Ahern, Jerry - The Web

"He's a funny guy, isn't he? John, I mean," Paul Rubenstein said, as if to himself, she thought.

"Yes—he is," she answered, wishing for a cigarette but still needing to rub his face to restore the circulation. "How are your feet and hands?''

"Left foot's a little stiff—but I don't think it's—"

"Rourke isn't the only one who knows about the damage cold can do to the body," she said reprovingly. "Lean back."

"Hey, no—I can—"

"Do as I say," Natalia told him. She started undoing the laces of his left boot, getting the boot free; it felt damp to her. Then she removed the two socks that covered his foot. The sole of his foot was yellow. "This could turn to frostbite—very quickly," she snapped. She opened the front of her coat, throwing back as well the sleeping bag that covered her. Reaching under her coat, under the shirt Rourke had given her, to the front of her black jump suit, she zipped it down, then took Rubenstein's foot and placed it against the bare flesh of her abdomen. Hey—you—"Let me! Tell me when the feeling starts back. How is the other foot?"

"It's well, it's okay."

"Keep your foot here and don't move it," she ordered, reaching down to his other foot and starting to work on the boot laces—her own fingers were numb, and her ears still felt the cold from the slipstream of the bike as they'd ridden.

"That bandanna you put over my face against the wind—it smelled like you.

I guess from your hair," Rubenstein concluded, sounding lame.

"Thank you, Paul," Natalia whispered, getting the two socks off his right foot. The sole of his foot was yellow, but not as bad as the left one had been. Again, she felt the almost icy flesh against her abdomen and she shivered, "You love John—I mean really love him, don't you?" Rubenstein blurted out.

She closed her eyes a moment, felt pressure there

against her eyelids, tt

"I'm sorry—I mean for both of you. John and Sarah— I mean it's none of my business—"

"No—talk if you want," she told him.

"He—well, it's because he doesn't know if she's safe, if she's alive minute by minute—that's—"

"I heard the lines in an American movie once—fI can't fight a ghost'?

No—even a living ghost. And I don't want to fight it. I respect John for searching for Sarah. For—" She almost said never touching her. But she couldn't say that because she didn't like to think about it. !

"I mean . . . he's the last of a breed, isn't he? Silent, strong—a man of honor."

"Yes—he's a man of honor," she repeated. The chills in her body from the coldness of Rubenstein's feet were starting to subside. . . .

They had built a fire; there had been no other choice. And behind the windbreak in the glow of the fire, her feet wrapped in the sleeping bag and blankets around her, even covering her head, her ears were finally starting to become warmer.

Paul sat a foot or so away from her, the whiskey bottle beside them, between them. He had taken a long drink from it an hour earlier and then simply sat, watching the fire, silent, his feet wrapped in blankets against the cold.

"She used to do that. I always had problems with my feet freezing up,"

Paul said suddenly.

"Your—"

"My girl—I was afraid you were gonna say my mother. But it was my girl."

"Was she—was she pretty?" Natalia asked, not looking at him, but staring into the fire.

"Yeah—she was pretty. She was," he said with an air of finality.

Natalia felt suddenly awkward, reaching her hand out of the blankets which swathed her, the cold air something she could feel suddenly against her skin. She picked up the bottle—the glass of it was cold to her touch and cold against her lips as she drank from it, then set it down again. She reached her hand out still farther, found Rubenstein's arm and held it.

"Would you tell me about her?"

"Catharsis?"

"Maybe—and my curiosity. You know that. Women are always curious."

"Ruth was that way," he said quietly.

"Had you—?"

"Known each other a long time? Yeah—went to temple together whenever my dad was on leave when we were kids. Her folks and my folks knew each other."

"You were a military brat weren't you?" Natalia smiled, looking at him in the firelight.

"Yeah—brat period, maybe. But that isn't true. I was always a good kid—relatives, the other officers, always said, 'Paul is such a well-behaved little boy.' Wish I hadn't been. Ruth always said we should wait until we—" He stopped and fell silent.

Natalia didn't know if she should press it, but then decided. "Until you were married?"

He just looked at her, his glasses, long since back in place, slipping down the bridge of his nose. "You believe that ... I mean, well you know .

. . but this isn't any kind of thing on my part to try to—"

"To make a pass?" Natalia smiled.

"Yeah—that'd be pretty funny—me making a pass for

you, wouldn't it?" He laughed.

"No—and it wouldn't even be sweet. But it'd be flattering to me." She smiled.

Again he fell silent, taking a pull on the bottle, then settling his forearm under her left hand again. "Here I am—middle of nowhere and I'm a virgin. Just what you want with death around every corner, isn't it?" He laughed.

"You would make any woman a fine lover," Natalia said, feeling awkward saying it.

"Hell! I knew Ruth for six years before I worked up/the nerve to kiss her." Rubenstein Jaughed. {

But the laughter sounded hollow to her, and Natalia said, "How old were you then?"

"Nine." He laughed again, this time the laughter sounded genuine she thought.

(fI me! Vladmir when I was twenty. He was so strong and brave and—I didn't know any better. He made love to me—a lot in those days. I thought it was love anyway."

She moved her hand away, finding the black shoulder bag and starting to search it for her cigarettes. She set her knife down on the ground beside the bag.

"What'd you call that knife again?" Rubenstein asked, obviously changing the subject. "What was it?"

"A Bali-Song knife—it's a Philippine design, though it may have originated with an American sailor who brought it there. Some of the really big ones were used as cane knives and as weapons, too. It's a martial-arts fighting knife. I got into martial-arts weapons when I was just—"

She put the knife down, looking at Paul. "Why don't you ask—did I ever really love Vladmir?"

She lit a cigarette, waiting for him to ask her.

"Did you?' he finally said, his voice sounding suddenly older to her.

"Yes—until I found out what he was. And I was trying to deal with that and I saw John again there and—" She swallowed hard, forgetting about the cigarette a moment, then choking on the smoke and coughing.

"John was everything you'd thought Vladimir was— but really wasn't. I mean, the grammar or syntax or whatever—well it really sucks, but isn't that what you want to Of >

say:

Natalia swallowed again, this time without the smoke—instead the bottle in her left hand, the whiskey burning at her throat suddenly. "Yes—I wanted to say that. Men always jokingly say women are like children, call them girls—but we are. We all look for our own personal knight—you know, the kind with a rK-N-I—' We look for someone we hook our dreams on. That's what Ruth saw in you—and she wasn't wrong."

"Me—a knight?" Rubenstein laughed.

"A knight doesn't have to be tall and brave—but you are brave, you just maybe didn't know it then. It's inside. That's what it is." She reached her hand out and felt Rubenstein's hand touching hers. "That's what it is," she repeated.

Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy thought the idea was, in a way, amusing. He looked at his gun—a nickel-plated Colt single-action Army . with a four-and-three-quarter-inch barrel. He was the conqueror, the invader, and/his sidearm was "The Gun That Won the West'—as American as—he verbalized it, "Apple pie—ha!"