'O plunge your hands in water
Plunge them up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.'
- W. H. Auden, 'As I Walked Out One Evening.'
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Chapter Ten: Stare, Stare
"Robin"
The name slipped out from Doujima's mouth before she could stop herself, at the same moment that her glass slipped out from between her fingers. Her lips, like her fingertips, felt numb, but the rest of her was buzzing. With all of the possibilities that had occurred to her during the course of the evening and before, she could honestly say that the thought that Robin might somehow be involved had never, never crossed her mind. Although she had known that the witch was still alive, and had admitted as much to Nagira the night that the Factory fell, she had also been telling everyone else that Robin was dead for the past few months. She was a very convincing liar and, as was bound to happen with time, she had very nearly convinced herself that the lie was truth; to come upon Robin so suddenly left her nearly insensible.
Not so insensible, however, that she didn't notice that Fiametta was looking at her with disfavor, although she couldn't tell if it was because of Robin's appearance or the rapidly spreading wine stain on the white marble floor. Then she spoke, and put an end to Doujima's doubts. "That was not wise, Eve."
Eve?
Before Doujima had the chance to do more than wonder about that, the gilded screen that Robin had stepped out from behind shuddered, and was pushed roughly aside. The usual drama of Amon's entrance was somewhat anticlimactic after Robin's presence had been revealed, and the dignity of it was hampered by the fact that he had obviously been hunched over to fit his considerable height behind the screen. In spite of that, he was just as darkly foreboding as Doujima remembered him being. Or at the very least, the look on his face was foreboding, since he had given up the traditional black Hunter's garb in favor of an innocuous pair of khaki slacks and a white shirt that were, on him, utterly ridiculous. Although she was sure that he had adopted that style of dress in the hope of blending in (a hopeless task to begin with), Doujima couldn't quite hold back a quiet, nervous snicker. Amon's scowl, already fierce enough to make a baby cry, deepened.
"They are not to be trusted," Fiametta continued, undeterred.
"Hey," Doujima protested, offended enough to snap out of her daze.
Fiametta sneered at her, and there was a different kind of glint to her eyes, dark and almost dangerous. "Forgive me," she said, "for not trusting the motives of an agent of SOLOMON."
"Are my motives suspect?" Nagira asked, and although his voice was mild, Fiametta fell silent. No wonder – to say that he couldn't be trusted would have made her earlier apology sound distinctly insincere. All the same, her expression was mutinous, and there was still that disturbing light in her eyes when she looked at them, as if, Doujima thought, she was silently debating where to dispose of the bodies. It made Doujima nervous even as she continued to tell herself that the Witch Queen wouldn't do anything unpleasant after having invited them into her home, a reassurance which rang false with Fiametta's malevolent gaze weighing heavy on her. Gone was the cool civility that she had greeted them with; she looked hostile.
"They're fine, Fiametta."
The quiet authority in Robin's voice was almost as surprising as her sudden appearance. Even more surprising was Fiametta's reaction. She turned and looked at Robin, then inclined her head in silent, unhappy acquiescence.
What was going on here?
Nagira seemed oblivious to it all, although knowing him as she did, Doujima could guess that he was paying more attention to his surroundings than he seemed to be. Most of his attention, however, was focused on his brother and Robin. As casually as if this was nothing more than an afternoon chat over tea with old acquaintances, he said to Robin, "I got your last letter."
He had been getting letters from Robin? She hadn't known that, and the suddenly surprised cast to Amon's scowl seemed to indicate that he hadn't known either. The guilt that flashed across Robin's face confirmed that, and for a moment Doujima found it inordinately funny that Robin could cow the Witch Queen with a few words and a glance, and yet she still wilted under Amon's glaring reproach. That was more like the Robin she knew.
She was surprised by the relief that slid through her at the realization; until that moment, she hadn't realized how much the apparent changes in the younger woman had worried her. Relief made her generous, and she spoke before anyone could question Robin more closely on whatever letters she had been sending to Nagira. "What are you wearing?"
Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that whatever came out of her mouth was intelligent, and she winced inwardly as Robin cast a self-conscious glance down her body. Floral prints, Doujima noted, looked nearly as incongruous on Robin as khaki did on Amon. "We didn't think that we... should look like ourselves."
Because SOLOMON might be hunting them. She didn't have to say it; they were all thinking it, and Fiametta cast another baleful look at Doujima, as if she, as an agent of SOLOMON, was personally responsible for the fact that Robin had been forced to wear a sun dress with little yellow daisies on it. Which was ridiculous; she would never be so tasteless as to pick out something with yellow daisies on it. "They're not looking for you anymore," Doujima said, with the same carelessness she had once used to reassure Robin that the Hunters at the STN-J had not been after her. Then, because she noticed that Amon looking at her a little too closely, she added, "but it was probably a good idea to try to blend, anyway."
Nagira snorted, and Doujima could guess what he was thinking. Amon and Robin had about the same chance of blending in as a pair of cats at a rat convention. They were just too strange, strange in a way that couldn't be covered by all the khaki and cotton in the world.
"Yurika has been telling them that you're dead," he said easily, and Doujima was grateful for that. Grateful that he had come to her defense with the one thing likely to stop Fiametta and Amon from glaring at her like she was going to start chewing on the furniture, grateful that in spite of the problems between them, he still didn't believe that she would betray her former comrades.
Sure enough, Amon seemed suddenly easier, the scowl relaxing until his face had rearranged itself his normal expression of vaguely hostile neutrality. Fiametta raised a brow, still defiant, but seemed to be content to leave behind the subject of how untrustworthy Doujima was. She plucked a napkin from the food cart, handed it to the spy, and stared pointedly at the puddle of wine of the floor. Doujima glanced at the napkin, then dropped it on the puddle and pushed it around halfheartedly with her foot, until the napkin was stained red and the floor was more-or-less dry, if somewhat pinker than it had been. Fiametta sighed, but once again remained silent, and Doujima thought that this would undoubtedly be the closest they would ever come to a truce.
With some of the tension in the room having eased, and with the subject of her illicit letter-writing no longer under scrutiny, Robin regained some of her earlier courage. She took a step or two towards Nagira and Doujima, but seemed unsure of what to do from there. Nagira didn't give her a chance to think about it; he took two quick steps forward and swept her into a bone-crushing hug. His complete lack of any sense of propriety was hardly surprising to Doujima, and Fiametta actually seemed mildly amused by it, but the scowl quickly reformed on Amon's face.
"I do have to wonder," he said to Robin, slowly, as if he had forgotten and was only just now remembering what he had wondered, "if you have properly considered the possible repercussions of revealing yourself like this."
The wounded look that Nagira shot at Amon was so obviously put on that Doujima shook her head, and couldn't decide whether it was out of amusement or disgust. "Oh, now there's a warm welcome. Something like, 'hey, buddy, how's it going?' or maybe, 'by the way, I'm not dead'? C'mon, Amon, at least say hello before you start complaining about how you didn't manage to avoid a fraternal visit. I know that you're rude and antisocial, but that's taking it a bit far, even for you."
It didn't amaze Doujima to see Amon's eyes go dark and shuttered at Nagira's words, or even that Fiametta's expression was suddenly equally unreadable. What surprised her was that Robin averted her gaze and took a step out of Nagira's arms, the almost apologetic set to her shoulders not changing the fact that she was very obviously distancing herself from him. It was as if the three of them shared a secret, and they had very carefully locked Nagira and Doujima out.
As always, the promise of a secret sparked Doujima's interest. However, she also knew when pushing for that secret would put it irretrievably out of her reach, and now was one of those times.
The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Nagira, and he too had felt ths sudden change in the room, and in Robin. "What the hell is going on here?" he demanded.
Overall, Doujima decided, Nagira was probably a cleverer person than she was. Almost certainly he was a better person than she was. But he didn't always think clearly when his emotions were involved, and right now, that was enough to make Doujima grind her teeth together with frustration.
"It is good to see you again," Robin said, with warm sincerity but also with a sort of quiet resignation that told Doujima that the sentiment was mostly meant to soften whatever she was about to say next. She glanced briefly at Amon, then back to Nagira. "I think it would be best if you left now."
Fiametta looked unbearably smug. "I will arrange for you to be escorted home."
Doujima's hand on Nagira's arm stilled the protest on his lips, and she was grateful too that he still allowed that. Earlier, she had let her emotions guide her when confronting Fiametta, and he had remained calm and blessedly logical. Now that their roles were reversed, she found herself remarkably clear-headed, focused on the people in the room and what had been said and not said.
So, when Fiametta said that she would arrange for an escort, it was Doujima who nodded and said, "Yes, of course. That would be appreciated." And when they were leaving the room with Fiametta's ever-obedient nephew, it was Doujima whose elbow Robin caught and, with another cautious but oddly undeferential glance back at Amon, Doujima's ear into which she whispered the word, "Later."
It was Doujima who was left to ponder the promise in that word and the meaning of that glance during the silent ride back to the hotel, and it was Doujima who was left to continue pondering after Nagira had angrily excused himself to go to bed where, she was relatively certain, he would not be getting any sleep. The thought that he really was avoiding her now gave her a little pang, but it wasn't enough to interfere with the clarity of her thoughts, and as soon as he had closed the bedroom door behind him, she left the hotel.
It was a long, silent trek through the sleeping city, and she didn't really realize where she was going until she found herself standing in front of Intelligence's headquarters. She let herself into the building, and went up the steep steps without bothering to turn on a light. When she did reach the office and flip on the overhead light, it seemed both too bright and muted, casting a sickly yellow glow over the desk, the shelves, and the piles of books on the floor.
Without pause, Doujima scooped up the three objects that she had been examining earlier: the watch, the journal, and the leather-bound copy of Milton. She quickly discarded the first two, and turned her attention to the last. This was where the answers she needed were hidden, she knew it, if only she could just figure out where.
Once more, she flipped through the pages of the book. She ran her fingers along their gilded edges, then over the gently creased leather of the cover and the gold lettering on the spine. There was a silk ribbon attached to the binding, so that the reader could mark their place, but it wasn't between any of the pages; instead, it was tucked behind the front cover and before the filler page. Idly, she ran sensitive fingertips over the inside of the cover... and felt a almost imperceptible bump beneath the smooth paper.
She stopped, an eerie calm sweeping through her. Although excitement bubbled up in her chest, she ignored it, smoothing her hand over the inside cover once again. She could barely feel it, but it was there; a lump, a place where the paper wasn't as level as it should have been. Uncaring that she was chipping her carefully manicured nails, she used them to rip at the cover, rending paper from leather and finding at last a carefully folded, impossibly thin piece of onionskin.
The book slid carelessly from her hands and onto the floor, and she unfolded the onionskin paper. On it was written the key to a code, in the same blocky letters that filled the pages of the book that she had found in Alfonso's desk.
She took the piece of paper over to where she had left the book and the watch and, with hands that trembled, began to decode Alfonso's journal.
It was a slow process. He had obviously been keeping the book for years, and it was in Spanish, which was not one of her better languages and required almost as much troublesome translating as the code did. It was more of a date book than an actual journal, although occasionally there would be a quickly scrawled thought or idea in between the ongoing list of appointments and other daily tasks. Much to Doujima's surprise, her name appeared regularly, especially during entries written in the time that she had been in Japan. It seemed that her mentor had followed her progress very closely.
The entries stopped abruptly around the same time that the Factory had fallen – Alfonso wrote briefly that Charlie had returned with confiscated materials from the Factory site, but without much interest, since it was followed by a brief note that he was out of milk and eggs. After that, there was nothing, and panic welled up in Doujima as she flipped through the following pages, all of them blank. That couldn't be it.
Several pages later, there was another entry, two lines standing in isolation on an otherwise empty page. She decoded it quickly, recognizing the familiar patter of her own encoded name, and felt her blood run cold once she had deciphered the rest of it.
The entry had been written on the day he had died.
The first line read simply, 'Doujima, il ponte.'
The second line read: 'dinner, Julianno, eight.'
It was the first line that held the information she had been searching for, a note left especially for her, confirming her belief that Alfonso had left the book for her to find. It was the second line that made her double over against the sudden ricocheting pain in her gut, allowing the book to slide from nerveless fingers to land beside the volume of Milton on the floor.
It didn't mean anything, she told herself. He had eaten dinner with Father Julianno on the night that he had died, but it didn't mean anything except that two old friends had gotten a chance to see each other one last time. It didn't mean anything, but it was enough to make her doubt, and wonder why Julianno hadn't mentioned it himself when she had seen him.
Slowly, painfully she pushed those doubts away to turn her attention once again to the first line of writing on the page. Il ponte. The bridge. The Sargent painting on the wall and her own half-remembered dream left little doubt as to which bridge he had meant. Just as slowly and painfully, she straightened, and stood. Whatever had happened – and she refused to let her suspicions take root, keeping them shadowy and half-formed in her mind – the only way to find out for sure would be to find the hidden files... and whatever else Alfonso might have left there for her.
After a moment's thought, she shoved the pile of papers she had been using the translate the journal into her coat pocket, as well as the onionskin with the code's key on it. The journal she left where it had fallen, since it was useless to anyone who might try to read it without the key. The Milton she also left, its pages crumpled against the ground and its cover ripped apart, ravaged of its secrets. She took the pocket watch without really knowing why, whether it was for sentimental value or as a talisman or something else entirely, and was just fumbling the lights off when the door creaked open.
Doujima tensed, holding her breath, and found herself looking into Robin's eyes from a distance of several inches away, the younger girl's face easily recognizable even in the dark.
She had very nearly forgotten about Robin in the hours between their meeting and now, and she found herself once again taken unawares upon finding herself facing the girl, the breath she had been holding escaping as a gasp. In that moment while she tried to regain her equilibrium, Robin spoke, her voice soft but strikingly determined... or perhaps not so strikingly, since she could now recall clearly that if there was one thing that Robin, quiet though she was, had never lacked, it was determination. "Doujima. I need to speak to you."
"No," Doujima said, before she could stop to think about it. Then she did think about it, and quickly corrected herself. "I mean, yes, but not right now. I have something that I need to do." All of her earlier curiosity had melted away, replaced by a newfound urgency.
This made Robin pause, and she cast Doujima a glance filled with her own curiosity, mild by comparison but almost more compelling because it lacked any form of subtlety and there was no attempt made to conceal it. "What do you need to do?"
Like so many things that she had done in the past weeks, like bringing Nagira to Venice or accepting Fiametta's invitation, Doujima's response was guided by either instinct or impulse, and she couldn't have said which one it was. "There's something that I need to get. Would you like to come with me?"
There was a serenity in Robin's features as she looked at Doujima that the older woman envied greatly. "The files," she said simply, and Doujima didn't even bother to wonder how she had known about that. As secrets went, the reason for Doujima's presence in Venice wouldn't have been a difficult one to uncover, especially when one had the Witch Queen... or Amon... as a friend.
So she just said, "yes," and Robin nodded to show that she would come. They went down the stairs without exchanging so much as a word.
As they untethered the boat from the dock, Robin said, "I'm sorry that I sent you away."
Doujima replied, "I'm sorry that I wasn't there to stop you from buying that dress."
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Disclaimer: So not mine.
Notes: Beta read by the beauteous and talented WiccanMethuselah. Coming soon(ish): Undone, and a murderer revealed.