Echoes in the Dark

She swallowed against the dryness. “A nightmare,” she whispered.

“That must have been one hell of a nightmare,” he said, smiling. “Not that I’m not grateful. Do you have these often?”

She was aware of the sexual teasing, the gentle invitation cloaked in the question, but she shook her head, still held safely against his body. “Not in such a long time. I thought they were gone. It’s been so long.”

They both were aware of the trembling despair of the last phrase, and his arms tightened comfortingly.

“You’re just tired—a long flight and then a bunch of strangers, maybe some of us stranger than others,” he teased gently. “Just tired.”

She began to breathe against the rhythmic caress of his hands moving soothingly over her back. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she had been asleep, still dazed from her exhaustion.

There was no sound now in the hallway. No sound from her open door but the boom of the surf against the rocks. His brother had been right. It was becoming a familiar background, as comforting as the hands against her spine. She was enfolded in its sound as Andre was enfolding her in his arms, arms that felt hard enough to protect her from any nightmare.

Embarrassed, she moved finally out of their circle, and he let her go. There was enough light now to see the smile he directed at her. She touched his face, unable to express the gratitude she felt.

“I’m all right. I promise. It was just a bad dream.”

“It’s almost dawn. Do you want me to stay with you?”

“Why were you up?” she whispered.

“I’m going to Marie Galante. To the distilleries. I told you we make our living here producing rum. That’s my domain in the many provinces of the family businesses. Julien runs everything else, but this is mine. I usually leave at daybreak and come home midafternoon. Suzanne told you how we operate in the tropics. The heat makes everything else impossible. But if you want me to stay—”

“Of course not,” she denied, pushing the tangled waves of her hair back from her face. “I’m fine. Really. And you’re probably right. Just too much happening at one time, too much excitement. My life is usually very dull. I hope you won’t tell Suzanne. I’d hate for her to think she’s employed some kind of neurotic.”

She regretted the word as soon as she’d uttered it. She didn’t know why she’d used it, hated the sound of it between them, but he only laughed.

“Everybody’s neurotic about something. Comparatively, I think nightmares rank fairly low. Stop worrying. Why don’t you try to sleep? There’s still a half hour or so of darkness. You’ll feel better if you lie down and relax.”

She smiled and nodded, although in the dimness of the hall she doubted he saw the gesture. “I think you’re right. And thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he said softly. Finally he turned and walked away.

She stood a moment longer until the silence drove her back to the open doorway of her room. The windows were still open, and the lightening gloom of the tropical false dawn drew her to stand beside them and look out. She knew she couldn’t go back to sleep. She knew that instead she would lie listening for the sounds that would signal the past had once again overtaken her, so she stood, blocking all thought, simply watching the gathering light.

She saw someone enter the garden and thought at first it was Andre, but the body was wrong, the chest too deep, the shoulders too broad for Andre’s tall leanness.

As he moved toward the pool, she saw that he wore only a pair of black bathing trunks that fitted his narrow waist and hips like a second skin. She had always hated the European styling, but somehow it was right for him, outlining the tight muscles of his buttocks and emphasizing his masculinity, the almost concave stomach, the strong thighs. She felt like a voyeur, but she watched, unable to move from the windows as he walked without hesitation to the edge of the pool and dived into the dark depths. There was none of the uncertainty he had shown in his movements last night.

He swam a long time, until the sun touched the sky into real dawn, and she wondered how he could know that. He pulled himself from the edge of the pool and used the towel he had flung down beside it to dry his hair and his face. She realized suddenly that he wasn’t wearing the dark glasses. She wanted desperately to see the color of his eyes, but the light was too faint and the distance too great.

He looped the towel around his neck, moving again with the quick, sure stride back across the tile of the garden and into the open doors. She swallowed, wondering about the emotion that churned her stomach and tightened painfully against her temples. She rested her head against the louvers of the windows and felt, but didn’t understand, hot tears gather and begin to trace down her cheeks.

* * *

SHE AND SUZANNE WORKED a long time from the seemingly endless list of names and addresses. The dictation was rapid and spotty, her employer trusting Caroline to fill in suitable expressions of gratitude for kindnesses that Suzanne enumerated in the beginning of each letter. They worked until lunch, which they ate alone. She hadn’t expected Andre to return, but she wondered about Julien and found herself listening for him, looking at the doorway throughout the meal.

They ate this time in the small breakfast room because of the midday heat. She didn’t ask, and Suzanne offered no explanation for her brother’s failure to join them, chatting instead about the tourist attractions that she insisted Caroline wouldn’t want to miss, the dinner party for a few old friends on Monday night and the fact that tonight was the servants’ night out.

“They go back to attend Mass in the morning. I’ve tried to get Julien to build a chapel and get a priest. I swear it would be worth it not to have to worry about Saturday night supper and Sunday’s meals. I’m afraid they’re never much. The cook leaves salads, and we snack. Julien cooks sometimes if the mood strikes him, but not me. I hate to cook.”

Suzanne was curled again in the comfortable chair that, like those around the patio table, was more armchair than dining chair. No wonder meals stretched pleasantly long after everyone had finished eating. They were sipping iced coffee, and because of the afternoon sunlight and Suzanne’s laughing voice, she had lost most of the tension of the dawn, relaxing again in the undemanding companionship her employer offered.

“Julien?” She questioned the last comment in surprise and watched the telltale realization break across the heart-shaped face before her.

“He does it very well,” his sister said finally, with a decidedly Gallic shrug.

“I’m sure he does. He seems to do everything well. I saw him swimming this morning.” She thought that perhaps Suzanne’s open nature would lead her to give some background about her brother, but for once, Suzanne didn’t answer. She drank her coffee instead, and when she looked up, it was to find the green eyes waiting.

“You haven’t asked. It’s all right. Everyone does. Some people even have nerve enough to ask him, and he tells them.”

The silence stretched for the first time into discomfort between them. Finally Suzanne broke it, resignation and something else Caroline couldn’t identify coloring her voice.

“Julien lost his sight six years ago in an automobile accident in Monaco. He was very badly hurt, besides the blindness. His recovery took almost two years of rehabilitation. There are still lingering effects, although he makes sure that no one is aware of them. Whatever my brother suffers, he covers very well. He’s open about his blindness because that’s not something he can hide, but not the other. He’s a very private man, very closed. He wasn’t. He was...”

“Like Andre?” Caroline asked into the brittle pause.

“Andre?” She could hear the surprise in Suzanne’s voice at that thought. “I suppose he was in a lot of ways. He was athletic, really a daredevil. His leisure activities were all dangerous: racing—cars and boats, polo, flying, even skydiving. He was never hurt, never injured. He was too good, too quick. It’s so ironic that after all the years of those things, he was instead...destroyed in the way he was.”

“Destroyed?” Caroline questioned, rejecting the finality of that choice of words. “Surely not.”

“What he was,” Suzanne amended. “How he was. Funny. Clever. Passionate. Relaxed. Like Andre, but stronger. You always knew you could depend on Julien to have control. He was so sure of everything.” She took a deep breath, raising blue eyes to study Caroline’s face before she continued.

“He’s so different now. Contained and careful. I know he has to be because...” Her voice faded, and then she continued, almost thinking aloud now. “He hates to grope, to stumble, hates to look blind. He hates his blindness, but he never says that. He won’t express his anger and resentment. I always thought that if he would express it, say how he feels, it might ease. If he did, however, he’d have to blame her, and he’s not ready to deal with that.”

“I don’t understand. Blame who?” Caroline asked. She became aware of a growing tightness at her temples. She even put her hand up to rub against the beginning pain as she waited.

“Julien’s wife was driving. Drunk and angry at some imagined slight. I never met her. I was too occupied here with my own marriage, with Edouard’s illness, and Julien never brought her to the island. Andre says she was like a child, a spoiled brat when she didn’t get her way. God knows how Julien put up with her. Love is blind, I suppose.”

Suzanne stopped suddenly, raising stricken eyes. “I can’t believe I said that, but he was. Blind to her faults. She wrecked the car and walked away without a scratch and then walked away from him. She just left him to deal with all she’d done to him.”

When the words finally stopped beating inside her head, Caroline lowered her face against the coolness of her glass to fight the rising nausea. She didn’t understand why the story had upset her so. The images formed in her head by Suzanne’s words had pierced her, like the nightmares always did, and she was glad when Suzanne stood and dropped her napkin beside her plate.

“I can’t write another one of those damn notes. Let’s give it a rest. We’ll start again in the morning. I think I’ll ride in with Andre when he takes the staff back to Terre-de-Bas. Until then, I’m going to sleep. We should take lessons from the Spanish. They know how to deal with long, hot afternoons. Think you can entertain yourself for a few hours?”

“Of course. I’ll be fine. I may get some sun by the pool if that’s all right.”

“Be careful. You’ll burn before you know it.”

“I’ll use screen. I just feel so city white.”

“I know,” Suzanne said, smiling, “but I fight the urge. Sun hats and beach umbrellas for me. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve discovered an age spot or two. Why don’t men get those? God, it’s so unfair.”

They laughed together, the tension suddenly evaporating, and then Suzanne climbed the long staircase to the upstairs rooms.

With Suzanne’s departure, the quietness of the house closed around her. She found herself wondering where he was. She shook off the thought and climbed the stairs herself to change into the pale pink swimsuit she had brought with her, another item on the lawyer’s precise list.

She looked down on the pool when she was dressed, feeling the inviting pull of the waters. Everything was going to be all right. She just needed to relax and fit in. Forget this morning. The nightmares would fade as they had before. She had simply been too tired, overstimulated.