‘You don’t know what he believes,’ she said, sitting up, fixing him with a dead stare, her voice full of venom. ‘You don’t understand him at all. He pretends to be a humble craftsman, an artisan, a good honest soul. But in his heart he considers himself a superior being. Life, he used to say, had thrown obstacle after obstacle into his path, keeping him from achieving his proper station. He feels he’s been penalized with bad luck for his intelligence. He’s a schemer, a plotter. And his bad luck stems from the fact that he’s not so intelligent as he thinks. He bungles everything.’
The first part of what she had said was in such accord with Korrogly’s impression of Lemos that he was taken aback; hearing his feelings issue from Mirielle’s mouth acted both to reinforce his impression and – because she was so obviously her father’s antagonist – to invalidate it.
‘That may be,’ he said, covering his confusion by shuffling through papers, ‘but I doubt it.’
‘Oh, you’ll find out,’ she said. ‘If there’s one thing you’ll end up knowing about my father, it’s his capacity for deceit.’ She settled back on the sofa, her skirt riding up onto her thigh. ‘He’s been wanting to kill Mardo ever since I got involved with him.’ A smile hitched up the corners of her mouth. ‘He was jealous.’
‘Jealous?’ said Korrogly.
‘Yes . . . as a lover is jealous. He delights in touching me.’
Korrogly did not reject the notion of incestuous desire out of hand, but after going through the mental file he had begun on Lemos, he refused to believe Mirielle’s accusation; she had been so committed to Zemaille and his way of life that he could not, he realized, believe anything she told him. She was ruined, abandoned to the point of dissolution; the stink pervading the apartment, he thought, was scarcely distinguishable from the reek of her own spoilage.
‘Why do you despise your father?’ he asked.
‘His pomposity,’ she said, ‘and his stodginess. His stale conception of what happiness should be, his inability to embrace life, his dull presence, his . . .’
‘All that sounds quite adolescent,’ he said. ‘Like the reaction of a stubborn child who’s been denied her favorite treat.’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. He rejected my suitors, he prevented me from becoming an actress . . . and I could have been a good one. Everybody said so. But how I am, how I was, doesn’t have any bearing on the truth of what I’ve said. And it’s not relevant to what my father did.’
‘Relevant . . . possibly not. But it speaks to the fact that you’re not in the least interested in helping him.’
‘I’ve made no secret of that.’
‘No, you haven’t. But the history of your emotions will be helpful in pointing up that you’re a vindictive bitch and that your idea of the truth is whatever will hurt your father. It has no relation to what really happened.’
He had been trying to make her angry, wanting to get an idea of her boiling point, knowledge that would come in handy during the trial; but her smile only broadened, she crossed her legs and traced a florid shape in the air with the tip of her cigar. She was very cool, he thought, very cool. But in court that would work against her; it would cast Lemos in a more benign light, show him to be the patient, caring parent in contrast to her vengeful ingrate. Of course that would be more significant to a defense based on compulsion, on wrong-headed passion; but Korrogly believed he could color his actual defense with this other and so win the jury’s sympathy.
‘Well,’ he said, coming to his feet. ‘I may have some more questions later, but I don’t see any use in continuing this now.’
‘You think you’ve got me, don’t you?’
‘Got you? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You think you’ve got me figured out.’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘And how you would portray me in court?’
‘I’m sure you must have an idea.’
‘Oh, but I’d like to hear it.’
‘All right. If necessary I’ll paint a picture of a spoiled, indulgent creature who has no real feelings for anyone. Even her grief for her lover seems to be no more than a kind of adornment, an accessory to be worn with a black dress. And in her degeneracy, a condition prompted by drugs and the black arts, by the depraved rituals of the dragon cult, the only emotions she is capable of mustering are those she thinks will serve her ends. Greed, perhaps. And vengefulness.’
She let out a lazy chuckle.
‘That strikes you as inaccurate?’
‘Not at all, lawyer. What amuses me is that knowing this, you think you can use it to your advantage.’ She turned on her side, supporting her head with one hand, her skirt twisting beneath her, exposing even more pale firm flesh. ‘I’ll look forward to our next meeting. Perhaps by then your understanding of the situation will have grown more complex, and you’ll have more . . . more interesting questions to ask.’
‘May I ask one further question now?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She rolled onto her back, cutting her eyes toward him.
‘This display of yours, the dress up to your waist and all that, is it intended to arouse me?’
