The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [79]
“Then perhaps there is hope.”
“There is always hope,” I said, mostly to make conversational noise.
“But don’t you find the … silence intriguing? Mr. De Ratour?”
Diantha was about to say something when I shot her a quick glance. “Not at all,” I said blithely. “To disappear among cannibals is to truly disappear.”
The man laughed wickedly at my inadvertent bon mot, rubbed his hands together, and said he had things to attend to.
As we dawdled back to the car, I noticed the garish Christmas lighting blinking and winking all around us. I recalled that Malcolm Muggeridge had once remarked how he would like to show Christ around the Vatican. I think I’d rather show Our Lord the shopping areas of Seaboard and the way they get all tarted up like some old New England spinster trying to pass for a Las Vegas showgirl. Not that I disdain it. I was instead ineffably sad because Elsbeth loved it, even — especially — the front-yard displays. And I knew that next year she would not be here to share it with me.
“So, is Freddie Bain your villain?” Diantha asked, teasing me and bringing me out of my gloom as I drove us home in the creaking Peugeot.
“Possibly. I doubt very much that Freddie Bain was his original name.”
“What’s in a name?”
“Sometimes everything.”
“I don’t care. I found him fascinating.”
“As he found you,” I said, unaware of how dispirited I sounded.
She laughed, her wonderful, silly little laugh as we pulled up to the house. “Oh, Norman, I think you’re jealous. How sweet of you.” She gave me a peck on the cheek before getting out. We spoke of dinner and plans for the evening. But I sensed that before long she would have a love in her life.
As I drove back here to the office, I was filled with a distinct unease. The lingering smell of those pungent spices hung in the car like motes of suspicion.
29
My darling Elsbeth died this morning just as the fog lifted and dawn broke over Mercy Island, which we can just see from the bedroom window when the trees are stripped of leaves. When she woke about five thirty, I asked her if she wanted an injection for pain. She could scarcely talk. She smiled at me and shook her head. “Lie down with me,” she said with an effort. I got under the covers and put my arm around her as she turned to me. Somehow I knew what was happening. I didn’t need the cuff to sense that her blood pressure was dropping, that her kidneys and her valiant heart were failing. We lay like that for some time as I stroked her head and gave her as much love as I could. But again, it was as though Elsbeth were comforting me, was telling me she was okay, that she had entered some blissful peace before the final darkness descends.
Elsbeth whispered her final words, “Take care of Diantha. I love you, Norman.” Her breathing grew uncertain. It stopped. Then started again. Finally it stopped and didn’t start again as, holding my own breath, I waited and waited. I hugged her to me, but she was gone. I called her name, “Elsbeth. Elsbeth. Elsbeth.” But she was gone. And in my sorrow I experienced the faith of disbelief: I could not believe that this woman, this being, my love, had ceased to exist. You are not nonexistent, I said to myself, holding her lifeless form, you are only gone, gone somewhere else. But where? “Come back,” I murmured. I wept quietly. I sighed. I got up and went down the hall to tell Diantha.
I pushed open her door and sat on the side of her bed. “Diantha,” I whispered, “Di …”
She sat up and turned on the bedside light. “Mom?”
I nodded.
She came into my arms, her tears running together with mine as I held her. And I had the strangest sensation, a sensation like a revelation: Diantha was Elsbeth. This is where Elsbeth had gone. It lasted only a moment, of course. No one is anyone else. But it lingered as we walked back to where Elsbeth lay, as Diantha knelt by the bed and ever-so-gently stroked her mother’s wan, still face and moved the wisps of hair to one side.
Then Diantha said a strange and provocative thing. She looked directly at me. “I want a baby. I want a baby girl. I’m going to