Дональд Джеймс - The House of Eros

She waited for almost a minute and knocked again. The hope rose in her that he was not there. Then, from beside her, Bernadette’s thin arm came past her and seized the ring handle of the ornate door. ‘He’s there,’ she said. ‘He’s waiting.’ Bernadette turned the handle. As the door swung open she was muttering, part to herself, part to Nan Luc. ‘The passport. The Red Cross passport…’

Nan Luc stepped into the hall. Behind her Bernadette closed the front door. Across the wide hall she could see through the glass doors into the salon. Monsieur Quatch sat at his desk, a glass of red liquid raised to his lips.

‘We are a family.’ Bernadette fussed around her granddaughter, brushing the hair from her face. ‘A family has duties to each other

Nan Luc pushed her hand away. ‘I have decided,’ she said, ‘I’ll get you the passport when you give me the name of my father.’

Bernadette’s face stiffened. ‘You must understand,’ she hissed. ‘There is to be a trial. Almost any information might be used against Quatch.’

‘Is the identity of my father important in this trial?’ Bernadette hesitated. ‘Is it?’

The older woman nodded vigorously ‘It could be. If Quatch found I had given you your father’s name I would never get my passport.’

‘Look at it another way,’ Nan Luc said coldly, ‘you will never get your passport until you give me the name.’

‘You’re here now. You can’t turn back.’

Nan looked across to where Quatch sat, still forward in his seat, the glass of grenadine to his lips. ‘You can tell Quatch I have no intention of doing what he wants me to do.’ She made to turn away.

‘Stop!’ Bernadette swung her round with surprising strength as Nan Luc reached towards the handle of the glazed door.

‘I will tell you his name,’ she whispered. ‘You must never say I told you. To anyone. Not to Quatch. Not to the People’s Court you work for. Do you agree?’

Nan Luc nodded briefly. ‘His real name. Not a name you make up on the spot.’

Her grandmother looked at her for a moment. ‘Very well. Wait here,’ she said.

She ran from the hallway to the staircase which Nan Luc knew would take her up to her room. Again Nan glanced at Quatch. There was no doubt that he was aware of her standing on the other side of the glass door, but he still gave no sign. Instead, he stared fixedly at the wall beyond his desk.

Bernadette returned scuffling along the corridor. In her hand she carried a folded paper. ‘It’s all I know about him,’ she said. She pulled Nan Luc back, out of the line of sight so that the two women would have been invisible from the salon, and thrust the paper at her.

‘What is it?’ Nan Luc said.

‘Your birth certificate.’ Bernadette’s face was tense with fear. ‘I’m risking my life,’ she hissed.

Nan took the folded yellow paper. Opening it she saw a document of the old Republic of South Vietnam, written in Vietnamese and French. Next to her own name, her mother’s name. Next to her mother’s name, in the column headed Père was written: C. Stevenson, New York City.

Bernadette snatched back the certificate. ‘Now you know,’ she said. ‘His name. There is nothing more to know.’

She pushed Nan forward towards the glass door. ‘The passport,’ she said. ‘Your part of the bargain.’

His head had not turned towards her, so that he sat, shoulders hunched slightly forward in his white suit, as if listening to somebody, invisible to Nan Luc, on the other side of the room.

Nan Luc crossed the hall slowly and paused in the doorway to the salon. There was no one on the other side of the room. No one on the hard yellow striped Empire sofa, no one standing with a hand resting on the base of the great bronze of Diana, the huntress. No one to help her. No one to see what she was about to do.

The heavy curtains had been drawn against the darkness outside and silk shaded lamps lit the room. She remembered when she had first been here how impressed, awed, she had been at the size of the room and the magnificence of its furnishings.

Monsieur Quatch came slowly to his feet. ‘You do me a great honour, ma’moiselle.’ She said nothing. ‘Something to relax you. Cognac?’ She nodded, too abruptly. ‘You must not be alarmed,’ he smiled. His toad eyes raked the room. ‘At least,’ he said. ‘Not very alarmed.’

‘My grandmother, Bernadette, must have her passport,’ Nan Luc said, dry mouthed.

‘Her Red Cross passport.’ He nodded as if considering the matter for the first time.

‘Unless you give it to her…’

He was pouring brandy with one hand. The other he lifted to silence her. ‘No, ma’moiselle, you will not speak to me like that. Your role is to be soft, pliant, submissive. You do not threaten your provincial administrator. You do not threaten Monsieur Quatch.’

‘I was not threatening Monsieur Quatch,’ Nan Luc said. ‘I was simply reminding him of the terms on which I’m here.’

‘There are no terms,’ he said airily as he carried the brandy across to her. ‘There, my dear, sit down. Let me talk to you. Look at you.’

She remained standing. ‘There are terms,’ she said firmly.

He poured brandy for himself. ‘You’re not a virgin, are you? You have known a man?’

‘The passport, monsieur.’

His mouth twisted. ‘Known in the biblical sense. Carnal knowledge.’ He licked his round lips.

She stood up. ‘You think me a fool,’ she said.

He smiled, with something approaching charm. ‘No, Nan Luc,’ he said. ‘You think me a fool. If I were to give you the passport now, you would leave.’ She remained silent. He shrugged. ‘Understand, Nan Luc,’ he said, ‘the passport means nothing to me. It is a device to obtain your favours. Now you force me to speak openly. You rob the moment of any romance it might have. A man and woman, drinking cognac together, a young inexperienced woman and a mature world-travelled man, there should be some warmth between us, some electricity in the air.’ He watched her shiver of revulsion and walked across to refill his glass.

‘Now, since you insist, I will tell you about the passport. It is not in the safe. It is in the keeping of a friend, a mutual friend. Bernadette knows him well, Monsieur Ba Hoa. I will telephone him now, in your presence, to tell him to give it to Bernadette tomorrow in the forenoon. That is the best arrangement I can think of which will also ensure you play your part to the full.’

‘You could also telephone later and tell him not to hand over the passport.’

‘Don’t waste my time, Nan Luc. I have little left. I care nothing for your grandmother’s passport, whether she has it and uses it or not.’ He paused. Then added abruptly, ‘There, as I said, it’s the best I can do.’

With a sick, sinking feeling, Nan Luc said. ‘I’ve no choice but to trust you.’

‘None,’ he smiled.

‘Then I will keep my side of the bargain.’ She saw in front of her the overfed body and the soft, prominent eyes. She forced her thoughts away from him. To an office perhaps among the skyscrapers of New York or to an apartment as large as this. To a man now known to her as Stevenson. ‘It is enough,’ Nan Luc repeated. ‘I will keep my side of the bargain.’

And she touched the child’s bracelet she wore on her wrist. To my daughter , Nan Luc .

Cy Stevenson turned his blue Mercedes into the drive of the Meyerick County Country Club and enjoyed the slow crackle of the gravel under the heavy car. He could see the parking lot to the right of the club building, already occupied by forty or more of the world’s most expensive production automobiles. He could see the striped awning which gave covered access to the side door of the club and he could see the Meyerick County building itself, long, low, white clapboard with a stone tourette rising from the far end, a solid building twice as high as the club house, its limestone tailored, its windows Victorian Gothic.