Sidney Sheldon - Memories of Midnight

There were fresh flowers on the desk.

“From Mr. Demiris.”

He’s so thoughtful.

Evelyn Kaye, the woman who had shown her into the office, was a stocky middle-aged woman with a pleasant face and a comfortable manner. “It will take you a few days to get used to the place, but the operation is really quite simple. We’re one of the nerve centers of the Demiris empire. We coordinate the reports from the overseas divisions, and send them on to headquarters in Athens. I’m the office manager. You’ll be my assistant.”

“Oh.” So I’m the assistant to the office manager. Catherine had no idea what was expected of her. She had been thrown into a fantasy world. Private planes, limousines, a beautiful flat with servants …

“Wim Vandeen is our resident mathematical genius. He computes all the statements and puts them into a master financial analysis chart. His mind works faster than most calculating machines. Come along to his office and meet him.”

They walked down the corridor to an office at the end of the hall. Evelyn opened the door without knocking.

“Wim, this is my new assistant.”

Catherine stepped into the office and stood there, riveted. Wim Vandeen appeared to be in his early thirties, a thin man with a slack-jawed mouth and a dull, vacant expression. He was staring out the window.

“Wim. Wim! This is Catherine Alexander.”

He turned around. “Catherine the First’s real name was Marta Skowronka she was a servant girl born in 1684 who was captured by the Russians she married Peter I and was empress of Russia from 1725 to 1727; Catherine the Great was the daughter of a German prince she was born in 1729 and she married Peter, who became Emperor Peter III in 1762, and she succeeded to his throne that same year after she had him murdered. Under her reign there were three divisions of Poland and two wars against Turkey …” The information poured out like a fountain, in a monotone.

Catherine was listening, stunned. “That’s … that’s very interesting,” she managed.

Wim Vandeen looked away.

Evelyn said, “Wim is shy when he meets people.”

Shy? Catherine thought. The man is weird. And he’s a genius? What kind of job is this going to be?

In Athens, in his offices on Aghiou Geronda Street, Constantin Demiris was listening to a telephone report from Alfred in London.

“I drove Miss Alexander directly from the airport to the flat, Mr. Demiris. I asked her if she wished me to take her anywhere else, as you suggested, and she said no.”

“She’s had no outside contacts at all?”

“No, sir. Not unless she made some telephone calls from the flat, sir.”

Constantin Demiris was not worried about that. Anna, the housekeeper, would report to him. He replaced the receiver, satisfied. She presented no immediate danger to him and he would see that she was watched. She was alone in the world. She had no one to turn to except her benefactor, Constantin Demiris. I must make arrangements to go to London soon, Demiris thought happily. Very soon.

Catherine Alexander found her new job interesting. Daily reports came in from Constantin Demiris’s far-flung empire. There were bills of lading from a steel mill in Indiana, audits from an automobile factory in Italy, invoices from a newspaper chain in Australia, a gold mine, an insurance company. Catherine collated the re-ports and saw to it that the information went directly to Wim Vandeen. Wim glanced at the reports once, put them through the incredible computer that was his brain, and almost instantly calculated the percentages of profit or loss to the company.

Catherine enjoyed getting to know her new colleagues, and she was awed by the beauty of the old building she worked in.

She mentioned it to Evelyn Kaye once in front of Wim and Wim said, “This was a government custom house designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1721. After the great fire of London, Christopher Wren redesigned fifty churches, including St. Paul’s, St. Michael’s, and St. Bride’s. He designed the Royal Exchange and Buckingham House. He died in 1723 and is buried in St. Paul’s. This house was converted to an office building in 1907, and in the Second World War during the Blitz, the government declared it an official air-raid shelter.”

The air-raid shelter was a large bomb-proof room located through a heavy iron door adjoining the basement. Catherine looked into the heavily fortified room, and thought about the brave British men and women and children who had found shelter there during the terrible bombing by Hitler’s Luftwaffe.

The basement itself was huge, running the entire length of the building. It had a large boiler for heating the building, and was filled with electronic and telephone equipment. The boiler was a problem. Several times Catherine had escorted a repairman down to the basement to take a look at it. Each one would tinker with it, pronounce it cured of whatever had ailed it, and leave.

“It looks so dangerous,” Catherine said. “Is there any chance that it might explode?”

“Bless your heart, miss, of course not. See this safety valve here? Well, if the boiler should ever get too hot, the safety valve releases all the excess steam, and Bob’s your uncle. No problem.”

After the work day was over, there was London. London … a cornucopia of wonderful theater, ballet, and music concerts. There were interesting old bookstores like Hatchard’s and Foyle’s—and dozens of museums, little antique shops, and restaurants. Catherine visited the lithograph shops in Cecil Court and shopped at Harrods, and Fortnum and Mason, and Marks and Spencer, and had Sunday tea at the Savoy.

From time to time, unbidden thoughts came into Catherine’s mind. There were so many things to remind her of Larry. A voice … a phrase … a cologne … a song. No. The past is finished. The future is what’s important. And each day she became stronger.

Catherine and Evelyn Kaye became friends and occasionally went out together. One Sunday they visited the open-air art exhibition on the Thames embankment. There were dozens of artists there, young and old, displaying their paintings, and they all had one thing in common: They were failures who had been unable to have their works exhibited in any gallery. The paintings were terrible. Catherine bought one out of sympathy.

“Where are you going to put it?” Evelyn asked.

“In the boiler room,” Catherine said.

As they walked along the London streets, they came across the pavement artists, men who used colored chalks to paint on the stone of the pavement. Some of their work was amazing. Passers by would stop to admire them and then toss a few coins to the artists. One afternoon on her way back from lunch, Catherine stopped to watch an elderly man work on a beautiful landscape in chalk. As he was finishing it, it began to rain, and the old man stood there watching his work being washed away. That’s a lot like my past life, Catherine thought.

Evelyn took Catherine to Shepherd Market. “This is an interesting area,” Evelyn promised.

It was certainly colorful. There was a three-hundred-year-old restaurant called Tiddy Dols, a magazine stand, a market, a beauty parlor, a bakery, antique shops, and several two-and three-story residences.

The name plates on the mailboxes were odd. One read “Helen,” and below it “French lessons.” Another read “Rosie,” and below that “Greek taught here.”

“Is this an educational area?” Catherine asked.

Evelyn laughed aloud. “In a way I guess it is. Only the kind of education these girls give can’t be taught in school.”

Evelyn laughed even louder when Catherine blushed.

Catherine was alone most of the time, but she kept herself too busy to be lonely. She plunged into her days as though trying to make up for the precious moments of her life that had been stolen from her. She refused to worry about the past or the future. She visited Windsor Castle, and Canterbury with its beautiful cathedral, and Hampton Court. On weekends, she went into the country and stayed at quaint little inns, and took long walks through the countryside.