The Summer of Katya by Trevanian Read Free Book Online Page B

everything—everything worth knowing, that is.”
    “Can you tell me anything about the house, Etcheverria?”
    “Only that it’s a terribly damp old place that might have been designed by a member of our profession specializing in lung disorders.”
    “You have never heard anything about its being haunted?”
    “Haunted? No. But I would be delighted to add that bit of information to the mass of rumor surrounding the Trevilles, if you wish.”
    “That won’t be necessary.”
    “Ah! Here come the municipal thieves, eager for their nightly shearing.” Indeed, the lawyer, Matre Lanne, and the village banker were approaching across the square. Each evening they joined Doctor Gros in games of bezique at which he inevitably won, not without muttered accusations of cheating. “I perform a useful service for these worthies, you know. I disemburden them of worldly wealth, making it possible for them to pass through the eye of a needle, as it were.”
    “I’ll be going.”
    “As you please. May I look forward to the pleasure of your company at the clinic tomorrow? Or have you decided to abandon medicine in favor of bicycle theft and girl molesting?”
    “I’ll be there in the morning. But… I may want to take off a bit of time in the afternoon.”
    “Ah-h-h, I see.” His voice was moist with conspiracy.
    “Mlle Treville will be coming into town,” I explained needlessly.
    “Ah-h-h, I see.”
    “No, you don’t see!” I felt at one time both anger at his implication of wrongdoing and a childish sense of pleasure at being teased about her… as though she were mine to be teased about. “She has to fetch her bicycle,” I clarified.
    “Ah-h-h, I see. Yes, of course. Her bicycle. To be sure.”
    “I offered to bring it out to her, but she… I don’t know why I am bothering to explain all this to you.”
    “Confession is good for the spirit, Montjean. It empties the soul, making space for more sin.”
    I rose as the village worthies arrived and excused myself for having to run along without the privilege of their conversation.
    After scribbling sketches and impressions in my journal and finding myself several times frozen in midsentence, staring through the page and smiling at nothing, I blew out my lamp and lay back against the bolster. The details of the room slowly emerged through the blackness as my eyes accustomed themselves to the moonglow that softly illuminated the curtain. All that night I drifted in and out of a sleep lightly brushed with images and imaginings that were not quite dreams.

    * * *

    Incredible though it later seemed, I woke the next morning without a trace of Katya in my mind, without the slightest sense of anticipation, beyond a general feeling of good will and buoyancy. It was not until I had made my toilet and was crossing the square to the caf where I took morning brioches and coffee that the thought that she was coming into town for her bicycle slipped casually into my mind, then leapt, as it were, from thin script to bold italics in an instant, and a smile brightened my face. It did not occur to me to use the word love in assessing my feelings. Katya had, to be sure, been either in my thoughts or just beyond the rim of them since I left her the day before, and I could recall with tactile memory the brush of her soft warm lips on my cheek. But love? No, I didn’t think of love. I was, however, ashamed to have forgotten all about her arrival for almost half an hour that morning. The lapse made me feel inconstant… unfaithful, almost.
    The day crawled by, the passage of time marked only by my trivial duties and tasks, and I began to fear that she would not come after all. The deterioration of the weather increased my apprehension as single dazzling clouds, like torn meringues, sailed lazily overhead and began to pile up on the horizon, thickening to a dark pewter. Would she decide not to dare the walk into Salies? What if she arrived, then a great storm broke, making it impossible