The Secrets of a Fire King Read Online Free PDF

sawdust in his hair, still warm from the exertion of building, to find Jade Moon on the couch, huddled beneath several sweaters and a down quilt. Sometimes the telephone would be off the hook, emitting a low buzz into the room. He always replaced it discreetly, without comment, knowing her terror of the disembodied voices, the unfamiliar language unsoftened by a gesture, or a smile.
    He was not a patient man, but during that long winter he was kind to her. Each evening he massaged her hands and made hot chocolate, which she drank like a child, greedily, holding the mug in both hands for warmth. He brought scented bath oils from the five-and-dime in town and drew the bathwater so hot that steam, smelling of roses or lilacs or lilies of the valley, swirled around her when she let her woolen robe slip off. He sat back on his heels, then, admiring her slender body, sculpted round by the baby that she carried.
    “Like the hot springs,” she murmured, stepping into the porcelain tub carefully, as if it were paved with hidden rocks. Once, before he knew her, he had seen her sliding into the hot water of such a spring, her skin as smooth and white as the snow drifted up behind her. Hidden behind a tree he had watched, her long legs easing through the steam, her hair like a sheet of black water to her waist.
    Now, in a strange country, she closed her eyes at the familiar pleasure. Her eyelashes were thick, and her cheekbones were set high in a face that was delicately boned, the shape of an almond.
    He lifted her hair to wash her back, letting the soapy water drift over the tips of her breasts, which were darkening now against her pale skin in anticipation of the baby. Later, in bed, he held 20
    The Secrets of a Fire King
    her close and spoke softly in her own language, describing the events of his day, comparing the people and the places to those of her own village, so impossibly far away. It was language that she craved, the steady wash of familiar syllables across her ears. And so Rob Eldred talked on, making up stories, singing bits of songs.
    Little by little he felt the tension drain from her, until at last she fell asleep in his arms, warmed by his voice, by the words.
    The mornings of that winter dawned clear and cold, or softened with the gray light of another impending storm. It was always a shock to him, the way the warm dark nights gave way to the white light of morning, and he moved through the small rooms carefully, quietly, trying not to wake Jade Moon. Invari-ably, though, she appeared in the kitchen doorway as he was pulling on his boots. Her face was empty of expression as she watched him put his jacket on, but he knew the stillness was a mask against the long, silent day that awaited her. In all their happy dreaming in the high rocky seacoast she had come from, he had never anticipated her loneliness or understood that she would find it so difficult to learn his language. On those cold winter mornings he would not walk across the fl oor to kiss her because his boots were already on, and they followed the custom of her country, which allowed no shoes in the house. So he smiled at her across the space instead, and walked outside into the white light, into his own unexpected isolation.
    Rob Eldred had enlisted in the navy as soon as he graduated from high school, fired with stories of the Second World War, dreaming of glorious and bloodless combat, the big guns explod-ing like fireworks over the dark water. He was disappointed when the navy discovered in him an aptitude for languages and sent him to school instead of to the front. When at last he was shipped out, it was not to do battle, but to sit at a desk on a radio ship, intercepting and translating messages. His war had to do with language, with the nuances of translation. He knew it was important work, though it did not always seem so. Eventually he was assigned to shore duty in the village where he met Jade Moon, and it was only then, hiking up the coast