Sustenance (16 page)

“Only Germans?” Charis asked.

“Germans, Americans, Canadians, Britons, Poles, French, the Resistance forces, and displaced farmers, as the tides of war swept over the country; almost all the soldiers were hungry, and no farmer could count himself safe.” He thought of the war years when he had remained at Montalia, Madelaine’s estate near the Italian border, and how she had sent her horses off into Switzerland, and her sheep into the Pyrenees in the care of distant relatives, leaving only the lands, a few crops, and the Medieval manor for him to look after.

“You were here for the war?” She was astonished to hear him speak so calmly about it.

“Not here, but in the mountains in the south of France, for most of it. I was at a manor near the town of Saint-Jacques-sur-Crete; it’s not much bigger than Sainte-Thecla. But nine years ago, I had some dealings with the Resistance, too, and met Giraud then.” He clutched down and slowed into an old lane that led off to the east, the middle of the road overgrown and the two ruts flanking it so rough that the Delahaye moved no faster than a jog-trot. “There’s a little bridge up ahead, over the stream. It’s very old, and could use some repair, but it’s safe enough for us to cross.” He flinched in anticipation of the enervation the running water would visit upon him.

She looked at him, surprised that he would mention the bridge. “Did the convent use it?”

“They diverted its course once they were established, and that gave them fresh water almost all the time. There was a problem in the fourteenth century, but the convent was well into decline by then, and most of it was in poor repair.” He remembered seeing the clumsy dam that had been built a little below the convent, resulting in a marsh that spread over the lower pasture. He had been going from Orgon in the south to Hainault in the north, trying to keep ahead of the Black Plague, with only a shaggy donkey for a companion, Rogers having gone to Olivia, at her small villa near Trieste. He recalled how desolate the whole place appeared at the time, and how the water had been choked with debris and bodies; the stench had been appalling. “The Plague hit hard in this region.”

“It appears to have hit hard everywhere.” She thought of the war and how destructive it had been, and wondered if the Plague was as bad as World War II.

Szent-Germain braked for a bend in the road that led to the bridge. “As you see, very old, but serviceable enough for our purposes.” He moved ahead, the Delahaye going at a walking pace. The shoulder of the road was sloped and fallen away in a few places, nothing too broad or potentially dangerous but sufficient to require an even slower advance.

“Are you sure it will hold up?” Charis asked, her smoky-blue eyes worried.

“I believe so; it did in October,” he said as the Delahaye rolled off the bridge onto a little track that wound its way around a stand of berry-vines. “If you can see that thick pediment at the edge of the vines, that was the main gate to the convent. It was made of thick slabs of wood and heavy iron banding.” He thought back to his time with the Khazars, aware that they would have called these ruins orphans of memory.

“Is the rest of the gate pediment in the thicket?” Charis asked, trying to imagine it.

“No, it went the other direction. This gate was in the curtain-wall, and was reinforced. The inner door was a bit smaller and lacked the iron. The inner part of the convent was more like the usual Medieval design, but between the inner wall and the curtain wall there was an apple orchard and a long line of coops and hutches for chickens and ducks and rabbits.” He set the brake and turned off the engine; the sound of the wind rose up around them, its chill no longer playful. “The village may have snow tonight.”

Charis sat, perplexed. “How many nuns lived here?”

“At its height, possibly a hundred-fifty or -sixty, not counting slaves.” He saw her give him a startled look as he was opening the door to get out. “Oh, yes, those Dark Age nuns had slaves, as did many of the clergy but anchorite monks, and so did what passed for upper classes then; most of the slaves came from Eastern Europe, but others from Africa through Spain, and from the Greek islands. The last century the convent was active it had forty or so. The local Bishops ignored the place, and the nuns were left to fend for themselves. By eighteen hundred, they had sold off much of their livestock and their geese, but they continued to labor in the traditions of their Order. Such as they were, in time all of them died, and there were no novices to take their places.” He had come around the back of the car and now went to open the door for Charis, then reached into the back for the camera-case. “Come, Professor Treat.”

“Are you making those figures up? or have you some basis in fact to account for them?” As she spoke, she realized how remote from the rest of the world she felt here. Why had she come so far from what little she knew of Paris with this smooth-mannered foreigner who might, in truth, be anyone, or anything? She put her hand on the door-release and made herself conceal the first quivers of panic that had taken hold of her. He held out the camera-bag to her; she took it. “Thank you, Grof Szent-Germain,” she said, taking care not to slip on the swath of dry grass that encroached on the road.

“Professor, let me—” He held out his hand to her, and was nonplused by the jolt of sexual need he felt from her as her hand took his wrist; he had sensed loneliness in her from the first time he met her, and occasionally a twinge of erotic longing, remembering Rosza of Borsod at Otakar the Great’s Court, and Melidulci when Heliogabalus reigned in Roma; Rosza had been as demanding as what he sensed now; Melidulci was unabashedly hedonistic, but nothing like this, nothing that was as potent a mix as desire, yearning, and despair. He recovered himself almost instantly, and guided her onto safer footing. “Be careful where you walk,” he advised her. “There are stones and tumbled stairs all over the old convent. The people of Sainte-Thecla don’t often come here, they say the convent lands are unsafe. It’s one of the reasons no one’s farming it—too much labor for too little return.” He glanced at her, then pointed with his free hand to a tumble-down stone tower about half a kilometer away. “That’s the north-east limit of what’s left of the convent’s property.”

“Is it?” she asked with an assumption of innocence; she was finding it difficult to talk at all. “Unsafe?”

“No; overused perhaps, and the Church occasionally tries to reclaim it, but nothing more.”

She let go of him. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing her leather coat. There was heat mounting in her face which she hoped in vain that he would interpret as the work of the cold wind. “I’ll be careful.” She moved a few steps away. “Okay. Tell me where everything was.” As she spoke, she thought of her mother’s firm but kind rebuke not to be vulgar or to tell men what to do; her jaw clenched.

“The curtain-wall went from that low tower to about where those willows are standing,” he said, pointing the trees out and directing her attention to the crossroad shrine. “And another seventy degrees or so to the north, you can see the hayward’s guard-post—they grew hay here for a few centuries…” For the next two hours, he led the way around the wreckage of the convent, explaining each building’s function as well as its location while she photographed the places he indicated. They had made a circuit of the field and were approaching the place they had begun. “Are you getting tired?” he asked, and held up his hand to add, “Because I am.” The sun and the near-by water had done their worst, and now that it was mid-day, he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up the pace he had set for himself.

Charis could not bring herself to admit that she was exhausted, so she said, “Maybe another half-hour?”

He nodded. “Of course.” He turned and lifted his arm to point at a heap of berry-vines with a portion of a squat broken column emerging from it. “We can go through where the old gate was, and that would put us in the nuns’ part of the convent.” He indicated some broken stones that had once been stairs. “That was the entrance to the refectory. There were three rooms in it: a kitchen, a dining room for travelers, and the nuns’ dining room. There were fireplaces in the dining rooms where meat was cooked on spits, and the kitchens, where there was a kind of stove where the rest of the meal preparation was done. The bakery was just beyond it—it’s all gone now, but in the part of the plan for the convent, it’s clearly shown.”

“Will you let me photograph that plan?” She had not expected to ask such a favor, but once she had spoken, she all but held her breath waiting for his answer. “If it’s not inconvenient,” she added.

“If you’ll let me bring it to you, yes. The house I have in this part of the countryside lacks electricity, and you will need a good, strong light to bring out the ink; it’s quite pale now.” He was a few steps ahead of her, his fatigue starting to give him a headache while he did his best to recall the original buildings.

She was not paying much attention to where she was walking until she felt him seize her shoulder an instant before she turned her ankle; sharp hurt from the sprain warred with intense sexual desire that erupted with his touch. She pulled away from him, and very nearly fell again, and the camera slipped out of her hands, falling through the brush onto the convent’s stones below. She shrieked softly as she heard the clatter of falling metal and breaking glass. “Oh, Grof. I am so sorry,” she exclaimed, then fell, entangling herself in berry-vines and weeds while cutting herself on some of the glass.

This time he did not bother to ask for her permission; he bent down to lift her from the ground. “If you try to walk you’ll only make it worse.”

His nearness made it difficult for her to breathe. “But you’re tired. I can make it to the car.”

“Perhaps,” he said, moving a bit more quickly, his muscles straining against the weariness that would enervate him until the annealing arrival of nightfall. “But I would prefer you don’t fall down again.” He slogged onward, and although it took him a little more than five minutes to reach the Delahaye, by the time he set her down in the passenger seat he felt her passionateness as if it had been on the road to Damascus once more. Closing the door, he leaned on the boot for a long moment, doing his utmost to ignore the sunlight that gnawed at him, using the time to think and to marshal what little stamina remained in him. How had this happened? He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with his fingers, getting rid of the fine dust that blew off the fields; he buffed his dark lenses with the lining of his jacket and put the glasses back on. How to go on from here? They were doing well as colleagues, and, he had hoped, might have arranged a brief affaire during her stay in Europe, something that would allow each of them a glimpse of the soul of the other and relieve the burden of loneliness for a short while; he knew now that would not be possible: she was married and had not recognized her degree of attraction to him. She was lonely and would endure it as part of her exile, at odds with the emotions now stirring in her. There was also, he acknowledged, his esurience responding to her unidentified desire. He felt her conflict wearing at her, and wanted to offer sympathy, but was aware that would make her discomfort all the greater. For now, he would have to be careful during his time with her or risk summoning up as much demoniacal hatred in her as the concupiscence he had awakened. He got into the auto and saw her head turn toward him, her gaze avoiding his eyes.

“I’m sorry about the camera. Really.” The contrition in her voice was for something more than the camera.

“I have others, Professor. You didn’t plan to have such a fall, or to break the camera. No apology is needed,” he said calmly; he could feel her frenzy diminishing, as well as the effort it cost her. Starting the engine, he said, “Try to rest as we go back. I’ll call a doctor to have a look at you when we get there.” With that, he turned the auto around and started for the bridge; he found himself trying to decide how he should deal with Charis Lundquist Treat.

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM NUGENT HAPGOOD IN PARIS TO HIS SISTER, MEREDITH RUTHERFORD, IN ST. LOUIS, SENT BY AIR MAIL AND DELIVERED IN THREE DAYS.

General Delivery

Paris, France

December 5
th
, 1949

592 Sinclair Way

St. Louis, Missouri

USA

Dear Mimi,

Apologies for not writing sooner but it’s been one hell of a time here. Good news first: I finally got a job, not teaching math or anything rational like it, but working four hours a day at a tourist kiosk, helping the lost and bewildered who speak English find their way around the city. There’s a Spanish guy who does the same for Spanish-speakers, and he says he can do some Portuguese. We have another American who handles the Italians, and a guy from Hamburg to help the few Germans who venture to Paris. The pay isn’t very good, yet better than nothing at all. You can tell Jim that you won’t be sending your pin-money to me for now. I know you say it’s no problem, but Jim isn’t an idealistic academic like me, he’s an ambitious entrepreneur with cars to sell, and I’m not his brother, I’m his brother-in-law: you can’t expect him to share your inclination to help me. Anyway, for now, I’ll be busy explaining to baffled American and English tourists how to find their hotel, or the Louvre, or the Left Bank. It’s not hard to do, and it leaves me some time for working on my own.

Believe it or not, there is more good news. A fellow I met through the Coven runs a publishing company, and he’s interested in a book on the applications of calculating machines that are neither military nor governmental. He agrees with me that such machines—once they have become smaller and need less constant attention—have a place in commerce and travel and archiving of all manner of information. He has offered me two thousand dollars for such a manuscript, paid in two installments. That should keep the wolf from the door, at least for a little while. Once I’ve finished the book, I’ll discuss other topics with him, including my theories on how mathematics should be taught in schools as a language, not a code. I won’t bore you with another harangue on the subject.