The Awakening (16 page)

“Let’s get some coffee, Victor.”

They sat in the sunshine outside Malta’s. Carmen sipped her espresso while Victor had a latte and a fudge brownie. “Always have one of these,” he smiled.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” Carmen started.

“Do I?” Victor smiled his annoyingly enigmatic smile.

“I was almost attacked outside my basement last night.”

“But you weren’t hurt. Did you call the police?”

Carmen sat back in her chair. “I didn’t think to do that. I was so pleased to be inside and safe that I just forgot about the police.”

“And you didn’t quite believe what you saw.”

“No.” Carmen looked at him. “It was you.”

Victor nodded. “I followed you home. I needed to know you were okay. I had no intention of revealing myself, Carmen. I avoid that at all costs in the city.”

“Why change then? Surely you can’t go undetected in New York?”

He laughed. “Oh, you’d be surprised what’s possible in New York. This is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.”

“Yes, Victor, but that doesn’t include wolves and polar bears.”

“Well, actually, Carmen, it has.” He finished his brownie. “I’ve been roaming the streets of Manhattan for years. You wouldn’t believe the amount of petty crime I’ve stopped.”

Carmen shook her head in disbelief. Her life was entirely out of a fantasy novel. “And people don’t report you?”

“From time to time but usually it’s vagrants and drunks who see me and the police never believe them. Normally my gift of invisibility saves me: normal people don’t see me. Occasionally there’s a nosey reporter who gets the sniff of the story but then I lay low for a while and everything’s fine. I haven’t been out for a long time. I hadn’t been feeling strong for a long time before I met you. Now I feel like my old self.”

“Why are you in New York then? Why not in Alaska or Canada?”

“Because I have work to do and you still haven’t fully grasped the situation, Carmen.”

She laughed. “I know that, Victor. Absolutely I know that.”

He looked closely at her. “Do you want to tell me about the dream?”

She was quiet for a few moments. “Was it true? Did I see Andrew with another woman or did I just imagine it because I was upset about the mugger and dinner with you?”

“What do you think, Carmen?”

She closed her eyes, didn’t think and just felt. “It was true.”

Victor nodded. “Yes it was.”

“Why is this happening? I don’t want this to happen. This isn’t fun. I felt like shit all night. I didn’t sleep and I still feel terrible today.”

“Oh, my little bear,” Victor took her hand in his. “Your gift is indeed a twin edged sword. Being able to see into men’s hearts and souls and feel your way with the beasts can be powerful and enervating. It can also break your heart.”

“Does my heart have to break, Victor?”

“It may, Carmen. In order for you to be free from Andrew your heart may have to break.”

“Did you do that? Did you send him to Brazil to sleep with someone else?”

“I sent him away so you could come to the cabin, remember? Not for him to betray you.” Victor was quiet, seemingly thinking hard. “I’m not powerful in the way you think. I can’t make things happen. I can teach you to see what is happening and I will teach you how to control matters, how to influence others. But I can’t make people like Andrew unfaithful, or faithful for that matter. I’m in tune with the animal world more than the human. That’s why I live in New York, otherwise I’d lose what little understanding I have about mankind altogether.”

Carmen sighed, leant back in her chair. She stretched her arms above her head. “What can I do, Victor? How do I work through all this?”

“You’re not going to like this, Carmen, but the answer is inside. You must look inside yourself.”

“Do I forgive Andrew, pretend it didn’t happen?”

“I can’t tell you that. I know what has to happen but I can’t see the future.”

“Honestly, Victor, you don’t make things easy.”

“It’s not me, Carmen. It’s not up to me how hard or easy this is. You have to make choices and when you are ready I will take you where you have to go.”

“And for now?”

“Look to yourself. Don’t look to me for answers.”

“All right. I need a swim. I’m going to the pool at lunch time.”

“Good,” Victor nodded. “Be physical, it’s what you are good at, what you really know to do. Rely on that. Be and feel. That’s my best advice.”

“Yes,” Carmen almost smiled. “That feels right.”

Victor took Carmen’s hand as they walked back to the building. “But you don’t want to go away this weekend, do you?”

Carmen shook her head. “Victor I can’t spend any more time with you alone until I’ve sorted out Andrew. I can’t cope with wanting you both.” Being with Victor so much wasn’t helping her to think straight about Andrew. Didn’t Victor realise that all he had to do was say, “I’m the one, Carmen, you belong to me” and she would throw Andrew away without hesitation, that she just wanted him to make love to her and she knew she’d never look at another man again. Why hadn’t she met Victor first?

He squeezed her hand. “I will wait for you. As your friend, your guide, your lover. I will wait, Carmen. I know what’s at stake. I know it has to be in your time or not at all.”

When she got back to her desk there was an email from Andrew in her inbox. He sounded true and devoted and still in love. She sighed, wrote a quick loving response, gushing about how lovely lunch had been with his mother and how she was desperate for him to come home. She would ignore the dream: that was the best thing to do. Let Andrew come back to her in a few days, look for a home to share and grow old in and get this wedding on the road. She was sure that once he was home again she would feel okay about him. She doubted she would ever feel okay about Victor. She guessed all the answers were inside. She shook her head and moved Andrew’s email into her AA file and opened up New York Real Estate on Safari. At least it would help her to feel more normal again. Just a girl getting married to a handsome boy who could go on and live happily ever after.

Bugger Victor and his interference in her hitherto normal, controlled life.

Carmen spent the weekend quietly and calmly. She had lunch with her mother on Saturday without a single unpleasant word passing between them. Madeleine was unusually interested in Carmen’s lunch with Elizabeth Adams, insisting on every detail about the food, her dress and the conversation. Madeleine found it impossible to hide her happiness about her daughter marrying so well.

“So, who will give you away, darling? Have you thought about that?” Madeleine asked as she sipped her coffee.

Carmen considered her mother. “Well, actually, I hadn’t thought. I know, normally it’s the bride’s father, but, well who is there, Mom?”

“I’m sure Todd would be happy to, or what about your boss? Now what is his name?”

“Victor? You mean Victor Bernhard,” Carmen said, not having considered Victor at all for the role: not having thought about anyone for the role, having hardly thought about the wedding at all, if she was honest with herself. Victor’s bizarre conversations and “lessons” were more than enough for her to wrestle with, not to mention
that
dream about Andrew.

Madeleine wrinkled her face. “I know that name.”

“Of course you do, Mom. He’s very famous. He does those fabulous polar bear calendars and the wolves, as well as those Arctic ice-scape posters. He works vigorously for the environment as well as running Great Blizzard.”

Madeleine’s brow was furrowing. “Describe him for me, Carmen. What does he look like?”

Carmen thought. “Well, I guess, he’s about your age, although-” she stopped. Victor had looked mid-fifties when they’d first met, now he looked more like AA, mid thirties. He looked damn fine, she considered and smiled – she’d like to see that body naked. “Well, he’s very tall. About six, five I’d guess. Well I can wear heels when I dance with him and his eyes still look over my head. He’s sort of thin, but strongly built. Shaggy hair, sort of grey-blond, a strong nose, large hands -”

“And unnaturally blue eyes that seem almost in-human,” Madeleine finished.

Carmen studied her mother. “You’ve met him?”

Madeleine nodded. “I think so. But many, many years ago. I think he knew your father. I remember something about dogs, wolf dogs. No, German Shepherds or was it Huskies?” Madeleine thought for a moment. “No, I’m not sure, dear. But I remember a man like that with dogs. He came to the farm. Don’t you have dogs?”

“You know I do, Mom.” Sometimes Madeleine’s lapses in memory were annoying, mostly Carmen had thought they were a convenient way for Madeleine to avoid the more unpleasant aspects of her past. Years lost in an alcoholic stupor seemed to have their advantages.

“In fact he gave your father a pair of dogs. Some nonsense about how special they were. They were a gift for your father because he’d helped this man out some time.”

“My dogs, Mom? Zanzibar and Alaska?”

“One was extra-ordinarily beautiful as I recall. White and grey with black tip paws and tail. She was quite, quite lovely. The other one was handsome too, all gold and black. Both were long haired and very large and fine examples of the breed.”

“Yes, Mom, you’re describing my dogs.”

“Oh, no darling, this was years ago, before your father died. Well, not long before really, but before we left the farm and moved down here. They’d be dead by now. It has to be fifteen years, darling. Or at the least, they’d be very, very old dogs. Your dogs aren’t old, darling. Yours are young and in their prime.”

Carmen nodded. “I guess they are. The vet had said the fact that they were so fit and relatively young with extra-ordinary constitutions was why they survived the poisoning.”

“Well, there you are then. Sounds similar, but not quite.” Madeleine finished her coffee. “I wonder what happened to those dogs?”

“Exactly, Mom. Would you like anything else?”

Madeleine shook her head.

“I’ll get the check then, and well head off.”

“So, I’m sure I’ve met this Victor Bernhard of yours. Ask him, Carmen. See if I’m just imagining it all.”

“I will, Mom. I’ll certainly speak to Victor.” It would certainly explain a great deal if Victor had been a friend of her father’s. It would explain why Victor knew her pet name and about her affinity with the forests: not so other-worldly after all. But then, where had he been all these years and why was he suddenly back in her life?

“I could just be imagining it, darling. You know I get things confused.”

Carmen nodded and hailed a cab for her mother. “It’s all right, Mom. It doesn’t matter.”

“I know you don’t believe this but some days I do miss your father,” Madeleine smiled wanly at her daughter, a person who had always seemed so different to her. At least with Andrew Carmen was more human, it seemed. More accessible for Madeleine at last. “So, I’ll see you and Andrew soon?”

“Yes, Mom. As soon as he gets back. We’ll have dinner. I promise.”

“Now you look after him, Carmen. You’ll never do better. I promise you.”

Carmen opened the door and ushered her mother into the cab. She had heard this too often. She wondered what Madeleine would say about Carmen’s dream. “I know, Mom. Don’t you worry about me.”

“Oh and watch out for bears,” Madeleine said as an after thought.

“What?” Carmen spluttered

Madeleine sat forward on the cab seat. “I read in the papers about a possible polar bear sighting near your building. Sounds a bit do-lally I grant you. Some vagrant near the park entrance near your place saw it. The paper said it was an escaped zoo animal. Ferocious. Attacked some poor man. Ripped his shoulder almost from its socket. Horrible really. You just be extra careful now, Carmen.”

“Yes, Miss,” the cab driver chimed in. “Funny place New York. Was a spate of bear attacks a few years ago. Suddenly stopped. Never caught the bear. Reckon there was a cover up.”

Madeleine nodded. “See? So be extra careful. I’d be moving back to Andrew’s loft if I were you.”

Carmen closed the cab door. “We’re looking at houses, Mom. We’ll move in together soon enough. Bye now.”

Carmen could see her mother smiling, chatting to the cabbie as she drove away. At least that part of life was working well. Perhaps by the time she had children herself, Carmen would have a proper mother-daughter relationship with her mother. She smiled to herself as she strode purposefully down the street heading for her home-alone basement. Given how weird her life had become she shouldn’t be at all surprised by her mother’s growing warmth towards her. Carmen revisited her developing idea that perhaps Madeleine simply shouldn’t have had children. Was there a birth trauma that Carmen hadn’t been told about? Well that was possible given she was the only one and her dad had clearly adored children. Too many mysteries, Carmen decided. Too many secrets, too much of the time. She laughed out loud, startling people in the street. God, life was stupid.

Carmen’s message light was flashing on her phone when she got home. It was Andrew. She smiled: it was so sweet that he’d been in touch every day since he’d been away. She’d dismissed the dream as a dream, no more than her own jealousies and insecurities manifesting themselves in a silly dream. His voice on her machine was reassuring, loving. He missed her and wanted to be home. She played the message a couple of times as she made herself a coffee. Only a few more days now and he’d be back with her and her life could return to normal. She could be the fiancé, planning her wedding and her new life. All this mysterious powers and great destiny rubbish could be put back in the box and returned to Victor. Andrew’s voice filled her house with warmth and her heart with love.