Free Beloved Enemy by Eric Van Lustbader Page A

was exceptionally kind of her.”
    “Annika is exceptionally kind.” Namazi cleared his throat. “So there was no other reason?”
    Dr. Karalian cocked his head. “No other reason for what?”
    “Her visit.”
    “I can’t imagine why else she would visit the clinic.”
    “Then where is she?”
    “There is a small garden I tend. It was started by her grandfather many years ago. She often visits it, perhaps to meditate. She doesn’t ask me to come with her and I don’t ask.”
    “Where is it, this garden?”
    “On the other side of the building. It’s off limits to outsiders. I’m sure you under—”
    “I have no interest in gardens.” Namazi slapped his thighs and rose. “All right, doctor. I’ll be off now.”
    Dr. Karalian was sunk deep in his chair. “Good day, Mr. Cardozian.”
    At the doorway, Namazi turned for a moment. “Until next time.”
    Dr. Karalian seemed to start out of his trance. “There will be a next time?” But his visitor had already vanished.
    *   *   *
    Annika found Rolan in the conservatory. He was seated in a steel wheelchair with a light cotton throw over his wrists and lap. He was quite still, seemingly staring through the large windows at the mountain. Blue shadows crept up his lower half as the sun crawled slowly toward the horizon.
    Apart from the two of them, the conservatory, though large, was deserted, as was always the case when Rolan was brought there. Annika had to pass between two burly orderlies as she stepped into the room.
    For a moment, she paused to stare out at the mountain, a great shelf of rock into which the Sümela Monastery had been carved and then built. It was here that Rolan had taken her on their honeymoon. At first, she had been somewhat taken aback, having in her mind Paris or Venice—or even Capri. Somewhere quintessentially romantic. But that was before she had been introduced to the lush valley and the magnificent ruins that overlooked it.
    In her mind’s eye, she saw them walking through the ruined structure, overarched by the monstrous cavern hewn out of the living rock. Standing in those ancient roofless rooms, they had looked out onto the sun-splashed valley, lush with pines, streams, and stony hillocks.
    “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Rolan had said, taking her hand.
    And she had to admit that he was right. At that moment, it was the most romantic spot on earth.
    Now he sat, immobile in his wheelchair. While she stared at their shared past, what was he looking at? What did he see when he looked at that mountain? Did he remember their time together? Would he remember her at all? Sometimes he did, and she was heartened, but then would come those visits when his stare passed right through her as if she didn’t exist, as if she had never existed. Those were the moments when her heart seemed to freeze in her chest and hot tears sprang into her eyes, when her emotions, long held in check, bubbled up, forcing her out of herself. She became a spectator at the disaster of her own life, in this way telling herself that it was a dream, that soon enough she would fly away and never have to see him again.
    But, of course, that never happened, and, at length, she returned to herself, to the crushing weight of her past and what it meant to her now and in the future.
    “Rolan.”
    She pulled up a chair, sat next to him, laid her hand upon his wrist through the cotton throw. She felt it, and slowly, heart beating hard in her chest, she peeled back the throw, as if it were a layer of skin the clinic had sewn onto him. His wrists were manacled to the armrests of the wheelchair.
    “Oh, Rolan.”
    He did not turn to her, gave no sign that he had heard her. She could see the furrow the ball bearing had made as it had scored along the side of his head, a scar that no amount of plastic surgery could hide. There were other wounds in his torso, long healed now, but compared to the one in his head they were of no consequence. No one—not even Dr.