Crossing on the Paris by Dana Gynther

Author:Dana Gynther
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781451678253
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2012-11-13T07:00:00+00:00

DAY FOUR

Vera lay on her bed, imagining that the roll of the ship were a flying trapeze. The view from her window was black—it couldn’t be more than five o’clock—but the seas were clearly raging. From this perspective—a first-class suite on the uppermost deck—it was almost pleasant. What a contrast to her first hearty sea adventures, when the waves came crashing over the rails, soaking your skin and nearly flinging you off the boat. Snug in bed, Bibi at her side, she was smiling, assured there was no real danger, when she heard a crash.

She bolted up and groped for the lamp, then peered around the room for the source of the noise. Relieved to find the window intact, she was nonetheless disgruntled to see her portrait lying facedown on the floor.

A chill on her skin and an ache in her bones, she slowly eased herself out of bed, navigating the tilting floor. She grasped the picture with both hands, then swiftly returned to the warmth of the blankets.

Vera held the drawing in front of her, this portrait dating back to her prime. In it, her long hair was loosely gathered under a broad-brim hat, a hint of veil covering her face. A youthful thirtyseven, she playfully eyes the artist from the side, a cocky smile captured.

The glass was cracked on the face of her former likeness, giving it some of her current wrinkles. Could this bring bad luck, like breaking a mirror? But no, this image was so old, she had already lived through its seven years of misfortune: the war, her disease, a diversity of unpleasantness.

Vera was studying the drawing, the self-assured lines, the surprising color choices (she’d always relished that touch of sea green in her hair), when she realized that this was roughly what she’d looked like when she met Laszlo Richter. This was the face he had fallen in love with. What had he admired about her? It probably had more to do with her spirit than her looks. Again she thought back on their first dinner together; describing the most elemental details of his life in Budapest—his high-level post at an international bank, his old-fashioned house with a view of the Danube, his hounds and horses—his wife had not been included. Had this face bewitched him?

She reached for her journals and pen on the nightstand. She turned to an empty page in the back (with a weak smile for the soaring balloon) and tried to draw Laszlo’s face. The visit the day before with young Max—who boasted some of his grandfather’s features in miniature—had helped jog her memory. After making a moderately successful outline of his middle-aged face, she proceeded to age it. She let his jaw sag, she lined his brow, thinned out his hair. Would his ears have grown long and hairy? His eyebrows uncontrollably bushy? Would he have lost his teeth? She continued adding the pitfalls of old age to the drawing, until finally it resembled a ghoul. She chuckled sadly at the sketch, thinking that, indeed, they would have made a good match, here at the end.

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