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ELIZABETH
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I HADN’T FORGOTTEN my experience of the previous night.
I called it an experience because now, in the dim light of dawn, I wasn’t sure what it was. It was too realistic for a dream, too unrealistic for a vision, and I was sure I hadn’t been hallucinating.
I’d been an animal. A she-wolf. I could still remember the enormous physical strength I’d felt in my body. I could still feel it. Why would I dream about being a wolf? And why would it feel so good?
I’d always thought that dreams were reflections of our past experiences, needs and wishes. I couldn’t recollect ever wishing to be a wolf, though.
The romantic song from Beauty and the Beast was still in my head.
Both of us afraid, none of us prepared ... or something like that; I didn’t know the exact lyrics.
Should I ask Khalid for an explanation? Or should I continue collecting the pieces of truth?
I got off my bed and walked to the window. The sky was pale blue, promising a gorgeous day. It was not seven yet, so I’d have a good hour for riding before my workday started. An early morning ride and fresh air would clear my head from the lingering traces of my strange experience.
After my morning routine, I pulled a soft grey wool turtleneck from my dresser and my riding jacket, pants and boots from the armoire.
I wished I knew how Khalid was feeling this morning. Was he still sleeping? Was he in his room? I stood motionless, listening. He seemed to be in his room, indeed. I could hear the muffled sounds of his footsteps. I hurried to the private door and plastered my ear to it. Yes, these were his steps, slightly arrhythmic. It’d been the first time since I came that I could hear him in his room. I wondered where he had been sleeping before.
I also heard a faint cacophony coming from the parlor: Harriet’s laughter, Luna’s barks and Jason’s deep voice. They must’ve been tiptoeing all these days not to wake me up.
I was tempted to knock on the private door, but I changed my mind. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well. The last thing he needed now was my useless concerns.
On my way out, I met the Killians. I looked at Harriet with confused curiosity. She appeared to be even younger than yesterday. Not knowing what to do with this mystery, I just shook my head and shrugged.
Unconcerned, Harriet smiled, taking in my riding suit. “Oh, you’re already awake. Nice outfit.”
“Thanks, Harriet. And you look exceptionally lovely this morning.” And young, I added silently. “Is it okay if I ride for an hour?”
“Don’t you want breakfast first?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry. Don’t wait for me. Do you know how Khalid is? He’s awake, I heard him.”
Both the Killians looked taken aback. “You heard him?” Harriet asked.
“Oh, god. I hope I didn’t wake him up. I heard him walking, yes. It’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
“He’s fine, I guess,” Jason said. “He’s not an early bird if he can help it. I’m surprised he’s already up.”
“I’m not either, but I like riding in the early morning.” I glanced at one of the several longcase clocks waiting to be evaluated. “And my shift starts in about one hour, so I’d better hurry.”
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WHEN I RETURNED, I took a quick shower, quickly dried my hair and changed into a pleated skirt and dark green sweater.
Khalid was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for the two of us: omelet, toast, butter and jam. He was whistling a cheery tune. The pain that had tortured him the previous night was gone.
We were alone. I wanted him to kiss me, to continue where we’d stopped last night, to show me that he’d made up his mind about us. But something was stopping him. Maybe he needed more time, or he thought he had to give me more time. For what? “Keep in mind that whatever you see it is always me,” he’d said yesterday. But what were you, Khalid Nouri?
“Hey there,” he said, his eyes filled with emotions I didn’t dare to investigate.
“Hey yourself,” I said. “How are you?”
“As good as new,” he said. “Have a seat. Breakfast will be done in no time. How was your ride?”
“Wonderful. I rode the stallion, Blizzard,” I said, pulling out the chair and sitting down.
“Did you go to the forest?”
Two pieces of toast popped out of the toaster. “Only to the edge.”
He smiled, grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee. He put a half teaspoon of sugar in it, stirred it and passed it to me. Bending slightly, he kissed the crown of my head and returned to the stove. “No wolves or other beasts there?” he asked, facing away from me as he cut the omelet into two halves and transferred them onto two plates.
The broken fragments of my dream came back, along with the song.
My brain stopped there, refusing to name the song, the movie and the fairy tale. I closed my eyes and shook my head as if it would help me to shake off the images in my head.
“Elizabeth, are you okay?” Khalid asked. I lifted my head and found him standing in front of me, the plates in his hands.
I looked at him. My eyes met his blue-green gaze, warm, gentle, filled with so much suppressed emotion that my chest hurt: longing, passion, pain. Hope, joy. I studied his face, his clean-shaven skin, the bones beneath it. My eyes moved over the contours of his muscular upper arms, visible under the short sleeves of his polo shirt. The buttons revealed a triangle of his skin, smooth and hairless. Only his lower arms were dusted with fine, light brown hair.
Whatever Khalid’s secret was, it would be ridiculous to think that it had anything to do with the song stuck in my head.
The impossible cannot be the truth. Simply cannot.
I smiled and reached for my breakfast. “Hungry. And I’m already late for work.”
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A WEEK PASSED. I TOLD myself I would learn everything that I needed to know in due time and focused on my job instead. I didn’t have any more crazy dreams. Khalid and I were spending lots of time together, enjoying every moment of it.
Despite his attempts to slow me down, I was progressing through his antiquities with admirable speed. I’d contacted my friend, William Morgan, who’d then helped me evaluate the pieces I wasn’t sure about. For some items, even that wasn’t enough. Khalid and I had packed and labeled them, then moved them to Khalid’s workshop. They would eventually be sent to Boston, where Will would complete the appraisal.
When I thought I was almost done, Khalid had boxes and boxes of decorative objects brought down from the attic: lamps, chandeliers, more clocks, jewelry, porcelain, crystal. They belonged to different periods, from Baroque onward, including Art Deco, which happened to be both Khalid’s and my favorite style.
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KHALID KEPT ENTERTAINING me with fascinating stories about past events and long-dead people. Filled with incredible details, these anecdotes sounded so authentic as if he had personally witnessed them.
“I’ll keep this,” he said one day, pointing at a longcase clock Jason had just brought up from one of the forgotten storage rooms in the basement. I was no expert on clocks, but my educated guess was that it was made around 1750 in France, of olive wood and decorative walnut veneers. “It looks very much like one that was in the main salon of Madame Emmanuelle’s establishment near Paris.”
My eyebrow arched. “Establishment?”
The corner of his mouth turned upward. “Au Bonheur du Jour. A brothel. But a very fine one.”
“Afternoon Delight! Oh, please tell me!”
“It’s quite a story. Au Bonheur du Jour was tucked outside of Paris, in the countryside, well-hidden from prying eyes. It operated between 1782 and 1820. Customers needed a carriage to get there, which meant they had to be wealthy. Most of the brothels of that time had five to six prostitutes; Madame Emmanuelle had sixteen elite girls. And it was the only brothel that offered rooms for rental to married women and men and their lovers.”
“Quite innovative, I have to admit.”
“It generated significant additional income. It was a safe and clean place for lovebirds to meet. Discretion was absolute—what happened there didn’t happen at all.”
“Madame Emmanuelle sounds like a great entrepreneur,” I said.
“The best one in her trade. And her establishment was a joyful place,” Khalid said with a suppressed laugh. “According to contemporaries, that is,” he added, answering my unspoken question. “Anyway, the clock. In a clock very similar to this one Madame Emmanuelle sneaked out the two-year-old son of one of her customers, Jacques Arnaud, Marquis de Gremonville, a young French nobleman. He was arrested during the days of the Reign of Terror, as an enemy of the Revolution, and sentenced to death by guillotine. Managed to escape, though. His wife, Amelie, and their little son stayed hidden at Madame Emmanuelle’s for several months.”
“What happened to the wife and the child of the Marquis?”
“Jean-Luc was small enough to fit in the clock, so the clock was sent for repair, with the permission of a Jacobin official, also a client. The mother left with him, dressed as one of Emmanuelle’s kitchen boys. Madame and her Mademoiselles saved many innocent lives during the Terror, often right under the noses of Jacobins, and sometimes even with their help. Not that the Jacobins knew they were helping. Fortunately, Madame’s house had never fallen under their suspicion.”
“And the poor Marquis?”
“Amelie and Jean-Luc stayed hidden in Paris for a few more weeks,” Khalid continued. “Jacques’s friend helped them to escape to Austria. Jacques joined them by the end of 1795. Two years later they all returned to Paris. As a token of her gratitude, Amelie, who was rich in her own right, gave Emmanuelle a small country estate. She also paid for the renovation of the brothel for it had suffered financially under the Jacobin regime.”
“And Madame Emmanuelle?”
“She soon married the love of her youth, a wealthy sugar merchant who had spent a decade somewhere in the Caribbean. Some said he had sugar cane plantations, others said that he was a buccaneer, which was more likely. In any case, he knew about his wife’s former occupation and didn’t mind it. And she was probably the only person who knew all the details of his illustrious past. They had one son, whose own grandson and family still live there on the same estate.”
“What happened to Au Bonheur du Jour?”
“One of Emmanuelle’s girls, Nadine, carried on the business. Emmanuelle and Amelie developed an unlikely but firm friendship, although they couldn’t befriend one another too openly. After all, Mimi—that was Emmanuelle’s nickname—was a former courtesan and Amelie belonged to one of the oldest noble families in France. Nonetheless, they stayed close for the rest of their lives.”
“What a story! Only, who had Jacques been visiting at the brothel in the first place? And why? He had a young wife and a son. One of the girls or was he meeting his mistress there?”
“No one in particular. He’d been a frequent visitor before he married Amelie. After that, he needed more of a shoulder to cry on. He was heartbroken, convinced Amelie didn’t love him. Before she married Jacques, she’d been in love with another man, a small, impoverished comte. Her father forced her into a marriage that better reflected her social status. On their wedding day, she told Jacques she would never be able to love him, and he said, ‘Then Madame, I’m glad we have something in common.’ That was a lie; he was in love with her. Six months later she was pregnant and crazy about him, but stubborn as they come, she didn’t want to admit it. And Jacques, hurt as he was, wasn’t able to see it. Then, to impress his wife, he attempted to save her young cousin, a boy of sixteen, charged with high treason, tried and sentenced to death. Instead, Jacques got himself arrested.”
“But everything was okay in the end?”
“Yes, although it took them no less than a revolution and the consequent Terreur to realize how much they loved each other. They had four more children.”
“And the cousin?”
“He and Jacques were rescued together.”
“By whom?”
He gave me a look from under his lashes. “By a powerful friend.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“From old letters and documents.” He shrugged. “I like spending time in archives. Have you visited the Vatican Archives? Or the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul? Fascinating sources.”
“And those resources didn’t mention who the ‘powerful friend’ was? No rumors about his identity?”
“No. Who’d imagine it? So many details are known but not that one.” He took the key from the clock drawer and wound the clock. “Look, it’s working! I’ll have someone check it and clean it.”
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KHALID’S CONDITION had gradually improved. He didn’t complain about the pain, he didn’t limp anymore.
It must have still bothered him somewhat, though, since he continued with his late evening exercises in the gym and early morning walks. Well, I assumed he was in the gym. As far as I knew, he could’ve been reading in the library or working in his shop. In any case, he’d go somewhere every night before midnight. I didn’t know how long he stayed there; it was also my bedtime and I’d soon fall asleep.
When I woke up, usually at six-thirty so that I could go for my morning ride, I could hear him in his room. Upon my return, I’d always find him in the kitchen, waiting for me to have breakfast together.
He surprised me one afternoon when he asked if I’d like to ride with him. Yes, of course, I said and quickly changed into my riding attire. He complimented it on our way to the stable. “I really like your breeches,” he’d said, walking a step behind me.
After that day, we often rode together in the afternoons.
On the first clear night, I understood what Khalid meant when he talked about the exquisiteness of the moon over Copper Ridge. It indeed appeared to be much closer, brighter and bigger than usual. As if you had looked at it through binoculars, only you hadn’t. The lighter parts of the surface shone pale yellow, the darker patches were silvery-grey, clear and pronounced. It was a fascinating sight.
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ZANA, AZEM’S YOUNG niece, had arrived from Winston for spring break, dividing her time between Copper Ridge and Red Cliffs, where she stayed with Astrid, Jack and Rosie.
The little girl and I quickly became friends.
One afternoon, while we baked cookies, I mentioned I’d lived in Cairo. Zana’s eyes widened with excitement. “Oh, where the Pyramids are! I wish I could see them.”
“You may one day,” I said. “Tell me about your town.”
“Winston is near Churchill,” she said and giggled. “So, we have our own Winston Churchill,” and then added in a somber voice, “He was a great man, you know. Sir Winston Churchill, that is. My grandpa knew him.”
“Oh, is that so?” I said. Churchill should have died long before Zana’s grandfather had been born. “Winston’s up in Canada’s north,” I said, dismissing Zana’s previous statement as a product of her imagination. When I was her age, I liked imagining being Queen Nefertiti. “It must be very cold there.”
“Oh, it’s not that cold. Our weather is different.”
No kidding.
Should I disregard this piece of information as well?
I taught Zana how to ride a horse and she would often accompany me for my morning strolls. She told me about her family—her mother, her father, a geologist, whom they had lost to a mining accident two years ago, her beloved Uncle Azem and her grandparents.
“When Azem and Lily marry,” she’d said one morning, “do you think they’re going to stay here or are they going to live in Winston?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know they were going to be married.”
She shrugged. “Well, not like right now. Maybe in several months. Maybe Azem hasn’t asked her yet, but they are going to marry for sure. He is sooo much in love with her. Everybody knows that.” And then she changed the topic. “May I have your email address? Mom doesn’t let me have other stuff, only email. She knows my password and checks my messages, but I only email,” and here she started counting on her fingers, “Azem, Lily, Khalid and my friend Henry. He’s from Red Cliffs. He plays chess. Nobody can beat him.”
“Of course you can have my address. I’d love to get emails from you.”
“Thanks, Elizabeth.”
For a while, we rode in silence. “Do you have an unmarried brother or a cousin?” she asked suddenly.
“No. I was an only child; my parents were as well. I have two best friends, but they are a couple. Rick and Alain. Why are you asking?”
“I’m looking for a husband for my mom, you know. She won’t do it herself, and Khalid doesn’t want to marry her. I asked him, but he said he liked my mom as a sister.”
“They know each other?” I said.
“Of course. He used to live in Winston.”
“Oh. For how long?”
“Long,” Zana said. “He lived there even before I was born. Maybe she would like Dr. Falkenstein? He’s a nice man. Or maybe Deputy Sheriff Mackenzie. I like him a lot. He’s so funny. What do you think?”
“I don’t know them, but I’m sure they’re nice. It’s only that maybe your mom isn’t ready for a new husband.”
“She cries a lot. She thinks I can’t hear her. She used to laugh and smile. She still smiles, but she never laughs. Everyone is super worried. Me, too.”
I leaned toward her and kissed her hair, warm from the gentle sunshine. “It’s going to be all right, you’ll see. Now, why don’t we ride back, and then we can go to my room and I’ll let you use my nail polish that you like so much.”
She smiled as widely as if I’d offered her a trip to Disneyland. “That pink one you wear on your toenails?”
“It’s called fuchsia. You know what? I have a similar one, so you can keep it.”
She squeaked. “Elizabeth, you’re the best!”
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IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS, I met lots of Copper Ridge’s and Red Cliffs’ people. They were friendly and open. Perhaps a bit too curious and gossipy, but not ill-intentioned. They seemed well-informed, well-read and well-educated, regardless of their current occupations. I had an educated discussion about the layout of the Knossos palace in Crete with a young woman, the owner of the Red Cliffs bakery, and spoke about structural linguistics with the owner of a hotel.
A party in my honor was held at Livia and Tristan Blake’s place. It was a Who’s Who of Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge.
Our hostess, the allergy doctor-slash interior decorator-slash real estate agent was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Sam Wakefield was right when he had said her beauty was timeless. Everything about her was perfect, head to toe: dark hair, glowing skin, eyes that changed their shade from grey to dark blue to greyish-green. Her nose, lips, her brilliant smile. Her body, her elegant, smooth movements, her voice. She was the embodiment of absolute beauty.
Before I asked, she’d explained her short excursion into the real estate business as a cover: Astrid had been in hiding, she’d said, and she and Tristan had been staying with her. I was grateful for her honesty and didn’t want to inquire further about who had been after Astrid and why she and her husband were qualified to protect her. Astrid had promised to tell me one day, and that was enough for me.
That day I’d also met Peyton Mortensen, a lovely brunette, who was Astrid’s best friend, and Lani Blackwell, another stunning woman, with topaz brown eyes and auburn hair. She was serious, quiet and soft spoken. She seemed to be my age. Her vitality, strength and energy—common denominators of all Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge inhabitants—were somewhat muted. There was an underlying sadness in her beautiful eyes. She was a pediatric nurse, she’d said, and she worked at the Copper Ridge Hospital. She had moved to Copper Ridge from the West Coast a year before.
The local men were as remarkable as the women. Some of them were breathtaking, like Jack Canagan, or even more, Ingmar Mortensen, Peyton’s husband. Tall, blond and blue-eyed, he looked like a Norse demi-god. A sort of male answer to Livia Blake’s female beauty, the absolute perfection, crossed my mind as I watched him. (I admit I was biased, but, in spite of Ingmar Mortensen’s almost unearthly beauty and Jack Canagan’s GQ type of good looks, Khalid’s hard, warrior handsomeness still topped them both.)
I wished I could have said the others were ordinary, but it would be an understatement. Even when they didn’t look like deities, movie stars and fashion models, some incredible life force, robustness and energy made them stand out. They managed the impossible—to look average and gorgeous at the same time. And one more thing: all the men of Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge that I’d seen so far had great hair. A dozen or so men of different ages and not a single one bald or balding.
Coincidence? Genes? Something else? If yes, then what?
Then, their eyes. Deep, brilliant, as if they were illuminated from the inside. Not that I hadn’t seen people with luminescent and exotic eye colors, but they were sporadic. Here, everyone had them.
There were other interesting things. Dr. Gerhard Falkenstein, for example, bore an astonishing likeness to Josef II, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, and one of my favorite historical figures. I tried hard to ignore the fact that Falkenstein had been the alias the above-mentioned Emperor had used for his travels as a commoner, since I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t find even a remotely reasonable explanation. He was a pleasant, quiet man, with light blue, somewhat melancholic eyes, like the man whom he resembled. His Midwest American accent was a welcoming reality check. The Emperor liked to travel, but no history book mentioned that he had reached Colorado. The solemn Dr. Falkenstein couldn’t be his relative either. It was well known that the Emperor’s only child was a daughter who had died very young.
I knew from before that he was the Red Cliffs Hospital CEO; that night I also learned that, like most of his colleagues, he had offices in both Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge. The local people had superb health care, regardless of which town they lived in. Interesting.
He said he’d be delighted if I took the vacant position of the cellist in his string quartet. I told him I wasn’t sure how long I was going to stay here. “I understand,” he said, “but why don’t you join us one afternoon, just for fun. We practice in the music school after closing time.”
“Who are the other two members?” I asked.
He motioned toward a woman, Lydia Dalton, to whom I’d been introduced earlier. Lydia was Lani’s friend and the wife of Copper Ridge’s sheriff, Mike Dalton. “Lydia and I play violin, and Ingmar viola.”
At that moment, Lydia approached us, smiling. “Gerd, did I just hear that we might’ve found a cellist?”
How could she hear us? She was on the other end of the room, and Dr. Falkenstein talked very softly.
I pushed the thought aside.
Lydia turned to me, her big periwinkle blue eyes wide and hopeful. “Please, Elizabeth, promise you will join us.”
I didn’t have the heart to turn her down. “I’ll come to your next practice, but don’t expect much. I’m not that good.”
Dr. Falkenstein patted my shoulder. “You’re the only cellist in a hundred-mile radius. You’ll be perfect.”
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HARRIET AND I DECIDED to plant climbing rose bushes in front of the house. I’d spoken to Alain’s mom, a rose expert, and she sent me three different sorts bred for this climate and altitude.
“Perhaps we should have asked Khalid first,” I said to her when the boxes arrived.
“I don’t think he’ll mind but go ahead.”
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“YOU DON’T NEED TO ASK my permission,” Khalid said when I told him about our idea.
“They are climbing roses. White, dark pink and red,” I said. “We’ll plant them along the front walls. The red variety is called Don Juan, the white is Polar Star and the pink Aurora Rose. Pretty names, aren’t they? It will look beautiful.”
Khalid smiled and brushed his thumb along my lips. “Have your little rose garden, Beauty.”
Well, I thought, as the song reappeared in my head, we had a castle, the roses and Beauty. We were only missing the Beast.
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ONE MORNING I WAS SURPRISED to find out I got my period without having my customary PMS a day or two prior. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a migraine associated with it. No painful cramps, no heavy bleeding. My breasts, although swollen, weren’t tender. My skin and even my crazy hair were radiant. I could explain this sudden improvement only with the fresh mountain air, hearty food and a general absence of stress.
And perhaps with falling in love.
I continued to talk to Lottie almost daily over the phone or on Skype, but I didn’t ask her about Copper Ridge and Red Cliffs. Instead, we talked about the Baker Block, our committee and our friends.
“Sam and Molly are getting married in September,” she said to me one day.
“Oh, I’m so happy! Jacob needs a mother as much as Sam needs a wife.”
“I have more good news. Jacob and I are coming to Rosie’s birthday. We’ll be there on the Friday before the birthday.”
“Yay!” I exclaimed. “I miss him so much.”
“Imagine Jacob’s excitement. He’s out of his mind with happiness.”
“Any news about the custody hearing?” I asked.
“It’ll be in July. A few more months and it’ll be over.”
“I wish it was already over.”
“It’ll be alright, don’t worry,” Lottie said confidently. “When are you coming to Rosenthal?”
“June first, at the latest.” There was silence on the other side. “Lottie? Are you still there?” I asked.
“I’m so looking forward to seeing you. I miss you.” I heard her taking a deep breath. “Ned and I are going to Vegas next weekend. We’re, er, getting married.”
“Oh, Lottie! This is wonderful! I’m so happy for you two.”
“Funny, but it seems to me that your arrival in Rosenthal put many things in motion,” she said. “I think you might be one of those rare creatures who touch other people’s lives and change them for the better.”
“Like a fairy godmother?” I asked, laughing.
“Something like that, yes, honey.”
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THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY morning Harriet, Lily, Zana and I planted the roses in the beds around the house. When we were done, I stepped back, admiring our work and wondering where I was going to be when my pretty Don Juans, Auroras and Polar Stars started blooming.