Florian's Gate (16 page)

South Kensington was a district in perpetual transition. Daquise was located in an area at the scale's lower end; the Rolls' arrival stopped traffic and turned heads a half block away. The restaurant's tables were linoleum-topped, its
vinyl-covered booths and seats too old to be truly comfortable. But the food was excellent, and its clientele immensely loyal.

“The old menus looked like choir hymnals from a bankrupt church,” Kantor said once the manager had greeted them, led them to a choice seat, discussed the menu, and left to give their order to the kitchen. Kantor's good humor had revived considerably. “They were enormous padded red-leather affairs, and battered as a third-rate French hotel bed.”

“You've told me,” Jeffrey said, nodding his thanks to the waitress who set down their fluted glasses of steaming tea.

“I realize that,” Kantor replied. “Now you will wipe that long-suffering look off your face and play the politely interested employee.”

Jeffrey cocked his head to one side, made round eyes, asked, “How's that?”

“Ridiculous. It's not often I indulge in reminiscing.”

“Just every time you come over,” Jeffrey replied, thoroughly enjoying himself.

“Which is not often enough by the look of things.”

“This is the best quarter the shop has ever had.”

Kantor waved a casual dismissal. “I dread to think what we could have accomplished were I daily at the helm.”

“Bankruptcy?” Jeffrey kept his smile hidden. “Public shame? Fire-sale signs on Mount Street?”

Their evenings together became times of ever-deeper discussions and ever-greater pleasure for the young man. It was only recently, one evening after receiving Kantor's arrival fax, that Jeffrey had wondered if perhaps the old gentleman was lonely.

Kantor gave him a frosty glance. “Remind me why I put up with your over-active tongue.”

“Because it doesn't detach. And because I'm good at my job. And because I'm honest.”

“Are you now.”

“Totally.”

“Yes.” Kantor's eyes creased upward. “I suppose you are at that. So where was I?”

“Goodness only knows.”

“The menus. Thank you. Yes, the prices were all written by hand and in a shaky Polish script, then rubbed out and redone so often no one could read them.”

“Which is why they finally purchased these awful plastic things,” Jeffrey finished for him.

“Do I truly bore you that badly with my little stories?”

“Truly?”

“I would not ask if I did not mean it.”

“Then truly, I look forward to your visits more than I like to admit even to myself.”

Carefully the old gentleman sipped his tea, his face immobile. “Why is that, do you suppose?”

“The truth again.” Jeffrey took a breath. “I have never met anyone like you. Never. You are a genuine individual in a carbon-copy world. Neither age nor success nor wealth has ground you to grayness.”

“You've obviously given this quite a lot of thought.”

Jeffrey nodded. “I've wondered if I'd ever have the chance to tell you. Or the nerve.”

“I see.” Kantor seemed momentarily nonplussed.

“You're one of the few people I've ever met who is never boring. And with all the changes you've pushed me toward, there's always been a perfectly good reason. I've never felt as if I'm being forced to fit some egotistical role.”

“I'd rather try to reform the Rock of Gibraltar.”

“You don't know how rare that is,” Jeffrey replied. “And I'm more grateful than I'll ever be able to say for your giving me a job that I love. Truly.”

“Well.” Kantor was clearly at a loss. “I say, Jeffrey, I do believe you're blushing.”

“It comes with the confession.”

“No doubt, no doubt.”

They were saved from further embarrassment by the arrival
of their dinner. They ate in comfortable silence until Jeffrey laid down his fork, pushed his plate back, said, “I come here a lot.”

That brought another start. “When I'm not in town? Do you really?”

“I like the food.”

“How fascinating.”

“A lot. And the people.” He motioned toward an old crone nodding in the corner. She was nursing a glass of tea, drawing out a nightly ritual, staving away the loneliness of an empty flat. She wore a blue velvet turban and an ancient diamond tiara. Her face was a mask of sagging folds, her nose a beak. “Everybody in here has jumped from the pages of a Tolstoy novel.”

“Mmmm.” The old woman noticed their eyes. Alexander gave her a grave seated bow, murmured a greeting in Polish. She responded with a regal nod, replied with a voice made ragged from disuse, and returned to her own internal musing.

“The correct term is
staruszka
. It means little old lady, but only in the nicest of terms. The word for old in Polish is
stary
, a term I'm coming to know on a too-intimate basis.”

“I've never thought of you as old.”

“How kind. Yes, if truth is to be the evening's main course, then I must confess that my years have become a burden. You must experience the weight of years for yourself, Jeffrey, before you can really understand.”

“You've had a good life.”

“That I have, in part at least. Too good to leave it willingly behind. But for the first time since the war, I feel as though I can look ahead and see death's door. It's not that far away anymore. Just around the next bend.”

Jeffrey felt the room grow chill. “You've seen a doctor?”

“Many doctors. They all say the same thing. I am fine. I have some good years ahead of me. There is nothing wrong. They have leeched more money from me than even I thought possible, and tortured me with so many machines and needles
I have begun to cringe every time I pass a hospital. They with all their modern wisdom have found nothing. But I know, young man. My body does not lie. We have passed more than sixty-five years in each other's company, and come to like one another quite a lot. I heed its voice as often as I can, gracing it with comfortable beds and sensible foods and adequate rest. It in turn permits me the foibles of an occasional cigar and a third brandy on a cold night. In all the years since the war, it has punished me with nothing more serious than a stuffy nose.”

“And now?”

“And now. And now it says it is growing tired. It no longer willingly rises when I ask, nor responds to simple pleasures. Food has begun to taste flat, wine bitter, cigars stale. Worse still are the whispers of what is yet to come. Lingering illness. Pain. Embarrassing moments. Lapses of memory. The prospect of growing old distresses me more than anything has since the war.”

“I would really like to hear about your escape from Poland if you ever feel like talking.”

“Another time, dear boy. I couldn't discuss the escape without referring to what came before it, and to speak of that and the loss of my faculties all in the same night would simply be too much. I will tell you of this, I assure you. I can see your interest is genuine, and I will honor it. There is no need for barriers between us. Honesty becomes a lie if it is doled out in half measures. But not tonight.”

Jeffrey nodded, hurting without knowing why. “You look great to me.”

“Thank you. I feel it, too. This small dose of truth between friends has done me a world of good, more than all the doctors I have visited over the past months. But the whispers I hear are not vague, and my time on this earth no longer appears as endless as it once did. What's worse, I have begun to question my life. A most uncomfortable pasttime, I assure you. But with this unmarked door up ahead, it suddenly becomes
much more appealing to turn around and look back. Only I cannot do this with the same comforting blindness with which I lived the moment. I am finding my own innate honesty has become a finger pointing at flaws and errors I have managed to ignore for a lifetime.”

Jeffrey hoped his voice would not betray him as he said, “I think you're one of the finest men I've ever met, Alexander.”

“Thank you, dear boy. That means more to me than you will ever know. But I fear my own selfish blindness can protect me no longer from the failings of this life I have been privileged to call my own. Not, that is, if I am going to continue to find solace from the future by looking back. There are few things that I shall be able to change, I recognize that. Age and my own disposition makes change at this late date most unappealing. But there are a few wrongs that I shall attempt to right in my remaining days. And a few of my better actions that I must endeavor to anchor against the unforeseen. Which brings us to the matter of our trip.”

Jeffrey sat up straight. “Our?”

“Not in here. I may have been lured into a public confession, but I shall not discuss confidential business in a public place.” He signaled to the waitress. “Come along. It's time for a quiet glass at your club.”

Jeffrey's club was around the corner from Berkley Square, where the nightingale sang no more—and even if it did, no one situated farther away than the next tree limb would be able to hear the melody. Nowadays the square was awash with an unending toneless symphony of blares, hoots, revving motors, angry shouts, jackhammers, squealing brakes, snarled traffic, and construction turmoil. Berkley Square had been transformed from a relatively quiet alcove to a focal point for Piccadilly-directed traffic, compliments of London's one-way road network. The constant man-made storm had not affected rents, however. People paid staggering sums for the
Berkley Square address, long after all charm had evaporated in a cloud of diesel fumes.

The club was a short half block up a street as nondescript as the club's entrance; a gray portal opened in a gray building on a gray street that shrugged its way around a corner and ended quietly in an alleyway. Inside, uniformed porters guarded the entrance with respectful vigilance, offering members a properly subdued greeting.

Jeffrey had chosen the Landsdowne Club because it was close to his home and to the shop, had an excellent sports hall, and because it was available. Many of the London clubs granted membership only to those with title or wealth or renown, and very rarely at all to foreigners. Admission to the Landsdowne had been Alexander's gift at the end of Jeffrey's probation. As far as he was concerned, it was the perfect fit.

Jeffrey had once seen an etching, made in 1811, which vividly displayed the rural atmosphere of the region. At that time, the Landsdowne mansion had stood within several walled acres of garden, and had been surrounded on three sides by open fields.

By the onset of the twentieth century, the gardens were long gone, the fields no more. A road expansion decreed by the London government in the thirties rudely demolished the Landsdowne manor's front forty feet, taking with it a good many of the most beautiful chambers. But as far as Jeffrey was concerned, those that remained were more than adequate.

In a sitting room by the bar, Lord Shelburne, Prime Minister under King George III, had signed the declaration that ended the Revolutionary War and granted the United States its independence. The main hall, a vast affair with a seventy-foot arched and gilded ceiling, was once a central locale in the busy London social season. Jeffrey loved to dine on the club's traditional fare of roast lamb or beef, stare out over the heads of nodding elderly members, and strain to hear the echoes of violins fill a room lit by vast candelabras.

Nowadays the room was seldom more than a third full, and
was a most comfortable place to come and sit by the roaring fire and read undisturbed, the chamber's huge dimensions a welcome change from his cramped apartment.

Jeffrey allowed Alexander to lead them to a set of comfortable chairs near the fire and well removed from the few other occupied tables.

“You know the basis for these clubs is to duplicate the atmosphere of the British school system,” Alexander said as they took their seats. “The surroundings are grandiose, the food inedible, the furniture tacky, and the rooms frigid even in summer.”

Jeffrey saw no need to tell him how impressed he was by his surroundings. “What was the first club you ever went to?”

“Let's see. Ah yes, that would be the Carlton. Every Conservative prime minister since Peel has belonged.”

“Even Margaret Thatcher?”

“Oh, most definitely. They made her an honorary man. Some of those members who put her name forward said she was the only member of her cabinet who deserved to wear trousers, so in their eyes it was not breaking with the all-male tradition.”

A waiter appeared at his elbow; Alexander ordered brandy for them both. When they were again alone, he said, “I must tell you, Jeffrey, that I am vastly impressed with your young lady.”

“I'm not sure she's my anything.”

Alexander waved the comment aside. “What you have not seen is the way she looks at you when you are not watching.”

“You're kidding.”

“About matters of the heart I never, as you say, kid. Although I do not know her yet, I am coming to know you and trust your judgment. You have chosen well, Jeffrey.”

“And if she doesn't choose me?”

“Give it time.”

“That's easy for you to say.”

“Yes, it is indeed easier to view such matters from a painless
distance.” He gave Jeffrey a comradely smile. “But if an outsider may be permitted to add his ten pence worth, I think your chances are perhaps better than you think. The tenderness in her gaze touches even this crusty old heart of mine.”

Jeffrey gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you sure we're talking about the same girl?”

“It is a good thing to find someone with whom you can share your work, Jeffrey. The antique trade has clearly become a passion with you, and this pleases me enormously. It is one of the essential ingredients of success in our profession. Yet a passion is either the strongest bonding force possible within a relationship, or a barrier you will fight against for all your days.”