Page 78 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“You are not helping, Shaharazad,” shouted Mrs. and Miss Viola in unison.
“But that’s the exact problem, isn’t it?” Miss Beck whirled back round. “All of you, except maybe the boring man with the buckles, secretly, deep down thinks it’s a little bit romantic.”
“Actually,” I offered, “I do think the gesture has a certain peculiar honour to it.”
“You know what I think has a peculiar honour to it? Telling the truth and making a ——ing effort.” Miss Beck looked somewhat confusedly between the two Eirene Violas. “Has it never occurred to you, Eirene, that I know who you are? I mean, I didn’t know about the vampire or the jewellery heists or the man you fed to a mad god, butthat’s just details. You don’t fall in love with a woman like you and expect her to be happy with dinner parties and weekends in Aviens.”
Mrs. Viola folded her arms. “Actually, Cora, that’s exactly what you expected.”
“Did you ever ask me? Or did you just assume and start ——ing opera dancers?”
It was at this moment that Miss Viola burst extravagantly into tears.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” growled Mrs. Viola, “now look what you’ve made me do.”
Miss Viola glared at her future self. “Shut up, Eirene. I can’t believe you’ve managed to ruin my life in two universes. And now you’re arguing with my fiancée because you were too much of a coward to talk to your wife.”
Miss Beck looked quite gratified by this. “Well said.”
“And you’re just as bad. You haven’t even let me speak tomyself. All you care about is how this affectsyourlife andyourcareer andyourfuture and how this reflects onyou.”
Mrs. Viola let out a long breath. “I’ve wanted to say that for twenty years.”
Miss Beck opened her mouth but closed it again immediately. And then a strange silence fell upon our strange company.
Finally, Miss Viola, having regained some of her composure, spread her hands in helpless despair. “So we’re bad for each other? In multiple worlds, across multiple realities. What happens now?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” replied Mrs. Viola. “You do what I’ve been trying to get you to do for the past month. You walk away.”
Miss Beck fixed the future version of her future wife with a hard stare. “No offence, Eirene, but you are clearly a massive liability. There’s no way I’m going to you for advice.”
“But she’s me.” Miss Viola produced a handkerchief from somedelicate recess and began dabbing at her face. “If you don’t want to deal with her, you don’t want to deal with either of us.”
“No, she’s not. She’s you after twenty years in a failed marriage. You’re you right now, and I’m in love with you.”
This caused Miss Viola to shed fresh tears. “Don’t be absurd. We’re destined to hurt each other.”
“Destiny”—Ms. Haas lit her pipe—“can go hang itself.” She did not say “hang.” “And, in my experience, everybody hurts everybody. The trick is picking the kind of hurt you want to live with.”
Miss Viola reached for Miss Beck’s hand. “You don’t want my kind of hurt. You’ve seen what I’ll do to you. You shouldn’t have to go through that.”
“So don’t make me. All I’ve seen is what you’ll do to me if you spend our whole life together thinking you’ve got to hide who you are.”
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Viola very softly, “you won’t like who I am.”
“I know who you are. And I love you.”
“But what about your career? You can’t be mistress of the Ubiquitous Company of Fishers before you’re fifty if your wife attends Marvosi sex parties and steals paintings.”
“Oh, blow my career.” Miss Beck did not say “blow.” “I don’t want my position to come on the back of your sacrifices.”
“And I don’t want to take away everything you’ve worked for.”
Miss Beck curled her fingers through a lock of hair that had made its escape from her fiancée’s convoluted coiffure. “Most of what I’ve worked for has been making my family proud and other people rich, and I want to get the rewards of that one day, but until I met you, I didn’t realise how much more there was in the world.”
“Who could possibly have imagined”—Ms. Haas blew a contemptuous smoke ring in the direction of the ambiguously happy couple—“that there would be more to life than the price of halibut in Pesh.”
“I’m beginning to think,” said Miss Beck, “that we should continuethis conversation in private. And by the way, Ms. Haas, it’s one and two-eighths forints a pound.”
