by Roman Payne
It seemed to take forever for the smoke to clear. When finally I could see across to the women’s quarters, I saw a ghost at the window. She was a pale ghost, white like a gypsy in the moonlight; though of course it was not a ghost but the body of Saskia, alive and unharmed. She was standing in her white nightgown, untorn and untarnished… She stood at her window across the courtyard looking into my eyes, nodding her head up and down… then again, up and down, then again, up and down. Then, keeping her head bowed, she raised her eyes to me, raised her mouth and her spirit, all to show me eternal pleasure and thanks for what I’d saved her from. The lantern that Pulpawrecho had brought to her room was still burning. Light flooded Saskia’s beautiful face as she smiled and closed her eyes. Then she opened her eyes again, smiled at me more warmly than ever, and with her summoning hand, she beckoned me to come to her room. She appeared as ethereal as a cloud.
“Well done, son of Solarus… I think you just killed my servant.”
I turned away from the window and pulled the curtain closed. It didn’t instantly occur to me that I might have just killed a man, or that somebody might come arrest me. As far as I was concerned, all I’d done was to squash an insect who threatened to blight a beautiful flower when she was just beginning to bloom. I thought then of the smile Saskia had given me after it was over: that eternal pleasure, she gave thanks for what I’d saved her from.
I looked then at Dragomir with a face of profound confusion. I still held the gun close to me, not sure if I would need to use again. It confused and surprised me that Dragomir had helped me to kill his faithful Pulpawrecho. But what was to stop him from surprising me by wanting me killed as well? I told Dragomir that I didn’t understand… “Why did you do that, Dragomir? Wasn’t he ‘the perfect servant!?’”
“He was the perfect servant,” Dragomir said, “Still, I couldn’t risk losing you and your girl. You two interest me infinitely more than Pulpawrecho ever could—even though, he was the perfect servant… Beyond that, he was my friend. But business is business, you two are crucial, whereas Pulpawrecho was disposable.’’
“But why is it so?!”
“You’ll soon see, Saul… You’ll soon see everything. But for now, let’s be quick! We need to cross the courtyard. We should go upstairs to get your girlfriend, and to make sure that my servant is defunct.”
“I can do it all alone.”
“Don’t be foolish. Take me with you. It will get messy if the police come, I can help with that… poor Pulpawrecho.”
“You can’t help if the police come,” I told Dragomir, “Everything will be clear if the police come. I am the one who has fresh powder burns on his hand and wrist. That’s proof that I am the one who shot the gun tonight. Still, that doesn’t mean I am going to hand over the gun to you. I don’t trust you, Dragomir. I am going to keep the gun as we go our separate ways.”
“That is very well!” he laughed, “Whoever told you that you should trust me?! I am Dragomir!… a dishonest charlatan, only out for his own gain! Yes, you would be a fool to trust me, son of Solarus. And if you were a fool, I would be especially dishonest with you. I don’t have the slightest respect for fools.”
I put the gun in my pocket and told Dragomir to go down the stairs in front of me. Soon we passed the attendant where he was tied-up in his box. We then ran through the women’s gate to find Saskia.
She was standing by her window in the same place that I’d seen her from my own window. But now she was no longer nodding ‘yes’ with that ethereal smile playing on her lips. Now she was standing at the window spouting waterfalls of tears. She was breathing too fast for her heart, almost hyperventilating; still in shock. Away from her view, on the floor between the bed and the door, lay the corpse of Pulpawrecho. I looked back toward Saskia and pronounced her name and she turned around quickly and threw her arms around me. She turned her face to the side and I waited for her breathing to slow down. After a few minutes of her body pressed against mine, she was as calm as a lamb. It was then that Dragomir entered the room. She looked at him strangely at first. Then her eyes glazed over. She was held in a trance.
“Come now, Clara, you look as though you don’t recognize me.”
Saskia, hearing Dragomir address her like this, turned to me… “What is he talking about?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“You act like you don’t remember when we met, Clara. It was four years ago in Málaga. You were only thirteen then. Yes, you’ve changed a lot in these four years. But your basic features are true as ever. Do you remember, Clara? You came to me one night in Málaga to have your fortune read. You were lost in life and needed help. So I gave you a sort of roadmap to follow.”
“Whatever you say, Monsieur. Still, my name is not Clara. And I’ve never been to Málaga!”
“Oh, come now, gypsy girl!… I know you are the same girl who came to me in Spain four years ago. You needed direction in your life. So I told you what I knew about you and your future… which was, by the way: everything!—so you go by the name of Saskia now? That matters little to me. Today your name means the same thing it meant back on that fateful night in Málaga: ‘clear, bright, and celebrated!’”
“Hmm,” Saskia frowned her brow… “I’m sorry to have to end things like this, Monsieur… you are charming and very agreeable… but I really am not your girl! My name is Saskia. It means ‘from the Saxon people.’ It doesn’t mean ‘bright, celebrated, famous, or any of that... So Please, Monsieur, Tell me why you are here… Did you shoot this man?”
“It was your lover who shot him, and at quite a distance too! He’s remarkable with a gun. The man who lies dead on your floor is my servant. He wanted to rape you tonight. I knew this beforehand, thus I came to furnish Saul with a pistol so he could kill my servant. That, good lady, was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, please never forget that, Clara—or ‘Saskia.’ I loved my servant. Dearly, I did. Never will another man walk this earth who will be as loyal to me as my dear Pulpawrecho who lies here only to rot and nourish worms…
“Why did I do it?, you might ask. The answer: Pulpawrecho has already experienced enough of the world. He lived what you’d call a life. His death today means very little in the grand scheme of things. Clara, I know that you are young and pure. Why should I let my servant who destroys all he touches take it upon himself to destroy you too? What I mean to say is, you have never been in love with a man before; although I feel this is a sensation that is beginning to form in you towards Saul. So why should I let my perfect servant take it upon himself to spoil and tarnish the sweet innocence that belongs to you now and only at this one time in your life?—when it’s gone, it’s gone forever. But now, don’t take me for a poet! I had other reasons why I wanted Pulpawrecho dead and out of the way. His murder was his destiny. I, myself, read it in his hand the last time he consulted me as a clairvoyant. It was written. Wrechito is gone, and you are saved …but don’t waste time, Saul and Saskia… Make haste! I urge you to both to leave the quarter right away, never to return. The police will be looking for you in this neighborhood tonight, you hear?”
“We don’t have any money,” Saskia said, “but we need to move, Saul! Here we are hanging around in a hostelry with a dead body that you shot, in my room. We can’t discuss our plans with this complete stranger.”
“He’s not a stranger to me,” I told Saskia, “I met Dragomir the clairvoyant at his home in Málaga. And it seems we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”
“What?!” Saskia cried, “You met him before? …in Málaga?! And the dead man who wanted to rape me, you met him too?!”
“Yes, him too. In Málaga as well. I met them both the same night. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not right now; we need to find a place of exile right away!.”
“Saul,” said Dragomir with a giant grin on his face, “When you tell your Saskia about the night you met me and Pulpawrecho, don’t forget to tell her about the person who brought Pulpy to me… that certain girl w
hose name means ‘clear, bright, and celebrated.’”
“My name is not ‘Clara!’” Saskia screamed.
“Oh, so you admit that it was you who brought Pulpawrecho to me.”
“I never even met that dead man in my life!”
This was going on too long. “Let’s go,” I said, “Dragomir, you wanted to check the body. Do it quick or we’ll leave without you.”
Dragomir went over to look at his dead friend and servant. “You know,” he said, “Pulpawrecho looks better now than he did when he was alive.
I quickly inspected the body. I saw that three of my four shots hit him. Two bullets were in his shoulder, and one was in the side of his head. Saskia, who had a strong distaste for death, waited at the door.
Outside on the street, we started walking towards the Seine. We went undisturbed, we saw no sign of anyone having sent for the police. It seemed just as well in that quarter. The neighbors probably don’t want to mix themselves up in anything when a few gunshots are heard at the hour before dawn.
Now it was dawn. Rosy and yellow patches of sky alighted over the river Seine, the air was frosty and clean. Saskia carried her suitcase and guitar case. I had my two valises. Dragomir carried nothing. At the river, we saw the tops of the trees crowned with the light of dawn on the oriental side of the Île Saint-Louis. Dragomir turned to us…
“Saul, do you remember when you saw me on the Île Saint-Louis a few months ago? I was speaking through the window to that old broom-woman. You do? Good. Well, the woman in the yard had good reason when she warned you that you two are being followed. The truth is you are being followed, both of you. That is why I want to urge you to leave the country right away.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two rolls of coins—each containing ten gold louis.
“Take these twenty louis, Saul, they will be of use to you.”
“I don’t take gifts, especially not from you. I saw what your last so-called ‘gift’ brought me—it was a poison that almost killed me.”
“That is exactly why I want to help you get to Italy. I didn’t mean for you to be poisoned. I wanted revenge on Señorita Baena… only on her.”
“Saul,” said Saskia, “Take the money, we need it.” “I don’t want anymore gifts from this man.”
“It’s not a gift,” said Dragomir, “It’s a loan.”
“I’m not sure if I can pay it back.”
“Oh, you will pay it back,” Dragomir smiled his sly smile, “You will pay it back, and you won’t even have to work for it. If I’m lending you twenty louis now, it’s only because I know that you’re going to pay me back a thousand-fold.”
I didn’t understand that morning what Dragomir meant when he said I would pay him back a thousand-fold. If I had understood… had I known the future, I would have taken every precaution to see that Dragomir would never come into my life again. As you will see, I didn’t take those precautions…
“Before we part ways,” said Dragomir to both Saskia and me, “let me be one last time who I truly am: a clairvoyant.” So saying, he asked us there on the bridge over the Seine, to hold our hands out. We did and he put his hands on our palms, inhaled and said: “I see you both in Italy. In Tuscany you two will have the best luck, your lives will be the richest there…
“But in Tuscany you will be tempted to remain, either to live, or to stay long. But do not fully unpack your luggage. Always be ready to go again on the road. You shall not remain in Tuscany very long, for your destinies await you elsewhere.”
After his prediction, I said to Saskia in a loud voice so that our clairvoyant would hear my words clearly: “Dragomir here tells us our future… though he confessed to me in Málaga that he wasn’t a real clairvoyant, and that he didn’t know anyone’s future. He confessed he used that form of witchcraft known as ‘manipulation and guessing.’”
“I told you that in Málaga, Saul, because you made it clear that you don’t believe in clairvoyants. How else could I have entered your spirit other than by showing faith then in your beliefs? The fact that I told you that all clairvoyants are rascals, and that I myself admit to being a rascal, or at least posing as one, for pretending that I am a clairvoyant, this led you to believe that I wasn’t a rascal because I made it clear who I was. Even if you did change your mind about it after the opium incident—you decided I was a rascal after all…”
“No, after the watch incident,” I told him, “That’s when I knew you were a rascal.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten. I’d meant to give it to you hours ago… Here is your gold watch back.” So saying, he handed me my dear, beautiful Breguet watch, the possession that meant everything to me! It belonged to my father, it had been in my mother’s possession, and she gave it to me when I came of age. I found it missing, as you remember, the morning after the night when I met first Pulpawrecho, then Dragomir. Dragomir had told me that Pulpawrecho stole it.
“That is why I wanted to go back to visit the body of Pulpawrecho,” Dragomir said to Saskia and me, “It was not to make sure that Pulpy was dead, I was sure of that; but I knew he had your watch on him. You deserved to have it back…”
“Thank you, Dragomir,” I said, admiring my watch, “You don’t make it easy for me to think you’re a rascal. Although you still are a rascal!”
“Good luck to you and Clara in Tuscany, may you find old friends, family, and new lives.”
“Mr. Dragomir,” Saskia broke in, “You obviously don’t know who I am. And I don’t know who you are either. But since you are the one who gave Saul the gun to use on that man who broke into my room last night, well then I am in your debt. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will always be in your debt. Goodbye.”
With that, Dragomir silently lifted his hat, bowed to us both, and turned on his heels. We watched him disappear across the bridge to the Right Bank from where we had come. Saskia and I continued on to Left Bank, and walked eastward down the quai—that quai that gave us so many souvenirs of a carefree time forever past. Occasionally, we would look over our shoulders to make sure we weren’t being followed—either by criminals or by the law.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The sun was now overhead. The day was crisp and not too cold. Saskia and I walked along the quai until we were far enough away from that infamous hostelry on the rue Saint-Denis, far enough away from the Île Saint-Louis, as from the Comédie-Française.
During the walk, Saskia asked me a million questions. She wasn’t happy to let that encounter with Dragomir fade into the past…
“What was his name?… Dragomir?! Had you mentioned to him that we were planning to go to Italy? How did he pick Italy?” “No, I mentioned nothing of the sort.”
“Strange that he should guess that. And to guess that we would have the best luck if we went specifically to Tuscany… ‘There we will find,’ he says, ‘old friends and family.’ Strange seeing how I’m looking for an old friend and you are looking for your family. Florence is in Tuscany, and Florence is where you believe your mother is living… strange that he should guess all of that!”
“He didn’t guess it,” I told her, “But he also didn’t find out by magic, the way clairvoyants are supposed to find things out… he learned of it somewhere, somehow… but I’m not really sure where or how.”
“Hmm,” Saskia said, more interested in fiddling with my clothes than with talking. “That’s a really beautiful watch. How did you come to lose in to Mr. Dragomir in the first place?”
I thereupon told Saskia the story of how and why I ended up at Dragomir’s house in Málaga. I didn’t, however, tell her the part about how Pulpawrecho came to meet his master—about him stalking a girl—as that seemed irrelevant. But I did tell her that Dragomir spoke that night about a certain ‘Clara’ girl who came to consult him years before. I found it amusing that Dragomir really believed Saskia was the girl who led Pulpawrecho to him, that she was the girl whose name meant clear, bright, and celebrated, and whose fortune he read to her so as ‘to play with her
a little,’ so as to give her some ‘direction in life. Then, four years later, he runs into a young woman who reminds him of this girl from his past, and whose age the girl would have now, and he figures it is she. I remembered how Pulpawrecho’s story struck a chord with me with that one detail: how the baffled little girl stumbled upon the plaque that read: ‘Dragomir – Clairvoyant,’ and, as if it were fate bringing her there, she kissed her hands. I liked that part about the girl kissing her hands, and wished then that Saskia’s name was Clara. In telling Saskia about Málaga on that famous walk away from the hostelry in Paris, she asked me…
“Remember when we first met—or rather, when I first told you my name is Saskia, and you asked me over and over again if it meant ‘clear, bright, and celebrated?’”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask me that because of this girl? I mean, did you ask me this because Dragomir spoke to you of this Clara girl in Málaga, and you thought I might be her?”
“Yes.”
“But why did you come to speak to Dragomir of this other girl? …This ‘Clara’ person? And why do we speak of her? What does she matter to us?”
I didn’t answer her question, but simply walked along.
Our road took us to Le Marais, a neighborhood of dark intersecting roads, with obscure alleys behind the markets of immigrant merchants, and the busy workshops of artisans. It was a quarter we had never been in, and it seemed like a perfect place to hide two fugitives. We hoped, in staying there, that we would attract no more attention than the mice in the street, we hoped our past would not catch up with us.
There in the Marais, we rented a small apartment in an old medieval townhouse on the rue de Vieille du Temple. Dragomir’s twenty-louis was plenty to live comfortably for a little while. And soon after, Juhani came through with an advance of threehundred louis. As soon as this arrived, we bought tickets to Italy, with no date assigned to them, so that we could leave if we needed to collect on Saskia’s inheritance.