Heavy yellowish pouches hung beneath faded eyes. Gray brittle hair thrust into a careless bun, the deep gouges beside her mouth into which the scarlet lipstick had bled like a wound. She leaned in close, hitting him with a wave of foul breath. Strong tobacco, cheap wine, coffee, and rotting teeth combining in a stomach-twisting effluvium.
He recoiled, and this time when the laughter came it seemed forced. As if she hadn't expected this reaction and was covering the hurt. The harsh laugh ended in a long coughing jag that brought him out of his chair and to her side. Irritably she shrugged off his soothing hand. "Emphysema. And don't you start, le petit docteur. I'm too damn old to give up my cigarettes, and too damn poor to get medical attention when the time comes to die. So I smoke faster hoping I'll die faster, and then it won't cost so much at the end."
"Danelle-"
"Bon Dieu, Tachyon! You are dull. No kiss for old times' sake, and apparently no conversation either. Though as I recall, you weren't much of a talker all those years ago."
"I was finding all the communication I needed in the bottom of a cognac bottle."
"It doesn't seem to have inconvenienced you any. Behold! A great man."
She saw the world-renowned figure, a slim figure dressed in brocade and lace, but he, gazing back at the reflections of a thousand memories, saw a cavalcade of lost years. Cheap rooms stinking of sweat, vomit, urine, and despair. Groaning in an alley in Hamburg, beaten almost to death. Accepting a devil's pact with a gently smiling man, and for what? Another bottle. Waking hallucinations in a cell in the Tombs.
"What are you doing, Danelle?"
"I'm a maid at the Hotel Intercontinental." She seemed to sense his thought. "Yes, an unglamorous end to all that revolutionary fervor. The revolution never came, Tachy."
"No."
"Which doesn't leave you brokenhearted."
"No. I never accepted your-all of your-versions of utopia."
"But you stayed with us. Until finally we threw you out."
"Yes, I needed you, and I used you." .
"My God, such a soul-deep confession? At meetings like these it's supposed to be all `bonjour' and `Comment allezvous,' and `My, you haven't changed.' But we've already done that, haven't we?" The bitter mocking tone added a razor's edge to the words.
"What do you want, Danelle? Why did you ask to see me?"
"Because I knew it would bother you." The butt of the Gauloise followed its predecessor into a squashed and ashy death. "No, that's not true. I saw your little motorcade pull in. All flags and limousines. It made me think of other years and other banners. I suppose I wanted to remember, and alas as one grows older, the memories of youth become fainter, less real."
"I unfortunately do not share that kindly blurring. My kind do not forget."
"Poor little prince." She,coughed again, a wet sound. Tachyon reached into his breast pocket, pulled out his wallet, stripped off bills.
"What's that for?"
"The money you gave me and the cognac and thirty-six years interest."
She flinched away, eyes bright with unshed tears. "I didn't call you for charity or pity"
"No, you called to rip at me, hurt me."
She looked away. "No, I called you so I could remember another time."
"They weren't very good times."
"For you maybe. I loved them. I was happy. And don't flatter yourself. You weren't the reason."
"I know. Revolution was your first and final love. I find it hard to accept that you've given it up."
"Who says I have?"
"But you said ... I thought. . ."
"Even the old can pray for change, perhaps even more fervently than the young. By the way"-she drained the last of her coffee with a noisy slurp-"why wouldn't you help us?"
"I couldn't."
"Ah, of course. The little prince, the dedicated royalist. You never cared about the people."
"Not as you use that phrase. You reduce them to slogans."
"I was bred to lead and to protect and to care for them as individuals. Ours is a better way."
"You're a parasite!" And in her face he saw a fleeting shadow of the girl she had been.
An almost rueful smile touched his lips. "No, an aristocrat, which you would probably argue is synonymous." His long forefinger played among the little pile of francs. "Despite what you think, it really wasn't my aristocratic sensibilities that kept me from using my power on your behalf. What you were doing was harmless enough-unlike this new breed who think nothing