked of neutral subjects, and in his troubled mood he was glad simply to sit and listen. There was nothing passive about her reserve, nothing hesitant. She spoke slowly and without flirtation; she was almost placid, except for her habit of stroking a graceful hand along the long strand of pearls she always wore.