The Left Hand of God

33

That night Arbell Materazzi held Cale in her arms, having banished all reservations about him. How brave he was and how ungrateful she had been to harbor any doubts-and now he had worked this miraculous change upon her brother. How generous toward others it made him seem and how clever and full of insight. She was almost burning with adoration as she made love to him that night, worshipping him with every inch of her lithe and exquisite body. What graceful magic this worked on Thomas Cale’s abraded soul, what joy and astonishment it brought him. Later, as he lay wrapped in her elegant arms and endless legs, he began to feel as if the deepest layers of his icy soul were being touched by the sun.

“No harm can come to you. Promise me,” she said after nearly an hour of silence.

“Your father and his generals have no intention of letting me anywhere near the fight. I have no intention of going anyway. It’s nothing to do with me. My job is to look after you. That’s all that interests me.”

“But what if something happened to me?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“Not even you can be sure of that.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” She held his face in her hands and looked into his eyes as if searching for something. “You know that picture on the wall in the next room?”

“Your great-grandfather?”

“Yes-with his second wife, Stella. The reason I put it up there was because of a letter I came across when I was a girl, rooting around in some old family bits and pieces I found in a trunk. I don’t think anyone had looked inside for nearly a hundred years.” She stood up and walked over to a drawer on the far side of the room, naked as a jaybird and enough to stop the heart of any man. How is it, he thought, such a creature loves me. She rooted around for a moment and then returned with an envelope. She took out two pages of dense writing and looked at them sadly. “This is the last letter he wrote to Stella before he died at the siege of Jerusalem. I want you to hear the last paragraph because I want you to understand something.” She sat down at the foot of the bed and began reading:

My very dear Stella,

The indications are very strong that we shall attack again in a few days-perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Stella, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but God could break; if I do not return, my dear Stella, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

But, Stella! If the dead can come back to this earth and move unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night-amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours-always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or if the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Arbell looked up, tears in her eyes, “That was the last time she ever heard from him.” She scrabbled closer to Cale from the foot of the bed and held him tight. “I am bound to you too. Always remember that, no matter what occurs, I will always be near, always you’ll be able to feel my spirit watching over you.”

Blasted and bowled over by this beautiful and passionate young woman, Cale did not know what to say. But in a short time words were no longer necessary.