by Frank Deford
Nina looked down at Paulette’s questions and, as best she could, phonetically read the first: “You remember me, don’t you, Margareta? I’m Nina.” She paused, and for emphasis, “Ollie’s friend.”
“Ja. Vriendlin van Ollie.” Incredible. Just with those few words, and it was obvious that Bucky had receded before Nina, folded into a woman, into Margareta. He had taken off his jacket and tie, revealing suspenders—and now, as he speaks, looking to her, it is as if the suspenders are straps to a gown. God, how strange. Bucky’s suspenders are a standard dark blue, but the more Nina looks at them, the more, in the candlelight, they appear green. With gold trim. Amazing. It’s almost as if Nina is as entranced as Bucky.
She smiles. She reads the next question from Paulette’s sheet: “It’s important that we talk about your time with Ollie after Jan left for Liege on Assumption Day.”
Margareta ducks her head—nervous, embarrassed. Well, Nina had expected that. Quickly, she reads what extra she’d had Paulette prepare for her. “We’ll make it easy, Margareta. We’ll have you pose some, like you do at Rubenshuis. You can act out your time with Ollie, so you won’t have to speak a lot to me.”
Margareta seems dubious. “I will act?” she asks.
From Margareta’s tone, Nina can pretty much guess that she is only being cautious, not negative, so even if she doesn’t know what Margareta has said, she nods in the affirmative and plows ahead, following the script. “Yes. Now you are at home on Schuttershofstraat, and your husband, Jan, leaves—” Margareta nods, but with something of a shamed look. “—and you put on your beautiful green gown with the gold trim.”
Nina holds out her hands as if she is presenting the gown to Margareta, and sure enough, she makes a motion as if she is putting it on. She holds herself more upright and turns sideways, looking as if there is a mirror there, even drawing her hands over the outline of her upper body, as she would smooth out any wrinkles. And then Margareta adjusts the suspenders, as a woman would her straps.
Nina is excited. Yes, yes, she thinks, it’s working well this way. So, quickly: “Now you’re ready to meet Ollie at the house on Hopland?” Margareta smiles—at once shyly, but with a touch of the devil in it, too. So now, louder, enthusiastically, looking just to Margareta’s side, Nina calls out, “And isn’t that Ollie now?” Margareta glances to her left and beams. “Do you kiss him?”
Coyly: “Wij soctelick koffen ofte fuenen.” Of course, Nina doesn’t understand, but from Margareta’s tone, she has a pretty good idea. Yes, they kiss. You bet. Clearly, things are progressing nicely. With the hypnosis. With Ollie.
In fact, now Margareta becomes downright expansive. Actually, all she’s telling Nina is that inside the house she and Ollie have some beer and they chat. At one point, Margareta even pantomimes picking up a glass, and there are other hints in her breeziness and manner so that Nina can easily imagine what fun Margareta and Ollie are having.
This really is a love nest. The husband’s away. Someone’s taking care of the children. There’s no rush. They can take their time, build to the lovemaking. Nina would like to be able to chat some herself, win more of Margareta’s friendship. But, of course, she is limited to the questions she made up with Paulette, so she can only ask next:
“So now, do you and Ollie make love?”
Margareta blushes at first, but then a gloriously happy smile emerges upon her face and she drops back on the bed on her elbows. “Ja,” she says. And now she takes her fingers and traces them around her breasts, closing her eyes, moving her head back and forth. Margareta doesn’t have to be graphic. Anyway, it is not her nature. But she reveals enough for Nina to understand that it is Ollie’s fingers that are really upon Margareta’s breasts. And then, when Margareta pulls slightly at Bucky’s suspenders, Nina knows that it is Ollie, taking down her straps, and when Margareta lies back, Nina knows she is making love now, Ollie upon her. In time Margareta sighs, and that is enough to indicate the climax of the act. Then, she pushes herself back up again, fixing Bucky’s suspenders, grinning at Nina as if to say: there…enough…you are a woman, too. You know.
And Nina nods, in understanding and appreciation.
But she must go on. Of course Margareta made love. But Nina is not a voyeur. It is the scream she wants to get to, the murder. We must reach: “…owwwllllleeeeeee…” When does that come? Is the evening over now that they’ve made love? But Nina hadn’t thought to ask Paulette how to say, “So you and Ollie went to sleep?” So improvising, Nina lays her two hands, palms together, up by her cheek in what surely must be the universal sign for sleep.
Margareta only giggles, shaking her head. Then she holds two fingers up. Nina gets the picture. This time, Margareta doesn’t have to lie back down and be so illustrative. She merely arches her eyebrows and shakes her head in delight, and Nina lets her revel in those glorious moments.
But Nina must continue. So again, she makes the sleep sign. And this time Margareta nods and peacefully closes her eyes.
Nina collects herself. Is this a dead end? Maybe whatever happened that terrified Margareta and made her scream so did not take place on Assumption Day. Okay, try to move on. She glances down at the questions, struggling to make the next one out in the dim candlelight. But without warning, Margareta interrupts. She opens her eyes, and in Flemish, cries out: “No, no, I must tell him.” And then, she looks down, clasping both of her hands softly upon her stomach. She smiles.
Nina still sees Bucky. It is Bucky’s hands on Bucky’s stomach, but Nina knows it is Margareta. Margareta is a woman, and she is touching a woman’s stomach. Of course. Now it is clear. Margareta is having a baby.
Nina holds her arms before her, rocking them. Margareta understands that Nina understands. She beams. But then she looks down to where Ollie is asleep and furrows her brow. She says (almost to herself): “I have to tell him. But not now. In the morning. First thing in the morning.”
Nina is frustrated that she doesn’t understand. But the last word: morgen. She knows that. Morning. Is Margareta saying it’s already morning? “Morgen?” Nina asks.
Margareta only shakes her head, then looks down where she sees Ollie asleep. “Oh, I love him so,” she says. And now, it is as if Nina is gone, and she is alone with Ollie. She reaches down with her left hand and draws it softly through the air, just above the bed. She is caressing Ollie, who is lying there sleeping after their lovemaking. And now the hand moves further down. It stops. She smiles. She has awoken Ollie, aroused him. She smiles down on him then arches her back. Nina thinks: he must have reached up, touched her breasts.
And now Margareta shifts her whole body. She pulls up her legs from where she—Bucky—is sitting, and raises up, kneeling upon the bed.
Kneeling! Nina sees it and remembers. Of course. It is all so vivid. It was just like this in that first session when Margareta came down off the couch to kneel. Just before she screamed. Oh my God. Margareta is kneeling on him. And, Jesus Christ, it is going to happen now. Ollie is going to reach up and strangle her even as they make love. He truly is a monster.
But I must watch. Somehow, I must….
Margareta keeps smiling down at Ollie. She has, obviously, already placed him inside of her, and now she only looks sweetly upon him as if to say: you hardly need to wake up. I will be the one to bring us both to bliss. She moves. She radiates joy.
Nina watches. Despite herself, she is so enthralled.
But then…wait. Margareta doesn’t change the way she is kneeling, but she turns her head sharply. Nina is jarred by the action. She sees Margareta cock her head. She’s heard something.
And now, Margareta’s eyes are full. She must have seen what she heard. Her expression changes. Nina can see her clearly. After all, she is looking directly at her. Only, not really. No, Margareta is looking through Nina. And she is utterly, horribly in shock. No. In fear.
What is i
t, Nina wonders? What? And then Margareta’s lips move. Barely a whisper: “Jan.”
Jan! Her husband. He has come here. He has caught the lovers.
Now Margareta’s hands fly up and she calls out—screams out: “No, Jan, no!”
But it is too late. Jan must be upon them. In a fury. Margareta’s hands flail about. Yes, of course. Jan has a knife. And now, he must be stabbing Ollie. Right before Margareta. My God: not just before her. Under her. Even as they are locked as one.
The blood must be spurting on her. Of course. That is why Margareta is looking in such horror down at herself. Her face is twisted, tormented. Her hands go to her chest. Ollie’s blood is all over her. He lies still beneath her. Murdered. Surely. And so now Nina knows what’s coming. Right now. But still, she cannot prepare herself. And it is awful. It pierces the night, that dreadful, horrific, keening wail. It is Margareta screaming: “…owwllllleeeeeee…”
And yet. And yet, Nina is oddly comforted. She had it wrong. Ollie didn’t kill Margareta. No, Margareta lives. It was Ollie who was murdered. In anguish, Margareta thrashes about, crying for her lover.
Nina regains her composure. She reaches over, turns on the light, then falls back onto the bed, grabbing Bucky, taking him into her arms, and softly, sweetly holding him, rocking him, starting to bring him back in time.
39
They sat there a few minutes later on the sofa back in the living room. Nina gave him a beer; she took a brandy. Bucky had literally toweled himself off, for he was damp from the experience. Nina had dug up a man’s plaid shirt for him—her husband’s from years ago. They both were very subdued. Finally, he said, “It was awful, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. You remember?”
He shook his head. “Just that somehow I’ve been through a wringer. When can we find out what I said?”
“The fact is, I really don’t have to wait, Bucky. I had you kind of act it out. Oh, I’ll need Paulette’s help with a few things, but mostly, I didn’t need the words.”
Bucky perked up. “You mean you can tell me now?”
“Pretty much.” Nina sipped her brandy, then got up. She really felt that she had to. Then, taking a deep breath, standing right before him, she began the narrative. It was all fresh in her mind and just flowed. The green dress, off to Hopland, meeting Ollie, some beers. Nina paused. “You made love then.”
“I told you that?”
“Look, Margareta and I have become good friends.”
There was a familiar old buckysmirk. “Did the Earth move for me?”
“Your wife should be so lucky.” It just popped out. One damn buckysmirk and she was back fencing with him again. “I’m sorry,” Nina said. “Uncalled for.”
“No, I deserved it.” He swigged from his beer can. “And then?”
“Return engagement.”
“Did I, like, describe this? Act? Did I, you know, show you?”
“Believe me, Bucky, it was all very discreet. Very classy. And Margareta understood she was talking to another woman. She didn’t have to dot the is and cross the ts for me.” Nina reached down and took another sip of her brandy. “Anyway, more importantly, the lady was pregnant.” Unsure, Bucky pointed a thumb at himself. “Yeah, evidently you’d just learned, and—”
“Ollie?”
“Oh yes, no doubt in your mind: Ollie was the father. I sort of gathered that Margareta had decided to tell Ollie right away, but she put it off, afraid he might not like the news. So, she woke up in the middle of the night, pondering her dilemma.”
Bucky shook his head. “Damn, I can’t believe I let myself get pregnant.” He took the cold beer can and drew it across his forehead. “Then what?”
“Well, you were sitting on the side of the bed telling me about this, and you looked over where Ollie would be, and well, let’s just say you couldn’t keep your hands off him.” Bucky blushed. “And then you actually got up on the bed. Oh, what the hell.” Nina sank to her knees on the rug. “Like so.”
“Oh God, I see. Ollie and I were—”
“Exactly. But suddenly you heard something.” Nina pantomimed. “Your head shot over like this.”
“What? Who?”
“Yeah, who. Jan. Your—Margareta’s—husband. He’d come back and caught you.”
“Right in the act.”
“Yeah, it was late. Maybe he’d just figured on finding you two asleep. Who knows? Anyway, Margareta sees him come into the room.” Nina reached over and turned on the tape recorder. She’d rewound the tape to these last moments when Bucky had been drying himself off in the bathroom. Now she held up the tape recorder before him as she stayed on her knees, still playing the part of Margareta.
The whisper: “Jan.” Nina throws her hands up, then opens her mouth as the words shoot out from the tape: “No, Jan, no!” Nina watches in horror, holding her hands up in Margareta’s defense.
Bucky catches on. “He’s got a knife?” he asks. She nods. He winces. Bucky can almost hear Ollie scream, almost see him writhe, die. Especially Bucky can visualize that as Nina draws Margareta’s bloody hands across her chest, holds them before her eyes. And then she looks down and she opens her mouth. She says nothing, just holds the tape recorder by her face and lets Bucky hear Margareta’s voice scream: “…owwllllleeeeeee…”
Nina clicked off the tape.
Before her, Bucky dropped his head in his hands. Nina wanted, all too much, to hold the poor guy in her arms and comfort him, the same as she had clutched him at the end of the hypnotic session. But he was Bucky now—not Margareta—and so she stayed there on the floor. At last she asked, “You all right?”
“No, as a matter of fact.” But he did at least lift up his head, trying to venture a tiny smile. “I’m not at all all right. I’m a bloody wreck.”
“Me too. Spot on.”
Bucky shook his head. “Nina, I can’t go home. Please. I can’t do it.”
“I understand.”
“Would you mind. I mean, is it possible for—”
“Of course you can stay here.” Nina heard herself say those words in compassion and convenience, but still, they scared her just for the implication they carried.
She was glad when he picked up the tape recorder himself and said he’d like to hear it again, because that gave Nina an excuse to get away. She went through her bedroom into her bathroom, closing both doors, shutting out the sounds of 1635, and she peered at her face in the mirror. It looked very drawn. But, she thought, it did look pretty, too. It looked pretty enough. The laser job really had been a dandy. Nina drew a brush through her hair, and then, quite intentionally, she picked up a lipstick.
Now, she really stared at herself. Why would she be doing this? Why, of all times, would it matter that she look nice to…a patient?
Walking back into her bedroom, she could hear the tape again, faintly. The scream would come soon enough. She waited till it was over. Then she opened the door. Bucky was still on the sofa, lying back, his legs spread out before him. He looked quite as if someone had slugged him. The tape was whirring soundlessly. Nina turned it off. She said, “Maybe you ought to get some sleep.”
Vacantly, he raised his head and looked straight at Nina. “I can’t believe it. He killed Constance.”
Nina, bending her knees, sort of squatting before him, took one of his hands. “No, Bucky. Come on. He killed Ollie. He killed a man named Ollie—and that was almost four hundred years ago.” She paused before going on. “In fact, you should know: he wasn’t really even Ollie. He was actually a man named Cecil Wainwright.”
Bucky’s face scrunched up. “Oh? Why?”
Nina raised herself up to sit next to him on the sofa. “All right, now listen to me. I’m going to tell you everything. Now. And then there’s no more. I don’t even need to hypnotize Constance again. There’s nothing more I c
an learn from her. I know what happened now. I know you’re Double Ones.”
“Robbed of love,” Bucky said. “I wonder—”
“What?”
“If that’s what makes Double Ones.”
“You mean, being taken from each other in the very act of making love?”
“Yeah. You think?”
Nina’s mind jumped to Hugh. Was that it? Was it all just that simple? Had one of them died in the act? No, please. Then God really was a man. He didn’t bring you back for love. No, He just reincarnated you, centuries later, so you could finish up a good piece of ass. No. No, Nina wouldn’t believe that. “I’m sorry, Bucky, I gotta think it’s more than just…that.”
“Maybe Jocelyn had come to some sort of conclusion about that—you know, in her manuscript,” Bucky said.
“Yeah, maybe.” She looked at him closely. Suddenly, remembering Jocelyn, it appeared as if he might cry. So: “C’mon now, you gotta go to bed,” Nina said—and to underscore the point, she got up herself.
Hardly, however, had Nina begun to turn away, when she felt Bucky’s hand grab her wrist, pull her back. Please, she thought, don’t do this. Largely, she felt this too, because she was scared that she wouldn’t stop him. Only Bucky could stop Bucky. She looked back down at him, waiting. And then, plaintively, he merely said, “But you were going to tell me why Ollie was…who? Cecil Somebody?”
“Oh yeah, that.” So Nina caught her breath and slumped back down next to him. Then she began. “Okay, Bucky, Ollie wasn’t a nice person.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No, in fact, he was an evil person. A murderer.”
“Jesus.”
“Killed three women—that he told me about. Elsa—remember?”
“Yeah, the name was lodged somewhere.”
“Elsa was another one of Rubens’s models. And she was a whore, and Ollie killed her. Just a few days before…” Nina nodded toward the tape recorder.
“God, did I—I mean, did Margareta know?”