Evil Eye Page 18

Turning away with a look of wounded dignity. And the fear beneath.

  Turning away on the graveled path clutching at his cane hoping that the confrontation had ended, he would be allowed to leave; that N., the girl’s fiancé, advancing upon him, was going to let him go.

  I want him to shit his pants. To be that scared.

  The savagery of these words shocked her. She had no idea where they had come from.

  She was hanging back, very excited. The shivering had begun, her teeth were chattering. She saw the chagrin, sick-guilt, yet righteousness in her grandfather’s face. No! They could not let him walk away.

  He would have walked away except N. sprang after him. The joy in N.’s face as he grabbed the fancy shining-ebony cane.

  Sir! What are you—

  Fuck you, old man! You’re not going anywhere.

  Foolishly G. tried to retrieve the cane. N. swung the cane at him, striking his head, his shoulders. Swift and deadly and unerring and paying no heed to the old man’s pleas.

  She was hiding her face. A little girl peeking through her fingers.

  In the parking lot the last of the cemetery visitors were driving away. This was a good-luck sign: a blessing.

  She was telling N. it was enough, now.

  N. paid not the slightest heed to her. He did not hear her at all.

  With a kind of sick fascination she held back. She saw her lover N. striking G., who’d been Grandpapa. She wanted to cry No! Stop! He did love me.

  Within seconds the white-haired man had fallen. Still N. continued to strike at him, cursing.

  The white-haired man on hands and knees in the grass. Desperately trying to crawl, to escape amid the gravestones.

  N. stooped over him, now striking him with his closed fist. You filthy son of a bitch. You disgusting old pervert. Inflicting yourself on a little girl—you bastard! She shut her eyes, she could not bear to see the white-haired man so humiliated, broken.

  Yet there was pleasure in this: so swiftly happening after the stasis of years.

  And still G. was pleading. Not to her but to N., whom he had never seen before in his life and whose taut furious face would be the last face he saw.

  She should have intervened. Beforehand, she knew she would feel this way, afterward.

  Yet she did not move. Eagerly her eyes were fixed on the fallen man, the bright exploding blood from his scalp, his flailing hands.

  You’re filth. You don’t deserve to live, you filth.

  The old man whimpered. The younger man cursed him.

  A beating of several minutes. You thought it would cease, yet it continued. Such a deliberate beating can’t be rushed, or careless. Even N. was staggering with exhaustion, he’d broken the ebony cane across a grave marker and flung both pieces at the fallen man in disgust.

  When they left the cemetery, walking without haste on the graveled path, not wanting to attract attention on the graveled path, they checked another time and saw no one: Cross Memorial Cemetery was deserted.

  From the parking lot, no one was visible in Cross Memorial Cemetery. Within a few hours the sun would sink beneath the horizon, for dusk came early at this time of year in Rochester, New York.

  They drove to the hotel where they were Mr. & Mrs.

  Eleventh floor of a high-rise building overlooking the interstate and already headlights were shining, out of the gathering darkness.

  N.’s breath was still quickened, hoarse. She’d discovered that he was asthmatic, to a mild degree. As a boy, he’d suffered more seriously from the condition.

  Wryly rubbing his knuckles. Though he’d worn thin leather gloves, yet his knuckles ached.

  I hope you didn’t h-hurt him badly. I hope . . .

  God damn! I hope I did.

  N. had opened the minibar. N. poured a tiny bottle of scotch into a glass for Ceille and a tiny bottle of scotch into a glass for himself. Laughing they struck the glasses together, hard. Ceille steeled herself, lifted the glass and swallowed.

  They fell onto the absurd king-sized bed. The size of a football field as N. described it.

  Drinking, and laughing. They were so happy suddenly.

  N. kissed her, protruding his tongue into her mouth. She could not breathe, she was so very excited. The man kissed her breasts, her belly, he’d tugged open her clothing, she could not restrain him. In the cemetery G. was dying of an artery broken and bleeding into his brain. She seemed to know this. She was touching N.’s penis to guide it into her, or against her; gently nudging between her legs, the sweetest of caresses she felt with such intense pleasure, she could scarcely bear it. And he, the man, whose name she had forgotten in the exigency of the moment, shuddered and moaned in her arms as she held him, as tightly as her arms could clutch.

  In the cemetery miles away the old man would not regain consciousness. The beautiful white hair was soaking with blood. The skull like an eggshell had been cracked and could not ever be repaired.

  A trickle of sensation in her groin, she began to shudder, it came so strong. She shut her eyes seeing the trickle of blood seeping into the old man’s brain. She would have wept except N. was kissing her mouth and his tongue filled her mouth.

  No one will ever know she thought. Our secret.