Lasher

Six

YURI HAD TO go to Aaron Lightner, it was as simple as that. He had to leave the Talamasca now, no matter what orders he had been given, and he had to seek out Aaron in the city of New Orleans and find out what had happened in recent months to so distress his beloved mentor and friend.

As the car pulled away from the gates of the Motherhouse, Yuri knew he might never be inside those walls again. The Talamasca was unforgiving to those who disobeyed orders. And Yuri could not plead ignorance of the Talamasca’s rules.

Yet it was so simple, this departure-driving away in the muffled gray solitude of the cold morning, leaving behind this blessed place outside London where Yuri had spent so much of his life.

Yuri pondered this and he pondered his remarkable lack of conflict or doubt. Indeed he tried to assume a responsible man’s uncertainty, and to review his actions from a moral and logical standpoint as a good man should do.

But Yuri had made his decision. Or rather the Elders had made it for him, when they had ordered him to cease all contact with Aaron, when they had told him that the File on the Mayfair Witches was now closed.

Something bad had happened with the Mayfair Witches, something bad that had hurt and discouraged Aaron. And Yuri was going to Aaron. In a way, it was the simplest thing Yuri had ever done.

Yuri was a Serbian gypsy, tall, dark-skinned, with very dark eyelashes and large jet-black eyes. His hair was slightly wavy, but cut too short for one to notice. Slender and spry in appearance, he presented a rather narrow figure in his usual careless wool jacket, soft-collared knit shirt and wrinkled khaki pants.

His eyes had a slight upward tilt to them at the outside edges, and his face was squarish with a pleasant, often smiling mouth. In many a country from India to Mexico, he passed for a native. Even in Cambodia and in Thailand, he went unnoticed. There was that bit of Asia in his features and his smooth golden complexion, and perhaps even in his quiet manner. His bosses in the Talamasca called him “The Invisible Man.”

Yuri was the premier investigator for the Talamasca. He had belonged to this secret order of “psychic detectives” since he was a child. Though he himself possessed no unusual mental powers, he worked unfailingly well with the Talamasca’s exorcists, mediums, seers, and sorcerers on their various cases worldwide. He was a most effective tracer of missing persons, a tireless and accurate gatherer of information, a spy in the normal world, a natural and infallible private eye. He loved the Talamasca. There was nothing he would not do for the Order, no risk that he would not take.

Seldom if ever did he ask questions about his assignments. He did not seek to understand the full scope of what he did. He worked only for Aaron Lightner, or David Talbot, very high placed in the Order, and it pleased him that they sometimes quarreled over Yuri, so well did he do his work.

In a smooth, unhurried voice Yuri spoke a score of languages with scarcely a trace of an accent. He’d learnt English, Russian and Italian with his mother-and her men-before he was eight years old.

When a child learns that much language very early he has a great advantage, not only in the realm of linguistics but in the realm of logic and imagistic thought. Yuri’s mind was inherently agile, and not secretive by nature, though much of his life he had repressed his natural talkativeness and only now and then let it come forth.

Yuri had many other advantages from the time of his mother-that she’d been clever, effortlessly beautiful, and a bit devil-may-care. She had always earned plenty from her male companions, yet was a social being, chatting with the employees in the hotels where she entertained her men, and having other women friends with whom to spend an afternoon at a café talking rapidly over coffee or English tea.

Her men had never been mean to Yuri. Many never saw Yuri at all. And those who were longtime companions were always nice to him, otherwise Yuri’s mother would never have had them around. He had flourished in this atmosphere of kindness and general indulgent disorganization, learning to read early almost entirely from magazines and newspapers, and loving to roam the streets.

When the gypsies got Yuri, that was when his bitterness and his silence began. And he never forgot that they had been his own kinsmen, his cousins, this band of thieves who bought children and dragged them to Paris and to Rome to steal. They had got their hands on Yuri after his mother’s death in her native village in Serbia, a miserable place to which she had retreated as soon as she realized she was going to die.

Years later Yuri tried to find the little village and what was left of that family; but he could not retrace that journey, northward through Italy and into Serbia. His memory of those traveling days had been maimed by suffering-the knowledge that his mother was in great pain, and laboring for every breath, that he was in a strange land, and that he might soon be alone.

Why had he stayed with the gypsies for so long? Why had he been such a good little pickpocket, dancing and clambering around the tourists, and snatching the wallets from them, as he’d been taught to do? What was wrong in his head that he did that?

The question would probably torment him till the day he died. Of course they had beaten him, starved him, taunted and threatened him, caught him twice when he’d tried to run away, and finally convinced him they would kill him if he tried again. They had also been tender at times, and persuasive, full of promises-all that was true too.

But at nine years old, Yuri should have known better. That’s what he figured. His mother, even in childhood, would not have been such a fool. No pimp had ever enslaved Yuri’s mother. No man had ever intimidated her, though she had fallen in love now and then…at least for a little while.

As for Yuri’s father, Yuri never knew that man, but he knew of him-an American from Los Angeles, and rich. Before Yuri and his mother had left Rome on that last journey together, she had hidden in a safe-deposit box the passport of Yuri’s father, along with some money, some photographs and a fine Japanese watch. That was all they had left of Yuri’s father, who had died when Yuri was only two.

Yuri was ten before he managed to reclaim those old treasures.

The gypsies had had him stealing in Paris for months, and then in Venice, and in Florence, and only as winter came on had they gone to Rome.

When he beheld the Eternal City, the city he had known with his mother, Yuri seized his opportunity. He knew where to go. In the middle of a Sunday morning, while the gypsy thieves worked the crowds of Vatican Square, he made his bid for freedom, diving right into a taxi with a wallet of newly stolen money, and soon was making his way through the crowded tourist cafés of the Via Veneto, looking for rich company as his mother had always so gracefully done.

It was no mystery to Yuri that there were men who preferred little boys to women. And he had learnt much from example, having watched his mother often through the keyhole or the crack in the door. It was quite obvious to him that to be an initiator can be easier than to be passive; and that if intimacy with strangers occurs in an atmosphere of graciousness, it is not so hard to bear.

Another advantage perhaps was that he was by nature as affectionate as his mother, and now he would call upon that, for he needed it, and it had always worked so well for her.

He was lean from the miserable diet allowed him by his captors, but his teeth were very straight and he had managed to keep them very white. That his voice was beautiful he had no doubt. Practicing his smile before the mirror of a public lavatory, he then struck out to try it upon the companions of his choice.

He proved an excellent judge of character.

Except for a couple of little mistakes, he was soon back in his mother’s element, among the familiar accoutrements of fine hotel rooms, quietly grateful for the delicious hot showers, and the scrumptious room service suppers, rattling off with convincing ease-and a little bitter laughter-whatever story was necessary to satisfy the questions of his bed partners and release from the constraints of conscience their obvious and predictable and entirely manageable desires.

To one he said he was Hindu, to another Portuguese, and even once that he was American. His parents were tourists on vacation, he said, who left him to shop and to wander. Yes, if the nice gentleman wanted to buy him clothes in the lobby shops, he was delighted to accept this. His parents would never notice, don’t even think about it. As for books and magazines, yes, indeed, and chocolate, he loved it. His smiles and expressions of thanks were a mixture of art and truth.

He translated for his customers when they required it. He carried their bundles for them. He took them by taxi to the Villa Borghese-one of his favorite places-and showed them all the murals and statues, and special things he liked. He did not even count the money they paid him, slipping it into his pocket with a bright smile and a little knowing wink.

But he lived in terror that the gypsies would spot him and reclaim him. He was so afraid of it that it took the breath out of him. He stayed indoors as much as he could. Sometimes he stood shivering with fear in alleyways, smoking a cigarette, and cursing to himself, and wondering if he dared leave Rome. The gypsies had been headed to Naples. Maybe they were gone.

Sometimes he hung about the hotel corridors, eating what he could from the leftovers on the room service trays set outside the doors.

But things became easier and easier. He learnt to ask about sleeping the night through in a clean bed before he made his little deals.

One sweet gray-haired American man bought him a camera simply because he inquired about such things, and a Frenchman gave him a portable radio, saying he was tired of carrying it around. Two young Arabs bought him a heavy sweater in an English import shop.

By the tenth day of his new freedom, his paper wealth was becoming too cumbersome for him. His pockets were bulging. He had even worked up his nerve to go into a fine restaurant at noon and order a meal for himself alone. “Mamma says I’m to eat my spinach,” he said to the waiter in his best Italian. “You have spinach?”-knowing full well that the spinach is one of the nicest things in a Roman restaurant, barely cooked as it is so that it is not bitter. The tender veal piccata was excellent! He left a large tip near his plate as he went out.

But how long could this go on?

On the fifteenth day of his adventure-perhaps-it might have been slightly later-he came upon the man who was to change the course of his life.

It was November now and just getting cold. Yuri was in the Via Condotti, where he had bought himself a new cashmere scarf in one of the fashionable shops not too far from the Spanish Steps. His camera was hanging from his shoulder; his radio was in his shirt pocket under his sweater. He was loaded with cash, smoking a cigarette and munching on popcorn from a small cellophane bag, as he strolled along, enjoying the early evening with the cafés full of lights and noisy Americans, not thinking too much about the gypsies now, as he had not seen them since his flight.

The narrow street was for pedestrians only, and the pretty young girls were going home from work, walking arm in arm as was their custom in Rome, or guiding their brightly painted Vespa scooters through the crowds to reach the nearby thoroughfares. Yuri was getting hungry. Popcorn wasn’t enough. Maybe he would go into one of these restaurants. He’d ask for a table for him and his mother, wait an appropriate amount of time, and then order, being careful to display his money so that the waiter would think he was rich.

As he tried to make up his mind on this matter, licking the salt from the popcorn off his lips and crushing out his cigarette, he saw a man at a café table, hunched over a half-empty glass and a carafe of wine. A man in his twenties, it was, with shoulder-length shaggy hair, but fine tailored clothes. This indicated a young American, not a penniless hippie, and yes, there was a very expensive Japanese camera on the table beside the man, and a notebook and a valise. Indeed, the man was apparently trying to write in the leather-covered notebook, but each time he would take pen in hand and jot a few words, he would begin to cough painfully, just the way that Yuri’s mother had coughed on that last journey, each shudder sending a flash of pain through his features, so that his eyes squinched shut and then opened as if in disbelief that something so simple could hurt so much.

Yuri watched him. Not only was this person sick, he was cold. He was shivering. He was also drunk. This repelled Yuri slightly because it made him think of his gypsy masters who were always drunk; and Yuri by nature hated to be muddled, and so had his mother, whose only addiction was coffee as far as he could ever recall.

But in spite of this drunkenness, everything else about the man drew Yuri. His helplessness, his obvious youth, his clear despair. The man tried to write a little more; then he looked about as if he knew he must seek some warm place now that the evening had come down full upon him, and then he lifted his glass of dark red wine and drained it slowly and sat back, giving another one of those agonizing coughs which shook his narrow shoulders and left him sagging against the back of the iron chair.

About twenty-five perhaps was this man; his shaggy hair was clean. He wore a wool vest under his blue jacket and over his white shirt and silk tie. And surely if he had not been so drunk and so sick, this man would have been fair game. Good game.

Only he was sick. And it ripped at Yuri’s heart the way he sat there, so obviously miserable, and seemingly incapable of moving, though he wanted to move. Yuri cast an eye around. He saw no gypsies, nor anyone who might be a gypsy. He saw no police. It would be no problem at all to help this poor man get off the streets and into someplace warm.

He went up to the table. He said in English, “You’re cold. Let me help you to a taxi. You can get a taxi up there by the Piazza di Spagna. You can go to your hotel.”

The man gazed at him as if he could not understand the English. Yuri bent down and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. The man was feverish. The man’s eyes were bloodshot. But what an interesting face he had. The bones of his face were very large, especially the cheekbones, and the high lobes of the forehead. And how very fair was this man. Perhaps Yuri had been wrong, and this was a Swede or a Norwegian who did not understand English.

But then the man said, “Little man,” softly and smiled. “My little man.”

“I am a little man,” said Yuri, squaring his shoulders. He gave a smile and a wink with his right eye. But in fact, a thrill of pain passed through him, because this was exactly the phrase his mother had always used to him. And this stranger had said it in the very same way. “Let me help you,” said Yuri. He took the man’s right hand, which lay lifeless and wet on the table. “You’re so cold.”

The man tried to speak again but he began to cough. Yuri stiffened. He feared suddenly that the man would cough blood. The man took out a handkerchief, awkwardly as if he could scarce manage the gesture, and covered his face with it. He shuddered in perfect silence as if swallowing everything-blood, noise, pain. Then in a curiously awkward and lopsided fashion, he tried to get to his feet.

Yuri took command. He slung his arm around the man’s narrow waist and pulled him gently up and off through the crowd of iron tables with the chattering tourists, and then he helped him slowly and patiently along the beautiful clean Via Condotti, past the bright flower stands, and the open shops.

It was now dark.

When they reached the traffic rushing before the Spanish Steps, the man whispered that there was a hotel just at the top. He did not know if he could make that climb. Yuri debated. A taxi ride round and about would take a long time. But that was best for this man, for the climb might really hurt him. Yuri flagged a taxi, he gave quick directions.

“Yes, the Hassler,” said the man with great relief, sinking down against the seat, his eyes rolling up in his head suddenly as if he were going to die then and there.

But when they reached the familiar lobby, where Yuri had played often as a child, but not enough to be remembered by the aloof and critical-looking employees, it seemed the man had no room there-only a great wad of Italian money, and an impressive packet of international credit cards. In smooth and easy Italian-broken only by a few coughs-the man explained that he wanted a suite, his right arm all the while heavily draped over Yuri’s shoulder, no explanation for Yuri’s presence as he leaned upon Yuri, as if, if it weren’t for Yuri, he would fall.

On the bed, he collapsed and lay silent for a long time. A faint warm stagnant odor rose from him, and his eyes slowly opened and closed.

Yuri ordered soup from room service, bread and butter, wine. He didn’t know what else to do for this man. The man lay there smiling at him, as if he found something in Yuri’s manner endearing. Yuri knew that expression. His mother had often looked at him in that way.

Yuri went into the bathroom to smoke a cigarette, so the smoke would not bother the man.

When the soup came he fed the man spoon by spoon. The room was nice and warm. And he did not mind lifting the wineglass to the man’s lips. It made him feel good to see the man eat. His own hunger in recent months among the gypsies had been a terrible, terrible thing to him, something he’d never known as a little child.

Only when some of the wine trickled down the man’s badly shaven chin did Yuri realize that part of this man’s body was paralyzed. The man tried to move his right arm and hand but couldn’t. Indeed, it had been with his left hand that he’d been trying to write in the café, Yuri realized, and with his left hand that he had taken his money from his pocket downstairs; and that was why he had dropped it. The arm placed around Yuri had been useless, almost impossible to control. Half the man’s face was paralyzed as well.

“What can I do for you?” Yuri asked in Italian. “Shall I call a doctor? You must have a doctor. What about your family? Can you tell me how to call them?”

“Talk to me,” said the man in Italian. “Stay with me. Don’t go away.”

“Talk? But why? What should I say?”

“Tell me stories,” said the man softly in Italian. “Tell me who you are and where you come from. Tell me your name.”

Yuri made up a story. This time he was from India, the son of a maharaja. His mother had run away with him. They had been kidnapped by murderous men in Paris. Yuri had only just escaped. He said all these things rapidly and lightly, with little or no feeling, and he realized the man was smiling at him; the man knew he was making it up; and as the man smiled, and even laughed a little, Yuri began to embellish, making the tale all the more fantastic and slightly silly and as surprising as possible, loving to see the flash of good humor in the man’s eyes.

Yuri’s make-believe mother had had a fabulous jewel in her possession. A giant ruby which the maharaja must have back. But his mother had hid it in a safe-deposit box in Rome, and when the murderers strangled her and threw her body in the Tiber, she shouted with her last gasp of breath to Yuri that he must never tell where it was. He had then hopped into a little Fiat automobile and made a spectacular escape from his captors. And when he got the jewel, he had discovered the most amazing thing. It was no jewel at all but a tiny box, with a spring lock and little hinges, and inside lay a vial of fluid which gave one eternal health and youth.

Yuri stopped suddenly. A great sinking feeling came over him. Indeed he thought he was going to be sick. In a panic, he continued, speaking in the same voice. “Of course it was too late for my mother; she was dead and gone into the Tiber. But the fluid can save the whole world.”

He looked down. The man was smiling at him from the pillow, his hair matted and damp on his forehead and on his neck, his shirt soiled around the collar from this dampness, his tie loose.

“Could it save me?” asked the man.

“Oh, yes!” said Yuri. “Yes, but…”

“Your captors took it,” said the man.

“Yes, they crept up behind me right in the lobby of the bank! They snatched it from my fingers. I ran to the bank guard. I seized his pistol. I shot two of them dead on the floor. But the other ran with the jewel. And the tragedy, the horror, yes, the horror is that he does not know what is in it. He will probably sell it to some peddler. He does not know! The maharaja never told the evil men why he wanted my mother brought back.”

Yuri stopped. How could he have said such a thing…a fluid that would give one eternal youth? And here this young man was sick unto death, maybe even dying, unable to move his right arm, though he tried again and again to lift it. How could Yuri have said it? And he thought of his own mother, dead on the little bed in Serbia, and the gypsies coming in and saying they were his cousins and uncles! Liars! And the filth there, the filth.

Surely she would never never have left him there if she had dreamed of what was going to happen. A cold fury filled him.

“Tell me about the maharaja’s palace,” said the man softly.

“Oh, yes, the palace. Well, it’s made entirely of white marble…” With a great soft relief Yuri pictured it. He talked of the floors, the carpets, the furniture…

And after that he told many stories about India, and Paris, and fabulous places he had been.

When he woke it was early morning. He was seated at the window with his arms folded on the sill. He had been sleeping that way, his head on his arms. The great sprawling city of Rome lay under a gray hazy light. Noises rose from the narrow streets below. He could hear the thunder of all those tiny motorcars rushing to and fro.

He looked at the man. The man was staring at him. For a moment he thought the man was dead. Then the man said softly, “Yuri, you must make a call for me now.”

Yuri nodded. He noted silently that he had not told this man his name. Well, perhaps he’d used it in the stories. It didn’t matter. He brought the phone from the bedside table, and, climbing on the bed, beside the man, he repeated the name and number to the operator. The call was to a man in London. When he answered, it was in English, what Yuri knew to be an educated voice.

Yuri relayed the message as the sick man lay there speaking softly and spiritlessly in Italian.

“I am calling for your son, Andrew. He is very sick. Very. He is in the Hotel Hassler in Rome. He asks that you come to him. He says he can no longer come to you.”

The man on the other end switched quickly into Italian and the conversation went on for some time.

“No, sir,” Yuri argued, obeying Andrew’s instructions. “He says he will not see a doctor. Yes, sir, he will remain here.” Yuri gave the room number. “I will see that he eats, sir.” Yuri described the man’s condition as best he could with the man listening to him. He described the apparent paralysis. He knew the father was frantic with worry. The father would take the next plane for Rome.

“I’ll try to persuade him to see a doctor. Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Yuri,” said the man on the other end of the line. And once again, Yuri realized he had not told this man his name. “Please do stay with him,” said the man. “And I shall be there as soon as I possibly can.”

“Don’t worry,” said Yuri. “I won’t leave.”

As soon as he’d rung off, he put forth the argument again.

“No doctors,” said Andrew. “If you pick up that phone and call for a doctor, I’ll jump from this window. Do you hear? No doctors. It’s much too late for that.”

Yuri was speechless. He felt that he might burst into tears. He remembered his mother coughing as they sat together on the train going into Serbia. Why had he not forced her to see a doctor? Why?

“Talk to me, Yuri,” said the man. “Make up stories. Or you can tell me about her, if you wish. Tell me about your mother. I see her. I see her beautiful black hair. The doctor wouldn’t have helped her, Yuri. She knew it. Talk to me, please.”

A faint chill passed over Yuri as he looked into the man’s eyes. He knew the man was reading his thoughts. Yuri’s mother had told him of gypsies who could do this. Yuri did not have this talent himself. His mother had claimed to have it, but Yuri had not believed it. He had never seen any real evidence of it. He felt a deep hurt, thinking of her on the train, and he wanted to believe that it had been too late for a doctor, but he would never know for sure. The knowledge numbed him and made him feel utterly silent and black inside and cold.

“I’ll tell you stories if you will eat some breakfast,” said Yuri. “I’ll order something hot for you.”

The man stared again listlessly and then he smiled. “All right, little man,” he said, “anything you say. But no doctor. Call for the food from right here. And Yuri, if I don’t speak again, remember this. Don’t let the gypsies get you again. Ask my father to help you…when he comes.”

The father did not arrive until evening.

Yuri was in the bathroom with the man, and the man was vomiting into the toilet, and clinging to Yuri’s neck so that he did not fall. The vomit had blood in it. Yuri had a time of it holding him, the wretched smell of the vomit sickening him, but he held tight to the man. Then he looked up and saw the figure of the father, white-haired, though not so very old, and plainly rich. Beside him stood a bellhop of the hotel.

Ah, so this is the father, thought Yuri, and a quiet burst of anger heated him for a moment, and then left him feeling oddly listless, and unable to move.

How well-groomed was this man with his thick wavy white hair, and what fine clothes he had. He came forward and took his son by the shoulders, and Yuri stepped back. The young bellhop also gave his assistance. They placed Andrew on the bed.

Andrew reached out frantically for Yuri. He called Yuri’s name.

“I’m here, Andrew,” said Yuri. “I won’t leave you. You mustn’t worry. Now let your father call the doctor, please, Andrew. Do as your father says.”

He sat beside the sick man, one knee bent, holding the man’s hand and looking into his face. The sick man’s stubbly beard was thicker now, coarse, and brownish, and his hair gave off the smell of sweat and grease. Yuri struggled not to cry.

Would the father blame him that he had not called a doctor? He did not know. The father was talking to the bellhop. Then the bellhop went away and the father sat in a chair and merely looked at his son. The father didn’t seem sad or alarmed so much as merely worried in a mild sort of way. He had kindly blue eyes, and hands with large knuckles, and heavy blue veins. Old hands.

Andrew dozed for a long time. Then he asked again for Yuri to tell him the story about the maharaja’s palace. Yuri was distressed by the father’s presence. But he blotted out the presence of the father. This man was dying. And the father was not calling a doctor! He was not insisting upon it. What in the name of God was wrong with this father that he did not take care of his son? But if Andrew wanted to hear the story again, fine.

He remembered once his mother had been with a very old German man in the Hotel Danieli for many days. When one of her women friends had asked how she could stand such an old man, she’d said, “He’s kind to me and he’s dying. I would do anything to make it easy for him.” And Yuri remembered the expression in her eyes when they had come at last to that miserable village and the gypsies told her that her own mother was already dead.

Yuri told all about the maharaja. He told about his elephants, and their beautiful saddles of red velvet trimmed in gold. He told about his harem, of which Yuri’s mother had been the queen. He told about a game of chess that he and his mother played for five long years with nobody winning as they sat at a richly draped table beneath a mangrove tree. He told about his little brothers and sisters. He told about a pet tiger on a golden chain.

Andrew was sweating terribly. Yuri went for a washcloth from the bathroom, but the man opened his eyes and cried out for him. He hurried back, and wiped the man’s forehead and then all of his face. The father never moved. What the hell was wrong with this father!

Andrew tried to touch Yuri with his left hand but it seemed he could not move that hand either now. Yuri felt a sudden panic. Firmly, he lifted the man’s hand and stroked his own face with the man’s fingers, and he saw the man smile.

About a half hour after that, the man lapsed into sleep. And then died. Yuri was watching him. He saw it happen. The chest ceased to move. The eyelids opened a fraction. Then nothing more.

He glanced at the father. The father sat there with his eyes riveted upon the son. Yuri dared not move.

Then at last the father came over to the bed, and stood looking down upon Andrew, and then he bent and kissed Andrew’s forehead. Yuri was amazed. No doctor, and now he kisses him, he thought angrily. He could feel his own face twisting up, he knew he was going to cry, and he couldn’t stop it. And suddenly he was crying.

He went into the bathroom, blew his nose with toilet tissue, and took out a cigarette, packing it on the back of his hand, shoving it in his mouth and lighting it, even though his lips were quivering, and he began to smoke in hasty but delicious gulps as the tears clouded up his eyes.

In the room, beyond the door, there was much noise. People came and went. Yuri leaned against the white tile, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He soon stopped crying. He drank a glass of water, and stood there, arms folded, thinking, I ought to slip away.

The hell he would ask this man for help against the gypsies. The hell he would ask him for anything. He’d wait until they had finished all their commotion in there, and then slip out. If anyone questioned him, he would give some clever little excuse, and then be off. No problem. No problem at all. Maybe he’d leave Rome.

“Don’t forget the safe-deposit box,” said the father.

Yuri jumped. The white-haired man was standing in the door. Behind him, the room appeared to be empty. The body of Andrew had been taken away.

“What do you mean?” demanded Yuri in Italian. “What are you saying to me?”

“Your mother left it for you, with your father’s passport, and money. She wanted you to have it.”

“I no longer have the key.”

“We’ll go to the bank. We’ll explain.”

“I don’t want anything from you!” said Yuri furiously. “I can do well on my own.” He made to move past the man, but the man caught his shoulder, and the man’s hand was surprisingly strong for such an old hand.

“Yuri, please. Andrew wanted me to help you.”

“You let him die. Some father you are! You sat there and you let him die!” Yuri shoved the man off balance, and was about to make his getaway when the man caught him around the waist.

“I’m not really his father, Yuri,” he said, as he set Yuri down and pushed him gently against the wall. The man collected himself somewhat. He straightened the lapels of his coat, and he gave a long sigh. He looked calmly at Yuri. “We belong to an organization. In that organization, he thought of me as his father, but I wasn’t really his father. And he came to Rome in order to die. It was his wish to die here. I did what he wanted. If he had wanted anything else done he would have told me. But all he asked of me was that I take care of you.”

Again, mind reading. So clever, these men! What were they? A bunch of rich gypsies? Yuri sneered. He folded his arms, and dug his heel into the carpet and looked at the man suspiciously.

“I want to help you,” the man said. “You’re better than the gypsies who stole you.”

“I know,” said Yuri. He thought of his mother. “Some people are better than others. Much better.”

“Exactly.”

Bolt now, he thought. And he tried it, but once again the man tackled him and held him tight. Yuri was strong for ten and this was an old man. But it was no good.

“Give up just for a moment, Yuri,” said the man. “Give up long enough for us to go to the bank and open the deposit box. Then we can decide what to do.”

And Yuri was soon crying, and letting the man lead him out of the hotel and into the waiting car, a fine German sedan. The bank was vaguely familiar to Yuri, but the people inside it were perfect strangers. Yuri watched in keen amazement as the white-haired Englishman explained everything, and soon the deposit box was opened, and Yuri was presented with the contents-several passports, the Japanese watch of his father, a thick envelope of lire and American dollars, and a packet of letters, one of which at least was addressed to his mother at a Rome address.

Yuri found himself powerfully excited to see these things, to touch them, to be close again in his mind to the moment when he and his mother had come here and she had placed everything in the box. After the bank men put all these articles into brown envelopes for him, he held these envelopes to his chest.

The Englishman led him back out and into the car, and within minutes they were making another stop. It was a small office, where the Englishman greeted a person familiar to him. Yuri saw a camera on a tripod. The man gestured for Yuri to stand in front of it.

“For what?” he asked sharply. He was still holding the brown envelopes. He stared angrily at the white-haired man and his friendly companion, who laughed now at Yuri as if Yuri were cute.

“For another passport,” said the Englishman in Italian. “None of those you have is exactly right.”

“This is no passport office,” said Yuri contemptuously.

“We arrange our own passports,” said the man. “We like it better that way. What name do you want to have? Or will you leave this to me? I would like you to cooperate, and then you can come to Amsterdam with me and see if you like it.”

“No,” said Yuri. He remembered Andrew saying no doctors. “No police,” said Yuri. “No orphanages, no convents, no authorities. No!” He rattled off several other terms he knew for such persons in Italian and Romanian and Russian. It all meant the same thing. “No jail!” he said.

“No, none of that,” said the man patiently. “You can come with me to our house in Amsterdam, and go and come as you like. This is a safe place, our house in Amsterdam. You will have a room of your own.”

A safe place. A room of his own.

“But who are you?” asked Yuri.

“Our name is the Talamasca,” the man said. “We are scholars, students if you please. We accumulate records; we are responsible for bearing witness to things. That is, we feel we are responsible. It’s what we do. I’ll explain all to you on the plane.”

“Mind readers,” said Yuri.

“Yes,” said the man. “And outcasts, and lonely ones, and ones sometimes who have no one else. And people who are better sometimes than others, much better sometimes. Like you. My name is Aaron Lightner. I wish you would come with me.

In the Motherhouse in Amsterdam, Yuri made certain that he could escape any time he wanted. He checked and re-checked the many unlocked doors. The room was small, immaculate, with a window over the canal and the cobblestoned quais. He loved it. He missed the bright light of Italy. This was a dimmer place, northern, like Paris, but that was all right. Inside were warm fires, and soft couches and chairs for dozing; firm beds, and lots of good food. The streets of Amsterdam pleased him, because the many old houses of the 1600s were built right against each other, making long stretches of solid and beautiful facades. He liked the steep gables of the houses. He liked the elm trees. He liked the clean-smelling clothing he was given, and he came to even like the cold.

People with cheerful faces came and went from the Motherhouse. There was steady day-to-day talk of the Elders, though who these people were, Yuri didn’t know.

“You want to ride a bike, Yuri?” asked Aaron. Yuri tried it. Taking his cue from the other riders young and old, he rode the bike like a demon through the streets.

Still Yuri wouldn’t talk. Then, after constant prodding, he told the story of the maharaja.

“No. Tell me what really happened,” asked Aaron.

“Why should I tell you anything?” Yuri demanded. “I don’t know why I came here with you.” It had been a year since he had spoken real truth about himself to anyone. He had not even told Andrew the real truth. Why tell this man? And suddenly, denying that he had any need of telling the truth, or confiding, or explaining, he began to do both. He told all about his mother, about the gypsies, about everything…He talked and talked. The night wore on and became the morning, and still Aaron Lightner sat across from him at the table listening, and Yuri talked and talked and talked.

And when he finished he knew Aaron Lightner and Aaron Lightner knew him. It was decided that Yuri would not leave the Talamasca, at least not right then.

For six years, Yuri went to school in Amsterdam.

He lived in the Talamasca house, spent most of his time on his studies, and worked after school and on weekends for Aaron Lightner, entering records into the computer, looking up obscure references in the library, sometimes merely running errands-deliver this to the post office, pick up this important box.

He came to realize that the Elders were in fact all around him, rank and file members of the Order, but nobody knew who they were. It worked like this. Once you became an Elder, you didn’t tell anybody that you were. And it was forbidden to ask a person, “Are you an Elder?” or, “Do you know whether or not Aaron is an Elder?” It was forbidden to speculate on such matters in one’s mind.

The Elders knew who the Elders were. The Elders communicated with everyone via the computers and the fax machines in the Motherhouse. Indeed, any member, even an unofficial member like Yuri, could talk to the Elders whenever he chose. In the dead of night, he could boot up his computer, write a long letter to the Elders, and sometime later that very morning an answer would come to him through the computer printer, flowing out page after page.

This meant of course that there were many Elders, and that some of them were always “on call.” The Elders had no real personality as far as Yuri could detect, no real voice in their communications, except that they were kindly and attentive and they knew everything, and often they revealed that they knew all about Yuri, maybe even about things of which he himself was unsure.

It fascinated Yuri, this silent communication with the Elders. He began to ask them about many things. They never failed to answer.

In the morning, when Yuri went down to breakfast in the refectory, he looked around him and wondered who was an Elder, who here in this room had answered his letter this very night. Of course, his communication might have gone to Rome, for all he knew. Indeed, Elders were everywhere in every Motherhouse, and all you knew was that they were the old ones, the experienced ones, the ones who really ran the Order, though the Superior General, appointed by them, and answerable only to them, was the official head.

When Aaron relocated to London, it was a sad day for Yuri, because the house in Amsterdam had been his only permanent home. But he would not be separated from Aaron, and so they left the Amsterdam Motherhouse together, and went to live in the big house outside London which was also beautiful and warm and safe.

Yuri came to love London. When he learnt that he was to go to school at Oxford, he was delighted by this decision, and he spent six years there, corning home often on weekends, wallowing as it were in the life of the mind.

By the age of twenty-six, Yuri was ready to become a serious member of the Order. There was not the slightest doubt in his mind. He welcomed the travel assignments given him by Aaron and David. Soon he was receiving travel instructions directly from the Elders. And he was making out his reports to them on the computer when he returned.

“Assignment from the Elders,” he would say to Aaron on leaving. Aaron never questioned it. And never seemed particularly surprised.

Always, wherever he went and whatever he did, Yuri talked on the phone long distance to Aaron. Yuri was also devoted to David Talbot, but it was no secret that David Talbot was old and tired of the Order and might soon step down as Superior General, or even be politely asked by the Elders to resign the post.

Aaron was the one to whom Yuri responded, Aaron was the one about whom Yuri cared.

Yuri knew that between him and Aaron there was a special bond. For Yuri, it was the powerful irrational love that forms its roots in childhood, in loneliness, in ineradicable memories of tenderness and rescue, a love that no one but the recipient can destroy. Aaron is my father, Yuri thought, just as Aaron must have been a father to Andrew, who had died in the hotel in Rome.

As Yuri grew older he was away more of the time. He loved to wander on his own. He was most comfortable when anonymous. He needed to hear different languages around him, to submerge himself in giant cities teeming with people of all ranks and ages; when he was so immersed-with his individuality an entirely private and unrecognized matter-he felt most alive.

But almost every day of his life-wherever he was-Yuri spoke to Aaron by phone. Aaron never chided Yuri for this dependence. Indeed, Aaron was always open and ready for Yuri, and as the years passed, Aaron began to confide to Yuri more of his own feelings, his own little disappointments and hopes.

Sometimes they talked in a guarded way about the Elders, and Yuri could not discern from the conversation whether Aaron was an Elder or not. Of course Yuri wasn’t supposed to know if Aaron was an Elder. But Yuri was almost certain Aaron was. If Aaron wasn’t an Elder, then who were the Elders, for Aaron was one of the wisest and oldest men in the entire Talamasca worldwide?

When Aaron stayed month after month in the United States investigating the Mayfair Witches, Yuri was disappointed. He’d never known Aaron to be away from the Motherhouse so long.

When Christmas came near, a lonely time for Yuri as it is for so many, Yuri went into the computer and accessed the File on the Mayfair Witches, printing it out in its entirety and studying it very carefully to get a grasp of what was keeping Aaron in New Orleans for so much time.

Yuri enjoyed the story of the Mayfair Witches, but it aroused no special feeling in him any more than any other Talamasca file. He looked for a role to play-could he perhaps gather information on Donnelaith for Aaron? Otherwise, the totality of the story did not impress itself on his mind. The Talamasca files were filled with strange stories, some far stranger than this.

The Talamasca itself held many mysteries. They had never been Yuri’s concern.

The week before Christmas, the Elders announced the resignation of David Talbot as Superior General, and that a man of German-Italian background, Anton Marcus, would take his place. No one in London knew Anton Marcus.

Yuri didn’t know Anton. Yuri’s main concern was that he had never had the chance to tell David good-bye. There was some mystery surrounding David’s disappearance, and, as often happens in the Talamasca, the members spoke of the Elders, and the remarks were made reflecting puzzlement and resentment, and confusion as to how the Order was organized and run. People wanted to know-would David remain an Elder, assuming he had always been one, now that he was retired? Were Elders made up of retired members as well as active ones? It seemed a bit medieval at times that no one knew.

Yuri had heard all this before. It only lasted a few days. Anton Marcus arrived the day after the announcement and at once won everyone over with his charming manner and intimate knowledge of each member’s history and background, and the London Motherhouse was immediately at peace.

Anton Marcus spoke after supper in the grand dining room to all members. A man of large frame with smooth silver hair and thick gold-rimmed glasses, he had a clean corporate appearance to him, and a smooth British accent of the kind which the Talamasca seemed to favor. An accent which Yuri now possessed himself.

Anton Marcus reminded everyone of the importance of secrecy and discretion regarding the Elders. The Elders are all around us. The Elders cannot govern effectively if confronted and questioned. The Elders perform best as an anonymous body in whom we all place our trust.

Yuri shrugged.

When Yuri went to his room one morning at two a.m. he found a communiqué from the Elders in his printer. “We are pleased that you have gone out of your way to welcome Anton. We feel that Anton will be a superb Superior General. If this adjustment is difficult for you, we are here.” There was also an assignment for Yuri. He was to go to Dubrovnik to pick up several important packages and take them to Amsterdam, then come home. Routine. Fun.

Yuri would have gone to spend Christmas with Aaron in New Orleans, but Aaron told him long distance that this was not possible, and that the investigation was at this point very discouraging, the most discouraging of his career.

“What’s happened with the Mayfair Witches?” asked Yuri. He explained to Aaron that he had read the entire file. He asked if he might perform some small task in connection with the investigation. Aaron said no.

“Keep the faith, Yuri,” said Aaron. “I’ll see you when God wills.”

It was not like Aaron to make such a statement. It was the first decisive signal to Yuri that something was really wrong.

Early on Christmas Eve in New Orleans, Aaron called Yuri in London. He said, “This is my most difficult time. There are things I want to do and the Order will not allow it. I have to remain here in the country, and I want to be in the town. What have I always taught you, Yuri? That obeying the rules is of absolute importance. Would you repeat those words of advice to me?”

“But what would you do if you could, Aaron?” asked Yuri.

Aaron said terrible trouble was about to happen to Rowan Mayfair, and that Rowan needed him, and he ought to go to her and do what he could. But the Elders had forbidden it. The Elders had told him to keep to the Motherhouse of Oak Haven and that he couldn’t “intervene.”

“Aaron,” said Yuri, “all through the story of the Mayfair Witches we have tried-and failed-to intervene. Surely it’s not safe for you to be close to these people, any more than it was for Stuart Townsend or Arthur Langtry-both of whom died as the result of their contact. What can you do?”

Aaron reluctantly agreed. Indeed, it had been a conversation of reconciling himself to the state of things. He mentioned that David and Anton were probably right to keep him out of the action, that Anton had inherited his position from David, and David had known the whole story. Nevertheless it was hard.

“I’m not sure about the merits of a life of watching from the sidelines,” Aaron said. “I’m not sure at all. Perhaps I have always been waiting for a moment, and now the moment is at hand.”

This was strange, strange talk from Aaron. Yuri was deeply disturbed by it. But he had two new assignments from Anton, and off he went to India and then to Bali to photograph certain places and persons, and he was busy all the while, enjoying his wanderings as he always had.

It was not till mid-January that Yuri heard from Aaron again. Aaron wanted Yuri to go to Donnelaith in Scotland, to discover whether or not a mysterious couple had been seen by anyone there. Yuri took down the notes hastily: “You are looking for Rowan Mayfair and a male companion, very tall, slender, dark hair.”

Yuri quietly realized what had happened-the ghost of the Mayfair family, the spirit which had haunted it for generations, had achieved some sort of passage into the visible world. Yuri didn’t question this, but he was secretly excited by it. It seemed momentous as well as terrible, and he wanted to find this being.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? To find them? Are you sure the best place to begin is Donnelaith?”

“It’s the only place I know to begin right now,” said Aaron. “These two individuals could be anywhere in Europe. They might even have returned to the United States.”

Yuri left for Donnelaith that night.

There was that tone of deep discouragement to Aaron’s words.

Yuri typed out his notification of this assignment for the Elders in the customary form-on the computer to be sent by fax instantly to Amsterdam. He told them what he had been asked to do, and that he was doing it, and off he went.

Yuri had a good time in Donnelaith. Many people had seen the mysterious couple. Many people described the male companion. Yuri was even able to make a sketch. He was able to sleep in the same room which had been occupied by the couple, and he gathered fingerprints from all over it, though whose they were, he could not possibly tell.

That was all right, said the Elders to him in a special fax message from London to his hotel in Edinburgh. Top Priority. That meant no expense was to be spared. If the mysterious couple had left behind any articles, Yuri was to find them. Meantime he must be absolutely discreet. No one in Donnelaith was to know about this investigation. Yuri was slightly insulted. Yuri had always done things in such a way that people didn’t know about it. He told the Elders this.

“We apologize,” they said in their next fax. “Keep up the good work.”

As for Donnelaith, the place captured Yuri’s imagination. For the first time the Mayfair Witches seemed real to him; as a matter of fact, the entire investigation acquired a luminescence for him which no investigation had ever had in the past.

Yuri picked up the books and brochures sold for tourists. He photographed the ruins of the Donnelaith Cathedral and the new chapel only recently uncovered, with the sarcophagus of an unknown saint. He spent his last afternoon in Donnelaith exploring the ruins until sunset, and that night, he eagerly called Aaron from Edinburgh and told him all these feelings, and tried to draw from Aaron some statement about the mysterious couple and who they were.

Could the male companion be the spirit Lasher, come into the world in some human guise?

Aaron said that he was eager to explain everything, but now was not the time. Michael Curry, Rowan Mayfair’s husband, had been nearly killed on Christmas Day in New Orleans, and Aaron wanted to stay close to him, no matter what else was going on.

When Yuri got back to London, he turned the fingerprints and photographs over to the laboratory for processing and classification, and he wrote up his full report to Aaron and sent it by fax to a number in the United States. He sent the customary full copy to the Elders, via fax to Amsterdam. He filed the hard copy-the actual printed pages-and went to sleep.

That morning, when he tried to boot up the primary source material on the Mayfair Witches, he realized the investigation had changed.

All the primary sources-unedited testimony, inventories of items stored, photographs, pictures, et cetera-were closed. Indeed the File on the Mayfair Witches was closed. Yuri could find nothing by means of cross-reference.

When Yuri finally reached Aaron, to ask why this had happened, something curious occurred. Aaron clearly had not known the files had been marked confidential. But he did not want to reveal his surprise to Yuri. Aaron was angry, and disconcerted. Yuri realized he had alarmed Aaron.

That night Yuri wrote to the Elders. “I request permission to join Aaron in this investigation, to go to New Orleans. I do not profess to understand the full scope of what has happened, nor do I need to understand it. But I feel the pressing need to be with Aaron.”

The Elders said no.

Within days, Yuri was pulled off the investigation. He was told that Erich Stolov would take over, a seasoned expert in the field of “these things,” and that Yuri should take a little vacation in Paris for a while, as he would soon be going to Russia, where it was very dreary and cold.

“Sending me to Siberia?” asked Yuri ironically, typing his questions into the computer. “What’s happening with the Mayfair Witches?”

The answer came from Amsterdam that Erich would take care of all European activity on the Mayfair Witches. And once again Yuri was advised to get some rest. He was also told that anything he knew about the Mayfair Witches was confidential, and he must not discuss this matter even with Aaron. It was a standard admonition, advised the Elders, where “this sort” of investigation was involved.

“You know our nature,” read the communiqué. “We do not intervene in things. We are cautious. We are watchers. Yet we have our principles. Now there is danger in this situation of an unprecedented sort. You must leave it to more experienced men like Erich. Aaron knows the Elders have closed the records. You will not hear from him again.”

That was the disturbing sentence, the chain of words which had thrown everything off.

You will not hear from him again.

In the middle of the night, while the Motherhouse slept in the sharp cold of winter, Yuri typed a message on the computer to the Elders.

“I find I cannot leave this investigation without mixed feelings. I am concerned about Aaron Lightner. He has not called me for weeks. I would like to contact Aaron. Please advise.”

Around four a.m., the fax awakened Yuri. The reply had come back from Amsterdam. “Yuri, let this matter alone. Aaron is in good hands. There are no better investigators than Erich Stolov and Clement Norgan, both of whom are now assigned full-time to this case. This investigation is proceeding very rapidly, and someday you will hear the whole tale. Until then, all is secret. Do not ask to speak to Aaron again.”

Do not ask to speak to Aaron again?

Yuri couldn’t sleep after that. He went down into the kitchen. The kitchen was made up of several huge, cavernous rooms and full of the smell of baking bread. Only the night cooks worked, preparing this bread and pushing it into the huge ovens, and they took no notice of Yuri as he poured himself some coffee, with cream, and sat on a wooden bench by the fire.

Yuri realized that he could not abide by this directive from the Elders! He realized very simply that he loved Aaron, indeed that he was so dependent upon Aaron that he could not think of life without him.

It is a terrible thing to realize that you depend so much upon another; that your entire sense of well-being is connected to that one-that you need him, love him, that he is the chief witness of your life. Yuri was disappointed in himself and leery. But this was the realization.

He went upstairs and quietly placed a long-distance call to Aaron.

“The Elders have told me not to talk to you directly any longer,” he said.

Aaron was astounded.

“I’m coming,” said Yuri.

“This might mean expulsion,” said Aaron.

“We’ll see. I will be in New Orleans as soon as I can.”

Yuri made his plane arrangements, packed his bags and went down to wait for the car. Anton Marcus came down to see him, disheveled, in his dark blue robe and leather slippers, obviously just awakened from sleep.

“You can’t go, Yuri,” he said. “This investigation is becoming more dangerous by the moment. Aaron doesn’t understand it.”

He took Yuri into his office.

“Our world has its own timekeeper,” said Anton gently. “We are like the Vatican if you will. A century or two-that is not long to us. We have watched the Mayfair Witches for many centuries.”

“I know.”

“Now something has happened which we feared and could not prevent. It presents immense danger to us and to others. We need you to remain here, to wait for orders, to do as you are told.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m going to Aaron,” said Yuri. He got up and walked out. He did not think about this. He did not look back. He had no particular interest in Anton’s emotional reaction.

He did take a long farewell look at the Motherhouse itself, but as the car went on towards Heathrow, there was really only one theme which played itself out in his mind, rather like a fugue. He saw Andrew dying in the hotel room in Rome. He saw Aaron sitting opposite him, Yuri, at the table, saying, “I am your friend.” He saw his mother, too, dying in the village in Serbia.

There was no conflict in him.

He was going to Aaron. He knew that was what he had to do.