Neil Olson - The Icon

“That’s a terrible story. I’m sorry, Ana.”

She shrugged. “History.”

“It must have wrecked your grandfather.”

“He was never the same. And my mother still hasn’t forgiven him.”

“Well. That’s unfair, but understandable, I guess. Given the circumstances.”

“I went through a period of blaming him, but it was no good. My dad could have said no. He loved that kind of thing, jetting off on a lark. You can’t live in fear of what might go wrong.”

“Maybe she’ll forgive him now that he’s dead.”

Ana scoffed. “Mother’s not big on forgiveness. She hasn’t forgiven me for reestablishing a relationship with him, and I’m her only damn child.”

He glanced at the clock above the refrigerator for the first time since arriving. It was late, after eleven.

“Doesn’t look like you’re going to get that reading done,” she said.

“It’ll wait.”

“Thank you for dinner. And for talking to me.”

“I don’t know that I said anything useful.”

“You listen, you ask good questions. And I find your voice soothing.”

“Almost puts you to sleep,” he countered, needing to make light of her words.

“Anything that puts me to sleep these days should not be disparaged.” She stood abruptly and stretched, rolled her neck about gently. “Come on, let’s make good on our deal.”

Matthew followed her down the old, looping staircase, his steps uncertain, his suppressed excitement leaping up again with distressing intensity. She fumbled for the lights in the small antechamber, and then they passed through the narrow arch. The chapel was smaller than he remembered, claustrophobic. He made a show of examining the panels from eastern Europe, stations of the cross, but his eyes were drawn inexorably back to the icon. The colors, subtle to begin with, appeared to shift about. The cloak was maroon, mauve, bloodred; the luminosity seemed to come from a place below the surface. Focusing on details usually helped, but the closer he got, the harder objective observation became. He grew agitated. One of the Virgin’s hands seemed to move, and he closed his eyes and stepped back.

“I’m not sure it’s good for you to be in here,” Ana said quietly.

“Don’t read your own discomfort into other people’s reactions.”

“I’m not. I’m looking at you, and you seem very uneasy.”

He shifted to avoid her gaze, then took a deep breath.

“Just tired. I should get going.”

In fact, he had no real desire to leave, but he was troubled by her attention, by her seeming need to get under the lid of his emotions.

“All right,” she answered.

He closed his eyes once more to compose himself. Then felt her hand on his shoulder, her lips on his, softly, gone again in a moment. She stepped back, the contact brief enough to have been only friendly if he saw fit to leave it at that. They faced each other for half a minute, enveloped by the warm light, the near walls. Ana tried to wait him out, but couldn’t.

“You’re not used to doing the work, are you? Things just come to you.”

“I’m sorry,” but it sounded less like the confused response he’d intended, and more like the apology it was. “Mostly, things just go away from me.”

“Poor boy.”

She turned to the door, but he reached out and gripped her shoulder. She turned back and kissed him again, more forcefully, and this time he took the hint.

He was supposed to wait on the sidewalk for the black sedan to come rolling down Seventy-ninth Street, but it was a cold day, and Matthew sat in the coffee shop instead. The big glass windows commanded a view of the intersection, busy with vehicular and human traffic, shoppers and museumgoers, marching beneath the little sign that proclaimed this stretch Patriarch Dimitrious Way. The Greek consulate was just down the street.

His concentration was shot-lack of sleep and a not altogether unpleasant state of agitation. Without warning, his mind shifted back a few hours to the warmth of her bed, the unexpected heat of her body. She had been so ready for him that a simple touch had been enough, and he had continued to touch her, in various ways, for some time, totally consumed with pleasing. He didn’t make a conscious decision to stay, simply found himself there in the gray predawn, her weight upon him before he knew where he was. Half-asleep, they rediscovered their rhythm and proceeded in a steady, dreamlike fashion, Ana laughing in embarrassment at her own pleasure, thighs spasming against his hips, her whole body responding to his every motion. He had held her for a long time, not speaking, smelling her hair, her skin, his mind and muscles relaxing for what seemed like the first time in weeks. A blessedly uncomplicated sense of how right they had felt together still possessed him.

Over breakfast, they talked about the icon again, and she seemed to come to a decision. Matthew encouraged her not to make up her mind too quickly, but he had not been displeased. At the door, she wouldn’t let him go.

“This was reckless,” she’d said, squeezing his hand. “We hardly know each other.”

“Knowing takes time. We haven’t done too badly.”

“I don’t even know how old you are.”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“OK, I’m fourteen,” he confessed. “Really, I’ve been shaving since I was eleven.”

Ana smiled, but her mind had already moved to something else.

“You wouldn’t marry her. That was the problem, wasn’t it?” Her words carried such certainty that he’d felt no need to respond. “That doesn’t make it your fault, Matthew. Just a decision.”

“I’m thirty.”

She’d made a show of being chagrined, but she couldn’t be that much older. Obviously used to being surrounded by older men. Eventually he had broken free and escaped into the frigid morning, but he could picture her still at the half-open door, in a gray cashmere robe, hair askew, blue eyes tracking him down the stairs, seeing him, knowing him in some deep and unsettling way.

There was a draft in the shop, and Matthew wrapped his hands around the porcelain coffee mug. When he looked up again Fotis was there on the sidewalk, just beside the bus shelter. The old man pretended to look around, but Matthew was certain he had spotted him there in the window before ever leaving his car. He stood, and Fotis looked directly at him, gestured for him to stay put.

“Am I late?” “No, I just didn’t want to stand in the cold.”

“We must get you a warmer coat. Why don’t we forget the walk and stay here?”

“Sure.” He hung his godfather’s coat and squeezed into the second chair across the table. It was a slow day, and the waiter was hovering instantly.

“This is the place with the good rice pudding?” Fotis asked.

“Best in New York,” Matthew confirmed.

“Two of those.”

The waiter slid the eight feet back behind the counter. Three of them worked in that small space, banging dishes, shouting at each other in some hybrid of Greek and Spanish.

“Now,” Fotis leaned across the table, “what is so urgent that it could not wait?”

“I would have told you on the phone.”

“These conversations are better had in person.”

Matthew tapped the speckled Formica table. He needed to pin the old bastard down.

“I’m pretty sure Ms. Kessler wants to make a deal with the church.”

The older man nodded slowly.

“This is excellent. You have done a good thing, my boy.”

“I didn’t do anything, except talk to her.”

“Did I not say that would be all that was required?”

“Anyway, I thought it would please you.”

“But not you, I fear.”

Matthew shrugged as the desserts were placed before them. Fotis began eating immediately.