He swallowed hard. “Hey, don’t make fun of me.”
“What did you look like with your glasses on?”
“I don’t know. Maybe my eyes being normal is just temporary. Maybe—“ “Daddy—my father—he had scars from old wounds and they healed.” “My left arm—there isn’t any scar from that spear. You’ll have to get your father to—“ “He told me. You’re a very brave man.”
Paul Rubenstein laughed. “Bullshit. I’m just— well, I pick things up quick. Your father—he’s the one—“ “You’re a brave man. He told me you saved his life more than once.” “No, I never did that. I just—and anyway, God, John saved me—I mean, your father, he—“ “When Daddy told you about your mother and father—what that Colonel Reed told him—I wanted to hold you.”
“Annie, you’re a little—“
“I’m a woman—and I fell in love with you while you slept. Not because Daddy made things so I would. I just did. Like girls falling in love with movie actors or rock singers—never meeting them. I fell in love with you.”
“That’s not love, that’s—“
“He told me about the girl in New York once— one night. He was up very late and I was ten years old and I sat up with him and he told me all about you.” “The Eden Project—there’ll be lots of guys, guys a lot better—“ “I’ll be a spinster then, if you won’t have me.” He realized he was moving the cleaning rod in and out of the barrel and he thought she might think he was thinking something he shouldn’t think and he set the barrel and the cleaning rod down and he looked at her. “I, ahh—“ “You want to say you don’t love me yet—and I understand that.”
“Gimme a chance to breathe—“
“I know that—but I wanted you to know before you go off after Michael. I couldn’t just not tell you,” and she leaned up toward him, Paul feeling her hands touching at his face. She was very pretty—the deepness of the brown of her eyes, the hair was unimaginable, like something from a fantasy about a mermaid or a goddess, he thought. The white blouse—it showed the bareness of her shoulders where the shawl she wore fell away from her.
“You’re the daughter of my best friend. He—“
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“You’re a gentile, I’m—“
“That has nothing to do with it—there aren’t any rabbis and there aren’t any ministers.”
“But—“
“But?”
He licked his lips. “Annie—you—Annie—“
“I fell in love with you. I used to fantasize what your voice was like because I couldn’t remember it. It’s soft—I like it.”
“Annie—“
“When I was seven or so and we played poker that night, you told me I was pretty.”
“You’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman I ever—“
“I’m your woman. I don’t expect you to do anything. But when you want to—just—I never talked like this. I’m your woman.”
“You’re—“
“Almost twenty-eight.”
“You’re—“
“You’re almost five hundred and twenty-eight,” and she laughed.
“I’m not that—“ and he laughed.
“Daddy told me you were kind of quiet. I think he meant shy.”
“Aww, dammit, look—“
“All I wanted was for you to know—that I’ll be here when you get back, Paul.”
“Annie—look—“
“I looked—for a very long time,” and she leaned up suddenly and he realized she was standing on her toes and her lips touched his cheek and she was gone, walking away. He watched how she wrapped the shawl about her shoulders. He licked his lips. He looked back to the work table. Paul Rubenstein closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember how to put the parts together. Of the gun.
Chapter Nineteen
They had spent the night hiding in the tr-ees, the woman saying nothing, shivering, wrapped in the Thermos blanket from his back pack and inside the sleeping bag as well, Michael with the M-16 beside him, the two revolvers fully loaded. He had broken his cardinal rule and kept sixth rounds in each of the cylinders but would remove them before moving on. Daylight had come after the fireless night.
The woman talked in her sleep, but neither was she intelligible to him nor was the language the language from the tapes he had made of the radio broadcast. Michael had wanted to awaken her.
Had she come with the pilot?
Where was the pilot from?
Who were these people who craved human flesh?
Were there more of them?
He could not ask her because she did not awaken. She had raced through the trees, Michael grabbing her, dragging her in the right direction, toward the spot where he had secured the pack and the rifle, past the hanging parachute—mute testimony to what, he wondered. He had covered her body with his coat and his shirt, the snow freezing his bare skin.
They had reached the bracken of pines and the brush beyond and he had wrapped her in the blanket, found a fresh shirt for himself, taken back his jacket, wrapped her in the sleeping bag.
He had kept her warm while he sat on guard, unsleeping, freezing as the snow piled high around them.
Once there had been sounds. There were no animal forms on the earth that he had seen— except his family, except this woman, except the cannibals, whoever they were. But the sound had been the wind, he had reasoned, because it had returned several times in exactly the same way and there had been no attack. But he had stayed ready throughout the night.
And then the woman spoke to him. “You are the archangel.” He looked at her, saw the smile etched across her face—one of peace. But her eyes were already closed again and she was asleep. She no longer moaned and mumbled in her sleep and Michael Rourke watched her for a long time. There was nothing else to do and under the dirt smudges on her face, she seemed pretty to him. It was how one perceived another human being—he had long ago thought that through. And he perceived her as pretty, as terrified. And he perceived her as safe from those people who would have done their foul things to her—for as long as he had breath.
The cold helped him stay awake because it made his body tremble.
Chapter Twenty
“I’m not some archangel—I just have the same name.” “But you are not one of Them, and you are not from the Place. The other one—he was an angel, that is why he fell from the sky. And you came to save him—and you saved me, too. I am sorry. Was he your friend?” “The pilot?”
“The other angel, his name was Pilate—like Pontius Pilate. I would think an angel would have a name that was less like that weak man’s name— Pilate. I am sorry for your friend, Archangel Michael.”
Michael Rourke closed his eyes. “This is a fighting knife,” and he showed her the Gerber. “It isn’t some heavenly sword.”
She smiled. Her eyes were still very pretty. “We were taught to call your mighty blade a sword. But I shall call it a fighting knife if you wish that, Archangel Michael.”
“I’m not an archangel. I’m not even a regular angel—I’m just a man.” “You are not Them, and you are not from the Place. The angel Pilate came down from the sky and you came to rescue him—you are obviously the archangel Michael. You told me that you were Michael.”
“I am Michael,” and she smiled as he said it. “But—“ “When must you return to heaven?”
“I, ahh—“
“Please, I know that I’m not worthy of heaven— but don’t leave me here. Slay me with your avenging sword, perhaps—anyplace but to be here with Them and alone.” “Them?”
“The ones who consume the flesh. Them. They fight those from the Place.”
“I can take you back to the place.”
The girl—he didn’t yet know her name—fell to her knees and folded her hands and touched her forehead to her hands. “Archangel Michael, do not return me to the Place. I beg this by all that is holy. They will give me back to Them. Do not return me to the Place—do not for they will give me to Them, slay me. I pray.” Michael Rourke looked at her—she prayed to him. She called him an archangel. She was from the Place. She was afraid of Them. But who was she? he thought. ‘Til go with you. You’ll be safe.”
She looked up, settling back on her behind—the blanket was all that was around her. “Archangel Michael is good.”
Michael Rourke watched her eyes a moment. “Sure.”
Chapter Twenty-One
John Rourke stepped out of the Retreat and into the cold sunlight. There was snow on the air—he could smell it. Sarah had told him one thing and only one… “Bring Michael home to me.” The bikes were already outside, Annie and Paul talking, apparently, down the road a bit from the Retreat doors. Beside Rourke stood Natalia Tiemerovna. He didn’t look at her as she spoke. “I had to go with you. Sarah and Annie—they need time to know each other. And I couldn’t stay here now.”