‘Why don’t you take your sunglasses off?’
He laughs. Then he takes one of my pieces of butter and puts it on his bread. When he has finished eating he says, ‘I’m Gabriel.’ He pronounces it funny.
‘Gabrielle?’
He laughs again. ‘Yes, Gabriel.’
I put a section of butter on some bread and try it. It’s good, creamy.
‘How come you know my name?’
He smiles. ‘Everyone knows your name.’
‘No, they don’t.’
He sips his coffee and swirls it round and sips it again. ‘OK. You’re right, not everyone. But all Black Witches in Europe, some Black Witches in the States, most White Witches in Europe … most White Witches everywhere. Few fains, though, very few fains.’ He shrugs. ‘So … no, not everyone.’
And I see this famous person in his mirrored glasses looking back at me, not scowling but looking pretty miserable. I look away, out of the window to the distant section of mountains.
‘Is it that bad, being Nathan?’
Every White Witch I have ever met has known who I was. One look at me and … it’s like I’ve got a big sign on my head. It seems it’s going to be the same in the world of Black Witches.
I turn back to him. ‘I’d prefer to be anonymous.’
‘It won’t happen.’ He’s pushing his hair back off his face but at least he’s stopped smiling. ‘Not with your father being who he is.’
And his father and his father and his father and his father …
‘Who’s your father?’ I ask. ‘Anyone I’d have heard of?’
‘No, definitely not. And my mother … no again. Two very fine Black Witches, but not famous. When I say fine I mean … respectable … for Blacks. My father is living in America now. He had to leave after he killed my grandmother – my mother’s mother.’ He shrugs. ‘I should explain that it was self-defence; my grandmother was attacking my father. It’s complicated … She blamed him for my mother’s death.’ He swirls his empty coffee cup. ‘Anyway, they are not famous.’
‘Violent, though.’
‘In both violence and fame, your bloodline outdoes mine.’
gabriel
I am not supposed to leave the apartment except to sleep on the terrace. I’m sleeping OK. The usual nightmares.
I sleep inside on the sofa some afternoons. Most of the time I’m alone. In a way this is worse than the cage. At least there I could run. Here I just lie around.
Every day I ask, ‘When can I see Mercury?’
And every day Gabriel replies, ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
I’ve told him that I need three gifts and that it’s less than a month until my birthday. He keeps asking me other stuff, though, stuff about me: where I’ve been the last few years, if I’ve had contact with the Council, with Hunters. I don’t tell him anything, all that is private.
I see Gabriel in the mornings. He brings shopping, eats breakfast with me and then we wash up. Sometimes he reminds me of Celia with her chores. He always washes and I dry. Every day he says, ‘I will wash today. You mustn’t get your gloves wet.’ He says it with a tone of deep concern. When I give him the finger he just laughs.
I haven’t taken my gloves or scarf off. I sleep in them … live in them. If Gabriel saw my tattoos or the scars on my wrist I’d get a load of questions and I don’t want that.
After washing up he hangs around for a bit then leaves the apartment and I only see him the next morning at breakfast. I don’t think he’s slept in the bedroom since I’ve been here, but I can’t be sure. He never makes the bed; sometimes he lies on it reading.
Gabriel starts after breakfast on the first day with his questions, but I just concentrate on drying the crockery. When it dawns on him that I’m not going to tell him my life story, he tries different subjects: first off it’s books. He’s reading a really good book, Kerouac, whatever that is.
‘Do you have a favourite?’
I’m busy drying a plate, slowly, round and round, getting it really dry, and I don’t reply. So Gabriel lists his top books. He can’t pin down one favourite. He lists a few French ones I’ve never heard of, and then some English ones I’ve never heard of – though I have heard of Wuthering Heights – and then he’s on to American authors. I’m not sure if he’s showing off or if he’s always like this.
When he finally shuts up I put the very dry plate on to the top of the pile of very dry plates and say, ‘I’ve never read a book.’
His left hand is in the washing-up bowl, suds round his wrist. It has stopped washing.
‘I do have a favourite, though. Solzhenitsyn. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. You read that one?’
He shakes his head.
I shrug.