Night Train to Memphis - Elizabeth Peters [164]
I broke off. I had run out of breath. Schmidt was nodding and smiling, and there was a calculating look in those beady little eyes of his.
‘Schmidt,’ I said. ‘I already owe you more than I can ever repay and I am deeply grateful to you for inducing this emotional orgy, even if you did enjoy every maudlin moment of it. But if you call him and repeat this conversation – ’
‘Now, Vicky, would I do such a thing?’ He took out his wallet. ‘Come, we must return to the museum. To work, to work, eh? I trust you will be more efficient in the future.’
It went on raining. Day after day. Three days, to be precise. I didn’t mind. At that point I’d have considered sunlight a personal insult. And the bad weather kept me occupied. Cleaning up after Caesar was a full-time activity
He and Clara had been glad to see me. Not that Clara admitted it. In fact, she spent a full day displaying her displeasure at my absence. She’d walk into the room and then sit down with her back to me, glancing over her shoulder now and then to make sure I was aware of how she was ignoring me. And she talked. There is nothing noisier than an irritated Siamese. Finally she condescended to get on my lap and after that I couldn’t get rid of her. I fell over her every time I climbed the stairs and she slept on my head instead of at my feet. With her tail in my mouth.
Caesar’s delight at my return was more openly expressed. Thanks to the incessant rain he was able to coat himself with mud whenever he went out and he was determined to share this pleasure with the one he loved best. If it hadn’t been for them and for Schmidt . . .
But I was feeling more suicidal than ever that gloomy Thursday evening. The drive home, through misty rain and fog, had been a nightmare of traffic and fender benders. Caesar had found something dead in the garden when I let him out, and he had rolled in it. Clara had decided she didn’t care for the brand of cat food I had been feeding her for a week. I had just bought a whole case of it.
I had been too depressed to change my wet clothes or my muddy shoes. I was sitting on the couch, elbows on my knees, chin on my hands, dank hair dripping down my face, when the doorbell rang.
Schmidt looked like Father Christmas with an armful of parcels and a red scarf wound around his double chins. The bottle sticking out of one of the bags appeared to be champagne.
‘Coming to cheer me up, are you?’ I inquired sourly.
‘Do not be rude, you know you are glad to see me.’
‘Yes, I am. Hi, Schmidt.’
‘Gröss Gott,’ Schmidt said formally. ‘Help me unpack these things. We are having a party.’
‘I hope “we” means you and me.’ I followed him to the kitchen. So did Caesar and Clara. They knew Schmidt. When he began unloading his parcels I realized he’d been shopping at Dallmayr’s, Munich’s legendary gourmet deli. ‘I don’t want anybody else.’
‘I have invited another guest,’ Schmidt said. He was trying not to grin but he couldn’t hold it back, and I knew before he went on what he was going to say. ‘I think you will be glad to see him, though.’
Slowly I followed Schmidt back into the living room, and there I stayed – rooted to the spot is the phrase, I believe – while he went into the hall. Was I thinking, in that supreme and critical moment, of how god-awful I looked? Of course I was. I had allowed myself to imagine such a meeting. In that fantasy I was attired in robes of filmy white, and my (freshly washed and carefully brushed) hair fell over my shoulders. Trust Schmidt to pick a moment when I resembled a charwoman on her way home