Blood and Chrysanthemums Read Online Free PDF Page B

past. The only thing that can be said in the past’s favour is that the population was much smaller and whatever ugliness it created did not touch the rest of the world so greatly.”
    “And the future?” Ardeth asked and Rozokov looked at her.
    “We must do what we can to guess what will happen, for our own safety. Beyond that, I make no prophecies.” He answered the impersonal question he willed himself to hear. The fate of the world he could discuss with equanimity. Their own future was another matter entirely. He was grateful when they moved on to the next photograph, a simple image of the mountains that sparked no disturbing discussions.
    As they moved, Rozokov saw Ardeth glance around at the gallery’s other visitors. He followed her gaze, taking in the scattered groups of people clustered around the room. An unusual number seemed to favour black clothing and he noted the unnatural copper colour of one woman’s hair and multiple earrings dangling from another’s earlobe. Ardeth said nothing but he felt some tension in her dissolve a little, as if she no longer feared being noticed.
    As if anyone could fail to notice her, he thought, watching as she stepped closer to study the photograph before them. He knew that she had never believed herself to be attractive and that belief coloured her transformation of herself after her rebirth. She was more striking now, perhaps, with her midnight hair and alabaster skin. But when he thought of her, it was most often as she had been when they were held captive together; her long fair hair tangled and dirty, her face streaked with dust and the traces of her tears. When he had seen her clearly for the first time, in the light of his returned sanity and self-awareness, he had thought she was unutterably beautiful.
    When she stepped back, he put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her, not caring at all if anyone should notice.
    After they had completed their tour of the exhibition, they found the path that led back down to the town. Clouds turned the sky above them into a featureless darkness and Rozokov acknowledged that he would do no stargazing tonight. Still, there was a stack of astronomy books acquired from the local library sitting by his chair in the apartment. There were worse ways to spend the night, he thought, than reading in companionable silence.
    Still, there were things to attend to before they sought the quiet of their rooms. It took more than an hour of searching to locate a lone elk, and midnight was approaching by the time they returned to the apartment.
    When Rozokov looked up from his book, it was nearing four a.m. Ardeth’s chair was empty and the light in the tiny bathroom was on. He rose and went to the open doorway, leaning against the frame. She was standing before the spotted mirror, scissors in hand, trimming the fall of her bangs. She was wearing only a white T-shirt that hung to her thighs.
    “I’m very glad that hair grows slowly when you’re dead,” she observed, sparing him a quick smile before returning to her contemplation of her hair. “Otherwise I’d have a serious case of blonde roots by now.” She sighed, rumpled her bangs up from their sharp, if uneven, line and looked at him again.
    “You look beautiful.”
    “Flatterer.” She glanced back at the mirror and then paused, seeming to focus on her reflection for a long moment.
    “I bought you a present the other day,” she said abruptly. “Hang on and I’ll get it.”
    She slid by him and he stepped into the bathroom to look at his own reflection in the mirror. He was rather glad the old mythology was not true; he much preferred to be able to tell how he looked even if he did not give it much thought most of the time. He considered his reflection for a moment. He was hardly the dandy he had been, one hundred and fifty years ago in Paris, but he was not the dirty, tangled-haired street person he had pretended to be in Toronto either. Still, he should perhaps trim his own