Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

“Dammit! Nothing’s going to make me feel better!” He pulled away from her, in almost the same movement rose, and in rising, swept the plate off the table. It crashed to the highly polished floor, where it burst into a hundred pieces. Crumbs of stollen went everywhere.

He stood against the wall, biting his knuckle, while Katya’s Siamese crept out from under the sofa, where she had slunk at the instance of commotion, and with her head down and shoulders working, began to methodically eat the pastry.

Katya said nothing. She went into the kitchen, returned with a broom and dustpan, and knelt down.

“Don’t,” he said. “I’ll do it.” Stooping, he very gently took the implements from her hand and spent the next several minutes cleaning up. The cat came up to him and, arching her back, rubbed herself against his leg. When he was finished there wasn’t a shard of china, a crumb of stollen left on the floor. The Siamese, licking her lips, didn’t seem to mind; she’d eaten her fill. Katya had trained her to be dainty in her eating habits. A genuine little lady.

“I’ll wax the floor tomorrow,” Katya said, gesturing for him to sit down opposite her after he had returned from emptying the dustpan.

He did as she bade, sat silently with his hands clasped between his legs like a schoolboy caught making mischief.

“Darling, listen to me, there are some things in this life we aren’t meant to know, some questions, though asked over and over, that have no answer. You must try to accept this, though I know better than most this cuts across the grain of your personality. You’re a man born to find the answers to the thorniest questions, and when this becomes the norm, it isn’t easy to look at a blank wall and say, Is this all there is? Because, yes, that’s all there is, darling. When it comes to Annika there are essential secrets in her heart you cannot know. The darkness behind that wall is hers, not yours, no matter what you may believe. I know you’ve taken this as a failure—‘I should have known, I should have foreseen’—these are the words of the seeker. As Apollo brought light to the world each day you find answers—but because you don’t have the answer to what happened to Annika—”

“I should have protected her.”

“In a perfect world, yes,” Katya said, “but, darling, in a perfect world you wouldn’t need to protect her.” Her eyes found his and she smiled. “This world is far from perfect, however, and nothing is easy or quick or the way we want it to be. The world is incomprehensible, and the harder we strive to understand it the more mysterious it becomes. And do you know why? Life is all moral compromises, and with each compromise we make a tiny piece of us gets lost. And when it isn’t compromises that we must make, it’s sacrifices, and sacrifices change us irrevocably, until we look like that tree outside.

“Consider what you have sacrificed for Annika—you have gone to the edge of the world, the place where even maps fail, where the devil resides, in order to keep her safe. I beg you to ponder that the next time you feel compelled to say ‘I should have known, I should have foreseen.’ ”

“Yes, yes, it’s true,” he said in a voice that betrayed him, for his mind thought one thing and his heart felt another. It took some effort to return her smile, but by the look on her face he knew that she appreciated it. “Everything you said is true.” He looked around as if awaking from a dream. “I’ll buy you a new plate.”

“Thank you, but don’t bother. That wasn’t the first one you’ve smashed and it won’t be the last.” She laughed. “That’s why I put out this particular service, it was a wedding present from my mother and I never did like it. It’s so, I don’t know, Victorian. Very her—not me at all.”

“Your mother and her lies,” he said, with a rueful shake of his handsome head.

“Lies are what drew you and me together,” she said. “Lies we had to create and then, far worse, perpetuate, in order to go on living. And these lies required both moral compromises and sacrifices that, while regretting, we wouldn’t change. I lied to my husband and you lied to Batchuk. I became friends with my husband so he would never find out how much I loathed him, and his money allowed me the freedom to live my life. For him I did not exist as a sexual object, or, if I did, it was only for a matter of months, if not weeks.

“As for you, my darling—” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You made your peace with Batchuk because everything in your world depended on your alliance with him. It took all your skill and charm to convince him that you were sincere, since he knew very well that you had every reason to want him destroyed. How did you manage it, I wonder? I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off, even though I’ve certainly honed my acting skills over the years.”

“He made a request of me and I complied,” he said. “There was someone in his way, someone he couldn’t touch, couldn’t even get near. I could. Simple as that.”

He stood up and, hands in his trousers pockets, stood staring out at the gnarled tree.

“You of all people, darling, should know that nothing is simple,” Katya said, “especially when finding an answer brings an end to a life.”

“I know you’re not judging me, because you know very well what was at stake. When he made the request he knew I’d have to comply, which is why he enjoyed asking me. The idea of giving me an order appealed to him. It must have given him immense satisfaction knowing I would do it, knowing that he was causing me pain at the same time he was ridding himself of a thorn in his side he couldn’t pull out himself.”

“It was that death that kept Annika safe, is that what you’re saying?”

He nodded, but didn’t turn around. “What Batchuk did was monstrous, unspeakable, depraved. It’s as if Stalin has risen from the grave.”

Katya rose, then, and went to stand by his side. “You’re not thinking about anything foolish, something that could get you killed, are you? Leave matters the way they are.”

“It’s too late, events have been set in motion. Batchuk is here in Kiev. He is looking for Annika.”

“You trained her well.”

“Because I was forced to make a deal with the devil. Are you saying I should withdraw my protection?”

She slid her arm around his waist. “Look at that tree. It has withstood drought, hailstorms, lightning, and torrential rains that turned the ground around it to a river of mud. But there it is. Its roots never gave way, it was never split asunder. It may be ugly and leaning, it may not be as tall as it once was, but it abides, darling, it abides.”

“TIME,” MILES Benson said, standing in the doorway to the shadowed study. The brightest light came from Aaron’s iPhone. “Mr. Secretary, it’s imperative that we finish our conversation now.” But so fierce was the glare that Claire gave him he had no recourse but to take a step back, just as if she had pushed him.

“All right,” Paull said, but he never took his eyes off his daughter, who, it seemed to him now, had never looked more beautiful. She had been a child when she had left him; now she was a mature, self-confident woman. How the devil had that happened, he wondered. Seven years wasn’t that long a time; on the other hand, it was a lifetime for small creatures, an eternity for others. Claire had made the most of those seven years, and what had he done with the time?

“Wait for me,” he said to her. “I won’t be long.”

“Even if you are,” Aaron said, his bright, transparent eyes serenely regarding his newly discovered grandfather, “Mom and I won’t leave without you.” He looked up at Claire. “Right, Mom?”