Lips Touch: Three Times by Lips Touch; Three Times Page B

transfigured in
this great crucible, souls made molten, made new. She floated, following the
tendrils of Estella's hair through the flames. She sang. With each and every
note her soul knew a pang of joy, as if her voice escaped again and again from
its accursed prison with every word.
    And then, suddenly, she became aware of a presence nearby in the
sea of flame, a magnificent and blistering intelligence hidden from view. It
was Yama, Lord of Hell, and he was everywhere, invisible all around her,
listening, and she went on singing every role she knew. Carmen, Manon,
Euridice, Musetta, Isolde. The "Liebestod," that lament for a dead love.
She sang it all the way through this time.
    And she was still singing when she found James spinning slowly in
the flames. His eyes were open but unseeing. Her voice faltered to a stop.
    "Exquisite," said Yama.
    Anamique looked around but saw no great shape or silhouette in the
Fire. Perhaps, she thought, he was the Fire.
    "Take your lover and go," the Lord of Hell continued.
"And take the others too. Estella's soul shall suffice in trade for them
all. But there is an additional price."
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    "I will pay any price," Anamique said. These were the
first words she had ever spoken that came not from an opera libretto but from
her own heart, and she meant them. Any price.
    "You will serve in her place as Ambassador to Hell."
    Anamique felt a spasm of fear but she nodded. "Anything,"
she repeated. The heat was rising. She began to feel the muted movement of the
flames against her flesh as the tonic lost its potency. At that moment she was
shunted backward very quickly, tumbling head over heels until she was thrown
clear of the Fire. She fell and felt the hot onyx floor against her face. She
rose to her feet, saw Vasudev standing by the tea table, coming out of his
trance. She didn't see James or the others and she didn't turn round to look
for them. She began again to sing, and she picked up the scorched end of
Pranjivan's kite string and followed it out of Hell. She had learned from
Orpheus's mistake, and did not look back.
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    TWELVE The Ambassador
    James's wife never told him that she loved him, not out loud, but
he learned to believe it anyway. There are other ways of showing someone you
love them, such as fetching them out of Hell. Their wedding was small, just the
two of them with Pranjivan -- eternally shadowless now -- and Anamique's
parents and sisters, who recalled every moment of their strange resurrections.
They all stood with the minister in the garden, and Anamique mouthed the words
of her vows in silence while James spoke softly, his voice husky and tremulous
with emotion.
    After, there was a wide white bed with a cocoon of mosquito
netting stirred by a punkah fan, and cool limbs entwined beneath a white sheet.
This time when Anamique and James kissed, there was no dread or haste or clash
of teeth, but only lingering and sweetness, and lips straying from lips to
taste the curves of each other's throats and shoulders, the palms of hands, the
fluttering fragility of eyelids, the smooth, arched valleys of backs. The
silent bride bit down on her lip so nothing could coax a killing sound from
her, not pleasure and not pain, and she discovered both without a murmur.
    As the years went by, a cradle was thrice filled and Anamique bit
down on a leather strap for each birth: two boys, then a girl. The boys were
born without so much as a moan from their beautiful
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    mother, but the girl, a wily stargazer, drove a single cry from
her and she had to stagger down the onyx passage, wild-eyed and wrapped in the
blood-stained sheet of her childbed, to win back her baby from the Fire.
Vasudev cowered behind the tea table and made no attempt to barter with her,
and once her tiny girl's soul was cradled safe in her arms, Anamique sang her a
lullaby. It was the only lullaby she would ever sing, and it was sung in Hell.
    Unlike her family, Vasudev heard Anamique's voice often and it had
the same