At long, long last, there is nothing left to eat, and only the last inch of wine remains in my glass. My red was claimed long ago, and the bottle finished. I truly do not know how so much thick, pungent wine can be drunk so swiftly.
“X.” The voice, buzzing in my head. In my bones. It’s a little loose sounding. “You’ve been very patient this evening.”
I can only shrug. “It has been an enjoyable evening, Caleb. Thank you.”
“I’ve decided today is to be your birthday.”
I have no thought in my head, no capacity for rational thought. The pronouncement has left me utterly unhinged. “Wh—what?”
“Since we know nothing of you prior to our... meeting, I decided—rather belatedly, I do admit—that you require a birthday.” An easy shrug. “Today is July the second. The exact midpoint of the calendar year.”
I try to breathe. Summon words. Thoughts. Emotions. “I—um. Today is my birthday?”
“It is now. Happy Birthday, X.”
“How many years would it be?” I can’t help asking.
“The doctors, on that day, presumed you—with a high degree of accuracy, they told me—to be nineteen or twenty. That was six years ago, so I’m going to say that today is your twenty-sixth birthday.”
Six years. Twenty-six.
Puzzle pieces flit and float and flitter. Gazpacho Andaluz. Spanish red wine. Spanish cucumber salad. Spanish flan.
“Andaluz... Caleb, is that a place in Spain?”
An expression of curiosity. “Andalusia, yes.”
“Did you find something out about me? Is that what this about?” I cannot stop the question.
Cannot phrase it any more respectfully or politely. Curiosity flares in me. Hope, too, but just a spark, a fragile, easily extinguished, guttering pinpoint of light.
A pause, a hesitation. Tongue sliding over lips, roll of a shoulder, shifting in the chair. “Yes. A little something, at least. I had your DNA analyzed.”
“You did?” I blink, breathe in, wonder if it is normal to feel as if I have been somehow opened, pried apart, what little privacy I have invaded.
“Yes. When you were sleeping, the last time I visited you, I took a piece of your hair from your hairbrush, and swabbed the inside of your cheek. You sleep like the dead to begin with, and you were...verytired. You barely stirred.” A self-satisfied glint of the eye, not quite a smirk. “My scientists were able to trace certain markers in your DNA and determine with a surprising degree of accuracy where your ethnic heritage originates.”
I am breathless with anticipation—that phrase, it occurs in fiction quite frequently. But in reality, it is not an entirely pleasant sensation. “What—ahem.” I have to start over. “What did your scientists discover?”
A hand, manicured fingernails, trimmed cuticles, large and powerful and graceful, waving at the table. “Can’t you guess?”
“Spain?” I suggest.
“Precisely. They are clever fellows, those geneticists. They’re still working, comparing markers and whatever else it is they do, trying to narrow it down, get more specific results. They tell me with time they might be able to tell me a specific region of Spain, things like that. But for now, all we know is... you, Madame X, are Spanish.” Those eyes, dark, expressive, hard, hungry, raking over me. “You look it, too. I’ve long thought that might be it. My Spanish beauty.”
Clever fellows. Geneticists on the payroll.My scientists.Who has scientists on retainer?
“I would have had Jean-Luc prepare a traditional Spanish main course for us, but I thought that might be laying it on a bit too thick. Spanish food is also very rich, and you are not accustomed to such fare. I wouldn’t want to overburden your digestive system as well as your emotions all in one night, you know.”
“Yes, I see.” My brain supplied relevant-sounding words at the expected moment, but in truth I was numb, dizzy, spinning, and fending off what felt like an anxiety attack.
“Do you need a moment, X?”
I nod.
“Take a moment, then.”
I stood up and moved with great relief away from the table, away from the ring of candles, away from the huge and overwhelming presence. Away from the music. Deep into the shadows, to the window. Night had long ago fallen over the city, so now light came from countless yellow and white squares in neat horizontal and vertical rows across the horizon, from streetlamps far below, from red departing taillights and white approaching headlights.
