Cut and Run

Twenty

T he tiny, antique cape house stood on a hillside overlooking the winding Batten Kill River in southwestern Vermont. Three inches of light, dusty snow glistened in the moonlight on the gravel driveway. Juliana plowed Shuji’s Mercedes right through it and went in through the back, into the country kitchen, turning on lights and ignoring the pounding in her head and the tugging at the back of her eyes that told her she needed sleep. She stumbled into the common room and started a fire in the huge center chimney fireplace, using more matches than usual because her hands were shaking with cold and fear. Finally, it caught.

The crackling of the flames and the soughing of the wind were the only sounds. She listened to her footsteps on the wide pine floor as she went into her small bedroom off the common room and found some warm corduroys and a sweater and heavy socks and put them on. She left her city clothes in a heap on the floor.

The fire didn’t take long to get going, and Juliana soon added another log. Then she sat cross-legged on the round hand-braided rug in front of the hearth. Everything about the house was soothing. There was a basket on the floor filled with the needlework she only did when she was here; for the past four years she’d been working on a sweater made with wool from a farm nearby. There was a stack of unread books on the Shaker candle table. Bundles of herbs she’d dried last summer. Reference books on bird watching, gardening, jam making. The women who came here and exulted in simple domestic chores, she thought, was as different from the Juliana Fall who had just completed another highly acclaimed European tour as she was from J.J. Pepper.

She rested back against the Duncan Phyfe sofa, trying to ease her tension, to think. Just a few minutes, she thought. If she just closed her eyes and emptied her mind for a little while, she would be better able to deal with the problems of her mother and the Minstrel’s Rough. She could feel the fire warm her feet. The Chopin sounded in her head. She listened to it, hearing it in a way she’d never heard it before. Closing her eyes at last, she let the sounds envelop her, then seep in, becoming a part of her.

After a while she became aware she was no longer alone in the house. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. Although preoccupied, she hadn’t been asleep and was certain an unusual sound-a door, a car-would have alerted her.

Very close to her a sandpaper voice said, “I don’t know why I don’t just wring your neck and be done with it.”

She opened her eyes, and when they fell on the solid figure of Matthew Stark, her heart skidded; she’d been missing him, she realized, wanting him here while she was hurting in so many different ways. “Matthew.” Could he hear the longing in her voice? “How did you get here?”

He glared down at her, his dark face lost in the shadows of the room. “I came through the goddamn kitchen door that you left unlocked.”

“If I hadn’t,” she said noting the socket wrench in his right hand, “you’d only have broken in. Then I’d have had to buy a new door. How did you find me?”

“Your Aunt Willie. She guessed you’d come here.”

“She did, did she? I didn’t think she had that much imagination. I’ve just been sitting here humming Chopin,” she said. As if to prove it, she hummed some for him. “That’s the one I’m supposed to be working on. Frederick Chopin’s Piano Concerto Number One. My uncle’s dead, Rachel Stein is dead, my mother’s been kidnapped, my aunt’s muttering about onderduikers and Nazis, I’ve been knocked around and have met a Dutchman who betrayed my family and the Steins to the Nazis-and I’m humming goddamn Chopin.”

Matthew let his gaze fall on Juliana and saw the wild, scared, determined look in her dark eyes, and he felt his heart leap as he thought, this lady’s getting to me. “So you ran into Bloch,” he said.

“Yes. A charming individual. His man Peters flattened me, but that’s okay because he didn’t hurt my hands. When I was in junior high and high school, I’d go to fine arts camp, and the keyboard people would all be on the same volleyball team. We consistently had the worst record because we were all so terrified of hurting our hands. We’d hit the ball with our forearms, elbows, shoulders, heads-anything but our hands. This was probably about the same time you were trying to stay alive in Vietnam. Silly, isn’t it?”

“Jesus Christ,” Matthew said, and couldn’t help himself. He was envisioning a bunch of piano players on a volleyball team, and it was so damn crazy, so ridiculous, that he started to laugh, Bloch or no Bloch.

“Damn you-”

Juliana reared back to smack him one, and he caught her hands and pulled her to her feet. Then she was in his arms and he stopped laughing and his mouth was on hers. They just couldn’t stop. She had on a gray turtleneck sweater that had come untucked from her pants, and she reveled in the feel of his hands on its softness, her softness. She slid her arms around him and brought him even closer.

“I’m becoming very attached to you, you know,” she whispered, her mouth close to his, and she wondered if she’d started this or if he had, but she didn’t care.

“Feeling’s mutual, although if anybody had told me a month ago I’d be in Vermont kissing a crazy, internationally famous pianist and chasing the world’s largest uncut diamond…” He grimaced at the thought. “Jesus.”

He let her go and watched her stumble back on the couch, and suddenly in the firelight he could see the swelling along the side of her neck, below her jaw. Bloch’s handiwork. Matthew felt a hollowness inside him-and a seething anger. “Tell me what happened.”

At first she said nothing.

“Juliana.” He spoke her name softly. “Talk to me now or I’ll leave you here and go find Bloch my own way.”

“You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” she said. “I’m not trying to be an ass-but it’s difficult to talk…My mother…”

“Tell me, Juliana.”

It wasn’t a command, but more of a plea, not to tell but to share, not to throw the burden onto him but to transfer some of the weight of it to him. Juliana nodded, and in a surprisingly clinical manner recounted what had happened in Catharina’s Bake Shop. She held together because she had to. If she was going to help her mother, there was no choice. She couldn’t fall apart.

Matthew stood through the whole thing, pacing in front of the fire. When she’d finished, he said, “That’s not everything.”

Her ice-emerald eyes widened as she glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”

“The Minstrel’s Rough,” he said. “You have it, don’t you? That’s why you came here.”

“Is that why you did?”

His eyes held hers. “No. I came because of you.”

Looking into his face, reading what perhaps no one else could see, she believed him. “What about Aunt Willie? What have the two of you been up to?”

Matthew dropped the topic of the Minstrel for the moment and without preamble or sugarcoating told her. “We should give her a call,” he said.

“Can’t. I don’t have a telephone here.”

“Charming, but I doubt it’d make any difference. She feels a responsibility toward your mother, I gather, and if it comes to it, she’ll go with Bloch.”

“Are you going to tell me about him?”

“Are you going to tell me about the Minstrel?”

She jumped up, going into the doorway to the bedroom. They were at an impasse, she thought. Up against a brick wall. She wasn’t sure she was ready to tell him about the Minstrel. Four hundred years of tradition were at stake. She tucked in her sweater, wincing at the sudden stab of pain down her neck and into her shoulders. She felt woozy and confused, fleetingly guilty. She didn’t like stonewalling Matthew, didn’t like his black gaze on her like that, searching, wanting. It’d help, she thought, if he took off that damn leather coat.

“There’s a bed upstairs,” she said. “The room’s unfinished, but you’ll survive. It’s ridiculous to think either of us will be able to accomplish anything tonight.” Her entire body felt as if it were ready to turn to liquid and seep into the cracks in the floor. “Good night, Matthew.”

She went into the bedroom and, although she never did when she was alone, shut the door behind her.

The fire had died, and she hadn’t turned up the thermostat. It was chilly in the house as she padded upstairs in her bare feet, guided only by the starlight and the reflection of the night sky off the snow outside her windows. The stairs were as old as the house, and they creaked. Her parents didn’t like her coming here alone. If she didn’t have a husband, they thought she ought at least to have a dog.

She came to the upstairs landing. The ceilings were low, lending to the cozy atmosphere. On stormy days, she liked to flop in the bed up here and curl up under the quilts and read while listening to the pitter-pat of the rain on the roof. Sometimes she just liked to lie and daydream about not always being so alone. And yet she didn’t mind solitude. At least, not always.

There was no door to the small bedroom on the right. The old plaster walls had crumbled, and the floors were covered with layers of ugly linoleum, and there were no curtains on the one small window. Restoring the room was in her “one of these days” plans; it wasn’t something she worried about. She’d picked up an iron bed at a flea market, several quilts, and a big old trunk, and that was the furnishings.

She could see only the foot of the bed from the door, a darker outline against the general darkness. Holding her breath, she took a step into the room.

An iron shaft clamped down around her middle and catapulted her across the room onto the bed. The old springs creaked madly, and she bounced hard, the wind knocked completely out of her. Adrenaline flooded into her bloodstream in such a rush it hurt, and she gulped for air as the weight came off her, slowly, as if not quite sure it was the proper thing to do.

The dark, male silhouette stood upright. “Hell of a time to be sneaking into a man’s room,” Matthew said.

She sat up halfway, leaning back on her elbows. “I thought you might be awake.”

“I was.”

“What the devil did you think I was?”

“Act first. Then find out.”

As her eyes adjusted further to the darkness of the room, she realized he was in nature’s best. Quite nude. And magnificently so. “I didn’t expect…I thought you’d be…”

“Didn’t think to pack my jammies,” he said sarcastically, making no attempt to cover himself.

She herself was clad chin-to-toe in an L.L. Bean flannel nightgown. “Well, you could have worn something.”

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

“I guess I get what I deserve.”

“I guess you do.”

“Matthew, I-” She stopped herself. “I can’t very well talk with you standing there like that. Aren’t you cold?”

He grinned. “Freezing.”

There were no heat vents upstairs, and it was even colder than downstairs. Even with her flannel nightie, she was chilly herself. But instead of putting on his clothes, Matthew pulled back the covers and climbed into bed. He stretched out, forcing her to sit up straight, but even so she could feel his calves through the quilts, touching her behind.

“Not what you imagined?” he asked at her stricken look.

“I thought we could go downstairs. I have some instant cocoa I could fix.”

“Perish the thought. No brandy?”

She shook her head. “No alcohol whatsoever. I hate to drink alone.”

“A nasty habit. But I’m afraid instant cocoa isn’t worth the effort of putting on my pants and traipsing through this refrigerator of a house. Is your room nice and cozy?”

“Well, it’s better than this.”

“At least there’s no damn hay up here.” He leaned back against the pillows, a shaft of moonlight catching his dark chest. She noted the muscles, the scars. “What did you want?” he asked.

She curled her feet up under her in a tailor squat and covered them with the flannel nightgown and, facing him, leaned back against the footboard, its iron bars frigid.

Matthew laughed. “Don’t you want to crawl under the blankets with me?”

“No, thank you.”

“Freeze, then.”

“I came to tell you about the Minstrel’s Rough.”

That cut off his laugh. He said seriously, “Go on.”

She shivered; it was so damn cold. But she knew if she went under the covers with him, she might not come out again. “I’m so used to not talking about it-to pretending it’s just another hunk of rock and not the Minstrel. Uncle Johannes brought it to me in Rotterdam seven years ago. I never took him seriously. In fact, I thought he was a little crazy; I discredited his story because it was easier that way.”

“Where is it now?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been using it as a paperweight.”

“Jesus.”

“For jam recipes,” she said.

“Why not? It’s only the world’s largest uncut diamond.”

“If you’d seen Uncle Johannes that night, you might have done the same.”

“I don’t make jam.”

Ignoring him, she recounted the night at the little stone church in Delftshaven, when her uncle had presented her with the crumpled bag and the stone wrapped in faded velvet.

When she’d finished, Matthew asked, “How did the Minstrel come into your family?”

“According to the legend, the Peperkamps provided safe haven in Amsterdam to Jews driven first from Lisbon, then Antwerp. Those were the major diamond centers at the time. The Peperkamps helped them settle into Amsterdam, where they were able to establish themselves as diamond merchants. They were always voices for tolerance and religious freedom.”

“Were they in the diamond trade themselves?”

“No, they were simple merchants. It was a turbulent time in Holland. Throughout the century, they were fighting off the Spanish-particularly after Philip the Second came into power in 1556. He was extreme in his anti-Protestant views and enacted a number of vicious edicts, instigating revolt in the northern provinces. There were uprisings and atrocities on both sides until Philip was dead, the Spanish Armada defeated, and the Spanish finally routed from Holland by 1609, I believe it was. Anyway, the Peperkamps became known for their advocacy of what we now might call human rights, but they paid dearly for their positions: several family members were tortured and executed by the Spanish and extremist Protestants, neither of whom appreciated their views.

“Rumors about the Minstrel’s Rough had existed for some time, and it came into their hands in 1581, three years before the assassination of William of Orange by a Free Catholic for a reward offered by Philip of Spain. It was presented to them anonymously, for their sacrifice, and ultimately led them into the diamond business themselves. They were curious about the stone and had no idea of its value. They decided among themselves that it would never be cut, in remembrance of those who’d been lost and those who’d been left with no choice but to accept their help. It would not belong to them; it would belong to no one. They would be the caretakers. No one would know for certain the stone existed, its grade, its potential value. In each generation, there’s been one primary caretaker, one person trusted with the tradition. Only he-until me, it’s always been a he-has control over the stone, whether it’s finally to be cut, what becomes of it. Everything-the legend, the tradition, the mystery-rests with that one person.”

“Hell of a responsibility,” Matthew said.

Juliana was shivering uncontrollably. She nodded, saying nothing more.

He gave her a small grin. “Some advantages to having a family that goes back to about the Depression. Juliana, you’re going to freeze. Come under the blankets a minute and warm up-or here, take one.” He peeled off the top quilt and flung it down to her. “You should get back to sleep. You’ll need it.”

“I know, but I can’t. Mother-”

She broke off, shutting her eyes and putting her thumb at the top of her cheekbone and her forefinger at the inner corner of her eyebrow and pressing down hard, as if that would help hold back the anguish. Matthew slid forward, the quilts dropping to his waist, but he seemed unaware of the cold as he took her in his arms. She felt herself go limp as she laid her head on his shoulder, absorbing his warmth.

“Oh, hell,” he breathed, and kissed her hair. Unable to fall asleep, she’d taken a shower after he’d gone to bed, trying to wash out the pain and the frustration and the worry and watch it go down the drain. She’d wanted him to come to her. But he hadn’t.

“I know Bloch,” he said. “He’ll figure out you have the Minstrel and use your mother and your aunt, if he can manage to grab her, as bait for you. He won’t kill them, Juliana.”

“Until he gets the Minstrel or realizes he can get it,” she finished, knowing Matthew wouldn’t. “Then he’ll kill all of us.”

“We don’t know that.”

But she could see he did.

“For now, they’re safe.”

She turned her face to him, her hair falling against the warm skin of his shoulder and her eyes as luminous and unreadable as the stars. “Who is he?”

In the dim light she could see the blackness of his eyes, but she didn’t turn away. She pulled the quilt up over her, staying in his arms instead. For the first time that night, she finally felt warm.

“Phillip Bloch is a retired army sergeant-”

“And he was a platoon sergeant in Vietnam, and a platoon’s made up of three ten-man squads. I mean, who is he to you?”

“Sam Ryder was his platoon leader. We were in the central highlands at the same time-those two, Weasel, a pilot named Jake MacIntyre, a crew chief named Chuck Fisher, and me.”

“When you were flying a Huey?”

“Yeah.”

“As a slick?”

“That’s right. Ryder’s was one of the platoons we transported. Bloch was in for his third tour; Ryder was as green as they come, but indecisive as well as incompetent. The army has a nice way of weeding out the dumbasses: if you’re no good, you get killed in combat. Sometimes you had to hope they got killed before they killed you just by being dumb. Sometimes you had an experienced platoon sergeant who could keep things from getting out of hand, keep guys alive where the lieutenant, the platoon leader, couldn’t.”

“What did Bloch do?”

“He had the experience and the knowledge to get around Ryder, and sometimes he used them, when it suited his purposes. Mostly it didn’t. I knew platoon sergeants who died saving their men, who rubbed green lieutenants’ noses in it to make them learn fast or find a way out. Bloch looked after himself, period. He wanted Ryder to survive, and he wanted him to come out of Vietnam a hero, so he covered for Ryder and cushioned him and his commanders from the results of his incompetence. Because of that, guys who should have made it out didn’t.”

“And now Bloch is using what he knows about Ryder’s true role in Vietnam against him-as collateral for blackmail,” Juliana said, understanding. “Matthew, what about Jake MacIntyre and Chuck Fisher?”

He looked away from her, but their bodies still touched. “Their names are on the wall.”

The Vietnam Memorial. “Was Bloch responsible for their deaths?”

“They were in my ship. I was responsible.”

“You’re hard on yourself, Matthew.”

“Not hard,” he said. “Honest. At least I try to be.”

“I like that.”

“Do you?”

He seemed to want an answer, and she nodded, not taking her eyes from his, wanting to know everything about him-and him to know everything about her, the bad as well as the good.

“Yes,” she said finally, with certainty. “Integrity, compassion, intelligence, courage, sensitivity-they’re not easy to find in ourselves, much less anyone else. But they mean more to me than money, power, success, any of that stuff. On paper, I guess people don’t come any more different than the two of us, but I don’t think we’re all that different, not where it counts.” She smiled, a little taken aback with herself. “Anyway, I should get back downstairs.”

With his fingertips, he brushed a few stray hairs from her forehead. “Do you want to?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You’re tired.”

“I know, and I hurt. No one’s ever hit me, Matthew, until today. I’ve never felt so-small. I-I wanted to be big and strong enough to scare those men off. I’ve never even thought about my limitations in that way. Do you know what I went after them with when they had my mother? A wooden shoe. A goddamn wooden shoe.”

“Darling, you’re tough in all the ways that count.”

She laughed bitterly. “So put that on my mother’s tombstone.”

“Darling-”

“I want to forget for now, Matthew-I just want you to hold me…” She caught his fingers in hers. “I’m so glad you’re here, Matthew. I don’t think I could have stood being alone, not tonight.”

She lifted her face to his, and his mouth was there, warm and soft and everything she needed. His arms went around her, his lips opening, and she closed her eyes as his tongue slid between her teeth. It was a different kind of burning she felt now, not the burning of tired eyes and sore muscles and unanswered questions. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself into him, and they fell down onto the pillows together, a tangle of quilts, sheet, and nightgown.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Matthew whispered.

“Don’t worry, please.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you. Never.”

She smiled, wishing she could laugh. “Don’t think I stumble on Matthew Starks every day.”

He kissed her again, a deeper, harder kiss, and when it was over, he’d pulled the nightgown over her head and tossed it onto the floor. They climbed under the quilts, pulling them all on top of them, their cool, naked bodies intertwined. They didn’t speak. Juliana didn’t want to break the spell with reminders of death and betrayal and diamonds and all they would have to face. The now, the present, the moment, was filled with need and passion. She ignored the pain of her bruises and her terror and focused on the stirrings that had been thee inside her ever since Matthew Stark had darkened her dressing room door at Lincoln Center.

He smoothed his hands over her breasts and stomach and followed with his mouth, arousing her with nipping, wet kisses. Soon they both got so hot they had to throw off a couple of the quilts. She touched his hard muscles, rubbed her fingers through the dark hairs on his chest, let them examine the scars he had yet to explain. But what she still had to learn about him no longer mattered. She felt a part of him, felt him a part of her.

“Are you sure?” he asked again, sliding her on top of him, so it wouldn’t hurt so much. He kissed her bruised wrist, gently.

“Yes. More than anything, you’re what I need right now. Don’t stop.”

Even in the dark, his smile was gentle. “No problem, darling.”

Whatever else she felt took second place to the mounting, insatiable longing that welled up inside her as she lay on top of him, his hands moving over her hips and bottom and legs. He lifted her up slightly, and when she came down, he was in her. She cried out when he came into her, but so did he, and they made love explosively, tenderly, and she hoped, knew, this wouldn’t be the last time.

“Matthew!”

She groaned, feeling the spasms, and his arms tightened around her as he shook and moaned with her, until there was silence and stillness, the snow falling lightly outside and no place warmer than beneath their tattered quilts.