“Good heaven, Gaius! Please desist!” cried Claudius, dropping his spinning head to his lap as his stomach churned with too much emotion and wine. “Bring me a feather. I need to be sick.”
“Can’t you concentrate for one tiny moment on anything?” said his nephew, getting up and bringing him a bowl and an ostrich plume from a nearby stand.
Claudius lifted his head and waved the plume through the air to loosen its tendrils. Then he opened his mouth and tickled the back of his throat until he retched and the wine from his stomach splashed out into the bowl.
“That’s better. Now I’m clearheaded,” he told Caligula. “But in the name of Bacchus, tell me what all this means.”
“It means,” said Caligula, “that while Herod Agrippa goes to Judea to find out where the other objects may be, you and I are going to Britannia to find Joseph of Arimathea—and get that spear!”
THE RETURN
Fu/Return: The Turning Point
Hexagram 24
The time of darkness is past. The winter solstice brings the victory of light. After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force.…
The idea of return is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic and the course completes itself.… Everything comes of itself at the appointed time.
—Richard Wilhelm, The I Ching
The more one knows, the more one comprehends, the more one realizes that everything turns in a circle.
—Johann Wolfgang Goethe
I was still jangled, despite steeping myself in the steaming hot pool for more than an hour. What with Uncle Laf’s informative report on the Nazi collaborationist storm troopers and Boer rapists ornamenting my genealogical tree—not to mention my adorable grey-haired Auntie Zoe in Paris, who’d danced her way right into Adolf Hitler’s heart—my family history was starting to look more and more like the stuff of my chosen career: a mess that was plowed under and kept buried for half a century, and just starting to ooze out of containment.
When Laf went off for his afternoon siesta, I went back to my room to be alone and do some thinking. I sure had plenty to think about.
I knew my cousin and blood brother had faked his own assassination and set me up as the public patsy, but it now seemed he’d done it using the very manuscript that was so zealously guarded by his own father, Earnest, and my grandma Pandora too—a manuscript my father and stepmother, aided and abetted by the world press, were conniving to snatch and publish for profit. And though I still wasn’t clear what this mysterious manuscript was all about, it did seem beyond the shadow of a doubt that the document I’d interspersed throughout the DOD Standard last night must have been sent by Sam.
I’d thrown away the brown paper wrapping, so I couldn’t examine the postmark. But the moment Laf mentioned it, a vivid image flashed before my eyes: that yellow postal slip Jason had retrieved from the snow, with a sender’s zip code that began with 941, meaning it was mailed from San Francisco. So Wolfgang Hauser’s claim that he’d mailed it to me from Idaho was a myth, like maybe everything else he’d told me.
I kicked myself for falling for just another gorgeous face, and I vowed that even with the aid of an avalanche he’d never catch me off balance again. It might already be too late to undo the damage, now that I knew the document was sent by Sam. Wolfgang had been with it all night, and since I was asleep I had no way of knowing if he’d examined it, or even microfilmed it or made some other kind of copy. So basically I’d come full circle to where I had been a week ago—between Scylla and Charybdis, a rock and a hard place.
As I unlocked the door to my hotel room, I realized I’d forgotten completely about Jason. He was sitting in the middle of the king-sized bed looking angry as hell.
“Yow!” he said in a tone that packed a wallop of feline fury.
Of course I knew exactly why he was furious. Though he had plenty of food, I’d gone swimming without him! The telltale scent of chlorine gave me away.
“Okay, Jason, what about a nice bath instead?” I suggested.
Instead of dashing into the bathroom to turn on the tap, as he usually did when he heard “bath,” he trotted past me and plucked from the floor a slip of pink paper I had nearly stepped on—he was really good now at the paper-fetching trick—and, planting his paws on my knee, he presented it to me: a phone message that had been shoved under the door. When I read it, my heart sank.
To: Ariel Behn
From: Mr. Solomon
Sorry, can’t make lunch at noon as planned. To book again, please phone (214) 178–0217.
Terrific. Sam was suddenly changing our noon agenda. And this bogus phone number—as I assumed it was—would fill me in on how.
This was Sam’s third mention of King Solomon, whose biblical verses I still hadn’t had time to scan closely for hidden meaning. But this note seemed a hasty last-minute change rather than a major decoding job. And Sam could safely assume that the name—after my little deciphering job of last night—meant something to me that no one else would grasp at first glance: that is, that the “phone number” for Mr. Solomon pointed to the Song of Songs.
With a sigh I opened my bag, hauled out the Bible I’d brought along, and took it into the bathroom, where I plugged up the tub and started the water running for Jason. As I waited for the tub to fill, I looked at the note again and flipped open the book. The Song of Solomon has only eight chapters, so “area code” 214 referred to Chapter 2, Verse 14:
O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places
of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice,
for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.
Sam would never get to hear my sweet voice or see my comely countenance unless he got a mite more specific in his instructions. He did—in Chapter 1, Verses 7–8. There the young woman I recalled, the one with the attractive belly button, asks her lover where he’ll be lunching at noon the next day, and he explains how to find him:
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest,
where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I
be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?
If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way
forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the
shepherds’ tents.
Now, there was no place up on the mountain that had a name relating to shepherds, goats, or other flocks. But there was a pastureland down the road from here called the Sheep Meadow where, in summer, music and art tents were set up. In winter, it was a popular area for Nordic skiing: a flat open field with easy access from the road. So this must be the new locus of my rendezvous with Sam.
But it seemed more than strange that Sam would opt to change his former complex, trail-covering scenario to a high-visibility spot along the main road. It seemed odd, that is, until I read Chapter 2, Verse 17, saying when we were going to meet.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved,
and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains.…
Daybreak? Like, before dawn? I could certainly see why Sam might consider a meeting at high noon too conspicuous. And ski lifts up to the mountain, to reach the spot of our original assignation, wouldn’t even open until nine. But how could I inconspicuously drive three miles to the Sheep Meadow before sunrise, haul my cross-country skis from the car, and go for a spin all by myself in the predawn darkness? I thought Sam had gone completely out of his mind.
Luckily for me, everyone in my ménage wanted to make it an early night too. Apparently Olivier, once he’d seen how well Bambi could ski, had outdone himself trying to impress her, dragging her onto black-diamond slopes all over the mountain. He returned exhausted, unaccustomed himself to such intensive Sturm und Drang.
Since Bambi had been away skiing all day, the only time
she and Laf had for the daily practice that musicians compulsively need was a two-hour break before dinner. The management loaned us the Sun Room and its piano. I muddled through what little Schubert and Mozart accompaniment I could still play, with Olivier staring at Bambi, and Volga Dragonoff turning pages. Though Laf often winced at my rusty technique, he played as beautifully as ever—while Bambi astounded us with the kind of virtuosity one rarely hears off a concert stage. I gave her points for more than just a good grip with her thighs. It made me wonder if my first impression had been correct.
When we all left the room to head off for dinner, the balcony outside was filled with eavesdropping hotel guests who applauded wildly, flooded Laf with a lengthy flurry of I-saw-you-when’s, and asked for his autograph on hastily proffered restaurant menus, hotel envelopes, and even lift tickets.
“Gavroche,” said Laf when at last the hurrahs died away and the guests had drifted off, “I am thinking I shall perhaps be dining with myself in my suite tonight, and leaving you young people to yourselves. I am not as young as I once was, and my body did not wholly agree with this trip from Vienna. Let us meet at the breakfast. I can then tell some more of the story.”
“Okay, Uncle Laf,” I said, wondering just how much more of “the story” I could take. “But not too early—let’s make it for brunch again. There’s something I need to work on in the morning.” Like a five A.M. whisk through a sheep pasture, I thought.
Bambi declined to join Olivier and me, and departed with Laf and Volga for their suites. As I was about to turn in to the dining room, Olivier surprised me by bowing out of dinner too.
“I admit it,” he told me. “My body didn’t ‘wholly agree’ with my trip up the mountain today. I ache everywhere. I thought I might hit the hot pool before it closes, then just order some soup in my room and crash for the night.”
Checking my watch, I saw it was already almost ten, so I decided to do likewise.
By eleven, Jason and I had shared some seafood pasta and garlic bread, listened to the weather report that said sunrise tomorrow would be at six-thirty, and were tucked into bed where I was drowsily reading, sipping the last of my room-service wine and about to turn out the light.
Suddenly Jason’s head popped up from where he’d been curled on the pillow. Ears erect, he stared at the door to the corridor as if waiting for someone to enter. He looked at me for a moment, but I’d heard nothing outside. Without a sound, he crept across the bed, dropped to the floor, padded to the door, and turned back to look over his shoulder at me again. There was definitely someone out there.
I took a deep breath. Then I threw back the covers and stood up, grabbed the robe that was lying on a nearby chair, pulled it on, and crossed to the door myself. Jason, standing there on the alert, was never mistaken about a visitor who was about to call. On the other hand, if someone was about to call—why didn’t he?
I put my eye to the peephole and saw a familiar if unexpected face. I grabbed the knob and yanked open the door.
There, in the soft yellow light of the corridor, stood beautiful blond Bambi, her pale eyes wide and guileless, her shimmering golden hair framing her face. She was dressed for avant le boudoir, in a long black velvet robe cut along the stark lines of a man’s smoking jacket, displaying cascades of antique lace and ribbons at throat and wrist. But I noticed she had one hand held behind her back.
Suddenly, in a panic, an insane but very real-seeming notion flashed into my head: She was hiding a gun! I was poised to leap back and slam the door in her face. At that instant she brought forth the other hand. In it she held a bottle of Rémy Martin and two small brandy snifters.
She smiled. “Will you join me in a cognac?” she said. “It’s a kind of peace offering, though not only for myself.”
“I have to get up quite early—” I began.
“So do I,” Bambi said quickly. “But what I have to tell you, I should prefer not to say while standing out here in the corridor. May I come in?”
I stepped back reluctantly and let her pass.
Despite this woman’s major beauty and her demonstrated artistry, there was still something bothering me—and not only her dippy demeanor. In fact, given those other qualities, it had occurred to me that her vagueness might well camouflage vulnerability, much as with Jersey and her drinking.
I went over to the table where Bambi was pouring, but stayed on my feet. I lifted my snifter, and she and I clinked glasses and sipped.
“What couldn’t you tell me, outside in the corridor?” I asked.
“Please sit down,” Bambi said in a low voice.
Her tone was so soothing, it wasn’t until I was halfway to the chair that I realized the effect had actually been that of a rein being expertly snapped in by an extremely practiced hand. I decided to listen up to Ms. Bambi a bit more attentively.
“I don’t want you to dislike me,” Bambi assured me. “I hope we’ll be friends.”
In the dim light of my room, those clear eyes swimming like Goldwasser with little gold flecks were half shadowed by her lashes. I couldn’t for the life of me make out what she was actually thinking, but I suddenly felt it was very, very important that I find out—and that honesty was the best policy to adopt.
“It isn’t that I dislike you, but I don’t really understand someone like you,” I admitted, “and that makes me uncomfortable around you. You appear one way, but speak in another, and behave in a third. I feel you’re not at all what you seem.”
“Perhaps you aren’t either,” said Bambi, reaching down to touch Jason on the head with those long, slender fingers. He didn’t purr, but he didn’t dart away either.
“We weren’t discussing me,” I said. “But as I’m sure you gathered from our conversation this morning, I grew up in a family that’s never been very close. If I seem mysterious when I’m around them, maybe I just want to distance myself from their controversies. That’s why I’ve chosen to go my own way—to take a different path from the others.”
“Do you believe so?” she asked cryptically. Then she added, “But you see, we actually were discussing you. And your opinion of me is important to me. When I said I didn’t want you to dislike me, I did not mean I hoped we would be like real sisters, as your uncle expressed. I only wish to explain that under the present circumstance, I feel it would be—how shall I say?—quite difficult if we could not, at the least, be friends.”
“Look here,” I told her, having another swallow of brandy: it was excellent. “There’s really no cause for the two of us to worry about whether we’re going to be pals or not. After all, this is the first time in many years I’ve been around Uncle Laf, so it’s unlikely that after this weekend you and I will even see each other again.”
“In that, you are mistaken,” she said with a smile. “But before I explain, I should like you to say what it is about me that has made you feel ‘uncomfortable.’ If you wouldn’t mind to do so.”
I looked into those clear, open eyes again, but they still seemed veiled to me. This chick was some item, but I decided that if that was what she wanted, she was going to get precisely what she asked for—even if it was a slap in the face.
“Okay, maybe this will seem too personal,” I told her, “but you’re the one who arrived in the middle of the night with the brandy, asking to chat. My uncle Laf’s life is hardly a sealed book, so you must be aware he’s been with plenty of women, each one more beautiful than the last, and many of them, like my grandmother Pandora, possessing great talent as well. But you’re different from the others: I believe you’re truly gifted. Really, your playing tonight was extraordinary, world class—as I think, given my upbringing, I am in a position to judge. It’s not clear to me why someone with such skill would be willing to be just an arm decoration, a trinket, even of someone as talented and famous and charming as my uncle Laf. My grandmother wouldn’t have done it, and I frankly can’t imagine why you have. I guess that’s what makes me uncomfortable about you: I feel there’s another scenario behind
the story that hasn’t been revealed.”
“I see. Well, perhaps that’s true,” said Bambi, looking down at her hands. When she looked up at me, she wasn’t smiling. “Your uncle Lafcadio is very important to me, Fräulein Behn: he and I understand one another completely,” she told me. “But that is another situation altogether. That is not why I have come here alone tonight to ask for your friendship.”
I waited. Those gold-flecked eyes were trained on me. The news, when it came, dropped me like a thunderbolt.
“Fräulein Behn,” Bambi said, “I’m afraid for my brother’s interest in you. If you don’t do something soon, I fear this involvement of his will endanger us all.”
I sat there completely numb. This was the very last thing I could have imagined—but I suddenly grasped with a horrible certainty why everything about Bambi had seemed so familiar to me.
“Your brother?” I said weakly, though it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who that might be.
“Permit me to introduce myself properly, Fräulein Behn,” she said. “My name is Bettina Braunhilde von Hauser—and Wolfgang is my only brother.”
Heilige Scheiss, I couldn’t help but think when confronted with this turn of events. So Bambi was just Uncle Laf’s nickname for Bettina, as Gavroche was for me. In fact, I had heard of a Bettina von Hauser, a young cellist who was starting to make a stir on the world concert circuit, though it would never have occurred to me that Bambi was Bettina, or to link either of them with my own rather dangerous passion, Wolfgang Hauser.
This far-from-welcome surprise made me suspect everybody even more than before—especially my uncle Laf, whose behavior in hindsight seemed suspicious. If Laf was so cozy with Bambi he could say anything in front of her, as he told me, then why did he wait until she was absent to discuss Hitler and the runes in the hot pool? When I mentioned Wolfgang, why did Laf actually warn me against him, while never even hinting that those two were related? And if Laf thought Aunt Zoe the Schutzstaffel-supporter was so chummy with Bambi’s brother, why would he bring Bambi herself halfway around the globe to visit me?
The Magic Circle Page 24