Return to Lesbos. Valerie Taylor

are here to be sold, she thought, this is a bookstore. Why are they on display if they’re not for sale? But she said nothing. Something more was involved—this was a matter with deep emotional implications, and anything she said was likely to be wrong. It was the boy, Vince, who said with an impatient edge to his voice, “You can have them back if you’ve changed your mind. Go on, take them home with you.”

      Erika’s face was hard and cold. She looked at Frances. “Let her take them if she wants. But not for money.”

      “Look, we went through this with the insurance money.”

      “It’s the same thing.”

      Vince said to Frances, “It’s not just curiosity, is it? You won’t pass them around for your friends to laugh at?”

      Frances said steadily, daring everything now, “If I had any friends here, they’d be interested for different reasons.”

      Vince smiled. “Okay, they’re yours. No charge. Get them out of Erika’s way. She likes to come here and brood.”

      Erika put the clipboard down on the counter, carefully, as though it might shatter. She walked soundlessly out of the store. The chimes over the door jingled. A streak of sunlight flashed across the floor and was gone.

      Vince took the half dozen assorted books Frances was holding, since she seemed unable to put them down. “Don’t look that way. I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings.”

      “It’s her feelings.”

      “Her best friend was killed. I told you.” The graceful shrug was as much a part of him as his clear brown eyes. “Girls are so sentimental. You have to go on living, and sooner or later you find someone else. It’s a little soon for her, that’s all.”

      Frances said in a whisper, “I like her.”

      “Sure. She’s had a bad time. She’s an Austrian, she was in a concentration camp when she was eleven, twelve years old, I don’t know exactly. Her whole family was murdered. I think it took all the courage she had to really love anyone—I think Kate was the only person she ever gave a damn about. If Kate had lived they would have stayed together forever like an old married couple. She’s a monogamous type,” Vince said, apparently not considering monogamy much of a virtue.

      Frances opened one of the paperbacks to hide her confusion. The name, Kate Wood, was written strongly across the top of the title page in black ink. She said, “Some people would have kept these, and grieved over them.”

      “Erika’s very strong. It would be better if she yelled and fainted,” Vince said sadly. “I love her. Not in an erotic way, of course.”

      Frances said, “I think I could love her, period.”

      “You’re gay.”

      “Yes.”

      “Doing anything about it?”

      “Not right now.”

      “You should never admit you’re gay,” Vince said quietly, “people have such fantastic ideas. You have to wear a disguise most of the time—if somebody finds out!” He drew a finger across his throat. “It’s worse for us, though.”

      “I believe you.”

      He lifted graceful shoulders. “So keep the books. Erika won’t take money for them. It’s a superstition, like the women who won’t cash their children’s insurance policies. We went through that, too. Kate had a group policy where she worked, made out to Erika as the beneficiary. Erika paid the funeral expenses out of it and gave the rest away. She’s terribly hard up, she never has any money, but that’s what she wanted to do.”

      “I can see how she felt.”

      “Yeah, but couldn’t she see that Kate wanted to leave her provided for? She hasn’t got a nickel saved. What happens if she gets sick and can’t work?”

      I’d take care of her, Frances thought, warming. I’d work my hands off to take care of her.

      “She gave away all Kate’s clothes and all the furniture and stuff they had and moved into a furnished room. I don’t know what it’s like, I’ve never been there. As far as I know nobody has. I’ve got a key, she gave it to me when she got out of the hospital—she was afraid of dying in her sleep,” Vince said matter-of-factly. “She was supposed to call me up every day, and if she missed a day I was supposed to check. But she never missed. You don’t just walk in on Erika.”

      Frances wondered if it were a warning. She said, “I’ll take care of the books. Maybe she’ll want them back some time.”

      “I don’t know why she didn’t keep them.”

      Frances knew. Books have a life of their own. She felt warm and tender, as though she were melting with compassion. She said with some difficulty, “Tell her I took them, will you? And tell her—”

      “With some things, you have to do your own telling.”

      “Yes. Of course. Can I take some of these now and come back for the rest?”

      “Any time, sure. Wash your hands before you go.”

      Out in the street, she looked around with some surprise. For a while she had forgotten where she was—and who she was supposed to be. Maybe, she thought, I can start being myself again. She stood uncertainly in the middle of the sidewalk, holding the heavy package Vince had tied for her: ten, and she could pick up the rest a few at a time. She had a good reason to go back.

      Furniture, she thought dimly, finding her crumpled lists as she hunted for tissues in her handbag. She didn’t want to shop. She wanted to go somewhere and think about Erika Frohmann. She wanted to talk to Kay, who was in Iran by this time and out of her reach since there are some things you can’t say in letters.

      Vaguely, with nothing better to do, she made her way to Shapiro’s and roamed through the furniture department on the top floor, looking at things without seeing them, until her package became too heavy.

      What difference did it make how she furnished the house? It wasn’t her house, never would be. She wasn’t going to stay in it. But she realized that she would have to account for the day to Bill.

      She had forgotten Bill, too. For a couple of hours he had stopped existing.

      She stood in front of a French Provincial chest, looking beyond it, holding her packet of books as though it were a child.