The Roulette Heart

By David Dorian

Twenty-three-year-old psych graduate student Margharita Louverture is reading her textbook on a bench in Washington Square Park when she realizes she left her cigarettes at home. She spots a dignified old man walking a dog and asks for a smoke. Little does she know that meeting Andreas Bathory in the park ignites a flame that will burn them both.

A liaison between Margharita and Andreas unfolds, and repressed psychological longings and denied spiritual agendas are revealed. A bond is created that goes beyond conventionality, as they see in the other a guide out of their inner labyrinths. It becomes obvious their souls are cursed. Restoration is only possible if they delve deeper and deeper into their murky hearts.

The relationship becomes a journey into Hell, but at the end of the path they reach an exit, a longed for denouement. In this incendiary emotional cliffhanger, an impassionate, combustible woman meets an arsonist of the heart and shares a flaming encounter. After the blaze is extinguished, redemption rises from the ashes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663212658

David Dorian

Immersed in the radiant culture of Europe, David Dorian taught comparative literature in American colleges. As a psychoanalyst in New York City, he investigated and healed many marooned souls. He is also author of Alchemies of the Heart.

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Copyright © 2021 David Dorian.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-1560-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-1265-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020925816

Print information available on the last page.

iUniverse rev. date:  07/28/2021

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

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Chapter 1

Margharita Louverture loved the melting season, when the rise of sap and sun intoxicated the h eart.

That morning, Washington Square Park was defrosting after the abundant February snows. The air was electric, promising a renewal of spirit for urban dwellers.

The quad had been occupied by a caravan of hobos, musicians, clowns, and bearded poets. Drifters had congregated, and adolescent girls, like wood nymphs, performed lubricious dances in their rites of spring, a pagan bacchanal in the park in honor of the approaching thaw.

Undergraduate students from the nearby colleges trailed stray males, offering temporary bliss to businessmen crossing the park and luring them to their dorm rooms for a quick redemption and a gratuity. The structure of their anatomy, delineated through their tight garments, dragged loitering men on the cobbled pathways into an abyss of disorder.

The park simmered with a fermentation of longing. A sense of premature arousal floated over the awakened greenery. In that convention of squatters and park visitors, human material was overheating. The urban garden welcomed metropolitan urges, embracing their polymorphous perversity.

Beneath the liquefying soil, under the icy earth, ferocious bulbs screeched, eager to sprout, to dart their stiletto stems toward the elusive sun. Washington Square Park shuddered in its shimmering frenzy. The repressed madness of city dwellers was eager to hatch.

The gardens germinated, roared, and whistled, as if a legion of demons were held captive in the branches of the maple trees.

Seated on a bench, Margharita was absorbed in her reading. She was on her break, before she had to return to her psych class. Her obsidian-black hair cascaded down to her slim waist, and her face was polished, her eyes burnt umber, her lips jutting. A silvery gray cardigan and tight jeans accentuated a geometry of arms and fluid legs. There was no adornment, no gold earrings, no platinum necklace or silver bracelets. No man-made ornament marred the natural hue of her skin, the color of pale adobe.

At an early age she had discovered the joys of nicotine. She revered her father and wanted to emulate his passions. He was an ardent cigar aficionado. Later in life, she would favor tobacco as a substitute for alcohol. The lungs allowed the intoxicants to enter the bloodstream and visit the brain swiftly without the lengthy and cumbersome digestive process. Nicotine inebriated the intellect and expanded the imagination. Great artists were all voracious inhalers of tobacco, cannabis, opium, et cetera. She saw herself belonging to this exclusive club whose members fumigated their souls.

She searched for her pack of Gitanes inside her knapsack but couldn’t find it. She had been smoking last night while strenuously editing an article written by a visiting professor. She’d have to beg for cigarettes from park strollers. They never turned her down.

She spotted her target. From the end of the footpath, emerging from a sliver of fog, she saw the old man with the hound. There was a synchronicity in the pair’s movements, a symmetrical cadence. The animal was majestic, with grace and aplomb in its undulating motion. Its aristocratic bearing and fluid gait reflected its unsoiled breeding. There was a demeanor of legend about the creature. She recalled having seen this type of canine in a bas-relief in the Ancient Egyptian Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a hunting scene with a pharaoh on a chariot pursuing a lion, with the dog leading the chase.

"Canis aureus," she exulted.

The elderly man heard her and stopped, startled. He caressed the regal head of the dog. The hound sensed it had become the topic of conversation. It stared at Margharita with inflamed eyes.

They hunt lions, don’t they? Are you a hunter? she asked.

In Kenya, I was.

Lions?

I hunted poachers who cut lions’ testicles for export.

A culinary delicacy?

Aphrodisiacs.

Does it really work? she asked, intrigued.

The Chinese swear by it.

A sudden gust of wind summoned loose leaves and dust, funneling them into a miniature twister.

How do you know about dogs? he asked.

My father was into dog racing. He traveled all over the world to bet on greyhounds.

I thought it was illegal in most countries.

Not in Uruguay, Laos, and French Guyana.

Did he take you along?

My mother didn’t appreciate the sport. She never went with him, so I did.

I’m sure your mother didn’t support the mistreatment of animals.

I was too young to care. I loved whatever my father liked, she voiced.

You were Daddy’s girl.

For sure, but after a while I got to like the animals and felt bad about the way they were treated. I confronted Dad. We fought about it. Then I stopped going to the dog races, and you know, a little bit after, my father gave it up.

He did it for you, the old man surmised.

Oh, I don’t know.

In the vast sky above, cumuli, their cauliflower heads tinted in ochre and gold, were fattening with electricity. The air was suddenly full of white confetti. Snowflakes materialized out of the gray skies.

Why are you staring at me? she asked, perturbed.

You have North Indian ancestry, he asked.

I doubt that.

I have a painting of a North Indian princess. You could have posed for the painter.

He sat down on her bench and produced a platinum cigarette case. She stared at the dark slim sticks with reverence. With a gold Flaminaire he lit the fire stick. She held his hand in her palms to protect the elusive flame from the furtive wind. His skin was frail. She felt a tremor under his epidermis. It was enlightening to absorb information through the skin. He touched her dry fingers: they belonged to an avid reader. Fingers eroded by the acidic paper of thousands of pages testified to torrid affairs with books. They were the fingers of a zealous page turner, a promiscuous reader.

An imponderable scent emanating from his body jarred her senses. It was the odor of bones—chalky, ashy, like the smell of old pewter. He was dead, she thought. The absurdity of that idea agitated her. She felt challenged by this olfactory conclusion. Should she heed this sensorial data and put her guards up? She turned to her cigarillo for solace, rejoicing in the herbal aroma.

She filled her lungs with smoke, savoring the clove fragrance. Indonesian! It’s like smoking incense, she claimed, inspecting the cigarillo.

He was observing her, translating the emotions written on her face.

I smoked Dad’s Regius Maduros when I was ten, she offered.

A nicotine devil are you!

I’d wait for Mom to go to bed. Then we’d take long walks in the woods, and we’d smoke, and I’d pass out. Dad would carry me to my room and tuck me in bed. I became addicted when I was ten.

Wild youth!

Why am I telling you this? she protested, perturbed.

She felt a shiver, sitting so close to this stranger and confessing the secret conspiracy with her dad. These memories of her father inebriated her. The inhaled fumes liberated her. She leaned on the man. She inhaled the expensive scent of fine wool emanating from his sophisticated European jacket.

She examined his face, his aquiline nose, his glacier-blue eyes. Elderly pedestrians strolling down the alley were looking at them, envy on their wrinkled faces.

They think we are in love, he said, smiling.

She bit her tongue. The hound barked.

We’re not paying him enough attention. That’s Anubis, my Egyptian jackal, he said, introducing his beast. I taught him to hunt hunters who hunt lions. In Africa, regretfully on occasion, he was fed human flesh, poachers’ flesh, he said dryly.

She felt revulsion. A sliver of fear slashed her insides, then waned. The burning clove in the cigarette kept her anxiety in check.

It’s an outrageous thing, I know, but after the chase he expects to be rewarded with a morsel of the catch—that’s animal law. He just wouldn’t eat plain dog food after the hunt.

Glancing at the old man, Margharita noticed that his face was suddenly ravaged by tremors.

In Burundi, his diet was human flesh; he got used to it. In New York he’s served lamb.

The hound was watching her with gleaming eyes. Was it hunger or bloodlust or both simmering in its viscera? The impulse to get up and walk away from hunter and beast pressed on her. She couldn’t command her legs to enforce the order. Her brain transmitted signals that the soleus, gastrocnemius, and tibialis anterior muscles didn’t intercept. Uninformed, they were irresponsive to her plea. She felt frozen, petrified.

Don’t worry, Red Riding Hood, he won’t hurt you, the man consoled, noticing her discomfort.

She felt captive, a hostage bound by a phantom rope to the park bench.

Margharita, what are you learning at the university?

Psychology.

You want to rescue souls in distress?

She became silent, contemplative.

Would you like another cigarillo? he asked, a smile disfiguring his thin lips.

What are you trying to do? Get me drunk? she snapped defiantly, having recovered her senses.

That’s my plan! he said, a look of intentionality crossing his face.

She drew a fresh lungful of luxuriant smoke.

What are you reading? he asked.

She handed him the book.

He opened it and read some lines. I never knew him, but I had friends who had friends who socialized with him in Vienna. I named my valet Severin because he gets a kick from being humiliated.

She was stunned by this revelation. Are you Viennese?

Regrettably!

Why are you apologizing?

That city bred monsters, he asserted.

An uncomfortable silence momentarily disconnected the discussants.

Vienna was a sanatorium with lots of incurable patients walking the streets. Mental health was not fashionable then, he launched.

It’s the birthplace of psychoanalysis, she countered.

They were all Jews, and the Viennese hated them. Nobody visited their consultation rooms. They all immigrated to New York. And you’ll be joining their ranks very soon, he said.

I am Huguenot, or my ancestors were.

You’re Jewish at heart, I know it, he said in a faintly admonishing tone.

She didn’t understand what he was talking about.

You live with a terrible secret, he said.

At that instant, while looking at her contrite face, he began the examination of her eyes. They had every season in them, the greens of spring, the copper of fall, the blackness and white snows of winter.

She was disturbed by the revelation, his excavation into her soul, the exposure of a private wound that had infected her early years.

Have you published? he mused.

I’m working on my thesis.

Some illustrious Viennese psychoanalyst?

A student of Freud.

What’s his name?

Anton Solany.

So you’re the one, the recipient of the scholarship. I’m finally meeting you, the man said, beaming.

Oh my God! That’s incredible.

You’re Margharita Louverture, and I’m Andreas Bathory. I was planning to have a conference with you to discuss the progress of your research.

Yes, I wanted to meet you too.

Better the park than a professorial office that smells of old books and dust.

You knew him?

Yes, I knew him. We were inmates at Dachau. I disposed of his body after they cremated him, he said, a shiver in his voice.

It’s extraordinary.

We were Freud’s students. I could tell you a few things about Anton. You should interview me for your thesis.

The dog was looking at his master, a feral glint in his eyes. It growled at Andreas, exposing an array of jagged teeth.

He knows my thoughts. He can be overprotective, you know.

Her heart thumped in her chest.

Don’t stare at him, the old man warned.

Snowflakes as fat as marshmallows began to fall. The air was in a furor. Anubis’s hum became a roar. The dog lunged at the flakes rapaciously. A thick sliver of snow landed on her jeans. The hound plunged its muzzle and began licking the snowflake. It was back in the dunes in the Egyptian desert, inebriated by the gamy aroma of the gazelle. The chase was on. Its eyes gleamed with the thrill of pursuit. A dribble of spittle ran from its maroon lips.

Andreas watched placidly, his eyes taking in the scene. Let him know you, he urged.

She squirmed, her arms flailing.

Don’t resist.

Margharita couldn’t contain the fiend.

Now, now, you’ve made a true friend for life, he coaxed.

The dog stopped, disengaging his head. Her heart hammered in her chest, quickly doubling its tempo. Her instinct was to scream, to turn and run.

Your animal needs training, sir, she panted.

No harm done.

Let him play in traffic, she vented.

I think we’ve exceeded our welcome, Anu, Andreas said as he ground his cigarillo on the pebbled ground. I take Anu every Wednesday for a walk in the park. He likes it here. It’s aromatherapy for dogs. He shrugged and walked away.

She tried hard to put this event out of her mind, but she couldn’t. Andreas had watched the breach, the infringement, without sheltering her. Andreas had not apologized for the bad manners of his pet, and on the contrary, he had urged her to surrender