child."
"Katharine, God knows we were an unlikely pair. The aphrodisiac effects of the African bush on newcomers is almost a sure thing. You offered yourself to me. I took you. I was never in love with you."
"You've let yourself get too thin, Tom."
"But I fell in love with your daughter the first time I clapped eyes on her. Getting off that plane in Nairobi. Hesitating, stalled by heat and light. Lowering that neat, cropped head of hers to slip on sunglasses. As pretty, and remote, as a Degas dancer. You sent Gilly to me, hoping a hunt would be the tonic for her it had been for you. What the hell did you expect? That I wouldn't make love to her?"
"Go on. Be a bastard." But there was rueful acknowledgment in her tone, the momentary elevation of her chin.
"Then you had the bad grace to call me a fortune hunter, and other bitch epithets. You shut both of us out of your life. God, but that wounded Gillian. You've never known how much."
"Wrong. But I've always been difficult and obstinate. Was I jealous? A twinge or two. For the most part, please understand, I reacted out of fear. Not wanting Gillian to grow up. I got that from a Park Avenue shrink I went to and was able to tolerate for a couple of months. What a loathsome profession. Anyway. I talked myself into believing you really were an asshole to take her away from me."
"Your opposition only made us more sure of ourselves."
"After what she'd been through, I didn't want Gilly marrying anyone. I didn't think there could be a man who would understand how different, how very exceptional and altogether fragile my daughter was."
"You refused to accept that I could be good for her. As for Gillian's ... talent, and the problems it might cause. Right, that was beyond my ken, but I wasn't afraid of it. I was raised in Kenya. My father's chief tracker, who was Bertie Nkambe's grandfather, taught me lessons other than bushcraft. I learned there was more to native forms of worship and ritual than superstition stemming from primitive ignorance. I reckon it takes only one full moon in Africa to disabuse the most hardened skeptic. We are awash in an ocean of telemagical sympathies that infuse all living things. Katharine, I'm on my way home. I need to go home, or go mad from rage. You didn't send for me to hash over old times. Why don't you tell me what you really want?"
"I want my granddaughter. I'm very much afraid harm will come to her, as it came to Gillian."
"What are you saying? Gillian couldn't have children."
"After the first one, no. It was a difficult birth. She couldn't run the risk of becoming pregnant again. Things were done to ensureâ"
"What child? When was it born? Gillian and I shared everything, we wouldn't have lasted otherwise."
"Gillian didn't know."
"That she'd been pregnant, given birth? Oh, come on ."
"It happened. Try to take this seriously, Tom."
"Do I look amused?"
Katharine had had expert work done to her face: lasers, silicone. The surgery had frozen her looks at a certain unguessable age, immune to the years that ordinarily would have been clawing at her. All mask now, suitable to the status she retained in her social tribe. But her eyes had not changed; they were pale but spirited, always up to something, her gaze moving through air like a welder's flame, torching away resistance to her desires and needs.
"All right," Sherard said, hating what was coming; but he had to hear it. "When, and where?"
"Her daughter was born in the sanitarium where Gillian was being treated for the deep depression she slipped into after the events at Lake Celeste. Seven pounds two ounces. The correct number of fingers and toes. Adorable. The sun was coming up. I was tired to the bone. As physically used up as if I had been in labor. I looked out a window, at an Indian-summer morning in an old-world place of stone cottages, purple vineyards, a mist-shrouded river, geese on a wild spree across the sky. I thought, Eden. And that's what I named the child."
"Who
"Katharine, God knows we were an unlikely pair. The aphrodisiac effects of the African bush on newcomers is almost a sure thing. You offered yourself to me. I took you. I was never in love with you."
"You've let yourself get too thin, Tom."
"But I fell in love with your daughter the first time I clapped eyes on her. Getting off that plane in Nairobi. Hesitating, stalled by heat and light. Lowering that neat, cropped head of hers to slip on sunglasses. As pretty, and remote, as a Degas dancer. You sent Gilly to me, hoping a hunt would be the tonic for her it had been for you. What the hell did you expect? That I wouldn't make love to her?"
"Go on. Be a bastard." But there was rueful acknowledgment in her tone, the momentary elevation of her chin.
"Then you had the bad grace to call me a fortune hunter, and other bitch epithets. You shut both of us out of your life. God, but that wounded Gillian. You've never known how much."
"Wrong. But I've always been difficult and obstinate. Was I jealous? A twinge or two. For the most part, please understand, I reacted out of fear. Not wanting Gillian to grow up. I got that from a Park Avenue shrink I went to and was able to tolerate for a couple of months. What a loathsome profession. Anyway. I talked myself into believing you really were an asshole to take her away from me."
"Your opposition only made us more sure of ourselves."
"After what she'd been through, I didn't want Gilly marrying anyone. I didn't think there could be a man who would understand how different, how very exceptional and altogether fragile my daughter was."
"You refused to accept that I could be good for her. As for Gillian's ... talent, and the problems it might cause. Right, that was beyond my ken, but I wasn't afraid of it. I was raised in Kenya. My father's chief tracker, who was Bertie Nkambe's grandfather, taught me lessons other than bushcraft. I learned there was more to native forms of worship and ritual than superstition stemming from primitive ignorance. I reckon it takes only one full moon in Africa to disabuse the most hardened skeptic. We are awash in an ocean of telemagical sympathies that infuse all living things. Katharine, I'm on my way home. I need to go home, or go mad from rage. You didn't send for me to hash over old times. Why don't you tell me what you really want?"
"I want my granddaughter. I'm very much afraid harm will come to her, as it came to Gillian."
"What are you saying? Gillian couldn't have children."
"After the first one, no. It was a difficult birth. She couldn't run the risk of becoming pregnant again. Things were done to ensureâ"
"What child? When was it born? Gillian and I shared everything, we wouldn't have lasted otherwise."
"Gillian didn't know."
"That she'd been pregnant, given birth? Oh, come on ."
"It happened. Try to take this seriously, Tom."
"Do I look amused?"
Katharine had had expert work done to her face: lasers, silicone. The surgery had frozen her looks at a certain unguessable age, immune to the years that ordinarily would have been clawing at her. All mask now, suitable to the status she retained in her social tribe. But her eyes had not changed; they were pale but spirited, always up to something, her gaze moving through air like a welder's flame, torching away resistance to her desires and needs.
"All right," Sherard said, hating what was coming; but he had to hear it. "When, and where?"
"Her daughter was born in the sanitarium where Gillian was being treated for the deep depression she slipped into after the events at Lake Celeste. Seven pounds two ounces. The correct number of fingers and toes. Adorable. The sun was coming up. I was tired to the bone. As physically used up as if I had been in labor. I looked out a window, at an Indian-summer morning in an old-world place of stone cottages, purple vineyards, a mist-shrouded river, geese on a wild spree across the sky. I thought, Eden. And that's what I named the child."
"Who
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