Ministers of Fire. Mark Harril Saunders

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СКАЧАТЬ haven’t seen you since . . . ,” she began, then immediately laughed at herself, collapsing slightly to one side so that her knuckles bore her weight on the credenza. A deceptively strong woman, she tossed her fine blond curtain of hair behind her shoulders, as if its luxuriance annoyed her. Not exactly beautiful, Burling observed. Amelia would have turned more heads at the Chestnut Hill parties where she and Burling had come of age. April’s eyes were a bit too light, the skin across her wide cheekbones sprinkled in places with the pockmarks of a childhood disease. But her neck led gracefully into her muscular shoulders and long, slender arms, wrists cuffed with tight bracelets; and her breasts, while substantial, looked firm. His father could have drawn her in three or four finely arcing strokes, his pencil describing a long thigh and hip, a cheekbone on the opposite side and above, perhaps the hair and slender shoulder to bring the composition into balance. From her waist to her toes, which were painted and bare, she was perfect. Irritation at her presence dissolved into something warmer, desire.

      “You meant since Wes was killed.”

      “That’s what I was talking about, yes,” she said, coming around to his side of the desk where he could see her whole length. The djellabah rippled across the space between her thighs. “But you were thinking of kissing me in the garden.”

      Burling’s words caught deep in his throat. “I can’t stop thinking about it, to be honest.”

      “You’re a good man, Lucius Burling,” she said. “One kiss is not that big a deal.”

      “Since Wes died, things are not . . . No, I don’t want to put it on that.”

      April turned and went to the tray on the windowsill, where a cut-glass bottle of arak, a pitcher of water and glasses, shared space with Burling’s African violets and creeping philodendron. “You brought your tray in here,” she observed.

      Weary with lust, Burling rose. “My plants,” he said.

      “You’re funny.”

      “I’ve kept them alive for a long time,” he told her, picking up the long tendrils of the philodendron in his hands and rubbing his thumb on a waxy leaf.

      “Most men don’t keep plants.”

      “These are easy to care for.”

      April poured them each a measure of the clear liquor. Adding water clouded the liquid to the color of milk. A smell of licorice rose from the glasses.

      “My father raised vegetables,” she told him. “He would make them come up out of the ground like a sorcerer. Rocky ground it was, too, but fertile just the same.”

      “Did you and Jack have a garden in Berkeley?”

      She laughed, somewhat ruefully, and handed him a glass. “Jack is more like one of those bitter weeds that grow out of the cracks in a sidewalk. You have to respect his kind of strength. Hack him down, he just keeps growing back.”

      “How did you meet?”

      April sighed and lowered herself on the long leather couch, and Burling stood above her, tentatively drinking. “When I entered the program at Cal, I felt very detached. All the other kids were privileged, very stoned and theoretical. I went down to a gym in Oakland to see if I could teach the girls from the neighborhood basketball. And there was Jack, just back from his first tour. His grandfather’s mission had funded the gym.”

      “I just realized,” Burling said, feeling his height and sitting down on an ottoman. Their knees were almost touching.

      “What did you realize?”

      “That I don’t want to talk about Jack.”

      April smiled, which narrowed her eyes. “We’re not going to make it here, you know,” she said, watching for his reaction over the rim of the glass, “in Godwin’s office.”

      “Was that supposed to be on the agenda tonight?”

      “I’m probably not even your type,” she said, bringing the glass again to her lips. They were plump, of a rare shade of pink, defined by clean lines against her pale skin. He thought again how they had felt against his, the slight pressure receiving him, and the hardness of her teeth inside.

      He had to take in breath to gather himself. “Why do women always say that to me?”

      “That we’re not your type?”

      “Yes, but why?”

      “Because under most circumstances, you wouldn’t even look at a girl like me.”

      “I would find it impossible not to.”

      “That’s sweet, and I know you’re not lying, right this minute, but if I had come to your office, the summer I interned at State, you wouldn’t have been any more than polite.”

      Burling took a quick gulp of the arak to steady himself. She wouldn’t have found him at the Department of State, of course, but she would certainly be aware of that. Jack would not have been reticent on that score. “Why do you think so?”

      “Because you’re a sophisticated man. Worldly. Handsome, but not so good looking that people wonder.”

      “No?”

      She smiled to acknowledge his feigned disappointment. “You move like you played a sport, football or basketball, maybe had an injury or two, but you’re careful so as not to hurt anyone smaller than you. You went to private schools, and you’re probably rich, or at least well off compared to most people, and now you’re being groomed for one of the top political appointments—deputy national security advisor, or number two at CIA.”

      “Shhh,” said Burling, pointing at the ceiling where the microphones would be. Taraki’s government had the benefit of Soviet security expertise. “Who says that?”

      “Jack. Besides, you married a debutante.”

      “Not quite,” Burling said. “When I met her, Amelia was rebelling against being a society girl. Drinking and going to jazz concerts with men. It’s her money, by the way. My family lost ours long ago.”

      “What luxury!” said April. “To reject what others want more than anything.”

      “What do people want? Amelia and I are about as conventional as can be. The problem is what goes on in my head. I tend to disappoint people.”

      “Are you going to disappoint me?” April asked, pointing to his nearly empty glass.

      “I’ll have one more, if that’s what you mean,” he said, draining it.

      April got up. She seemed somewhat hardened now, yet still he couldn’t help feeling encouraged. When he envisioned the journey up north, she was already with him in his mind. Up to Samarkand, over the Pass. Translating Dari and Pashto and whatever else they ran across. It was probably a very bad idea to take a woman, but he was making up reasons that it had to be done for the sake of the mission, and he had already begun to believe them.

      “I need you to stay with me,” he said.

      She looked at him over her shoulder, half-angrily, half-wanting. СКАЧАТЬ