something inane, and then he said - and these are his exact words - "How about you, professor? Do you feel better about things now, what with us here and all?" David looked up at his wife. 'Did 7 feel better... HOW? Me. '
'He knew what their job was,' interrupted Marie. 'To protect you. I'm sure he meant did you feel safer. '
'Did he? Do they? That crowd of screaming kids, the dim light, the shadowy bodies, obscure faces... and he's joining in and laughing - they're all laughing. Are they really here to protect me?'
'What else?'
'I don't know. Maybe I've simply been where they haven't. Maybe I'm just thinking too much, thinking about McAllister and those eyes of his. Except for the blinking they belonged to a dead fish. You could read into them anything you wanted to - depending upon how you felt. '
'What he told you was a shock,' said Marie, leaning against the sink, her arms folded across her breasts, watching her husband closely. 'It had to have had a terrible effect on you. It certainly did on me. '
'That's probably it,' agreed Webb, nodding. 'It's ironic, but as much as there are so many things I want to remember, there's an awful lot I'd like to forget. '
'Why don't you call McAllister and tell him what you feel, what you think? You've got a direct line to him, both at his office and his home. Mo Panov would tell you to do that. '
'Yes, Mo would.' David ate his egg half-heartedly. '"If there's a way to get rid of a specific anxiety, do it as fast as you can, " that's what he'd say. '
"Then do it. '
Webb smiled, about as enthusiastically as he ate his egg. 'Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I'd rather not announce a latent, or passive, or recurrent paranoia, or whatever the hell they call it. Mo would fly up here and beat my brains out. '
'If he doesn't, I might. ' 'Ni shi nuhaizi,' said David, using the paper napkin, as he got out of his chair and went to her.
'And what does that mean, my inscrutable husband and number eighty-seven lover?'
'Bitch goddess. It means, freely translated, that you are a little girl - and not so little - and I can still take you three out of five on the bed where there are other things to do with you instead of beating you up. '
'All that in such a short phrase?'
'We don't waste words, we paint pictures... I've got to leave. The class this morning deals with Siam's Rama the Second, and his claims on the Malay states in the early
nineteenth century. It's a pain in the ass but important. What's worse is there's an exchange student from Moulmein in Burma, who I think knows more than I do. '
He looked at her, loving her so. 'I can't be that hurt where I can't see that clearly. Sometimes I hope I never do. '
'I don't think that way at all. I want you to see them and hear them and feel them. And to know that I love them, too. '
'Oh, Christ!' He held her, their bodies together in a warmth that was theirs alone.
The line was busy for the second time so Webb replaced the phone and returned to W. F. Vella's Siam under Rama III to see if the Burmese exchange student had been right about Rama IPs conflict with the sultan of Kedah over the disposition of the island of Penang. It was confrontation time in the rarefied groves of academe; the Moulmein pagodas of Kipling's poetry had been replaced by a smart-ass postgraduate student who had no respect for his betters - Kipling would understand that, and torpedo it.
There was a brief, rapid knock on his office door, which opened before David could ask the caller in. It was one of his guards, the man who had spoken to him yesterday afternoon during the pre-game rally - among the crowds, amid the noise, in the middle of his fears.
'Hello there, Professor?'
'Hello. It's Jim, isn't it?
'No, Johnny. It doesn't matter; you're not expected to get our names straight. '
'Is anything the matter?
'Just the opposite, sir. I dropped in to say good-bye - for all of us, the whole contingent. Everything's clean and you're back to normal. We've been ordered to report to B-One-L. '