And, like the ... the ... ”
“Baseless,” Emily mouthed.
“Baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which ... all which ... ”
“It inherit,” his sister prompted again.
“It inherit,” the little boy repeated. “It inherit.”
“ ‘Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,’ ” Emily whispered.
Joshua’s face worked as he mouthed the words. “I can’t,” he burst out. “I don’t remember. I can’t do it.”
He started to cry. Emily got up and put her arms around him, but kept her eyes on her father. Fabian was smiling, but from where I sat he seemed to have an ugly gleam in his eye.
“It’s awfully late for such a small boy to be up and on public display,” I heard myself saying. “I think we all know he learned the verse. Let’s give him a hand and let him go to bed.”
Fabian turned to me in surprise, as though one of the candlesticks had spoken, but the rest of the crowd took up my suggestion in relief. We clapped for the boy, who ran from the room, his sister close behind him. I glanced at Deirdre as they left. She was gloating openly. Because Fabian had been embarrassed, or her daughter, or both? My stomach turned and I quickly looked away.
Other people rose to put in their two cents for Manfred. The waiters served dessert and coffee and people began soft side conversations.
Eleanor Guziak leaned across the table toward me. “Good for you. Fabian loves to trot out his children’s accomplishments—they’re all brilliant—but what a terrible ordeal to put a little boy through.”
Around eleven, when I thought I couldn’t endure another moment in the room, Manfred got up to respond. After thanking Fabian and Deirdre for the beautiful evening—and why not? he hadn’t been sitting near them—he surprised me by repeating what he’d said to me earlier in the living room.
“The practice of law has changed too much since I began its study a half century ago. People seem to take more pleasure in money than in justice. If I’ve taught any of you here to care for justice, then I leave my professional life content. We’ve heard a lot of high-minded poetry quoted tonight. I’d just like to remind you of the words of another Elizabethan, Francis Quarles. He wrote them almost four hundred years ago, but they’re not so out-of-date that we can’t profit by them:
“Use law and physic only in cases of necessity; they that use them otherwise abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses; they are good remedies, bad recreations, but ruinous habits.’”
He resumed his seat to stunned silence. I got up quickly and went over to him.
“People have praised you more memorably than I can tonight. I just want you to know that every time I hear you speak you say something important. Thanks for doing it again tonight.”
“Good luck, Victoria. I’ll have plenty of time to see friends now. Stop by for a cup of coffee some afternoon if you’re ever beating up thugs on the South Side.”
He grasped my hand briefly. Other old students had swarmed over. I fled the house without saying good-bye to my host and hostess. As I turned the Trans Am in a tight U to head back north I could see the rest of the guests begin to leave.
It wasn’t until I was at McCormick Place, some three or four miles north of Kenwood, that I remembered my coat. I grunted aloud in annoyance. If I didn’t go back now I’d have to call and arrange a time to fetch it. And I’d either have to be social with Deirdre, or decide to let her know just what I thought of her antics tonight. Neither choice was appetizing. I whipped over to the left-hand lane, exited at Twenty-third Street, and returned south.
Light still poked around the shutters in the front windows. I tried the door but it had been locked. I rang the bell, tapping my foot impatiently as a minute or more ticked by. I rang again.
One of the bartenders finally came to the door. “The party’s over, miss—everyone’s gone.”
“Sorry. I forgot my coat. One of the kids took it upstairs—I’ll just run up and get it and be on my way.”
He looked me up and down. Apparently my frank, honest face persuaded him I was neither burglar nor murderer. He opened the door wide and waved me toward the stairs. Halfway up I realized I had no idea where to go when I got to the top. I called down to ask him, but he’d already disappeared into the back of the house.
Antique wall sconces lit the stairs and the upper hall, giving a rich glow to the gray flocked paper. Thick carpeting masked my footfalls.
At the top I hesitated, not wanting to open doors at random and wake sleeping children. Voices were coming from a room at the end of the long hall. Its door was open a crack, letting out a bar of light along with the sound. By the time I was halfway down the hall the sound had clearly resolved itself into Fabian’s voice.
“How dare you?” he was yelling. “Humiliating me in front of my guests like that. I told you weeks ago what I wanted and you agreed to coach him. You assured me he was letter perfect. How long have you been plotting to show me up? When did you realize this would be an ideal way to embarrass me?”
I paused outside the door. Emily was answering him, muttering something unintelligible.
“Were you a party to this?” Fabian demanded, apparently of Deirdre, because she said, “No, I wasn’t a party to it. I asked Emily this afternoon if she was sure Joshua could perform and she told me he could.”
I had been about to push open the door, but the sheer shock of the conversation stayed my hand. They were browbeating Emily because they’d kept their son up long past his bedtime to expose him to a crowd of strangers?
“And what were you doing, baiting Donald and Alec with all that crap about the homeless? If Warshawski wants to waste her time and energy in the gutter instead of turning her legal training to good use, that’s her business. But what are you doing signing on for it?”
“I’m not signing on for it.” Deirdre was using loud, measured tones, but her voice had cracks around the edges. “You might remember I serve on a board with her and also one for the homeless. You wanted me doing good works instead of holding a proper job. You thought it would make you look good.”
A loud smack, hand on flesh. “I’m not talking about Home Free, Deirdre, but this crap you were spinning about homeless families living in Warshawski’s office building. Why did you have to bring that up?”
“I brought it up because I’m going to try to work with the woman. I’ve talked to Vic about it and she thinks I might be able to help her.”
“You?” Fabian gave a crack of angry laughter. “You can’t look after your own house and children. What are you going to do with someone else’s? And don’t you try to sidle out the door, young lady. I’m not through with you yet tonight.”
I knocked loudly on the door and pushed it open. Fabian stood in front of an empty fireplace, facing his wife and daughter like an old-fashioned schoolmaster with errant pupils. Emily, still in her absurd pink dress, was kneading her hands in its skirt. Deirdre’s head was back, cobralike, but the stain of Fabian’s hand showed on her left cheek. They were so involved in their fight that they showed no surprise at my arrival.
We were in the master bedroom—the bedroom for mastery. It was large enough to hold a desk and a chaise lounge and still leave room for ballroom dancing. I could see my black wool coat on the king-size bed in the far corner.
“You guys could let up on Emily,” I said. “How old is she, anyway?”
Deirdre moved to stand next to Fabian. They stopped glaring at each other and joined to look at me in hate.
“What business is it of yours, Warshawski? Why don’t you save your interference for men who pay you to peek through their wives’ keyholes?” Fabian spat out.
“Gosh, Fabian, maybe because I took Manfred’s words to heart and want to do a little pro bono work. I’ve spent a nauseating evening in your house, with Deirdre drunk and you preening like a cock on a d
unghill. I’m fed up with both of you for making your daughter act like a nursemaid, and not even questioning the absurdity of the burdens or accusations you’re laying on her.”
“I don’t remember asking you to stay.” Fabian tried to look haughty. “If we’re so nauseating, why don’t you leave?”
I crossed to the bed and picked up my coat. “I’d like to, but I’m worried about what you’ll do to Emily if I take off now.”
“Don’t worry about Emily,” Deirdre said. “She’s her daddy’s darling; she won’t come to any harm.”
Emily had started to cry. She was trying to do so quietly, but at Deirdre’s words she gave a racking sob and cried, “I hate you. I hate both of you! Why don’t you shut up and leave me alone!” She ran from the room and slammed the door.
“Thanks, Warshawski,” Fabian said sarcastically. “Thanks for upsetting my daughter and ruining my party for Manfred. Now why don’t you go home.”
My head was spinning from trying to follow his dizzying loops around logic. “Yeah, I’ll leave. And Deirdre, you and I need to talk. Tomorrow, when your head is clearer.”
“My head is perfectly clear, thank you,” she started, but I couldn’t take any more of either of them; I followed Emily out the door, slamming it hard behind me.
Back in the hall I tried to guess which room Emily might have fled to. None of them showed any light, so I stopped to listen at each keyhole—the peeping eye Fabian had denigrated—until I heard stifled sobs behind one.
I knocked gently on the panel. “It’s V.I.—Vic Warshawski. Can I come in?”
When she didn’t answer I opened the door and felt my way through the dark room to the bed. She was sprawled fully dressed across the spread, bucking with the force of her sobs.
“Hey, there, girl, take it easy. You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep on like that.”
“I wish I would,” she gasped. “I wish I would kill myself.”
I knelt next to the bed and put a hand on her heaving shoulder. “I don’t think you can cry yourself to death, but you might break a rib. ... Out of curiosity, how old are you?”
“Four ... teen.”
“Awful young to be doing what you’re doing. How old are those brothers of yours?”
“Josh is six and Natie’s two.” Answering simple questions was slowing her sobs down.
I kept my hand on her shoulder and rubbed it gently while I tried to think of what I might do to help her. I had a fleeting memory of Lotty’s words, that when I decide to intervene in other people’s lives someone always gets badly hurt. My worry that Lotty might be right kept me from suggesting any bold action to Emily.
“In a few years you can leave to go to college. I know at your age eighteen must seem a long way off, but it’s something you can hang on to, look forward to.” It was such a feeble thing to say I didn’t blame her for not leaping up in ecstasy.
“Your parents are very disturbed people,” I added. “In fact they seem nuts to me. Do you think you could remember that, when the going gets too rugged—that they’re two people with a huge problem, but you are not the problem?”
“How can you possibly know that?” she said angrily into the bedspread. “You never laid eyes on me before.”
“Yeah, but I’ve known your folks going on twenty years. Look, Emily, I spent the evening watching you—watching the three of you. You were the only person trying to take adult responsibility for the scene around you, but you’re just a kid. Perhaps this seems normal to you, because it’s the only life you know, but believe me, it’s not the way most people do act or should act. Okay?”
She didn’t say anything, but her sobs trailed off. I fished in my purse and pulled out a business card. My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could make out the shapes of furniture. I stretched out my right hand to something that was either a desk or a low-lying dresser.
“I’m going to leave my name and phone number here by your bed. If you need a friendly ear to talk to, give me a call. Or if you think you can’t take life here anymore, maybe I can help you figure out some other choices. I don’t know what they might be, but we could explore that together.”
She turned over onto her side so that she could speak directly to me. “I can’t. I can’t abandon the boys. They need me.”
“You have a right to a life, too, Emily, only nobody here is going to help you get one. Think about it. ... You want me to bring you a glass of water before I go?”
“I’m okay,” she muttered.
I shut the door softly, trying to get it to catch without rousing her parents. At the far end of the hall Deirdre and Fabian were still raging. Even at this distance, with their door closed, I could make out her screams and his furies. Downstairs the staff had finished cleaning up and had turned out the lights. I undid the dead bolt in the massive front door and let myself out.
I looked at the house from the curb. The master bedroom overlooked the street. The light seeping around the curtains abruptly disappeared. After a few seconds a glow appeared from a room on the south side. Emily’s room. She’d gotten up, or one of her parents had joined her. My stomach churning from my own impotence, I fled into the night.
It was one when I finally got back to my own home. As I hung up my party clothes I saw the salmon stain still disfiguring the front of my white silk shirt.
10
A Frightened Mole
In my sleep I heard Emily sobbing. I followed the sound down an ornate staircase. At first, elaborate wall sconces made it easy to see my descent. My left hand traced raised flowers in the red wallpaper and my feet sank in plush. At a bend in the stairwell the light suddenly vanished and I had to grope my way in the dark. The velvet changed to stone under my hand; the stairs narrowed and the carpeting disappeared. Emily’s cries kept summoning me but I couldn’t reach the bottom. As I stumbled dizzyingly downward the stairs collapsed. I fell, seemingly for hours, until I landed in a heap outside the room where the girl was weeping. I pulled myself to my feet and pushed open the door.
Lotty Herschel stood in front of me. “Don’t try to touch her,” she said. “You will only hurt her.”
Her angry words jerked me awake. I lay still a long time, watching the gray light make ghostly waves on the ceiling. A spider had died in one of the corners. It hung on a wisp of web that swayed in the drafts rising from my badly sealed windows.
In four months I would be forty. The dreams I’d had at twenty—the twin yearnings for glory and altruism—seemed as ghostly and futile as the bit of dirty silk the spider had released in her death spasm.
What was I doing trying to patch the hulk of the Pulteney together when it would only fall down around me in a few weeks? It typified my whole approach to life: enormous energy sunk into mending lives or causes that could never be made whole. Behind every patch great leaks sprang anyway.
Even the bureau in front of me, bought at a flea market with the sincere intention of stripping and refinishing it—there’s solid walnut under there, the friend who’d gone with me, an expert in these matters, said. Five years later the chipped brown paint had become part of the customary backdrop of my life.
I pulled the sheet over my head, blocking out the spider and the bureau. When the phone rang I let it drag out, hoping the caller would go away. Finally, my eyes hot with grit, I stuck my arm outside the sheet and picked up the receiver.
“Morning, beautiful. How were the rich and famous?”
It was Conrad Rawlings, who’d been working the owl shift lately. I sat up, feeling more lively. “They wore me out. I haven’t gotten up yet. What was your haul last night?”
“Six gunshots, one fatal, a stabbing, a hit-and-run where the guy dragged the body halfway down Western Avenue before it came loose, and a baby in a garbage can. I got the hit-and-run and one of the gunshots. And you say you’re worn out. Tell me the high-end lawyers carry on like that.”
“Nah. Just guys roughing up the wife and kids, the women drunk and disorderly. The easy stuff.” I spo
ke gruffly to cover the crack in my voice.
“Hey, Ms. W. Don’t take it to heart. Want me to come over?”
I was tempted, but it was past ten. My first meeting was set for eleven. I was sick of pushing myself, but the old blue-collar work ethic wouldn’t leave me alone. Or maybe it was just my dead mother’s voice. Once when I was eight and had been in trouble at school I couldn’t face going back the next day. In tears I pleaded a stomachache. My tender-hearted father wanted to tuck me in bed with a book and my teddy bear, but Gabriella dressed me by force. Speaking in her heavily accented English, rather than Italian—to make sure I knew it was important—she told me only cowards ran from their problems, especially ones they’d created themselves. At the end of the day, though, she’d been waiting for me in the school yard, with a bag of meringues—so I would know that bravery was rewarded.
I swung leaden legs over the side of the bed. “Oh, how I wish. When do you go back on a human schedule? Next week?”
“Tuesday. Hold that beautiful thought right where it is and don’t let any of those fast-talking bankers or lawyers tempt you. I’d hate to have to spend my life in Joliet on account of you—my mama would never forgive me.”
“If you got into trouble on my account I wouldn’t be alive to worry about it,” I said drily. Give her her due, Conrad’s mother would probably hate any woman he went with, but my being white didn’t help our relationship.
He laughed softly. “Speaking of which, you remember Sunday is Camilla’s birthday? Think you can handle it?”
“You’re talking to Wonder Woman. I wouldn’t miss it. Matter of fact, I’m working on a project for her—trying to figure out why Alderman Lenarski canceled Lamia’s zoning permit.”
“You got time for that nonsense, Ms. W.? You’re not taking it on because of me, are you—because if so, I’ll be on the phone to Zu-Zu and tell her to lay off.”
Zu-Zu was Camilla’s pet name in the family. “No. Just my conscience, digging its teeth into my neck.”
“Don’t sound so dismal, babe. If the work’s that bad it’s time you took some time off. Can’t you go away for a few days?”
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