The Shadow of Obsession
The Shadow of Obsession
Klempner - Twenty-Six Years Ago
Our final night. Tomorrow it’s back to the airport and the return home. We sit together in what passes for a tea-room in Helsinki, looking out of the window over the square. Mitch flips through a tourist guide.
I kiss the hollow of her collarbone where, around her neck, are the emeralds I gave her. “Thank you for wearing them.”
She turns those eyes on me, deep, deep green; lambent. “They're beautiful. Thank you for giving them to me.”
“Not as beautiful as you.”
She sucks at her lip then nods out to the snow-covered square. "It’s a lovely statue. It says here…" She holds up the tourist guide… "… that she’s called ‘The Mermaid’ but she looks like a woman to me."
“She has a lot of names. ‘Merenneito’, the
