The Eve Arnold prints followed Adam back down to the chairman’s office. His mother once described Arnold as a simple woman who used her camera to reveal the humanity behind the gloss. Adam had often thought the description applied equally well to his mother. But Eve Arnold had been granted an impossible chance and used it to fly straight to the stars. There the similarity ended.
The chairman’s suite occupied what once had been a pair of south-facing lounges. The secretary greeted him with, “Please go straight in, Mr. Wright.”
“Thank you.” The prints were here as well. Behind the secretary’s desk hung the famous shot of John Hurt, used as a cover of Life magazine. His mother had kept the same shot in her darkroom.
Which was why Adam almost missed the striking young lady seated in a narrow alcove. Adam’s first thought was that she was being punished for something terrible. She had to be. She possessed the saddest eyes Adam had ever seen.
“Do come in, Mr. Wright,” said Peter Austin.
But what Adam wanted was to walk over and tell her he would make it better. Which was ridiculous, of course. Adam had far too much experience at being caught in the snare of helplessness.
As he entered the office, the chairman asked, “Will you take coffee?”
“Thanks, I had some upstairs.”
“With Joshua? Did you indeed.”
The chairman’s inner sanctum occupied a corner lounge. Bay windows illuminated two walls. The office was rimmed by oak wainscoting. Above the panels hung another series of photographs, only these were not part of the Eve Arnold collection. They were recent and in color.
Peter Austin stopped in the process of shutting the door, watching as Adam approached the closest picture. “You know this view?”
Adam responded with a nod.
“Please take a seat. You have traveled to Africa, Mr. Wright?”
“Other than one failed trip to Hollywood, I’ve never been anywhere.”
“Yes, you mentioned that journey when we last met.” Peter Austin settled into the chair across from him. “Be so kind as to tell me what you see in the photograph, Mr. Wright.”
“Mount Kilimanjaro,” Adam replied. “This was shot from the Tanzanian side. Probably on the road leading from the air-port to the capital.”
“How very remarkable. And you say you’ve never . . .” The chairman turned at a soft knock on his open door. “Kayla, do please join us. Let me introduce you to Adam Wright.”
Kayla spared him one more glance before walking over to the same spot where Adam had just stood. Then she turned and gave the room’s other photographs a slow and careful sweep.
Adam drank in the sight of her. She did not belong here. No matter how nicely dressed she might be today, she was alien to this world. Her features were deeply tanned. Her short hair was Arabian black, silken and dark and laced with copper highlights. She was a desert cat, a lynx who spared little attention for her appearance.
Peter Austin said, “For the past two and a half years, my daughter has directed a relief project headquartered in Dar es Salaam. She sent me these photographs but has never seen them here before.”
Kayla turned back and said, “Shame on you, Daddy.”
Only when the chairman smiled at his daughter did Adam realize how much the man had aged since their meeting in Washington. Peter Austin replied, “You leave us for over a year, my dear, you are bound to come home to a few surprises.”
Her father’s old Mercedes was so quiet Kayla could hear the clock ticking. Peter Austin had been involved in a bad accident before Kayla was born. As a result, he rarely drove except to and from the office. The boxy Mercedes was eleven years older than Kayla and had been driven less than twenty thousand miles. It was not so much a car as a vessel for memories. Kayla leaned against the headrest and recalled her mother doing the same thing. Amanda Austin liked to pull her shoes off and prop her stockinged toes on the dash. It seemed to Kayla that she could still smell her mother’s perfume imbedded in the old leather.
Kayla could feel the cold radiating off the window beside her face. The late-afternoon sky was shod in a light as pale as childhood fables. The lands held to an emerald cast, the hills soft and woolly as the sheep dotting the pastures. Kayla’s mind saw not one landscape, but two. Overlaid upon the stone-lined roads and quiet hamlets was a harsh realm of ocher dust and barefoot children and donkeys plodding under impossible loads.
Peter turned off the main road onto the narrow lane leading to their village. “What did you think of my new employee?”
Kayla shut her eyes. The young man’s face was instantly there before her. “He’s quite handsome.”
“He’s done some acting,” Peter Austin replied. “The odd amateur gig at university. Then he was cast into a minor role on some drama. He referred to it as a nighttime soap.”
“Why did he give it up?”
“It was more the other way around. His character was caught in bed with a congressman’s wife, and shot. Afterward he went out to Hollywood and made the rounds. But apparently there are a thousand such handsome young men seeking each new role. He hated the experience. And then a personal crisis took him back to Washington.”
Kayla admitted, “He reminded me of Geoffrey.”
“The thief in Tanzania? How so?”
“I don’t know. They look a little alike, but it was more than that. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
Peter gunned the motor up the final rise and entered their village. “I am thinking of personally mentoring him.”
Kayla looked over. Her father had never before had a pro-tégé. “How do you know you can trust anything he’s told you? Did you have him investigated?”
Peter turned through the gates and drove past the church. “Joshua asked me the very same thing. We’ve completed a cursory background check. I also had Mrs. Drummond talk with his references. All of which were glowing.” Peter Austin pulled the keys from the ignition and toyed with them like worry beads. “I had to cancel our lunch because of this ongoing crisis. Adam is joining us for an early dinner. You can ask your own questions and make your own decisions.”
“Daddy, please. I only have a few days home. I don’t care to spend them . . .”
He raised a hand to silence her. The keys dangled from his thumb. “Kayla, there is something else that must be discussed now. Honor is pregnant.”
If he had reached over and slapped her, the shock could not have been greater. “Daddy, you’re sixty years old.”
“Fifty-nine, actually. And in my trade, precision with numbers carries great significance.”
Through the tumble of conflicting emotions, only one comment emerged fully formed. “Is that why Honor has been away?”
“She wanted me to have time to tell you, yes.” Peter Austin gripped Kayla’s seatback and shifted closer. His face was as solemn and strained as she had ever seen. “Kayla, I want you to listen very carefully. Your happiness has always been one of my greatest concerns. But we are enduring desperate trials and I need your support. You will make peace with my wife. And you will join us for dinner.”