The Secret Life of Violet Grant

by Beatriz Williams

  “Concur.”

  “Are you all right?”

  I jiggled my ice. Because yes, I did want to tell him. I wanted to kick off my pointy heels and tell him all about my evening, all about Violet and Henry and Lionel, how happy I was for her and yet how crushed with an odd and dislocating grief. I wanted to talk it out with him on the sofa, all curled up in our familiar Gordian knot, and hear what he had to say. And then make love and go to sleep, and wake up and make love again. Breakfast and lunch and dinner and breakfast once more. Bacon and coffee and a close-packed shower.

  But.

  Gogo. Lightfoot. The Vegas racket, such as it was. My sins, his sins. And everything else, the tug of guilt, the dread of further slings and arrows, the uncertain capacity of forgiveness. The quality of mercy. The strain of it all.

  “I’m all right,” I said.

  He turned on his side, holding up the gold-flecked wallpaper with his shoulder. “No. You’re not. You have that shocked look in your eyes. Your smile, it’s all stiff.”

  “That’s what happens when your ex-lover turns up somewhere he’s not supposed to be.”

  “Vivian.”

  I looked into my glass. “I found Violet.”

  “You what?” He started away from the wall.

  “Found Violet. She’s been living in Paris all along, at the Hôtel de Saint-Honoré, Jane’s divorce present, except they’ve renamed it the Mortimer Institute for Physical Chemistry. She’s there with Henry Mortimer. They married in 1918. They have four children. Well, three. The first one was Lionel’s, but he raised her as his own.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Hiding in plain sight, you might say.” I finished my water and crossed the room to set it on the drinks tray with a clinky old crash of ice. I stubbed out my cigarette and stared at the champagne bottle. Bollinger.

  “What about Lionel?”

  “He gave himself up at the Swiss border, so the others could cross. Never saw him again. Violet thinks he tried to escape and was killed.” I dropped a bit of zing on the word thinks.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, Doctor. I’d like to think he sacrificed himself. More likely he went back to work, doing what he did best.” I opened my mouth to tell him about James Merriwether, and stopped the words at the back of my throat. “So. Did Lightfoot demand his money back?”

  “Actually. Astonishingly. He didn’t. The strangest thing. I gave him back the two hundred, told him I’d pay the rest when I could, and he said not to worry about it. A blank slate. I guess Gogo got to him, or else he just wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing. Anyway, I will pay him back. Set aside something every month, like a mortgage on my own soul.”

  Flippantly: “Or your dad could pay him back. It’s his debt, remember.”

  He made some movement behind me. “Pops? No. Pops is dead.”

  “What?” I turned.

  Paul was staring at me. His eyes were old and blue and something else. Glassy, if I had to put a name to it. His cigarette was almost out, burning right up to his fingers. “They think it was a heart attack. He didn’t even know I’d settled the money for him, you know? So it was all for nothing, I guess.”

  My first bitter thought was How convenient. I know. I know. What a darling I was.

  He tossed his cigarette in the ashtray just in time and dropped his gaze to his water glass. His beautiful finger circled the rim. I loved him, I loved him. Why was this so difficult?

  He said, “I’m leaving first thing tomorrow to settle his affairs, arrange the funeral, all that. So you really don’t need to worry, Vivian. I wasn’t going to make a pest of myself. I just wanted to see you again, before I said good-bye to Pops. That’s all. That’s the honest truth. Tell you eye-to-eye, look, I did my best to make things right.”

  You know something? The oddest picture came into my mind just then. I saw Dadums in the chair in the hospital waiting room, cradling my mother’s sleeping head on his lap, raising his finger to his lips so no one would disturb her. And. I heard Violet’s voice in my ears, as kind and clean as water: He loved me as much as it was possible for him to love another person.

  I thought, out of the blue, maybe this isn’t so hard after all.

  Maybe it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.

  I removed my golden-yellow pillbox hat and shook out my hair until it released the smell of the cold Paris night. I braced my hands on the narrow table behind me, and I said, in the husky voice of compassion: “Would you like me to come with you? To pay my respects?”

  Doctor Paul lifted his face to mine. The expression of wonder there made my heart fall and fall, still beating, gathump gathump.

  “Vivian. More than anything.”

  • • •

  AT TWO O’CLOCK in the morning, I startled awake in the grip of a sudden conjecture. I slipped out of bed, threw on a dressing gown, and went into the sitting room, where I picked up the telephone and asked the hotel to send a cable for me, to Mrs. Vivian Schuyler, Fifth Avenue, New York City.

  The reply came in with the breakfast tray.

  YES STOP SOLD A FEW OLD JEWELS STOP COMING OUT OF YOUR INHERITANCE STOP LOVE MUMS

  “Something wrong?” Paul looked up from his coffee.

  I slid the telegram under my plate and took the coffee cup from his hand.

  “Look here!” But he was smiling. (Oh, how he smiled.)

  I straddled his lap with my long bare legs, cupped his face in my hands, and kissed him. (Oh, how I kissed him.) “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.”

  AFTERMATH

  O, never say that I was false of heart,

  Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify.

  As easy might I from myself depart

  As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:

  That is my home of love: if I have ranged,

  Like him that travels I return again,

  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,

  So that myself bring water for my stain.

  Never believe, though in my nature reign’d

  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

  That it could so preposterously be stain’d,

  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

  For nothing this wide universe I call,

  Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

  —Sonnet 109, William Shakespeare

  Lionel, 1914

  The thin edge of a fingernail moon lingers above the roofline of the Hotel Baur au Lac. For an instant, Lionel recalls the last time he saw Zurich, my God, was it only the year before? It seems like another life, another Europe, another Lionel. He was just passing through. A few posh nights at the Baur, a few lavish dinners. There was a woman. She had dark hair and small, graceful breasts. A diplomat’s wife, a Russian, enthusiastic and not very useful.

  But the golden windows now before him eclipse the recollection of that distant Zurich. That other epoch. For one thing, he has a job to do, a last and vital task. (He repeats that to himself: last. For such a small word, it has a heart-stopping sound, glittering, final, the word of the future.) For another thing, behind one of those golden windows breathes Violet.

  He cannot think about Violet. Not yet.

  The water slaps quietly against the canal walls. Lionel concentrates on the classical white facade before him, blue-luminous in the electrified Zurich night, and the exquisite creatures who stream in and out of its doors. Everyone is having a smashing time. Everyone is wearing black tailcoats or jewel-colored dresses. You would never guess that armies throughout Europe were mobilizing for war. A few bars of Strauss dance through an open doorway, and then the door closes again.

  Lionel leans his shoulder against the tree, smoking, waiting. His muscles ache from the abuse of the day, overcoming guards and leaping aboard movin
g trains, and he knows there is more to come. He holds himself still, hoarding every packet of energy, every kilojoule remaining to him. There is no human test quite akin to the certain expectation of pain.

  The last of the moon slips behind the rooftop. A dark figure crosses the porte cochère and enters the garden where Lionel waits.

  Lionel doesn’t move. The profile, the gait, the carriage: it’s Henry, all right, carrying Violet’s valise in his left hand, down the gravel path to the Schanzengraben canal. His right hand is shoved in his jacket pocket, either casually or warily. The young fellow is still an enigma. Was all that awkwardness part of his cover, or not? When Henry has nearly reached him, when the crunch of his leather soles on the gravel is close enough to touch, Lionel steps from under the shadow of the tree.

  “Good evening, young Mortimer,” he says.

  Surprise, surprise. The satisfaction of a good ambush never dims, does it?

  But Henry composes himself quickly. “Richardson! Thank God! You’ve made it!”

  “Miracle of miracles. I suppose you’d given up hope.”

  “On the contrary. I had every faith in you.” Henry’s hand moves in his jacket pocket.

  Lionel nods at the valise. “I presume you’re on your way to the consulate right now?”

  “Yes. Of course. I took it upon myself in your absence. Jane agreed I should be the one to do it.”

  “You’re going by boat, I take it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re headed for the Schanzengraben. I presume you have a boat waiting for you?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” Henry’s weight shifts to the balls of his feet.

  “Well, then.” Lionel tosses his cigarette on the gravel. “I’ll come with you.”

  “There’s no need. You must be shattered. Go in and join the ladies. Let me handle this one.”

  “What? Let you take all the credit, after all my hard work?” Lionel shakes his head slowly. Tsk tsk. He reaches for the valise. “I’ll just take it from here, if you don’t mind.”

  Henry bolts with astonishing quickness, such quickness that Lionel, even prepared, loses a few precious instants as he turns and forces his twisted right ankle into pursuit. In the darkness, he can’t see Henry’s long black back ahead of him. He runs by instinct, by the shift in the shadows, by the certain direction of the Schanzengraben ahead of them, and the imperative that Henry must not be allowed to reach it.

  Henry runs fast and unhindered by the battering Lionel has taken that day. But Henry is burdened in turn by the valise in his two arms, and Lionel, catching a glimpse of the younger man’s white collar, closer, closer, shoves his limbs past all limit of endurance and launches himself into the air.

  He catches Henry by the waist and drags him into the ground with a marrow-loosening thud.

  For a second or two, both men lie stunned, and then Henry rolls over and kicks himself free. Lionel lunges and catches him, and together they roll in the gravel, shoving and elbowing like schoolboys, flailing for a clear strike with a fist, a knockout punch. But while Henry is agile, Lionel is thicker and stronger, massive as a young ox, experienced in the brutality of hand-to-hand combat. On the third attempt, he catches the young man’s shoulders in an oak-armed lock and places his knee against Henry’s kidneys.

  Dust fills his mouth. He spits it out and leans into Henry’s ear. “Now. I must beg you to satisfy my curiosity before we proceed.”

  “What the . . . bastard . . .” Henry gasps. He strains against Lionel’s arms.

  “Did you alert the police in Blumberg for the sole purpose of having me killed, or was it the papers you were after?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Lionel jerks back Henry’s head. He saws for air.

  “I think you owe me an explanation, don’t you? I was put to considerable hardship today. Had to kill poor von Engel, and I do dislike killing a Merton man. My temper is not at its best. So tell me. Who are you really working for? The Germans? The British? Yourself?”

  “Fuck yourself.”

  “I would have suggested the Americans, but then we recruited you, didn’t we? According to my information, you agreed because you wanted to help Britain, because your own country was enslaved to German interests. So you said.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Now, there is another possible motive. Violet. I’ve seen the way you look at her. Not that I blame you.” He says, in a silky voice, provocative: “Trust me, lad, she’s even better than you’ve dreamed.”

  A violent spasm of arms and legs. “Leave her out of this!”

  “Ah! So we have a confession of something, in any case.” Lionel digs a little deeper into the small of Henry’s back, wanting to punish him for his thoughts, for the images of Violet that must lie in his male imagination. The anguish of Henry’s cry soothes his rage. Just. “So. Now that we have your hopeless yearning for Violet sorted out, let’s discuss your plans for her suitcase. You were intending to deliver it to the consulate as planned, were you not?”

  “Of course!”

  “Because we are all on the same side, here. Americans and British. We both want to prevent a war, don’t we?”

  Henry mutters something into the dirt.

  “What’s that, Mortimer? I can’t quite hear you.”

  “I said, fucking pacifist.”

  “Ah! That’s better. What I thought you said.” Lionel’s mouth tastes of copper. He must have bitten his tongue at some point, or else Henry’s elbow has knocked him about more firmly than he thought. His face is such a mass of bruises already, he can’t tell. “Let me guess. You’re among those civilians who have never worn a uniform, never seen a man tattooed by a Vickers machine gun, who believe war is inevitable, even desirable. That a—what shall we call it?—an Anglo-American showdown with Germany should be encouraged sooner rather than later, before she gets too strong. Isn’t that right, in a nutshell? Or were you playing a deeper game? Is it your preference that Britain and Germany and France and Russia all destroy each another, and leave the United States to pick up the pieces for herself?”

  “You’re a dirty bastard, Richardson. A fucking traitor. Going off on your own like this, contrary to orders. We were supposed to stop Grant, that was all, not . . . damn it all . . . go off and interfere in matters of state!”

  “We did stop Grant. Or you did, with that premature shot to the chest. Nerves, was it? Or had you meant to kill him all along? Violet’s husband?”

  Henry bucks wildly, but Lionel holds firm.

  “Not that it matters, really. I’m not a man who gives a damn about motives. What I care about is this: we recruited you for a single mission, because you were clever and American and could talk atoms and molecules, and you might simply have finished the mission and slunk back to your laboratory in peace, and have never heard from us again. And you had to meddle, Henry. Meddle in things that didn’t concern you.”

  “Someone had to stop you, and Jane wasn’t going to do it—”

  “Because Jane is on my side, Henry.”

  “—and then you had the nerve, the fucking perversion, to use Violet to do it. Seduce her and use her, you loathsome dog, and then—”

  Lionel places his lips next to Henry’s ear and growls: “Do not ever speak her name again. Do you understand me?”

  Henry wriggles furiously in his grasp. A voice calls out in German.

  Lionel swivels toward the canal, and a white flash explodes behind his eyes. Henry breaks free.

  Knifed. The devil. He bursts forward after Henry while his flesh burns, while the blood runs down his ribs. His own fault. Henry’s hand moving in his jacket, Lionel’s distraction over Violet. Own fault. Damndamndamn. Get the suitcase. Get the fucking suitcase before . . .

  Splash.

  Lionel reaches the railing an instan
t later, in time to see Henry flailing in the black water of the Schanzengraben canal, ten feet below.

  Help! he calls.

  Suitcase! Where’s the fucking suitcase?

  Lionel kicks off his shoes, tears off his jacket, and vaults over the railing in the wide gap between two moored boats.

  The water is colder than he expects. He comes up gasping and dives back down in frantic strokes. Nothing. Black water. Nothing. An object strikes his cheek, a blinding second of hope, he grasps and tugs but it’s only a foot, Henry Mortimer’s shoe. He gives it a vicious jerk and shoots to the surface.

  “Where is it?” He takes Henry by the shoulders and shakes him. “Where’s the suitcase?”

  “Fuck you!” A weak gasp.

  Lionel shoves his head in the water and holds it down—one second, two, three, four. “Where’s the suitcase?” he yells again, but Henry is coughing and choking, it’s hopeless. Something dark runs down the younger man’s forehead, not water.

  Lionel lets him go and dives down again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And

  nothingnothingnothing

  empty black water

  it’s gone

  Lionel puts his head back and howls to the Zurich night sky.

  Someone shouts out: “Wer is da?”

  An unbearable pressure settles about Lionel’s ears. Can’t be true. All that effort, all that strain, all that pain. Not possible. All lost. A slim hope, a last slim hope, but then the world was built of slim hopes, and this might have been one of them.

  Lost.

  This unforgiving pressure about his ears, it’s the weight of history. Of a million men in arms, ten million. More, if God, from His sacred distance, proved vengeful rather than merciful.

  He strokes slowly back toward the canal wall, and something brushes against his arm.

  Henry.

  The faint light flashes against the back of his head. Lionel blinks, not quite comprehending, and then he wraps his arm around the young man’s chest and continues, a little faster, until the rough stones of the wall collide with his outstretched hand. There are stairs here somewhere. Lionel drags Henry’s inert body downstream, until the wall cuts away and his fingers find the first step.