The Last Enemy by Grace Brophy Page B

Perhaps I should talk to Orlic now.” He looked at his watch. “It’s after one. Has she eaten?”
    “My budget doesn’t extend to feeding suspects. When she’s under arrest, we’ll be happy to feed her,” Russo replied. “She’s right next door, primed and ready,” he added with disdain, swinging the door open between his office and the interrogation room.
    7
    SOPHIE ORLIC HAD been sitting on the wooden bench in the police interview room for more than four hours. It was the first time in years that she’d been alone with her thoughts for so long a period, without an invalid to feed or dress, flowers to arrange, or deadening sleep to repulse memory. She’d found early on that it was impossible to keep the dark memories at bay through all her waking hours, so she’d devised ways to keep them in check. She would remember only those that gave her pleasure. And even then she had certain rules: No reminiscences after the age of fourteen, the year that she’d met Sergio at the lycée.
    Too often, however, she was caught unaware, betrayed by her senses. Just yesterday while working in the cemetery, a large black bee with blue-violet wings, its body shiny like patent leather, had lighted on one of her flowers. Startled by its beauty, she had looked up and caught her breath at the sweep of countryside below, so like the countryside where she and Sergio had spent their summers. The memories flooded in of the long hot days when they were fifteen. They would escape from pulling weeds in her grandparents’ kitchen garden and hide behind the tall ears of ripening corn. When she managed to steal some of her grandfather’s tobacco, they would roll it in the yellowing corn leaves and assault their lungs with the pleasures of illicit smoke. It was there, hidden behind the tall rows of corn, that they had first kissed.
    When they’d turned sixteen, it was spring and the corn was still in seed, so they sought privacy further afield, by the river that ran below her grandparents’ farm. Sophie had spotted wildflowers growing amid the meadow grass on the other side of the river, and they had waded through the cool muddy waters, holding hands and laughing as they stumbled on the smooth rocks that lined the riverbed. On the other side, they’d climbed the steep bank until they reached the elusive flowers. Their petals, the color of crushed strawberries, curved inward to cup golden yellow stamen. The flowers reminded Sophie of the magenta goblets flecked with bits of gold that her parents had brought back from their honeymoon in Venice.
    That day she and Sergio made love for the first time. He had picked one of the flowers and drawn it softly across her neck and, later, when she had asked, between her breasts and thighs. Afterward, they lay on their backs, the flower filling the air with its delicate perfume, and talked of their future, the children they would have, and the work they would do. They were young, idealistic, and gloriously in love with each other and a world that had not yet betrayed them. Sophie kept the wildflower to show her grandmother. It was she who gave it a name— peony peregrina —the rarest of wildflowers and the most protected. For Sophie, it was the most beautiful flower in the world.
    “Signora Orlic?” she heard a voice say, drawing her back to the present. She looked up to see a man standing directly in front of her. He was tall, two or three inches over six feet, of medium build, and casually dressed in a brown leather jacket and faded jeans. Perhaps because she was still caught up in her memories, she noticed the color of his eyes first. They were a translucent blue-violet, the color of lapis lazuli, a sharp contrast to his jet-black hair. Like the bee, she thought, and just as likely to sting.
    She nodded in assent, looking down at the baskets of flowers at her feet, avoiding his eyes. She had done more than day-dream in those four hours of waiting; she had also planned. She would say nothing