David Morrell: Burnt Sienna

“The two things I don’t lack are time to paint and inspiration. When an artist finds his Beatrice…” Malone glanced at the portrait he’d been working on, lost in thought.

“Aren’t you going to offer me that beer?”

“Sorry.” Malone looked displeased with himself. “I guess I’m still being rude. Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

But Malone didn’t return for several minutes. Sitting on a bench, Jeb heard an indistinct conversation.

Finally, Malone came out with the beers.

“Sienna won’t be joining us?” Jeb asked.

“She’s a little under the weather.”

“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to talking with her.”

“She sends her best.”

“Give her mine.”

It went on like that for an hour, a strained conversation between friends whom circumstance had parted. Jeb told him about how the CIA and its French equivalent had worked quickly to cover up what had happened at Bellasar’s estate, claiming there’d been an industrial accident.

One thing Malone and Jeb didn’t talk about was what it had been like during the three weeks Malone had struggled to keep Sienna alive. Because no one was certain that the fail-safe feature incorporated into the weapon would prevent it from being contagious after six hours, the Cloister had been quarantined. After teams in biohazard suits had removed the wounded and the dead, a thousand-meter perimeter had been established. No one had been allowed on or off the obliterated estate.

Ghostlike among the rubble, the only building still standing, the Cloister had been the makeshift hospital in which Malone, guided by telephone conversations with physicians, worked to keep Sienna’s fever down, to adjust her intravenous lines, give her sponge baths with cool water, and will her to live.

One of the most feared plagues, smallpox had been eradicated in 1977. Because few present-day physicians had ever seen its devastating effects, Malone was asked to make detailed notes about its symptoms, all the more necessary because this was a new form of the disease. The virus’s unpredictability was the main reason the authorities had decided not to risk taking Sienna to a hospital. Medicines and food were dropped by parachute. In theory, the disease wasn’t contagious; these precautions were needless. But if Malone developed symptoms, plans had been made to use a thermal bomb on the area and destroy every trace of the virus.

Malone hadn’t known about that contingency any more than Jeb, recovering from his wound, had known what Malone was going through in the Cloister. Jeb could only imagine and ask doctors what Malone had said and, later, read the notes Malone had made while taking care of her. First had come the fever: 106 degrees. Then vomiting, diarrhea, and delirium. Then a rash of scarlet hemorrhagic blotches beneath the skin. The doctors had told Jeb the risk of death was greatest at this point. Spots had appeared on Sienna’s face and neck. The spots grew into blisters. The blisters became cloudy. At last, the eruptions dried into scabs. Throughout, the urge to scratch had been almost uncontrollable. Despite her weakness, Sienna’s efforts to claw at her face had been so powerful that Malone had lost strength holding her arms down and at last had been forced to tie them to her sides.

When it appeared that she was going to live and that the virus was not contagious without its companion, the authorities had relented on the quarantine, removing Sienna to a sealed ward in a hospital, keeping a close watch on Malone in case belated symptoms appeared. Meanwhile, Jeb had continued to recuperate. When visitors were finally allowed into the ward, Jeb, his arm in a sling, had been the first to arrive. But Malone and Sienna had been gone…

As the conversation drifted to a halt, Jeb finished his beer. A breeze rustled leaves. A distant drone of traffic blended with the sound of bees in the flowers.

Malone didn’t make an offer of a second beer. “How soon are you expected back in Washington?”

“It’s kind of open-ended,” Jeb said. “Are you up for dinner tonight?”

“We really don’t go out much.”

“Just the two of us maybe.”

“I don’t like to leave Sienna alone.”

“Sure,” Jeb said. “Should I drop around tomorrow?”

Malone didn’t say anything.

“Well, this is the name of the hotel where I’m staying.” Jeb handed him a card he had taken from the lobby. “If you change your mind…”

“Right.” Malone put the card in his shirt pocket.

“So…” Jeb shook his hand. “Say good-bye to Sienna for me. Make sure you give her my best.” Feeling awkward, he turned toward the easel. “It’s a masterpiece. You’ve never done better work.”

“Yes.”

“And those other paintings…” Jeb pointed toward the ones he had seen through the window. “They’re masterpieces, too.”

“I’ve never been this inspired before.”

“Take care of yourself,” Jeb said. “And of her.”

“Believe me, that’s the most natural thing in the world.”

As Jeb opened the gate, Malone went into the house.

Ahead, in the flower garden, the white-bearded man asked Jeb, “Did you enjoy your visit with your friend?”

“It’s complicated.”

“His wife,” the elderly man said in wonder. “He’s so devoted to her. They never go out. They’re totally content to be with each other. They’ve lived here six months, and you’re the first visitor they’ve had.”

“They have each other. What more could they want?”

“Have you seen the paintings?”

Jeb nodded.

“They all show his wife,” the elderly man said. “He doesn’t paint anything else.”

“With work that exceptional, he doesn’t need to paint anything else.”

“But I don’t understand.” The old man hesitated. “Have you seen her?”

“Briefly. When I entered the garden, she went into the house.”

“She always does that. She avoids being seen. What happened?”

“A disease.”

“And yet in the paintings she’s so beautiful.”

“She is beautiful.”

The old man looked puzzled.

“What’s on the canvas is what he sees.”

Jeb walked past the bright flowers and paused at the gray wooden gate.

He loves her so much, Jeb thought, she’ll always be the most beautiful woman in the world.

DAVID MORRELL is one of America ’s most popular and critically acclaimed storytellers, with more than fifteen million copies of his novels in print. To give his stories a realistic edge, he has been trained in wilderness survival, hostage negotiation, executive protection, antiterrorist driving, assuming identities, electronic surveillance, and weapons. A former professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, Morrell now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.