Bereavements

by Richard Lortz

  The telephone company, of course, has the morals or at least the confidentiality of a priest or a psychoanalyst. But to the wealthy, few doors remain closed, and no secret is kept for long. In less than eight hours, a private detective had not only provided her with Aurelio Carlos Rivera’s address, but where he worked, what he did, his age, birthplace, social security number, the fact that he had a deceased wife, and a son, fourteen, by the name of Angel Laureano who attended (not St. Agnes—the only useless clue she’d had) but the annex of Holy Trinity.

  So equipped with information she knew had little value, she nevertheless considered what to do.

  She could send Dori. Or Rose. She could go herself. Where? To whom? to what? To his home? His church? His school? Every confrontation she imagined—father, priest, principal, teacher—was a disaster. Particularly Angel himself. Could she kidnap the boy? Each approach, every gesture on her part would be futile and useless. He had to come to her. And if he came at all, it had to be freewilled, because he wanted it. She couldn’t take him. He had to give himself up. So the thing to do was nothing. She’d wait. Fill in her time with . . . anything. Bruno, if necessary. Martin, perhaps. The theatre, a film or two. Yes. Do nothing.

  Wait.

  How is it then, that the very next day she took to searching the city. Each afternoon about two, she’d have Dori drive her slowly through the littered street where Angel lived: three times, four. Then past the annex at Holy Trinity, more insane asylum than school at three when children poured from the building in a rampant river, a flood after the dam has burst: all indisputably manic!—screaming, falling, spilling books, bruising knees, skinning elbows . . .

  They drove past the school. “Slow! Dori, slow—but don’t stop; not for an instant! And don’t look as if you’re looking. We don’t want him to think we’re looking . . . just passing, passing through—an accident of—fate.”

  Around the block, then past the school once more in time for the stragglers and the left-behinds; then two blocks north to St. Agnes, “the red church” where Dori first picked him up. Next, the local playgrounds, the basket ball courts, just in case . . .

  Just in case.

  But nowhere. Angel Laureano Rivera couldn’t be found, he didn’t exist.

  The monotony, the boredom, the weariness of each day’s fruitless, snail’s pace drive, put a strain on Dori’s face and a patient hurt look in his eyes.

  “Tomorrow’s the last day.” That was her promise.

  But tomorrow is always tomorrow, and on the next day, as usual, at two, she was ready, now bundled in furs because the weather had again turned sharply cold and the morning’s rain to sleet.

  “The last day; the very last day, Dori. Truly.”

  And it was.

  But only because they found him. Found him? . . . please fine me!? (The mystery, the ambiguity of the word had confused her from the beginning.) Saw him, at least: waiting for a green light, bundled against the cold, and sleet that had changed to snow, a plaid scarf around his throat, the black sphere of his Afro hair a perfect eclipse, the wind at his back having frozen a sun’s halo.

  A wave of a hand wasn’t seen, a cry behind glass wasn’t heard.

  “Dori!”—as if a child were drowning within her sight.

  The chauffeur swung the car around and pulled up beside the boy just as the light changed and he was about to cross. Mrs. Evans opened the door, and the next moment Angel was in her arms.

  She was remarkable controlled, straining not to discomfort or embarrass him with expected explanations. But halting, mumbled “reasons-why” were forthcoming nonetheless.

  He’d been sick; but she knew that. (“Yes.”) An’ it took a long time to get better. (“Sometimes it does, it does.”) An’ after that—he’d been so busy—” (“of course”) “—so much school had been missed, so much to make up for. Also— Well—

  There were countless reasons—all good, all sensible, all believable, all . . . unsatisfactory, to him. So, after a silence, looking up at a her, really wanting her to help—“I didn’t call you, or visit, because . . .” (a shrug, a frown, a tic or two) “ . . . I don’t know. I ’wanted to, I guess, but—”

  She waited.

  “For one thing, my father—he was awfully good to me. Really. Probably if it hadn’t been for him, if he hadn’t taken care of me, I’d’a died. I mean, I was that sick.

  Some of this was inexplicable to Mrs. Evans. She cupped his chin.

  “So? Fathers, lots of fathers, are good to their sons, take care of them, sick or well. Do you feel profoundly, I mean, very much obligated, now that you’re well . . . I mean . . . ”

  What did she mean? But he had alrady abandoned the thought.

  “Another thing—”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to know I really had a good time on Long Island, swimmin’ an’ all.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the food . . . ”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I liked everything that happened that day.”

  “Except . . . ? When you got ill on your way home, of course!”

  “Oh! That! Yes. No one likes to throw up.” He laughed. “I made a pig of myself.”

  She laughed with him. “No. I’m guilty. I made a pig of you. Or Delia, with her insidious concoctions. But—later—you felt better; you felt fine. I mean—by the time we reached New York.”

  “Well . . . ?” He was doubtful, then quite definite. “No; I felt strange, like I wasn’t in my own body. It must have been the beginning of what I got later; you don’t get flu all at once, y’know. The doctor says it ‘incubates’—whatever that means. I mean, I know what it means, but what does it mean—exactly?”

  Mrs. Evans was suddenly pale, her forehead lined. For some reason she looked at Dori who, all this while, had been swung around in the front seat, looking at both of them, though, unless he had the sound system on, he couldn’t hear.

  “It means . . . that whatever it is—in your case the flu—it takes a while; it doesn’t happen all at once, just as you said.”

  “Oh.” Angel nodded, satisfied. “That’s what I thought.”

  But Mrs. Evans seemed to be after something other than the flu.

  “I know how things are when you have a high fever, when you’re delirious, but—what did you mean—not in your own body? Did you ever—feel that way before?”

  Angel shook his head.

  “But when, when did you feel it?” (He was surprised at her seriousness, her insistence.) “Before you were car sick; or after we got out . . . ?”

  “No. In the tunnel. Maybe it was the sound—being down, I mean under the river, that’s where we were—and that does something t’your ears, y’know. I kept swallowing like you’re ’asposed to but I still couldn’t hear good. I couldn’t get the deadness out of my head. Everything seemed muffled and far away. Then I imagined, or maybe I fell asleep and dreamed it, that I was in the river—floating, but very still, not movin’ at all, an’ then . . . ”

  “I don’t want to hear more!”

  She hadn’t meant to be sharp, but she had, and Dori looked at her strangely. He was listening.

  “I’m sorry” (to the boy). “It’s just . . . My nerves today. I’ve been barking at Rose”—which wasn’t true—“all morning. And Cook, too. And Dori.”

  Angel shrugged.

  “It’s okay. Anyway—What I tol’ you was jus’ dumb; it’s not important at all.”

  She held the boy’s eyes with hers. “Tell me, then tell me what is important, and—” (she had to say it finally; it was impossible not to) “—and why I haven’t seen you.”

  The answer was probably as curious and complex as she had expected, or was entitled to, or deserved. After the longest of pauses and with his eyes looking carefully at each flake of snow as it pelted against the window and melted to a tear:

  “I think because . . . I wanted this to happen. If it could.”

  This? It meant nothing, nothing!

 
“What, Angel, what to happen. What is ‘this?’”

  “Well—I think I wanted you to come lookin’ for me.”

  She glanced at Dori, then her eyes returned quickly to the boy.

  “You needed proof? . . . that much proof . . . of my—interest and concern, of my . . .” (could she say love?) “ . . . my deepest, my deepest affection?”

  Now he was embarrassed. “Well—I don’t know about that. All I mean, I guess, is that I jus’ . . . wanted you to fine me.”

  Mrs. Evans pushed herself back in her seat to get a longer, more enveloping view.

  “Find you! Where? In these streets where I have looked for you day after day, week after week, up and down, creeping along like a hearse! Poor Dori! See him! He is sick to death of me and my wandering. ‘Turn right; turn left; go past his school, his home, now the playground, now the church; slowly now . . . ’ Find you!”

  She was breathless. “Aren’t you found?! Here you are—beside me!”

  Angel smiled faintly; then his lips compressed as he nodded jerkily, his tic returning. He glanced idly at Dori before turning to the window to examine a snowflake, the largest, the most perfect, so far, to hit the glass.

  “Look!” he said, but no one had time before the crystal vanished.

  That evening, Mrs. Evans looked up the word “found” in her dictionary and, of course, found:

  found v. pt. and pp. of find.

  And under find she found:

  find v. found, finding—v.t. 1. to come upon by chance; meet with; 2. to learn, attain or obtain by search or effort; 3. to discover or recover (something lost); 4. to gain or regain use of; to find one’s tongue; 5. to succeed in attaining, gain by effort: find safety in flight, to find occasion for pity; 6. to ascertain by study, to find the sum of several numbers; 7. to discover by experience, or to perceive: to find something to be true;

  and finally:

  8. to provide or furnish, I will find what you require.

  Unable to write, Bruno managed to read, or rather, reread, since he turned to the classics, those books—Pride and Prejudice, Silas Marner—he had read growing up. They now eased his troubled heart like the well-meaning if not entirely helpful solace of old friends.

  He had called Mrs. Evans several more times, discreetly separating each by a day or two, but always encountered the intractable Rose and had to bang his bruised head against the stone wall of her indifferent voice, her cruel manner, of necessity accepting her word (which he doubted, of course) that “Madam isn’t at home.”

  Did a servant dare to take upon herself the decision as to whom her employer did or did not speak? Yes or no, the wall remained when he called—he’d lost count, the tenth or twelfth time. The next time, when he was ready to be brash, insulting, demanding—a man answered, astonishing him.

  It was Dori, in Rose’s temporary absence, but to Bruno it was, first, a houseboy (whom he didn’t know Mrs. Evans employed), then a butler, then a family friend. But finally, because, like the imaginary enemies of paranoia who grow from one to two to many to everyone, the obsession gathering the increasing straws of its own logic and raison d’etre to form the scarecrow of a centered, functioning self—the voice that informed him, nicely enough, that “Madam cannot answer the phone at the moment” (no reason given) but “would the gentleman care to leave his name?” was the voice of “one of the boys” who had answered her ad, and one of whom, by now, she had grown so fond of, he was able to take upon himself the responsibility and privilege of answering the phone.

  Bruno couldn’t speak, made no reply, merely listened as the voice repeated: “Hello—? Hello—? Hello—?”

  Forty minutes later, forgetting properly to dress for the cold, he was standing in the shadows of a building across the street, opposite the Evans home.

  There, soon numbed by the icy weather, without scarf or coat or hat, merely a light shirt and sweater, he waited. There he watched.

  Although Martin could enjoy the more (or most) expensive of New York City’s finest restaurants, wouldn’t you know that he preferred the theatre atmosphere of The Russian Tea Room and Sardi’s ?

  Mrs. Evans didn’t care where they dined, leaving the decision to him. But no matter where—to his annoyance and increasing distress—she was always passive, languid, stylized, postured, unreal; not at all interested in food, though she ordered, and ate virtually nothing of whatever was brought.

  Worse: she reacted little if at all to his (delightful) conversation, his many bon mots, staring at him across a flickering candle with empty if not troubled eyes.

  However, and this seemed a decided plus in his favor, she was always exquisitely groomed and gowned, and tastefully if not lavishly jeweled—which pleased him greatly because it attracted so many wondering and admiring eyes—even, if word got around who she was, a photographer or two.

  Her hair was worn in a new style each time, so evidently she bothered with a hair-dresser, or perhaps Rose was the gifted expert.

  He pointed out celebrities—actors or entertainers—when they appeared, and although she glanced at them, it was with neither recognition nor interest; they could all have been uniformed santitation men collecting the day’s refuse.

  On most occasions, and this was also considered a plus or might soon be, she drank a good deal, becoming slightly more animated as the evening progressed, laughing a little at his wit or humor, actually listening or pretending to listen if he had a “wicked” anecdote to tell about this person or that sitting near them or at a table or two away.

  When, for example, a prominent composer-conductor came into The Russian Tea Room one night, a man so celebrated that she herself recognized him, having seen him conduct many times at Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, Martin, leaning close, mentioned a well-known if long-dead actor’s name, whispering that “he” (the actor) had been found dead in “his” (the conductor’s) wife’s bed! He had a heart attack during you-know-what. So the police had to be called, of course. “After all—a death!” And his eyes sparkled.

  Mrs. Evans’s eyes didn’t sparkle, but the corners of her mouth curved up a tiny bit. How wonderfully silly and amusing this young man really was!—and handsome besides: in his navy-blue—was it Brooks Brothers?—suit, soft, rolled white collar, and very sedate and proper blue-figured tie. How shiny his shoes! How immaculate and glossy (but not lacquered) his fingernails! How perfect his teeth! How easy and quick his smile! How beautiful his hair!—as carefully coiffeured, it seemed, as hers. Above all, how anxious, how determined he was to please, to give her pleasure, if pleasure in any way could be endured.

  “Dear Martin!” she said.

  And later: “Dear, dear Martin!”

  Still—

  To what avail, Martin wondered, the number of “dears”? How about “dear, dear, dear Martin?”—or even to the fourth and fifth powers. Or the seventh? Or the ninth?

  Having spent all her “dear’s”—as many as she could spare, or apparently had with her—she again became as mysterious as the Sphinx, and quite as silent—a dull figure of speech, but somewhat apropos, because now she was drawing hieroglyphics on the tablecloth linen, pressing firmly into it with one end-prong of her silver fork.

  But she was actually writing!—he could see—a word, or initials, unconsciously. Mildly curious, he leaned forward and read it upside-down.

  Bruno was sent on an errand: a package of bound galleys to deliver to an author who lived on East 67th Street near the river.

  Coming back, walking idly a few blocks before taking the crosstown bus, he discovered a tiny antique shop, and among many interesting things in its crowded window, he saw half a dozen old-fashioned straight-edge razors.

  One had a porcelain handle: white, with blue cornflowers. It was exactly the kind his (unknown) father had used and which his mother, along with a worn shaving brush, had kept as a treasured memento in a short fat mug made of the same cornflowered porcelain. He remembered it as clearly as his mother’s sweet, constantly-troubled face; carefu
lly placed, always in the same position, atop a lace doily on her bedroom bureau.

  Bruno had discarded, thrown out, sold everything when his mother died, even the family bible and two albums of ancient photos his mother had prized, only long afterward regretting he had not kept just a few things to link him with his own past.

  Now, seeing the razor, he desired to own it. It might not have belonged to his father, but it served equally well to evoke his memory: rather, his mother’s memory and the memory she possessed of the man she had loved.

  The price was only four dollars, something he could certainly afford, but Bruno thanked the shop-keeper and then went outside again to stare at the razor once more through the store’s dusty window, unable to decide.

  He bought it, finally. But why the delay? Weren’t his desire and motives simple and pure? Or do “things,” like human beings, have a good and an evil side? Isn’t the crackling fire that warms and delights us at our hearth on a winter’s night, the same fire that bubbled the fat in her flesh, charred the skin from her bones, before Joan, blessedly dead, became a stink of smoke and ashes?

  Book V

  CHRISTMAS WAS near and although the thought was appalling, Mrs. Evans began to plan, if vaguely, what to do.

  The previous Christmas she had spent in Palm Beach, alone, and the celebration of the birth of Mary’s son after the death of her own was too much to bear. She had no recollection of what had happened, what she did—probably because she’d drugged herself senseless. Memories were too fresh.

  “Time heals all wounds,” Robert had had the astonishing vulgarity to say when he first came to her after Jamie’s death, but there were tears on his face, and he clung to her with a sympathy that was passion.