For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

“Have you been sick, Mrs. Templeton?” Ernie asked. “You look like you lost twenty pounds.”

  “A little bit, Ernie. But I’m fine now. Has there been much mail for me?”

  “I can check for you. You want me to open some windows before I go?”

  “Thank you.”

  As he opened the kitchen window, fresh air began to circulate through the apartment. Already the familiar sensation had risen like dust in a breeze: Ivy’s door that was always ajar, the wedding portrait, now a perpetual reproof, the souvenirs of happier times, all now bitter mockeries. And yet she felt that this time, for the first time, she was equipped to fight them all, even conquer them.

  The telephone rang: a harsh, strident shriek that startled her. It was Elliot Hoover.

  “I’ve gotten a room at the Windsor-Newton. It’s only three blocks away. How are you feeling?”

  “Very strange. It’s very weird to be back.”

  “Have you called Dr. Geddes?”

  “No. I’ve been afraid to.”

  “Well, call him. He’ll have to prepare Bill to accept my presence.”

  Janice sat down again, unsteadily, on the couch.

  “It seems so sudden. Everything seems to be rushing ahead so fast.”

  “You’re worn out. Get some sleep. There’s a restaurant on the corner of Columbus and Sixty-eighth. We can have breakfast there. Right now call Dr. Geddes and arrange a meeting for tomorrow.”

  He waited for Janice to respond.

  “Isn’t that what we want, Janice?”

  “Fine. That will be fine.”

  After she hung up, a peculiar emptiness circulated around the apartment. Her confidence was evaporating. She began to think it might have been a terrible mistake to have brought Elliot Hoover to New York. She remembered the hostility Bill once had for him. True, Bill now was a believer, a purer believer, in some ways, than Hoover. But did that mean he would accept the man who had disrupted his life? Whose existence stood for everything he had once hated? But then, Bill was different now. And she fought the doubt that threatened her.

  The doorbell rang, Ernie brought a plate of sandwiches with hot tea. She thanked him. As she ate the roast beef and bread, a bit of confidence returned. After the hot tea, she felt remorseful that she had ever doubted what she had done.

  But when she telephoned the Eilenberg Clinic Dr. Geddes was adamant. He would not permit Elliot Hoover to speak with Bill. Janice had the distinct impression that Dr. Geddes was trying to shield Bill from her. But at last he agreed to meet Elliot Hoover for a short interview the following afternoon. That was no guarantee that he would let him speak with Bill.

  That night Janice slept uncomfortably in her bed for the first time in two months. She had bathed, and then examined her naked body in the full-length mirror. Her hips now jutted out, angular, and her breasts seemed slimmer. But mostly it had been the face that shocked her. What a stranger she had become to her own eyes. Then came the silence. The silence of lying in bed in an apartment vacated for so long, doubly vacated by two others, one dead, the other emotionally dead, but both leaving residues of sorrow at every corner, every object in the place. So she lay, her body oriented halfway between India time and Western time, listening to the vague sounds of the city.

  Elliot Hoover was a welcome sight in the small restaurant at the corner of Columbus Avenue. He rose politely as she came in and beamed a lovely smile.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  “I was a little anxious,” she confessed, sitting down beside him. “It’s so strange to be back. I feel I’m living someone else’s life.”

  “Your previous kind of life will soon try to catch hold of you,” he warned in a kindly way. “Don’t let it. Now, this restaurant seems to specialize in palachenka, those breakfast crepes from Vienna, filled with cream and fresh jam.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  The palachenka were delicate as a layer of snow and about as thick. The jam was country-fresh, homemade, and it was so peaceful to sit in the corner booth, among the sagging East European faces that hung over the nearby tables, arguing in Yiddish, Russian, or Hungarian, that neither wanted to break the spell. Outside, the sunlight bathed Columbus Avenue in a crisp, clear light, and small pools of water from night rain reflected the shops upside down.

  “When will Dr. Geddes speak with us?” he finally asked, as gently as he could.

  “Not until late this afternoon. He can’t leave Ossining until three o’clock. He’ll meet us about four o’clock at the hospital.”

  He touched her right hand, which had begun to crumple the white napkin into a ball.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he said softly. “In some way, Bill must know that help is on the way.”

  She smiled and relaxed. “I hope you’re right. So much rides on this.”

  “Trust me. And trust yourself.”

  He looked around the restaurant, enjoying the babble of European voices, the easygoing, inelegant comfort of the place, where the customers and the staff knew each other as old friends.

  “Then we have the whole morning to ourselves,” he said, turning slowly back to her.

  “Do you want to see the little girl?” she asked simply.

  He nodded, very slowly, a gesture of serious determination. “God knows I shouldn’t. And yet—”

  “It may be difficult, considering all that’s happened. Still, we can try.”

  “Is the child…pretty?”

  “Yes, Elliot. She’s a lovely girl.”

  His eyes seemed to soften and he smiled a gentle, sad smile as he settled back in his chair and signaled the waiter for the bill.

  When they arrived at the Hernandez address he stepped very slowly onto the pavement. He smoothed his hair back, adjusted his coat, and looked up and down the street.

  She took him by the arm and escorted him into the dark and fetid gloom of the tenement, stumbling over broken toys strewn over the cracked floor. As they climbed, the echoes of their steps preceded them like an ominous, bass tremolo.

  She felt resistance in his arm, but he resolved to go farther, climbed the next flight, and then his body tensed again. He perspired heavily. He was ashamed, but he could not hide his nervousness.

  “I don’t think I can go on,” he whispered.

  “Elliot, you’ll haunt yourself for the rest of your life if you don’t.”

  He started to answer her, then grimly closed his mouth and followed her into the darkest part of the stairwell. She thought she saw his lips move, as though he purified himself by some quiet prayer.

  They emerged onto the top landing. Graffiti had been sprayed in huge black swirls since she had last been there. Parts of the tile on the floor had been badly marred, even dug up, as though by heavy boots or some sort of portable equipment. There was no other sign of the police having occupied the place. It was a scene of sadness, the dinginess relieved only by the light at the very far end, at the fire escape, where the Master had escaped from her grasp so suddenly and so terribly.

  “Was it here that Bill…?”

  She nodded. Their footsteps now sounded heavy and dull as lead. She brought him to the fire escape and they looked downward into the brown alley at the garbage spilling out of broken cans and the cats that slinked along black rails.

  “It was the dead of winter,” she said softly. “Everything was covered in ice. Bill was up there, on the roof.”

  She pointed to where the black metal steps twisted up toward the roof.

  “He was holding the girl in his arms. I remember the wind kicking the snow across like a blizzard, and waiting, and being afraid. And then the Master came to talk to him, and Bill listened and handed over the child to him. Then they shot him.”

  Hoover licked his lips, looking up and craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the roof, as though by so doing he could better imagine the scene.

  For a long time he stood at the bright window, wondering at the sad, incomprehensible mingling of destinies that had brought him, a sec
ond time, to New York.

  He looked significantly at Janice, waiting for her to make the first move. She said nothing, but walked briskly to the door by the stairwell. Quietly he followed.

  “This is the apartment?” he asked gently.

  She nodded. She found it difficult to speak. He reached in front of her and softly rapped against the door. There was no answer.

  He rapped louder and waited. She saw the perspiration appearing a second time on his forehead, and then he made a fist and hit the door three times, squarely, so that the blows reverberated into the rooms behind it.

  “Don’ have to break it!” said a voice with a Spanish lilt in it.

  Hoover whirled around, focusing his eyes at the darkness behind him.

  “It’s not locked,” said the voice.

  A thin, almost emaciated janitor, wearing a denim cap and overalls, stared back at them. He was barely thirty years old, but the face was slightly squashed, as though a heavy weight had pressed in the right cheek and temple, and the right eye wandered uselessly as he spoke.

  He gestured at the door.

  “You can go in,” he said kindly. “Nobody there.”

  “Nobody?” Hoover asked, then turned to Janice.

  She looked into his eyes, as confused as he was, then abruptly she pushed open the door.

  A smell of dust, decayed food odors, and old paint billowed out. On the floor were balls and strings of dust, and specks of black that looked like dead bugs, and huge black stains covered the wall over where the stove had been. The apartment was utterly empty. Not a chair, not a shred of gauze curtain, not a piece of carpet remained. The breeze blew in from the window over dusty, scarred floors, and seemed to accentuate the desolation.

  “You from welfare?” the janitor asked.

  “No…” Janice stammered.

  Hesitantly Janice took a single step onto the grimy kitchen floor. Hoover stepped past her, examining the living room where four rust spots marked the position of the absent television set. The windowsills were cracked, stained by mud and something like oil, and Janice surmised they were souvenirs of police activity at the apartment that February night.

  She turned to the janitor, who had followed them, his dim mind perceiving a kind of game being played by these strange people. He lolled at the kitchen door, a simpleton’s smile on his face.

  “Didn’t Rosa Hernandez live here?” Janice demanded.

  “I don’t know if her name was Rosa.”

  “But it was Hernandez?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Where are they now?” Hoover asked.

  “Home.”

  Hoover turned to Janice. She shook her head, uncertain what “home” meant. Hoover turned back to the young janitor.

  “Where is home?”

  “Puerto Rico.”

  Hoover stared at the janitor.

  “There was trouble. Bad trouble. This man come, he take the little girl. Police shoot him down. So they go home, be with friends and family.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Janice sighed, closing her eyes.

  Hoover turned to Janice.

  “It doesn’t matter, Janice,” he said gently. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s just that I wanted so much for you to see her.”

  He gently touched her arm.

  “It’s just as well,” he said quietly. “Don’t you see? It’s a sign to let well enough alone.”

  Taking one last look, studying the apartment, Hoover held open the door for Janice.

  Outside, the Hispanic janitor dragged his broom across the floor as they approached.

  “Police everywhere,” he burbled, “screams, crying! They shoot down the man! He look dead! Yelling! Cursing God!”

  Hoover took her by the elbow and led her into the dank stairwell. The janitor followed right behind, breathing in their ears.

  “Blood on floor! Crazy man! Everybody go crazy!”

  They stumbled over the broken toys on the ground floor, and struggled toward the door. As though afraid of the gloom, they moved faster and faster. They burst through the door and into the sunlight and the noise of the day’s ordinary summer.

  A taxi, looking forlorn and isolated in Spanish Harlem, got caught in a one-way street. Backing up furiously, it passed them, and Hoover signaled the driver. They were driven quickly crosstown, Janice glancing anxiously at her watch. It was already 2:39, and in bad traffic, Long Island was a long way from them.

  Throughout the drive, Hoover’s eyes were closed, his lips moving silently, and the passing sunlight flashed intermittently over his sensitive face. He was organizing himself for meeting Bill. She bit her lip and looked away. At last, the institution was visible, brown and gray, and suddenly the sun was completely gone. By the time they stepped from the taxi small droplets of rain fell, an invisible mist that hurtled down in a south-driving wind.

  Standing in the parking lot as the taxi drove away, Hoover smiled nervously at her.

  “The ten-thousand-mile journey,” he said gently. “It ends here.”

  18

  The monstrous facades of the psychiatric complex, stained by the veils of blown mist, rose over them like the craggy cliffs of Chinese paintings, obscure and vaguely menacing.

  “Come,” he said simply; they walked into the lobby.

  As the mist turned to an uncertain rain, the lights went on throughout the lower wings. A nurse walked briskly past them, ignoring Hoover’s question. Then a young man in casual clothes and a security pass stapled to his sweater pointed them toward a conference room.

  Dr. Geddes was bent over a stack of folders at a long table. A damaged fluorescent light flickered fitfully on his white coat, his pale hands, and his broad, pale forehead. He seemed to have aged in the two months Janice was gone. He looked diminutive, fussy.

  “Dr. Geddes,” Janice said.

  He looked up at them, studied the tall man, examining him carefully but nervously.

  “Mrs. Templeton,” he said, as graciously as possible. “You’re looking very well. Please, won’t you and Mr. Hoover sit down?”

  Dr. Geddes closed the topmost folder, pulled a chair closer to them, and said nothing. It was his habit not to rush into an encounter, to maintain silence until he felt ready, but even so, Hoover’s presence disturbed him. He stared at the pale blue eyes that did not flinch, the foreign-made brown suit so incongruous against the sunburned face and neck.

  Dr. Geddes stood up and lit a cigarette. As the smoke curled up past his balding profile, he pressed a switch at the base of a coffee-maker and the machine began to gurgle. He stood without speaking during the entire duration of the process. At length black liquid trickled into a glass beaker, steam rose, and Dr. Geddes filled three cups. He carried two cups to Janice and Hoover.

  Hoover ignored his cup, studying Dr. Geddes with the same dispassionate, cool analysis with which Dr. Geddes examined him. Dr. Geddes slowly drank his coffee, and then he sat down again and turned to Janice.

  “I showed Bill your cable,” he said. “But there was no mention of Elliot Hoover.”

  Janice faltered, looking down at her own hands intertwined nervously in the straps of her handbag.

  “I was afraid to tell him.”

  Dr. Geddes nodded, sipping his coffee slowly. An eternity of silence passed as he studied her. He no longer acknowledged Hoover in the seat next to Janice.

  “Why were you afraid to tell him?” Dr. Geddes asked.

  “Because…You know why. Because of what happened. Because Bill holds Elliot responsible.”

  “Sensible,” Dr. Geddes agreed. “Then why do you wish for this meeting to take place now?”

  Janice swallowed, found the courage to face Dr. Geddes, and leaned forward on the table until their faces were less than two feet apart.

  “Because Bill does not listen to you. He does not listen to me. He does not listen to anybody in this hospital. But he will listen to Elliot Hoover because he’s the only man who could have saved our d
aughter’s life, and Bill knows it!”

  “Did Bill tell you that?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “I see.”

  Dr. Geddes found his cigarette was out. He relit it and exhaled slowly toward the ceiling. For a long time he said nothing. Hoover leaned forward, but Janice restrained him by putting a hand on his knee. Dr. Geddes caught the gesture.

  “Mr. Hoover.”

  “Yes, Dr. Geddes?”

  “What is your purpose in seeing Bill Templeton?”

  “To cure him.”

  Dr. Geddes raised a sardonic eyebrow.

  “Are you a psychiatrist?”

  “No.”

  “A psychologist? A medical specialist of any sort?”

  Hoover licked his lips, though whether in irritation or nervousness Janice did not know. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the long conference table, and stared directly into Dr. Geddes’s eyes.

  “I have been through exactly what Bill has gone through,” he said. “And I know his pain.”

  Hoover swallowed his coffee, more to buy time, to feel the situation, than for any taste for the bitter brew.

  “I too lost a daughter,” he continued with difficulty. “Like Bill’s, an only daughter. I searched for her—for a justification for her death. And I know the torture that Bill must feel.”

  “Do you? And how do you propose to help him?”

  “What I have learned from my own ordeal,” he said distinctly, “is the error I committed in the name of love. Bill must not make the same error. He must renounce the child. Give her up.”

  Dr. Geddes softened. He nodded. But then his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “But suppose one believes in reincarnation?” he asked. “What then?”

  “All the more reason to give up the child. The scriptures are clear. One does not possess a child’s life. A child is only an honored and much-loved guest in one’s home.”

  Janice seized the opportunity and leaned closer to Dr. Geddes, in front of Hoover.

  “And this is what Bill must learn, and accept,” she pleaded. “To let the child go.”

  “Especially if he believes she has returned,” Hoover added.

  Dr. Geddes examined them both, his eyes darting back and forth from Hoover’s face to Janice’s. Janice touched Dr. Geddes on the wrist to get his attention.