Toward the end of the first week—it was the day when the others made their pilgrimage up the river to David Courtney’s birthplace—Thimiroi encountered the golden-haired woman who had been playing the piano in the house down the block from the hotel. He caught sight of her downtown while he was crossing a plaza paved with pink cobblestones, which linked twin black towers of almost unthinkable height and mass near the river embankment.
Though he had only seen her for a moment, that one other time, and that time only her face and throat at the window, he had no doubt that it was she. Her blue-green eyes and long straight shining hair were unmistakable. She was fairly tall and very slender, with a tall woman’s quick way of walking, ankles close together, shoulders slightly hunched forward. Thimiroi supposed that she was about thirty, or perhaps forty at most. She was young, at any rate, but not very young. He had no clear idea of how quickly people aged in this era. The first mild signs of aging seemed visible on her. In his own time that would mean nothing—there, a woman who looked like this might be anywhere between fifty and a hundred and fifty—but he knew that here they had no significant way of reversing the effects of time, and what she showed was almost certainly an indication that she had left her girlhood behind by some years but had not yet gone very far into the middle of the journey.
“Pardon me,” he said, a little to his own surprise, as she came toward him.
She peered blankly at him. “Yes?”
Thimiroi offered her a disarming smile. “I’m a visitor here. Staying at the Montgomery House.”
The mention of the famous hotel—and, perhaps, his gentle manner and the quality of his clothing—seemed to ease whatever apprehensions she might be feeling. She paused, looking at him questioningly.
He said, “You live near there, don’t you? A few days ago, when I was out for a walk—it was my first day here—I heard you playing the piano. I’m sure it was you. I applauded when you stopped, and you looked out the window at me. I think you must have seen me. You frowned, and then you smiled.”
She frowned now, just a quick flicker of confusion; and then again she smiled.
“Just like that, yes,” Thimiroi said. “Do you mind if we talk? Are you in a hurry?”
“Not really,” she said, and he sensed something troubled behind the words.
“Is there some place near here where we could have a drink? Or lunch, perhaps?” That was what they called the meal they ate at this time of day, he was certain. Lunch. People of this era met often for lunch, as a social thing. He did not think it was too late in the day to be offering her lunch.
“Well, there’s the River Cafe,” she said. “That’s just two or three blocks. I suppose we—” She broke off. “You know, I never ever do anything like this. Let myself get picked up in the street, I mean.”
“Picked up? I do not understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“The phrase,” Thimiroi said. “Pick up? To lift? Am I lifting you?”
She laughed and said, “Are you foreign?”
“Oh, yes. Very foreign.”
“I thought your way of speaking was a little strange. So precise—every syllable perfectly shaped. No one really speaks English that way. Except computers, of course. You aren’t a computer, are you?”
“Hardly.”
“Good. I would never allow myself to be picked up by a computer in First National Plaza. Or anyplace else, as a matter of fact. Are you still interested in going to the River Cafe?”
“Of course.”
She was playful now. “We can’t do this anonymously, though. It’s too sordid. My name’s Christine Rawlins.”
“And I am called Thimiroi.”
“Timmery?”
“Thimiroi,” he said.
“Thim-i-roi,” she repeated, imitating his precision. “A very unusual name, I’d say. I’ve never met anyone named Thimiroi before. What country are you from, may I ask?”
“You would not know it. A very small one, very far away.”
“Iran?”
“Farther away than that.”
“A lot of people who came here from Iran prefer not to admit that that’s where they’re from.”
“I am not from Iran, I assure you.”
“But you won’t tell me where?”
“You would not know it,” he said again.
Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, you are from Iran! You’re a spy, aren’t you? I see the whole thing: they’re getting ready to have a new revolution, there’s another Ayatollah on his way from his hiding place in Beirut, and you’re here to transfer Iranian assets out of this country before—” She broke off, looking sheepish. “I’m sorry. I’m just being weird. Have I offended you?”
“Not at all.”
“You don’t have to tell me where you’re from if you don’t want to.”
“I am from Stiinowain,” he said, astounded at his own daring in actually uttering the forbidden name.
She tried to repeat the name, but was unable to manage the soft glide of the first syllable.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know anything about it at all. But you’ll tell me all about it, won’t you?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
The River Cafe was a glossy bubble of pink marble and black glass cantilevered out over the embankment, with a semicircular open-air dining area, paved with shining flagstones, that jutted even farther, so that it seemed suspended almost in mid-river. They were lucky enough to find one vacant table that was right at the cafe’s outermost edge, looking down on the swift blue riverflow. “Ordinarily the outdoor section doesn’t open until the middle of June,” Christine told him. “But this year it’s been so warm and dry that they opened it a month early. We’ve been breaking records every day. There’s never been a May like this, that’s what they’re all saying. Just one long run of fabulous weather day after day after day.”
“It’s been extraordinary, yes.”
“What is May like in Stiin—in your country?” she asked.
“Very much like this. As a matter of fact, it is rather like this all the year round.”
“Really? How wonderful that must be!”
It must have seemed like boasting to her. He regretted that. “No,” he said. “We take our mild climate for granted and the succession of beautiful days means nothing to us. It is better this way, sudden glory rising out of contrast, the darkness of winter giving way to the splendor of spring. The warm sunny days coming upon you like—like the coming of grace, shall I say?—like—” He smiled. “Like that heavenly little theme that came suddenly out of the music you were playing, transforming something simple and ordinary into something unforgettable. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”
He began to hum the melody. Her eyes sparkled, and she nodded and grinned warmly, and after a moment or two she started humming along with him. He felt a tightness at his throat, warmth along his back and shoulders, a throbbing in his chest. All the symptoms of a rush of strong emotion. Very strange to him, very primitive, very exciting, very pleasing.
People at other tables turned. They seemed to notice something also. Thimiroi saw them smiling at the two of them with that unmistakable proprietorial smile that strangers will offer to young lovers in the springtime. Christine must have seen those smiles too, for color came to her face, and for a moment she looked away from him as though embarrassed.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said.