by Alma Katsu
And now she was with this doctor, an ordinary man with nothing special to offer. It was too humiliating to bear. He took the picture down from the wall. Gripping the picture frame, he smashed it against his knee. The frame broke into splinters, the glass into slivers and shards. Adair pulled the drawing itself out of the frame and, in one long stroke, tore it in half. His chest tightened, his temples pounded. Her beautiful little nest, where she lived with this foolish doctor, mocked him. Rage sparked inside of him, the inhibition that held his anger against her in check lifted for an instant, and it took nothing to make his wish real. Burn it all, he thought. Burn the house down. Leave her nothing to return to. His last image as he drifted up and away was of long orange flames licking the walls, greedily devouring everything in their wake.
TWENTY-THREE
BARCELONA
Two days later, an envelope, elegant and luxurious to the touch, awaited me at the front desk. There were no markings on the outside except my name in a neat, tiny script. I pulled out the folded sheet inside:
My dearest Lanore,
You must forgive my lapse of manners in leaving you without diversion for the past few days. You must enjoy the hospitality of my house while you are in town. Please join me tonight for dinner. My car will pick you up at eight o’clock.
Sincerely,
C
The C was a beautiful work of calligraphy, done by a practiced hand. I turned the envelope and the sheet of stationery over but there was no address, no phone number, nor any other way to contact him. My acceptance was a foregone conclusion.
There was no thought that I wouldn’t attend, but as I dressed for the evening, I was apprehensive. There was the rather sinister manner in which the invitation had been extended—summoning me with a handwritten note carried by an unseen messenger—and I had to wonder if Alejandro had done this deliberately in homage to our mutual past, or because he took comfort from indulging in the old ways: paper correspondence delivered by a footman, sending a carriage for a lady.
Secondly, I was still ashamed from our initial reunion. It never occurred to me that the others—Alejandro, even Tilde and Dona—would be anything but overjoyed to be free of Adair. In the panic of fleeing with Jonathan and figuring out how to make my way in the world, I didn’t think the others would be faced with this same dilemma. I felt I’d done them a great favor as the architect of their escape, never once thinking they were content living in Adair’s company, and yet, here I felt like a criminal whose past had caught up to her.
Lastly, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Alejandro had used the past few days not to try to decide whether to forgive me but to figure out a way to hand me over to Adair. It was clear from Alejandro’s reaction that he’d never suspected me of being responsible for Adair’s disappearance; he seemed too shocked when I made my confession to have faked his surprise. If Adair was free, he hadn’t yet spoken to Alejandro. I reminded myself that Alejandro had been the kindest of the group, unable to overcome his sensitivity even though it had been a liability among Adair’s companions. I trusted that Alej’s tendency would hold out for a few more days and I could wait that long to see if he had anything for me.
A silver Mercedes appeared magically at the appointed time, like Cinderella’s carriage, and carried me through the streets of Barcelona to an outlying neighborhood. It pulled through the gates of an old estate, and I was let out at the front of the house. Oddly, the solemn front doors were slightly ajar, so I stepped into the hall, which was as cool and dark as a crypt. Still, there was no one there to receive me and the house seemed unoccupied. Already uneasy, I was ready to retreat when I saw a figure at the end of the long hall coming toward me: Alejandro. His footsteps on the marble floor were the only sounds in the house; there appeared to be no servants, or perhaps they were otherwise occupied and discreet as mice. Alej could have been indulging his taste for the dramatic by staging an entrance, or perhaps it was another contrivance meant to put me on edge.
“Lanore! So good of you to accept my invitation. I’ve been on pins and needles, afraid you might disappoint me,” he said, taking my arm and tucking it under his.
“I would’ve called to tell you I was coming, but I had no way to get in touch. No address, no telephone number,” I teased, watching for his reaction, but he gave me nothing but his enigmatic smile. His appearance, too, revealed a shade more of his eccentricity. Gone was the sedate clothing he’d worn in his studio, the quiet clothing that let him fade into the background. Tonight he wore a mishmash of styles and periods: a jacket cut like a frock coat but made of tapestry, the fabric shiny from age; a satin shirt in the Cossack style; faded black jeans; and a crocheted pillbox cap, the kind I’d seen worn in northern African countries. All plucked from his wardrobe, no doubt, each a precious memory of another time.
“I didn’t mean to be so secretive. It’s just that I like my privacy, you see, and rarely give my address to anyone, and I suppose it’s gotten to be a habit. I didn’t mean to frighten you. It was just an oversight, I assure you,” he said, patting my hand.
“And where are your servants? You don’t live here alone, do you?” I peeked into rooms as we passed open doors, hoping to see someone putting out a tray of liqueurs or tidying up.
“Oh, yes, of course I have servants, but I’ve asked them to leave us alone tonight as much as possible so that we might feel free to talk about old times and our secret. It’s a rare occasion that I get to be myself with anyone—I’m sure you feel the same way—so I thought to keep it as intimate as possible. There should be no other people on earth tonight, just us two.” I smiled at him, but my heart was sinking bit by bit. Had he gone a bit mad, poor Alejandro? His outlandish dress, a mania for secrecy? Like Savva, it seemed that the world had exacted its toll from him.
Alejandro took me on a tour of the rooms, making an occasional remark about one object or another, but otherwise leaving me to take in what I saw on my own. I was struck by the similarity to my house in Paris in that it was stuffed with mementos of Alejandro’s previous lives. It wasn’t as ramshackle as my home had been, however; Alejandro had a more discerning eye and kept only beautiful pieces, and edited his collection so the overall effect was more harmonious than the unrestrained cacophony of my residence. However, unlike at my house, his collection seemed to lack sentimentality—no faded ticket stubs or theater programs to remind him of outings with long-dead friends, no moth-eaten sweater worn by a former lover—but that was Alejandro: polished exterior with his cards pressed close to the vest. The rooms seemed more like set pieces than a reflection of himself: what he wished his life had been, instead of what it was.
Seeing that he, too, had surrounded himself with possessions, substitutes for people and love that was gone from his life, made me sad for him. “So, what else do you do besides photography, Alej?” I asked at last, daring to break the hush. “Tell me, is there someone in your life?”
He pressed my arm firmly to his side as though I might try to escape. “Oh, my poor Lanore. Is that still your measure for happiness? Are you only happy when there is someone to share your bed or the breakfast table?”
I was surprised by his response: is that what he thought of me? “That might have been true in the past, but don’t forget, Alejandro, I was practically a girl at the time. Twenty years old, and I’d led such a sheltered life, never expected to have to be on my own. Since then I’ve been on my own quite a lot; I suppose we all have. Everyone else comes and goes. Anyway, it’s not the worst way to live—is it—to share your life with someone? I’m only saying that it would be a shame if you were alone, Alej, when you have so much to offer.”
His expression remained guarded. “It is kind of you to be concerned for me, but you needn’t worry. I’m not alone, except when I choose to be.” He continued leading the tour, stopping at one room or another to show me his treasure, each piece worthy of the best museums in the world. We lingered for only a second outside his bedroom, long enough for me to take in the lush but
forlorn still life of panels of burl wood and silk draperies, a clutch of bloodred poppies in a vase at the bedside. It was a beautifully composed room, but the bed, surrounded with pillar candles and bowls and incense burners, seemed more like an altar, a platform, or a stage than a place for rest. As a matter of fact, it reminded me in no small way of Adair’s bedchamber.
Dinner was laid out in a large, formal dining room, the two settings placed together at one end. I had yet to see a servant, but someone had set out covered dishes still hot to the touch. Alejandro had put together an exotic menu: there was a bowl of tiny slivers of something pink, fried to a crisp, that turned out to be quail tongues; poached turtle eggs; and a salad bright with purple morning glories. I pointed to the latter and exclaimed, “But they’re poisonous!” and he laughed and replied, “Not to us. You should try one; they’re delicious. So many things that are poisonous turn out to be quite tasty. The liver of the blowfish is the best part, but it’s also the deadliest.”
“Where do you even find quail tongues?” I asked, using a small pair of silver tongs to disentangle a tongue from the rest.
“It was one of my favorite dishes when I was a child,” he explained as he gently slid a softly poached turtle egg onto his plate. “I keep a covey of them in the aviary for just this purpose.”
I tried one quail tongue and a morning glory to be polite, while Alejandro put a small portion of each dish on his plate and then darted from each like a hummingbird. I much preferred the bottle of sherry he set out. He was clearly playing a game with me: the theatricality of serving bizarre foods and hiding his servants. If it weren’t for the sherry’s numbing effect, I probably would have succumbed to nerves and fled from the house. I couldn’t see the point to his game, other than to rattle me. Or perhaps his grip on reality had slipped and this was a reflection of what he had become. Adair’s curse didn’t seem to keep our minds from falling apart, just our vessels.
He waited until I’d eaten both items on my plate before he spoke. “You have been very patient with me tonight, Lanore, and I should not keep you waiting for my decision any longer. I will help you.” I must’ve looked quite relieved by his answer, for he rushed to add, “You shouldn’t get your hopes up, though. I am in touch with only a handful of the others, and few were interested in studying the dark arts. Most of us are afraid of it, and I’m sure that comes as no surprise to you. But there’s one person who might be able to help.” Alejandro took a small white card from his pocket and handed it to me. It had Tilde’s name on it, with an address. “She’s the one you want to see,” he said quietly and firmly.
“I don’t understand.”
“A lot of time has passed, Lanore. Two hundred years can change anyone, and I would say that, of all of us, she has changed the most.”
I stared at the white card pinched between my fingers. Of all the cold, selfish people Adair had collected, Tilde had been the most chilling. She’d committed the worst crime of any of us before Adair changed her: killing her husband and children so that she might marry a rich man who’d fallen in love with her. Time and again, whether luring men to squander their gold at Adair’s gaming table or a poor girl to give her virginity to Adair in his bed, she had proved that her heart was the stoniest. I lived in terror of her second only to Adair, and here Alejandro was telling me she was the only one who could help me. Even he seemed vaguely apologetic for putting me in her hands. I looked into his eyes pleadingly and asked, “Don’t you remember how she hated me? Why would she agree to help me now?”
Alej shook his head gently. “She didn’t hate you any more than she hated anyone else, my dear, and certainly no more than she hated herself. Don’t you understand? We all had to find a way to appease Adair in order to survive, and that was her way. Early in her life, she decided she must put her interests first; selfish, yes, though some might say pragmatic. She lived in a difficult time and a place more primitive and harsh than even the town you grew up in. There were events that had shaped Tilde by the time Adair found her, things that you don’t know about,” he chided me. “And don’t forget, you have been selfish in your way, no less selfish than Tilde. I don’t mean to be cruel, but you gave Jonathan to Adair, didn’t you? And here you are, claiming to be a changed woman.”
He still had that priestly, disarming way about him. And he knew of the shame I carried mostly in secret, of being the one to give Jonathan to Adair. Seeing me subdued, Alejandro continued, “She’s sorry for everything she’s done. She’s not the same woman at all; she’s taken on a kind of spirituality. She’s been trying to find out who we are, and to do that, she’s delved into the mysteries of the unseen world. She’s consulted with scholars and practitioners from here to the ends of the earth. If anyone will be able to help you, it is Tilde.”
As intimidating as this was, I wanted to believe him. I had to go along with it, anyway—I had no other choice. It seemed that part of this ordeal was to humble myself before my enemies, to ask for help from people I’d hoped to never deal with again. If my entire journey was about changing the type of person I was, about making amendments for the selfish things I’d done, it made sense that this, too, would be part of my punishment.
He took both of my hands. “Lanore, you know that I tried to protect you before. You can trust me now.”
I studied Alejandro’s card a second time, then slipped it into my purse. “Thank you, Alejandro.”
When I started to push away from the table, he rose as well. “You are eager to start on the next step of your journey. I understand. I’ll have my driver take you back to your hotel. But I ask that you wait a minute longer; I thought of something I’d like to give you, something I picked up a long time ago that would suit you perfectly. Come with me.”
We went to one of his carefully composed rooms, and he began to sift through a huge, antique Chinese herbalist’s cabinet with dozens of tiny drawers, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and locked the door behind me, then stood clutching the sink, a bundle of nerves at the thought of seeing Tilde again. I feared her almost as much as I feared Adair. My throat was dry and my heart beat insistently in my chest. I exhaled slowly, trying to calm myself. Give him five more minutes, then make your excuses and escape.
As I passed Alejandro’s room, however, I caught from the corner of my eye a glimpse of the past: dangling from a hanger on an armoire door, I thought I saw one of Adair’s banyans, olive silk with stripes of gold, the same coloring as his eyes.
I crept into Alejandro’s room quietly. All it took was fingering the silk and I knew it was Adair’s old robe, now thin from an eternity of use. Seeing this empty vestige of him again made me recall Adair vividly. The movement of the hanger made the armoire door swing open and, as I tried to close it, something fell to the bottom of the cabinet. I crouched down to clear away whatever was blocking the door, and my hands closed around a strip of leather, greasy from use. I pulled out a maze of leather straps and buckles, a diabolical cage fashioned into a hollow human form. The last time I had seen it was in Adair’s house in Boston, and here was the ugly contrivance again, sharp leather straps spattered with blood and stiff with human misery, unwilling to be ignored.
But the harness no longer held my shape, frozen for centuries: the shape was larger, straighter, too, and it didn’t mimic a woman’s curves. It hit me then: Alejandro had himself put into the harness, had himself strapped into a frieze of helplessness. . . . He’d actually enticed someone to strap him in and use it to reenact the punishments that Adair used to mete out. Alejandro had chosen to relive the humiliation, rapes, and beatings; he’d accepted them voluntarily, but why? When I thought about it, though, the answer seemed obvious.
“What are you doing?” Alejandro’s voice called out behind me, chilly.
I held the harness out for him to see. “Alejandro, how in the world could you save this?” I could barely bring myself to ask.
The haughty expression on his face crumpled. “What els
e could I do? It was Adair’s. I couldn’t let some outsider find it. Think of the scandal; what would people have said about him?”
The truth, I thought. “But how can you do this to yourself, Alej?” I gestured at the shape captured in leather with a pained expression on my face. I could barely breathe. “You must stop hating yourself.”
Those dark eyes stared back, full of shame, with a glimmer of relief at being discovered. “The only time I feel truly at peace,” he said at last, “is when I am in the harness.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that he re-created the rituals of torture, punishment and absolution; he was a child of the Inquisition, after all. Or perhaps he only wanted a reminder of the most poignant and singular attention he ever got from Adair.
Alejandro and I were both Adair’s casualties, shaped by our every interaction with him, his attention and his displeasure, the rewards he bestowed and the punishments he inflicted. I hoped that I had broken this cycle and was free from his influence, but apparently Alejandro was not. I wanted to help him cure himself, but didn’t know how. “Oh, Alej,” I said, dropping the harness to the floor. “I am so sorry for you.”
I took his cold hand and warmed it with my own as we walked together in silence through the dark, empty halls. As Alejandro escorted me to the car, I waited until we were at the front doors to ask, “Will you go looking for Adair? I assume you want to be with him again.”
The flush of embarrassment had faded from his face, but he still wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I don’t know. I am wise enough to know that the idea of something is often more alluring than its reality. I have mixed feelings. You understand.”