The Other Adonis

by Frank Deford

  Bucky laughed. “You probably know that better.”

  “Well, the proof is in the pudding. De Gruyter accepted the child as his, and he accepted Margareta back into his good graces.” She ticked the paper Bucky held. “Mr. and Mrs. De Gruyter are both listed on the baptismal register—and it’s certainly symbolic that they had the child baptized at the time of their anniversary.”

  “But, wait a minute. Didn’t De Gruyter get punished? I mean, the sonuvabitch killed a man in cold blood. With a witness, uh, very close by.”

  “Yes, but that’s it—he killed a man screwing his wife,” Nina said. “In the seventeenth century, wherever you were in this benighted world, the courts tended to go kindly on poor, wronged husbands—especially those who discovered rather graphically that they were being cuckolded.

  “I’m just guessing, Bucky, but I think this is possible, too. Somebody must have seen Ollie with Elsa—you know, away from Rubenshuis. Rubens had posted a nice reward. Especially after Ollie was killed, when there was a great deal of notoriety about the scandal, I suspect somebody fingered Ollie as Elsa’s murderer. The scutters probably said case closed. So, you see, Jan De Gruyter wasn’t really a murderer. He was more of a convenient instrument of justice who saved the city from paying the executioner.”

  “Okay,” Bucky said, “so De Gruyter gets off, I…Margareta has the baby, and to keep up appearances, they baptize it at Saint James. You think maybe then he chucked Margareta outta the house?” Nina shook her head. “Oh no. I’d bet my life that Margareta and Jan stayed together. Maybe not happily, but yes, ever after. Look at the last thing on the baptism certificate.” Bucky glanced down, puzzling over the handwriting. “It’s the names of the godparents. See there?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “One godfather is Joannis Gansacker. Remember? It’s his family that rescued Margareta from the orphanage. Mr. Gansacker was obviously a very prominent citizen. But now look at the other two godparents.”

  Bucky smiled as he read: “Peter Paul and Helena Rubens.”

  “The big guns. Margareta De Gruyter might have slipped into adultery, but she retained some very solid allies.” Nina held up her two thumbs and forefingers, suggesting a picture frame. “This is the way I see it: Rubens assembled a sort of family court at Rubenshuis. He reverted back to being the diplomat. Probably no women there. Certainly not Margareta. No Helena. No Mrs. Gansacker. But Mr. Gansacker is there, and maybe the chief scutter. And Jan De Gruyter, for sure.”

  Nina paced about, playing Rubens, even stroking an imaginary beard. “And he says: ‘Mr. De Gruyter, this has all been most unfortunate. Your dear wife was led astray by this evil Englishman, but you took care of that, as any devoted husband has a right to, but now it’s time for you to forgive Margareta this lapse and proceed with your lives…as before.’”

  Nina leaned over toward Bucky as if she were Rubens addressing De Gruyter. “‘After all, my dear De Gruyter, you had yourself been behaving quite badly toward Margareta, who, as Joannis here will attest, is a wonderful lady.’ And here Gansacker nods vigorously, and Rubens goes on: ‘Both Mrs. Rubens and I have grown most fond of Margareta, too. And I’m sure, sir, that you would want to continue to live and prosper here in Antwerp, to worship at Saint James, to raise your family in our midst, under the protection of Our Blessed Virgin. What a shame it would be if your cloth business was found not to have paid sufficient taxes to the Tiende Penning or etc., etc.’

  “And probably at that point, Bucky, Gansacker harrumphed on cue and said something like, ‘Oh my, that would be so dreadful,’ and Jan De Gruyter got the picture. It’s possible that Rubens even told him that he and Gansacker were thinking of putting him up for membership in the country club—whatever the equivalent to country clubs was then in Antwerp. Make sense?”

  “Perfect.” Bucky slipped the papers back into the envelope. “So, I had Ollie’s baby and went back to posing as Madonna.”

  “Even better. Posing with your child.” Nina pointed to the envelope. “But one more thing. Take another look at the baptism certificate.” Bucky retrieved it. “You didn’t notice the child’s name.”

  Bucky smiled broadly as he located the information. “Peter Paul,” he said. “I named him Peter Paul De Gruyter.”

  Nina went back over to her desk and picked up a business card. “Inspector Stoclet also sent this name.” She handed it to Bucky. “She’s supposed to be the finest genealogist in Belgium. There’s probably a lot more stuff she could uncover. Who knows? Maybe you could even trace your line right up to today.”

  Dismissively, though, Bucky flipped the card back at Nina. “No thanks. I can’t quite see myself walking into somebody’s house in Brussels and saying, ‘Hi, I’m your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother.’” He stood up, handing her the envelope. “No, that’s enough, Nina. I don’t wanna know any more.”

  She held up the envelope. “You don’t even want this?”

  He shook his head. “God, no. I’m just gonna try and forget it all—well, as much as I can. You’re the shrink. You think that’s best for me?”

  “Yes, Dr. Winston, your psychiatrist, thinks that’s best for you.” Nina reached out and touched his shoulder. “More important, a good friend of yours named Nina thinks that’s best for you.”

  For emphasis, then, Nina took the manila envelope and the genealogist’s card and pitched them into the bottom drawer of her desk—along with Mr. Grady’s old pack of stale Salems and the other abandoned artifacts of patients past. Only just then, from across the room, she heard Bucky say, “There’s something else I oughtta tell you, Nina.”

  “Oh?”

  He’d ducked his head, then raised it, but tentatively. “Well, can you keep a secret?”

  “I think I’ve got a pretty good track record in that department.”

  “Okay, I’ll take a chance with you. Phyllis is pregnant.”

  Nina blew him a kiss. “Why, you rascal, you.” He beamed. It wasn’t a buckysmirk. No, Nina noticed: it was very definitely a buckybeam. She came toward him then, holding out both her hands. “Well, I guess that’s a perfect note to end on.” He took her hands. “But, you ever have any more problems, you ever need a psychiatrist again—”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry what?”

  “Don’t worry, Nina, I won’t call you.”

  “Good. We’re on the same page.” She let go his hands, then, and put her arm under his, escorting him to the door. Only when they got there, did Nina look up and say: “All right, I’ll tell you a secret, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember once I told you I was unfaithful?” Bucky nodded. Nina pointed through the closed door.

  “Oh, Hugh?”

  Nina nodded. “And remember once you were trying to tell me about the color?”

  “Sure. You said: ‘Silver.’ And I said: ‘How’dja know?’ and you said something like you always just imagined that silver was the color of rapture.”

  Nina shook her head. “No, Bucky, I wasn’t guessing. I knew.” And she pointed again, through the closed door.

  “Hey, you mean, you and Hugh…? Really?”

  “Uh huh. I’m pretty sure we’re Double Ones. The instant I met him, there was just something. And there was silver, Bucky. Oh boy, was there silver.”

  “Do you know…when?”

  “You mean when Hugh and I were lovers before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Believe me, I’m not going to try and open that Pandora’s Box. Nobody’s hypnotizing me. But, uhh”—Nina pursed her lips. “Incas. I think we were a magnificent Inca king and queen.”

  “Why you think that?”

  “Oh, just a hunch. Hey, Bucky, you were a woman once. Don’t you believe in a woman’s intuition?”

  Bucky smiled at h
er. “That’s great, Nina. Are you happy?”

  “Oh, Bucky, I’m so happy. Are you? We’re not supposed to ever ask patients flat out: are you happy? So, tell me: are you happy?”

  He considered that. “Well, I’m getting there. I’m learning to be happy again.”

  “Good,” she said, reaching for the door. “You see, I’m sure it was your happiness—anyway, your contentment—that saved you. Constance never had the same pull to keep her here. I think that’s why, eventually, when she was in Antwerp surrounded by the past, she fell back completely into the past.”

  “Yeah,” Bucky said, and then, before Nina could turn the doorknob, he put his hand on top of hers. “Of course, Nina, even though I’m delighted for you—with Hugh—that does ruin my plans.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, you know, I was hoping—expecting—that next time…” He stopped talking, but with the most devilish buckysmirk she had ever seen, he just waggled his forefinger between her chest and his.

  Nina said, “You mean, you and me?”

  “Yeah, don’t you think?”

  Nina put a finger on her chin. “Well, it’s a thought. I’ll have to check my calendar, but when did you have in mind?”

  “Now, I don’t know about Incas,” Bucky said, “but based on Margareta and Ollie, it’s about three and a half centuries between shifts. So let’s say, uh, around 2350—give or take the odd decade.”

  “It’s a date, then,” Nina cooed, and she reached up on her tiptoes and kissed Bucky ever so lightly on the lips. “You be the girl, I’ll be the boy,” she said.

  “I’d like that, Doctor,” Bucky said, and then they went into the reception room where Hugh and Phyllis were chatting. They all said their good-byes. But it was funny. Just as the Buckinghams stepped outside, the women’s leaders in the marathon—a Tanzanian and a Finn—happened to come down Fifth Avenue right before them, so from all over the sidewalk, all around, at that exact moment there arose a great crescendo of cheers. Nina couldn’t help it. She started applauding, too. But, of course, she was clapping for Bucky as she watched him disappear with his wife into the crowd.

  He had made it. All the way back.

  Hugh and Nina strolled home, moving away from the marathon mobs. They had Bloody Marys, which was reasonably sybaritic for newlyweds, while Nina did The Sunday Times crossword puzzle and Hugh watched the Jets. Hugh liked the Jets better than the Giants. “Why?” Nina asked, not because she cared, but because she felt it was a wifely thing to feign an interest in.

  “Because the Giants are a very Roman Catholic team,” he replied, presumably with some degree of seriousness.

  “So, are the Jets a Lutheran team?” Nina asked him.

  “Relative to the Giants, yes. Lutherans have to be grateful for small favors in New York. Anyway”—he looked at his watch—“it’s almost time to go now.”

  “Go where?”

  “On our honeymoon.”

  “Oh? Where we goin’?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “How long?”

  “A week. But don’t worry. We’ll be back in time for the Jets-Ravens game on Monday Night Football next week.”

  “A week? I have appointments.”

  “No you don’t. Roseann and I took care of that.”

  Nina shook her head in delight, then threw her arms around Hugh’s neck and kissed him. “You’re much too devious for a man of the cloth,” she said. “But come on, I have to know what to bring.”

  Hugh opened the closet and brought out a new ladies’ matching suitcase and garment bag, both full up. “The greatest trust a woman can have for her husband is to allow him to pack for her.”

  She nodded, but ruefully. “Are you really sure, Hugh? Marriage is dicey enough without taking a risk like this.”

  “I have the utmost faith in my ability to select your wardrobe,” he said. “Now, shut up and dress for an overnight plane ride.”

  Of course, as soon as they checked in at Kennedy, Nina learned they were going to Paris. But it wasn’t until they’d landed the next morning and were in the limousine Hugh had hired and she saw the skyline of Paris receding to the south, and then saw the sign that said, “Bruxelles, 200 km,” that Nina figured out where they were going. “You devil, you,” she said, but sweetly.

  “You had to go. We had to go,” was all Hugh said. They held hands and nodded off, Nina asleep upon his shoulder almost all the way to Brussels. Antwerp was an hour beyond. Hugh had made their reservation for the Hilton, and after they checked in, they walked around old Antwerp. In fact, they started with a sort of courtesy call to Rubens, pausing at his great statue in the Groen Plaats, which they could see from outside their window.

  They went into the Cathedral next, and they said prayers there for the memory of Jocelyn, for forgiveness for Constance, and for the happiness of themselves. Nina also prayed for Bucky. She would always pray for Bucky.

  Then they made their way forward, where above the high altar soared Rubens’s great baroque work, The Assumption of The Virgin. Looking up at it, Nina couldn’t help but notice how much the older fellow standing next to her towered over her. He must have been in his seventies, but he still stood straight as a tree, six-feet-four or more. He had red hair and freckles. It was only when he walked away that Nina saw that he was with someone—an old Asian woman, shorter even than Nina. He had to reach way down just to hold hands with her. “Now that’s what I call an odd couple,” Nina told Hugh.

  “‘God works in a mysterious way,’” Hugh said. “T.S. Eliot wrote that about a hippopotamus.”

  “How in the world would you know that?”

  “You’d be surprised the stuff you learn that’s good at starting sermons.”

  Back in their room, Hugh went over Nina’s wardrobe. He showed her exactly what he thought she could wear every day in Antwerp, and next when they went to Bruges, and then finally back to Paris. “Well?” he said.

  “Perfect,” Nina replied. “You’re my reward and I deserve you, but what a waste for womanhood that you aren’t gay and could dress us all.” They ate well and drank well and made love better, all silver, notwithstanding jet lag, and then, in the morning, walked to the Royal Museum.

  They headed directly to the Rubens section. Soon, Nina moved ahead of Hugh, who studied every painting as if he were a curator. When she stepped into the next room, she saw them right away: the tall redheaded man and the little Asian woman. They were holding hands again, staring up at Le Coup de Lance, Rubens’s painting of a Roman soldier spearing Christ upon the cross. Nina moved closer, fascinated at how completely enthralled they were. Why, she had not seen anyone so spellbound since…well, since Bucky or Constance.

  When the couple fell back, collapsing onto one of the banquettes, Nina casually sat down herself and tried to strike up a conversation. “We’re Australian,” the redhead replied, and his little wife—Nina could see her ring—nodded. “From Adelaide.”

  “Oh, I want so much to go to your country,” Nina gushed. She gestured toward Hugh, who was coming into the room just now. “My husband. Perhaps Australia the next time we travel. This is our honeymoon.”

  “Congratulations,” said the woman.

  “Well now,” the redhead said. “You should only be as happy as we’ve been. This is our fiftieth.”

  “Fifty! Hugh, come here. These people are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary.”

  “Well not exactly our anniversary,” the redhead said. “Not for another three years that. But it was exactly fifty years ago this week that we met.”

  “November the twelfth, 1950,” the wife said, and Nina smiled to herself that even if she had kept her original Asian accent, she had embroidered that with true Aussie dialect. She said “nine-een,” as Australians say all the ’teens without a t.

 
Hugh approached and put out his hand, introducing himself.

  “Roy Hewitt,” replied the redhead. “And the wife is Sue.”

  Nina introduced herself, too. “Where in the world did you two meet?”

  Softly, Sue said, “In my village near Chungju. In Korea.”

  “In the war,” Roy added. “I was serving under your General MacArthur. We were on patrol, came into her village, my eyes fell on her, and I told the other blokes right ’en that this was the Sheilah I’d marry.”

  Nina shot a glance up at Hugh. “And you, Sue?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. Neither my family nor Roy’s could understand it, but it was, as you say, love at first sight.”

  “How absolutely wonderfully romantic.”

  “What brings you to Antwerp?” Hugh asked.

  “Oh, this is our third trip,” Sue said, although after she said that, she and her husband looked over to one another.

  “We’ve become great Rubens fans,” Roy explained.

  Nina covered a little gasp. It all had such a ring to it. “Have you ever been to New York?” she said. “We have some wonderful Rubens in the Metropolitan.”

  Roy and Sue looked at each other again. She nodded, and he proceeded. “As a matter of fact, it was in the Metropolitan where we first, ah, came to appreciate Rubens so. We’re just a couple of regular mutton-punchers, neither of us much for fancy art, but we were on a tour and bused with our mates to the museum, and that’s where we found—” He stopped abruptly.

  “My favorite is Venus and Adonis,” Nina said.

  “Well yes, that’s nice, but the one across from it—”

  “It’s the self-portrait with Helena and young Peter Paul,” Sue said.

  “Oh yes,” Nina said, “I know it well. It’s so revealing of the family.”

  Roy and Sue glanced at each other again, then he took her hand, and making apologies that they must be off, they rose and departed. Nina and Hugh watched them go. Hugh said, “Look, I’m no Australian expert, but I know they used to have an incredibly stiff immigration policy for Asians. The Yellow Peril and all that. He must’ve had to be a bulldog to get her in.”