Silhouette in Scarlet - Elizabeth Peters [63]
He looked yearningly at my loaded tray, and Max, who missed very little, said sharply, ‘You will take no food or drink from her.’
‘But of course not,’ Rudi said, as if the idea had never occurred to him.
I swayed on down the corridor. (Carrying a tray necessitates a certain rhythm of the hips. At least that was the custom at Joe’s.) John emerged from the bathroom, timing his exit with such precision that we met just outside the door.
‘Any time now,’ he said, out of the corner of his mouth. Max trotted up, ears pricked; John turned the twist of his mouth into a leer and gave me a long vertical inspection, from head to foot.
‘A little late-night supper à deux?’ he inquired. ‘What a super idea. Who’s the lucky lad?’
‘Not you,’ said Max indignantly. ‘Get into your room and do not leave it.’
‘But what if I have to get up during the night to – ’
Max shoved him into his room and slammed the door. ‘What a tedious person he is,’ he remarked. I could not but agree.
Since John was a master at double entendres of all varieties, I took his comments to indicate approval of the plan I had cleverly concocted. I could not be sure whether he had indicated Leif or Hans when he spelled out ‘distract,’ but by keeping the former in situ (to use an archaeological term), I could immobilize Hans at the same time. I assumed the latter was outside. The doors and windows were the only exits from the bedrooms, and Rudi was covering the doors.
‘Mr Hasseltine is in this room,’ Max said helpfully, indicating the door.
‘You are becoming a trifle tedious yourself, Max,’ I said. ‘Get lost, will you? Rudi is audience enough.’
Max removed himself. I kicked the door. After a minute Leif opened it. ‘You,’ he exclaimed.
‘Me,’ I agreed. ‘I thought you might be feeling a bit peckish.’
‘Peckish?’
‘Speak German. I understand it, you know.’
Smiling, he took the tray, ushered me inside, and kicked the door shut, in one movement. ‘What a pleasant idea. We may as well take what enjoyment we can from the situation.’
‘I hope you don’t think I’m being forward,’ I said. ‘To be truthful, I felt the need of companionship. I’m very nervous.’
‘Of course you are.’ He put the tray on a table and gallantly helped me into a chair. ‘But I’m sure we have nothing to worry about, Vicky. Max has taken a fancy to you – which is not surprising.’
This went on for a while – me expressing girlish timidity, Leif manfully reassuring me – while we drank beer and ate cheese. Gradually the light faded to a soft grey twilight, but the darkness I had hoped for did not come. The only encouraging note was the fact that Hans was indeed distracted. The curtains at the window fluttered in the breeze; every now and then a bundle of fingers shaped like sausages would catch at a blowing fold to keep it out of the line of vision.
When Leif set his empty bottle down with a decisive thump and wiped the crumbs off his lips, I knew the second stage of the entertainment – the part Hans was waiting for – was about to begin. Leif rose from his chair. With slow, deliberate strides he came to me and held out his hands. I gave him mine. He lifted me into his arms.
It may have been the change in language. People sound much more formal when they speak a tongue that is not their own unless they speak it fluently. They even act more formally, as if constrained by the necessity of thinking what word to use next. The hands that fondled me, the lips that explored mine might have belonged to a stranger, not the big ox who had mauled me in the park in Stockholm. I was decidedly short of breath and very, very cooperative when he picked me up, as easily as he might have lifted a child, and carried me towards the bed.