Chapter 11: Stone Smiles
(Sark)
The estate is as I remember: a crumbling seventeenth century castle tucked into the foothills of the Alps. The trees are half bare already: mere skeletons stooped over dry grass. Sydney stares out the window, her gaze like the sphinx. On my right, Irina is transfixed by her laptop. The display is polarized: I cannot see what she is working on. The silence has been interminable.
"I had your old quarters prepared, Julian," she says, as the car pulls to a stop in front of them main entrance. Sydney's leg tenses under my hand at her offhand use of my given name. Irina quirks her lips into a knowing smile before continuing: "I assume you'll be sharing the suite."
"That will be fine," I reply coolly. Sydney follows me up the stone steps and through the heavy wooden doors into the tiled entryway.
"I have business to attend to," she tells us, already walking away down the hallway to the right. "You should rest."
"I want to talk, first," Sydney replies, voice hard.
"Sweetheart," Irina turns to face us, "I can tell you're tired. Let Julian take you upstairs to rest. We will talk later."
Irina walks away, and I start up the stairs. Sydney stares after her for a moment, stiff with anger. "Don't call me sweetheart," she says, when Irina is already out of sight.
"Sydney?" I call, leaning over the second floor railing. She looks up at me, face softening into half a smile. "Let it go. She is using us, she has always used us. This time, we get to return the favor."
(Sydney)
He's right, of course. I follow him down the wide second storey hallway. Carved wood doors interrupt dark wood paneling, above us the stone ceiling is arched cathedral style and tinged dark by age and smoke. He walks as if he owns the place. Near the end he opens a door on our left. Your old quarters, Julian. He isn't yours, mother. And neither am I, anymore.
We enter a large, spare room. The curtains are drawn open. Dark forested hills rise up to meet an overcast sky. There are bookshelves and a desk, a brown leather couch in ill repair, and several more doors. The bedroom is dominated by a low platform bed, piled high with black pillows and a high-loft comforter.
"There is electricity, but not much heat on this floor."
After Bermuda, I'm not sure I care. He slips off his shoes and slides into bed. I sit down next to him, lean over to take off my high boots.
"Do you trust her?" I find myself asking.
(Sark)
"Do you trust her?" she asks out of the blue. After she left me in custody for two years? Or before?
"No. Do you?"
She pulls the collar of her shirt aside, exposing a pale, puckered scar at her shoulder. I reach out, run my thumb over the delicate skin. A bullet wound, small caliber, but short range. I've never asked her about it.
"Taipei. The first time I saw her in twenty years. That woman…" she breaks off, looks away as if to collect herself. "She's not my mother, not really. At least, I'm not Irina's daughter. My mom was Laura Bristow, and Laura is gone."
I lean forward, kiss the scar and run my fingers across her face. No tears, not in front of me. Though her eyes are liquid and she's fighting for control. Irina practically adopted me, but I grew up in boarding school. I could never imagine her being tender with a child, being a mother.
"It's hard for you to keep them separate, isn't it? Those two women, wearing the same face?"
She nods, and finally the tears fall, silently. Sydney curls into my side and her cheeks wet my shoulder.
"I love you, Sydney," I whisper, when her breathing has slowed and she is lax with sleep.
(Sydney)
I woke before him, in the dim blue twilight. He mumbled when I slipped out of his arms, but didn't stir. My eyes were sandpaper and the room was cold.
Back in the study, the first two doors I opened led to empty rooms, nothing more than a gym mat in the corner or cobwebs strung from the light fixtures. Finally I found the bathroom, updated in the twenties, with green tile walls and a claw foot tub. The water ran hot, at least, though I froze as I stripped and waited for the bath to fill. She called these rooms his, but this place is nothing like him. At least, there is nothing in this empty place that reflects who he is.
Under the sink I find full bottles of vanilla shampoo, French milled soap, boutique lotions and perfume with the seals still unbroken, clearly stocked for me, courtesy of Irina. He has probably spent more time with her than I have. There is no tinge of jealousy, though, for the years she spent sculpting him while I grew up with a dead mother and an absentee father.
He loves me though, Dad, in his stoic, understated way. He would do anything to save me, to keep me safe. Has saved me, and done a million smaller things to keep me happy, at least to try and salvage something from my fractured life. As I have saved him, from time to time, from death by torture at SD-6, from life in custody after my apparent death, citing an invented conspiracy reaching all the way to Congress, which ironically turned out to be true. He belongs to me, as I belong to him, in our strange family of two.
The water is barely tepid when there is a knock at the door, and Sark steps in.
"Wine?"
I take the glass he offers, sip the ruby liquid. I haven't eaten in hours and the alcohol warms me quickly.
"Showtime?" I ask. He is sitting on the closed toilet seat in his boxers and a T shirt, looking entirely too casual and blasé.
"Half an hour."
We clink glasses, and I drain the rest quickly.
(Sark)
She's pushing food around her plate, taking miniscule bites when Irina looks her way. What a waste of Kobe steak, hydroponic greens, aged parmesagna reggiano. But if she eats too many pomegranate seeds she'll be trapped in the Underworld forever, I suppose. While the world out there withers and dies.
"We need protection, for awhile, until things cool down," Sydney finally speaks.
Irina finishes chewing, takes a sip of wine and daps at her lips with a napkin.
"What makes you think I can help you?"
"You have contacts, within the former Covenant. They've obviously discovered our extracurricular activities. You can call off the hounds, some of them at least," I reply. Unlike Sydney, I expected hoops to jump through.
"I am owed certain favors. I suppose I could call in a few, for a price."
"You'd kill your firstborn for a price. But, wait, you already tried."
Sydney's voice is like ice, matched only by Irina's sudden scowl.
"With the Covenant largely deposed, we do have access to considerable funds. What is your price?" I ask, ignoring her interjection. This is supposed to be a negotiation, not a confrontation. Irina is still, her hands folded beneath the table. Sydney has a fist closed around her steak knife.
"Twenty million Euros, and I can arrange safe housing with a syndicate in Ireland. Two years and the rest will fall apart. I can dispose of the few important players remaining after your blitzkrieg. I never knew you had it in you, Sydney, to be such a cold assassin."
"I learned from the best. Dad, of course. You should have killed me when you could. I was so small when I was born. It would have been so easy," the prodigal daughter sneered.
"Enough, Sydney!" Irina yelled, her hand coming down hard on the table.
"Twently millions Euros, wired to the account of your choice. We can conclude the transaction in the morning."
I have never been the peacekeeper. I felt more like the unfortunate messenger, a go-between out of his league.
"They're your words, not mine."
"They were listening. I had a cover to keep up. We've been through this already."
"Not to my satisfaction."
"What more do you want from me?"
"I spoke at Emily's funeral, talked about how she was like the mother I never had, since mine died in a car crash. Off course, I could barely move my arm to adjust the microphone, since you came back from the dead just in time to shoot me."
"It's been a long day, a long flight. Perhaps we should go to bed?"
Sydney ignored me.
"I had to make it appear real," she pleaded.
"Which do you regret more, Irina? Abandoning me? Or having me in the first place?"
"Sydney!"
"What?" she hissed, still staring at her nemesis, her mother.
"She's not worth it."
"It was so hard, Sydney. Leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm just thankful that I got the chance to see you again, to know you."
Irina's voice was soft, repentant. Sydney uncurled her fingers from around the knife, dropped her hand into her lap, and suddenly the tension seemed to melt from her shoulders completely.
"It was harder to see you again, mother, than it was to mourn your death."
Sydney was out of her seat in a flash, and out the door. Irina seemed to crumple in her chair. Never had she seemed so small.
"I don't understand her. I don't understand what I did to deserve her hostility," she spoke, turning to me. Her loyal lackey? Her trained lap dog?
"Good night, Irina."
I left her there, in the dining room. She sat at the head of the table: master of no one.
(Sydney)
"What the bloody hell were you hoping to accomplish by that display downstairs?"
He slammed the door behind him, and I jumped, startled. The sky was inky black and starless.
"I wanted to hurt her."
"Well congratulations: you've pissed off the woman we're asking to protect us."
"You're taking her side?" I asked, incredulously.
"Don't be such a fucking child!"
I slapped him, hard, across the cheek. Something in his eyes darkened, and I matched his step forward with one in retreat. There was violence in the way he looked at me, the way he moved. For a moment I thought he might actually hit me back. But he turned toward the desk, and threw the wooden chair across the room. It hit the wall with a sharp crack, and he just stood there, jaw clenched, breathing hard.
"She's not your mother, Sydney, as you've pointed out so many times. She's not the enemy. You can't have it both ways. You can't disown her and then blame her for bad parenting."
"You have no idea what I've been through with her."
"If you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly happy to see her either."
"I'm sorry."
(Sark)
I walked away from her, seething, into the bedroom and wrapped myself in the thick down comforter. She didn't follow. I woke up hours later, in the middle of the night, and the bed beside me was still empty. I found her in one of the other rooms, curled up on a gym mat using her coat as a blanket. She was shivering: there was a fine tremor in her arms and her nail beds were pale, almost blue. Oh Sydney, my stubborn impulsive Sydney. We hurt the ones we love, we hurt ourselves. Anything to avoid this crushing attachment, this crippling love.
"Apology accepted."
I carried her back into the bedroom, tucked her under the covers with me, in my arms. She turned towards me, muttering something in her sleep. I fell asleep soon after, complete if not content, comfortable if not at ease. We love each other but we haven't said the words. There is still too much darkness between us.