Star of Stone

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  “Interesting,” the woman replies from the kitchen as she takes out the teacups.

  “Can I help you?” Mistral offers, getting up from her seat and leaning in through the doorway.

  “Oh, no, thank you! On second thought, yes. You could clear off the coffee table for me. Would you bring me the tray that’s on it?”

  Mistral looks over at the octagonal table. “The tray?”

  “You’ll need to move Paco.”

  Sheng reaches out his hand toward the cat statue in the center of the coffee table. Only then does he realize it’s an animal in flesh and blood. “Oh, man!” he cries when his fingers submerge in the ball of fur, the cat not even budging a fraction of an inch.

  Paco is gently lifted up and rested on an empty armchair, which he sinks down into without making a noise. Elettra picks up the tray he was snoozing on and hands it to Mistral, who takes it into the kitchen.

  “As I was saying, it’s interesting,” the elderly woman continues, rinsing the tray, then lining up five unmatched, saucerless teacups on it, “that the first thing that came to your mind was to say you were the nephew of someone I haven’t seen for five years.”

  “Five years?”

  “Unless I’m counting wrong … yes,” the lady of the house confirms. “How old do you think I am, kid?”

  Sheng holds back a groan. “Please, don’t make me guess! I’m terrible at guessing people’s ages.”

  “What about you guys?” the woman insists.

  “Fifty?” Elettra ventures. Harvey hangs his head. From the kitchen, the woman bursts out laughing. “That’s overdoing it, young lady. Thank you, but that’s really overdoing it. I’m eighty-two.”

  “Hao!” exclaims Sheng.

  “Congratulations.” Mistral smiles. “You don’t show it at all.”

  “I bet you’re the woman in all these pictures,” Elettra adds, looking around at the walls.

  The woman comes out from the kitchen for a moment and follows the girl’s gaze. “Yep. Quite a few years ago.” She nods, pleased. “When it still meant something to be young and to work as an actress.”

  “You were an actress?” Sheng asks, surprised.

  “Technically, I still am,” the woman points out, propping her tortoiseshell glasses up on her forehead to take a better look at him.

  “I’m sorry. I just meant that—”

  “No need to apologize. Life is too short for that. I’ve never apologized to anyone.”

  Elettra and Harvey peer at the photos with renewed curiosity. In some of them, Harvey recognizes the names of famous New York theaters.

  “Were you a Hollywood actress or the to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-question kind?” Sheng wonders admiringly.

  “Even better.” The woman grins. “An actress in Greek tragedies.”

  “Cool!” Sheng exclaims.

  “What’s your name?” Elettra finally asks, her gaze lost in the pictures of years gone by, with their long, black gowns, little hats with ostrich feathers sticking out of them and cream-colored cars with round headlights.

  “I’m Agatha.”

  “Nice to meet you, Agatha. I’m Elettra.”

  “Mistral.”

  “Harvey.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Agatha Van Der Berger. My name is Sheng.”

  The water kettle on the stove lets out a long, satisfied whistle. Agatha turns around with an affected laugh, shakes her head and says, “You sure put your foot in your mouth a lot, kid. What were you thinking? I’m not his wife.”

  The tea is served, boiling hot. Sitting on the sofa between Elettra and Harvey, Agatha starts to tell them her tale. “I met Alfred at the opening of Medea, a Greek tragedy. I loved those frightening plays full of blood and ruthlessness. It was an autumn evening and we were making our debut at the Lyceum on Broadway, the oldest theater in New York that’s still open. Naturally, it was raining cats and dogs.” Agatha sips her tea and pauses for a long moment.

  “Just to be clear, kids, I’ve never been a famous actress. I gave it a shot, but after taking a few dives in the world of show business, I settled for small parts here and there when they came along. My brilliant career is all around you. Some black-and-white photos, a few short critiques in the papers, a dinner or two with celebrities of some sort and lots and lots of gossip. That’s it.

  “In Medea, I was playing the nurse. It’s a minor role but an important one, because I was the one who had to get up onstage first, when the whole theater was perfectly silent. I had to start things out by saying, ‘Oh, if only the Argo had never set sail for its long journey beyond Colchis….’ I wasn’t a girl anymore, but I can assure you I was so nervous, I felt like it was my very first time onstage. I’d acted here and there all over the world, kids, but the Lyceum … Oh, the Lyceum is the Lyceum. It’s something totally different.”

  Agatha pauses again for another sip of tea. When she begins to tell her tale again, her gaze is locked onto the kids, gaining their total attention. “Our Medea was a major success, and when the performance was over, the other cast members came to see if I felt like going out to dinner with them. But I didn’t feel up to listening to their dreams and hearing the words I’d already heard so many times before, so I turned them down. I wanted to enjoy the dressing room in peace and quiet. After a play, the theater is a world full of whispers and mysteries. It’s as if in your mind you could hear the voices of all the actors who’ve come before you.”

  Harvey’s ears perk up.

  “I took off my makeup in no hurry at all,” Agatha continues, “and when I walked out, the only people left were the cleaning staff and the doorman. Outside, it was pouring down rain. And on the other side of the street was Alfred.”

  The woman smiles. She puts her teacup down and emphasizes the words that follow with the movement of her hands. “He was standing there, stock still, in the rain, as if it weren’t even coming down. He’d waited for me out there for such a long time that he was sopping wet. He was very, very thin, almost gaunt, and he wore a long, brown raincoat. He clearly hadn’t shaved for a few days. In one hand he was holding a bouquet of flowers that were dripping wet, and in the other he had an umbrella that had been completely torn apart by the wind. I didn’t realize he was there for me. Then, when he saw me come out, he walked up and congratulated me. I burst out laughing, thinking he was just joking. But his face turned perfectly serious … and he invited me to dinner.”

  “And you said yes?” Elettra asks, growing a little impatient.

  “Of course not,” Agatha replies. “I’d never seen him before and I had no idea who he was. Besides, he didn’t have what I would call compelling charm. That night, I took a taxi back to my hotel, but the next evening, Alfred was there outside the theater again. He did that for a whole month. If he saw me all alone, he’d walk up and congratulate me again. Otherwise, he’d stand there discreetly in the distance. He never followed me or forced me to talk to him. He simply waited for me there outside the Lyceum.

  “After a month, our theater company went to put on Medea in another, smaller theater off Broadway. And when I came out of this other theater, I found Alfred there waiting for me again. He walked up to me as if it were for the very first time and invited me to dinner again. It was so sweet that this time I accepted.

  “During that one, single dinner, Alfred won me over. He’d reserved a table at Bacco, but it wasn’t because of what we ate or drank. It was all because of him. He turned out to be an excellent conversationalist, although a rather sad one. He claimed he couldn’t find anyone to have the pleasure of talking to. Talking for the joy of talking, filling the air with notions, ideas and theories. He said younger people would rather do things, but they didn’t have the foggiest idea why they were even doing them. He felt that no one was interested in words anymore, that instead of cultivating them, everyone just let them wither away in silence. And that because of it, words didn’t grow, didn’t bear new fruit … I listened to him and thought he was perfectly right. Words are so im
portant! Just the right words at just the right moment. They’re the only things capable of really changing the world!”

  “Hao … cool!” Sheng exclaims, suddenly realizing he’s been holding his breath for a long time.

  “My world changed after all that talking. We started seeing each other more and more seriously, and after a few months, he invited me to come live with him in this apartment, which is his. I accepted. I accepted him and his words for many years, little by little abandoning the theater and Greek tragedies so I could concentrate on the most wonderful show of all: my life with him. But don’t get me wrong. I have no regrets. Alfred spent a good deal of his time in his study, down there, engrossed in writing, reading and researching. I would sit here, on this sofa, waiting for him to finish. But it was a full life. I never needed anyone else’s company. Not even Paco’s.”

  Agatha strokes the cat without getting any appreciable reaction, then picks up her tea, which is now cold. “Finally, one fine day, just as unexpectedly as he’d appeared in my life, that man dressed in words left.”

  “Did you have an argument?”

  “Oh, no. Never. In fact, our life together was perfect. We were growing old together. Actually, I was growing old, but he wasn’t. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. While my face was getting covered with wrinkles, he stayed the same thin, gaunt Alfred I’d seen that very first day. But no, there was no argument between us.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He just up and walked out on me one day five years ago, without any explanation. I haven’t even heard a single word about him since. Not until you kids showed up, that is.” Agatha smiles. Her tortoiseshell glasses look like two dark wells. “Now that you know my half of the story, I think I can ask how it is you ended up here.”

  “We got this address from an antiques dealer,” explains Harvey. “We wanted to buy something the professor had on hold, so we thought we’d come talk to him in person.”

  Agatha lets out a bleak little laugh. “An antiques dealer? And here I was, letting my imagination go wild! For a moment, I thought Alfred was too ashamed to come back here and had sent some kids on a reconnaissance mission. But instead … an antiques dealer! One here in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugs. “If nothing else, given that he ordered something from an antiques dealer, that must mean he’s still alive.”

  The kids don’t reply. All they do is uncomfortably stare at the picture frames on the walls.

  “So what’s the antique, anyway?”

  “A toy top.”

  “That’s just like Alfred.” Agatha nods. “He’d spend all his money on books and bizarre objects. Not that he ever had money problems, or left me with any. In fact, still today, money is put into my bank account every month by an anonymous depositor. But I don’t ask any questions. Alfred and I never talked about money, and in all the years I lived with him, I never knew what he did for a living. All I know is that antiques were his passion. He was in constant contact with shops all around the world, finding books and knickknacks that were older and older and, from what he said, more and more fascinating. He was constantly buying them, trading them, selling entire shelves of them from his study to make room for new purchases.”

  “He must’ve had a lot of them,” Mistral comments.

  “Oh, yes,” Agatha confirms. “During our last years together, he started traveling to go hunting for books. Before then, he’d barely even leave the house. He’d travel so far away in his imagination that the idea of physically going somewhere never even crossed his mind. But to track down a special book, he might be out of town one, two, even three days at a time. And then, finally … five years,” Agatha concludes, a bitter smile on her face. Then she slaps her hands on her knees, making Paco flinch. “But now, enough with the whining from the poor, abandoned old maid.”

  “You aren’t a poor, abandoned old maid at all!” Mistral protests. “Say it out loud: ‘I’m not a poor, abandoned old maid.’ After all, words have the power to change the world, don’t they?”

  Agatha welcomes her remark with a warm laugh. “Alfred would be proud of you, young lady.”

  “I’m sorry, Agatha,” Elettra cuts in hastily. “Could I ask to see Alfred’s study?”

  “Why not? Nothing’s left in there.”

  “What about all the books and knickknacks he bought?”

  “They disappeared with him. If he’d left them here, I might have even entertained the notion I’d see him come back one day. Not for me, but to look up something really important in his beloved collection.”

  A long moment of silence follows, which is broken by the lady of the house. “You might be wondering why I never went looking for him, or why I don’t want to know the name of the antiques dealer who sent you here.”

  “Actually …,” Sheng says softly.

  “It’s because I was seventy-four years old when he left, and today I’m seventy-nine,” the actress continues. “Once you get to a certain age, take my word for it, there’s only one question on your mind, one that no book can give a reasonable answer to. In any case, come on….” Agatha wearily rises to her feet. “I’ll show you what I have left of him.”

  The door at the end of the hall leads into an empty room. The empty skeleton of a bookshelf covered with dust. A table with a green banker-style desk lamp. A window looking out over the city. Four chairs with velvet upholstery sitting on an old rug worn with age. That’s all there is. Not a book, a relic, a diary. Not a notebook or a clue that could be of any use.

  “This is my last memento of him,” Agatha says wistfully, picking up a tiny silver frame from the back of a shelf and handing it to Mistral. It’s an old black-and-white photo of three smiling men, one beside the other.

  “That’s Alfred in the middle,” the woman explains to the kids, who’ve already recognized him. Compared to the frightened man they met in Rome, he looks far more reassuring. A young man with a satisfied smile on his face, he’s clearly pleased to be there with the other two people in the picture.

  “Who are the others?”

  “I never knew. Or maybe I did, but I’ve forgotten. Classmates, I think.”

  Their clothes are old. Very old. The picture was shot from fairly close up and very little can be seen of the background. The light is casting the long shadow of a fourth man onto the sidewalk: the photographer.

  “May I take it out of the frame?” Mistral asks Agatha. “Maybe there’s something written on the back of it.”

  “Certainly,” she replies.

  Mistral rests the frame upside down and undoes the three clasps, keeping it pressed up against its wooden backing. She gently lifts it up and discovers that on the back of the photo are a dedication and a small swatch of cloth with a label on it.

  “What did you find?” the others ask when they see her hesitate.

  “There’s a fabric sample,” the French girl replies. It’s a black, glossy swatch not much bigger than a postage stamp. The label is from a tailor’s shop and is held in place by three gold needles. It reads:

  HELIOS, CUSTOM-MADE SUITS

  “Does that mean anything to you?” the kids ask the actress.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t remember that being there. And no … I’m not familiar with that tailor. I think it’s Greek. ‘Helios’ means ‘sun.’ But I have no idea how that piece of cloth ended up in there. Of course, Alfred loved to have suits tailor-made for him. He never liked mass-produced things, and he had worlds of fun spending his days at the tailor’s. He’d stand up tall and proud, stare into the mirror and spend whole afternoons deciding what kind of fabric he wanted for his new suit. He was very vain when it came to that. I think he was quite pleased with his appearance.”

  “The sample … may we keep it?” asks Mistral.

  “Sure, why not?”

  Mistral slips the piece of black cloth into her pocket, being careful not to prick herself with the three needles. Then she picks up the photograph and reads
the dedication written on the back of it. “ ‘To Paul, Alfred and Robert’ … Have you ever heard of these men, Paul and Robert?”

  Agatha shakes her head a second time.

  “Do you happen to know when this picture was taken?”

  “Thirty years ago? Fifty? Alfred already had it when we met. He used it as a bookmark until he decided to have it framed.”

  “So you didn’t put the piece of cloth in there?” Elettra insists.

  “No! Why would I have done that?”

  “Which means,” Sheng whispers to Harvey, “this piece of cloth might be important.”

  Agatha lets out a laugh. “So tell me: Why are you all so interested in Alfred?”

  “Could we ask you another favor?” Harvey asks instead of answering her.

  “Of course.”

  “Have you got a phone book?”

  A few minutes later and seventeen floors below, over at Starbucks, Harvey finally manages to thumb through a phone book. Not only did Agatha not have one, but she didn’t even have a telephone anymore.

  “Here it is!” he tells the others. “Near Little Italy there’s a tailor’s by that name: ‘Helios, custom-made suits since 1893.’ ”

  “What do you say, guys?” asks Elettra. “Should we go?”

  Sheng is sprawled out in an armchair, biting into a giant blueberry muffin. “When are we going to meet up with Ermete, anyway?”

  “He said he’d be in touch,” Harvey remembers. “Maybe tomorrow, at this point.”

  “Perfect,” Mistral murmurs. She’s drawing Agatha’s face in her notebook.

  “Not exactly perfect,” Elettra groans, checking the display on her cell phone. “Tomorrow I’ve got to spend at least half the day with Aunt Linda. Otherwise, I’m done for.”

  “Is she getting mad?” Harvey inquires.

  “She just bought a bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty and she wants to go see the real one with me.”

  SECOND STASIMON

  “Hi.”

  “How did it go?”