Tanner's Twelve Swingers

Page 11

We finished it. The drink had brought a flush to her white cheeks, and she was breathing a bit heavily as she got to her feet. “And now it is time for me to show you to your room, Evan.”

She walked unsteadily before me. I thought of Annalya in Macedonia. Macedonia was many miles away.

The room was small, furnished simply with a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, a single chair, and a cast-iron woodburning stove. She lit a fire in the stove, and it warmed the room. She came toward me, her dark eyes shining, her black hair hanging loose and free.

“Eva and Evan,” she said.

Her mouth tasted of sweet wine. She sighed urgently and pressed tight against me. Her arms went around me, tightened. Her hands moved over my back, and her mouth kissed greedily. I was very pleased that we had been unable to reach Debrecen and that the first farmhouse had had no room for us. “Eva and Evan,” she said again, and I kissed her again, and her slim, sweet body was warm to my touch.

We undressed in the glow of the woodburning stove. I took off my jacket and my sweaters and my shirt and my trousers and my underwear, and I looked at her as she slipped out of her clothing and I saw the odd look in her eyes and I looked down at myself and saw all those silly little oilcloth packets taped to various portions of my anatomy.

“What-”

“A book,” I said.

“You have written a book?”

“No. I am a… a courier. I am taking the book to the West.” I hesitated. “It is a political book.”

“Ah,” she said. She sighed. “I should have known you were a political man. I am always attracted to political men, and of course they are the most dangerous men for women to love.” She looked at me again and suddenly she began to giggle. “You look very silly,” she said.

And then we were both laughing. She threw herself into my arms, and her hands touched the oilskin packet strapped to my back, and she began to laugh again, and her thighs pressed against the packets taped round my thighs, and her breasts pushed against the packet taped to my chest, and she kept kissing and giggling and kissing and laughing until we tumbled gently into bed. Her hand reached for me and found me, and she said, “Thank God it’s not a longer book, we wouldn’t want anything taped here,” and, while this was the funniest thing she had said all night, neither of us laughed or giggled or in fact said anything at all until, in the throes of sweet, desperate passion, she cried out with love and raked my oilskin packet with her nails.

Chapter 9

Butec slept for twelve hours, just twice as long as he had assured me was his usual custom. I didn’t attempt to wake him. He would travel better for being well rested, and I myself was in no great hurry to move on. While Eva slept I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading a rather excessively heroic biography of Lajos Kossuth, Hungary ’s national hero who led the Revolution of 1848. The book was back on the shelf, and I was back in bed by the time Eva awoke. She made little mewing and purring sounds and came to me, soft and sweet and sleep-warm. After an hour or so she padded contentedly from the bedroom and went to cook breakfast.

I did a few helpful things, chopped a basket of firewood with a heavy double-bitted axe, brought up a bucket of water from the pump, built up the fire on the hearth. Eva’s daughter breakfasted with us, then hurried off to the road to wait for the school bus.

“Every day she goes to school,” Eva said, “and every night I have to teach her that almost everything they have taught her is untrue. But she is bright and learns quickly to separate the true from the false. It would be easier, though, if I could keep her out of school and educate her at home. The law does not permit this, however.”

We talked of music and literature and politics, and we talked not at all of the pleasure we had given one another in that narrow bed. I thought of my son, Todor, and I wondered idly if I might have gifted Eva with a permanent souvenir of our night of love.

A disquieting thought, that. I was not entirely pleased with the image of myself as a happy wanderer contributing to the global population explosion by leaving a trail of precious bastards in my wake. Yet not entirely displeased, either – children are rather good things to have and no less enjoyable simply because one doesn’t have them underfoot all the time.

I mused over this, and it must have shown in my face because Eva asked me what I was thinking about. “Only that you are very lovely,” I said, at which she blushed furiously and found something to do in another room.

Butec emerged, dressed and fresh-looking, not long after. While Eva fed him I returned to my room and scribbled a brief note in Hungarian: In the unlikely event that our love bears fruit, I wrote, I should like to know of it. You may always reach me through Ferenc Mihalyi. I added his Budapest address and left the note where she would certainly find it.

By noon we were on our way to Debrecen.

Sandor Kodaly had the body of a wrestler and the face of a medieval philosopher, with long, flowing hair, deep-set eyes, and finely chiseled features. He was in his early fifties, a widower with three unmarried sons. He and his sons ran a sizable farm outside Debrecen and made it prosper in spite of the frequent annoyance of five-year plans and new economic policies. I had never met him before, yet everything about him and his household was instantly familiar, an extraordinary incidence of déjà vu. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, and then I realized what it was. He and his sons and his farm were a Central European version of the Cartwright family, the Bonanza television program translated into Hungarian.

“So you are Evan Tanner,” he said. “And your companion is-”

“A man with temporary amnesia,” I said. “He has forgotten his name, and so, for that matter, have I.”

“Ah.” Kodaly nodded wisely. “That is sensible enough. There are times when men do well to be nameless. No man can reveal what he does not know, is it not so? And I cannot easily betray your companion without knowing who he is.”

“I do not fear betrayal at your hands.”

“Why not?”

“Because I trust you.”

“Oh? That may be foolish. I, on the other hand, am not that much of a fool. I do not trust you.”

Milan, on my right, remained heroically calm. So did I, though perhaps less heroically. There was nothing I could think of to say, so I waited for Kodaly to explain.