A French Kiss in London (15 page)

“I’m old now, my friend,” he said, simply. “I do what I can, and I will continue doing it until I die. Still, I don’t have the strength, nor the energy I had back in my youth. But you have the warrior spirit, the honor and motivation necessary to win such a battle. That’s why I called you here. Take it,” he said, indicating the file, which contained his life’s work. “I know you’ll make sure it won’t fall into dirty hands.”

Chapter Sixteen

It was mid-afternoon when Linda heard the front door opening. She was sitting on the couch with Mariana, watching an American movie. On her lap rested Daniela, the Battiste family cat. Linda couldn’t be separated from her since they’d met, earlier that day. Mariana told her the cat had been away for two days and that she’d probably returned pregnant again—the way she used to do at least twice a year.

Daniela’s golden fur was dusty and disheveled, but Linda didn’t care. She caressed her lovingly, as she would her darling Pirata, whom she missed so much.

Gerard and Jean-Paul entered and took off their shoes in the doorway, as was the custom in the Battiste home. This was generally a custom in all Romanian homes.

“You finish medical business?” Mariana asked, rising.

“More or less,” her husband replied. “Daniela, you slut, you’re back?” he addressed the cat, who jumped from Linda’s arms and began rubbing herself against her master’s legs. “She floods us with nephews every year,” he told Gerard, who knelt to stroke the cat’s golden fur.

“Go on, wash your hands and go to the kitchen to eat,” Mariana prompted them. “We had lunch long ago.”

“It was very well that you did. Thank you, Mariana, you are a treasure,” Gerard said. “After that delicious dinner last night, I was thinking to propose to you to leave this old man and marry me instead.”

He winked, bending to kiss Linda’s cheek.

Everybody laughed at his remark, including Linda, but this banal joke brought a very strange feeling into her soul. The thought that Gerard could be married to another woman, that he could touch or look at another woman with the passion reserved only for her triggered an acute, inexplicable dread in her heart. She always told herself she didn’t want more than a free relationship, that she had no rights over this man, because she didn’t want him or anyone else to claim any rights over her. Yet now, for a moment, she looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. She admired his tall frame and solid, wide shoulders. His smile was tired, but she thought he was the most striking and attractive man on Earth. Something was different in him though. She wondered what he and Jean had talked about, but she knew now wasn’t the moment to question him.

They all went to the kitchen. While the men ate, Linda, Mariana and Daniela kept them company. The latter seemed to have an endless appetite. Every time Jean or Gerard handed her a tasty bite, the cat took it delicately, but greedily.

When they finished eating, Jean asked with no preamble, “So, do you still know the way to the Hoia-Baciu Forest, where you got lost last night?”

Linda and Gerard looked at one another, then back at Jean, nodding.

“Let’s all go over there,” the old Frenchman suggested. “What do you say?”

Linda gave him a long look.

“I perfectly agree. In fact, the sooner, the better. So you can see that everything we’ve told you is real.”

Jean didn’t say anything.

“What do you think, baby? Aren’t you too tired?” Linda asked Gerard, smoothing a hand over his sandy-blond hair.

He shook his head and rose from the table.

“I think we’d better go right now.”

They all climbed into the Jeep, with Jean and his wife in the back seat. Unlike the relaxed atmosphere during the meal, now silence had taken over. Not even the radio was on. Both Linda and Gerard gazed straight ahead, guiding themselves after the marks they had noticed the night before. An intersection, a small church somewhere on the right. Then, further, a sort of neighborhood restaurant. When they exited the city, Linda tried inwardly to push away any doubts, by recalling every detail of their strange experience, the authenticity of which was now under question.

After about fifteen minutes, they ended right on the path where they’d left the car the past night. It was still deserted. In daylight, the forest didn’t have a sinister look, but the air itself had a bizarre charge about it.

“This is it,” said Gerard, turning to glance at the back seat passengers, just in time to see the look full of odd meaning the couple exchanged.

Linda also noticed their gazes. Irritated with the whole thing, she got out of the car, slamming the door harder than it was necessary.

They all stood for a few moments, studying the surroundings. Now, when the light was stronger, Linda noticed aspects she hadn’t distinguished in the darkness. The trees’ shapes appeared even more bizarre. The trunks were contorted in dozens of ways, forming incredible decors.

When Gerard headed toward the natural border, which delineated the path from the forest itself, Jean stopped him with a gesture.

“Wait a minute. Let’s do it like this: I’ll tell you where the ruins of the cabin are—the cabin that burned here over a hundred and fifty years ago. You tell me if that’s how you reached the cabin you’ve visited last night.”

Linda noticed that Mariana clung tightly to her husband’s arm, and a wave of fear shook her. For a brief moment, she felt she didn’t want to know the truth. She clutched at Gerard’s hand and got the feeling he was fighting the same sensation. But he only said, “All right.”

Jean took a deep breath, peering toward the trees. It seemed he was trying to penetrate with his eyes the very essence of the woods, where hovered a filtered, diffused light.

“From the point where we are now, we should walk approximately one hundred meters in a more or less straight line,” Jean began. “At one point, there’s a tree trunk grown horizontally, parallel with the ground. It has more than ten meters in length. If we go around this tree and continue to walk straight, we’ll reach a clearing. That’s the place where the cabin used to be. Now there’s nothing there, not a trace. In that place, grass doesn’t grow. The trees always look like they are freshly burnt, although presumably in a hundred and fifty years a lot of young trees should have grown and grass should have covered the area.”

The young couple listened, unmoving and incredulous, how Jean-Paul described in detail the location of the cabin inside of which they could have sworn they’d been the past night. A state of panic and confusion had installed in their hearts. Linda knew it was showing all over their faces.

Eventually, Gerard shook his head slowly and said in dismay, “This can’t be. I can’t believe it. It’s true, the place is just as you described it, but…there’s no way last night’s experience wasn’t real. It’s simply not possible, Jean!”

Linda bobbed her head, grasping his hand even tighter.

“It’s true! Jean-Paul, Mariana, you have to believe us! We were both there and we talked to that woman. We’ve described everything to you in perfect detail. You can doubt one person’s word, but not two identical statements!”

“No one is putting your word into question,” the older man assured her in a calm, deliberate tone, and his eyes watched her kindly. “Just the veracity of the facts, the reality you think you’ve experienced. Let’s go,” he urged, hitching his chin toward the woods.

In a grave silence, they made their way through the oddly twisted tree trunks, which seemed immortalized in an eternal waiting.

The impassive, eternal waiting of a statue, or the alert waiting of a predator?
Linda wondered uneasily as they advanced through this setting, where not even the rustle of leaves perturbed the obsessive silence.

They reached the horizontal tree, which marked—or perhaps blocked—the entry into the clearing.

She and Gerard stopped dead with identical gasps. Indeed, beyond this barrier of nature, there was nothing but the clearing itself. No trace of the cabin. No trace of the diffused and somewhat comforting light they’d seen the night before. No trace of the small wooden structure, which seemed to have stood there for centuries.

They almost ran around the tree trunk. They stood in the middle of the clearing, looking around in consternation. None of them could believe the cabin appeared to have vanished.

There was no doubt the place was the same, although now, in daylight, the details were clearer. Unlike the rest of the forest, in this area there was no grass, just bare ground darkened by years, by rain, by nature itself. The surrounding trees looked scorched, with their trunks blackened here and there. They were curled and curved, as though they were protecting themselves from invisible flames.

Linda gently touched the bark of a tree. A strange, reddish substance stained her fingers.

“This is another bizarre fact I heard people talk about,” said Jean-Paul, who had come slowly with Mariana, giving the younger couple time to recover. “They say that sometimes, especially around Easter, the trees are covered with a blood-red sap. Personally, I’ve never seen this phenomenon until now.”

He stretched his hand cautiously and touched another tree, then studied the liquid smudging his fingers.

Gerard walked a few steps around the surface where he could have sworn that twenty-four hours ago was a real human homestead. Suddenly, he crouched and reached down for something. The others came to inspect his discovery.

It was a hollow into the ground, shaped like a square. It could barely be distinguished and only from a certain distance. It could have been only an illusion, but Linda heard the strange regret in his voice when he whispered, “Madame Maria’s oven.”

Unexpectedly, a strong, shocking shiver shook her. Without quite realizing, she staggered back. She felt an unbearable pressure in her ears and her sight darkened, fading into dizzying black circles.

Linda woke up in the car, on the front seat, which had been lowered back. Gerard was energetically massaging the tips of her middle fingers. Mariana was wiping her face using a damp handkerchief, murmuring words Linda couldn’t understand. However, the woman’s gentle tone calmed her and she squeezed her lover’s hand with cold fingers.

“What happened?” she asked weakly. She felt her throat dry, like after a sand storm.

Gerard stroked her cheek with one hand, while he used the other to monitor her pulse.

“You fainted, my love. You just have a low blood pressure, but you’ll be fine in no time. Jean, did you find that stuff?”

Though he tried to make light of it, she detected the worry in his voice. It clouded his beautiful green eyes and deepened the lines around his mouth.

Jean appeared from behind the car, holding a clear-glass bottle. Linda saw it was full with a liquid that resembled white wine.

“What’s that?” she asked, grimacing involuntarily.

“The magical cure for every illness,
chèrie,
” Jean replied cheerfully, uncapping the bottle. “Take a deep breath and gulp down some of this.”

She rose, supporting her weight on her elbows, assisted by Gerard. She gave the bottle a dubious look.

“Does it matter if I protest?”

“Of course not. You’re in the company of two doctors. Who else could attend you better?” Jean reasoned.

“You’re right on that one,” she consented and took a sip, then coughed noisily when she felt her entire esophagus on fire.

“What the hell is this poison?” she exclaimed when she got her breath back, while everyone was laughing. Gerard patted her back.

“
Rachiu
,” answered Mariana, smiling widely. “Made by me.”

Linda shook her head to clear it, feeling that the drink had reddened even her cheeks and ears.

“It’s very…special,” she blustered, not succeeding in making the remark sound complimentary.

“It’s spectacular!” said Jean and took a healthy sip himself. “My Mariana did an excellent job,” he praised his wife, wrapping one arm around her waist affectionately. “Here, take another swallow,” he prompted Linda, handing her the bottle.

She complied and sipped some more, cautiously, before giving him back the bottle.

“Feel better?” Gerard asked as he helped her stand.

“Yes,” she replied, nodding. Then she recalled everything with a clarity that made her shudder. She took a deep breath and, shaking her head slowly, said, “I still can’t believe that what happened here was not real…I simply can’t accept it.”

After a long moment of silence Gerard spoke, his voice sounding resigned and tired.

“I, too, find it hard to believe that everything was an illusion, but the proof is irrefutable.”

“I don’t know if
illusion
is quite the right word, children,” Jean said, in a tone meant to sooth. “Let’s call it a…meeting with the paranormal. Somebody who made a documentary about the Hoia-Baciu Forest used this expression. I find it very inspiring. Console yourselves with the thought that you’re not the only ones who had such experiences. There are dozens of witnesses who stated they’ve experienced strange things or sensations there, that they had visions…There were even some people who set off to explore deeper, into the heart of the forest. They were never seen again. It’s best for you to be happy nothing bad happened, that you’re safe and well,” he concluded paternally.

“Right, as Jean says,” Mariana agreed, nodding vigorously. “It is important you are well. You will forget this.”

“I could never forget this as long as I live!” said Linda.

Gerard embraced her tightly, looking as troubled as she. He kissed her forehead, then said, “Let’s go. We have nothing else to do here. This place creeps me out!”