Sleeping in Flame

"Terrific. I got some great pastrami today at Cantor's. Come on into the kitchen. Just watch out for Co

Sure enough, the pig moved right with me as I walked through the place. She leaned heavily against my left leg the whole way.

Venasque's home was a real surprise. Although afternoon shadows had moved in, the rooms were so full of colorful, luminous objects and furniture that it felt like there was sun everywhere. The chairs and couches were all soft and round, and covered with tropical flower/exotic bird Lily Pulitzer patterns. Mustard and lime and raspberry carpets sat lightly on the polished blond wood floors. He ate at a white rattan table in a white breakfast room. The pig stopped in that room and collapsed on the white shag carpet as if the long trip to the kitchen was too much for her. Venasque stopped and shook his head when he saw her flop down.

"Give a pig M & Ms and she gets tired halfway through the day. All that sugar goes right to her head. No more candy, Co

The pig looked at him and squeaked. He shook his head again, and started for the kitchen.

"What kind of pig is she?"

"Vietnamese. An old Vietnamese pig. Over there in Germany they call them 'Vietnamese hanging stomach' pigs. That's not a very nice name, is it? Especially not for someone as smart as her. Besides, she keeps Big Top company when I'm not around."

The kitchen was different. Unlike the frilly, feminine feel of the other rooms, this one was all tile and stainless steel. Very high-tech and "cool," but done in such an interesting, individual way, that I couldn't stop looking around at it while he assembled my sandwich.

"This is a marvelous room."

"You like it? Harry Radcliffe designed it. You know Harry?"

"The architect? Of course." I didn't know much about the subject, but Radcliffe was so famous that it would have been hard not to know who he was. Besides that, he was one of Maris's big heroes, and she had photographs of his buildings up all over her apartment.

"Yeah, well, Harry studied with me a while. Fu

"Now where's that mustard? I put it right out here on the counter. Big Top, go get me the mustard, will you?"

The bullterrier walked straight to the refrigerator and somehow, with a flick of his head (or nose), opened it. He got up on his hind legs, leaned deep into the fridge. Sticking his head forward, he put his mouth around something. A yellow tube of mustard. Jumping down, he closed the door with another head flick, and brought the tube to his master.

Venasque paid not attention. "Thanks, Big."

2.

"You want to rub your back up against my history, huh? Well, that's only fair. You told me yours."

We were sitting out on the small patio behind his house, drinking tea. January night had come and along with it, a coolness that snuck right into your bones. The tea tasted warm and good. Co

"Walker, I'll tell you something. Honesty fades as you grow older. You get better at lying, so you do it more. Specially about yourself. But you want to know about me, okay." He scratched his head, then rubbed both hands over the top of it. "I come from the South of France, originally. My parents were German circus people. They traveled through that area once in their lives on the way to a date in Monte Carlo. They liked it so much they jumped out of their old lives right there and stayed. In the circus they'd had an animal act, which is one of my first memories – fu

"We grew up with perfume smells, fu

My lessons began at the end of that sentence. I blinked once, thinking about his family and their picnics. The moment I closed my eyes, there was a completely different smell in the air. California night is damp and ripe; fresh-cut grass and dew, night-blooming flowers somewhere nearby. This new smell was dry and su

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a boy riding a zebra bareback past a field of lavender. Black, white, lavender, all moving, all movement. He wore white shorts but no shirt or shoes. Both boy and animal had the same serious, thoughtful expression on their faces.

"Do you want some wine?"

A woman with brown flyaway hair and bold green eyes knelt by my side, a glass of wine in her hand. I realized I was sitting in the shifting shade of a (chestnut?) tree with giant yellow leaves as my moving roof.

"The boy knows you're watching, Walker, so he's riding like a good cadet. If you weren't here, he'd go like the devil flying through hell. Here, come on and drink this." She shoved the glass at me with one hand, and pushed the hair out of her face with the other. I took it and, still watching the boy and zebra canter back and forth, forgot to thank her.

"It's Venasque, isn't it? When he was a boy."

"He is a boy! What do you think?" His mother's voice was a challenge.

A young girl with something cupped tightly between two small hands came from behind the tree. Smiling, she held it out to us: it was ours if we wanted. She looked very much like the boy.

"Mama, regarde!"

"What now, Ilonka, another lizard? Put it down. Show us."

The girl dropped to her knees, hands still cupped. She was eight. "Ilonka" means apple tree in Hungarian. Her husband's name was . . . would be . . . Raymond. She would be shot by the Nazis when she was twenty-eight. How did I know these things?