The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [16]
“It’s a good party, Andy. Everyone is having fun.”
“Including our Jacqueline,” Andy said, grinning. “Dig that technique, will you?”
Jean turned her head and saw Jacqueline and Scoville Senior walking toward the doors that opened onto the terrace. Jacqueline’s dignified librarian friend would have had difficulty recognizing her in her present costume; the jade-green of her fashionable pants suit darkened her eyes to emerald, and set off her slim figure. Her hair was coiled around her head like a metallic wreath. As she smiled at her tall companion, whose head was bent attentively, Jean saw with amusement that Jacqueline’s glasses were no longer in evidence. Only one item detracted from an otherwise perfect vision of sophisticated elegance: the Purse. Jean found that she was thinking of it in capital letters.
The couple vanished into the darkness of the terrace, and Andy laughed aloud.
“She lifted him right out from under Dana’s nose,” he said admiringly. “Our Dana is losing her touch.”
Jean started to answer; but the words caught in her throat as she saw the change in Andy’s face. He was staring past her at the doorway. Jean whirled around, expecting some cataclysmic vision. Her eyes fell upon an object which, if unsightly, did not at first glance seem horrifying enough to explain Andy’s consternation. It was only Albert, returned from his temporary absence.
Albert’s presence never produced ecstasies of joyful welcome; but now the silence that gradually spread through the room, freezing the guests in mid-sentence and mid-gesture, had a special quality. As Jean stared, she began to understand the silence, and the alarm on Andy’s face.
Though his person was ugly, Albert was normally fastidious about cleanliness; his cheap clothing was neatly if clumsily patched, and he was always clean-shaven. On this occasion he sported a straggling growth of black beard, and his shirt and trousers looked as if he had slept in them, not once but several times. As he stood blinking into the brightly lit room, his heavy shoulders hunched and his hands dangling, there was menace in his stance and in his squinting eyes.
If his appearance was alarming, his initial speech was even more so. Although Jean’s French was poor, she knew the word he hurled at them like a missile.
“Voleur!”
A ripple of reaction ran through the staring crowd. Jean had time to wonder how personally some of the Trasteverites might take that accusation of “thief.” The reputation of the district…Albert’s voice rose to a shriek as he warmed to his subject.
“Il a dispam. On l’a volé! Mon tresor, ma seule chose précieuse! Aujourd’hui, today, when I go to eat the lunch—you steal—”
To Jean’s horror, he began to cry. Though he continued to speak, the words were lost in his mammoth grief; the tears trickled down his face and collected in greasy puddles amid the folds of his vast brown cheeks. The crowd reacted as people usually do to an outburst of honest emotion; they turned their backs and resumed their conversations, a little more loudly than before.
Andy started toward the doorway. He reached his sobbing uninvited guest and slapped him on the back. It was a good hard slap, prompted by fury rather than camaraderie, but it stopped Albert’s cries. He turned toward Andy, who began to speak, softly but urgently; and after a few moments Albert nodded and swabbed at his face with his sleeve. Andy took his arm and pulled him toward the table where the food was spread out. Jean relaxed. Andy had the situation well in hand. Albert could always be distracted by food. As she backed daintily away, she saw Ann making her way toward the table. The girl’s face was set in an expression of controlled distaste, but she was obviously prepared to do her share of the dirty work.
Jean retreated, without shame. Albert in his normal state was bad enough; she had no desire to socialize with him while he was in his present state of mind. She joined a group of Italian students who were singing; one of them was strumming Andy’s guitar.