The Summer of Katya by Trevanian Page B

was startled when the trailing edge of the storm passed over, delivering a final barrage of thunder.
    “Good Lord, Montjean,” Paul laughed. “You jumped as though you’d seen a ghost. You must have been miles away.”
    I smiled. “Not miles away, but perhaps months away.” This meant nothing to anyone but me, but it gave me pleasure to say it aloud nonetheless.
    “What’s all this about ghosts?” Monsieur Treville asked.
    “Nothing important, Father,” Paul said, as he knelt to stir the fire.
    “No, tell me. I want to know.”
    Paul sighed. “Very well. Montjean is lost in reverie… thunder cracks… Montjean jumps and gasps… son offers inane comment about ghosts… Montjean parries with incomprehensible prattle about miles and months… and there you have it. The entire gripping episode.”
    “I don’t understand,” Monsieur Treville confessed.
    To divert us from this silly tangle, I joked, “You should be used to ghosts, harboring as you do your share of them.”
    Paul’s shoulders stiffened, the piece of firewood poised in his hand. “What do you mean by that?” he asked without turning to me.
    I shrugged. “Nothing really. I was merely referring to the ghost in your garden.”
    “Oh, I see,” Monsieur Treville said, sitting in his favorite chair before the fire. Then he blinked and frowned. “Which ghost is that?”
    “Local tradition has it that your garden is haunted by a…” I glanced at Katya with a smile to which she did not respond. “…by a charming young spirit who resents being called a ghost.”
    Paul’s voice was flat. He spoke staring into the hearth, his back to the room. “Have you seen this spirit yourself, Montjean?”
    “No, not actually. But I have testimony of its existence from a perfectly impeccable source.” I could not comprehend Katya’s frown and slight shake of her head.
    Paul set the stick of wood down deliberately and rose to face me. “You don’t mind if we don’t take coffee this evening, do you, Doctor? My poor battered shoulder is giving me pain, so I think I’ll make an early night of it.”
    “Nonsense,” Katya said. “Of course we shall take coffee. You, however, may go to your room if you must.”
    “No, no, no,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving and running the risk of missing Father’s insights into the climactic frailty of Man or Dr. Montjean’s invaluable metaphysical footnotes. I have the rounding out of my education to consider. By the way, ‘invaluable’ is the opposite of ‘valuable,’ isn’t it?”
    “Someone mentioned ghosts and spirits just now,” Monsieur Treville said, accepting his coffee and brandy from Katya with a negligent smile of thanks. “I’ve always been fascinated by the role played by the supernatural in the life of medieval man. Of course, Doctor, you are familiar with Louis Duvivier’s work on the subject, in which he presents the attractive, if rather weakly substantiated, contention that Christianity maintained its sway over the half-barbaric minds of the….”
    ….Half an hour later, Katya interrupted her father’s involute monologue by kissing him on the forehead and saying that she should be off to bed. I rose and took her offered hand.
    “Will we see you tomorrow for tea, Jean-Marc?”
    “Yes, of course. Good-night, Katya.”
    “Good-night. Are you coming up, Paul?”
    “As soon as I’ve seen our guest off.” Paul’s speech was slightly slurred in result of his excessive recourse to the brandy.
    As Katya left the salon, Monsieur Treville pulled out his watch and said, “My goodness! How the evening has slipped by! And I have work I promised myself to finish before tomorrow. Still, it was an intriguing conversation. I must confess that I am addicted to the give and take of intelligent conversation. It’s fast becoming a lost art. Well, then! If you will excuse me?” And he left.
    I remained standing, prepared to be on my way, but Paul didn’t rise from his chair. Instead,