Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  Frank Gerhard was in Venice on an errand of mercy. His father, Max Gerhard, a professor of linguistics at Columbia, had died some months before. The visit to Venice had been planned by Frank and one of his brothers (the Gerhards were an enormous family) in an attempt to help their mother, Rosa, through a difficult bereavement. Rosa, grateful and brave but not a good actress, was trying to pretend, I think, that this plan had been a success.

  Rosa, attacking grief with her customary energy and with an air of bewildered defiance, was dressed in red. Guidebook in hand, she had just been conducting her family on an exhaustive, very Rosa tour of the church, buttress by buttress.

  Constance, Conrad Vickers, and I, together with several other Constance acolytes, had—predictably—been engaged on more frivolous pursuits. The acolytes included Bobsy and Bick van Dynem (then in their early thirties and dubbed the Heavenly Twins by the gossip columns, on account of their fortune and their dazzling good looks); we had just been to visit some distant connection of the Van Dynem family, and were going on from this principessa’s house to Harry’s Bar.

  The two groups, one gaily frivolous, the other sadly exhausted, chanced upon one another in the sunshine of a perfect Venetian afternoon. Constance, catching sight of Rosa in the distance, said, “Oh no. Too late for evasive action.” Rosa, who had not known we were in Venice, gave a cry of pleasure. She embraced me. She greeted Constance warmly. I drew aside and looked out over the water. The reflections of a beautiful city bent upon its surface; the light was as gold as a Veronese.

  “Hello,” Frank Gerhard said to me as, some five minutes later, we lined up for one of Conrad Vickers’s impromptu photographs. My friend Rosa, glad to be rescued from culture, I think, was talking to Constance, whom she had known for many years, Constance’s firm having decorated all of Rosa’s many houses. Vickers fussed and rearranged the group; there was some horseplay between the Van Dynem twins with a Panama hat. Bobsy put the hat on my head and ruffled my hair—I remember that. I removed it and said, a little sharply:

  “Don’t do that.”

  Constance, who like to pretend that Bobsy van Dynem was a suitor of mine, made a knowing face. Bick van Dynem complained; he said he wanted a drink. Conrad, still fussing, rearranged his group. He placed me first on the edge, in the shadow of the church, then pulled me out into the sunlight again. I found a silent Frank Gerhard by my side. I looked toward the church. The shutter clicked.

  I expected Frank Gerhard to say goodbye at once; to my surprise, he did not. He gave the Van Dynem twins a dismissive look, yet he seemed inclined to linger. He edged me away from the rest of the group.

  We exchanged brief notes on our respective activities in Venice. Escaping from Constance’s endless round of cocktails and parties, I had visited the Accademia the previous day. Frank Gerhard had been there as well. We must have missed each other by minutes.

  This coincidence—not so remarkable in itself—seemed to make him thoughtful. He gazed down at the waters of the Grand Canal. Light, then shadow, reflected by the water, moved across his face. He seemed troubled. I ventured some faltering and inadequate remark about his father. He acknowledged the remark in a brusque way. I risked a few more stilted words; I was, in those days, painfully shy. They elicited little response. I looked at Frank Gerhard in his black suit; I told myself that, no matter the circumstances, he was difficult, brooding, impolite, and (I had noticed this quality in him before) abstracted.

  Rosa, meanwhile, was discussing houses with Constance—a subject Constance had initiated. Could she have forgotten that Rosa was newly widowed? It was possible; Constance could be careless about the details of other people’s lives.

  “Well, Rosa,” she was saying, “and when is the next move to be? You know, sometimes I think you move house the way other people pack suitcases.”

  “Oh,” Rosa said, in a quiet voice, “I won’t move again. Not now. You know—because of Max.”

  She gave as she said this a small gesture of distress. She turned away. Behind her back Constance caught Conrad Vickers’s eye; she made an impatient face. When Rosa rallied and began to speak again, Constance interrupted her hastily.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “But don’t let’s talk here. Bick will expire for want of a drink. We’re going to Harry’s Bar. Come with us, Rosa. We’ll have Bellinis.” Rosa’s kind face at once lit up. She had always liked Constance, and probably believed the invitation generously meant. She accepted with some alacrity. I felt sorry for her and furious with Constance. My godmother was socially ruthless. Once at Harry’s Bar, I knew, Constance would find some pretext; Rosa and entourage would be unceremoniously dumped.

  Frank Gerhard, too, had seen that glance exchanged between Constance and Vickers. I saw him move across to his mother and speak to her quietly.

  “No, no,” Rosa replied. “I’m perfectly fine, not tired at all. Harry’s Bar! I’ve never been there. Thank you, Constance.”

  Frank Gerhard spoke briefly to his brother, drawing him aside. The brother took Rosa’s arm. The group began to move off. Only Frank Gerhard and I remained by the church; the gap between us and the Bellini contingent widened.

  Frank Gerhard, frowning after them, seemed to come to an abrupt decision. To my astonishment, as I moved to follow the others he took my arm. He said:

  “We don’t have to join them.”

  “I just thought—”

  “I know what you thought. Rosa will be all right. Daniel will look after her. Would you like a drink? There’s a place near here, a quiet place….”

  He scarcely waited for an answer. Still keeping hold of my arm, he steered me down a narrow street. We went through a maze of passageways, at a fast pace; we turned through an arch, crossed a bridge.

  Neither of us spoke. Finally we reached a small café situated in a courtyard. It was shaded by the branches of a magnolia tree; water fell from the mouth of a stone lion into the shallow basin of a fountain. We were the only people.

  “I found this place the first day I came to Venice. Do you like it?” He seemed oddly anxious that I should.

  “I like it very much. It’s beautiful.”

  He smiled as I said this, and his face was transformed; it lit with an infectious, irreverent amusement.

  “You don’t like Harry’s Bar then?” I said, as he drew out a chair for me.

  “No, I do not like Harry’s Bar,” he replied. “I do not like Harry’s Bar at all. It is the one place in Venice I would avoid above all others.”

  “And you don’t like Bellinis?”

  A glint of mockery had come into his eyes: I knew that it was the company he was avoiding, not the bar or the Bellinis, and I think Frank Gerhard knew I knew that. He made no comment however, merely shrugged.

  “The painters, yes. The drink, no. However, I’ve earned a drink, I think. This afternoon, at Santa Maria, I believe I saw every window, every statue, every pavement, every altarpiece. I could recite the Guide Bleu comments by heart. It’s a very large church—a very large church indeed. Very beautiful, too, of course, but after the fifty-sixth buttress …”

  “Rosa is indefatigable.”

  “She is.” He looked at me solemnly, still with that glint of amusement in his eyes. “However …”

  “It helps her?”

  “I think so. I hope so,” he replied shortly. “What would you like? Do you like Campari?”

  When the Camparis arrived, the rims of the tall glasses had been sugared. I remember that. The drinks were the color of liquid rubies. There were rivulets of condensation on the outside of the glasses, and I fixed my eyes upon these as we talked. I was shy, as I say—used to Constance dominating any social situation, and clumsy at making conversation. I had never been alone with Frank Gerhard before, and I found him intimidating. He had then recently completed his doctorate at Yale (I knew this from Rosa, who was fiercely proud of him) and, for a while I tried to ask him about this, about his work, about New Haven.

  My attempts at conversation were stil
ted, probably; Frank Gerhard’s replies were mechanical, and I had the impression his mind was neither on my questions nor on his own replies. He seemed to be watching me; I could feel his eyes upon my face. He also seemed oddly tense. From time to time, when he glanced away, I stole a look at him.

  I was then twenty-five; Frank Gerhard was twenty-seven or-eight. He was very tall and, for his height, thin. He had a narrow and intense face, very black hair, which fell forward across his forehead, and eyes of so dark a brown that they, too, could appear black. He was an observer, by training, as all scientists must be; he was also one, I thought, by temperament. His gaze, first intent, then impatient, missed little. I knew him to be very bright; in the past I had also judged him arrogant.

  That day, I was less certain of my verdict. Having brought us here in that impulsive way, he seemed as uncertain as I was how to proceed. Our conversation continued like a poor tennis match between two hesitant players: a series of lobs across an invisible net. My replies became duller by the second. Hating myself, wishing I had been gifted with Constance’s wit and verbal pyrotechnics, I could feel myself miserably dwindling into monosyllables. It was at this point that, having glanced away, he turned back. He did so suddenly, giving me no time to avert my gaze. Our eyes met.

  I saw him truly then, I think, for the first time. Having done so, I could not look away—and it seemed he could not do so either. I think he said my name, and then broke off. His hand, which lay on the table close to my own, gave an involuntary movement and then lay still. I could see in his face no sign of boredom or preoccupation or indifference or hostility. This confused me. His expression seemed at first tense, then inexplicably joyful, then grave. He seemed to be waiting for me to speak; when I did not, I saw his face change.

  You know the expression to read a face? I thought of it then. It is an odd phrase, for a mysterious process. When we read in that way, what grammar do we use? What sentences do we trace? His features did not move; he did not speak; he made no further gesture. Nonetheless, I could read the change in his face. Some dulling in his gaze; a transition from concentration to sadness, and then an attempt to disguise that sadness with a brisk froideur. I read all those things in the second or two that passed; then he began to speak.

  He had been about to say one thing, I felt—then changed his mind and embarked on a different topic. I cannot now remember what it was. It is not important. He spoke for the sake of speaking, his words a barrier between me and his thoughts. As he spoke, I listened—not to what he said, but to his voice.

  He spoke, first, in a stiff, then rushing way, and with a trace of an accent that sounded very like that of his mother, Rosa. Rosa Gerhard was by birth a Catholic, her family a branch of the minor south-German aristocracy. Her father, losing both his lands and his money by the end of the first war, had emigrated with his family to America. There he amassed a considerable fortune. Rosa, an only and a pampered daughter, educated at a restrictive and exclusive Catholic girls’ boarding school, kicked over the traces at eighteen when she met, and shortly afterward married, Max Gerhard, also of German descent, born in Leipzig and—to the horror of her parents—a Jew.

  Rosa, with exuberance and determination, converted to her husband’s religion, embraced his politics (radical), and having inherited a good deal of money, proceeded to marry the bourgeois to the academic life. As a child on the Upper East Side, she spoke German at home; she spoke German at home as a wife. She was impossible to classify; she could not be pigeonholed by nationality, class, religion, or race. She was, she herself would cheerfully say, a hybrid—and this mixture of influences could still be detected in her voice.

  They could be detected, also, in her son’s. Listening to him that day in Venice, I could hear both Europe and America, a prewar voice, and a modern one—two cultures, and two eras, wedded in one voice.

  I liked this; I would come to love it. I was thinking this and trying to remember: Frank Gerhard reminded me of someone, but I could not place who it was. Then I realized he had asked me a question—a question I had not heard. His elbows were on the table, his eyes intent on my face.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The war. I was asking you about the war. Were you in England then?”

  “Oh. No, I wasn’t. I left in 1938. After my parents died. I went to live with Constance then.”

  “Do you go back? Have you been back?”

  “Where? To England?”

  “Your home. England. Yes.”

  “Not to my home. We go to London sometimes. Not very often. Constance prefers Italy, and France.”

  “And you? What do you prefer?”

  “I’m not sure. I like Venice. I love France. Usually we go to Nice, or Monte Carlo. But there was a place we stayed one year, a very small place, a fishing village near Toulon. Constance took a house there. I liked that best. I used to go to the open-air markets. Walk along the beach. Watch the fishermen. You could be alone there. I …”

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, it’s not very interesting. It was just a place. We didn’t stay there long. Constance found it dull, so—”

  “Did you find it dull?”

  “No, I didn’t.” I looked away. “Anyway. We left. We went on to Germany. I wanted to go there, and Constance knew that, so—”

  “Germany?” This seemed to interest him. “Why should you want to go there?”

  “Oh. My parents’ death. The accident—I’m sure Rosa must have told you about that—”

  “Yes.” He hesitated. “I believe she did.”

  “It was never explained, you see. What happened. I used to think, in Berlin, somewhere, there must be records of some kind. I might be able to find out … how the accident happened. No, not that. Why it happened …”

  “And you didn’t?”

  The gentleness of his tone surprised me. I had never spoken of that grim journey before, to anyone—and I regretted doing so now. Sympathy brought me closer to tears than indifference would ever have done. I looked quickly away.

  “No. I didn’t,” I continued in a brisker voice. “The records had gone—if there ever were any. So that was that. It was foolish to have gone, in any case. Constance warned me, and I should have listened to her. The records were irrelevant. It’s just that I felt—” I stopped. I said, in a bright polite voice: “Have you ever been there? Have you visited Germany?”

  There was a silence. His face hardened.

  “Have I visited Germany? No.”

  He drew back from me as he said this. His voice was curt. A moment before, his hand had been lying on the table, very close to my own. A few inches between them, only. Then, abruptly, the hand was withdrawn, and his attention as well. He began to look about for the waiter. I had obviously offended him in some way. Foolishly, I attempted to make amends.

  “I just thought—perhaps you might have gone there. Since the war. With Rosa, or with your father. I know Rosa once said—”

  “Hardly. You know my father was Jewish. If you think about it, I’m sure you can see: jaunts to postwar Germany were not too high on his list.”

  I blushed scarlet. Frank Gerhard rose and paid the bill. He gave no sign of repenting this reprimand, or the harsh way in which it was made. Indeed, he seemed anxious to be rid of my company as soon as he decently could. We left the restaurant and set off at a fast pace. I said I would rejoin Constance’s party; he said he would return to his hotel. There was a river-bus landing stage near Harry’s Bar; he would walk back with me as far as there. This he insisted upon; miserable, confused, I had no heart to argue. We walked along in silence. At the end of the street that led down to the bar, he stopped.

  In the distance, with their backs to us, I could see the figures of Constance and her acolytes. Conrad Vickers was talking and gesturing; Constance laughed; the Van Dynem twins, decorative and indolent, lolled against a wall. Rosa was not with them. As we stood there, waiting for the vaporetto to arrive, fragments of Conrad Vickers’s conversation drifted to us on the air.
>
  It was at once horribly apparent that he was discussing Rosa.

  “… thirteenth house,” we heard. “Tell me, dah-ling, how can you endure it? That dress! Like a big red mailbox. An ambulatory mailbox. Terrifying! I thought you said she was a widow? She can’t be a widow. Is she a merry widow—is that it?”

  I tried to edge us both out of earshot, but it was obvious that Frank Gerhard had heard the comments on his mother. He turned away, walked a few paces, then swung back, his face stiff.

  “Shall I tell you why she wore that dress? That red dress?” His voice was tight with anger. “Today happens to be her wedding anniversary. Red was Max’s favorite color. So today she wore a red dress—”

  “I understand. Please—”

  “You do?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you sure?” The sarcasm was now undisguised. “After all, that man is your friend, isn’t he? Conrad Vickers. The Van Dynem twins. Your constant traveling companions. Your close friends—”

  “I travel with them sometimes, yes. They’re really Constance’s friends. That is—”

  “Bobsy van Dynem—he is your godmother’s friend?” The word friend was said scathingly. I was not sure whether my godmother’s relationship with Bobsy was being queried, or my own.

  “Well, not exactly. He’s my friend too. And I’ve known Conrad since I was a child. I know he sounds affected, but—”

  “Affected? Oh, yes. Also malicious.”

  “He is a fine photographer. Frank—”

  I stopped. I acknowledged to myself (and for the first time) that Vickers—whose praises Constance was always singing—was a man I disliked very much. I could have said so, but I did not. To dissociate myself from Vickers might be tempting, but it was cheap. Besides, I could see it was pointless. By their friends ye shall know them: It was clear from Frank Gerhard’s expression that as far as he was concerned, Conrad Vickers and I were tarred with the same brush.

  He was staring back down the street, one hand clenched, a dark flush of anger on his cheeks. For a moment I was afraid he was going to walk back, confront Vickers, possibly even strike him. Then, with a look of loathing and an angry shrug, he turned aside. The vaporetto approached.