The Weight of Ink

by Rachel Kadish

  The candle in his hand wavered. A drop of wax fell to the floor between them. Slowly he nodded her in.

  In the hearth in his sitting room, the coals of the evening’s fire still glowed. She sat where he directed her to, on one of the silk-cushioned seats beside the hearth. He settled opposite her.

  She waited, letting his agitation subside. Despite the rich fabrics of his dressing gown, the same chill that had gripped her in her mean quarters seemed also to possess him here at his hearth, and he huddled close to the coals. Seeing, she took a poker and knelt. He watched as she added some bits of wood, and the room brightened with their small flare. At length he reached for a flagon, and poured himself a glass of port, and then one for her. They drank. When he’d finished, he lit his pipe.

  Only when he was wreathed in smoke did she judge it safe to speak.

  From inside the heavy, sweet smoke, he heard out her proposition like a merchant weighing every nuance—his ear attuned to the balance of profit and loss, shame and the slim chance of comfort. Twice he interrupted with questions and weighed her answers. She finished. For a long while the room was silent save the occasional shifting of the low coals, and the sound of his slow breathing as he considered.

  Part 5

  27

  April 6, 2001

  London

  Two days, and he’d told no one. This morning he’d managed to shower, but midway through dressing he stopped in his boxers and socks and slumped back in bed. The slow drift of his thoughts drowned him. What kind of man, he thought, gets a girl pregnant, then doesn’t have a friend he trusts enough to tell about it?

  The phone rang again. He didn’t answer. Helen had already roused him once, something about Manuel HaLevy’s death date. He hadn’t pretended to care. Sorry, Helen. Sorry, world.

  The phone stopped ringing. Then, after a few seconds’ silence, it began again. The third time, he found himself standing, picking up his mobile off the table.

  Helen, of course. Her voice prodding him in the depths. “Don’t trouble calling Local Studies,” she said. “Meet me at the bus station in Richmond.”

  He exhaled, letting it take a long time. “Can you tell me what this is about?” In fact he didn’t imagine what in the 1665 death records could conceivably entice him to reenter the bright world of fact and consequence, in which dates had to be reconciled, dissertations had to be written, and a small floating fetus in the belly of a woman who didn’t love him or even particularly want to see him was likely to be the sole viable product of Aaron’s twenty-six years on the planet.

  “It’ll wait,” Helen said. “I’ll find you in Richmond, at three-thirty, at the bus stop. Then I’ll drive us up the hill. Call the Eastons to tell them we’re coming. Say whatever you need, but get us into the house. Please.”

  Please. That was unusual, from Helen. But nothing in the world could motivate him to call Bridgette right now. She was only going to make him feel worse—not to mention that giving Bridgette Easton notice that he was about to show up on her doorstep might be the best way to guarantee they’d be barred entry. Helen didn’t know, nor did she need to, that Aaron had already burnt that particular bridge. Their best chance was probably just showing up unannounced. Better still, he’d claim a stomach virus a block shy of the Eastons’ house and let Helen go in alone.

  He put on his right shoe. Then, some time later, his left.

  After a long blank space, he was seated on the bus to Richmond upon Thames, with no memory of standing in the queue or buying a ticket. Traffic slid past the window, nauseating. Had he ever loved Marisa? Or had he just been aiming himself at her because she was unattainable—didn’t he want, in fact, a softer, easier woman?

  Marisa was offering him the chance to quietly duck away, from her and from the baby. And it seemed to him that he ought to take it.

  At the bus station Helen stood by the sign like a lollipop lady waiting for her charges. She was wearing a scarf, knotted at her throat, and a blazer considerably more elegant than her usual. He detached himself from the small stream of disembarking passengers.

  “Why so formal?” he said.

  For a moment she looked disoriented by the question. Something about her looked wrong—she was pale, and her features seemed somehow disconnected from one another, as though they no longer belonged to the same face.

  Then the familiar world reasserted itself: Helen Watt’s manner turned crisp. “I just had my final audience with Jonathan Martin.” She offered a wan smile.

  As he returned her smile, Aaron felt himself rising to the surface as well. There was something right, wasn’t there, about the two of them braving it out, as though nothing were wrong. Something not false, but admirable.

  It occurred to him that he might just have understood the English for the first time in his life.

  “Was it a tearful farewell with Martin?” he said.

  She gave him a look.

  He said, “That look doesn’t scare me anymore.”

  Her smile gained heft. “It never did, young man. That’s been the trouble with you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She bowed her head in acknowledgment. “A satisfying meeting, I’ll say. I told Jonathan Martin I never liked him.”

  “You told him what?”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  To hell with politics. To hell with access to the documents. He and Helen seemed to have chosen, at the same moment, to jettison everything. “Did Martin reciprocate?” he said.

  “Of course not,” said Helen. “He paid me an insulting compliment—offering the appearance of preserving my dignity while in fact assaulting it.” She turned a ferocious, professorial mien on Aaron. “Remember, Mr. Levy, to recognize those compliments for what they are.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Nothing you ever say could offend me, that’s how much I respect you. That’s what Jonathan Martin said to me.” A satisfied expression crossed her face. “So I told him that’s precisely how I feel about him. And then he congratulated me on my notable career. And I did the same for him. And then”—Helen’s words slowed—“he said what a pity it was that I wouldn’t be able to work on the Richmond documents through the completion of the project, given my retirement and my health issues, which, if I didn’t mind him saying so, seemed to dictate that I’d be slowing down altogether from here forward.” For a moment Helen was silent. Then, shrugging, she let out a little laugh. Her face looked thinner, older, yet somehow lighter. Washed clean of something. “He’ll be chuckling about it over cognac with his mistress by now, I’m sure.”

  “His mistress?”

  “Yes,” Helen said simply. “Penelope Babcock is Jonathan Martin’s mistress. There, now you know a faculty secret.”

  “Well, he’s a little bastard,” shot Aaron.

  “Stop being protective of me, Mr. Levy. Jonathan Martin might or might not be a little bastard.”

  “You’d actually defend him?”

  “I care neither to defend nor attack him. Much as I detest the man, I’ll never know the full circumstances behind his choices. Life is muddy. Denying that—thinking there’s only one noble path above the fray—can be a poisonous approach to life.”

  She’d spoken vehemently; now she stared at him as though insisting that he grant her point. She’d gone somewhere he didn’t understand. He gave her a moment, then reeled them back to daylight. “He’s still a little bastard.”

  She nodded, conceding.

  “Now will you please tell me why we’re here?”

  Helen set her briefcase on the sidewalk and carefully extracted three pages of notebook paper. They were covered with penciled script, the writing tremulous and hurried.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “What we’ve been missing.” She raised a shaking finger—and for an irrational moment, he felt certain she was pointing in accusation at his heart, rather than at the page in his hand. But Helen wasn’t accusing; she was smiling—a smile of such simple elation he felt he w
as looking at the girl she might once have been. “This is the last document from underneath the Eastons’ staircase. The ivy letter—the one that was sealed and positioned at the end of the shelf. I copied out the text this afternoon in the conservation lab.”

  She was looking straight into his eyes, still smiling. He had no idea how to respond to such an expression coming from Helen Watt.

  She continued, her voice hoarse. “Read it, and you’ll understand. We haven’t been wrong about her, Aaron.”

  With difficulty, he began reading the shakily penciled lines—the text of a poem. After the second couplet, he looked up. “There’s no way Ester wrote this clumsy stuff.”

  “She didn’t,” Helen said. “But don’t sound so indignant. Read it all, Aaron. It improves as it goes.”

  May 26, 1691

  An Apologie for That Denied the Fyre

  A thief I never once have been

  In all the days I e’er have seen

  Yet from the flames I have purloin’d

  That given by she to whom I’m join’d

  One mayde I’ve loved and one alone

  To she I’m wed and to she alone

  She’s fathomed my heart all my days

  I’ve trembled e’er before her gaze

  Though worship I with holy love

  He who set the cherubim above

  Still with sacred joy I call her wife

  Who lent to me renewed life

  I’ve made no impress on her heart

  Which loves none yet loved me from my start

  If read you this and think me horn’d

  I say my heart has not been scorned

  And though she fathomed not my desire

  She blessed it with her spirit’s fire

  And so I bless hers ever.

  Now each one of her pained breaths

  Does hasten the hour of her death

  Yet whilst that mayd lyes on her bed

  Her illness heavy and her dread

  In one thing does she rest content

  For she her husband has sent

  To set these pages to the pyre

  And damn her secret to the fyre

  I ne’er will her thoughts divine

  Her understanding passes mine

  It pains my soul to disobey

  To deny her aught is my dismay

  Her merest shadow I adore

  Yet this I shall not do.

  She bore no child, did not her duty

  Kept house for none, tended not her beauty

  Yet I her very soul do cherish

  And will not suffer her word to perish

  Let others mock my love for she

  That gave not of her heart to me

  For love be not a jeweler’s pans

  Gems’ worth is oft misread by man

  Now Death to that same mayde draws near

  And in her eyes uncustom’d fear

  Her soul’s accounting now she does attend

  Yet I, wretch, refuse to so embrace her end

  For her to linger I do plead

  For God to spare her! Physick bleed!

  Yet even as death’s tread does tremble the path

  And she, content, believes these pages ash

  She jealous guards with life’s last sparks

  The trace of treasured hands’ marks

  And for her pleasure does secretly preserve

  Some letters to comfort as she does deserve

  When sleep eludes and falters health

  Her rest be eased by her inked wealth

  Which she still reads and to them doth still reply

  With quill and ink her sex she yet defies.

  Though I fear she’ll burn her treasures at the last

  Till Death call her she will yet hold them fast

  And through habits long of secrecy

  She hydes this work from even I

  And thinks I do not see.

  Dare not condemn her, you who read

  This trail of these, her fiercest deeds

  And should you she past mercy deem

  Her every thought a heresy seem

  Recall she saved this poor wretch

  From life of blackest dreams.

  But seal I now these words. I’ve overstay’d

  And dry my eyes, for weeping’s debt’s past paid

  I would she’d know that by her side I stay’d

  As I hold fast to her, my only mayde

  And set her harvest ’neath ever-rising stair

  And keep her spirit safe from all life’s care

  For never in her life could it exult

  Redeemed at last from all the world’s tumult

  As did mine on that morn my Blessed Love

  Arrayed the wise-eyed cherubim above.

  At the bottom of the final page, Helen had copied the writer’s signature in wide, loose letters: Alvaro HaLevy.

  Aaron lowered the pages. “She—”

  A high, glad laugh escaped Helen. She almost sang the words. “She married him.”

  “I thought he . . .”

  “Apparently he didn’t. Apparently he made it home to England. And they lived a long life together, they did.”

  The Richmond traffic furled around the curb where they stood. He reread the ungainly lines, the signature. The answer had been awaiting all along. He’d been outsmarted by a three-hundred-year-old woman and her homosexual husband. “I don’t understand half of what he says here.” His voice was ranging wide with incredulity and he didn’t care. “I don’t get the last bit at all. But I get enough.”

  The foolish wonder on her face mirrored his. He was certain her voice quaked as she said, “I’m glad for them.”

  A strange gladness ballooned in him. He’d never in his life felt this way: as though the safe landing of another human being could substitute for his own. “Do you think the other papers he refers to are still in the house?”

  “If they are, they’re going to be upstairs. Did you reach Bridgette to tell her we’re coming?”

  Aaron hesitated. “I need to tell you something,” he said.

  She looked at him. “No,” she said. “You don’t.” She let out a slow breath. “I’m not blind, you know. Though I do wonder about your judgment. Let me manage her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I think that would be best. Do you want me to stay away?”

  She snorted. “Are you mad? This is yours too, Aaron Levy.”

  The new grass was manicured, the re-graveled path leading visitors past a small tasteful plaque on one of the stone gateposts: Prospect House, the Eastons had named it. He’d missed that in the dusk on his last visit here. He had to admit, the Eastons were doing well by the place. He paused to take in the de-grimed windows, the newly cleaned stonework.

  The front door was propped open. Inside, a pretty but painfully thin girl sat behind a small table, beyond which a few visitors drifted between the entryway’s brightly colored canvases.

  “They’ll be back shortly,” the girl was saying to Helen when Aaron entered.

  “Do you know when?” pressed Helen, leaning on her cane.

  The girl’s smooth brow furrowed, the clash between her natural politeness and the need for discretion clearly painful for her. “Do you have an appointment?” she said.

  “No,” said Helen, “but we’ve worked together before.”

  “I see,” said the girl, looking from Helen to Aaron, and back to Helen’s cane. “Would you like to see the gallery while you wait? I can set up a chair for you wherever you like.”

  “We’ll wait outside, thank you.”

  He trailed Helen out of the vestibule, resisting the urge to suggest to her that they go upstairs to begin exploration without the Eastons’ permission.

  Outside, by the pebbled path, there was a low stone bench beneath a tidily pruned tree. He waited for Helen to sit first, her cane wobbling as she lowered her weight.

  They watched the street, where a single car was parked. Nothing moved. After several minu
tes, a second car trundled by. The street returned to silence.

  “What?” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what’s this?” she waved her hand, a gesture encompassing his slouched posture.

  Nearby, a pigeon promenaded slowly across the lawn. It reached the edge of the grass, then flapped away abruptly.

  “So no,” he said, “I don’t have a girlfriend. But I do have a problem.” He rubbed his hand hard at the top of his head, as if doing so might judder something loose. “Or maybe it’s not a problem. It depends what you think of babies.” He puffed his cheeks, then blew out air. “Impending babies.”

  “Where?” she said.

  He smirked at the dark pub barely visible across the street. “The usual place where they grow.”

  She waited.

  “Israel,” he said.

  She let out a sound like some inner strut collapsing.

  They watched the empty lawn.

  “Go. You can’t sort this out from here.”

  “She doesn’t want me.”

  “Do you want her?”

  “I don’t know. I mean—maybe I do, but I’ve never spent even a full day with her. And honestly, I’m not sure a kid would want”—he gave a short laugh—“this.” His gesture, following the same path as Helen’s, traced his posture head to toe.

  The pub across the street was opening. The proprietor unlocked the door, flipped the sign.

  “Don’t”—she bit her lip and held it. “Don’t turn your back just because it terrifies you.”

  A long string of dim yellow lights flickered on behind the pub’s windows. The windows to one side blossomed suddenly with steam, as though some unseen kitchen door had swung briefly open.

  “I don’t think I’m strong enough,” Aaron said.

  Slowly the steam faded from the pub’s windows.

  Helen was staring across the street as well. She said, “How do you think people get strong?”

  A small silver car pulled up. Ian and Bridgette Easton got out—Ian first, with his blond hair and lightly lined, cheerful face, then Bridgette. A picture out of a magazine. Helen had risen and was making her way up the path when Ian saw her. His surprise turned quickly to an expression of dutiful solemnity—an overgrown schoolboy still endeavoring to prove himself worthy of a passing grade. At the sight of Helen, Bridgette’s posture tightened. She turned instinctively to find Aaron, registered his presence, then let her gaze pass him over as though he were part of the bench he sat on.