Justine drifted off, only to wake two hours later. Vienna was still sitting at the suite’s table, staring into the Sony. She was reading from memory, her lips moving. Justine walked to her, arms crossed as a tight shield in front of her chest.
At first Justine couldn’t decipher the screen. Then she realized it was one of Emily’s pictures. George had tilted the manikin while Emily had taken a picture of the bottom. The soles of the statue’s feet almost filled the picture. The word “Boadicea” was stamped on the left foot.
Justine thought Emily had been too literal in carrying out the favor. Then she saw what Vienna was staring at. Three symbols had been carved on the inside of the arch of the manikin’s right foot. A seven-pointed star, the concentric circles of a plate, and a unicorn head topped by a glorious horn.
Justine swallowed. “Vienna?”
The girl’s voice rose from silence. “.… and he searcheth after every green thing. Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band to the furrow?”
The girl was dredging up every passage she’d ever read about unicorns. No room for anything else. Nothing beyond the wretched ghost in Brussels. The endless white floor. Justine kept her distance.
“Vienna!”
She turned to face Justine, but kept reading. Her gummy eyes bloodshot.
The week came crashing down. I already did my time! Anger shot through jagged nerves. Lord Davy was right. This wasn’t what she wanted. It was senseless to go on pretending it was.
Fuck the moving manikins and the sleazy photographers and the mentally ill girl sitting in front of her.
Whatever love was left would never overcome this. She looked at it for what it was: pretense to cover a suddenly lonely life and a shattered career.
Skip the dénouement and roll the credits.
14
It felt like good-bye—like hollow rage. Justine was leaving. Vienna knew it in the way the American avoided her look. In the way she sat at the table, silently waiting for their breakfast of melon and eggs. In the way her lips were tight and her face held nothing except tiredness.
Vienna wouldn’t have noticed a week ago. She cursed Justine for giving her new awareness. She wanted to scream, but it was safer to seal her heart in ice. She would face isolation as she always had. There was nothing new here.
Breakfast was served, Justine pushing the food across her plate without eating. She finally slid her fork down to the table.
“Vienna…”
“Bog off.”
“I never meant—”
“Bog off.”
Justine nodded. “Will you be okay? I can give you some money.”
“I don’t want your bloody charity.”
“I understand. I’m going to call Holt and cancel the shoot. I’m firing James and going back to the states. Getting away from all this.”
“Okay.”
Justine drew a sharp breath, but kept her voice low. “I’ve paid for the hotel suite for six weeks. That should give you time to get back on your feet. I know Lord Davy will help you. Sell some of the stuff we got together if you need to. It will bring good money. More than you would have made working for a year.”
See what happens when you tire of playing dress-up with your dolls? “Okay.”
“I can’t stand long good-byes. I want you to know that you’re not broken at all.” An obvious lie or she wouldn’t be leaving. And why ever hope Justine would be different from anyone else anyway? Justine gave a mimed kiss because who would give a real kiss to someone who was sick. She stood from the table. Walked away.
There were words for this, too, of course. From Ovid long ago to Circe: Love settled deep in your unwilling heart. You could change men into a thousand shapes, you could not change the commands of your heart. Vienna realized the words were not written in sorrow, but in numb, powerless rage. To be tricked by desire is to forget that desire meant nothing at all. She sat alone until the wait staff asked her to leave so they could make preparations for lunch.
She walked to the Millennium Bridge, standing to the side as tourists flowed behind her.
In 1996, the Financial Times announced a competition to design a pedestrian bridge to span the Thames …
The river’s oily current flowed below her, devouring sunlight. And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth. She knew the words were from Heart of Darkness, and she knew what they really meant because she had read about symbols. Am I like Marlow? So helpless, in the end, to see what is really there?
High, thin clouds arced overhead and the breeze smelled of cold water.
She put her hands in the pockets of an expensive skirt Justine had brought for her. Her fingers curled around the credit card shape of the hotel key. She took it out and bent it between her hands. It was surprisingly flexible. More pressure, until the plastic went white at the fold. She bent it back and forth until it snapped in two. Looked at the pieces from a great distance, as if having no memory of how they had come to be in her hands. She wanted to be rid of it—to throw it to the river below. Let it find its own dark place in the earth. But some inner voice begged her not to add to the river’s misery. She shoved the pieces in her pocket.
The ice from her heart spread through her body, until she stood in suspended animation. Motionless and thoughtless while the world moved around her. The sun slid across the universe in time-lapse. Clouds grew from white patchwork to gray sheets. The afternoon went dull and cold. She didn’t move. She no longer seemed to be breathing. The clouds burned umber, then faded to indigo. The lights of the great city came up and she was alone on a stage of towers and castle walls.
Her thoughts unexpectedly settled on the man with the shirt of squares. He had a northern accent. An artist from Dumfries. Julian Dardonelle, trying to warn Justine about the manikin in Prague. I saw him just before he died. Just like I saw Mr. Sinoro and David Andries before they died.
There was no one to tell now. Justine was back in America.
Accepting the truth shook Vienna from her stasis. She was aware of being cold on an autumn night. Of being hungry and of the tiredness in her legs and the demands of her body. She turned away from the river and collided with a person standing too close behind her. She looked into the exotic green eyes and newly blond bangs of Justine Am.
“You’re an idiot,” Justine said.
Adrift in some strange way from her body, Vienna waited for her own lips to move, just to see what words they would shape. For long seconds, nothing would come. “What?” she finally said.
“It’s okay. So am I.”
“What?” All the words she’d ever read, reduced to one. “What?”
“In the Brussels police station, you didn’t know how to pronounce ‘Stürmer.’ You know the words but you don’t know the language. I can’t believe I missed that.”
Vienna could only shake her head.
“You’ve been searching your memory for a unicorn. A picture you saw as a child. But you never saw a picture of a unicorn when you were small.”
“I did so.”
“You couldn’t have. You were in Austria. There are no unicorns in Austria. According to Babel Fish, there are einhorns. That’s the word you saw by the picture. In German, not English.”
“Einhorn?”
“Give me your hand.”
Vienna held her hand up. Justine took it, and with a pen from her bag, she wrote “einhorn” on Vienna’s palm. “That’s the word you’ve been searching for. Can you find it?”
Vienna took her hand from Justine’s and looked at the word. It was there, lost in a stream of words she didn’t understand. She set them aside.
“Why are you here?”
Justine gave a small, sad smile. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Vienna felt the ice in her chest again. “That’s not fair.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Vienna’s anger told lies. “Yes.”
“Too bad.”
She offered her hand.
Vienna looked away. “How did you find me?”
“The hotel purser said you hadn’t checked out. I knew you were close. It was only a matter of looking. Are you okay?”
“Surely Cupid has crept in and skillfully wounded me with secret art.”
“That’s a little melodramatic, isn’t it? Who is it?”
“Publius Ovidius Naso. He was banished to Tomi—a frontier town on the Black Sea. It’s where Jason landed with the Golden Fleece.” Her eyes moved across unseen pages. “Poetry makes me see things a certain way. And I hate you.”
Justine’s smile was still tired, but somehow less tense. “I was expecting Sappho.”
Vienna had no idea who that was.
“S-a-p-p-h-o.”
She blinked and followed the word, pages of poetry unfolding before her, from an oversized book in Grayfield’s flat. “‘What in my mad heart was my greatest desire; Who must feel my allurements; Who was the fair one that must be persuaded; Who wronged thee Sappho?’”
“There we go. Much more appropriate, don’t you think?”
Vienna read on. “According to legend, she threw herself from a cliff out of unrequited love.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. The Thames looks chilly and none too clean.”
“Why do you tease me?”
“Self-defense,” Justine said.
“I don’t understand.”
“This wasn’t supposed to be my life.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Justine sighed. “Sometimes, you have to stop analyzing every rational outcome. Quit assessing every permutation and flinching from every fear. Foot on the gas, tires squealing. Find what you think is true.” She raised her hand slightly, reissuing the invitation.
“Your hair is blond again,” Vienna said. “And shorter.”
“Asymmetrical bob in layers. Do you like it? It’s supposed to be sexy.”
“I liked it when it was blue. It was bright and no one else had hair like it.”
For some reason that made Justine laugh.
Vienna slipped her hand into Justine’s. “I’ve been here all day,” she said.
“I know, hun.”
“I have to pee.”
“Then we better hurry back.” They marched through pools of lamplight cast on the walk. Justine so poised and not separating from Vienna when others walked by. Even when they stared.
“Vienna? Didn’t Boadicea burn London down?”
“Who?”
“The woman’s name on the manikin’s foot.”
Vienna saw it. “Yes. After the Romans killed her husband and raped her daughters.” There wasn’t much more to the story. “The Romans won in the end and Boadicea committed suicide, just like Sappho. Does this have something to do with why Mr. Sinoro died?”
“No. It has to do with you.”
“Me?”
“No Twitter drivel or Facebook angst. Just poetry and history, even if it’s gloomy.” She purposely bumped her hip into Vienna, knocking her steps out of rhythm. It didn’t seem like a nice thing to do. “That’s part of why I came back, since you asked.”
They turned to the hotel entrance. “I don’t have my key.”
“It’s okay.” Justine still had hers.
Back in the suite, a quick stop in the bathroom and a shower to stop the chills. Out to the suite’s main window. The Thames visible as a wide, black rainbow against the brilliant city night. Vienna saw herself hiding in the darkness. Let everyone pass by on bright sidewalks and statue-lined boulevards.
She felt Justine behind her. She decided she was still angry, or at least she wanted to be. She kept looking out the window.
“If part of why you came back was because you’re worried about me or because you thought I might get into trouble, then I want you to leave.”
“Technically this is still my hotel room.”
“Then I’ll leave,” Vienna said.
“I would like you to stay.”
“And you won’t say why.”
“Please listen for a few minutes? Before you leave or demand answers?”
Vienna felt the broken hotel key in her pocket. There was nothing else there. She nodded.
“In a month or two, we might reach the point where we have to work at things. Where we have to take everything apart to see how we fit together. But it’s too early for that—too much work right now. This is new to us both. It’s late and we both have had a long, bad day. I don’t ask for much tonight. Only that you sleep in my bed, close enough I can feel you breathing.”
“If I had been the one to walk out the door would you take me back so quickly?”
Justine closed her eyes. “No.”
“Yet you expect it of me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent four hours moping around Heathrow, another hour fretting whether or not to call home, and two more hours wallowing in depression while an insanely gossipy man twitched over my hair. Because I’ve walked out so many doors over the last four years, and I’ve never returned through any of them until tonight.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“I know.”
“Did you call your parents?”
“No,” Justine said.
“They hate me.”
“You mean because you’re a woman or because you’re not right in the head?”
“All of it.”
“Vienna.” Justine’s arms were suddenly around her, arms crossed in front of her chest and hands on her arms. “They don’t care.”
“Then why didn’t you call?”
“I love my mother and father, but they would have offered all sorts of good advice and I don’t need that right now.”
“Codswallop,” Vienna whispered to herself. But what else was there to do? Go back to Brussels? Back to Jeanneken Pis in her locked cage? Back to long dead widows and the vacant church plaza? Vienna sighed loudly enough to make certain Justine understood how upset she was.
Of course the night had no chance of unfolding as Justine had said. After room service delivered dinner with wine and a small plate of ice cream, Vienna ended up nude, on her back with her legs wrapped around Justine’s hips.
She found it odd, this position so finely evolved for male and female. She expected to feel some connection missing, some lack of current that would have come to life had there been a male above her. But trying to force the feeling did nothing. She didn’t want anyone else. Right or wrong, male or female didn’t even enter into it.
But Justine had to feel the lack. This would be a break, maybe even a pleasant one, from what she was used to. A temporary change of pace. Best keep that in mind.
Abruptly Vienna snapped back to the outside world. Justine was looking at her. “What?” The stupid word came out as a whisper.
Justine didn’t answer. Instead she shifted her weight, pressing down slightly harder on Vienna. The motion was small but the effect was immediate. Vienna felt the response her body wanted to make. Resented being so inexperienced that she couldn’t find it.
She looked to Justine as if to apologize; saw her faint smile. And then it happened, Vienna moved the way her muscles told her was right. Her knees shifting upward, her hips rocking open.
She would have thought such a purely biological signal would have little effect. She was wrong about that, too. She closed her eyes and tried to release her body—let it respond to the slow dance of instinct. Let the night breathe. But it wouldn’t. Justine gently took both of Vienna’s wrists and pinned them above her head. Vienna panicked as she realized that now her breasts looked small. She will see I am so much less beautiful than she is. But Justine only lowered her lips to Vienna’s left ear. Her body pressed tightly over Vienna’s. She was warm. Vienna had never thought of temperature as a sexual quality.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” Justine whispered. “It was horrible.”
“It’s okay.”
Jus
tine bit her ear, almost enough to hurt. “It’s not, but it was something I needed to think through.”
“I understand.” It was a lie but maybe it sounded right.
Justine laughed. “Then you’ll have to explain it to me.”
Were people supposed to talk during sex? It didn’t seem right. Justine didn’t care. She just kept right on. “Do you like this?”
The question was impossibly vague. “As opposed to what?”
Another bite on her ear. “As opposed to not making love. Or as opposed to you being up here and me being down there.
Vienna considered the question. What she wanted to say was that having her wrists above her head made her horny, except she wasn’t certain what it meant, although it probably referred to men and erections, which meant it wasn’t the right word at all. “It’s warm with you there.” She paused. “Except…” She suddenly realized that she was going to say too much after all.
“Except?”
“Nothing.”
“You have to tell me.”
“No I don’t.”
“It’s part of the rules.”
It seemed pointless to ask about that. “I’m listening to my body like Cecile told me to and it’s saying that I’m not so fragile. Is that okay? I’m not trying to be mean.”
“Danger, Will Robinson, danger,” Justine answered.
More nonsense. “Does that mean you’re upset?”
“Just nervous. You have to tell me if you get uncomfortable, promise?”
“Promise.” If it makes you shut up.
Justine widened her legs inside of Vienna’s. Vienna inhaled at the adrenaline rush from the increased exposure. Still, she decided that her body liked it, even if it was a little scary. And after the first, wild, sensation faded she realized that Justine was being careful so it wasn’t really scary after all. But maybe it was okay to pretend it was, just a little.
Anyway, it felt good to have Justine’s hand sliding over her stomach. And since maybe Justine expected to talk during love, Vienna thought she needed to say something. She remembered leading Justine through the streets of Brussels and how Justine had followed without question, and for once she knew what to say. “I trust you.”
Vienna Page 13