Cayce presses her head against the high back of the chair. Forces herself to close her eyes. When she opens them, she will see her old Rickson's, draped across the shoulders of Damien's robot girl. Or the open bedding closet in the apartment in Hongo, stuffed with a stranger's clothing.
"You are tired? Unwell?"
She opens her eyes. Stella is still there. "No. Only listening to your story. Thank you for telling it to me."
"You are welcome."
"Stella?"
"Yes?"
"Why did you tell it to me? Everything you and your sister do seems to be surrounded by so much secrecy. And yet, when I find your address, finally, which was very hard to do, and e-mail you, you reply immediately. I come here, you meet me. I don't understand."
"You are the first. My sister, she has no interest in an audience. I do not think she understands what I do with her work, that I make it possible for the world to see. But I suppose I had been waiting, and when you wrote to me, I decided you were real."
"Real?"
"My uncle is a most important man, a very big businessman, bigger now even than when our parents died. We do not see him often, but his apparat protects us. They are afraid of him, you see, and so they are very careful. It is a sad way to live, I think, but that is what it is like to be very rich in this country. I wished the world to see my sister's work, but they insisted it be anonymous." The sad gentle smile surfacing, through the stillness of the long white face. "When you told me your father was lost, I did not think you would hurt us." A troubled look. "She was very upset, my sister. She hurt herself."
"Because I came?"
"Of course not. She doesn't know. When we saw the attack, in New York." But she is looking not at Cayce but toward the entrance now, where Cayce sees two young men waiting, in dark slacks and black leather coats. "I must go now. Those are my drivers. There is a car, to return you to your hotel." Stella stands. "It is not good, a woman at night to walk alone."
So Cayce stands, seeing that Stella is several inches taller than she is. "Will I see you again?"
"Of course."
"Will I be able to meet your sister?"
"Yes, of course."
"When?"
"Tomorrow. I will contact you. I will send a car. Come." And leads the way, without asking for the bill, or paying, but the beautiful waiter bows low as they pass, as does an older man in a white apron. Ignoring the two in their leather coats, Stella steers her out into the street. "Here is your car." A black Mercedes. She takes Cayce's hand, squeezes it. "A great pleasure."
"Yes," Cayce says, "thank you."
"Good night."
One of the young men opens the passenger door for her. She gets in. He closes it. Walks around the back, opens the driver-side, and gets in.
They pull away, and Cayce looks back, to see Stella wave goodbye.
When the black Mercedes reaches the big stone bridge, the driver touches something on the dashboard and the blue light goes on, flashing. He accelerates, working smoothly through the gears, up the great stone hump of it and down, into Zamoskvareche.
- /
She opens her eyes to a wedge of light, dividing the darkened ceiling like the cross-section of a blade whose edge rests between the shadows of the ocher curtains.
She remembers watching the Maurice and Filmy edit on the iBook, after she'd returned from meeting Stella, and experiencing it in some entirely new way that she's still completely unable to describe or characterize.
She struggles out of the heavy sheets and drags one of the curtains aside. Light assails her, and the enormous, atrocious statue, on its island in the river.
In the bathroom, amid too many browns, she adjusts the taps in the shower. Knockoffs of Kohler, she notes automatically, minus the trademark. Unwraps a bar of soap and steps in.
Twenty minutes later, dressed, hair blown dry, she's downstairs, uneasily eyeing the breakfast buffet. Heaping platters of smoked meats, pyramids of preserved fish, silver bowls of red caviar, tureens of sour cream. Blinis. Things that aren't blinis but are filled with sweet cheese. Finally, at the far end, just as she's despairing, she finds granola and cornflakes and fresh fruit. Big pitchers of juice. Coffee in huge old pump-top nickel-plate thermos jugs.
She finds a table to herself. Eats methodically, eyes on her plate. French from a nearby table, light as birdsong against the dark weight of Russian.
She feels as though something huge has happened, is happening, but she can't define it. She knows that it's about meeting Stella, and hearing her story, and her sister's, but somehow she no longer is able to fit it to her life. Or rather she lives now in that story, her life left somewhere behind, like a room she's stepped out of. Not far away at all but she is no longer in.
Back upstairs, she phones Parkaboy in Chicago. "I'm going to level with you," she hears him say, after the final, uneven ring. "I'm away for a while. But there's no cash on the premises, no drugs, and the pit bull's tested positive. Twice."
