The Stranger - Max Frei [82]
I was driving home, trying to think not about tomorrow, but about something else—namely, whether I would get the chance to see Lady Melamori in the morning. By that time, my interest in Lady Melamori had begun to assume dangerous proportions. The worst thing was that for the life of me I couldn’t figure her out. Since the evening we had met the first time, she had looked at me with undisguised adoration—sometimes even with slight fear. But excessive admiration, as far as I’ve been able to judge, rarely gives rise to true intimacy. So I didn’t know myself whether I should still have hope, or simply get a grip on myself before it was too late. Whether it was already too late—of this I wasn’t sure.
Then several days ago she had thoroughly disarmed me by saying, “Come to my place this evening, Sir Max. You don’t know where I live yet? It’s very easy to find. I live next to the Quarter of Trysts. Amusing, isn’t it?”
My head started spinning. I took a deep breath, scrubbed myself in the baths for about two hours, and donned the best looxi from my modest collection. I almost started powdering my nose, since here in Echo men are not ashamed to use makeup—at least on special occasions. But my conservative upbringing restrained me from taking that last fateful step.
I ordered Kurush to guard the office—that bird really beats all! When I got to Melamori’s house, though, I found the Minor Secret Investigative Force assembled nearly in its entirety. At first I couldn’t get over my disappointment:
“My lady, you could have warned me that this would be business as usual. Do we not see enough of each other during working hours?”
When I’m upset I always grow tactless. Luckily, I didn’t offend anyone.
“On the upside, I don’t have Boboota here, Sir Max,” the hostess boasted proudly. “What’s more, he’s not in any of the neighboring houses, either! Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Ah, but that’s a shame, my lady! Who am I to converse with? I was planning on talking with a competent expert about everything that floats in the swamps and outhouses. Let me just drop in on Lady Melamori, I thought. I’m sure General Boboota is already there.”
I tried to make light of the situation. My colleagues were clearly amused by this. At last I cheered up, too—but there was no glimmer of a romance that would eventually burst into flame that night. The iconoclastic Lady Melamori flirted with Sir Melifaro and Sir Kofa, but to me she only threw tender glances from a distance of a dozen steps, no fewer.
I realized I was becoming despondent, and I tried to distract my thoughts from her. But how could I distract myself right there in her presence! The vagueness of our relationship tore me apart. If she had just told me where to go, everything would at least have become clear. No means no. The interested parties hang themselves in the outhouse; life goes on. But every time we met, she stuck to me like a leech, like a five-year old girl to a three-foot tall Mickey Mouse. She stood up on her tiptoes, batted her eyelashes in rapture, and all but called over all her girlfriends to take a look. My heart, obviously, melted from her attentions. And I sank in deeper and deeper . . .
Fie on you, devil! I awoke from these sad meditations when I noticed all at once that I had been sitting for a long time in my own dining room, chewing my food mechanically. My stomach groaned, letting me know that I had already