“Thanks. This is my assistant. I hope Ms. Roth explained on the phone that this is just a pre-interview. We’re going to get a feeling for the place, and then we can set a date for the photographers and do the rest of the interview in email or on the phone.”
Yes, Vanity Fair. Don’t even ask about all the favors Monica had to call in to make this lie work for me. You can get people to give interviews who’d never let you across their doorstep otherwise, especially if it’s for a big-name publication.
“Just so.” Arash made a funny little bow, then led us down a hallway and across a courtyard where a tiled fountain blipped and splashed, to a high-ceilinged reception room chock-a-block with (I had no doubt) precious Middle Eastern antiques and some of the most beautiful carpets I’d ever seen, in or out of a museum.
“Please wait while I tell her you’re here.” He slipped through a tall door into the next room.
I looked at Oxana, whose wide eyes suggested she’d never been inside any private building this big in her life. “Pictures?” I whispered. “Remember, anything written down or any photos that look contemporary.”
She turned to me, confused. “Con-temp . . . ?”
“New. Any pictures that look new.”
Arash emerged and graced us with another bow. “Ms. Sepanta will see you.”
“Wander around a bit,” I told Oxana loud enough for him to hear. “I’m sure Mr. Arash will be happy to show you a few likely locations for the shoot.”
Mr. Arash didn’t look all that happy, to be honest, but he nodded and gave me a tight smile. “Of course.”
He showed me through a door and into a greenhouse. That’s what it seemed like at first, anyway, even though the roof wasn’t glass. An amazing number of plants turned it green on all sides—plants in pots along the walls, in smaller pots on various surfaces, and even in hanging baskets. Several of them had their own individual misters attached, which made the orchids and other blossoms sway like the heads of colorful snakes. The room was so thick with moisture that I felt like I’d suddenly developed a head cold.
The second thing I saw was Donya Sepanta, rising from a teak desk at the far end of the room. Two thoughts struck me simultaneously.
The first was, “I’m in love.”
The second was, “It’s her.”
Monica had been right—she was beautiful, with long black hair braided into several intricate loops, and yet with most of it still loose and flowing over her shoulders. She was tall, with skin the color of flawless old ivory, and the most perfect bone structure I’d ever seen on a mortal body. She might have been thirty or she might have been fifty, but it didn’t matter. Any room she walked into, she would have been the only woman anyone saw.
Luckily for me, I recognized that the immense urge I suddenly felt to throw myself at her feet and apologize for ever having thought her guilty of a single bad deed was not only a very bad idea, it was not even real. No, it was glamour of the oldest, most magical sort, the kind that caused mortal men to dance away their lives in a fairy mound, or return every year of their lives to a hilltop where they’d once seen beauty running naked on Midsummer’s Eve, until they finally died miserable and unfulfilled old men.
“Ms. Sepanta,” I said, somehow mustering enough saliva to speak without croaking. “So nice of you to see me. My editors are going to be thrilled.”
“Come in, Mr. Bell.” The voice was a stunning, throaty alto, but I thought I could also hear the childlike tones of Anaita, the angelic ephor, lurking inside it, like tiny pearls wrapped in black velvet.
As she walked toward me I saw her eyes widen just a small, almost unnoticeable fraction; she quickly covered it with a smile so white and perfect I had to fight the urge to fall to my knees all over again. Either she’d just decided I was one sexy dude or she’d pierced my cover already, from all the way across the room. “I’ve been waiting for you.” She took my hand in her warm, dry one—and how did she stay dry in a room that felt like a sauna? She looked me in the eyes long enough to make my hand sweat even more, then let it go. “Will you have something to drink?”
I said yes, hoping that Oxana might be left alone somewhere while Arash the high priest or whoever he was went to fetch it, but Donya Sepanta only returned to her desk and pushed a button on her phone and asked someone to bring in some refreshments.
“You have an amazing house,” I said. My heart was beating so hard I was surprised it wasn’t rattling the windows. It was really her sitting there, the one who’d tried to erase me from existence. We were finally, actually face-to-face. “Just beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She paused as a maid dressed in a tunic over loose pants tiptoed in with a platter and set out ice water and lemonade on a small table near the window, then put down a plate of fruit and went out as silently as she’d come in. “Let’s sit here where we can see the garden. It is my greatest joy.” Her voice was like honey. I’m not talking about the cliche, I’m talking about how hearing her talk really felt like something sweet and golden and warm and sticky was being poured over me.
Goddess of Fertility indeed. Just being in the same room with her made me want to fertilize everything in sight. I took a few pieces of melon and a half a pomegranate onto a plate to give me something to fiddle with, then forced myself to concentrate, when all I really wanted to do was lie down and listen to her.
Despite her enormous beauty and supreme self-confidence, I thought I could sense a bit of tension in my hostess. She knew who I was, I felt sure, or at least what I was. Which was no more than I had expected would happen, although I had hoped the suspense might last a little longer.
“So, here we are,” she said, and laughed. Her laugh was predictably melodious. “You must have lots of questions you want to ask me. Please, feel free.”
Don’t be stupid, Bobby, I told myself. She’s playing it straight—you have to, too. But I couldn’t help feeling that maybe what Anaita was playing was me. “Oh, we have lots of questions about your fascinating life and your even more fascinating work, Ms. Sepanta,” I said. “Everybody I’ve met here in San Judas talks about all the things you’ve done for the city—but we’ll do most of this in the interview, of course. I just like to . . . get a feel for people. See them on their home turf.”
“Well, you are a most thorough young man!” She laughed again. She might be a little tense, but I was feeling more and more like I was the one sitting in a cage with a very large, very beautiful lioness who could swallow me whole without crimping a whisker. “I admire that. And are you . . . getting a feeling?”
“I’m a bit overwhelmed, to tell the truth. This is all so impressive.”
She gave a careless flip of her perfectly manicured hand. “I need a place where I can get away from the stress. The modern world is a very tiring place, I think. How about you, Mr. Bell? Do you find the modern world a bit much at times?”
“I guess. But it’s the only world I’ve got.”
“Ah.” She sat back with her glass of water, toyed with the lemon peel floating in the glass. “Myself, I long for the old days. You know this is not my native home, yes?”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Then you can imagine how much more important it is for me to feel safe here, in this new home of mine. That is why I have so much security. I’m sure you must have noticed the guards.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“I do not wish to be . . . paranoid.” She smiled again. “But a woman in my position—well, there are people against whom I must protect myself. Bad people. Both from my old country and from this new land, where privacy is so hard to acquire. Satellites, computer hackers, so many people and magical devices which can pierce secrets, destroy privacy, ruin lives.”