You Don't Make Wine Like the Greeks Did by David E. Fisher (best big ereader TXT) 📗

"Don't be vulgar," Donald said. "Let's keep this on a civilized plane."

"That's not vulgarity," she answered. "It's poetry. 'I don't give a damn or a wild pig's snort, but you cut just one strand and the fashions be damned, I swear that I'll boil three in lime!'"

"Lime?" Victor asked rather weakly.

"I think so, dear," Mimi said. "Would you care for a martini?"

"How about the toilet!" Donald suddenly thundered. "How about that, hey?"

"I beg your pardon," Mimi replied.

"The toilets, the toilets," he repeated impatiently. "Do you want to spend the rest of your short life with this old-fashioned plumbing?" He waved wildly toward the tile bathroom. "It's all right roughing it for a few months like we did, but can you honestly imagine spending the rest of your life under such vile conditions? Ha, you didn't think of that, did you?" he continued when he saw the sudden stricken expression on her face. "You don't like the idea, do you?"

Mimi clenched her fists at her side and stamped her little foot. "I don't care," she spit out, "I absolutely do not care! I will stay with him, I will, I will, I will." She turned and looked at the bathroom that opened off the bedroom, and blanched for one moment, then she shut her eyes, gave another kick, and insisted. "I will, I will, I will!"

Donald sighed and slapped his hands at his side. He turned around, hesitated for a few seconds, then said to the wall, "I've tried. I've tried everything I could think of." He turned again and faced them, and he raised his gun. "You're coming, Mimi. One way or another, you're coming."

So quietly he hardly realized what he was doing, but thankful that the gas pain had vanished, Victor stepped between the gun and the girl. "You'll have to kill me, Donald," he said. "You won't take her out of here without killing me, I promise you that, and what will that do to your future? A man from the future killing somebody here? Oh, no, that'll upset everything. And before I've become famous? Your whole history will be changed. You'd better think twice, Donald."

The gun wavered, and lowered.

"Would you care for a martini, Donald, dear?" Mimi asked.

Donald turned and ran from the room. They heard his feet slipping down the stairs, they heard the front door slam behind him.

Victor started after him, but Mimi held him back. "What are you going to do," she cried, "chase after him? What will you do when you catch him? You're needed more here. After all," she continued, "think what I just went through? I'm a nervous wreck, almost getting carted off to God knows where like that. I need the care of a competent physician."

He turned back to her in a daze, she clucked and patted his cheek, and pushed him down onto the bed. She pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his face. "Aren't you proud of me?" she said. "Wasn't that fast thinking? How did you like that little story I told? It really threw him, didn't it? He didn't know what to think."

"You mean," Victor stammered, "you mean you didn't mean it, you just made it up? Just like that?"

"Darling," she began to giggle, "you didn't believe that wild story? About the future? Oh, darling, you couldn't possibly believe it."

"Of course not," he said. "Of course not. Quick thinking, Mimi, yes, very quick thinking. It was a convincing story, you know. Very good. But, my God! I've got to catch him."

"Don't be silly," she said, pushing him down. "You'll never find him, you'll never see him again. He'll be lost in the crowd. One more screwball in New York, they'll never notice him. He'll fit right in. He may even become President some day, or at least Dean of Students at some small New England College. You just take my word for it, darling, and relax a moment. I'll rush downstairs and bring you up a martini. We deserve one. He'll be all right now. As long as he's made up his mind that he can leave me here, he'll trot off somewhere and dig up another neurosis, or psychosis, or whatever. He's not dangerous anymore. And you heard him say we were never married, and we have no marriage certificate, so I guess we're not. Can't we just forget about him, just as if he never existed? Maybe he never did exist. Maybe he was just a figment of our imagination. Maybe he was just an instrument of kismet to bring us together. Maybe he was just a wandering minstrel, or a memory looking for a chance to be real?"

"Maybe you'd better not talk so much, but just bring up the martini. Better bring a pitcher. Green ones."

And so she did. Their first honeymoon they spent in Bermuda; they took their second on a trip to Sweden ten years later, when Victor went to accept his first Nobel prize.

THE END