Rendezvous with Hymera (3 page)

Marie was a pretty brunette with a vague gypsy look, cheerful, talkative and very intelligent. By contrast,
her tall, blond, dreamy, blue-eyed husband was courteous, but rather reserved.

When Clara reached the table, Robert and Mr. Garcia got to their feet and Rose made the
introductions.

“Need help?” Clara asked Marie, who was turning on the grill a few appetizing, divine smelling steaks,
arranging a dark curl that escaped from the long, shiny mass of hair and humming something under her breath.

“No, thanks a lot, but I can manage,” she graciously refused and went on with her business, returning to her
song, which seemed to be a Mexican serenade. Tone by tone, in a slow crescendo, her full and flexible voice rose, following its own rhythm that sent magical vibrations in the fragrant night air; everybody fell quiet, listening to her, charmed.

“She’s got a gorgeous voice!” Clara whispered to Robert, and he smiled proudly.

“That’s what first made me fall in love with her, even before I met her personally. When I applied for a job at the company where we’re now working, I talked to her a few times over the phone and I was seduced by her voice,” he said, gazing at his wife with melancholic nostalgia. “Then, when I met her, I convinced her to go out with me by telling her she was an angel misplaced on Earth.”

Clara remained silent, listening to Marie. In a little corner of her heart, she envied, without malice, the
happiness and adoration she saw in Robert’s eyes and wondered if ever someone special will look at her with so much love, if someone would ever think of her as an angel.

Not wanting to let the abstract reveries that were burdening her mind to ruin her night, she actively
participated in conversations, being very pleased that the wine and cookies she had brought met with enthusiastic success.

Robert intrigued the table guests when he took out his cell phone, a miracle of modern technology;
beside all kinds of intelligent functions, it had installed an
anti-mosquito
application.

“What in God’s name is that?” asked Rose, who wasn’t a fan for any sort of gadget.

“It works using ultrasounds,” he explained. “It produces some frequencies we can’t detect, but which mosquito’s detest.”

Clara, also curious, studied the object in question with the owner’s permission, making a mental note to
document about the said application.

“I wonder if Tony can intercept these ultrasounds,” she said, looking around after him.

But the quadruped was blissfully unaware, munching with ecstatic pleasure at a piece of steak, which he had obtained in a suspicious manner at the least.

An interesting character was the old gentleman Garcia, who, although he’d had a tumultuous and
dramatic life, had remained kind and gallant. He was a war veteran and, with the gradual emptying of wine glasses, the usually taciturn old man began telling them stories about his life, about war, death and destruction, and about his long lost love.

Clara found herself profoundly impressed by the tale of this idealistic man who had fought with all
conviction to change something for the better, according to his patriotic sense. The exchange was that he had lost his wife, who had been his life partner since their teens, his home and, in a very symbolic meaning, his life, being repaid for all these with a now rusty stained medal and a miserable pension.

Clara also gathered from bits of conversation and her own deductions a diluted version of Rose’s
biography. Her husband had been a relatively wealthy farmer, and, in spite of the fact that their union hadn’t been blessed with any children – at least Rose had never mentioned the existence of an offspring – the two had had a happy and harmonious marriage.

Three years before, Rose had become a widow, as a consequence of a tragic car accident, which had
kidnapped the one who had been her life partner for over thirty years, leaving her inconsolable. After the funeral, Rose had sold absolutely everything she owned in terms of property, not being able to continue living alone in the home surrounded with so many memories.

She had bought a trailer and crossed the country aimlessly, without purposes or dreams, searching for
escape and oblivion, running away from the pain and uselessness that overwhelmed her since the death of her beloved husband, who had been, until then, her center of existence.

When she had arrived in the place she now owned, the cottages on the lakeshore were the property of a
hotel network, whose owners didn’t know how to get rid of them faster, because they were not
cost-efficient
. After only a few days of living there, Rose had made them an offer to buy the property and, in a couple of weeks, all the paperwork was finalized.

“Something drew me here,” the old lady was saying now, wiping her glasses with an embroidered
handkerchief. “The serenity, the peace, nature itself. Here I began to heal and...To resign myself, to learn living alone and enjoy what’s left of my life.”

Everyone had listened to her quietly, each of them meditating in the privacy of their own thoughts at the
moodiness and unpredictability of fate, which can turn any moment into the last spark of a man’s life.

Long after midnight, Clara headed, sleepily and a bit melancholic, to her cottage, with a lazy Tony
dragging after her. On the way to the stairs leading to the bedroom, she glanced through the living room window facing the lake, and froze.

In the middle of the lake, which in darkness seemed a liquid abyss, with her back to the cottage, stood a
woman. She was steeped in water to her waist and her blonde hair hung loose on her naked back.

In her foggy mind blurred by wine and fatigue, Clara wondered how the woman could float like that,
considering the lake was over thirty feet deep. Suddenly, the woman turned and Clara saw, for a moment, in the vague lunar light, a ghastly pale face and a pair of eyes as dark as the lake itself.

Next to her, a ferocious growl had a cold shiver trickling down her spine and all the hairs on her body grew
erect. She turned around slowly. Tony, showing his fangs in a threatening grin, was looking in the same direction, still growling lugubriously, with his body tensed in attack position.

The young woman looked again through the window, blinking rapidly to clear her vision. The feminine
figure was gone, but the water’s surface was covered by waves of translucent fog. The lake seemed to steam.

***

After a restless night, full of odd dreams, she awoke under Tony’s hairy weight; he had installed himself next to her while she was sleeping, an unusual thing for him to do. The dog had been given to her almost six years ago as a present from her father and she had raised the furry ball with the same devotion she would have felt towards her own child, trying to impose on him a rigorous education. Therefore, it had been more than a few years since the quadruped had felt such an acute need for affection – and maybe even protection – that he would break the rules of canine etiquette.

Presently, spoiled with the loving caresses of his mistress, Tony gave no sign of insecurity or anxiety,
groaning and whimpering conversationally in his usual dialect as a response to her playful pampering. After this demonstration of attachment and sympathy, Clara pushed him gently off the bed and got up, feeling the past night’s effects as a vague sensation of a hangover.

With her ruffled hair and puffy eyes, she pattered with bare feet on the kitchen floor. She brewed some
coffee, so strong that only a short olfactory analysis of the steam dancing over the kettle cleared her mind and revitalized her body with an incipient constructive energy.

In the sunlight sneaking through old shutters, the past night’s events seemed phantasmagorical, result of
fatigue and the alcohol, with which she wasn’t used to.

However, somewhere in her subconscious, the ghostly image of a woman on the lake persisted.

After she fed Tony and sent him outside in the garden, Clara was thinking, in a distant perspective, of breakfast, when she heard a discreet knock on the wooden front door.

Probably Rose
, she thought while opening the door.

The visitor was Colin, holding a quite sizable paper bag that emanated a delicious smell. After he rapidly
measured her with a glance, from the long, disheveled hair to the ducks and bunnies pajamas, he grinned widely and said:

“Did I wake you up?”

Deciding it was too late to feel embarrassed by the way she looked, Clara displayed a sweet smile and stuck her nose into the bag full of donuts and cupcakes, breathing deeply.

“I forgive you, ’cause you seem to know my weaknesses pretty well. Come in,” she
invited, already munching a donut with studied nonchalance.

As always, Colin looked gorgeous, unshaven, dressed in a white shirt and jeans.

I must be completely depraved
, she thought, self-admonishingly.
Every time I take a look at this man, my hormonal level rises and my brain activity drops drastically! It’s not normal!
she scolded herself, taking care to keep a neutral expression, not to betray her naughty thoughts.

She offered him a seat on the large couch, while Tony was sniffing him suspiciously.

“I’ll go make myself look more presentable,” she told him, placing a coffee cup in his hand. “Careful, it’s lethal to the uninitiated,” she warned him indicating the black liquid. "I’ll be right back.”

“No problem, take your time, Tony will keep me company,” Colin replied, scratching the furry ears. That
action gradually turned the dog’s caution into a reluctant beginning of friendship.

Combed, wearing light makeup, a spicy perfume and a white dress that showed off her long, tanned
legs, Clara looked magnificent.

“I’ve always thought you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he said, watching
her with the fixed and lustful concentration of a cat courting the cream pot.

She remained captive for a heartbeat in the penetrant intensity of his gaze, not finding any adequate
response to this remark.

Fortunately, Colin didn’t seem to wait for
any reply. He went on, smiling:

“You know, actually I came to
take you on a picnic.”

“Picnic? Where?”

“Right here. There’s a really beautiful place on the lakeside; I discovered it accidentally in the weeks I spent here.”

Without waiting for a confirmation, he took her hand and led her to his car, an anthropic version of a feline
– low, long, shiny black – producing from its trunk an enormous blanket and a basket of impressive proportions, loaded with culinary delicacies.

They walked hand in hand along the shore until they reached a small clearing, on the opposite side of the
cottages. Colin laid the blanket on the grass of a green so clean and uniform that it made the dew drops glittering here and there seem to be stray crystal shards.

He began revealing the supplies in the basket: champagne, expensive cheese, chocolate truffles and other
such sweet nothings, along with two glasses. He opened the bottle with an artistic skill and filled both glasses with the frothy flavored liquid.

“I’m not used to drinking champagne for breakfast,” she remarked laughing.

“It’s almost lunch. And, anyway, today is a special occasion. We must celebrate our reunion, right?”

They clinked glasses, then delighted with samples of gastronomic indulgence and conversation.

After they finished eating, relaxed by the balmy air, they stretched out face to face on the blanket. Somewhere, in the more shallow places of the abyss above, a few diaphanous, unstable clouds arched lazily over the calm scenery.

“I’ve always adored nature, especially the woods,” she said dreamily, following the small
entities that appeared to pulsate with their own ephemeral life.

“I know,” he replied smiling. “I still remember when you used to skip classes with your friends and
bullied them to go to the forest.”

Clara laughed, remembering those days of unaware adolescence, when her greatest concern was to maintain
her school absence level to the limit imposed by her father, and permanently find inventive ways to avoid meetings with parents.

“You never skipped classes, you were a good boy!” she teased him.

“I’m not that good now,” said Colin and, unexpectedly turning her face to him, bent to kiss her.

His lips were sensual and expert, matching hers in an evocative rhythm that sent its echo in her entire
being, awakening and unleashing feelings repressed so deep that now, under his touch, she seemed to reborn in her own newly created world.

Invaded by the twin power of those inexpressible feelings, he pulled her closer, in an embrace in which
passion, desire and all the nameless experiences, remained undefined even by the most skilled poets, merged in a primitive state – an acute need to possess and be possessed. Sometime later, with a restless heart and inconstant breathing, Colin gazed straight into her eyes, whispering roughly: