This Stream of Dreams (Mirella, Rashid and Adam Book 2) (34 page)

As Mirella moved through her day she was amazed at how much she had changed. New York for her had always meant work, career, success and a secret love, the occasional one-night stand, a few good friends, and the opera. And like a good little hamster, she had spent years on that treadmill.

It didn’t feel like her New York in the house on Fifth Avenue where she was surrounded by her adopted family and a loving husband. Now that she had had a taste of being in the bosom of family, and had found love, she suddenly wondered how she had survived the life of the individual — all that aloneness.

After lunch she went to
her
room, the room Adam created for her, a space for her use alone. She used a special key in the elevator that took her past the top floor and directly into her room.

The room was more like a pavilion or a greenhouse. There were eight pairs of fifteen-foot-high, leaded-glass doors, arched at the tops, that opened out onto the roof garden. The garden was magnificently landscaped with huge shade trees, flowering shrubs, terraces of grass punctuated with lily ponds filled with large Chinese fantail goldfish. At the far side of the roof she could just see behind a screen of Japanese pines and
juniper trees trained into twisted living sculpture, another pavilion and a large sunken area of tall bamboo trees where Tao and Chi, the pandas, lived.

There were skylights in the ceiling flooding the room with light and sky colors in the daytime, stars at night. What wall space there was was covered from the floor to the ceiling with books. Reference books, atlases, novels, biographies, books of poetry, dictionaries. The honed white marble floor had priceless antique Persian carpets strewn across it, whose patterns and colors were broken here and there by white polar bear and tiger-skin rugs, mounted head and all. There were only three pieces of furniture in the room. A long four-inch-thick white marble slab, resting on tall rectangles carved from clay-colored marble unique to Verona, served as her desk. A Queen Anne wing chair, covered in its original tapestry, a scene of a unicorn prancing through a wood thick with different shades of green leaves, waited for her behind the desk. On the desk stood the latest equipment in computers and word processing, and a large Lalique vase, a miracle of crystal, filled with her favorite Regalia lilies.

The third piece of furniture was set in the center of the room among the date palms, yucca trees, large fan palms, giant papyrus in full flower, and huge pots of orchids, cymbidiums, with stephanotis vines clinging to the tree trunks and spilling their thick cluster of white blossoms that turned the room into a perfume garden. It was a seventeenth-century four-poster bed with its intricate carved canopy made of pure silver. A love bed made long ago for a rajah’s favorite mistress. It was covered in lynx furs with many large cushions of handwoven raw silk.

She wandered around the room touching everything. She discovered behind one wall of bookcases a secret door that opened into a perfect white marble bathroom, Jacuzzi, sauna, shower, and all. Behind the other wall of books another door and a small white marble and rosewood kitchen, stocked with food and dinner service for four.

He had thought of everything. When the sun was too bright and disturbed Mirella, there was a button to be pushed which adjusted the shields on the roof, cutting off the light to just where she wanted it, and another to adjust the room temperature. She found the stereo and filled the room with the sound of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Scheherezade
. She slumped
into the chair and listened to Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and marveled at the power they had had to make even the most obvious a new and fresh experience. The ersatz orientalia glowed like the fires of creation, and Mirella blessed the new technology that kept bright this old performance.

The snow that had started falling the night before was still coming down heavily, and in the whiteness a stillness fell over the city that made one feel fresh and sparkling. It was like a winter wonderland outside. New York City was having an early, and its first crippling, blizzard of the season. The kind where offices are closed and young, smart, trendy executives ski down Fifth Avenue to work. The odd car skidded its way up Fifth Avenue because some madman knew he could find a parking place.

The trees and lampposts wore top hats of heavy snow, and the great city was white-white and pure, and would stay that way until the sand and salt trucks slushed it all up. But, for the moment, the city was undisturbed by man or machines. The cold wind and the snow were etching a miracle of beauty. Mirella adored the heavy, cold whiteness forming outside all around her.

For a long time Mirella sat and listened to the music and watched through the windows the thick snow falling. Then she moved to the silver bed and lay among the cushions and watched it some more. It closed her in from the world, even more than her husband and her privileged life, and she floated mentally out into space, feeling full of joy.

When it stopped snowing and she raised herself from her daydreaming, there was a late-afternoon sun shining. It looked so fresh, cold, and invigorating outside. With a sense of sureness, she broke the spell of the snow upon her and made up her mind to go find Adam. She wanted to be near him.

Muhsine brought her a wide belt of black suede, her Tibetan fur boots, and her new chinchilla coat. Muhsine helped Mirella lace up her boots, and Mirella stood up to adjust the black cashmere tunic she was wearing over harem trousers of paper-thin white suede. It had a high collar that buttoned on the side, and great balloon sleeves. It was like a cossack’s shirt. She’d worn it all day hanging loose, but now she gathered it under the wide black suede belt with its
magnificent black opal clasp around her waist. She bloused the tunic over the belt so that the opal all but vanished, and then adjusted the strands of pearls she was wearing. Slipping her arms into the chinchilla coat, she buttoned it and turned up the collar. She had the habit of touching the large square diamonds on her ears, to make sure they were secure. They were. Mirella tucked her hair under an Adolfo black silver-fox cloche and her hands into fine black calfskin gloves and was ready to brave the weather. She pushed the terrace doors open. When she turned to close them, Muhsine said, “Adam is with the keeper, and the pandas.”

Mirella thanked her and stepped into the deep snow on her Manhattan palace roof garden. The snow reached almost to the top of her boots. The cold air was just what she needed. She stomped around in the snow scooping some of it up in her hands and holding it close to her face. The damp cold bit into her skin. She strolled around waving her arms and taking long deep breaths, and walked under the tall evergreen shrubs, the caps of heavy white snow weighing down the boughs. She shook them and they rained down snow all over her.

Two gardeners arrived, greeted her, and asked permission to carry on with their work. With shovels and brooms they gently swept the snow away and removed a finely meshed grid that covered the fish pond with its collection of rare Chinese fantail fish swimming in the heated-regulated water.

Mirella walked to the opposite side of the garden and looked down across Central Park. There seemed little activity going on there or anywhere else. She walked through her rooftop snowscape, kicking clumps of snow as she went, sometimes bending down to gather armfuls, tossing the snow high up over her head. She was feeling clean, energized, and fresh. She was warm and comfortable all over, except for her face and hands, which were ice-cold.

She discovered while walking through a row of weeping cherry trees, now mere droopy shapes with snow hats, several curved stone steps leading down to a small observatory, with its domed roof and its powerful scope. With her foot she scarped away the snow. A gardener arrived at her side at once to sweep the snow away with his broom, and she was able to descend safely. Once inside, the warmth of the room was welcoming. She pushed a button and the dome slid slowly open; another button, and the telescope began to swivel into
place. It wasn’t dark as yet and too difficult for her to find the stars. She pressed the buttons again and everything slid back as when she found it.

Mirella left the observatory and walked through the snow-covered rose arbors, stretching, waving her arms about, head back, looking up at the pearly-white sky. She was feeling her body, airing her mind. It was here, out in the cold, in the clear crisp air, that she reveled in her happiness and wanted to shout it from the rooftop.

Kicking clumps of snow high into the air with every step she took toward Tao and Chi’s enclosure, she looked down at them. Watching the two giant pandas rollicking with Adam and Wing, their keeper, filled her with joy. Adam, dressed from top to toe in racoon, looked like another animal. He was feeding Chi with stalks of bamboo with one hand while rubbing Tao’s tummy with the other.

Half an hour had passed and it was twilight. Mirella picked up as much snow as her arms could carry and dropped it into the enclosure. It drifted down like fine white powder. She called to them. The pandas waddled toward her, all the time looking up and making sounds. Carefully she went down the path and joined them. Chi was trying to mount Tao in a haphazard fashion, but he slipped off and rolled in the snow.

Mirella stood up on her toes, reached out and put her arms around Adam’s shoulders. Their cold lips met and kissed. They rubbed cold wet cheeks together and kissed again. Mirella went all warm inside at the very closeness of her husband, before they had even spoken to each other.

“You are so beautiful, so full of life, I love you. You are always so new and fresh and lovely. When I see you I always want to woo you, win you over, make you love me,” he said huskily, and kissed the tip of her nose and put his arm around her. They walked together making the clucking sounds the pandas like to hear.

A strange rooftop snow scene, with the pair of pandas waddling toward them, imitating the clucking sounds and rubbing their heads together. The Coreys spent another half hour playing with the remarkable pets, pretending to eat with them, sitting in their swing. Adam even tried to mount Mirella panda-fashion, and Wing fled from the panda house laughing. Tao tried to mount Adam first and then Mirella,
and the Coreys were convulsed with laughter and decided that was the time to leave.

Arm in arm, the Coreys walked to another part of the roof garden Mirella had not yet seen. There was Adam’s hideaway, his lodge. Cold and wet through after entering the lodge, Adam rang for Turhan and ordered tea. Standing in front of a roaring fire, they began to peel off coats and hats. They seemed unable to get warm, and when Turhan arrived with an enormous silver tray with a tea service and a delectable-looking hard, white-chocolate-covered cake, they greedily drank, hoping to warm themselves.

Muhsine brought a white cashmere kimono for Adam and a full-length white vicuña robe with sleeves of sable for Mirella. Turhan confiscated all the wet furs and boots, while Muhsine brushed Mirella’s hair, trying to dry the strands soaked in her winter romp.

Just as Mirella’s pavilion was to be her private space, this room, which he called the lodge, was Adam’s. It was an enormous and unusual room, on its own; but set floating above Fifth Avenue it was unique.

Paneled in antique
boiserie
of warm rich chestnut taken from his father’s château in Périgord, it had magnificent carvings of the hunt as cornices above the doors and windows. There were animal trophies hung high up on the walls, in several places three tiers high. For the most part they were rare specimens shot in China, Tibet, and India. Adam’s father and grandfather had shot the best ones, both having been notable big-game hunters of their time.

There were old sepia photographs of locations rarely seen, usually with the game that had recently been killed. Other photographs of large safaris with famous people. The room was a fascinating one, for wherever you looked there was something to attract the eye: animals shot by Adam, antique maps, a superb gun collection.

The lodge also housed a fine sporting and exploration library. The French doors that opened onto the garden gave a clear view of the panda enclosure on one side, and an aviary and hawkhouse on the other. The walls were mostly lined with books. A snail-shaped staircase in the center of the room led up to a balcony which circled the inside of the domed roof. The walls of the dome were lined with more shelves of rare
volumes, and went as high as was possible before the dome was capped by a series of punctured circular windows.

There was a magnificent large desk that had belonged to Louis XV, with a roll top and a gallery of ormolu. The chair used at the desk was of the same period: comfortable, high-backed, and covered in a boar-hunt scene of blues and greens. There were deep, inviting chairs everywhere, covered in old worn leather or suedes, some in antique handwoven bold checks of brown and white. Ottomans covered in crocodile skins, so worn by age they were soft and supple. Writing tables, map tables, side tables, dictionary stands, all in what appeared to be a haphazard arrangement, but in fact set in half a dozen intimate groupings.

Aubusson carpets, allegedly from a king’s hunting lodge in the depths of France’s richest hunting grounds in the late seventeenth century. Amid all this, the silver bowls of fresh flowers everywhere caused the room to spring into colorful life. Bunches of tall white lilacs near the open fire diffused a heavy scent reminiscent of flowers blooming in a forest. There were lilies, freesias, and on top of the rolltop desk three dozen white tulips, full-blown and with a perfume. On a long antique Spanish oak table there was a baroque silver tray, where antique crystal decanters offered whisky, bourbon, cognac, with large goblets. Sporting magazines from all over the world declared the occupant’s up-to-the-minute involvement with the hunt.

About ten feet from the fireplace and parallel to it was a long, deep Edwardian leather sofa, and draped over the back was a large silver-fox rug, on one end was a polar-bear rug, on the other end was a coverlet of white beaver. The stuffed animals — a snow leopard, an enormous grizzly bear, a pair of wild boars — stood around with great presence and a certain authority as if the lodge were their den. A collection of narwhal tusks mounted on wooden bases stood off to one side pretending they were unicorn horns.