Krysalis: Krysalis (6 page)

“Good luck. I envy you, incidentally.”

“Heavens, why?”

“No one’s offered me a shot at Vancouver.”

“Nor me.”

“Don’t be too sure. Your specialty is exactly what they need. Pull out all the stops today, and who knows—a place on the touring eleven could well be yours. See you.”

David laughed, but his heart was beating too fast. His third Krysalis weekend, his first paper. He did not relish facing the high-powered types who awaited him in the lecture room, especially since his mind was less on the 1983 Montebello Council and its long-term effects on NATO’s Nuclear Operations Command and Control, than on where Anna might be.

Sometimes he wondered what he would do if anything happened to her. What would life be like without her? But he could never imagine such an existence for more than a few seconds. She
was
his life.

As he queued at the electronic door, waiting for the guard to scrutinize his pass, he anxiously ran through the possibilities. A girlfriend. A shopping expedition.
An urgent case, necessitating her presence in chambers.

On a Saturday? But even then, why hadn’t she telephoned the marina, as he’d asked her to? It was so unlike her.

He remembered her saying quite specifically that she would stay at home all weekend to work.

Last night, he’d found himself repeating how much he loved her, the kind of declaration that did not come easily to him on the phone, when others might overhear. But Anna had put the receiver down before he could finish, as if there were something more important on her mind, something worrying her. He felt concerned.

Also—admit it—let down. He could do without this hassle.

Here he was on probation, attached to Krysalis yet not quite part of it. The Soviet Politburo had “candidate members,” which struck him as a useful phrase. The paper he was about to deliver could change his own status to full voting committeeman. He knew how these things worked. If he performed well, there would be a subtle change in the atmosphere. Suddenly he might belong. And although he had demurred, he felt sure that Sylvia’s words were true; he might even find himself going to Vancouver as an observer of the most crucial superpower summit this decade. But for now he was still only a spectator.

The guard examined David’s pass, compared it with the face, and handed it back. David entered what had once been a large classroom and made his way to the rostrum. As he placed his notes upon the lectern, he hoped that the audience saw him as he projected himself: a calm, professional, hardworking civil servant,
accelerating through the fast lane.
The Krysalis Committee … and he, David Lescombe, was on it!

Nearly.

Where could Anna have gone?

He cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen …”

As the buzz of conversation died away David found himself the cynosure of some very hard eyes. He hesitated a moment, then began.

“The purpose of this paper is to examine several implications of the Montebello Council’s decision to cut stockpiled warheads, having regard to recent developments in the so-called bottom-up command structure. My intention is threefold….”

Were they listening? Would he be able to answer their questions afterward?

“… First, to examine what has happened to the AirLand Battle concept in the light of the so-called Gorbachev revolution …”

What was the matter with Anna? How could he help her?

Not now. Somehow, he had to eject her from his mind.

CHAPTER
5

After lunch the weather turned cold, making them hurry back to Hampstead, eager for a log fire. When Gerhard dug out a bottle of Rioja the color of black plums Anna at first protested, but he overruled her: “on medical grounds,” as he jocularly put it.

While they drank, she rounded off the story of the past two years. Because of the Rioja’s strong, oaky taste, she failed to notice the mild sedative in it.

“I can see why you’re feeling low,” he said when she had finished.

“But pulling myself out of it …”

“Ah, yes, that’s another thing.”

He paused. Despite the excellent rapport they’d reestablished over lunch, he did not know what to do. He felt torn beyond endurance. If he wanted to stay out of jail and continue his beautiful life here in England, he had to manipulate this woman. He had to mangle her and wrench her mind; and then he would have to let her go. Again.

The last time he’d let her go he’d known that he was throwing away whatever chance of real happiness life held for him. Yet here he was, on the brink of the same mistake.

If he obeyed Barzel, he would keep his freedom. But he would destroy the one person he had ever loved.

He remembered the time when, as a child, his father took him to the aquarium. In the largest tank he saw a shark. All that power, confined in a space less than the family living room … and the shark, too, had a theoretical choice. It could swim to the left. Or it could swim to the right. But instead it chose to hang suspended, facing the spectators as if paralyzed, without hope. Looking at the shark, he’d had his first inkling of what happened to someone when life became pointless.

“Have you considered becoming a patient again, for a short while?” Would she notice the catch in his voice?

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea. Just chatting with you is enough.”

“Didn’t you find therapy helpful?”

“Helpful!”
Anna laughed gaily, making him tingle. “When you first met me, I was a total wreck. And look at me now: successful barrister, married, going to work every day like any normal person.” She stifled a yawn. “You did that.”

“No. You did it.”

“Oh, come on! You saved me, Gerhard. And you ask if therapy was helpful!”

She looked so beautiful to him, sitting there, a little tired, maybe, but sparkling with inner life.

“Then surely a few sessions could be just the thing. After all, you’ve been back for refreshers in the past. Most patients have, there’s no stigma attached.”

“No, Gerhard.”

He swallowed. Things were drifting off course again. She had to come back.
Had to!
“Look, you’ve got three days’ holiday next week, that’s more than long enough for me to—”

“I was planning to go away, actually. Paris, I thought Paris. Or I might get around to the chores I’ve been neglecting. The car needs a service, my wardrobe’s at an all-time low, I …”

“You sound frightened of therapy. Are you?”

She shook her head, without meeting his gaze.

He studied her face for several moments before trying again. “How are the relaxation exercises going?”

“Not well.” She sighed, giving him hope. “I do miss them.”

“Oh, why? I taught you how to self-hypnotize.”

“Yes, you did. It was so refreshing. That, more than anything else, was what transformed me, you know. Whenever I was feeling down, knowing I could retreat into a beautiful world all my own … but …”

“But what?”

“It faded.” She yawned again. “Sorry. Tired all of a sudden.”

He allowed the silence to continue, desperately wanting her to see that there was only one solution. But she didn’t speak. At last he was forced to say, “I suppose I could … ginger it up for you again? Only the self-hypnosis, I mean, the relaxation exercises.”

Her face lengthened. “I don’t know.”

“Think of one good reason why not.”

“I’m just giving self-reliance a chance, that’s all. Though to be honest …”

“Yes?”

“It’s the trances I do miss the most.” She half turned toward him, refusing to cover the final inch that would
have caused their eyes to meet. “If I did say Yes, could you pep it up for me in just one session? No repeats?”

Gerhard made a supreme effort and mastered his breathing. “No repeats. You can still go to Paris on Monday. I’ll come with you, if you like.”

“Part of the therapy?” Her smile was arch.

“Definitely.” When still she hesitated he said, “We’d better go upstairs,” and rose.

This sounded like an invitation to bed and so it was, after a fashion. In his consulting room Gerhard had a Z-shaped Corbusier chair, perfect for inducing the relaxation that led to forgetfulness.

Anna took a moment to sit down in that painfully familiar chair, but then the routine seemed to come back to her without thought or effort, like riding a bike again after years of driving a car. She settled back and arranged her limbs until they were comfortable. Once she was at her ease she looked around, taking pleasure in each little detail. She had never expected to see this place again.

The room was beautiful, not just because she had helped create it, but because he lived here and it was him. Wood, everywhere. He had become an expert carver; she remembered how he could carve a perfectly straight line without the help of an edge, his eye was that good and his hand, of course, obeyed him, because everyone, everything in the world, obeyed Gerhard.

Gerhard pulled a chair up close beside her. “Look at me.”

Anna did so. Within seconds she had no limbs, no body, no head, just eyes. She was floating, no, that was the wrong word, she was suspended in amniotic fluid, weightless, and she, meaning her pair of eyes, was
being pulled into another pair of eyes the color of pale blue Curacao.

He began the soft, lilting incantation that had fallen on her like the summer rain of evening, poignant and sad, a threnody, apart from dear David, the one constant in her tired existence since he had first taken her by the hand nearly sixteen years before and said, “It will be all right. It will.”

“You are falling deeper and deeper into a refreshing, restful trance, deeper, lower, falling, until your eyelids are so heavy that you cannot raise them, cannot open your eyes, and when you reach that point of heaviness I want you to indicate it to me by raising the middle finger of your right hand … yes, good … and when I say so I want you to open those heavy, heavy eyelids in a blink, just one, now … and again … now …”

So long since she had felt herself falling, falling, Alice in the white rabbit’s burrow, the fantasy amused her, soon he would begin to count… so normal. So reassuring. It hadn’t been a mistake to come back, after all

“You can open your eyes, Anna.”

She lay still, staring into the liqueur-rich pools, which now were lit from within. When at last he stood up quietly and moved out of her vision she remained immobile.

Her head was placed so that she could see another of his lutes, in a glass-fronted case beside the door. He had made it; for Gerhard, as well as being a lutenist, was also a luthier. She knew this instrument. He had explained it all to her, long ago. Spruce for the body, sycamore for the neck, a sound board of cedar and fingerboard of rosewood, for the bridge, pearwood, and plum for the pegs, strings of gut, assembled with pearls
of skin glue, a jewelers’ piercing saw, dedication and love. The beautiful lute expanded to fill her vision until she was aware of nothing else.

Sometimes, as now, he used the instrument to focus a patient’s attention, but he’d also played it to soothe her, in the old days, before her perceptions of him had changed. Anna wondered dreamily if Gerhard guessed how much she’d come to loathe this lute, which had sent her dear friend Robyn into such ecstasy….

Solid bars of golden light angled through the windows, telling her that the sun was out. Suddenly the rays were blocked and she heard Gerhard say, “Can you see my wristwatch, Anna?”

She looked. “Yes.”

“It’s an Omega.”

For an instant nothing happened. Then all her limbs seemed to relax, as a body settles after losing its struggle with death.

Gerhard slowly let out a sigh. The worst obstacle, the fear that had kept him awake every night since Barzel’s visit, was behind him. Two years away notwithstanding, she remained his creature.

Now he had to focus her.

“Anna,” he said quietly, settling himself at her head. “Can you hear me?”

A long pause. “Yes.”

“’Omega’ is the same now as always. When you awake, you will not remember anything of what happens between my having spoken the word Omega and my speaking the other word known only to you. Do you understand?”

Half a minute passed. During that time Anna neither moved nor uttered a sound. Eventually Gerhard rose
and took a few steps around the room. “Anna,” he murmured. When still she failed to respond, he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands with it. This had to work.
It had to!

“Yes.”

He stopped in midstride and wheeled around, not sure what he had heard. Anna’s eyes remained shut; her lips were parted. Gerhard hesitated no longer, but again took his place at her head.

“Everything I say now you will record, deep inside your mind, and you will obey the instructions I shall give you, answer the questions I shall put. Do you understand?”

Her brow slowly furrowed into a frown; she opened her mouth, closed it again. “Yes.” A whisper.

“David has a safe in the house. It was delivered three weeks ago. Do you know how to open that safe?”

After another of those nerve-racking waits she shook her head. The silence went on. And on. Gerhard ground his right fist into his left palm. His breathing had become shallow; he could feel sweat trickling down his back.