Reprisal

She sat on the bed and tried for the thousandth time to sort out her feelings for her son. Despite everything there was love—at least on her part. He was Jim's child, and carrying him within her for nine months had forged a bond that would not break, no matter how bizarre his mental abilities and his behavior. And yet there was fear too. Not fear for herself, but fear of the unknown. Who was Jimmy? Carol wanted desperately to be a parent to him, but that had proven impossible. He seemed like a fully developed adult in a toddler's body. He'd been born with an encyclopedic knowledge of the world and its history and he was ravenous for more.

Suddenly the screams from the nursery stopped. Carol stepped out into the hallway in time to see the tall, lean figure of Jonah Stevens leading Jimmy toward the den.

"Jonah!" she said. "I want him in bed. He needs his rest."

Here was another skirmish in what had become a constant battle between mother and grandfather: Whatever Carol denied Jimmy, Jonah would give him. He almost worshiped the child.

Jonah smiled condescendingly. "No, Carol. He needs to learn all he can about the world. After all, it's going to be his someday."

Jimmy barely glanced up as he toddled past her to the den. Carol leaned against the wall and fought the tears as she heard the news begin to blare anew from the TV screen.

OCTOBER

FIVE

North Carolina

"What a wonderful piece of filmmaking!" Rafe said as they left the auditorium.

Lisl smiled at him. "I can't believe you've never seen Metropolis before."

"Never. Those sets! How much have I missed by ignoring silent films? I've always avoided them—all those histrionics. But that's going to change. Next stop: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligaril"

Lisl laughed. She'd been seeing a lot of Rafe since Cal Rogers's party. She felt comfortable with him. More than that, she felt confident with him. Never a dull moment, never a lag in the conversation. Always something to talk about—some new idea, some new theory about anything that struck his fancy. His mind was a voracious, restlessly foraging omnivore, always on the prowl for new game, new fields in which to graze. She'd come to see their pretzel conversation that night at Cal's as a paradigm of so many of their conversations over the past few weeks. Rafe found significance in every little action of an individual. "The increments of personality," he called them. He said he pla

As the weeks passed, they'd progressed from lunches to di

But would she turn him down? Could she?

Lisl caught herself. Sexual feelings for Rafe? Preposterous. Dreaming of a sexual relationship with him? Impossible.

First off, he was too young. Ten years was simply too much of a gap in time and experience and maturity…

But he was mature. Rafael Losmara was not the typical graduate student, not someone who had passed through the college experience yet was still in a state of becoming. Rafe seemed to be complete. God, there were times when he seemed so much older than she, when she felt like a child learning at his feet. He seemed to see everything so clearly. He had this ability to cut through all the layers of pretense and get to the core of whatever matter was at hand.

But even if she could forget the years between them and acknowledge that he was mature enough for a serious relationship, Lisl still had to ask herself a very basic question: Why?

Why should someone as wealthy, bright, talented, and good-looking as Rafe Losmara, who could cut a sexual swath through the female graduate students and the hordes of nubile undergraduates as well, want to get involved with an older woman? A dumpy divorcee, no less.

Good question. One not easily answered, because Rafe wasn't chasing other students, graduate or undergraduate. As far as Lisl knew, she was the only woman in his life at the moment. The thought had crossed her mind that he might be gay. But he didn't seem interested in men, either.

Recently she had noticed little touches, sidelong glances that seemed to hint at something bubbling beneath his cool exterior. Or was she reading too much into them, looking for something she hoped might be there?

He was a lot like Will. Maybe they were both asexual. Why not? And what did it matter? They had a nice platonic relationship, one that brightened many a day for her. Very much like the one she shared with Will. She decided to be satisfied with that, because it was unrealistic to the point of delusion to think it could be anything more.

Rafe took her hand and squeezed it. A tingle ran up her arm.

"Thank you, Lisl. Thanks for suggesting this."

"Don't thank me. Thank Will."

"Will?" Rafe's brow furrowed. "Oh, yes. That intellectual groundskeeper you told me about. Thank him for me."

"If he's here, you can thank him yourself."

"I'd love to meet him. He sounds interesting."

Lisl searched the small crowd of attendees and immediately spotted Everett Sanders's reed-thin figure passing nearby. She waved him over and introduced him to Rafe.

"An impressive film, don't you think?" Rafe said.

"Extraordinary."

Lisl said, "We're going over to the Hidey-hole for a drink. Want to come along?"

Ev shook his head. "No. I have some work to do. And speaking of work, I understand you intend to submit a paper for the Palo Alto conference."

"I thought I'd give it a shot," she said, suddenly uncomfortable. Even though she had every right in the world to submit a paper, she felt as if she were crashing his party.

"I'm sure it will be brilliant," he said. "Good luck."

"Sure you won't have that drink with us?" Rafe said.

"Positive. I must be off. Good night."

"A bit stiff, don't you think?" Rafe said as they watched Ev stride away.

"Maybe that's why I like him," Lisl said. "When he's around I feel like a swinger."

She resumed her search for Will but he wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Strange. He'd seemed so enthusiastic about the university film society's acquisition of a fully restored print of the Fritz Lang classic, telling her all about the recently discovered dream-sequence footage. Yet this afternoon he'd said he was going to try to make it. There had been a hint of melancholy in his voice, as if he knew there was no chance of his being there. Too bad. He'd have loved it. Lisl had once seen a shorter version on TV and hadn't been too impressed. But tonight, in a theater, in the dark with a full-size screen, the scope of the images had been mesmerizing.

To Rafe it had been some sort of epiphany.

"You know," he said, raising his voice as they walked out into the night, "I wonder if adding sound to films really improved them."

"It forced the acting to improve, that's for sure."

"True. All that mugging and those exaggerated gestures were no longer necessary. But not having sound forces the filmmaker to use the visual medium to the max. It's all he has. He can't tell you things, so he's got to show you. My new theory of film criticism:

If you can close your eyes and still follow the story line, maybe they should have saved the celluloid for some other feature and performed the script on the radio. If you can plug your ears and follow the story with your eyes only, there's a damn good chance you've got a good movie on your hands."