"Are you malarial?" he asked, concerned.
"No, nothing like that. I'm good about taking my prophylactics. In Africa you had better be. Would you excuse me, I need to—"
He was on his feet as she left the table. Walking quickly away, onset of menses, perhaps. A cramp. He took a deep appreciative breath, eyes and heart filled with her shape and style, the fine edge of a lingering emotion cutting him deeper than he was prepared for. As he was sitting down, moving his cane chair at more of an angle to the street, another young woman slipped into his field of vision. She startled him. But already, briefly glimpsed, she was disappearing, obscured by throngs on both sides of the wide avenue, the slow passage of a bus. A white female, the image of Eden Waring, even to the cut of her cedar-red hair and the beaded Masai headband high on her tanned forehead. The green of her sleeveless dress seemed exactly the shade Eden was wearing.
Then she reappeared farther down the sidewalk, hesitated, turning her face toward the hotel as if in response to his astonishment. Where she stood a draft of cold air from the doorway of a shop thinned the vaporous haze from a bus's exhaust; he saw her clearly. Those eyebrows like the red of wasps with their little tapered stingers at each end, rising abruptly above the natural arch of each brow. And that cinched it, although he had seen Eden disappear into the hotel only a few seconds ago. He glanced that way to be sure.
Doubles were a part of his business as a magician. He was amazed that Eden had gone to this trouble to stage her sly, jesting illusion for him. Anyway, he liked it. A very different, intriguing young woman.
When he looked across the street again, the double was gone. Show over. He applauded silently, smiling to himself. More than a little curious about the double's identity.
"W
ho were your parents?" Lincoln Grayle asked Eden, on the way to Jomo Kenyatta Airport. Grayle and other members of his entourage were flying in a chartered Learjet to Victoria Falls, where they would complete the last segment for his upcoming television special.
"I never knew them."
"I thought you might bear a strong resemblance to your mother."
She gave him a look, unreadable behind the dark lenses of her smart Italian sunglasses.
"From photos I've seen of her, I suppose I do."
"And your sister?"
Another look. "One of us was all God made."
"Then you have a double in Nairobi. I had a glimpse of her today, walking past the hotel."
He was waiting for her to laugh, reveal her joke on him. Instead he saw Eden's hands, in fingerless ostrich-leather driving gloves, tighten on the steering wheel. No hint of amusement in her face.
"Oh, her. Yes, I've noticed her too. Actually I'm a lot better-looking." Finally her lip curled, a reluctant half smile. "She has a bad complexion. Her eyes are too close together."
On the ramp for departing passengers she pulled into a space behind a minibus discharging a British Airways crew. It was a busy time of day, jumbo jets arriving from and leaving for cities on three continents, a rage of thunder in the sky. The ramp trembled beneath a load of traffic.
They looked at each other, not sure how to end it. Then Eden slipped off her glasses and leaned toward him with a smile. They kissed.
"I don't think we'll be seeing each other again," Eden said.
"I think we must," he said.
She turned her face aside, politely, at the offer of a second kiss.
"
Kwaheri
," Eden said. "Good-bye" sounded less final in Swahili. And just a touch romantic.
E-MAIL LETTER FROM PINKY TUBNER TO HER SON
AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
OCTOBER 14
H
i, Gary and Gloria! Back in Rome after two days on the Amalfi Coast. October is busy but not the high season there, August being the big month when the hotels are jam-packed with people who come back year after year. So we were able to reserve this
gorgeous
room at Le Sireneuse in Positano, which is like a dream at night, the lights twinkling up and down this steep cliff by the sea. Our room was all in white with brown accents, Gloria (I took lots of pictures, never fear), and the bath even had a whirlpool tub! Which I could certainly use after the drive down from Rome. Let me tell you how happy I was that Frank decided not to rent a car but hired a car and driver instead, a driver used to the road down there. I have never been so scared! Roller coasters are tame compared to the Amalfi Coast road. It is one steep blind curve after another. The road is barely wide enough for two cars abreast! And then there are the buses and trucks coming at you with horns blatting, I had rope burns from my rosary. You know Frank—wise-cracking all the way. Grabbing me by the shoulder and going,
Oooops! That was close!
But I could tell his heart was in his mouth at least part of the time.
Making matters worse, you know that volcano they have down there, Vesuvius? It was
smoking
. First time in years, the driver said. Just what we needed, after that send-off at San Francisco Airport, glass pieces in my hair and throwing up big time from the rotten-meat stench in the lounge. I've told you guys enough about that already. But it was a bad omen for the start of our trip and of course I was petrified during most of the flight to Rome, until a couple of martinis knocked me out. So getting back to our excursion to Amalfi, there's a volcano acting as if it's going to explode at any time!
Two
bad omens. I was convinced I was going to die in a crack-up before we ever got to see His Holiness.
But we made it, Pinky here on very wobbly legs, and the next morning at breakfast by the heated pool at the hotel you would never guess in a thousand years who was at the table next to ours. NEIL DIAMOND!!! I was like seventeen all over again, totally tongue-tied, but you know Frank, five minutes and they had a conversation going. Neil could not have been sweeter about it. Then, in Ravello the next day, I swear it was Tom Cruise we saw on a red Vespa with this ravishing dark-haired girl, right there on the square. The Passionist Father we were having coffee with, who is my aunt Claudia's second cousin if I have that straight, said a lot of young Italian men resemble T.C. Anyway I took a couple of pictures on the sly and you can judge for yourself when I get back if I was right.
Even though I hated the idea of going
one inch
closer to that volcano, Frank the
National Geo
freak insisted and so we toured Herculaneum, one of two Roman towns buried in an eruption twenty centuries ago. Herculaneum was a spa for rich Romans. I had no idea how well those people lived! They even went to the bathroom
indoors
.
Well, if the vacationing Romans of yore ate half as well as we did for two days, they all must have been happy campers. I can't begin to describe the taste treats! Oyster-stuffed red potatoes. Steamed lobster in a gelatin of tomato and basil,
cannaroni
with little shrimp in a fennel-and-almond sauce—let me get to the desserts, and trust me my mouth is watering as I type this. Too bad the wild strawberry gelato won't travel, I'd bring home a gallon. And just try to imagine the torta la Zagara, the house speciality at this wonderful garden restaurant in Positano:
chocolate cake, stuffed with candied tangerine!!!! Yes I'm afraid I pigged out.
But we're back in Rome now, at our cozy hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. And I'm stuffy and wheezing. The bad news is the Holy Father has had to postpone our meeting for three days, an abscess in his ear, according to Msgr. Ramone at the Office of the Prefecture of the Apostolic Household. I don't want to sound like we're too disappointed by the postponement. After all, we're in Rome. The Eternal City!!! We have a walking tour of Bernini's fountains scheduled for this afternoon with that lovely couple from the archdiocese of St. Louis I think I mentioned before. I only hope my feet hold out.
Frank says hey, and God bless and keep you all, with special blessings for baby Jordana!!
"SHUNGWAYA"
LAKE NAIVASHA, KENYA
OCTOBER 14
1545 HOURS ZULU
"B
ad complexion? My
eyes
are too close together? What did you tell him
that
for?" Eden closed her eyes wearily, trying to relax in a tepid bath in her bungalow adjacent to the main house.
"Because I knew it would annoy you," she said to her doppelganger. "Because it wasn't smart to show yourself to Lincoln Grayle this afternoon; what were you trying to prove?"
"I'm not annoyed. My feelings are hurt. If I have to remind you again that I have feelings. I'm your mirror image. We are exactly alike."
"No, we're not. At least I have a sense of humor. For the last four months whenever we… get together, all you do is moan and complain."
"I'm bored. I haven't been
out
for more than a week."
"That's another thing. When you are... out, you don't have to dress like I do. I told you; dare to be a lit-tie different."
"I can be different! Just name me, and release me. I promise, faithfully swear, I will never desert you."
"Nothing doing."
"Then I don't have a choice. I have your taste in clothes, your taste in jewelry,
your
interest in Lincoln Grayle."
"Excuse me?"
"I wasn't trying to 'prove' anything. I did what you asked me to do at the university library." Her research in the library had whetted an old appetite. She wanted to read more. Read for herself, season her mind with the life experiences of others, learning apart from what Eden already knew. But there never was enough time. She came and went too quickly, subservient in a monocracy. "After that, because you weren't in a rush to recall me, I went for a walk?' Gwen sighed, reliving the blood-perk of blissful freedom. "After all, it was my first time in Nairobi. And I just
happened
to walk by the Stanley. And there he was. I can see why you're nuts about him."
"Whatttt? I don't intend ever to see him again, which I made perfectly—"
"Oh, bull. I know what you know; I feel what you—by the way, if you're having your period, you probably shouldn't be taking a bath."
"Why, are you bleeding?"
"No, of course not."
"Not exactly alike then, are we?" Eden said, with the merest hint of malice. She was tired, and her glands were subtly out of phase.
"Okay, one important difference. I can't reproduce the species, so what's the point of going through
that
every month. Anyway, you can hide me, but you can't hide anything
from
me. You know you put a little extra something into that good-bye kiss at the airport."
"Temporary girlish weakness."
"Can't you just admit you've been lonely, and you were thinking about how nice it would be to curl up in bed with—"
Eden pitched a soapy bath sponge at her doppelganger, who had already stepped out of the way. She said with an impudent grin, "Why bother? I knew it was coming."
Eden sighed and sank deeper into the old zinc tub.
"Okay, I like him, but it's impossible. Let's get off the subject of Lincoln Grayle. Can I have my sponge back?"
The dpg retrieved Eden's sponge for her. "Can't refuse any request. It's in the doppelganger's job description." She quickly held up a hand. "But you don't want to blow the five o'clock whistle yet."
"I'm not. Stay a while. And tell me if you found out anything today."
"Marble staircases, possibly of religious importance. There are a lot of those, particularly in Rome. Do you want me to download all of my research while you're soaking? Based on your sketch, I did about three hours on the Internet and in the stacks at the library."
"Keep it short; I don't need a lot of travelogue stuff cluttering up my brain."
"I counted twenty-eight steps in your sketch. I assume you were certain about that number, because you took pains to make it exact."
"I tried to draw exactly what I dreamed. Maybe the number is important."
"Helpful. I came up with La Scala Santa, the only staircase in Rome designated as 'holy.' It's located across from the basilica of St. John Lateran in an unimpressive little building filled with Christian relics and a couple of sculptures, one of which is the
Ecce Homo
—'Christ presented to the rabble by Pontius Pilate.' That's significant."
"Why?"
"According to legend, that same staircase led to Pilate's office in the Governor's palace in Jerusalem. Fourth century A.D., it was taken apart and shipped to Rome by order of Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother. She was a convert to Christianity and took a trip to Judea to locate objects Christ might have touched. More than three hundred years had passed, but she found what she thought was the 'True Cross'; it also occurred to her that Christ probably walked up Pilate's staircase for his arraignment, Pilate being in Jesus' time the provincial governor of Judea."
"Then Christ walked back down those steps on his way to Golgotha."