Trompe l'Oeil

by Nancy Reisman

  “You’re exhausted,” Nora said, “you’re both so busy.” And when she said it, Nora thought, and thought again, Oh, marriage, loneliness, sure—as if the loneliness were ordinary fatigue, or one day’s premenstrual sorrow. You had those moments. You wanted breakfast with your late father, a matinee with your late mother, but you brewed coffee for your friend and built a snow fort. James was busy elsewhere; husbands were busy elsewhere. You got them on the weekends and at parties, home evenings and in your bed, and hoped for the best. It took a certain faith. Or acceptance? When Katy was in nursery school, Theo in elementary, Lydia and her husband filed for divorce. Molly had begun to walk; Nora was coaxing her from a doorway to the kitchen table when Lydia stopped in. Nora poured coffee; she served jam tarts on fluted plates, hid her surprise, as Lydia spooned applesauce for Molly. Sometimes people divorced—why had she not considered this? Where had she imagined Lydia’s hard mornings or sad afternoons might lead? Better to suspend the question then: an empty thought bubble.

  After the separation, the sad days diminished, and Lydia’s sly irreverence returned; when the school year ended, she took a large flat in Cambridge, where her kids stayed most weeks, and she seemed not lonely at all. Once or twice a week, Nora would bring Molly to Cambridge and they’d walk with Lydia in Harvard Square. If Molly seemed content, she and Lydia would try a museum; or they’d stay at Lydia’s place and drink coffee while Molly napped on Lydia’s bed. Over time Nora began to envision herself there too, say, in a place nearby, a rehabbed Victorian, or a smaller house with a brick-lined garden and a redbrick walk. Or a place identical to Lydia’s, where she could live and study for another degree, maybe curatorial, maybe art restoration, and where she could talk to Lydia over breakfast. On ordinary weekdays, Nora would find herself wishing for the morning’s infinite expansion, a desire to stay with Lydia in her living room drinking coffee while Molly slept, Theo and Katy and Lydia’s girls safe in their schoolrooms, James ensconced in his office downtown. This was where she ought to stop time. Occasionally she’d catch herself touching Lydia’s arm or her hair, lightly, as if to say this. Delicate happy hours that should not be ruined by thought.

  THE MURPHYS I

  Still, they were a sparkling couple; at least, that was how they appeared to friends and business colleagues. At times Nora’s practicality or James’s ability to detach shored them up. She was not the usual corporate wife—a bit more exuberant, as likely to chat with a waitress as with a distinguished guest—but she was young and slender, almost pixie-ish, and laughed easily and spoke more-than-passable French. James had a quick mind, a ready smile, a steady manner that inspired trust and was for the most part genuine. Sandy-haired, long-legged, a soft grit in his voice. They were good dancers, good at parties. They seemed to be in love, and were, in fact, in love, or what they took to be love. They both had mild flirtations—public, innocuous—within their social circle, playing at other pairings. Of course, after Katy there were those moments when Nora would catch herself glancing at the peripheries of her life, at the lives of unmarried friends; and sometimes she met them for walks, and later, with Molly in her stroller, visited Lydia in Cambridge, those casual meetings she might neglect to mention to James. No infidelity, she thought (and then, for a time, stopped thinking). For James there were the office flirtations, the passing attraction to the VP’s assistant, lunches with the lively young associate who insisted on buying pints. A now-and-then pick-me-up. Not too often. No one sleeping with anyone else. Just an occasional kiss on the cheek, a momentary glimpse of another life.

  MOLLY AND KATY

  Often, among the Murphy children, squabbling and peace balanced out. Alliances shifted, Theo alternately sought out Katy and ignored her, the two sometimes vying for Molly, whose own mercurial allegiances no one could predict. And Molly pinched; nothing her parents tried had dissuaded her. It began when she was two. She pinched all of them but most often Katy, though with Katy she could also be wildly affectionate. She’d follow Katy until Katy played hide-and-go-seek with her, or at Blue Rock beach built palaces of sand and pebbles. But every week or two, there would come a moment—sometimes preceded by the emptying of drawers or pulling of books from shelves—when Molly would pinch. And watch the reaction—Katy’s or Nora’s, or sometimes Theo’s—with curiosity, a hint of pleasure. The faintest glee at the mark left behind. She knew that Katy would be punished for pinching back, that certainly Nora and James and Theo would not pinch. Simply shouting at Molly could mean trouble for Katy, despite the provocation. At moments of enervation or exhaustion, Molly would wail until Nora rocked her quiet, all pinching then forgotten.

  Some rules Molly would follow, some not. She’d steal and eat candy hidden in Katy’s dresser drawer, and then cry and insist on sitting on Katy’s lap until Katy forgave her. She charmed adults, including Lydia, whom she never pinched and around whom she rarely cried. She was the most beautiful of the children and the most affectionate. Strangers were drawn to her in ways they had never been drawn to Katy or even to Theo, a dimpled blue-eyed boy.

  In those moments when Molly claimed Katy, Katy felt as if she possessed Molly. But there were other moments, when Molly seemed to be in love with Theo or their father first, or when Molly pinched Katy hard enough to bruise and ran from her instead of begging forgiveness. Worse for Katy were the hours Nora devoted wholly to Molly, because Molly was the youngest or because she had charmed Nora. Or pinched her. On weekends, James and Theo would kick a soccer ball or sail, often without inviting Katy; or they would sit in neighboring armchairs and read silently, together and inaccessible. In those moments, Theo pointedly shunned her, but her father? She could not tell if he was obtuse or unkind. In the family constellation, Katy became the odd number, the extra girl (though Molly was last; it should have been Molly). And there were moments promised to Katy, like tiny birthdays—this afternoon, Katy, we’ll go for a bike ride; tomorrow morning, Katy, I’ll make you pancakes—when instead Molly threw a tantrum or charmed everyone away.

  By the time she was four, Molly’s pinching was as strategic as it was impulsive. True: occasionally Katy did pinch back (and was reprimanded) or hid Molly’s dolls, which made Molly frantic; or for hours and without wavering ignored Molly, until Molly began to call Katy’s name and search for her—until she might hug Katy, climb onto her lap, and let Katy reclaim her.

  At the hotel in Rome, Molly pinched Katy, a small test pinch, hard enough to leave a mark. It was the day they arrived, before they slept. “Brat,” Katy said, and then their mother walked in. She noticed the red splotch still fading, and ordered Molly to bed. “You too,” she told Katy, but kissed the mark on Katy’s arm.

  ROME I

  The heat did not trouble Nora; for a time it seemed that nothing troubled her. There was at once a sharp clarity to the light and a softness to the days, walking over piazzas and into the shade of cafés and the deeper shadows of the churches. But even the smallest fountain—the little Barcaccia in the Piazza di Spagna—made the kids thirsty, and Nora would promise lemon ices and gelatos and eventually time at the beach. She began carrying bags of oranges, because of their thirst.

  In those first days, how easy to occupy only the moment, and what seemed to Nora like a singular self, the illusion of one life, and that life for now in Rome, and with James, with Theo and Katy and Molly, with the Galleria Borghese and the vast park surrounding the villa, the Pincio and the Piazza del Popolo, where James—the playful, attentive James—could watch the kids while she slipped into the churches alone. This was, it seemed, the life she wanted, or one of the lives she wanted, though for months she’d been crossing and recrossing that growing fissure, glimpsing what amounted to a separate existence. And why should she have to choose? Yet all that year, there had been the family life in Newton—if you could reduce family life to one thing—and the life in Cambridge, with Lydia and alone, walking through the museums and along tree-lined streets, as if she were another Nora. And Lydia was a doorway to that Nora. She could n
ot say what being a doorway might mean.

  True, in Rome traces of that divide insisted themselves, a separate knowledge hovering in the middle distance, blinking above the Apennines, but she focused instead on marble arches and sculpted friezes and nearby trattorias. And the lightness seemed to be with her here, in the open spaces of the city, with James, with the kids. She was aware, here, that she loved them. In the shadows of the monuments, in the starker sunlight, she loved all of them—love for one finer or more granular, for another steadier or in sharper bursts, but love, certainly. It was the smallness of her life she regretted, the boxed-in days of unbroken domesticity, without space for her own mind. In Rome, for a time, nothing seemed small.

  There was, too, a lightness in James, who marveled not only at the city but also at his own presence there. His father had neither walked nor likely dreamed of walking here. But James had arrived; this moment balanced on other, earlier arrivals, but he had arrived nonetheless. He knew to look forward—had he always known? To climb steadily without falling. At times a fall appeared imminent, but he persisted; later the moment pixilated and blurred into the grander sweep of success, which seemed a fait accompli. Yet Rome was singular, stunning. As if he had leaped directly from boyhood to the Spanish Steps, or to the grounds of the Galleria Borghese, to find Nora in a blue sundress playing tag with the kids.

  He could take a longer view, though he suspected that Nora could not. Perhaps family needs hemmed her in; perhaps she disliked ideas other than her own. But soon enough Molly would be in school. Soon enough (not yet, but soon) they could hire whatever help they needed. Nora would have time to paint. A realtor had sent him lists of gracious homes in stellar districts—any one would have studio space. Once they had lived in Cambridge; they’d fallen in love in Cambridge. Say her attachment was attachment to the past—to their early romance, to her late parents, a short bus ride away. Who could blame her? But you had to look forward. He’d toured a blue-and-white house with several bedrooms, a brick patio, a lush yard. He’d pictured the house often; he could picture it now, as if it were his.

  Say the Murphys were happiest, all of them, at the Piazza del Popolo: Nora emerged from the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo to find the others near the central obelisk and fountain, Molly and Theo and Katy not bickering but racing between James and the fountain’s lion sculpture, disrupting the photos of other tourists. The vast round piazza seemed a village carnival, full of talk, and tourists crowding to watch a juggler, a round man blowing enormous soap bubbles, a puppeteer with marionettes, and near the Chiesa di Santa Maria di Montesanto a single guitarist playing Bach. It was evening, the air cool. They would buy dinner; she and James would drink wine and lounge on the small balcony off their room after the kids fell asleep next door.

  This was not the only moment of collective happiness—though perhaps the state was more simultaneous than collective? The piazza remains irresistible. Like much of Rome, it has unsavory shadows, but when the city is washed in light, so is the mind.

  Here beside Ramses’s obelisk, water pouring from a stone lion’s mouth, no trace, of course, of any of them.

  ROME II

  If only one walked in Rome every day; if only one ate and slept well; if only one saw enough art. They’d fallen into easy routines: there were meals to consider, entertainments, nothing onerous. Occasionally the kids accompanied Nora into churches—briefly, only briefly, as the girls bored easily, though Theo liked the high intricate domes. That Wednesday, like the other mornings, the Murphys walked the city together. James and Theo studied the cars; they spotted a parked Alfa. Nora stepped into a church with the girls.

  Later, the day would come back to her as a broken, shifting puzzle: emerging from the church into the bright air, down stone steps. Telling the girls, Let’s sit, and the hard stone beneath her. Molly, four, holding Katy’s hand. A glimpse of James and Theo, across the street beside the tiny convertible. One of them waved; maybe both of them waved. Lunch? What should they do for lunch? She rummaged in her bag for oranges. And then: No! Katy, only seven, yelled no. Molly was in the street: a running step, the back of Molly’s dress, an instant of space between Molly and a white delivery truck, and then no space.

  As if, for Molly, traffic had become invisible. A sick thud, the high screeching brakes, though often Nora’s memory is more or less silent—just Katy’s No! and silence until she heard her son yelling, but of course there were other sounds, her own sounds, the shouting crying truck driver, and James. She and James somehow crossed to Molly’s body. She has no memory of crossing, only the image of Molly yards away, crooked and bloody, and then crouching on the stone pavement with James. Everything on the adjacent piazza stopped, everyone stopped, and there was silence even as Nora and James bent over Molly, whose eyes were half-open and distant. They spoke to her, James saying, Molly hold on, Nora repeating, I’m here, her face close to Molly’s, beside them a curious spill of blood. Then shouting in Italian, and medics pushing in, pushing Nora back, and around them a crowd, a ring of people who were not shouting, all silent in the heat, and Katy and Theo, only a few yards away. Nora wanted to grab them and Molly both at once. Katy clutched Molly’s sun hat, and Theo, only ten, broke the crowd’s silence, yelling in English, Stop it, stop staring at her.

  Nora wiped her hands on her dress and hurried to Theo, grabbed his hand and placed it in Katy’s. For a moment her hands hovered over them while she leaned toward Molly—and then a woman, a stranger, stepped next to Theo and Katy and told Nora Go. Go. Black hair pinned up, a hand with a slender gold watch, thin-strapped sandals, coral nails. The truck driver paced and wept. James knelt beside Molly and the medics, and when Nora joined them Molly did not look at her, gazed if anywhere at the shirtsleeve of the medic. Nora kissed Molly’s face, didn’t she? How vividly she remembers the kiss, but it’s possible she’s remembering the sensation of a different kiss, earlier, before they left the hotel, or as they left the church and she promised something to eat: the oranges, the almond cookies. There was a moment with the medics and James, James stricken, the ambulance loading up. Theo started shouting again, Stop, just Stop, and Nora caught a glimpse of Katy’s now paste-white face, and of Katy pushing forward, trying to get to Molly. No.

  “Don’t bring them to the hospital,” James said.

  And what if she had said more firmly, Let’s stay right here, when she took that moment to look for oranges? But that would depend on how distractible Molly was, if she was listening in the moment or too struck by the brilliant light and the vivid crowds. In her mind Nora could step back to the other side of that moment, to the shadowed entryway and the sudden brightness, but again there was the feeling of the orange against her palm and Katy’s shout.

  The woman with the gold watch spoke English, and she remained beside them until a police car drove them back to the hotel, Nora between Theo and Katy in the backseat. Dad will stay with Molly. It seemed that those words swelled and filled the sedan throughout the ride to the hotel, or as if they were not words but very slow gestures, or as if she had been repeating them, though she had not. They drove with the windows open—there was a slight breeze—and city sounds seeped into the car amid her words. Pedestrians crossed the road as if it were the simplest movement, and the chug and purr of motors punctuated the back-and-forth flow of Italian radio. The police said little and walked them into the hotel. A quiet rippling as they entered the lobby, like another pool of silence spreading, though the lobby was already quiet. Cooler air. At the desk she asked in English for the keys to both rooms, the officer beside her speaking rapid Italian to the desk clerk, who waved over the concierge. There was something wrong with her dress, something wrong with her throat. Are you thirsty? she asked Katy and Theo, but Theo shook his head and Katy did not say a word, then or for hours.

  The concierge escorted them. Call me, he said. His thin angular face and large eyes reminded her of goats. Please call, signora, if you need something. In this same room she and James had slept the night before
, unaware of anything, had in fact made love. In the morning he’d brought her coffee, and then they’d gathered the kids. She does not remember the lovemaking, only that it happened, and in that room, which was not the room where Molly stayed—though sometimes Molly did stay with them, on bad nights. Shuttered windows opened over a tiled patio, and bougainvillea climbed the side railing, and on the side table they kept a seemingly bottomless carafe of water. A double bed, a painting of a coastal harbor, a painting of women at a café. She told Theo and Katy to take off their sandals, climb up on the bed, Okay? Just stay there. She was parched; they too must have been parched, she wanted to pour them all glasses of water. Katy and Theo were frighteningly pale, and her hands were stained with blood and dirt; she could see now the traces her hands had made on their clothes, her own clothes bloody and damp. How unspeakable the day had become. Just wait, she said. Just wait. She left the bathroom door open and washed her hands. Then she pulled off the bloody clothes, dropped them on the floor. She didn’t know what to do with them. Wash them? The blood was Molly’s. She must have rolled them up—this sensation later returned to her, of rolling her dress and underthings and wrapping them in a towel. There was blood on her body, on her torso, blood that had soaked through, and it was this that she didn’t want the kids to see and that hurried her into the tub. She turned on the faucet. “I’m here,” she said. “Right here. Are you on the bed?”

  “Yes,” Theo said.

  “Katy too?” Nora said, and Theo said, “Yes.” If she turned just so, she could see their feet in the mirror on the door. She washed quickly, rinsed her hair; the water was at first pink, as if she herself had bled into it, and then clear. She watched the water spin down the drain, watched the reflection of the kids’ feet in the mirror. She thought she would be sick, but managed to stave it off, to get herself a towel. “I’m right here,” she said, dried herself and slipped on underthings while standing with her back to the doorway. From the closet she grabbed a clean dress and pulled it over her head. Then she poured glasses of water for Theo and Katy. “Can you drink some of this?” she said. They took small sips, and Katy started crying again, and it seemed she was trying to gulp the air. For a time, the three of them stayed on the bed. In turn, the kids went into the bathroom, but kept the door ajar. She set out the almond cookies and oranges, sat on the bed beneath the painting of the café, peeling oranges.