The Color of Light

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  “My petite jeune fille,” she said, almost tenderly. “You really love him.” She leaned back in her seat, sighed. “Of course you do. He is like a puppy dog with you. I am thrilled for both of you. Really I am.”

  Then she smiled convivially, lowered her voice in a playful, just-us-girls sort of way. “All right, I admit it. I have to know. Has he ever…tasted you?”

  Taken aback, Tessa shook her head.

  “Incroyable! It was hard to believe with Lucian Swain. It is even harder to believe with Raphael Sinclair. Well, my dear. I am impressed. He can be very persuasive.” The red light danced joyously in her eyes. She sighed expressively. “I feel so comfortable with you…like you are my niece. Should I tell you a story? I shouldn’t. So, I will. Of course, this was many years ago, in a very different world. Lisbon, before the war. We were bringing this girl back to our hotel room. I think she was Jewish—we had promised to help her with papers to get out.” Anastasia’s large brown eyes assumed a serious expression. “It seems so wrong now, but back then, who knew how badly it would all turn out? De tout façon. Back to our Raphael. So beautiful, so charming, such a gentleman. With that voice, those eyes…I don’t have to tell you. This girl turned around as we entered the elevator, just in time to see his eyes change, to witness as the fangs broke through his gums, and she began to scream.

  “I thought we were done for. He moved so quickly, and with such grace; I have never seen anybody move like that. With one hand, he reached out and took her elbow. Not with force, anyone can use force; he held her with the strength of his compassion. I saw her look into his face, knowing what he was, and she quieted down like an obedient child, moved into the circle of his arms, offered him her neck, knowing she would, in all likelihood, die.

  “He made her want it. I have never seen anyone do a thing like that in my life.” She sighed. “Of course, that was all a very long time ago.”

  And you miss it, don’t you. Tessa found she was trembling.

  “Does it disturb you, hearing that story?” When Anastasia smiled, Tessa could see the tips of her fangs. Her voice dropped lower, became a sultry purr. “A girl from your background, with someone like Raphael Sinclair…I can imagine there must be something of a disconnect. So many differences…perhaps it is not of concern to you right now, but later on, they may come to haunt you, when these differences have grown from a minor inconvenience to a monster with nine heads. In my experience, it is always best to be honest and upfront from the beginning.”

  She shifted in her seat, reaching for a sheaf of manuscripts. Weak with relief, Tessa thought she was being dismissed. But no, Anastasia was merely switching the subject. “So,” she said, flipping through a story titled, Break Up or Make Up? 25 Signs That It’s Time to Cut Him Loose. “What is happening with our boy?”

  “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to be seeing each other.”

  Anastasia nodded sagely. “He is so lost without you, so sad. I am getting worried. I haven’t seen him in this kind of distress since…oh, since he lost Sofia and the little boy.” She stared out the window. “He was never the same after Auschwitz. Something broke inside of him.”

  “Auschwitz?” Tessa repeated. Anastasia must be mistaken. She corrected her. “But he wasn’t in Auschwitz. The train had already left.”

  Anastasia turned to look at her. “Of course he was in Auschwitz. Didn’t he tell you?” The truth dawned on her in a slow, steady stream. An incredulous smile snaked up the sides of her red mouth.

  Tessa paled. She shook her head in denial, kept shaking it. Anastasia was still talking, but it fell on deaf ears. She hadn’t heard a word after didn’t he tell you?

  “Go home, my dear.” Anastasia was saying, with a wave of her long, French-manicured fingernails. “You look tired. Don’t worry. There will be plenty more xeroxing left for you tomorrow. And when you have a chance, do ask Raphael about the Angel of Healing.”

  Tessa felt sick; she went back to her desk and retrieved her coat, stood by the elevator and punched the buttons. After a moment, she decided to take the stairs. It was twenty-two flights to the ground level. But she had to get out of there before Anastasia came out of the office and started telling her more things she didn’t want to hear.

  The knock on the window came long after midnight. She thought she had dreamt it at first; she waited a moment, and there it was again.

  Flinging the covers aside, she flew to the window. Rafe smiled when he saw her, laying his gloved hand flat on the windowpane. She spread her fingers over his on the cold glass. They both smiled, and then she went to the front door and buzzed him in.

  There were no pleasantries this time. He strode into the apartment and swept her up in his arms, burying his face in her hair, holding her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. She leapt on him like a cat, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist. He carried her to her room, as she covered his face in kisses and he struggled to free himself from his coat.

  He kicked the door shut behind them, laid her down on the bed. With a single movement, he stripped her of her nightgown, and she lay there like a nude by Modigliani, blue in the moonlight, looking up at him.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” he said.

  “Me too.” she said.

  “You heard what happened.”

  “Yes.”

  He sank onto the edge of the bed. “I’m falling apart, Tessa,” he said. She couldn’t see his face, hidden in shadow. “I think about you all the time. Whether I’m at a party flirting with strangers, or at a meeting with those wankers on the board, whoever it is, whoever I’m with, it’s always you.” To her astonishment, he was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Every girl on Fifth Avenue carrying a portfolio, I think it’s you. A girl laughs outside my window, and I think it’s you. Each leaf I hear skittering across the pavement, I think it’s you. Every barking dog, every creak in the floor, every ring of the phone, it’s you, it’s you, it’s always you. Last night, when I saw that damned David with his arm around you…” his voice was breaking. “I’m afraid I’m losing you.”

  “Never,” she said fiercely. She took him by the lapels, pulled him closer. “Do you hear me? Never.”

  She rose to her knees, took off his hat, kissed his soft, sad mouth. At first he didn’t respond, and then his hands moved, slipped down her sides. She unknotted his tie, pulled it free of his shirt. Quickly, she undid the buttons, pulled his shirt over his head. He fumbled with his trousers and let them slide to the floor.

  For a moment he stood before her, nearly naked by the light of the moon. It picked out the rise and fall of his chest, the ripple of abdominal muscles, the tops of his hipbones; and then he was next to her under the blankets, drawing her close, and he could feel the sustaining touch of her heated body against his bare skin. When she raised her face to him for a kiss, he knew he had been wrong in ever doubting her. The inside of his head filled with warmth and light, and he began to move against her, and she against him, and the world was filled with their sounds, the rustle of sheets, the silky friction of skin against skin as their bodies came together.

  She climbed on top, straddling him. She had never done that before, it was just like in his dream, her upturned breasts, the moonlight on her skin, the tips of her hair brushing his face, nothing between them but a pair of white satin shorts. He dug his fingers into her hips, slid his hands to her bottom, shaped like an upside-down heart.

  “I want you,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”

  With his thumbs, he smoothed the tumbled hair out of her face. “Are you sure?” he whispered back.

  She nodded. With one continuous motion, as graceful as a ballet dancer, he rolled her over, and then he was kneeling between her knees. Her soft eyes held his, he could see that she meant it, he could smell the commingled scents of her desire and her fear. He brought his lips to her throat, kissed the place where her pulse pounded at the surface. Between them, the yellow ring revolved slowly on the chain around his neck.

  A l
ong time ago, another pale face, upturned in the dark.

  With a strangled sound, he thrashed back the sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet thudding heavily against the floor.

  “I have no right,” he said, a cry of torment. “I have no right.”

  She rolled onto her side, placed a warm hand in the small of his back. He shuddered away from her touch.

  “Is this about yesterday?” she asked, bewildered. “About what happened at the Met?”

  He was pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if he wanted to block something from his sight. “Not just yesterday,” he said, his voice strung tight. “All my yesterdays.”

  She wanted desperately to help. “Does this have anything to do with…” she drew a shaky breath, “…something that happened in Auschwitz?”

  He froze; then he turned slowly to face her.

  “Who told you that?” he said. His eyes had changed, iced over, hard and pale. “Anastasia?”

  She nodded.

  “What else did she tell you?” His voice shifted now, ominous and low.

  Now she felt fear. “She told me to ask you about the Angel of Healing,” she whispered weakly.

  He got out of bed, dressing hurriedly.

  “What?” she said, panic tearing a new edge in her voice. “What happened? Where are you going?”

  He stopped for a moment, gazed at her. Poor Tessa, sweet, lovely Tessa, sitting there in the dark, her hair wild around her face, blankets fallen around her waist, her eyes mirroring his anguish. He couldn’t answer her, he could never answer her. The past had caught up with the present, and he couldn’t stay here anymore.

  He grabbed his coat and he was gone. She heard the door slam shut behind him, listened to the sound of his footsteps running down the empty street.

  Across the street at St. Xavier’s, one of the huddled shadows on the steps stirred, straightened up, and hailed a taxi going north up Sixth Avenue.

  9

  The rumors started the following morning. Geoff had been sacked, Tony had been sacked, Josephine had been sacked, Randy was on his way out. April was seen strutting around the hallway at Whit’s side, dictating as he scribbled away on his clipboard.

  “What’s going on?” Tessa asked Portia. They were in the Anatomy room, waiting for Life Drawing to start, the animal skeletons encased in antique wood cabinets looking dolefully on the proceedings. Portia thought she looked tired. The skin under her eyes was a smudgy blue.

  “Are you all right?”

  Tessa grimaced. “I’m fine. But Rafe is coming apart.”

  “Rafe’s been taking care of himself for a long time. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  Graham came in, dropped his art box on the work table next to Portia. They both jumped. “Well, that’s it, then.”

  “What?”

  “Turner’s set a date to vote on the future of the school. It’s going to take place here, in the Cast Hall, at the end of the week. The board and the faculty all have a vote.”

  “What about us?” said David, puzzled. “The students? Don’t we have a say? It’s our school, too.”

  “Apparently not,” said Graham.

  “What about Rafe?” asked Ben, sanding his pencil to a fine point. “Where is he? Why is he letting this happen?”

  “Well,” said Graham, bending a look at Tessa. “As of this morning, it seems our Mr. Sinclair has been booted off the board for fraternizing with a student.”

  Tessa blushed a furious scarlet. “That can’t be,” she stuttered. “We broke up. We did exactly what Levon told us to do.”

  Graham looked more than a little pained. “Sorry, Tessa. Turner has pictures. Blesser knew this private investigator. Very artistic, incidentally, lots of atmospheric low lighting and grainy black-and-white.”

  Her blood ran cold. “How long?” She gripped the side of her work table to steady herself. “How long was he watching us?”

  “According to the date stamps on the pictures,” he said, “since the end of Winter Break.”

  “What does this mean?” Ben interrupted.

  “Rafe’s out,” Graham said glumly. “Our quaint little atelier will cease to exist as we know it. The board has lost their faith in Rafe’s ability to run the school. Without him, Whit has a free hand in hiring and firing. Seems like he’s going to let go of most of the teachers and replace them with April’s emerging artist buddies. Starting next fall, we’re going to be a groovy new boutique art school, something like Art Center in Pasadena. And the grant money will start rolling in. Or so says the word on the street.”

  “So it’s over.” David said incredulously.

  Ben sighed. “It was always too good to be true.”

  “This isn’t right.” Harker struck the pick across his guitar strings, a harsh, discordant sound that bounced off the walls and echoed through the room. “There must be something we can do.”

  “This is outrageous,” said Clayton indignantly. “I’d like to examine the evidence for myself. Now, where exactly are they keeping these pictures?”

  No one wanted to look directly at Tessa, no one wanted to make her feel responsible, but as the conduit to the founder of the school, it was unavoidable. They turned to her for hope, for help, for an explanation.

  Portia tried to draw attention away from her friend. She clearly had enough on her mind.

  “Let’s go talk to Levon,” she said.

  The call came at eight a.m. Rafe was in a deep sleep. It took him a moment to realize that the shrill ringing wasn’t part of his dream.

  “You’d better get down here,” said Levon.

  “It’s been a rotten night, Levon,” he said. “Can’t it wait?” Then, with a sudden stab of dread. “It’s not Tessa, is it?”

  “No,” said Levon. “It’s not Tessa.”

  The hallways were deserted that time of day; the first class started at nine. Rafe found Levon’s door wide open, his office oddly shrunken without his outsize presence.

  Two doors further down was Whit’s office. Rafe pushed open the door. The walls were neatly hung with Whit’s paintings; sterile architectural renditions of plazas in Italy, or Spain, eerily devoid of human life. Painstakingly plotted landscapes, where nothing in nature seemed natural.

  Whit was posed in front of his desk, legs crossed casually, humming to himself as he marked something off on his clipboard. Rafe was reminded of a patient spider at the center of an intricate web.

  “I tried, Rafe,” he said weightily, shaking his head. “I really tried.”

  Rafe looked to Levon for an explanation, but Levon seemed to be preoccupied with looking out the window at the wet gray morning.

  With a look of grim satisfaction, Whit pushed a large manila envelope across the desktop. Rafe opened the flap and slid out the contents.

  Grainy black-and-white photos, ten in all. Tessa getting out of the car in front of his house. Tessa kneeling between Rafe’s knees as he sat on the bordello couch in her studio. Tessa’s lovely bottom astride Rafe in her bedroom late last night, his hands around her waist, the photograph shot through a chink in her blinds. Rafe arched like a ballet dancer over her body, her hair flowing over the pillows. Rafe fleeing Tessa’s building last night, the photo time-stamped 5:00 a.m.

  It struck him that Whit had already seen the pictures, salivated over them, God knows what else. Rafe slid the photos back into the envelope.

  “Sorry, Rafe,” said Whit. A smile was breaking through his professionally somber expression. “As of now, you’re out. I know what you’re thinking; don’t bother. The other board members have already seen the pictures. And let me tell you, they are very disappointed. They want you out with as little fuss as possible.”

  Rafe’s head pulsed, ached. “Who’s going to pay the teachers?” he demanded harshly. “Who’s going to pay for the ventilation system? And the new boiler? Do you have any idea how much all those things cost?”

  “It’s not your business anymore, Rafe,” Whit said
smoothly. For the record, he assembled a look of bland sympathy. “Look. No one wanted this to work more than I did. All I wanted was for you to meet me halfway.”

  “No you didn’t,” said Rafe, gliding slowly towards him. “That’s what you want everyone to believe. We were struggling along very nicely before Blesser filled your head with pictures of dancing grant checks he could procure if only we hired these teachers, or filled these ridiculous requirements, or changed our program to fit whatever p.c. nonsense is being sold under the name of art this year. The minute Bernard promised fame and fatter paychecks, you were ready to sell your soul.”

  Whit crossed his arms, smiled blithely. He could afford to be gracious now, he was the victor. But something mean in him wanted to hold the cool, aristocratic founder’s nose to the dirt and rub hard. “Look at the bright side, Rafe. You have no more obligations to meet. No more parties, no more galas, no more meetings. You have all the time in the world.” He turned back to his desk to arrange some papers. “I hope she was worth it.”

  Levon didn’t know how he did it, Rafe seemed to fly over the desk. He seized Turner by the neck, punched him full in the throat, once, twice. Then he let him sag to the floor and stood over him.

  Turner curled into a ball, gagging, lying helplessly between Rafe’s legs. Levon stared. Rafe’s eyes shone white, like an icy pond. He had never seen anyone look like that before.

  “Rafe,” he said quietly. “Let him go.”

  The wolfish eyes turned to stare at him.

  “Get out of here,” said Levon.

  The icy eyes flickered, went back to their usual cloudy, indistinct gray. With a swish of his coattails, he stepped over Turner’s body and was gone.

  Despite the sleet falling from the sky, Rafe strode forward, driven into the wind. He should never have started with Tessa, he saw that now. It had promised heartache and ruin from the beginning, and yet he had pursued it, grasped for it with both hands.

  People brushed past him, leaving an unwelcome smear of their passions across his soul. This one was in fear for his job. That one was lying to her lover. A third had let credit card debt pile up with no way of paying it down. Another had a lump that needed further testing.