LITMIR.BIZ

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I miss like an old lover.”

      He bowed to give her hand a zephyr’s brush of a kiss. “A delight to see you, my young friend.” Belle could swear that he winked. “You are looking so well. Don’t tell me you are going to offer me your mother’s Doulton ladies at last? Or have you come to check my price list?” Discontinued figures appreciated substantially in value and might make a newspaper ad in Toronto worthwhile.

      “This is another matter. Your expert opinion is required.”

      The deepening lines around his kohl-dark eyes crinkled in curiosity. “Come into the back room and let us be more comfortable. I will hear the bell if she rings.”

      At a heavy oak table in a cubbyhole heaped with boxes and newspapers, they sat close together, an ancient brass chandelier casting its flambeaux of crystal in an effect eerie and intimate. Omer found a dusty bottle of Slivovitz and poured them both a small glass.

      “I always think of you when I eat plums,” Belle said, raising a toast.

      “Every morning an inch, and you will never have a cold. I guarantee it. Fabled Turco-Cossack remedy.”

      “An inch! Best not tell the breathalyzer.” She licked her lips as delicately as she could, then placed the gold drop in Omer’s palm. “Here’s a mystery for you.”

      He examined it with his loupe with no change of expression. “Pure, very pure. I can test it if you like, but see how soft? Never for jewelry. Where did you get it?”

      “From a dead man’s pocket. Where did he get it?”

      Not a blink. “Alchemy was a romantic but false science. There are only two directions. Fine gold from rings, plate and even teeth, can be melted down in a crucible. That is my domain. Or from the richest vein, dripped straight from the ore by intense heat. I have heard that it is possible. You would have to ask a geologist.”

      Belle tossed the drop lightly in her hand, embroidering the moment with a wry smile and a final sip of brandy warming her throat. “It’s part of a very maddening puzzle. I just can’t make the pieces fit. What would it be worth, just hypothetically?”

      He fished in his vest and put a dime into her other hand. “A bit heavier than your drop. 2.4 grams, not quite a tenth of an ounce at the current $280.00 U.S. quote. Negligible.”

      “For larger amounts of this raw gold, Omer, a constant supply . . . out of the proper channels, would there be a buyer?”

      “There is always a buyer for everything, and a price for anything. The war taught me that. Northern Ontario has more prospectors than doctors, but this is a small town. Many noisy tongues. In Toronto? Montreal? Without question, though at a considerable discount.”

      He looked at her with such intensity through those intelligent, trained eyes which had shut out the horror and valour in his past that she felt that she had been holding her breath. Suddenly his steady voice brought her back and rekindled her imagination. Light splintered onto the table. “You said that it came from a dead man’s pocket. Are you sure there is not blood on it?” Although they both knew that he spoke figuratively, Belle found herself staring into the tiny drop as if to plumb its heart. From the time man had first glimpsed this hypnotic metal, blood and gold had been quick and greedy partners.

      By Saturday, Belle had stayed quiet enough to receive the Mutt of the Year award. Her enforced retirement had led to washing all the downstairs windows, cleaning the stove and fridge, scrubbing the floor (twice), sucking out the fish tanks, and writing four overdue letters to family friends over eighty, none of whom had an estate of substance. All that remained was to cut Freya’s claws, a mutually squeamish chore; Belle commanded the dog to lie motionless on the kitchen floor while she maneuvered the clippers to avoid hitting a vein. Every snip received a moan of torment, a quiver of fear. “OK, go, girl,” Belle sighed finally in her own relief, and the dog yawned from nervousness and raced away as if given a deathhouse reprieve.

      In search of a newspaper to pass the time, Belle drove to the airport smoke shop for the Toronto Star, passing a familiar green Jimmy in the long-term parking. A peek inside revealed a Shield University parking pass and the blanket she recalled from Freya’s rescue. Another play in Toronto, she wondered? More usual to drive unless time were a critical factor. From the smokeshop, she saw one of her neighbour’s daughters and strolled over, raising her arms like the roaring polar bear image in their logo. “Hi, Patty. How’s life at Polar Bear Air?”

      “A wild ride. With this awful weather, everyone’s hustling to get a final holiday any place south. Recession nothing! You should see the bookings for the Caribbean and Mexico now that the peak time’s over. Wish I could go, too.”

      Belle folded her paper in studied disinterest. “Lucky folks. Say, I saw a friend’s car in the lot. Professor Franz Schilling. Was he heading for the sunny beaches or just off to Toronto?”

      The young girl drummed into her computer without a second thought. “Let’s see. He was routed through to Kingston. Maybe on business. Back on our 10 p.m. Sunday flight.”

      Stranger and stranger, but just over the border to New York. A visit to the troubled sister. Why lie about it, Franz? The stigma of mental illness? He seemed enlightened enough, but one never knew. The paper engaged her for the rest of the afternoon, especially with the dollar in the sub-basement thanks to Canada’s monumental debt load and a resource-based economy.

      An hour later, Belle was still wandering around the house, toe-tapping, checking her watch to distraction. Would it ever be time to leave for the Beave, to coin a poem? And why ever go alone? Entertainment should be shared. She picked up the phone. “Now, I know you’re in bed by dark, Hélène,” she joked after she described the fun, “but make an exception. Going around nine thirty should give us a couple of hours before the witching hour for the raid.”

      “I can jump start the old man,” Hélène said. “Cut off his decaf at supper and watch him hop it on caffeine. We’re having Referendum Soup, so he should be hot enough about that.”

      “Referendum Soup? Are you serious? Sounds too controversial for Canadian Living magazine.”

      “Made it in Thunder Bay visiting my son the night the votes on the last one were counted. See if you recognize anyone: take a big hambone, add plenty of beans and prepare to eat it for the rest of your life. Trouble is, it’s delicious.” A tinkling laugh came over the phone.

      Belle had her own culinary memories. She defrosted a cube of pesto from her summer basil and spinach crop, chuckling as she recalled the day she had made the sauce. The spatula parked on top of the whirring blender had fallen in and in three seconds plastered the oily green sauce over the counter, cupboards, floor, ceiling and her naked self on an unusually torrid afternoon. In consideration of these efforts, she had had no scruples scraping the costly mess into ice cube trays. A thin spaghetti dressed with the ill-fated pesto and a salad of endive grown in some abandoned local mine by a creative entrepreneur went onto the table, showered with freshly-grated Romano.

      A reliable Pinewood Studio film from the late fifties was on Nostalgia, so she settled in. Around nine o’clock, she stepped out onto the deck before deciding how many layers to wear. Luckily it was warmer and surprisingly windless as the darkness deepened, yet a feathery ring wreathed the moon. She hoped it would not be a bad one rising.

      Down at the DesRosiers’ shoreline, Belle winced as her machine bounced over a snow-covered log that had drifted in before freeze-up. “We’re just about ready. Have a coffee,” Hélène said as Belle leafed through the Sudbury Star to find Ann Landers. A hockey game blared on the giant TV. Belle could hardly believe her benighted eyes. Near the eastern windows sat, seedlings? An optical illusion? Would spring ever arrive,or would this be the first nuclear winter?

      “What have you got, you fox?” she asked. “Aren’t you jumping the gun?”

      Hélène beamed and pinched off a tiny leaf which she waved under Belle’s nose, releasing a precious scent of peppery oregano. “Can’t keep us Frenchmen down. Ed promised me a small greenhouse as soon as the

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