Not Even for Love(19)

Holding her breath, she slid her eyes toward him and met a gaze as alarmed and electrified as her own. Gratefully she felt the car slow down as they reached their destination.

Stadtkeller was a popular restaurant-nightclub in the city of Lucerne. An evening there was included in virtually every organized tour. The rustic tavern was loud, raucous, friendly. The specialty of the house was fondue, and while patrons gorged on the hard bread dipped in chafing dishes of melted cheese, they were entertained by performers in native costume.

The men wore lederhosen of gray suede trimmed with dark green leather with white, full-sleeved shirts. Knee-high socks with red tassels covered their legs, made muscular by mountain climbing. The women wore blouses embroidered in bright colors, black velvet basques laced tightly over their bosoms, and full skirts.

They sang, yodeled, danced folk dances, played the massive and unique alpenhorns—all to the enthusiastic endorsement of the crowd. Reeves snapped the shutter of his camera with a speed that awed Jordan. He changed lenses, filters, and film with machinelike accuracy. His film captured a toddling little girl with rosy cheeks and blond curly hair. She alternately stuffed bread or chocolate into her cherub mouth while clapping her hands excitedly in rhythm with the wheezing oomp-pa music.

“Who knows,” Reeves said when he returned to the table and Helmut teased about his interest in the child, “I may sell an Alpine piece to National Geographic. Or she’s pretty enough to go on a poster. I’ll see how the pictures turn out. Anyway, I love kids. They’re great photographic subjects in any culture.”

He rubbed his hands together eagerly after he closed up his camera for the night and dug into the stringy, chewy cheese and hard bread with a healthy appetite.

Helmut poured white wine into their chafing dish and mixed it with the cheese. Soon all three of them were feeling mellow and laughing at the adventurous stories Reeves regaled them with.

“Would you like coffee before we take Jordan home?” Helmut asked when they left the noisy nightclub.

“Sounds great.”

Helmut signaled his chauffeur to follow them with the car and they walked a few blocks to a restaurant across the street from the lake shore. They sacrificed sitting outside because of the cold and went inside to the quiet, elegant ambiance of the restaurant, where Helmut and Jordan were formally greeted by the maître d’.

“I know Jordan wants hot chocolate. Reeves?” Helmut asked.

“Coffee,” he said.

When their waiter brought back their order, Jordan sipped at the steamy mug topped with foamy whipped cream. Never had she enjoyed dairy products so much until she came to Switzerland. They were unsurpassed anyplace in the world.

She ran the tip of her tongue along her foam-flecked lips, but when she sat back Reeves saw a drop of the whipped cream in the corner of her mouth. Without even thinking on it, he reached toward it and flicked it away, then licked the cream off his finger. They smiled, caught up in a private, intimate moment that hadn’t been planned, but had happened on its own and for no other reason, than that they had looked at each other.

Helmut, who had been lighting a cigarette, didn’t see the reason for the silence he interrupted by saying, “Jordan has one vice, I’ve found. She has a penchant for our Swiss chocolate. I fear that in her old age she’ll grow quite fat.”

“I will not!” Jordan exclaimed heatedly, and they laughed at her vehemence. Embarrassed, she went back to her cup of chocolate and drained it while they lingered over their coffee.

“Why don’t you take Reeves across the bridge,” Helmut suggested.

“What?” she asked too quickly, startled.

“By now you know the history of it as well as I,” Helmut said. “I’ll sit here and drink another cup of coffee and smoke another cigarette while you take Reeves across the bridge and back. You haven’t yet seen it, have you, Reeves?”

Reeves wasn’t looking at Helmut. He was staring at Jordan. Finally he answered, “No, I haven’t seen it except at a distance. I’d love to know everything about it.”

Jordan shot him a quelling look. “We can wait until you’re finished, then we’ll all go,” she said to Helmut.

“Darling, you know that I despise sight-seeing in general. Be hospitable to our guest for me.”

“Very well,” she said, standing up abruptly. Better to get it over with. “Let’s go,” she said as ungraciously as she could without raising Helmut’s suspicions.

She reached for her coat, but Reeves was too quick and grabbed it out of the vacant chair. He held it for her as she slipped into the sleeves. “We’ll be back shortly, Helmut,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.