by Lorna Graham
“He’s an old man. Can’t you be a bit kinder to him?”
“It is he who is unkind to me.”
“I can’t believe that. I mean, I know he can be moody, but he means well.”
“He only brings himself to be pleasant when you are around.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as they faced one another again with their palms touching.
“He mopes all day. When he does talk, it is to complain. Except, every once in a while, he waxes poetic. About you,” said Günter, as they stepped in and out again. “As if you are the child he never had or something.” Eve looked at Klieg, who was nodding to the music, but Günter wasn’t done. “I used to be special to him. I was the only child of the next generation, which is why he wanted to groom me for his business. But even though I wouldn’t pin his dresses for him, he adored me. Spoiled me terribly.”
“So what happened?”
“When Louisa died, he sank into a bad humor. This was to be expected, of course. But it never ended. Even I, who always brought a smile to his face, could do nothing to cheer him. I tried so often to please him, but it was impossible.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“And now. I accepted this post in New York to be near him. It is not easy for me at the lab, but I stay with it because all I want is to have back what we once had, the closeness. Our whole family feels it is now or never, that if the rift continues much longer, we will lose him forever. So I keep trying. But it seems there is only one person who can make him smile, and it is not me.”
“I’m sorry.” Eve realized for the first time that it was pain, far more than anger, that animated Günter.
“What is the connection between you?” asked Günter. “You have an uncanny similarity to my aunt; even I have noticed this. At first I thought that was it. But when I see you together, it seems there is something else.”
“I don’t really know,” said Eve.
Suddenly, he whirled around and placed his hand on her shoulder and put hers on his own. They clasped hands underneath and went round and round. “Perhaps you hope he will fall in love with you? Perhaps you think you will get his money?”
Eve dropped her arms and stepped back, looking at him with utter incredulity.
“I’m sorry,” Günter said. “That was rude. I forget myself. Please.” He held out his hand. She took it reluctantly, thinking he really did look repentant and not wanting Klieg to know anything was wrong.
“I think he likes me because I let him tell his stories,” she said as they picked up the steps again. “People need to do that, you know.”
“Does he have stories to tell?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“Why don’t you ask him and see for yourself?”
“I have tried. Uncle doesn’t make it easy. Half the time, he seems lost, in another place. Like right now,” he said, nodding toward Klieg, whose eyes were closed. “Sometimes I don’t even think he sees me.”
Eve thought of herself as a child, playing on the floor of her mother’s room, facing Penelope’s back. “I’m sure that hurts,” she said. She recognized by the music that it was time to go back to the promenade, and she turned, putting her hand against the small of her back for him to grasp.
“What about you?” Günter asked as they walked the circle.
“What do you mean?”
“Something is wrong, is it not?” Without his help, the fire sputtered and the room had grown dim.
“What makes you say that?” she asked, stumbling slightly.
“You seem different tonight. I noticed during dinner. Though you did your best to appear your usual charming self, I have a feeling something is not right.”
Eve’s cheeks grew hot and she looked over her shoulder at Klieg. His eyes were closed and his chin rested against his chest. It was easy enough to explain her melancholy if she chose to; she’d been fired from her job, after all. But that wasn’t it. “You really want to know?” she asked, and Günter nodded. Eve stopped walking and faced him, aware of the wine coursing through her and glad that in the undulating darkness she couldn’t see his eyes. Out of nowhere, she was overwhelmed with emotion and pressed her palms into her eyes.
“Someone has broken your heart?” guessed Günter, with surprising gentleness. She shook her head vigorously. Günter remained silent, gazing at her. Eve felt a hot tear slide down her cheek. “A boyfriend?”
“No, God no. Of course not.” What an idea. “I mean, not really.”
“But a great love, nonetheless.”
Eve shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Günter nodded and the song ended. The needle on the record made a scratching sound.
• • •
Eve lay under a blanket on a divan in the library, dark save for the glow of a second, smaller Christmas tree. The twinkling lights threw giant shadows of needles across the walls and ceiling, making the room feel like a glade in a forest.
Before Klieg had gone up to bed, he’d suggested she spend the night, since it was so late. None of the guest rooms were made up and he’d offered her his own, but Eve said she’d be quite happy in the library. She lay for several minutes, looking up at the ceiling. Unable to sleep, she threw off the covers and made her way to the shelf with the photographs, the sea of tiny faces staring back from across the decades. She flicked on a reading light. From somewhere outside, carolers made their way through the night. “Silent night, holy night …”
She found the picture she was looking for and searched Donald’s face. She pressed his image lightly with her fingernail and the photo bounced back, as if something thick had been shoved in behind it. She turned it over, and slid the back of the frame out from the sides. Out slipped another picture, folded in half.
It was Klieg and Donald, Louisa between them. It looked like it was taken the same day as the other one; everyone was in the same clothes, though Donald’s pipe was missing. The three smiled, pressing in close to fit inside the frame. They looked young and jaunty, all bold fronts and endless possibilities. Looking into Donald’s eyes gave Eve a chill, the intimacy of it almost too much to bear. She dropped her gaze to the bottom of the picture and noticed something: Donald and Louisa were holding hands. Klieg and Louisa were not. A throat cleared.
“I was on my way to get some hot water and honey.…”
Klieg appeared in the doorway. “I saw the light.”
The carolers began a new song.
“It came upon the midnight clear
That glorious song of old …”
He saw immediately what she had in her hand.
“You said Donald and Louisa weren’t friends.”
Klieg gazed at her for several long moments. Then he walked toward her and sat on one of the leather chairs. Eve took the other. They faced each other for several moments.
“I do not think I can talk about this.” He sighed and folded his hands. He sat silent for several long moments. “But I suppose I can try. What’s the difference anymore?” He dipped his head. “Our group in Paris consisted of painters, sculptors, actors. Big talents, big egos. As a relative youngster, and a designer, not to mention a German, I was the outsider. I was not disliked, but I was thought of as, at best, a mascot. Yet Donald took a liking to me. We shared an architectural approach to our work. The others shook their heads, they did not understand our relationship. The writer and the dressmaker.”
Eve knew all this but Klieg seemed to be in a trance.
“I think it was because we had more than a philosophy in common. We’d grown up in similar families. We’d come to feel we were alone in the world at a young age and recognized this in each other. If this doesn’t sound too strange, it was a little like a love affair.”
Eve nodded.
“We did everything together, walked every inch of the city and talked all night over bottles of wine at Montmartre. Paris was for us what New York is for so many: that hypnotic place that binds those who cherish it in the same way. We could n
ot get enough of it or each other. A few days apart felt like years.” He rubbed his eyes. “And then one day a new cashier started at the Deux Magots.”
“Louisa.”
“Immediately we sensed that she was a once-in-a-lifetime woman, the kind who could change a man’s destiny. Parisian girls could be a proud, haughty bunch, especially with foreigners, but Louisa was not. She came from a small village north of Toulouse and it was as if she was the only earnest girl left. She took a real interest in those around her and showed true kindness when anyone was in need. And that spelled danger. But we ignored this, of course.” He paused, remembering. “We spent every afternoon at the Deux Magots. Donald would look at the poems she was trying to write—I’m not sure how much talent she had, but she was so, so hopeful about it. And I would sketch dresses for her. After she got off work, we’d fly around the city from bar to café, salon to party, laughing and debating. We’d come home at dawn, staggering up to Louisa’s flat for ‘café pour trois.’ Black coffee in tiny cups and whatever Louisa had stolen from the restaurant would be our breakfast. We were so young, so ridiculously young. We thought we could go on like this forever.”
“But you couldn’t,” said Eve.
“I became aware that I had done what was verboten: I had fallen in love with Louisa. I agonized. What should I do? How could I hurt Donald? How could I jeopardize the friendship that existed between the three of us? Then my collection failed, as I told you, and something inside me broke. I decided if nothing else, I must at least have this woman. So one evening, I went to her flat to surprise her. I brought flowers, gladiolas. She wasn’t home but I knew where she kept her extra key and let myself in. Only to put the flowers in water, I told myself. I looked down and realized that I’d stepped on something. An envelope, slipped under the door.” His voice had grown hoarse.
“Go on,” said Eve, handing him her glass of water.
Klieg took a drink. “I opened it. I had no right to but I did. I read the letter inside. And I knew that if Louisa read it, I would lose her.”
“Why? What did it say?”
“It was from Donald. He too was in love with her.”
“But how did you know Louisa would pick Donald over you?” Eve asked, bringing her knees up under her chin.
“Because he had said all the right things. That he was ready to use words as a bridge instead of a wall, to say what he felt. He had written a new collection of stories, stories from the heart, not just the mind. He said it was she, Louisa, who had inspired him to reveal himself this way, and he included one of the stories with his letter. He implored her to meet him that very night, so he could declare himself in person. He promised that if she didn’t come, he would never bother her again. He said he would never ask anything of her and he would never speak of it to anyone. He said that the three of us would go on as we had always been, les Trois Mousquetaires.”
“Do you really think she would have gone to meet him?”
“Oh yes. Because while Louisa loved us both, it was Donald she was in love with. I knew; I could see that, despite our pledge, the two of them belonged together. But there was a problem. She was often frustrated by his inability to communicate, yet she was not the type to make demands. If she’d been bolder, she would have told him that he was the one she wanted. And she might have shown her poems to an editor and … who knows?
“In any case, with his letter, Donald made it clear that for her, he had changed his disposition. I doubt he ever used the word ‘love’ before or after. If he’d lived long enough to become famous, that letter would have become quite valuable. If I had not torn it to pieces, that is.” Klieg allowed himself a mirthless laugh.
Eve couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What happened next?” she asked, hardly able to breathe.
“Louisa came home and we ate dinner together on her little terrace overlooking the courtyard. I knew I had to act fast and I did. I asked her to marry me.”
From outside, the carolers’ voices drifted up:
“And man, at war with man, hears not
The tidings which they bring
O hush the noise, ye men of strife …”
“That whole evening, I felt sick. As the hours ticked by, I kept thinking of Donald, somewhere out there in the dark, waiting for her. At the end of the night, Louisa agreed to be my wife. I should have rejoiced but I felt only torment. And this became a harbinger for our marriage. As wonderful as she was, and as well as we were suited, our time together was shadowed by my guilt. A piece of her always seemed to be somewhere else, with her real love.” Klieg brought his elbows to his knees and placed his face in his hands.
“Did Donald find out about you two?”
“Yes. Some days later he dragged himself away from his self-imposed isolation and came to the café. He saw us embracing by the espresso machine.”
“What did he do?”
Klieg shook his head. “Nothing. He kissed us each on the cheek and demanded the biggest pain au chocolat in the case, got himself a newspaper, and took a seat at his favorite table. Never once did he mention the letter or his feelings. He even helped Louisa and me pack for Germany.” Klieg’s shoulders sagged and he sat back, spent. “I have often wondered if I would have been so selfless if the situation had been reversed. But if Donald had taken Louisa from me, I do not know what I would have done.” Again, the low, bitter laugh. “I might have tried to kill him with my scissors.”
Eve brought a hand to her mouth.
Donald … the writer … Paper.
Klieg … the designer … Scissors.
Eve looked at the creased picture in her hand: Louisa, with her dimples … Rock?
Eve reached out, putting a hand on Klieg’s knee. “You told me at the gallery that day that something happened to Donald in 1964. Something that led him to distrust words, to decide that they couldn’t communicate feelings. And that after that he never again attempted to express emotion in his stories. You said you didn’t know what had happened. But it was you taking the letter, wasn’t it? That’s what happened in 1964. Donald believed she’d read his words and that they hadn’t moved her. Maybe that they even caused her to reject him.”
“Yes.” Klieg’s face crumpled now. “In one night I destroyed everything. I cast three lives off course. Louisa died with a broken heart because she missed Donald. Donald died without Louisa and without achieving the dreams he had of becoming famous. Everyone lost because of what I did, and perhaps the world lost, too. Lost a great artist.”
A beat passed and then Eve was brought up short by this last claim. “What do you mean, lost a great artist? You said Donald didn’t have talent.”
“Of course he had talent! He possessed one of the most original minds of his generation,” said Klieg, his face ashen.
“Then why did you lie?” asked Eve, blinking fast, bringing a hand to her forehead.
“Because I couldn’t face what I did. It was easier to believe Donald was average, that I had silenced only a mediocre voice.” He swallowed. His eyes, when he finally looked at her, were like glass. “That is why I stopped working years ago. Why should I have this enormous success when he did not? The shame caught up with me. Because I had Louisa, I was happy and able to create. Because he lost her, he became for all intents and purposes a failure. Both of us bitter and, in our hearts, lonely,” he whispered.
Eve looked at Klieg for a long moment, flooded with a mix of emotions. She was stunned, and incensed on Donald’s behalf. Yet Klieg looked so utterly defeated, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. They sat for several minutes in silence, listening to the carolers’ voices growing faint as they moved off down the street.
Finally, Eve stood. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face. “I can never thank you enough for your honesty, but now I have to go.” She put on her shoes and lay a hand on his shoulder. “Everything’s going to be all right, though. It really is,” she said, though she was not at all sure that it would be.
As she ran light
ly down the stairs with Highball at her heels, she could just make out the end of the song.
“O ye, beneath life’s crushing load
Whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow
Look now! For glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!”
• • •
It wasn’t easy in the predawn hours of a stormy Christmas Day to get a taxi to take her and Highball all the way down to the Lower East Side, wait while she packed up her bags, and then drive them all the way back up to the Village. It was after 3 a.m. when she stopped on the last stair, dipped her chin to her chest, and closed her eyes. Highball looked up at her and whined softly. Eve swallowed, rotated her shoulders a few times, and fumbled through her keys. The door opened with a sigh of protest. A quick entry was definitely best, Eve thought, like jumping off the high dive before you had a chance to think about it. She strode with purpose down the hall and into the bedroom, where she dropped her luggage.
Seeing her rooms again was like walking into a museum dedicated to “The Previous Life of Eve Weldon”: the pieces, a catalogue of her recent past, perfectly preserved. All that was missing were little bronze plaques: “Bed slept in by Eve Weldon, always, unfortunately, quite alone.”
“Vanity mirror gazed into by Eve. Weldon. Known to look fondly upon thirties hats.” She came back down the little hall and her eyes swept over the living room: “Art deco bar, drunk at rather too frequently by Eve Weldon. Also served as desk for dictation of—”
Her heart stopped. The bottle of bourbon that had been standing on the bar when she left two weeks ago now lay on its side, its contents spilled. Eve turned the bottle upright with a shaky hand. “Donald?” she whispered. No answer. She leaned over and saw an inky bourbon stain on the floor with a thin film of dust over it. “Donald?” Still nothing.