“Elizabeth, that question answers itself whenever it’s posed.”
She slid her gold pen into her top pocket, paused, then stood, adjusting her starched lab coat. She asked, “Would you like something to drink?”
A time-out. Which meant she was annoyed with me as well. Good; emotion from the icy inquisitor. “A drink would be nice,” I muttered.
“You prefer sparkling water.” She pushed a button on the black telephone and requested the water. John entered a moment later with a large bottle of Pellegrino, which is what Harteveld always served to me. I wondered if she chose a water from Italy for a reason.
As John left, she filled the two glasses. I lifted mine and, as she sat across from me, I said dryly, “Cheers.” No longer cornered, I’d begun to catch my breath.
She smiled and did not lift her glass of bubbling water.
I took a long drink as she slid on her glasses to review her notes. Since she was ignoring me, I stood and walked to the deep-green brocade curtain covering the long white wall that faced her desk. There were many things that I couldn’t stand about this room, and one of them was this pointless curtain. Well, not pointless: Its point was to conceal by suggesting something else. To suggest that something rare or extraordinary might lie behind it, something distinct; a view, perhaps, or the mysterious: a secret passageway, a two-way mirror, a wall safe. But because I’d peeked behind the curtain, I knew what lay behind it: nothing. A long, simple, white wall, and nothing more, from ceiling to parquet. When I see the curtain—a very attractive curtain, to be fair; well-kept, hung just so—I ask myself, Why? What does it conceal? That the white wall is bare; is that worth concealing? The existence of the curtain, in fact, reveals rather than conceals. It reveals that it is concealing nothing more than a blank wall. I refuse to give it meaning. It’s a curtain in front of empty space.
Christ, I hate this place. It couldn’t be smaller, stuffier, more repressing. This fuckin’ curtain. The low ceiling. Supernatural plants. The Persian rug. This woman, prodding, probing, accusing, trapping. Here, where complex thoughts and actions are reduced to a line in an index of behaviors. People reduced to archetypes. People compelled to confront thoughts they were wise to have hidden.
And that lab coat. What an affectation.
“Terry? Shall we continue?”
I turned.
“You seem lost in thought.”
“Yeah, I was thinking of something.” I gestured toward the curtain “A view: light shimmering on the East River; a lone, lazy sailboat. And in the distance, the broad spires of the Brooklyn Bridge and, as if in a work by Monet, the Verrazano, an apparition, mist.”
“Poetic,” she nodded.
“I saw that from an office on the 53rd floor, at 49th and Park. A woman hired me to look after her father. Turned out she wanted me to testify that he was incapable of overseeing the foundation he ran. She wanted his job.”
She removed her bifocals and let them dangle on the gold chain.
I added, “Some people just can’t be straight with you, can they?”
She frowned with interest. “I’d like to see you run with that, Terry.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You feel you are being deceived.”
“Not by the world at large,” I replied. “But every once in a while …”
She waited, but when I said nothing more, she abruptly changed the subject. A familiar tactic. “Terry, what would you say if I suggested that your new vocation is merely a hobby?”
“I wouldn’t be offended. Maybe it is, maybe not. If you do something without regard for the money, maybe that’s what it is: a hobby.” I added, “By the way, you’ve used the word ‘hobby’ when you talk about me with Bella. Not nice. Counterproductive.”
She crossed her legs and asked, “Do you feel it necessary to continue to focus so intensely on your hobby, Terry?”
I returned to the chair across from her and slid the water glass onto an end table, near the microphone. “How intensely, Doctor? Let’s be direct.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re implying I neglect Bella. You’re suggesting that I’m focusing so intensely on my hobby that I’m ignoring my daughter.”
“Am I? Are you?”
“No,” I said bitterly, shaking my head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know you love her, Terry. That is beyond dispute.”
“Well, thanks for that,” I mumbled.
“But is there some ambivalence?”
“None.”
“Define her role in your life.”
“She’s my daughter. Simple.”
“Would you agree that she is dependent on you?”
“Yes. That’s the problem.”
She reapplied her bifocals and circled something in the blue file. “Continue, please,” she said.
“‘Problem’ is the wrong word. ‘Challenge’ is better, more accurate. The challenge is to help her become independent.”
“Terry, a comment, not a criticism: She is twelve years old. She cannot be independent at twelve.”
“I agree. I’m preparing her for independence.”
“That’s admirable. But it is inappropriate. She is thoroughly dependent on you.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I said.
“Why?”
Because she is better than me, I thought. My influence can’t help her.
“Terry?”
“Well, for one, a parent can die suddenly.”
“Actually, it is unusual when a parent dies suddenly, Terry.”
“Not for Bella.”
“The idea that the surviving parent may die is terrifying to a child.”
I nodded.
“As it is for your daughter.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“You are seeking danger, Terry,” she said, “and it’s my belief that you will continue to seek it.”
I repeated, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
She leaned forward. “It is more likely that something will now than it was before. You must agree with that. There certainly wasn’t much danger when you were writing.”
“All right. I’ll give you that. When I was sitting at my desk I was safe. Now, to hone a craft, to help some people I don’t mind, I go to a basement on Centre Street and pore over docket sheets and books of court minutes. Very dangerous.”
She reached for her water glass and took a small sip.
“Terry, do you know who Mordecai Foxx is?”
“Is this a trick?” I asked. “I know Bella’s teachers. She’d tell you I know them too well.”
That smile again; practiced, insincere. “Are you still calling the school every day?”
I paused, remembering that I’d once admitted to calling the principal’s office at the Montessori School daily to make sure Bella was safe. “No. I stopped.”
“Mordecai Foxx? The name means nothing to you.”
“No.”
She looked at her notes. “According to Gabriella, Foxx was a private detective who was employed by Samuel Jones Tilden in his crusade against Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Your daughter has been spending her days in the school library researching Foxx. She told her teachers she was helping you with a new book. The librarian, Mrs.—”
“Gottschalk,” I said.
“—has been helping her. Apparently, your daughter is a dogged researcher, Terry.”
“Apparently.” Secretive, too.
“Were you? Are you? I assume so.”
“History is research,” I said blandly.
“Will you encourage her, Terry?”
“To continue?” I thought for a moment. “I’ll tell her that I appreciate it, but that I’m not going to write about Foxx or about anybody. I’m not a writer. Not now.”
“She wants to help you.”
“That I understand.” But it can’t be the way it was. There is som
ething I must do.
“She believes that you need her.”
I said, “That’s also unfortunate.”
“‘Unfortunate.’ Why?”
“A child shouldn’t bear such a burden.”
“I see.”
“If I fail, she will feel she’s failed. That’s obvious.”
She drew a line under something in the blue file. “You say ‘fail.’ Fail at what, precisely?”
I wagged a finger at her. “It’s unreasonable to ask someone to predict their own failure.” I took a long drink of the Pellegrino. “Parents shouldn’t disappoint. Let’s leave it at that.”
She said nothing.
“But, I’ll add this,” I said. “Not that I give a shit what anybody thinks, Doctor. But I am reliable. I’ll be there.”
“Terry, is that enough? To be there?”
I frowned as I leaned forward. “That’s pretty fundamental. A good starting point.”
“Or the minimum,” she said quickly. “You deny yourself your greatest pleasure—writing. You put yourself in physical danger. I suggest you are punishing yourself. You are trying to reduce your life to mere existence.”
I waved my hand in disgust as I sat back.
“But there is a contradiction. You have your friends, Terry. And your interests: basketball, art, books, fitness—”
I interrupted, “Look, I came to talk about Bella, not me.”
“Is there a contradiction between your work as an investigator and your responsibility as a father?”
“Elizabeth, the subject is Bella.”
She nodded. “She’s a precious little girl. She needs your attention. You must realize her reality can’t be summarized.”
“Yes, it can,” I replied. “Her mother and brother were killed. Now she lives with her father, who will not be led into believing things are the same as before. That’s her reality.”
“I might suggest, Terry, that you are projecting. Certainly, what you’ve described is your perspective.”
“All right, but what happened to me happened to her.”
“Not exactly. You have chosen a way to live that may not be compatible with the choices that she will make,” she said. “You have chosen to limit your options. And this is why I return to the concept of vindication. If you assess accurately why you do what you do, it may give meaning to your actions. And this meaning may benefit not only you, but also Gabriella.”
As I began to reply, she sneaked a glance at her wrist-watch and began to write quickly in the folder, her thin pen scratching rapidly against the bond paper.
I leaned over again and said, “Terry, our time is almost up.”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” she said as she looked up, “but I’m very interested in where you’re going. I’d like to discuss the issue of the contradiction—”
“No, I think that’s enough for today,” I said. “Thank you for making me realize that I don’t know what my daughter is doing all day at school. Thank you for suggesting I’m ambivalent.”
Harteveld replied, “She is thinking of you and your needs. And I agree: That’s an unnecessary burden for a twelve-year-old.”
“Well, we agree. Good.”
Adding a few final notes to her sheets, she calmly shut the folder and returned her pen to her white coat. I stood, knowing she was about to. Next, the walk to the door, a handshake, the compassionate nod.
And she did stand, but she hesitated. “Terry, Gabriella has asked me to ask you something for her.”
“What?”
“She wants to try out for the school basketball team.”
“So? She can, if she wants to. I can’t believe she went to you with this.”
Harteveld said, “She was afraid you wouldn’t let her.”
“I’ll have to ask her why not.”
“She said you told her that you didn’t want her to be like you.”
I thought for a moment. Yes, I probably did say that. I’m sure I did. “I don’t remember saying that. But if I did, it was certainly in another context. I’d like her to play ball.”
“Terry, she would rather be like you than anyone else. Try to remember that.”
“I wouldn’t—” I stopped. No, I’ll keep that one to myself.
“She’s a very clever but very dependent twelve-year-old.”
“All right. I got it.”
She turned and opened the door.
“Please make an appointment with John, Terry,” she said as she shook my hand. “There’s much to discuss, I think.”
No compassionate nod. Instead, a concerned frown. It seemed almost sincere.
EIGHT
We reached Second Avenue, having had no luck on First as we waited in the fading light near the rattling Queensboro Bridge and under the creaking steel wheels of the Roosevelt Island tram. On Second, I left Bella at the curb, near the newspaper honor boxes and the “roommate-wanted” flyers taped to the traffic-light stanchion, and went halfway to the center of the avenue, my hand in the air, index finger extended, anger and resentment buried until I got to the place where I could deal with Harteveld and her ludicrous theories.
Waves of yellow cabs blew by as if I were Wells’s invisible man. Finally, a cabbie who’d dropped off a fare on the west side of the street made a frantic move to pick us up, veering his hack across the avenue, cutting off honking cars, faceless minivans and swerving delivery trucks. He smiled mischievously as he jerked to a stop in front of me, revealing a gold tooth and a Nixonesque five o’clock shadow.
I held back the door as Bella jumped in, slid next to her and gave the driver the name of the hospital where Judy and Lin-Lin were recovering.
I looked over to Bella. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll go to the B-ball courts on Houston. Let’s see if you’ve got a game.” I let Mordecai Foxx slide, at least for now.
The cab sped under a yellow light on 51st and pressed its wild pace, only to catch the red a short block later. As we waited, listening to the driver sing to himself in Spanish, I watched as a messenger, a black man, thirtyish with a yellow pencil between his teeth and a highway-cone-orange ski cap on his head, bounced up onto the sidewalk, slapped his battered bike against a thin, leafless tree and secured it with a heavy-duty chain and a Yale lock. Without removing his Walkman, he adjusted his bicycle shorts, pulled a manila envelope from his tattered pouch and dashed into one of those small-run print shops, where photocopies cost 25 cents apiece and business cards are likely to come back with your name misspelled.
I felt a tap on my elbow. “Did you give Dr. Harteveld a hard time?” Bella asked.
“About what?” I snorted. “Basketball? No.”
We pulled away easily, without a shriek, and fell in behind a slow-moving limo. I understood the Spanish swear words the driver was muttering.
“Not about basketball,” she said. “About things. You know. Did you?”
“No, Bella, I didn’t give her a hard time.”
The orange-capped messenger, back on his bike, whipped past us, darting recklessly between cars. Preoccupied pedestrians scurried and scowled.
Bella pressed. “Did you cooperate, then? Or did you play games?”
Elizabeth Harteveld got in her digs, I thought. But she sees nothing. Her world is clean, bloodless, full of theories and accusations, spotless lab coats and prescription pharmaceuticals.
She believes a man can forget that his wife and child have been murdered. She believes a man will allow the murderer to roam free.
“Dad?”
“Bella, what’s to say? I don’t find her as useful as you do. I go, but I don’t get much out of it.”
“’Cause you put nothing into it.”
“Don’t be so clever right now, all right? Let’s start the weekend in peace.”
We went around the limo, caught up to the messenger, but then were boxed in as a battered 4x4 began angling toward the curb from the center lane. Orange cap zipped by, slaloming, adjusting his earphones, chewing his pencil, ignoring the traf
fic signs, ignoring the big old Oldsmobile that seemed intent on crushing him, ignoring the young policeman on the corner who eyed him with a faint glimmer of admiration for a man who was moving hard to get something done.
That’s what I ought to do, I thought. Move hard and get something done.
We walked quickly along the antiseptic hall, where open doors served to frame the misery inside: fragile men and women in thin, open-backed gowns staring vacantly at the early news or absently flipping the pages of super-market tabloids; wilting flowers, half-eaten Jell-O, a handmade greeting card from a preschool grandson, crumpled tissues on the floor; wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, an artificial limb. Uneasy, a bit fearful, Bella now held my hand as I shifted her backpack on my shoulder.
“This is awful,” she muttered, as she tugged on the front of her jacket. “I wouldn’t want to go to this hospital.”
“No, me neither,” I replied, silently swearing at the out-of-order elevators that were closer to Judy’s room.
“Does anybody ever get better?”
And then, from the far end of the narrow hall, we heard the faint strains of bright music, orchestral, full of color as it echoed in the corridor; and then, louder, richer, as we moved toward it. An audible sign of life, Bella and I silently agreed; a sudden burst of sunlight, full of brilliance and warmth, in the immaculate, morose dungeon.
We rushed suddenly, hastening toward the glow.
We found Judy sitting up, the top of her bed raised, a multicolored, crocheted throw covering the lower half. She was haggard, pale, drowsing a bit; and she seemed many years older than she had just four days ago when we ran into her on Greenwich Street. But she seemed to brighten when she turned and saw us. When she held out her arms, Bella stepped in front of me, removed her hat and took the hug.
“Oh, Gabriella, sweetheart. You shouldn’t have come to see me. Look at me; are you looking at me? Step back, dear. Oh, goodness, I’m looking at you. You are beautiful.”
Someone had done modest redecorating in the otherwise drab room. A poster was taped to the wall: Harold E. Frazier’s “Caribbean Dance Hall,” the remarkable eruption of colors, the loose limbs and gleeful expressions of the licentious dancers; the little boy in the corner, watching in amazement, in nervous admiration. Judy represented Harry, who was a good man. Seventy-six years old, the grandson of a slave and half-blind now, he still wrote to me, in care of the gallery, asking after Gabriella, praising Marina’s heart and kindness.
Closing Time Page 13