El Mono, page 38
Karin smiled at that. ‘You do talk a lot of cheesy tosh at times!’ But it had raised her spirits.
They looked at each other, not quite sure how to take things from there. Karin turned sideways and brought her baby to see his visitor. Peter obliged by opening his eyes and yawning.
At last Karin felt courageous enough to say what she knew she had to.
‘Daniel, I’m married to Morten Fields. This is his son …’
‘I know.’
‘I haven’t seen you for ages. Everything has changed between us. How can you still say nice things about me when I have treated you so badly?’
‘You haven’t treated me badly … What do you mean?’
‘Well, I haven’t treated you in any way at all. I’ve left you and denied whatever it was we had. That is the worst of it. After everything we have been through together, after such a friendship that has meant so much to both of us, I go off and leave you with no word, nothing, ignoring everything you mean to me. And I marry someone who is the opposite of you in every way and have his baby. What must you think of me?’
Daniel ignored this last question. ‘Do you love him, your husband?’
Karin could not meet his eyes. She turned away and walked her baby slowly up and down, comforting him; comforting herself.
‘No. I thought I could love him, but I know now that it was a terrible mistake. I feel such a fool telling you this. How many other silly women throughout the ages have said the same? Been taken in by some attractive, smooth-talking partner only to find out he was the biggest bastard on the face of the earth? I never thought such a thing would ever, ever happen to me. I was too sensible, too intelligent, too worldly-wise to ever fall into that classic trap. How stupid, short-sighted, proud and tiny-minded of me. How can I have been so foolish?’ She stopped and looked at Daniel and asked him again: ‘What must you think of me?’
Karin saw Daniel look into the distance, deliberately avoiding her gaze. It was his turn now not to be able to meet her eyes. She suddenly dreaded what he was about to say.
There was no answer for a while. Then he started, slowly at first but quicker as his thoughts began to flow: ‘I hated you. You had become part of the world that I detested, and worse: you had done all that I’d told you I was opposed to … How could you do that? You were captured by all the superficial materialism of a world that you knew I hated and so … I hated you. I couldn’t help myself. I took off over the mountains, burying myself in my world that was everything yours was not.
‘And that saved me. You see things so much more clearly up there. Why was I so angry with you? Because I wanted you to see things my way? What right did I have to demand that? I was the one who was wrong, not you. You have every right to do whatever you want; not what I want. I was the one to feel stupid, selfish, and to fall into the trap of tiny-minded pride.’
Daniel turned quickly to flash a glance at his companion. ‘I know this sounds crazy – corny even – but it’s the only way I can describe how I feel. I have travelled miles and miles across all the mountains immersing myself in their life. Following the falcons and condors in the air; the serpents, deer and puma on the ground. Every creature follows its own particular destiny. And then I realised that that is what I had loved so much about you. I used to watch you moving on the mountainside and, more importantly, moving on the streets of town, talking to people, laughing, interacting with your world. You were following your own destiny, as you must do, and you became the lovelier the more you did so. I’ve told you that before.
‘Going off to Triple F, immersing yourself in the world of the big multinational corporations, was something you had to do to be true to yourself. Striding around in those high heels, becoming the efficient executive, marrying Morten Fields, it was all part of your journey. It took me some time – ages – before I realised that … and of course he was the opposite of everything I represent. That was what hurt me most at first … until I realised that that was precisely why you married him. You had to give yourself to him and through that to find yourself. The big cats taught me this, and I see it, too, in the condors: they go everywhere, try different worlds, looking for where they truly belong. Most of the time they are still out there, searching for answers. I love to see that. I realised then that, you and I, we are both doing the same too.’
Daniel stopped for a moment, reflecting. ‘I loved seeing you first of all; then I hated you; then I hated myself for being so stupid. Now I see you clearer than ever. You and I are both on our separate journeys, looking for our respective destinies. We may cross paths now and again. Only know this …’
He stopped again, took Karin and her baby and turned them both to face him, and said: ‘I love you. I always have. I always will.’
Karin closed Peter to her breast and pushed herself into Daniel’s arms. ‘Hold me,’ she said. ‘Hold me tight and never, ever let me go.’ She was weeping again.
Daniel kissed the top of her head. ‘I have to let you go, Karin. I have to. I can’t give you what you need in the world where I belong. You belong to another. You must know that.’
Karin shook her head. Folded in his arms, curled up with her baby against his chest, she shook her head again.
‘I’ve had enough of my world, as you put it,’ her muffled voice rose up to him. ‘Let me try yours.’
There was something certain that Karin had locked away inside her. It had been there for years: wrapped up, shrunken down, locked away and buried deep down somewhere where she had not wanted to find it. Yet as soon as Daniel had walked into her sight it had flared up and demanded her attention. Seeing him, listening to him, absorbing all that he was, that certainty now overcame her – filling her entire being. She loved him. She loved him like she could love no other; she wanted him with a passion that made her body tremble and she could not now imagine living without him. Where had she been these last two years? Chasing a career and living a life that she thought she ought to follow instead of listening to her heart and her deepest feelings that were telling her something completely different.
She looked up, her eyes holding his in gaze of fire. ‘Come with me; let me put Peter down.’
He let her go but she held on to his hand and, cradling Peter with the other, took him into the bedroom and made him watch as she laid her baby down in the cot. Daniel looked down, of course, with such an expression of tenderness that only made her want him more. He had no right to look like that at another man’s baby! Why did he look at the world with such loving eyes?
Now she could hold herself back no longer and so flung herself at him and kissed him with a fervour that she had never felt before. Daniel was, for a moment, taken by surprise. This beautiful woman whom he had said he loved was wearing only a thin nightie and he could feel her naked body pressing into him, sending him a message that was unmistakeable. Flames engulfed him in an instant. He stripped off quickly himself and then the two of them fell on to the bed together, entwined with one another. Her nightie was discarded and Daniel kissed her and kissed her, touching every part of her body with his lips, smothering her with the love he had always felt for her but had never expressed until now.
They made love so intensely, unrestrainedly that Karin almost fainted. She cried out with such buried and repressed emotion that its release made everything spin around. Then she clung on to Daniel and held him down on her, inside her, with such a surge of fire as if her arms would break. She never wanted to let him go.
It took an age before Karin came down from heaven. Daniel was waiting, looking at her, still kissing her as gently as he could.
‘I’m not letting you go!’ said Karin when she could find her voice.
‘Are you going to break me in half then?’ asked Daniel. ‘Can I move?’
‘No. Never.’
‘What if Peter cries?’
‘Don’t you dare blackmail me! That’s a cruel trick to try and pull. Besides, I’ll just have to drag you with me to the cot. I’ve told you – I’m not letting go!’
Then the passion rose within her again and she was kissing him, struggling with him, turning him over so that she could climb on top of him, caress him, press her lips all over his body, push herself on to him and take him into her once more. She cried out again and this time tears of love fell on to his body, hot tears that should have fallen long ago. She shook her head from side to side, trying to shake aside how stupid she had been, never to admit what she truly, deeply felt. Then she collapsed down on top of him, exhausted.
They lay together, enfolded in each other for an age.
‘Do you understand now why I can never let you go?’ Karin asked.
‘Mmm.’
‘Do you not feel what I feel and think that you cannot live without feeling this again?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Communicative, aren’t you?’ She dug him with her fingers. ‘Talk to me!’
He turned his head and looked at her, an inch away, and growled at her.
‘Look, woman! Much as I love you, much as I dream of you, you know nothing of the life I lead. I sleep in a wooden hut, most of the time. A number of huts in different places, as it happens. Sometimes I don’t see anyone for days. Other days, I maybe see someone or two …’
‘Don’t tell me you’re seeing another woman … or two?’ She knew only too well the effect he had on females. ‘You’re not married as well, are you? I don’t blame you if you are; there must be many who want you.’
Karin for a moment was horror-struck at her own stupidity. Everything had happened to her in the last two years since she had seen him. Why couldn’t the same be true for him as well? Surely he must have loved others, married another? She recoiled from him in shock.
Daniel laughed and grabbed hold of her, pulling her close.
‘Do you honestly think I could love you like I just have; could have poured out all my feelings for you; let you lose yourself in me, and me in you … if I was married and loved another? What sort of person do you think I am? One of those city two-timers that you mix with, that you marry? Am I like that? Is that all the faith you have in me?’
That hurt. As always his words went deep inside and cut into her soul. She had no defence against him. She had married a man who had lied to her. This one would never be like that.
‘I’m sorry. Don’t punish me. I know you are not like that. I’ve just found you … I daren’t even think of ever losing you again … Please don’t let me go. Don’t ever say we cannot be together. I don’t care where. I really don’t. The only life I want to live now is with you. Please believe me.’
Her body was shaking. Daniel held her close and kissed her again, calming her down. He recognised the inevitability of what had passed between them. Making love like they had just done meant the same for him as it did for her. He was committed to her now. It was to change his life as it was hers.
He sighed. ‘You always used to do it. You still do. Dammit, woman, you shake my world from top to bottom and turn it upside down. I had no idea that this was going to happen when I came to see you!’
She rolled on top of him and grinned. She hugged and squeezed him against her, so much so that there were drops of her breast milk that wet his chest. She was momentarily embarrassed but he took no notice. She recovered.
‘If you haven’t loved another woman recently, then you’ve missed out. All the ways women like me make men like you see the world differently. You can’t live a hermit’s life for ever. Join us! Come into the real world with me. Just don’t even try to look at another woman now you’ve got this one, understand?’
Daniel laughed again. Goodness, how he loved her! Much as he loved the mountains and all the creatures he lived with, this tornado had turned his whole world around and made him question everything and all that he was and felt. He wondered, idly, if all the creatures he lived with and which instinctively reacted to his feelings would still be the same, or if his love for this woman meant he would lose all the relationships he had with all the other beings on earth. He looked at her again, her beautiful face so close to his. What if he lost everything else? Was she worth it? He smiled.
‘What are you smiling at? What are you thinking?’
Yes. This was his new life. He had been alone for so long and now there was someone here who would never leave him on his own again. Ever. Was he prepared for this? He smiled even broader.
‘What is it?’ She picked up his smile but still insisted.
‘Nothing. I love you like I never thought I could. You are going to drive me crazy, I know it, yet I still can’t help it. I’m walking straight into this like a fool with my eyes wide open.’
‘Not like a fool. Like a wise man who at last has come down from out of the clouds!’
‘Have it your own way!’ He kissed her again.
Thelma and Claudia were waiting, wondering what was going on between Karin and Daniel, and hoping particularly that Karin was all right and that Daniel would not upset her, given her current fragility and the fear she still carried within her. The longer they stayed locked away together, however, the more they reckoned things must be going well. After an hour and more, things were obviously going very well. They did not want to interrupt but Claudia, especially, was impatiently walking around in the spacious lounge of this house of Thelma’s friend, dying of curiosity and unable to keep still.
At last a door opened and Karin and Daniel emerged together from the guest suite, Karin with her face shining like Claudia had never seen before. Claudia relaxed immediately.
‘Well, it seems you two have made friends,’ said Thelma.
‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ said Daniel, coming to sit on the large leather sofa that faced the older woman. Karin immediately sat next to him and held his hand. Claudia came over and sat next to Karin. She couldn’t stop grinning at her friend who couldn’t stop beaming herself.
‘Come on: don’t tell me all that you’ve been doing but tell me something.’
‘Claudia – I love him to bits. You know I always have and I’ve not, we’ve not, ever admitted it. I’ve been so stupid for so long, it took a little while for me to empty my head of all my idiocies and come to my senses. Now I’m never going anywhere else but with him. He is still trying to change my mind but I’m not listening. I know what I want.’
Daniel nodded. ‘She’s crazy and so must I be.’ He squeezed Karin’s hand.
‘Can we please be a little more practical,’ said Thelma. ‘What do you propose to do now you’ve found each other and before anyone else finds you?’
Claudia had met Daniel on her finca and had brought him down to meet Thelma to brief him on all that had been happening to Karin before he was shown into the bedroom. He knew the danger Karin and Peter still faced.
‘There are many material things that I cannot offer Karin that she, and all of you, must be accustomed to. My standard and style of living is very different to all this.’ Daniel waved his hand round at the spacious and extensive property that spread all about them. ‘But the one thing I can offer you’ – he looked at Karin – ‘is how to disappear. I do it all the time, after all.’ He smiled sheepishly.
‘And don’t we know it,’ remarked Claudia caustically. ‘It’s a miracle I found you this morning. It’s only taken me two days this time. I remember wasting many more days than that, chasing after your shadow on the mountains in the past.’
‘Seriously, where will you go? How will you live? What will you do?’ Thelma stayed relentlessly focused on the issue at hand.
Daniel looked at Karin as he spoke to the others. He wanted to ensure that she really knew what she was letting herself in for. ‘There are a number of options – places I’ve visited. But I shan’t say where, other than it is where the condors fly and the pumas prowl. Very few people go to these places and those that do I would know they are coming from a mile away and can choose whether we meet or avoid contact. We will be out of phone and e-mail range unless we move down to some pueblo somewhere. That means we will call you on occasions but you won’t be able to reach us. That is safest, especially if Claudia, particularly, is being watched. Thelma – you will therefore be the one we would call first of all and you can then pass on our messages to Claudia. At first, for I do not know how many months, we won’t contact you at all. Fields is bound to have everyone out watching and waiting for the slightest clue as to where Karin and Peter are. Beautiful one – do you really think you can take this sort of life?’ Daniel gazed at Karin anxiously.
‘I have to disappear somehow. And I can’t think of anyone or anywhere I’d rather disappear with but with you. It is that simple.’
‘Does your ex-husband know that you know me?’
Karin kissed him for that comment – her ex-husband. ‘No. I’ve never let him into that secret that was locked away inside me.’
‘Good. He’ll look in Bogotá, Cali, airports, England even … but not in the Andes,’ replied Daniel. ‘I have to say, the last time I saw you, city girl, you were so refined and elegant, I’d only be looking for you on catwalks in London, Paris or Milan. Not the big-cat walks that only I know of.’
‘You brute!’ she shoved him.
‘Honestly – do you think you’ll be comfortable in woolly jumpers and overalls? Bathing in cold mountain streams? Carrying Peter like the indígenas do, not in fancy baby strollers and driven around in four-by-fours? No business suits and high heels if you go with me!’
Karin shoved him again. ‘Stop going on about me in high heels. I’ll never wear them ever again!’ She loved him teasing her: it was a new experience.
Thelma interrupted. ‘When will you leave?’
‘Pack tonight. If it’s OK, I’d like to sleep here and then we can leave tomorrow. Can you find transport for us? An all-terrain four-by-four to get us as high up as possible in the valley I’m thinking of. Then it’s a walk or a ride from there, depending on whether I can get horses. I probably can. They know me in the nearest pueblo. They won’t know where I’m going, though. I’ll be heading for a mountain hut that is basic but I’ve slept there before. It’s weather proof.’
