Hold Back the Night

by Abra Taylor

  Suddenly, with a shock of realization, he lifted his head. She had accepted his blindness.

  It was so simple, so self-evident, so much a truth that he could hardly credit his own stupidity. Of course she had accepted it, because she had had no choice. Why had it never struck him before? Domini was a warm, strong, loving, courageous woman, neither a seeker of freaks nor a bleeding heart to base a relationship on suffocating pity. She hadn't loved him because of his blindness, or in spite of it; she had simply loved him. The blindness hadn't entered in. And he had been ten times a fool not to see it, a kind of seeing that required no sight at all.

  With a great wonder growing, he examined this simple truth. She had accepted his blindness as she accepted his other faults: his quick temper, his harsh tongue, his mask of pride. He had railed against the future, but Domini had trusted in it. And yet in that regard no eyes, not even hers, could see what lay ahead. She had been ready to step fearlessly into an unseen future, and she had hoped he would learn to do the same.

  Gradually, as understanding dawned, it came to him that Domini had wanted one thing above all: she had wanted him to live. To live in his darkness, not to die. She had wanted that even more than she wanted his love, which she had not demanded from him ever, not even at the end. Had she really cared for him so very much? Even in her unspeakable unhappiness on that last day, she had sensed his despairing mood and suggested a return to sculpture … knowing, perhaps, that despair could be sublimated in creativity. From the first she had known that a part of him would perish without his chosen work.

  That one talent which is death to hide ... it was indeed death of a sort not to sculpt, less of a death than the loss of the woman he loved more deeply than his soul, but a death all the same. Was there still reason to fight for life in the darkness even though the darkness contained no Domini for now?

  'About the blindness, you have no choice. But you can die in the dark, or you can live in the dark...'

  The words whispered again through his mind, and in one of those strange exchanges the mind is capable of, in memory it was Domini's voice he heard. Like an echo in his endless night, she whispered, 'You can live . . . live ... live.'

  With a sense of awe and humility, because he had done nothing in this life to deserve the love of a woman like Domini, he rose slowly to his feet. If she had trust in what could not be seen, so should he. The darkness was there; it would always be there ... but he still had a choice. The decision he made was a conscious one, an acceptance of the man he was, the man Domini had accepted long ago.

  With a courage he had not felt for months, he moved to the corner of the room where the tubs of clay were kept. He had no model but he didn't need one; he held the memory of Domini in his hands.

  Chapter 15

  December brought winter's full force to the rriountains and it was a year of early snows. Normally the Pyrenees were much milder than the Alps because of their southern latitude, but such could not be said this year. To Domini, the deep freeze seemed symbolic of her inner state.

  One evening at the beginning of the month, shortly before the opening of Sander's show, she received a call from Paris. After the first greetings Berenice brushed aside Domini's various questions about law-suits and living accommodations. 'I've phoned about something else,' she said, 'something I thought you should know. I've just been talking to Lazarus in New York. By chance he mentioned your friend Sander. Evidently he went for some months into a state of black despair. He didn't sculpt, and he hardly ate. Lazarus was very worried about him. He was afraid Sander had lost the will to live, although of course he had no idea why it might be so. Can you still think you mean nothing to him?'

  Domini's long silence was filled with such a turmoil of concern that she was unable to speak. At last Berenice began to fill in the empty spaces over the telephone wire.

  'Actually, before you start worrying needlessly, I'll tell you that Lazarus was jubilant on the phone because Sander finally set to work again last week, with double the vigour. Lazarus says it's a good thing too ... already, in advance of the show, two museums have indicated an interest in making acquisitions. Your friend is going to be a great success, Didi. Don't you think that may change his attitude towards everything?'

  Domini's initial alarm had dissipated with the news that

  Sander was working again. 'I don't know,' she said slowly.

  'And he's consented to the mention of his blindness. Doesn't that tell you something? Lazarus believes he's learning to accept his condition, to live with it. I knew I should tell you at once, because if there's been a change in your friend's attitude, it may alter how you feel about things. If you were to go to him now...'

  Domini took a moment to think. It was good news that Sander might be coming to terms with his handicap, news for which she would give long thanks in her heart for many years to come. But in what regard was the situation really changed for herself? If he had been upset at her departure, it was clear he was now mending, certainly better than she. Already, despite Berenice's optimism, the personal heart-heaviness was beginning to return.

  'No,' she said, struggling to understand her own confused reactions. 'I won't go to him. He has no feelings for me, Berenice, except destructive ones. I don't want to lay myself open for that kind of pain again.'

  'Pride.' Berenice sighed. Then she added, with a note of slyness, 'Perhaps if he knew who you really are, where you were to be found . . . then the choice would be up to him. It could be done very casually, through Lazarus.'

  Domini took a hard grip on her emotions. 'No,' she said in a low voice. 'And remember, Berenice, you promised long ago you'd reveal nothing. I don't want Sander to know where I am or who I am. If you tell, I won't forgive you.'

  'How do you know he doesn't love you? When a man is blind and bitter, he does destructive things.'

  'And perhaps he always will,' Domini answered with the despondency that had become a condition of her existence.

  Berenice clucked her tongue in annoyance at Domini's unnatural pessimism. 'If you want to find out how he really feels, you'll have to swallow your pride. And it is pride, Didi ... just as it was pride that kept you from your father.'

  Domini could not deny that. Nevertheless, despite

  Berenice's urgings, she refused to give permission for any revelation of her whereabouts. 'I'll have to do some serious thinking about it,' she said. 'Maybe someday I'll decide to approach him, but I want to make the decision myself. I have to think what's best for Tasey too. There's a lot of pride to be swallowed, Berenice, and I'm not ready to do it yet.'

  'When will you be?' Berenice asked heatedly. 'When you hear your lover is on his deathbed?'

  It was a low blow, but when Domini hung up she had to acknowledge to herself that there was some truth to it, just as there was truth to Berenice's contention that she didn't really know Sander's true feelings at all. But in Domini, the capacity for love went hand-in-hand with the capacity for hurt, and Sander had hurt her very badly indeed. Her pride was not ready to be shelved, if indeed it ever would be. In the Basque blood she had inherited from her father, the ability to endure ran very deep.

  All the same, Berenice's arguments occupied much of Domini's thoughts for the next two weeks. At first she toyed with daydreams. With its large empty studio, the farmhouse in the Pyrenees would be a perfect place for a sculptor. If Sander moved to France, it would be good for Miranda too ... his blindness was the only thing that had ever prevented his sister from living her own life. Miranda might even be able to sell the little gallery, which she hadn't been very good at running, in order to devote herself to mothering Joel's children, a task for which she had a good deal more talent.

  If Sander had been in a state of depression for some months, Domini reflected, surely he had more feelings for her than he had ever betrayed. At such times she almost relented. But then she would remember the destructive crashing of clay, the terrible deep-freeze of emotions, and the wishful dreams would disappear like smoke. How
could she ever approach him after what he had done?

  Moreover, Sander's revitalized interest in life might simply mean that he had become involved with someone new...

  When that thought first occurred, Domini thrust it aside as best she could. Models didn't always become mistresses, and just because Sander had never lived long without a woman in his bed, that didn't mean he had one there right now. All the same, with jealous imaginings beginning to eat at her, she managed to convince herself that some other woman must by now be ensconced in the role she had once fulfilled. And if not yet, then soon. With the success his talent was sure to bring, a prospect about which Domini had no doubts, there would be ready candidates for the position. Even if Sander had once loved her, he was unlikely to be faithful to a vanished mistress forever, any more than he had been faithful to Nicole.

  If anything caused a final stiffening of Domini's pride, it was the return of Nicole to her thoughts. Would Sander have been so hurtful to her?

  No, Domini would not let Sander know where she was, at least not yet. And maybe, just maybe, never.

  ❧

  Mid-December brought unseasonably heavy snows. Great sweeps of clean white powdered the outlines of the land, softening the granite jut of the high inclines and gathering in huge, slow drifts in the lower valleys, where the winters were normally less harsh. For a time Domini and Tasey and the household staff were deeply snowed in. But then the laden skies gave way to crisp, clean days when sun sparkled on unsullied snow. Christmas was coming to the Pyrenees.

  Three days before it did, when the smaller side roads were at last clear, a large parcel arrived from Berenice. From Paris she wrote news of the impending law-suit, about which she remained optimistic although the press was already starting to vilify her in a campaign that must have been cleverly orchestrated by Domini's half-brothers.

  Berenice was guarded in her letter, but she did write: 'Do not be angered by what they are saying, my dear. This stage is necessary if the next stage is to work. It will only be for a little time, and then I, too, will be at peace.'

  She also wrote that she was not coming back to the mountains for Christmas, as Domini had expected. Her holiday season was to be spent with old friends. 'For me the farmhouse holds too many memories. At this time I will do better to be elsewhere, although my thoughts will be with the small family in the place where I spent so many happy years. But what is Christmas for a child if someone is being glum?'

  Domini agreed. With the approach of the festive season she had tried extra hard to shed her own pall of gloom, with at least surface success. Underneath, her frame of mind was not at all good, because in her memories of the previous Christmas were mingled too many thoughts of Sander, and in her recent reflections were too many painful imaginings of him finding solace in some other woman's arms.

  The parcel was filled with brightly wrapped presents. With Christmas only three days away, Domini realized her own present for Berenice, and Tasey's, would never reach Paris on time. But then she noticed that Berenice's parcel had been shipped by a special air freight service to Biarritz and delivered from there by van. It had started its journey only the previous day. Perhaps there was hope after all? That afternoon Domini had planned to shop for a few last-minute things, not in the nearest hamlet but in the picturesque village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, which was within easy driving distance. But errands could just as easily be done farther afield, and Domini resolved to have George and the limousine take her instead to the resort city of Biarritz, a twisting two-hour drive to the Atlantic seaboard, where the craggy Basque coast melted into the marshy forests of the Landes.

  Then she noticed a manila envelope tucked in with the wrapped gifts and lifted it out. Without comment Berenice had enclosed various materials sent by Lazarus immediately after the opening of the show in New York. It had opened to stunning reviews in the art columns. Domini read them, though she would have preferred to forgo such masochism. The Le Basque paintings had been snapped up within hours, at any price; many important collectors had been on hand. Although they had been a little more cautious about the first major show of a little-known sculptor, it seemed that Sander's pieces had been in demand too. At Lazarus's sky-high prices, that must have been rewarding news for him.

  The clippings mentioned Sander's disability with little of the sob-story slant he would have abhorred, but as an obstacle that he had overcome. For his sake Domini was grateful that his handicap had been treated so matter-of-factly, with far more attention devoted to the merit of the sculptures themselves.

  In one paper there was a news photo of him standing beside the bronze sculpture of Joel. He looked thinner and he had not smiled for the camera. Because a number of elegantly dressed people were also visible in the background of the shot, Domini knew it must have been taken at the opening of the show. It was a fairly clear reproduction, and she started to study it closely to see what she might glean from the picture. With a small sense of shock she recognized one person in the background grouping, talking and laughing with the others. Nicole.

  Nicole!

  It was so clearly she that Domini knew she was not mistaken. She well remembered that Nicole had vanished some years before with a wealthy American. With all the advance publicity that Lazarus had managed to place, Nicole would have had no trouble reconnecting with Sander if she wanted. And she had obviously wanted.

  Nicole had always had a sharp eye on the main chance, and with Sander's new success...

  And Sander must have wanted, too, or he would not have invited Nicole to his opening. Domini knew about openings like that; one couldn't simply walk in off the street.

  Feeling sick and angry, she read no more. She threw the clippings in the wastebasket, saving only one. That she put aside to show to Tasey, who was outdoors in a lather of ecstasy over a snowman she and her friend were making in the courtyard. Through the window Domini watched them for a while, gradually calming as she reminded herself that nothing must be allowed to mar the magic of a four-year-old's Christmas. If Sander was fool enough to take up with Nicole again, she didn't want him anyway. Ever!

  By noon Domini had fought her way back to normal. The parcel for Berenice was ready for the trip to Biarritz and so was she, practically clad in narrow ski pants and a thick alpine sweater she had owned in her youth. She had found it in mothballs on her return to the farmhouse, along with a cupboardful of other carefully stored clothes. With roads the way they had been, it was best to dress warmly for the trip; one never knew if the car might get stuck somewhere along the way. Domini intended to wear her old winter coat too. Although she had money now, she had had little heart for buying new clothes, and with its nutria lining the old coat was still the warmest thing she owned.

  'I put this aside for you to see, Tasey,' Domini announced at lunch, handing the picture over.

  'My skullcher!' squealed Tasey, one buttery finger homing in on the exact spot where her small work of art had become part of Sander's. 'My skullcher of the clay man!'

  'Sculpture,' said Domini.

  'Sculpture,' said Tasey.

  Domini laughed and tousled Tasey's hair. 'You are growing up,' she said. 'What a difference a year makes! Soon I'll have to start calling you Stasy.'

  'Or Anna . . . Anna Stasy.' The way Tasey said it, it was not immediately recognizable as Anastasia.

  'That's too big a name! You'll have to do some growing before anyone calls you that.'

  'The clay man called me Anna Stasy once, when he got cross.'

  Domini's smile died; she hadn't realized Tasey had taken to handing out her full first name. Not that it mattered any more, but in New York Domini had always had the thought that some particularly knowledgeable person might recognize the name of Anastasia Greey. It had never been a great fear, because the name would be known only to art historians who dealt in esoteric information; the portrait of Domini's mother in the Museum of Modern Art was called simply 'Woman with Apple'. There were no other pictures of Anastasia on view to the public.
The name would have meant nothing to Sander.

  To cover the moment, Domini returned to the clipping from the art review. 'Your sculpture looks very nice,' she said.

  'I wish I had some clay,' Tasey sighed. 'Snow is fun, but it goes away.'

  'Then we'd better add clay to Santa's list,' Domini replied, making mental note of the request. 'I won't be home for supper tonight, Tasey. I have to go shopping in Biarritz, and Biarritz is a long way from here. It takes two hours to get there and two hours to get back, so I won't be home until about your bedtime. Maybe even later.'

  'Won't you tuck me in?' came the somewhat wistful request. Tasey liked the housekeeper, Helene, a loyal retainer who had been at the farmhouse for many years, but bedtimes were special. Now that she had turned four, she expected a story, and Helene was not too good at telling them.

  'I'll do my best, but I won't promise,' Domini said, conscious that the leaden heaviness of the sky held the threat of a new snowfall.

  It came, too, but fortunately not until Domini was well on the way home from her long afternoon's expedition. For the last few miles of the return trip, the headlights of the limousine barely pierced the blinding wall of white flakes, slowing progress on the precipitous road to a careful crawl. Domini reflected that the farmhouse might very well be snowed in again for the holiday season. Thank heaven the larder was fully restocked and the last of the Christmas errands done!

  The lights of the farmhouse, glimmering through the haze of swirling snow, were a welcome sight indeed. Dismissing Georges's offer of help so that he could take the car directly to the garage, Domini filled her arms with her purchases and stepped out at the entrance to her home. With hands occupied in carrying and eyes half-blinded by the soft fat flakes, Domini struggled to turn the knob of the ironclad front door. She pushed it open with one booted foot.