Satori - Don Winslow [12]
“Of …”
“You, of course,” she said. “Your face.”
He had gone to the doctor’s office once a week for the hefty Irish nurse to change his wrappings, none too gently at that. But she had deliberately kept him away from a mirror until the healing process was complete, so this would be the first time that he would see his reconstructed face.
If he was at all nervous or anxious, he didn’t betray it. It was as if Solange had told him that they were going to see a photo exhibit or a film. He seemed detached. If it were me, she thought, I would be a mess — he was as cool as a March morning, placid as a still pond.
“The doctor said that I could do it,” Solange said.
“Now?” Nicholai asked.
“If you wish.”
Nicholai shrugged. It would be nice to have the bandages off, certainly, but he wasn’t really all that curious about his face. He had sat in solitary confinement for those years, where it really didn’t matter what one looked like — there was no one there to react except the guards.
But suddenly he felt a twinge of anxiety, which surprised and displeased him. Suddenly it did matter to him what he looked like, and he realized that it was because of her.
I care what she thinks, he marveled to himself. I’m afraid of how she’ll react when the bandages come off and I am still ugly. He didn’t know that such feelings still resided in him.
Remarkable, he thought.
“I’m ready,” Nicholai said.
They went into the bathroom. She sat him down on a stool in front of the mirror, stood behind him, and gently unwrapped the bandages.
He was beautiful.
There is no other word for it, Solange thought. He is a beautiful man. His emerald green eyes stood out now against the high, sharp cheekbones. His long jaw was strong, his dimpled chin cute without being at all effeminate. And he was youthful-looking — far younger than his twenty-six years, even with all he’d been through.
“Bravo, Doctor,” Solange said. “Are you pleased?”
I’m relieved, Nicholai thought, seeing the smile on her face. She would have feigned the smile in any case, but he was relieved that the surgeon’s apparent skill had saved them both that indignity. He said, “I’m not sure that I recognize myself.”
“You are very handsome.”
“You think so?”
“Listen to you, fishing for a compliment,” Solange said. “Yes, I think so. You are very handsome. But now you make me feel so old.”
“You’re beautiful and you know it.”
“But fading,” she says. “Perhaps I should go see this doctor …”
8
HAVERFORD CAME that afternoon.
He inspected Nicholai’s face as if it were a product to be testmarketed and then pronounced it satisfactory. “He did a good job.”
“I’m pleased that you’re pleased,” Nicholai answered.
They sat down in the dining room. Haverford spread a file out on the table and without preamble began, “You are Michel Guibert, twenty-six years old, born in Montpellier, France. When you were ten years old your family moved to Hong Kong to pursue your father’s import-export business. You survived the Japanese occupation because your family were residents of Vichy France and therefore at peace with the Axis powers. By the time the war ended you were old enough to go into the family business.”
“Which was?”
“Arms,” Haverford said. “La famille Guibert has been in the weapons black market since the ball-and-musket era.”
“Is there an actual Guibert family,” Nicholai asked, “or is this a total fiction?”
“Papa Guibert is quite real,” Haverford answered.
“And does he have a son?”
“He did,” Haverford answered.
He spread out photographs of what certainly could have been a young Nicholai happily playing in a Chinese courtyard, helping the cooks, smiling over a birthday cake. “Sadly, Michel was in a terrible car crash. Disfiguring, I’m told. Requiring massive reconstructive surgery. He looks somewhat like his old self.”
“Did you arrange for this ‘accident’.?” Nicholai asked.
“No,” answered Haverford. “My God, do you think we’re monsters?”
“Mmmmmm … The mother?”
“She died just recently. You were very torn up about it.”
“You amaze and appall me,” Nicholai said.
“You’ve matured quite