Louis ordered a bottle of Zghihara, the local white wine. There was an air of confidence about Louis, a quiet strength that gave Mary a feeling of security.
He had picked her up in town, away from the embassy. “It’s better not to let anyone know where you are going,” he said, “or it will be on the tongues of every diplomat in town.”
Too late, Mary thought wryly.
Louis had borrowed the car from a friend at the French embassy. It had black-and-white oval CD license plates.
Mary knew that license plates were a tool for the police. Foreigners were given license plates that started with the number twelve. Yellow plates were for officials.
After lunch they started out again. They passed farmers driving primitive homemade wagons cut from limbs of trees that were twisted together, and caravans of gypsies.
Louis was a skillful driver. Mary studied him as he drove, thinking of Mike Slade’s words: “I’ve been examining his dossier. Your doctor never had a wife or children. He’s an enemy agent.”
She did not believe Mike Slade. Every instinct told her he was lying. It was not Louis who had sneaked into her office and scribbled those words on the walls. It was someone else who was threatening her. She trusted Louis. No one could have faked the emotion I saw on his face when he was playing with the children. No one is that good an actor.
The air was getting noticeably thinner and cooler, and the vegetation and oak trees had given way to ash trees and spruce and fir.
“There’s wonderful hunting here,” Louis said. “You can find wild boar, roebuck, wolves, and black chamois.”
“I’ve never hunted.”
“Perhaps one day I can take you.”
The mountains ahead looked like pictures she had seen of the Swiss Alps, their peaks covered by mists and clouds. Along the roadside they passed forests and green meadows dappled with grazing cows. The icy clouds overhead were the color of steel, and Mary felt that if she reached up and touched them, they would stick to her fingers like cold metal.
It was late afternoon when they reached their destination, Sioplea, a lovely mountain resort that was built like a miniature chalet. Mary waited in the car while Louis registered for both of them.
An elderly bellman showed them to their suite. It had a good-sized, comfortable living room, simply furnished, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a terrace with a breathtaking view of the mountains.
“For the first time in my life,” Louis sighed, “I wish I were a painter.”
“It is a beautiful view.”
He moved closer to her. “No. I mean I wish I could paint you.”
She found herself thinking: I feel like a seventeen-year-old on a first date. I’m nervous.
He took her in his arms and held her tightly. She buried her head against his chest, and then Louis’s lips were on hers, and he was exploring her body, and he moved her hand down to his male hardness, and she forgot everything except what was happening to her.
There was a frantic need in her that went far beyond sex. It was a need for someone to hold her, to reassure her, to protect her, to let her know that she was no longer alone. She needed Louis to be inside her, to be inside him, to be one with him.
They were in the large double bed and she felt his tongue feather down her naked body, into the soft depth of her, and then he was inside her, and she screamed aloud with a feral, passionate cry before she exploded into a thousand glorious Marys. And again, and again, until the bliss became almost too much to bear.
Louis was an incredible lover, passionate and demanding, tender and caring. After a long, long time, they lay spent, contented. She nestled in his strong arms, and they talked.
“It’s so strange,” Louis said. “I feel whole again. Since Renee and the children were killed, I’ve been a ghost, wandering around lost.”
I too, Mary thought.
“I missed her in all the important ways, and in ways I had never thought of. I felt helpless without her. Silly, trivial things. I did not know how to cook a meal, or do my laundry, or even make my bed properly. We men take so much for granted.”