The Topsail Accord (46 page)
Read The Topsail Accord Online
Authors: J T Kalnay
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This novel combines beautiful scenery with well-developed characters in an easy to read love story. Follow the story of Dr. Kane, the gentle, patient, handsome doctor who is in Italy on a humanitarian visit with a children's clinic, as he meets and falls in love with the beautiful but troubled former ballerina turned world class rock climber, Mina. Exquisitely written with a flair for detail and description of the scenic Mediterranean coast, you will be surprised as the story unfolds in several unexpected turn of events. The read is perfect to relax with on a sunny beach and as a means to escape to Italy! I liked it and think you will too.
Please Enjoy This Sample of Mina’s Eyes
Dorgali
Martina looked back over her shoulder to savor the valley, the clay tiled roofs in the Sardinian town, and the mountains beyond. Its beauty washed over her, and for one moment she was at peace. Tranquility. Where had it gone? Had it vanished forever on that windswept beach? Or did it simply lay dormant, waiting, for a time like this, for a place like this, and for a man she could love. If she could ever love again.
Martina turned back to the rock, chalked her strong hands, and started up. Her blue gray Nordic eyes explored, discovered, then caressed pockets, edges, and other imperfections in the near perfect limestone. Her hands and feet glided ever upwards in a vertical dance, reminiscent of her days on the stage, filled with grace and power. Sometimes the movements took her back to when her long lost daughters had danced alongside her in their gossamer gowns as Tchaikovsky soared and filled the theater and set souls free. But today the rhythm took her elsewhere, nowhere near those memories, but rather up and up, over the roofs, over the valley, over the limestone cliff to the heights above.
Kane watched her as she ascended. His back against an ancient pine that had been twisted by the wind, his pack lay at his feet. He'd seen her here before, a few days ago, and had returned each day hoping to see her again, thinking this time the spell would be broken, his words would be freed, and he could speak again. Kane climbed too. But not like Martina. He understood her mastery, knew on some level that only a few could do what she did, and maybe none better. That first day, after she'd gone, he'd tried the routes she'd climbed. Impossible to him. Couldn’t make the first moves. And she’d climbed them alone, no partner, no rope, no bonds.
At his hotel he'd Googled her, because he thought he'd recognized her. Not as a climber, but as a dancer. A dancer he thought he'd met, or at least seen before. He was almost certain he'd found her, learned who she was. Her face was unique. High Russian cheekbones draped with deep Argentinean skin. But it was those graceful ballet like steps that gave the most important clue, even though her right leg moved differently than her left. Article after article on page after page detailed her long career, her ascension to the Bolshoi, her mastery of the art, her romances with Baryshnikov, and others. Her crippling injury and forced retirement. And then the story ended almost completely just three years earlier. More searching, hours unending, and Kane finally found an article, an obituary, in a Buenos Aries newspaper, and then Kane understood why the pages ended, why she had withdrawn from the spotlight, from the worldwide forum that she had ruled, both on and off the stage.
“
La Regina” the articles had called her. But no more. In his emergency room, “the emerge”, his refuge, he'd witnessed firsthand the carnage wrought on those left behind, and he had used it remorselessly in his writing, without conscience. The second story, or was it the first, or tenth? They had made him rich, and for a while, not so much famous as notorious. But no more. There had been no words in many years.
La Regina” the articles had called her. But no more. In his emergency room, “the emerge”, his refuge, he'd witnessed firsthand the carnage wrought on those left behind, and he had used it remorselessly in his writing, without conscience. The second story, or was it the first, or tenth? They had made him rich, and for a while, not so much famous as notorious. But no more. There had been no words in many years.
He watched her finish the climb, then he stood and walked towards her at a pace he hoped would put him at the base of the cliff at the precise moment that she would arrive back in the horizontal domain. His heart beat faster, his mouth went dry, and he realized he had no idea what to say, or how to say it. He was, quite simply, at a loss for words. He recognized that this was both an ironic and, lately, chronic state.
At the base of the cliff, Martina sat in the early morning sun. Her long blonde hair whisped over her bronzed shoulder by the gentle Mediterranean breeze. She drank and smiled, half closed her eyes. In repose, the little damages melted away, and she was at peace, at rest.
"Bon giorno," Kane said.
She lifted her chin, opened only one eye, and answered softly, "Bon giorno".
Kane pointed at the cliff while he pantomimed climbing.
"This piece is very hard, mas difficile."
"Si," she replied. Her chin dropped, her eye closed in partial dismissal.
"Can I ask you something? To show me something?" Kane asked.
Her chin lifted again, her eye opened again, registering partial, but only partial interest. Kane dropped his pack, removed a rope, and pointed at the climb.
"Can you show me how you did, how you did..." his voice drifted off, perplexed, stymied by the words he did not know. So he turned a hip, extended a leg, placed his hand just so, and rocked his weight towards his hand.
She watched his dance. Drank. Thought. She looked at his deep tan, his thinning hair, his wiry frame and tight forearms. She considered his face, thought she saw something genuine, and no awe. No fawning, no grasping, no desperation for a smile or word, for a moment of her time. Just an older man, looking at a woman, a climber asking another climber for advice on how to move. She drank again.
"Si," she said, surprising herself.
#
"Grazi", Kane said after the lesson.
He extended his hand to shake hers. She took it. Their calloused fingers and calloused hands clasped firmly, solidly. For a moment their eyes met while their hands remained clasped. And then, surprising herself again, she stepped towards him and kissed the air beside both his cheeks.
"Prego", she answered.
Kane began coiling the rope. Martina also began packing.
"You go?" she asked. She pointed down the trail, down the valley, towards the orange tiled roofs and narrow alleys in the town.
"Si," Kane answered, "to Cala Gognone, not Dorgali."
"Me too," Martina said. "I walk."
"I hitched a ride", Kane said.
"You walk with me?" Martina asked.
"Sure", Kane managed.
"I think you are a good man," Martina said, "and it is too far for a good man to go alone. You come?"
Kane thought about all the days and miles and hallways he'd walked alone these last lonely years of self-imposed exile. The gaping emptiness that was his constant companion threatened for a moment to consume him, to draw him in and sink him in the morass of self-doubt and self-loathing that had been his companion these last years. Then it released him ever so slightly. He breathed deeply, more deeply than he had since, well, since before. It was like that. There was before, and there was now.
"Si," he answered.
#
"Thank you for the walk," Kane said.
"Prego," Martina answered.
They stood just outside her hotel, an ancient seaside home run by two Sardinian brothers, both of whom glared proprietarily out the open front door. The late morning sun dazzled off the bay by the beach. He fumbled for something to say. In their hour long walk from the cliff to the town neither had spoken. For Martina it had been one of the most pleasant hours in recent memory. Spent with a man, a good-looking older man, a man who climbed, though not so well, who could ask for her help, and who could walk through the most beautiful, most amazing countryside without intruding on her thoughts as she let it all just become part of her. For Kane it had been both heaven and hell. Ecstasy and torture. To walk alongside such a beautiful, talented, and masterful woman and to be unable to think of a single word to say.
"Where you stay?" Martina asked, realizing Kane would not speak.
"At the Hotel Cala Luna," Kane said. "They have an excellent chef. Would, would you like to have lunch with me after you get cleaned up?"
"You think I need cleaned up?" Martina asked.
"No, not really, you look great."
Her laugh interrupted his fumbling stammer.
"I sorry, I tease you, I sorry," she said.
"So. Lunch?" he asked again.
"No," Martina answered. "No lunch. For the walk, grazi."
"My pleasure," Kane said. “Prego”. He hitched up his pack, smiled a sad and happy smile at her and set off up the hill to his hotel. Proud that after all this time he had fulfilled a promise and finally asked a woman out to lunch, yet very sad that she had said no, and in remembering the promise.
"Kane," she called up the hill.
He turned. She walked up the street towards him.
"You climb tomorrow? With me?" she asked.
"Si," he said.
“
You hold the rope?”
You hold the rope?”
“
Si.”
Si.”
"Buono. You meet me here at seven, in the morning, okay?"
"Si," he said again.
"Arriva derci," she said, and for the second time that day she kissed the air beside his cheeks, gently placing her hand on his shoulder as she raised up on tip toes for one last kiss in the air.
Her touch, on his skin. Kane felt the touch, and felt words somewhere inside, near the source, a place that he had not visited in all these years.
Read What Others Are Saying About JT’s
#1 Best-Selling TechnoThriller “The Pattern”
So, I am going to think twice before I get into that plane next time.
This story made me think about our trust and dependence that we so easily give up to the programmers of our daily life. Bravo Mister Kalnay for writing a thought provoking and entertaining look at the way our airliners operate today. The story was fast moving and gripping. I found myself laughing out loud from the witty banter between the characters.
Mister Kalnay gives us a look into the world of computer programming that touches so much our daily life that is enlightening and scary at the same time. He breathes life into the nameless people we rely on to protect us from all that could go wrong with the system. Could not put this one down...but I advise reading this one before you head to the airport anytime soon.
Yeah, it's gripping! Grips you and if, like me, you have to fly right afterwards, you'll be gripping the armrests the whole flight! Nice mix of interesting relationships, tech-savvy software lore, and mystery. Couldn't put it down!
The first of JT Kalnay's works I've read, this early effort compares nicely with Ryan's "Adolescence of P-1" or Grisham's "The Firm" but wisely navigates around Powers' "Galatea 2.2" territory. You get a good sense this writer has "been there" but there is more to "The Pattern" than just an insider's view of an industry and culture that is pretty much a black box to those that haven't. This one gets a 4 out of 5 simply for not quite cracking the level of the big boys: Clancy, Ludlum, Cussler et al. Will be interested to see how this author develops in this genre.
I was surprised to enjoy this book so much as it comes from a not so well known author. Fantastic fiction.
I was thinking about the HAL 9000 malfunction in 2001 A Space Odyssey while reading The Pattern. Decades ago, I wondered if people would risk their lives on software. Now we have fly-by-wire controls in our airplanes and we depend on software in our hospital equipment as well as our cars. Software glitches can now kill. It's a really scary thought and I really enjoyed the thrilling journey the author takes us on in this techno-thriller treat. In the best spirit of science fiction it gives us pause to consider the dependency we freely give to our technology. In addition, as this story unfolds our humanity is laid bare in the face of technological realities that are seldom realized by most of us.
Please Enjoy This Sample From The Pattern
June 19, 1994
Chantilly Virginia
Assembled From News Wire Reports
A chartered executive Lear Jet inbound from Mexico City crashed today in heavy fog during final approach to Dulles National Airport in Washington D.C. Ten passengers and two crew members were killed instantly. There were no Americans on the flight and there were no survivors. Although the airplane had the latest electronics, it had aborted one landing due to the fog and was in the process of lining up for a second attempt when the accident occurred. The black box flight recorder has been recovered from the wreckage and the bodies have been identified. The last transmission from the cockpit was, "There seems to be something wrong with the electronics. Going around." The plane disappeared from radar less than ten seconds later.
June 20, 1994
San Francisco, California
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