Angelology(158)

for us to take shelter before releasing itself upon the spring flowers and green, receptive earth. The

feeling, I believe, was fear, although at the time I told myself it was love. The danger Percival posed

was not known to me. For all I could tell, he was just a young man who drove recklessly. I believe

now that I feared him instinctively. Still, he had captured my heart without effort. I watched him,

glancing at his lovely pale skin and his long, delicate fingers upon the gearshift. I couldn’t speak.

Over the bridge he sped, and then onto the rue de Rivoli, the wipers swishing across the windshield,

cutting a porthole through the water.

“‘Naturally I am taking you to lunch,’ he said, glancing at me as he slowed before a grand hotel off

the place de la Concorde. ‘I see that you’re hungry.’

“‘And how can you see such a thing as hunger?’ I replied, challenging him, although he was

correct: I had not eaten breakfast and was ravenous.

“‘I have a special talent,’ he said, taking the car out of gear, pulling the brake shaft, and peeling his

leather driving gloves from his hands one by one. ‘I know exactly what you desire before you know

yourself.’

“‘Then tell me,’ I demanded, hoping that he would find me bold and sophisticated, the very things I

knew I was not. ‘What do I want most of all?’

“He studied me for a moment. I saw, as I had in the first seconds of our meeting, the fleeting,

sensual cruelty behind his blue eyes. ‘A beautiful death,’ he said, so quietly I was not sure that I’d

heard him correctly. With that he opened the door and slid out of the car.

“Before I had time to question this bizarre statement, he opened the passenger door, helped me

from my seat, and we were walking arm in arm into the restaurant. Pausing at a gilded mirror, he shed

his hat and coat, glancing about as if the fleet of waiters rushing to assist him were too slow for his

taste. I watched the glass as his reflection moved, examining his profile, the beautifully cut suit of

light gray gabardine that in the harsh clarity of the mirror appeared almost blue, an off rhyme of his

eyes. His skin was deathly pale, nearly transparent, and yet this quality had the strange effect of

making him more attractive, as if he were a precious object that had been kept from the sun.”

As he listened to Gabriella’s tale, Verlaine tried to reconcile her description with the Percival

Grigori he had seen yesterday afternoon, but he could not. Clearly Gabriella did not speak of the

sickly, decrepit man Verlaine knew, but rather of the man Percival Grigori had once been. Instead of

questioning her, as he wished, Verlaine sat back and listened.

“Within seconds a waiter had taken our coats and was leading us into the dining room, a converted

ballroom that opened upon a courtyard garden. All the while I could feel him glancing at me with

intense interest, as if searching for my reaction.

“There was no question of menus or of ordering our dishes. Wineglasses were filled and plates

arrived, as if everything had been arranged ahead of time. Of course Percival achieved his desired

effect. My astonishment at it all was immense, although I tried to disguise it. While I had been sent to

fine schools and had been raised in the bourgeois fashion of the city, I was quite aware that this man

was beyond anything I had experienced. Looking over my clothes, I realized to my horror that I was

wearing my school attire, a detail I had overlooked in the excitement of the drive. In addition to my

drab clothing, my shoes were scuffed and I had forgotten my favorite perfume at my apartment.

“‘You’re blushing,’ he said. ‘Why?’

“I merely looked down at my pleated wool skirt and crisp white blouse, and he understood my

dilemma.

“‘You are the loveliest creature here,’ he said, without a hint of irony. ‘You look like an angel.’

“‘I look exactly like what I am,’ I said, pride overruling all other emotions. ‘A schoolgirl dining

with a wealthy older man.’

“‘I am not so much older than you,’ he said playfully.

“‘How much is not so much?’ I demanded. Although he appeared to be in his early twenties—an

age that was not, as he rightly said, much older than mine—his manners and the confidence with

which he carried himself seemed to belong to a man of great experience.

“‘I am more interested in you,’ he said, brushing away the question. ‘Tell me, do you enjoy your

studies? I believe you must. I own apartments near your school, and I have seen you before. You

always have the appearance of someone who has been in the library too long.’