Another Eden

by Patricia Gaffney

  Dean’s was thinning out. It was really too late for tea, Sara knew, but a promise was a promise. Michael would never eat his dinner tonight, and Mrs. Drum would climb up on her high horse again. She sighed tiredly. But Ben would be in Chicago by now, and he was staying for ten days. The thought raised her spirits; she asked for ladyfingers with her coffee, and to hell with her figure.

  They sat at a tiny table by the window, gazing out at the hurrying figures of men and women anxious to be home. London was far away and almost forgotten, but sometimes she contrasted its sedate, black-umbrella’d rush hour to New York’s and marveled at how much busier, noisier, less civilized this one was. Which summed up everything she loved and hated about America, she supposed. She had lost as much as she had gained—in terms of a city to live in, that was. In personal terms—well, that was probably equal too. She’d lost her innocence and her expectations of happiness, and she’d gotten Michael. Did people get what they deserved? She didn’t know. She added cream to her coffee and asked Mr. McKie what he thought of the so-called “modern” style of architecture.

  He told her. Unpremeditated, even against his will, but prodded by her skillful’ questioning and her genuine, unaffected interest in his answers, he told her. He even confessed his ambivalence—something he had not done with anyone before, and afterward he told himself that he’d done it with Mrs. Cochrane because he was brimming over with it and she was simply the first person to pry it out of him.

  While Michael ate vanilla ice cream and gazed out the window at the passersby, Alex weighed in on his favorite complaint, that America was filling up with imitations. Where was originality in this slavish enthusiasm for Greek revival, Gothic revival, Romanesque, Queen Anne, French Renaissance, Italian Renaisance, even Byzantine? Where were directness, spaciousness, and freedom? The country was wallowing in columns, turrets, pinnacles, balustrades, mansard roofs, stained glass, arches, and gables. Grandomania, that’s what it was. Had Sara visited the World’s Fair a few years ago in Chicago? She said that she had. Well, what did she think of an exposition that declared there had been no advances since ancient Rome and that an architect’s highest duty was to copy?

  “What did any of it have to do with Chicago?” he demanded. “Chicago is stockyards and railroads and steel mills, not dignity and classical serenity. Did you see any Romans when you were in Chicago? What’s it got to do with America? This country is young and democratic, industrial, dynamic—where are the buildings that express that?”

  “Not in Newport, I don’t think,” she answered with a soft smile. That shut him up. He stared back moodily, uneasy because she’d put an unerring finger on the heart of things so quickly. “Why did you take my husband’s commission if you despise the kind of house he wants you to build?”

  “I don’t despise it,” he said defensively.

  “No? I beg your pardon. I thought you were a modernist; you like the skyscraper we saw today, and you—”

  “No, no, it’s not that simple. I like the engineering of the skyscraper. I admire the technology that solved a problem of space and materials with such elegance and economy. But try to imagine a city with nothing but skyscrapers. And you might as well, because it’s coming, it’s inevitable. The telephone, the elevator, the price of land in the city—they’ve all conspired to make it inevitable. So picture it. Barbaric, isn’t it? Dark, congested, lifeless. It’s not ethical, it’s not beautiful, and it’s not permanent. It’s a commercial exploit, an expedient. I don’t want to live in that city.”

  But she would not be sidetracked; she wanted to talk about him, not his philosophy. Even as it made him squirm, he found her interest seductive. “Then what will you do?” she pressed. “How will you find a middle ground? Is there a compromise?”

  “Maybe, but I can’t see it yet. For me, the worst is the architect who tries to turn something like a skyscraper—which can be beautiful, I don’t argue that—into what it was never intended to be. He treats it like a stone rather than a steel structure and smothers it with flying buttresses and parapets and spires and balustrades. He tries to impose, say, a Gothic sensibility on a building that has absolutely nothing to do with the Gothic spirit. Do you see? Do you call that a compromise?”

  “Yes, I think I see. But what will you do?”

  There was no shaking her. He took refuge in cynicism. “Oh, make lots of money, I expect. Exploit my not inconsiderable talent for classical forms, ride the wave of popularity for things ancient until it crashes, and then swim very fast to catch up with the next one.”

  Instead of repelling her, his answer made her laugh. “If I believed that, I don’t think I would like you very much, Mr. McKie.”

  “How much do you like me now?” He relished this turn in the conversation.

  “A little more than you deserve, I think.”

  “Ah, no, so little? I’m done for, then.” But her answer pleased him enormously. For the first time, he’d coaxed her into flirting.

  “Well, I like you a lot,” Michael piped up. He’d finally understood a bit of the discussion, but misinterpreted the mock-serious tone. “I think you’re awfully nice.”

  They all laughed, and Alex said he thought Michael was awfully nice too. After that, serious conversation didn’t seem appropriate.

  It was getting dark when they left Dean’s, but it was still warm and the rain hadn’t started, so they decided to walk the thirteen blocks to Thirty-second Street. Sara assured Alex he needn’t accompany them; it was out of his way and they were quite all right on their own. Besides that, she could send his drawings—which she had stupidly forgotten to bring this afternoon—to his office by messenger the first thing in the morning. He wouldn’t hear of it. As they walked up Fifth Avenue, Sara holding Michael’s hand, all three speculated, at different times and in private, on the interesting fact that they must look like a family to anyone passing by. But no one spoke the thought out loud.

  In the house, with very little coaching from his mother, Michael thanked Alex for a wonderful afternoon, after which he was told to run upstairs. Sara found the tube of drawings by the door where she’d left it—so she wouldn’t forget—and handed it to him. “Ben liked the changes you made and said everything looked fine to him. He wondered when you would get started on the construction.”

  “I’ve been waiting for his final approval. Now I can go to Newport and supervise the site excavation. I’ll also be looking around for a place to set up a temporary office.”

  “I see. Then we won’t be seeing you for a while, I expect.” She kept her face mild, but she felt a strong and utterly inappropriate dismay.

  “Not for a while. But I’ll be back before the twenty-seventh; I hope you haven’t forgotten inviting me to dinner.”

  “No, I haven’t, but I was afraid—” The telephone rang on the wall behind her. She jumped, then apologized, laughing. “I can’t get used to that. Would you excuse me for one second?” She picked up the receiver.

  He moved away to give her privacy, but spun back around when he heard the alarm in her voice. “What? I can’t—Tasha, I can’t understand you, speak English. Attacked! What do you mean?” She grabbed for the edge of the table. “Oh, God. Are you hurt? Have you talked to the police?” There was a long silence; she interrupted it twice with “Tasha—Tasha, I know, but—” With a visible effort, she forced her voice to sound calm. “Where are you?” she asked, while the hand clenched and unclenched on the table edge. “No, I don’t know it. What street? Tasha, what street? All right, stay there, don’t move, I’ll come and get you. Are you sure you’re not hurt, not—injured? All right, I’m coming right now, wait for me. It’ll be about thirty minutes, maybe longer. Stay—Tasha, stay there, do you hear me? Don’t move, don’t go outside.” Another pause. “I know,” she said, and her voice almost broke. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be there soon, I promise.”

  As soon as she hung up, she started shaking. But she moved purposefully toward the door. “I have to go out now, something’s happene
d.” She caught sight of herself in the mirror and took time to unpin her silly hat and throw it on the table. “Excuse me, I need to get a hansom—”

  “Let me help you. What’s happened?”

  “It’s someone I know, she’s been attacked by a man. I have to go and get her.”

  “Yes, I heard that.” He opened the door and held it for her. “I’ll come with you. Where is she?”

  Sara hesitated, but only for a second. “Thank you, I would be very glad for your company.” They went outside together, walking east toward Madison. There were no cabs on the wide avenue, they saw quickly. “We’re better off taking the El. My friend is down on the East Side, somewhere on Houston Street.” Alex took her arm, and they set off at a fast walk toward Third Avenue.

  They reached the top of the steep platform steps just as a downtown train was pulling in. They sat in the last car, nearly empty by now, grabbing onto the seat in front as the train started off with a neck-snapping jerk. Over the clatter and rumble of the wheels, Sara told Alex most of what she knew of Tasha Eminescu and the man who had been following her.

  They got off at the Bowery and walked past a row of tenements and cheap amusement halls, a fake museum, a tough Irish saloon. At Houston they turned left and headed toward the river. Most of the pushcart peddlers were gone by now, the market booths empty but still redolent of fish and cheese and meat. A game of prisoner’s base was breaking up in the street because it was too dark to see, but a gang of boys still played craps under the streetlight at First Avenue. The cobbled street was filthy, the sidewalk covered with litter. “Do you work near here?” Alex asked in amazement.

  “Yes, on Forsyth,” she answered, distracted. “Tasha’s in a cafe, I think it’s on this block.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “She didn’t know. She was afraid to ask anyone. She said it’s Russian, but there are so many—here, let’s try this one.”

  They were walking past a dark, wooden building, scarcely fifteen feet across, which Alex would never have guessed was a cafe had he not been told. The only window was closed and curtained, and the only sign was in Russian. Inside, it was so dark and smoky, they could barely see across the room. As their eyes adjusted, they saw men sitting at tables, some playing chess, all drinking tea from tall tumblers, biting off bits of sugar from cubes. They were pale-faced, tired-looking men, talking incessantly in Russian and Yiddish and German. “She’s not here,” Sara said, but Alex touched her shoulder and pointed.

  “There?”

  Sara squinted through the dense smoke into the darkest corner and saw her. Alone at a tiny table, staring straight down, stiff arms wound around each other, hands clutched between her knees. “Tasha,” she breathed, and moved toward her.

  Alex kept his distance and made no attempt to overhear their low-voiced conversation. No one paid any attention to him; even the white-aproned proprietor left him alone. He observed the girl named Natasha Eminescu and made out in the murk that she was young, probably not even twenty, dark-haired, with heavy-lidded black eyes and full lips. She had a generous figure, almost voluptuous, but strangely small hands, short-fingered and graceless. After returning Sara’s first quick, hard embrace, she huddled back into herself and kept her head down while they spoke.

  “Where did this happen to you? Tasha, I know it’s hard but you must talk about it. Please.” She touched the side of the girl’s face gently. “Tell me.”

  Mumbling, not looking at her, Tasha said, “It happened in the alley beside my building, where I live.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was late coming home today because I didn’t finish my piecework on time and Mr. Lehman said I must do it or I would lose my rate.”

  “Yes. And so—?”

  “So I stayed late and—the man, he was waiting for me. Hiding in the alley, in the dark.” She stopped again, holding herself very still. “He grabbed me. He put his hand over my mouth, hard, so I couldn’t scream.” She touched her fingers to her lips gingerly, as if they hurt. When she started to cry, Sara put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Did you see him?”

  “No. Too dark, and he pushed me down. From behind. I couldn’t move, Then he—did it. Talking the whole time. And when he finished—” She broke off, choking. Sara held tight. She had to whisper the rest. “He said it was just the first time, that he would have me again and again, as often as—” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  Sara felt hot and cold horror rush through her. She glanced up, searching for Alex, and he was beside her immediately. She reached for his hand and squeezed it, fighting for her own composure. “Tasha,” she said, stroking the bent head, “this man is Mr. McKie, he’s a friend of mine.” She wouldn’t look up. “He brought me here, and he’s going to go home with us now.”

  She jerked up at that. “I cannot go back there! Please, I’m so scared, I can’t—”

  “No, no, you don’t have to go there. You’ll come to my house tonight and stay with me until we decide what’s best to do.”

  Tasha’s huge eyes filled. She seized Sara’s hand and kissed it, wetting it with her tears. “Oh, Mrs. Cochrane,” she began, then lapsed into a fast, voluble combination of languages Sara couldn’t understand. The outburst of gratitude went on until her embarrassment was so acute, Sara drew her hand away and spoke almost sternly.

  “Enough now, Tasha. Come, let’s get away from here.” She stood up. To Alex she said, “Do you think you could find us a cab?”

  He shook his head; he had no intention of leaving them alone. “Not around here, I don’t think. Come with me, we’ll look for something on Third.”

  Tasha got up shakily. Sara put her arm around her waist and the two women went outside, Alex following.

  There were no hansoms in sight on Third Avenue. They waited on the busy, teeming corner, staring southward, Tasha speechless, Alex and Sara saying little to each other. At last they gave up and caught a horsecar, riding it in silence all the way uptown.

  Inside the house, Sara told Alex she was going to take Tasha upstairs. “You’ve been so kind, I can’t thank you enough. If you like, I’ll call you—”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “No, honestly, there’s no—”

  “I’d like to wait.”

  She was unspeakably grateful. “All right. I’m not sure how long I’ll be. Thank you very much.” A maid appeared in the hall; Sara asked her to come upstairs with her and Tasha. “Make yourself a drink, Mr. McKie, and—just—go anywhere.” She wanted to be a good hostess, but her mind was so distracted.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her, smiling slightly.

  She almost smiled back, then turned away from him to help a silent Tasha up the stairs.

  Alex wandered down the hall toward the blue parlor, turning lights on as he went. He remembered the liquor cabinet—a hideous rococo affair of laquered teak—and poured himself a strong scotch whiskey. He sipped it slowly, brooding. There was a door standing open at the far end of the room; it had been closed before—he’d thought it a closet, but now he could see it was a room. Carrying his drink, he went to investigate.

  No light switch on the wall, just an old-fashioned gaslight sconce by the door. He turned it on. The room was tiny, hardly bigger than a pantry. The sole furnishings were a shallow desk built into a recess between bookcases on either side of a casement window, an armchair, a padded leather footrest, and a standing electric lamp. A Persian rug in bright shades of ruby and wine took up most of the floor.

  The wall that wasn’t covered with bookcases to the ceiling was covered with paintings and photographs. The photos were all of Michael, all unposed, some even blurred, as if they’d been taken with a box camera by someone more doting than talented. Sara, of course. The paintings were interesting, in themselves and in their variety. More than half were signed “L. Hubbard,” and Alex remembered the eccentric-looking friend he’d met here on Sunday. They were landscapes and nudes, still-lifes and portraits,
suggesting the artist hadn’t settled on her true subject yet. What they had in common was exuberance and a muscular disregard for convention. There were also two small Corots, as well as a few of the Impressionist painters—Manet, Cezanne, a Degas. That was a rare sight in the homes of the American nouveau-riche, Alex knew, where the safe and respectable Old Masters usually had pride of place.

  He carried his glass to the bookcase closest to the chair, sat down, and perused the shelves. Another eclectic collection—Dickens, Zola, Twain, books in French on landscape gardening, Italian poetry, the sonnets of Shakespeare, all of Jane Austen, a dog-eared Henry James. All of them looked read, even reread, but he smiled to see that what was lying open on the desk this evening was the newest issue of Women’s Fashion Gazette. He chose a magazine from the shelf at random, an old Scribner’s, and began to read.

  “So, you’ve found me out.”

  He lifted his head, surprised to see her leaning in the doorway; he hadn’t heard a sound. She looked tired, but she’d repinned her hair and tidied herself up; once again she was neat and cool and composed. “You told me to go anywhere,” he reminded her.

  “Indeed I did.”

  “Besides, you can’t hide secret rooms from me—I’m an architect.”

  “I should’ve known.”

  He gestured. “I like this room. It’s my favorite.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “I know.” He stood up slowly, holding her gaze, and moved toward her. She stepped back. “Let me make you a drink,” he said smoothly, and passed by her in the doorway without touching.

  “Yes, all right. Please.”

  “Sherry?”

  “Anything. Yes, sherry.” She followed him, restless.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s stopped talking. She had a bath and now she’s asleep. She fell asleep instantly,” she said wonderingly, still amazed.

  “A defense.”

  “Yes. A good one.” Her low voice contained a touch of envy.