by Amber Brock
“Then what do you read?”
“Poetry, mainly.”
“Poetry, you don’t say. Any particular favorites?”
“I’ve always been partial to Gerard Manley Hopkins.”
“I’d have pegged you as a Byron man, myself.”
Hallan laughed. “Byron’s not bad. ‘She walks in beauty…’ ” He motioned to Vera with a wry look. “In my experience religion is a safer topic than women.”
“Is that so?” She picked at her skirt. The corners of her mouth rose. “You’d never know that to talk to you.”
“Well, talking to women is a different thing altogether than talking about women, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she replied in a mock-haughty tone.
The car glided to a stop in front of a boldly flashing sign made up of hundreds of colored bulbs. Above the doors, between the second and third floors, a sign proclaimed RIALTO in blazing white lights. As they stepped out, Hallan craned his neck back, eagerly taking in the sight. Vera told her driver when to return and followed Hallan toward the entrance. He went to get a better look at a poster, and Vera stepped in front of him to the box office.
“Two orchestra, please,” she said. She pushed the money across the counter, and Hallan spun on his heel.
“Now, just a minute. I’m not going to let a lady pay,” he said with a frown.
“My pleasure. You are our guest, after all.” Vera accepted the tickets from the smiling girl behind the glass.
Hallan offered his arm. “And what does ‘best society’ think of a woman paying a man’s way into the theater?”
She looped an arm through his elbow. “I expect they think less of a woman going to entertainments with a man who is not her husband,” Vera said, careful to keep her tone light.
“I’m sure a midday picture show with a neighbor is no stain on your virtue.” He squeezed her hand in the crook of his arm and dropped back into a more casual tone. “I’m glad you agreed to spend a bit of time with me. I’m looking forward to talking more.”
The two stopped to give their coats to the attendant at the cloakroom and Hallan left his hat. They stepped down the thick-carpeted stairs to the middle of the house and took seats a few spaces away from the next people over. Vera was pleased to see that they were among the very few people in attendance, and most of the others appeared to be middle- or lower-class women sitting in the balconies. Hallan and Vera practically had the orchestra to themselves.
“I don’t think we’ll have much time to talk. I’m not sure how people behave in theaters in France, but in New York, it’s considered very bad manners to converse during a show.” Vera held her skirt down in the back so it would not wrinkle when she sat on it.
“No, of course. Naturally.” Hallan surveyed the intricately molded ceiling and painted wall screens. “I’ll have to convince you to have a drink with me after, so we can make up for our silence during the show.”
The house lights went down before Vera could make a retort, and she flushed. It was kind of him to invite her to the pictures, but she had no intention of going anywhere else with Hallan that day. She hoped he would not press the issue.
The orchestra started up with a booming tune that Vera thought a little too energetic for the afternoon. A piano solo followed that was much more to her taste, rolling and cool. The newsreel showed footage from the Frontier Mine explosion in Wyoming. Vera had already seen photographs in the paper that turned her stomach, so she feigned attention in the beading at the hem of her sleeve. Hallan had his eyes on the painted ceiling and the elaborate carvings at the edges of the screen. She was not sure if he was simply engrossed in the decor, or if he, too, lacked the stomach for the disturbing scenes of the devastation.
At last, the screen lit up with the opening credits. Then the cathedral at Notre Dame appeared. Probably a replica, Vera reasoned. The film must have been made in California; all the pictures were these days. The likeness to the original cathedral was astounding. Crowds spilled into the town square below it, filling the screen. On a balcony, the hunchback finally stepped into the light. A shock went through Vera that seemed to travel from her eyes to the tips of her fingers. She knew enough about the book to know that the monster was meant to be hideous, but she had not expected the actor to look so grotesque. Perhaps a disordered wig, a small shuffle in his step…but this man had a bulging, unblinking eye and lumps disfiguring the shape of his face. Joy lit up his features briefly as the bells tolled behind him, but his smile quickly fell away at the revelry of the people below him. He bared his ragged teeth at the crowd assembled in the square. Even though they were far below, the people recoiled. The hunchback began to move his twisted legs, stumbling across gargoyles as he made his way back into the cathedral.
Vera leaned over, ready with a whispered question about the actor for Hallan, but the expression on his face stopped her. His eyes were lit up from within, glowing with the same radiant joy that had shone when he examined the paintings in the museum. The flickering light of the film cast shadows on his face, accenting his high cheekbones. Vera turned back to the screen, her question abandoned.
As she grew more accustomed to seeing the features of the hunchback, she settled in to the story. The gorgeous and virtuous Esmeralda, played by Patsy Ruth Miller, met the dashing Phoebus, and their inevitable love story began to unfold. But it was increasingly clear that the monster loved her as much as Phoebus did. The hunchback saved her, even at his own peril, and destroyed his master for her sake. She would never choose the monster, would she?
Sadly, she had no such choice to make. The hunchback was stabbed in the final struggle and crept off to die as Phoebus and Esmeralda embraced. The monster’s sacrifice meant Esmeralda was freed from any obligation to him.
Vera’s throat constricted. An uncomfortable stiffness ran up her back, and she had the urge to run out of the theater. She pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and patted her temples as the lights came up dimly over the house. Hallan stood and held out his hand, still blinking away the awed look on his face.
“I didn’t know you were so enthralled by the pictures,” Vera said, standing.
“It’s always been a bit of a dream of mine to go out west. To California. See the studios.” A smile twitched on his lips, but it was not the usual clever smirk. He looked more like a child anticipating a gift. “It’s just a new kind of art, isn’t it?”
She picked her way up the steps with a short laugh. “Art? I should say not.”
“And why not? Didn’t you feel something in there, when that poor creature died? Or when the lovers embraced? That’s all art does. When it’s done well, it makes you feel, touches that part of you that’s human.”
She had a difficult time arguing with that. But the pictures were more like a party trick than any of the wondrous works she had seen in her life. She prepared to defend the classics. “You can’t compare—”
Vera’s voice faltered as they turned the corner and nearly walked into a woman. The sight of Bea’s familiar blue eyes sent a tingle through Vera’s extremities, and she instinctively turned her gaze to the floor. Not here, she thought. Not now. She prayed Bea would not speak to them.
Bea looked from Vera to Hallan and back again. Her eyes widened and her forehead creased for a split second. Then her expression went slack again, and she passed without a word. Vera realized she had dug her fingers into Hallan’s forearm.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, his voice taut.
She glanced up to find his face ashen. He must have taken her reaction to be embarrassment about him, instead of the truth, but he looked disproportionately concerned. “I should get home. I just thought of something I need to do,” Vera lied.
He held out their claim tickets as they approached the coat check window. “I see.”
Vera pulled on her coat, grateful he did not press further. “Hurry, I’m sure the car is outside by now.”
She braced herself for the spitting rain t
hat had seen them into the theater, but instead found the sky aglow. The few clouds that still hung near the horizon were the most extraordinary dark orange, which cleared to pinks and yellows higher in the sky. Though Hallan seemed as eager as Vera to depart from the theater, they were both caught by the scene. Finally, he turned to her.
“Wow. Beautiful,” he said.
“It is,” she said. She extended a hand toward the car sitting at the curb. “Shall we?”
Back at the Angelus, Hallan got off the elevator on the second floor, and Vera rode the rest of the way to the penthouse alone. Her stomach had hardened, weighing her down from the middle, but she could not understand why. The movie had been wonderful, and Hallan had behaved like a true gentleman the whole way home, nothing like his usual foolishness at the parties—more like he had been at the museum, thoughtful and quiet. His face came into her mind again, lit by the glow of the movie screen, his eyes bright with abandon. Even a few unhappy seconds of seeing Bea should not have outweighed the rest of the day. It was not the first time she had seen her in town, and even when the sightings came so close together, she had never felt this heaviness afterward.
She took in a few slow breaths as she entered the penthouse, handing her gloves and hat to Evans.
“Would you like some dinner, madam?” he asked. His steady, deep voice calmed her.
“No, thank you.” She looked at her watch. Six fifteen. “I’ll be in the library if my husband phones. Will you have Gertrude slice a lime for me?”
“At once.”
“Thank you.”
In the library she switched on the phonograph, and a sweet, mellow tenor filled the room. She poured herself a gin and tonic, glad no one was around to see how light she had gone on the tonic, and drank the whole thing in a few long swallows. She poured another just as Evans arrived with a china plate, lime wedges gleaming in a neatly arranged fan in the middle. He closed the door behind him after she thanked him. She squeezed one of the limes into the fresh drink, its juice dispersing in a curling cloud through the crystal liquid. The second drink emptied nearly as quickly as the first. Her third would go down more slowly, but still with grave intent and purpose. She wanted to feel the liquor’s effects, and soon.
Glass in hand, she strolled around the library, admiring her paintings. Though her education had favored Velázquez, Goya, and El Greco, the penthouse was a museum of the European greats, known and forgotten. The landscape over the fireplace by an Italian master. The portrait of some lovely Renaissance noblewoman by a Frenchman favored by the court of her time. The cold lines and warm sentiment of the pastoral scene, complete with a shepherd and his love, by a Dutchman whose name Vera could never pronounce exactly right. She recalled the thrill of finding and acquiring each one, sorting through each gallery or auction until she found the one piece there she could not ignore.
She ran her hand along the curved back of an oiled wood chair. Where the Ida Bloomers of her acquaintance had reproductions, Vera had the real thing. She stifled a little laugh at the idea that the quality of one’s chairs could be measured by how many important derrieres had graced their seats. And then there was the delicate rug, hung on the wall so that no shoe would ever actually touch it. What country castle had that come from? She could not remember at the moment.
The ice from the third drink rattled in the glass, and Vera poured another to accompany her to the drawing room. She had chosen more delicate fabrics for the sofa and chairs in this room, and light, lacy curtains. Her head swam as she inspected the glossy surface of a mahogany end table, and she chased the feeling with another hard swallow from her glass.
In every room it was the same. Three marble statues in the dining room, found in Rome, now served as a largely ignored backdrop to her dinner parties. Hand-woven lace covered the low table in the study, displayed to show only that Vera possessed such a thing. A carved wooden box from the seventh century stood proudly on the desk in the bedroom, but held nothing.
When Vera returned to the library to refill her glass, her gaze lit on a vase in the corner. It sat on a tall table with a thin support and round top about the size of a dinner plate, which existed solely to hold a vase of that kind. From the vase’s fluted top burst a spray of huge blooms and greenery, arranged by someone with talent and skill. The white flowers hung heavy on their stems. The day before the vase had held long stalks with tiny yellow flowers, and sometime before that, feathery pink blooms. Like everything else decorating the penthouse, the vase tended to go unnoticed. Despite that, the housekeeper went every day to the flower market, bought a handful of flowers, and placed them with care in that vase before Vera came downstairs in the morning. Every night, after Vera went to bed, someone would toss them in the wastebasket so that the vase would be ready for new flowers in the morning.
The same tight feeling from the elevator squeezed Vera again. She edged closer to the vase, as if it were alive and could suspect what might happen. The crystal was etched with a swirled design that bit into Vera’s fingers when she lifted it. She held it up to eye level and turned it to watch the light glint off it. The voice on the phonograph, now a soprano, soared behind her. She raised the vase above her head, still studying its intricate design. Then she brought her arm down and hurled the vase to the ground. The glass shattered on the hardwood floor and showered the room with splinters of glass, waxy petals, and broken stems.
Vera took a step back, her mouth falling open at the mess before her. The gin haze fell away in a white-hot blast. What could have possessed her to do such a thing? She set her glass on the table and rang the bell for the housekeeper with a trembling hand.
Sarah opened the door to the library a moment later. She let out a cry and rushed to Vera’s side.
“Are you all right, madam?” Sarah asked. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
Vera pressed her shaking hands against her skirt. “I bumped into it, and it fell. I wasn’t paying attention…”
Sarah had the good grace not to let her gaze wander to the glass on the table, still holding a crushed lime wedge. She took Vera’s arm and led her to a chair.
“Are you sure you didn’t get cut? Let’s take a look. May I?” Sarah turned Vera’s arms over, revealing the unspoiled white undersides. She took Vera’s chin with a thick, matronly hand and inspected her face. “There, you seem to be all right. I’ll clean this up and make you a nice cup of tea for your nerves.”
“No, thank you. No tea.”
“Yes, madam.”
Vera stayed in the chair, taking hard breaths until Sarah returned with a broom and a large pan. She swept the crunching glass into the pan, then pulled out a sack for the flowers. When she had finished, she turned to Vera with a worried look.
“Now, don’t go walking around without your shoes on. There’s likely to still be some little bits there.”
“I’ll be careful,” Vera said in a small voice.
Sarah turned to leave, but Evans stood in the doorway. She shuffled past him with the clinking bag as he nodded at Vera, his expression calm as ever.
“Madam, you have a visitor,” he said.
Vera stood. “What? Who would call at this hour?”
“Mr. Hallan. Should I tell him you’ve retired for the evening?”
Her vision seemed to narrow to a point, the edges blurring. She sank back into the chair. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“He said he had something to give you.”
“Send him in.”
Evans came back in a few moments later with Hallan following. Vera stood, and Hallan’s eyes widened in alarm when he saw her face.
“Are you all right? You look pale,” he said, after the butler left.
“Yes. Perfectly fine, thank you. Evans said you had something to give me?” The words trembled slightly, and she gripped the back of the chair, as though that would help steady her voice.
“Well, yes, but I…it’s not so important. I can come back another time.” He held out a small leather-bound book. “It�
�s the poetry I was telling you about. I thought you might want to have a look for yourself.”
She accepted the book, turning it over in her hands. The corners were scuffed, and many of the pages were dog-eared. A scrap of paper stuck out of the middle, and she opened to the marked page. Hopkins, the poet he had mentioned on the way to the theater. A poem called “Spring and Fall.” What heart heard of, ghost guessed…
Why did Hallan do this? Why did he sometimes act like the worst kind of cad, then sometimes like the gentlest friend? To confuse her? To mock her? The empty, useless woman, in the house full of empty, useless things. A horrible feeling welled at the back of her eyes, and without so much as a tremor in her lip to warn her, she burst into tears. Her shoulders shook as she held the little book in both hands, unable to keep the sobs from pouring out.
Hallan let out a surprised noise. “God, Vera, what’s the matter?”
She could not answer. He passed her his handkerchief, and she pressed it to her mouth. The fresh scent of his cologne on the cloth only made her heart sink lower. He placed a hand lightly on her back, guiding her to the sofa. They sat together in silence, except for the occasional whimpers she could not stifle.
“There,” he said, in soft, low tones. “There now. Will you tell me what’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
She searched her tumbling thoughts for any reason to offer him, anything that would sound feasible. As she did so, the thought occurred to her that even if she had wanted to name the true reason, she could not. She did not know why she had smashed the vase, and she did not know why she had wept at the offering of the book. All she could do was shake her head at him, still gasping with tears.
He stood and crossed to the nook beside the fireplace, and Vera cringed. Above a low wooden cabinet hung the portrait of Vera, wearing a long, silky black dress. She stood with her back to the viewer, looking over her shoulder, with diamond-studded earrings dangling down to her shoulder.
Hallan studied the painting, then turned back to her. “Do you paint?”
Vera tried to control her breathing, still fighting off the last of the crying jag. “Do you mean…did I paint that?”