Private Lies (31 page)

Then the official provided them with neatly typed versions
of their previous statements. A clerk came in to notarize the papers and other
affidavits put in front of Carol to sign.

When she had finished, the Kenyan official stood up and put
out his hand.

"We hope very much," the man said, "that you
will not hold our government liable for this situation."

Carol took the man's hand.

"No," she whispered in a tremulous voice. "I
can't blame the government. It was simply a very, very unfortunate
accident."

They were driven back to their hotel by the embassy
official, who, apparently relieved that everything had gone smoothly, did not
feel the need to be overly loquacious. It seemed to fit into their present need
for silence, and when he dropped them off at the hotel, both women, without
exchanging a word, went back to their respective rooms. Ken avoided them for
the rest of the day.

Ken finished his brandy and ordered another. Then Meade was
coming toward him, looking unshaven and exhausted, but surprisingly sober. He
slumped into a chair opposite him.

"Bitch of a drive," he said.

"Drink?"

"I think I'll pass," he said, grinning.
"Lost the taste."

"Tough luck," Ken said, sipping his drink.

"Lost another once. Stupid accidents. I understand things
went smoothly." He rubbed his chin. "I appreciate your cooperation in
the matter of the rifle."

"If it wasn't for the gun, Carol would have
died."

"Catch-22," Meade said gloomily, then brightened.
"Saved her for you, I suppose." He shrugged, as if to say: What did
it matter now?

Ken nodded. There was no longer any point in hiding it.

"Didn't have much time," Meade said. "Had to
make a quick choice." He started to speak, then waved the words away with
a gesture.

"A tough call," Ken acknowledged.

"Not so tough," Meade said.

Ken remembered. The hunter knows who has to die, Meade had
told them.

Meade took an envelope out of his bush jacket and gave it
to Ken.

"Final damage," he said. "Just drop the
check in the mail." He stood up and smiled. "Mrs. Butterfield should
have plenty of shekels to cover it. Besides, I gave you all a healthy
discount."

Money again, Ken thought as he watched Meade's lined
sun-ruddy face crack into a crooked smile. But wait, Ken told himself. One more
thing.

"What's your view of it, Meade?" Ken asked in a
deliberately casual way. "I mean, was it really a freak accident?"

Meade looked at him for a long time, then shook his head.

"No way," he croaked.

"He or she?" Ken asked.

"Therein lies the riddle, old boy," Meade said,
turning on his heel. Ken watched his broad back retreat into the night.

So there would always be this question between them, he
mused. Someday he would ask her. He wasn't sure when, wasn't sure of anything.
Live by the lie. Die by the lie.

She had told the authorities it had been an accident. And
if she was lying? Did he try to murder you? He wanted to ask that. Did you try
to murder him? He wanted to ask that as well.

Better leave sleeping dogs lie. Eliot, like Francis
Macomber, had had his short happy life.

Ken lifted his glass in a silent toast, then swallowed it
down in one gulp.

It was still dark when the wake-up call blasted Ken out of
a dead, dreamless sleep. The airport transportation would arrive in an hour. He
shaved, showered, and dressed, then moved quickly down the corridor to Maggie's
room. There were still mundane details to be arranged—their joint luggage,
passports—the problems associated with travel.

It had occurred to him that many unpleasant chores still
lay ahead for all of them. In his and Maggie's case, the children had to be
told of their plans for separation, a divorce settlement had to be reached,
details of their separate lives arranged. For Carol there would be the terrible
pressures of notifying the members of Eliot's family, his children, the preparation
for a memorial service, doubly unpleasant because of the absence of Eliot's
body. Then would come the grueling legalities connected with her possessions,
the details of inheritance.

Unavoidable problems, he sighed, then he smiled to himself,
feeling the tension leak out of him. He decided that he was quickly approaching
the moment when he would give himself permission to rejoice.

Maggie's room had a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.
Disregarding it he knocked, surprised when it was quickly opened by Maggie, who
was fully dressed. Carol, also dressed, was sitting in a chair. She looked up
at him and gave him a thin smile. Room service had brought up breakfast.

"We were talking," Maggie said. Her face was
pale, her eyes sad and puffy. Obviously she had been crying, but she seemed to
have regained her composure.

"Eliot was going to tell me about him and
Maggie," Carol said.

"He had promised," Maggie said. "Enough
lies. We had both agreed."

Ken leaned against the wall, watching them, his eyes
darting from one woman's face to the other. It was hard to fathom, this sudden
outpouring of revelation.

"Yes," Carol agreed, looking at Ken, as if she
were speaking for both of them. "The lies were wearing us down as
well." She turned toward Maggie. "The fact is that, however hard you
tried to bring us together, we were already there." She paused, again
turning to Ken. "I told her, Ken, how long ago it had started for
us."

Ken glanced at Maggie with some trepidation. So Carol had
told Maggie their entire history. Perhaps that was what had brought on this new
surge of tears. He could tell from watching her that the anger from Carol's
confession still lingered.

"So our marriage had a rotten foundation from the
beginning," Maggie said bitterly.

"Maggie, you know that can't be true," Ken said.
He felt his eyes mist. "We had a life together, children." Then it
occurred to him that he wasn't the only villain, that she, too, had been an
unfaithful spouse. But he held back his rebuke. After all, she had lost her
lover. "The thing is," he said, haltingly, "we didn't want
anyone to get hurt. That was the point."

Maggie stood up and walked over to the window, which
overlooked the hotel's manicured lawn. Suddenly she turned.

"Does anybody really know anybody?" she asked.

"That's the wrong question for this group," Ken
said.

"We shouldn't have come here," Carol said.
"It wasn't necessary."

But it was, he protested to himself. There was a long
awkward silence.

"Eliot was broke, you know," Maggie said with a
shrug. "That's why we couldn't..." Her voice broke and her lips began
to tremble. It took a moment to get herself under control.

Carol started to stand, then hesitated and sat back in the
chair, a deep frown wrinkling her smooth forehead.

"It was that damned agreement," Maggie said, her
voice now firm with anger. "Yes, he loved me. But he couldn't give up his
way of life. Not for me. Not for anybody. Dammit, he died for it."

Her lips began to quiver and she turned away and faced the
garden again.

"My God," Carol said. "He could have..."
But she looked at Ken and said nothing more. No, Ken thought, he couldn't have
come to her. No more than Carol could go to him.

Ken moved across the room and stood behind Maggie. He
reached out his hand, then pulled back.

"It will be all right, Maggie," Ken whispered.
"You'll have the apartment and, of course, there'll be no custody
problems." He paused, remembering her words to him a few nights ago when
she had asked for her separation. "You'll find somebody. I know you will."

She turned suddenly and glared at him.

"Don't you understand? I loved him. I loved Eliot.
There will never ever be anyone for me but Eliot."

He stood silently watching her. What could he say? He
looked toward Carol.

"We'd better get going," he said, picking up the
suitcases from the luggage rack. But before he could leave the room, Maggie's
voice held him for a moment.

"Odd, isn't it, that none of us were what we
seemed?" she said.

Ken stopped, nodded slowly, then continued to carry the
suitcases into the corridor.

"A CALVADOS," KEN said to the waiter.

"Yes, that would be nice," Carol agreed.

"It's a lovely view," Ken said, looking out
across the speeding traffic on the Rue de Rivoli to the gardens beyond. From
where he sat at the sidewalk café he could also see the flowers blooming in the
gardens across the street and the reflection of the late-afternoon sun on the
Seine.

"Coming to Paris in August was a fabulous idea,
Carol," Ken said.

"I thought it was your idea."

"No. Both of our ideas, remember?"

They had been staying at Saint-John-Cap-Ferrat, where they
had taken a wonderful little flat overlooking the port. He had set up his
computer at a table in front of a window that afforded a beautiful view of the
Mediterranean and he had plunged ahead on this new idea that had been rattling
around in his mind since Marbella.

The plot of his novel, the one he had begun in Marbella,
had revolved around a newspaperman in New York who had fallen in love with an
aspiring opera singer.

Carol would come into his room of the villa they had rented
on the cliffs above the sea after he had been working all morning and she would
look over his shoulder to see what he had written. That was when he would shut
off the computer.

"Only when it's finished," he would tell her
firmly. "Call it rule one of the novelist at work."

She didn't protest. She was happy, he knew, to be near him,
and afternoons were dedicated to each other. Hadn't they earned it?

They would head down for lunch at an open café overlooking
the sea, walk along the quay or visit the shops in the center of town. Often,
they would poke around the galleries and antique shops and Carol would bargain
for various pieces that she felt would appreciate in value, sometimes making a
purchase, sometimes not.

Then they would go back to the villa and take a long, very
long siesta, mostly making love. Without the need to be furtive and with the
absence of guilt, their lovemaking was less frenetic, calmer, more lingering,
comfortable.

"It's like we've died and gone to paradise," she
would remind him often.

The idea of death would sometimes rekindle memories of
Africa. At first, he had been troubled by the circumstances of Eliot's death
and had gone over it in his mind many times. He would see them walking along
the high ground over the river. Each of them wore hiking boots with deep cleats
that were designed to give them a good walking grip on the ground. Then he
would try to recall the specific image of Eliot and Carol's struggle on the
path overlooking the river. Finally, the event began slowly to disappear into
memory. Details faded. Recollection became more difficult and less pressing.
Maybe someday, when he was ready, he would write about Africa and it would all
resurface again.

The resolution of Eliot's estate had gone well, and even
Carol had been surprised by the value of her art and antiques. On expert advice
she had liquidated several pieces that had brought her more than a million and
a half dollars after taxes, and still there were three-quarters of her pieces
unsold.

Ken had been more than generous to Maggie and the girls.
She got to keep the Brooklyn apartment and he had given her most of his company
pension-and-profit-sharing money, which came to a tidy sum. And Maggie had
quickly acquired a number of new clients. The girls, the eldest of whom would
be going off to college in September, had been shocked and resentful at first,
but finally had accepted the situation. Maggie, he knew, would survive. Their
uncontested divorce was consummated swiftly.

His colleagues at the advertising agency envied his
decision to resign.

"A man has got to follow his dream," he had told
them at the farewell party they gave him at the office. They had all stood up
and applauded.

He and Carol were married in New York's City Hall the week
before the Memorial Day holiday and went off to Spain. He to write. She to be
the loving wife.

It was, they both agreed, how it was meant to be from the
beginning. They had, after all, twenty-odd years to make up.

"You'll write and I'll be there beside you, loving you
always," she had assured him.

"Is that a solemn, irrevocable promise?"

She raised her right hand and crossed her heart.

They had no set itinerary, no plans other than to take each
day as it came. They had Carol's inheritance. They had each other. That was
everything.

It was his idea to leave Marbella. They had been there less
than a month.

"Somehow I like the idea of keeping on the move,"
he had told her. At first she had protested.

"But it's so lovely here."

"It's lovely everywhere we're together. And we're free
to go where we please."

"Yes, free as birds," she agreed.

"I also think it would help my work," he
explained. "A writer needs a constant supply of new images."

"Yes," she agreed. "A writer must have
inspiration. I understand, my darling. That has got to be a priority."

"Second only to loving you."

"Absolutely. Second to that."

Actually, he had abandoned the novel about the young
journalist and the opera singer after the first chapter. It didn't panic him.
He was rusty. He would need more time to get in the groove, he told himself.
Anyway, he was toying with a new idea set in the advertising world and already
he felt that the characters were coming alive in his mind. He was certain it
would spill out of him when he started work at this new place.

Saint-John-Cap-Ferrat was perfect at first. Afternoons they
would drive into Antibes for lunch, then take a ride along the sea and wind up
at Cannes or Mougins or some other quaint French village, and they would visit
the galleries and antique shops and stop at a sidewalk café for an aperitif
before going back to their place for a late siesta. Evenings they would head
into Monte Carlo for dinner and some very light gambling at the casinos.

He had managed to get through fifty pages of his new novel
when a certain restlessness began to afflict him and he got the idea of going
to Paris. Perhaps, he reasoned, the resort life was too routine, too laid back.
Also, he sensed that this new novel was aground. He was losing interest in the
characters; the plot was dead-ending.

Of course, he hadn't told her that the writing wasn't going
well. He couldn't do that. It would greatly upset her own vision of how their
marriage must be conducted. Mornings were still devoted to sitting in front of
his computer, although he found that he was spending more time in the morning
reading the
International Herald
or a book. Research, he called it when
she arrived in his room just before lunch.

By late July, the tourists were beginning to pour into
Cap-Ferrat. Traffic became impossible. The streets and restaurants were much
too crowded. It became a welcome excuse to leave.

"Paris might be fun in August. No crowds. We'd have it
all to ourselves," he told her. And Paris, of course, was a legendary
Mecca for writers. Especially those of the so-called lost generation. Hemingway
wrote his first novels in Paris, which was lure enough.

"Yes, Ken," Carol said, offering no resistance at
all. "Paris has always inspired writers. Sounds like a great idea."

"Ken Kramer!"

He turned quickly. The voice sounded familiar.

"Jill Harrison," the woman said, smiling broadly,
holding out her hand. "Remember me?" She was dark-haired and
attractive. Beyond her, at a table at the other end of the café, a man,
presumably her companion, sat watching them.

"Jill," Ken said, rising to greet her with a
friendly kiss on her cheek. He introduced her to Carol, who looked up and
touched the woman's outstretched hand. "Jill and I worked on Slender
Benders," Ken explained.

"And how, we did," Jill said. Ken felt the woman
searching for his glance, which he quickly avoided.

"It was a great campaign," Ken said.

"So this is where you've decided to camp," she
said. "Lucky you. Paris in August. A fabulous time to be here, don't you
think?"

"And we don't intend to spread it around," Ken
said, looking at Carol, who was emptying her glass of Calvados. It struck him
that her expression had suddenly changed, her lips tightly pressed together,
her eyes narrowed. She had stood up and picked up her purse. It was obvious
that she wished to leave. He was puzzled by her oddly hostile attitude.

"Maybe we could get together while we're in
town," Jill suggested.

"Yes, of course," Ken said vaguely. "As soon
as we're settled."

"We're at George Cinq," the woman volunteered as
they shook hands. She headed back to her table.

"What is it?" Ken asked when they had left the
café and were walking on the Rue de Rivoli. Carol had put her arm through his,
but said little.

"I'm not sure," Carol said. "That
woman..." Her voice trailed off.

"Jill? We were colleagues at the agency."

They walked on, then Carol stopped and turned to face him.

"Did you ever sleep with her?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious, Ken."

"Why would you want to know that?" Ken asked,
confused by her question.

"Curiosity." Carol shrugged. Studying her, Ken
was certain she meant business.

"We worked together," he said.

They had resumed their walk. Cars sped by. Across the
street were the gardens.

"I know that," Carol said. "I asked if you
ever slept with her."

"You are a tiger, Carol," Ken said, laughing.

"Well, did you?"

"It was so long ago," Ken replied.

"So you did?"

"Hey," Ken said. "It wasn't important. A
quickie now and then. No big deal."

Carol nodded, then stopped abruptly at an intersection,
waiting for the light to change.

He felt strange justifying himself over this. "I was
locked in a loveless marriage. You know that."

At that moment, he felt himself being propelled forward
into the path of an oncoming car. He could see the driver's panicked face and
he felt helpless and totally vulnerable as the car bore down on him.

Then, barely before the terror could register in his mind,
he felt himself jerk backward. A nick of breeze from the speeding car
soundlessly brushed past his chest. Only then did he turn toward Carol. His
eyes met hers, and in their deep, deadly calm he caught the flash of
revelation. As he turned away in confusion, his hand reached back and his flesh
touched the rumpled linen of his jacket.

He had been pushed by Carol. As she had pushed Eliot to his
death.

My God, he screamed inside himself. He tripped briefly over
the curb and she helped steady him.

"Ken, you've got to be more careful," Carol
admonished. He turned again to look at her, his heart banging in his chest.
Their eyes locked for a split second. He had no doubts. She had pushed him, then
saved him. He saw the truth as clearly as the summer sky.

The lights changed and they crossed the street arm in arm.
His legs felt unsteady as they walked over the garden path, but he fought it
and managed to keep the meandering pace. He looked at her in profile, the
perfect Dresden doll face, the swanlike neck, the graceful way she held
herself.

Despite what he now knew, he loved this woman. He would
always be trapped in the net of his love for her. And he was certain that she
loved him, and by this gesture she had warned him of the ferocity of this love.

Nor was he puzzled by her motive. He had told her that he
had been faithful to Maggie. He had lied and she had caught him in this lie.

She was telling him that the time had come to put an end to
all lies. All lies. And he knew he had to put to rest the great lie of his
talent. He would never become the great writer of his dreams. He didn't have
what Hemingway had. No way. Not the stuff that could burn in the truth like
"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," like the leopard on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Yes, he decided. She had made her point and the truth had
ignited inside him. She would kill for love as she had killed for wealth.
Without guilt or remorse. He felt goose bumps rise on his skin.

He knew he would never confront her. Never. Like the phases
of the moon, everything in life had its dark side. Take love and be done with
it, he told himself. Love was true. Love was clean. Love was the moon's bright
side. It was as good as anything there was. Wasn't it?

Nor would he tell her that his dream was dead. They were
free, weren't they? Free to wonder. Free to search for inspiration. Free to
love. Why spoil anything?

Not saying meant not lying.

Didn't it?