Cursed Be the Child by Mort Castle Read Free Book Online Page A

all those pictures would go from developing tank to wastebasket, but they were an essential part of the ritual leading up to the picture.
    Tick-tick, tick-tick, two frames a second. The glint of light off King Pemberton’s gold tooth. The moment when an eyelid began its descent in a “let’s share the secret” wink. The brief self-satisfied nod at an explosive flurry of treble notes.
    And there it was, there it was. He had it! King Pemberton, the Blues Man, no sham, no pretense, nothing of the self-willed mask people create and wear to protect their most secret selves from the hurts of the world, tiny and great. This was a nakedly honest face, the face of a man who could boldly declare, “I know who I am.”
    That face was The Blues in Black and White, and it would probably be the cover photograph for the collection of pictures.
    The man with the camera had no doubt. He had a photo that was tshatsimo, the truth.
     
    Selena Lazone had tried to drink wine until she passed out, but long before that, she hit the stage in which her choking tears erupted, and for five straight minutes she had lain on the sofa, sobbing and moaning and hugging herself. After that came an attack of the hiccups, then a staggering rush to the bathroom to vomit her way back to near-sobriety.
    It was after three in the morning, and she felt like hell and terribly alone. All the living room lights were on, as though she could defy darkness and any of its manifestations merely by flipping a switch. On the stereo, WFMT, Chicago’s fine arts station, played a Bach fugue for string quartet. She’d hoped the precise, eminently rational Baroque music would offer subtle comfort, a promise that the universe was structured and meticulously arranged, a puzzle, perhaps, but a puzzle with pieces you could identify and fit together until a sensible pattern could be discerned.
    But the universe was mad and malign and never before had she felt so alone in it.
    Where was David? She needed him.
    Selena went to the window and for the thousandth time gazed out. The sliver of the moon scattered pinpoints of light that rode the peaks of Lake Michigan’s waves.
    Where was he? She loved him.
    Not that she wanted to. She had promised David Greenfield she would not love him. That would tip the delicate balances of their sensible relationship; after all, he did not love her, could not.
    But David Greenfield understood her, perhaps even better than she understood herself He knew Gypsies and had been raised by them, growing up among the people of tacho rat, true blood—with them, but not one of them. His first major collection of photographs was the prizewinning study of Gypsies entitled Rom. David knew who she had been, what she had been, knew why she had split herself off from that person and her people to recreate herself as an entirely new individual, one who had a meaningful place in the Gaje world.
    She did not hear his key in the door. A moment later, though, when he stepped into the living room, she sensed him and turned even before he said, “Selena,” the single word asking just what she was doing up at this hour, as he slipped the Nikon off his neck and placed it on the low coffee table.
    “I need you,” was her only answer. She ran to him and threw herself at him, his arms strong around her. She pressed tight against him, feeling the familiar exactness of his legs, his stomach, his chest, that made him uniquely David Greenfield, him and no one else…
    His lips were on hers, their mouths open, tongues touching, exploring protuberances and depressions, softness and hardness and wetness. His breath was inside her, hers within him.
    Like clumsy wrestlers, they awkwardly dropped to the floor. His hands were under her green gown, peeling it from her like a banana skin. She threw herself into feeling, turning off the part of mind given to thought. There was the soft itch of the carpet beneath her buttocks and shoulder blades, his hands on her breasts, fingers