Part 23 (1/2)
”Lives in the suburbs,” Catherine added. ”Paid me with a new fifty.”
Esther smiled grimly. ”Madame Marlena.”
”She does readings?” cried Catherine, astonished. ”Why'd she come here?”
”She's mad at you. You've been stealing her clients.”
”I don't drag people in here,” Catherine protested.
”She thinks you do.”
Catherine thought a moment, then jumped up from the table. ”Where does she work out of?”
”Collins Street. Near the place I got my gla.s.ses last Christmas.”
Esther followed Catherine into the front room and helped her struggle into her stiff khaki overcoat.
”You're going over there?”
”Time I got my fortune told,” Catherine said, smiling grimly.
”It'll do you good to get out,” said Esther softly. ”Just make sure you leave those things behind.” She pointed to the cards on the table.
There were no cards on the table.
At the door, Catherine reached into the deep pocket of her jacket and pulled out the tarot deck.
”I can't leave them behind, Esther. They won't let me go.”
Swish. Clang.
”Madame Marlena?” Catherine asked.
There had been no sign in the window of the storefront, which was even narrower than her own place, but Catherine had asked the receptionist in the eye doctor's office, and the young woman had pointed the place out.
No answer when she rang the bell, but the door had been unlocked.
Inside, the small rooma”even smaller than Catherine'sa”had been nearly stripped. Silver-framed posters of the zodiac leaned neatly against the bare walls. Cardboard boxes were tied, stacked, and labeled.
Three suitcases, each with a luggage tag, waited in ascending order of size by the door. A sheet had been thrown over a long sofa, and at one end of the sheeted sofa sat a woman in a black dress and a black turban.
Her hands were folded in her lap, and all the rings on her fingers were silver. Her face was turned away from Catherine.
”Marlene?” asked Catherine again, approaching the sofa.
The woman turned. ”Yes,” she replied. Despair and bitterness, Catherine thoughta”that was what was in Marlene's face.
”It was you,” said Catherine.
”What are you doing here?” Marlene asked in a tone of voice suggesting she wasn't at all surprised that Catherine was here.”
”I want a reading,” said Catherine.
”There's no sign in the window. Everything's packed. I'm closed.”
said Marlene, galled indifference in her voice.
”I've come such a long way, I'd hate to be disappointed,” said Catherine. She went around the back of the sofa and leaned over Marlene's shoulder. ”And I've heard such marvelous things about you, Marlene. Sorry, Madame Marlena.” Catherine took the tarot deck from her pocket and thrust the cards before Marlene's face. ”What did you want from me? What is this deck?”
Marlene didn't flinch. ”You were a liar, Madame Catrina. You pretended to believe in the cards. You told people only what they wanted to hear.”
”They paid mea”I put on a show. They gave me moneya”I made them feel good.”
”You fed them lies.”
Catherine went all the way around the sofa and seated herself at the opposite end from Marlene. She tossed the deck on the cus.h.i.+on that separated them. ”What is this deck?” Where did it come from?”
”All the cards are one.” Marlene smiled a sad, cold smile. ”They come from the Hebrews . . . the Persians . . .the Egyptians. From Astaroth, the G.o.ddess of Fertility and Rottenness. From s.h.i.+va the Destroyer and s.h.i.+va the Resurrection. The cards have the power to dream. And the dreams of the tarot are more powerful than our reality.
You mocked them.”
”I'm not going to do this work anymore. I don't want the cards,” said Catherine.
”They won't leave you. But you know that already.”
”There must be a way I can get rid of them.”
”As far as I know, there's only one way. You pa.s.s them on . Not to just anyone, of coursea”but to someone who has mocked them. The way you did, and the way I did once.”
”You palmed them off on me!”
”I had to get rid of them,” said Marlene simply. ”They tortured me .
. . for my disbelief. So I turned them overa”to another disbeliever.
That's what you'll have to do.”
”Take them back!”
”I can't.” Marlene laughed. ”Don't you see? I believe in them now!”
The notice advertising the presence of Madame Catrina had been removed from the window, and for good measure the sign in the door had been turned to CLOSED. Inside, Catherine was struggling into her ”Serious Audition” dress, which she hadn't worn in three years and ten pounds. It was tight and uncomfortable, but it put her in the mood for playing the part of a moderately repressed young woman who might, on impulse and on her birthday, visit a palm reader for the first time in her life. She wore a single strand of pearls and pulled off all her rings.
She savagely brushed her unruly hair and pulled it back hard. She checked her wallet for cash, then tossed it in her shoulder bag. Then she went to the tea table, where the tarot deck sat neatly in the middle, the Knight of Swords faceup. She picked it up, put it in her bag, and then started- --stopped.
She took the cards out again, spilled them on the table, and left, not bothering to lock the door behind her.
In the back of the taxi, after she'd given the driver an address in the very worst part of the city, Catherine checked her shoulder bag again.
The tarot deck was there, of course. The Fool was on the bottom, and the Knight of Swords on the top.