The River of No Return

saving you. But you had no control over this thing, this gift. You were unaware. Much like a boy when he dreams of a woman, and when he wakes he finds that—”
    Nick held up a hand. “Please, Arkady. Is it possible to continue this conversation without constantly referring to sex?”
    “But why? Sex is related to everything. It is the most powerful human drive.”
    Nick sighed.
    Arkady pointed at Nick with his cigar. “Your years in America have ruined you. You are prudish, like a priest. Remember your old self, Blackdown. Would he have said to me, ‘I will not talk with you about women’? ‘I am embarrassed to talk with you about women’? No. He would have said, ‘Arkady, we are friends. Let us drink brandy and smoke cigars and talk about women.’”
    “But we aren’t talking about women. We are talking about freezing time. I am still not entirely sure what dairymaids have got to do with it.”
    Arkady unfolded himself from his armchair and stood glaring at Nick from his beanpole height. “Our skill—it is sensuous. It is warm. Making time stop at your will, it is like caressing a beautiful woman. Caressing her and feeling her surrender.”
    Nick slumped back in his chair. “Fine,” he said. “I am merely the student here.” He could not believe this man was Alice Gacoki’s husband. But across the few days that he had lived with them, he had learned that in private Alice was a very different woman from the cool and collected Alderwoman he knew. They wouldn’t let Nick out into London—“You must still abide by Guild rules as far as possible”—and so they ate at home together. Alice was an inspired cook, reciting English poetry or singing in Kikuyu as she moved around the kitchen, unless—and Nick couldn’t bear to be in the kitchen at these times—she was listening to The Archers on the old-fashioned radio that sat like a cat, humpbacked and purring, on a sunny windowsill. She was a mean poker player and she liked her drink. She flirted constantly with her randy husband, while he, for his part, worshipped his beautiful, powerful wife. But Nick now also understood why Arkady was so seldom to be seen at official events, and was silent and mysterious when he did attend. The man was incorrigible.
    Arkady stood beside Nick’s chair. “Close your eyes this time, Blackdown,” he said. “I am going to stop time. Try again to feel it.”
    Nick closed his eyes. The room was silent except for the crackle of the fire. They had been through this again and again already this afternoon. Each time Nick missed it, and between one second and the next Arkady would seem, as if by magic, to have flown across the room, or moved Nick’s cigar, or built up the fire to a roar. Now Nick didn’t even try. He let his mind drift back to that voluptuous dairymaid, and the thing he hadn’t told Arkady. When she bent down, she had seen Nick gawping at her. Instead of screeching, or hiding her breasts, she had simply smiled. “Hello,” she said. Then she straightened again and carefully rearranged her fichu, taking her time. Whether she knew that she was tormenting him with her exquisite beauty, or whether she thought of him as an innocent child, Nick could not tell. But the replacement of the scarf became the fuel for years of dreams. She had taken her sweet, sweet time tucking the fabric in, arranging it, making it perfect. The process was infinitely more erotic even than when she had taken it off, for now Nick knew she knew he was watching. Then, with a twitch of her skirts, she was gone, and Nick was left alone, a very different boy than he had been when he scampered in to find a good hiding place.
    “Nick?”
    Nick opened his eyes with a heavy sigh. “What’s different?” He looked around the room.
    “Look at the fire.”
    Nick looked. It was as still as a photograph.
    “Stand up, Nick. You are in a moment of stopped time with me.”
    Nick slowly got to his feet. All around him the room was entirely motionless. The clock wasn’t ticking. The curtains, which had been moving in a slight breeze, were frozen. Outside the window the traffic went by as usual, but in this space, time was not only stopped, it didn’t seem even to exist. Arkady was beaming at Nick with triumph and something like teacherly pride. “How did it feel? Tell me.”
    Then Nick was laughing, so hard he had to sit down again. “Arkady, you devil. I was thinking about sex.”

CHAPTER SIX
    F or three days Julia had stayed inside,