“The cops are on their way over,” the man called.
Con reached the window and looked up at the man, like an actress playing a dog or cat. She had an impulse to say “Woof.” Then, as the man watched, she moved her hands up the short walls at the side of the tracks, so as to get upright again. Jerry was crawling behind her. He hadn’t needed to hold on after all. “My husband is crazy,” she heard herself say. “I’m sorry. He’s a historian.”
“You’re not allowed to be out there,” the man said.
She said, “Of course not. It’s not safe. He’s nuts, and now he’s hurt. Can we come through your apartment to get down? He can’t get down the way we came up.”
“I don’t know if I can let you do that,” the man said. “I don’t know anything about you.”
“I live on Sterling Place,” said Con. She almost said that Jerry lived in Philadelphia, but remembered she had called him her husband. “We live on Sterling Place. Prospect Heights?”
The man considered. “My brother lives near there,” he said, as if that proved something. “Wait.” He closed the window.
“I don’t know if I can make it down,” Jerry said. “This ankle is killing me.”
“He’ll be back,” said Con. The man returned and opened the window again. Con retrieved her bag and brushed off her coat as best she could, then made her way over the sill. “I’m sorry to be so dirty,” she said. When she got inside, the man was standing to the side—not blocking her path but leaning against his stove—holding a knife pointed at her. She turned, raising her hand, to tell Jerry to stay outside. Maybe he could scream. Maybe the cops had really been called, and would arrest but also protect them.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said the man. “I have to be sure. You can’t be too careful.”
Con stood still, studying him, then understood. “You think we’re going to hurt you?” she said.
“I let you into my home,” said the man.
This was true. “It’s all right,” she said to Jerry, who climbed onto the sill and sat there for a moment. He couldn’t put weight on the injured ankle and had to try several times before, with a cry, he ended up on his hands and knees on the man’s kitchen floor. Now Con supported him as he stood and leaned against her. With the cherrywood man remaining where he was—apparently protecting his stove—they moved side by side, leaning together, across the kitchen, through a sparsely furnished, extremely clean living room, and out into the corridor. There was no elevator, and it took them a few moments to figure out how to get down the stairs. Finally, Jerry hopped, and Con waited below to steady him if he started to tumble. At last they reached the downstairs lobby, crossed it, and, leaning together, made their way outside, stared at by two middle-school kids and a woman with a stroller. There was no sign of any cops. “Where’s the subway?” said Jerry. “We’ll never get a cab around here.”
Con wanted to try, but first insisted they walk a block away from Marcus Ogilvy’s abandoned, cathedral-like structure, soaring in an abbreviated way between apartment houses. She didn’t want to see any cops, just in case. And then they kept going. She kept an eye open for a cab but never saw one. It took most of a cold hour to reach the subway station and then they couldn’t quite find it. The Long Island Rail Road, running down Atlantic Avenue, was between them and the station. At last a young woman came along, and in answer to Con’s question said, “Oh, the mystery way” and pointed out an underpass that would take them through the railway station and upstairs on the other side of it. They had to climb down many stairs, then up many more. But beyond the railroad, in the fading afternoon light, was the Broadway Junction Station, the proposed terminus of the Brooklyn Circle. The el could be reached with an escalator.
If Marcus Ogilvy had had his wish, they could have traveled back to Con’s apartment much more quickly. Maybe there was something else they could have done, even as things were, but she was too tired to figure it out. They went all the way into Manhattan and back. Jerry’s ankle started to swell. Con remembered that she’d had almost no sleep the night before, and almost no lunch. She fell asleep leaning against the window of one of the trains, and when they got off the last train, Jerry with his bad ankle supported her. It was dark out. As they made their way slowly up the street and along the last block to Con’s apartment house, she remembered Marlene, arriving at 5:33 at LaGuardia. It was ten after five. She was starving. She was dirty. Marlene had no cell phone. Still in the street, Con dialed Joanna’s cell phone with her own. “I don’t even know what I want you to do,” she began.
“Think what it is,” Joanna said. “I’ll do it.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Barney’s.”
“You’ve been there all day?”
“No—I was home for an hour or so,” said Joanna.
“Your dad has a sprained ankle,” Con began. Should she explain her day to Joanna now, or later, or never? “We’re just getting home, and Marlene’s arriving in twenty minutes.” Joanna said she’d call the airline and have Marlene paged. “She can take a taxi,” she said. “She doesn’t need you to meet her. I’ll ask them to tell her to take a taxi.”
“Can she really do that?”
“Of course. Which airline?”
Con would even have a little time. She could change her clothes. She could eat something. She could get Jerry off her shoulder and put him to bed somewhere. They made their way, he hopping, up the three steps to her front door, then up the difficult marble step into the lobby, then into the elevator and down the corridor into the apartment. She noticed something odd as she passed the open kitchen doorway, but deposited Jerry on a chair in her study before she went back to see. Her mother’s wooden box was not where it had been; it was on the counter instead of the table. And it was open. Next to it was a bent paper clip. Joanna had opened it. Con glanced at the tangle of necklaces and random objects, then gathered up the jewelry box and her old black nylon purse, brought them into her bedroom, and stuffed them into her bottom drawer. Then she stripped off her clothes, put on a bathrobe, returned to the kitchen, and ate six crackers. Then she went into the bathroom and filled the tub with hot water.
Even though her mother had died while Con was staying in her apartment, it didn’t mean she’d be trapped there forever. Joanna had the key to their house, but it was too late to go there now, on Saturday evening. If Con had been alone, she thought she might have just taken up her mother’s life where Gert had left it, used up the soup and bought more. Joanna wouldn’t let her do that. Con made up a bed for her daughter on the sofa, where she herself used to sleep, though she was tempted to offer Joanna the bed, which seemed to close around Con each time she got into it. The loss of her purse was just the first sign of Gert’s death, a symptom.
After she put sheets on the sofa, she got into her pajamas and returned to the living room to turn out lights. Joanna was in bed, maybe asleep.
Just then the phone rang. Con reached for the nearest phone—the one in the kitchen. She was sure it would be Jerry, but the caller was Sarah.
“You’re in the office?” Con said, trying to keep her voice low. “It’s Saturday night. It’s midnight.”
“No, I’m not in the office,” Sarah said. “Constance, why haven’t you called me?”
“I know,” said Con. “I’ve been crazy. My mother died.”
“Your mother died? I thought she was visiting her sister.”
“Her friend. She died there.” There was a long pause, and she could hear the drag of breath on a cigarette. Sarah smoked only when she was upset.
“Then didn’t you have all the more reason to call me?” Sarah said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your mother. But Constance. I stopped by the office to pick something up today, and while I was there, Mabel Turner came in. I know she lost the hearing, and I know the appeal probably won’t win, but we have to file it. We have to keep that house going. It’s a principle we need to establish, aside from everything else. When did your mother die?”
Con wondered if Sarah believed that her mother was dead. “During the night. Thursday night. Her friend called me yesterday morning. Then Mabel called me. She’s giving up the house. It was never working, Sarah. The whole idea—well, it was an idea. Just an idea. Not practical.”
Con wished she had taken this call in the bedroom. Now Joanna was sitting up on the sofa, looking at her.
“This house has worked for two years,” Sarah said. “It’s one of the best there are, and it’s legal under the disability laws. If we lose the appeal, we might be able to go to federal court. Look, I know Mabel called you. And we’re supposed to protect the house, whether it’s perfect or not. We have until Monday to file an appeal, and I’m filing it. I’m taking you off this case.”
“I think Mabel never intended to stay,” Con said.
“Mabel intended to stay, and Mabel is staying. And if she didn’t, someone else would run the house. But it doesn’t sound as if you gave her much encouragement.”
“I’d just found out about my mother.”
“I’m sorry, Con. I really am sorry. I lost my mother, and I know how it feels. But all you had to do was call me. All you had to do was tell her to call me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Con.
“I’m sorry too,” Sarah said. “Constance, I don’t see how you and I can keep working together. You simply gave up. You encouraged the client to give up. I don’t think there’s any excuse for that, and I’m sorry to say this at such at time. Well, let’s talk next week. Let’s both calm down and talk next week. Take it easy.” Sarah hung up.
“Who was that?” said Joanna, as Con put down the phone.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Con said, and went to bed. How quickly could she forget everything about this week—this entire week?
As soon as she’d washed the grime of the Brooklyn Circle off her body, Con called the airport to track down Marlene. The plane had landed; the message had been given to Ms. Silverman. Con poured some scotch, then ordered sushi to be delivered, considering that Marlene would like the idea of something exotic, whether she liked the way it tasted or not.
Glass in hand, Con went into the living room, where Jerry lay on the sofa with an ice pack. As he turned his head and she began to speak her hands seemed to become lighter, harder to control, so she had to put her drink down on a bookcase. She wanted to touch him, but didn’t. Her hands—not the rest of her—wanted to touch him. Her hands had acquired a layer of softer but more highly charged air than that in the rest of the atmosphere; they had their own opinion. She pressed them to her sides. “You need more ice?” she said. “Or scotch?”
“A glass of water would be good. Thanks. The ice is still okay.” As Con went for the water, her hands still felt lighter and larger than usual, pleasanter than the gray cold hands she’d carried for years. Jerry’s eyes, when she handed him the water, gleamed as if he knew. It was infuriating, really. She hadn’t forgotten his faults. He looked back at the television screen. Six Americans had died that day in a helicopter crash in Iraq. Soon it would be four hundred Americans dead, many more Iraqis. Con returned to the kitchen and drank, looking at her hands. Then she looked around for something to do. There had to be dozens of tasks, but she couldn’t think of any. She went down to the street and looked up and down for taxis.
Joanna came home. To Con’s relief, she didn’t ask just how her father had injured his ankle. Her shedding green sculptures were still everywhere, and nobody had vacuumed around them. Con’s eye fell on one in her study: grayish and large, it was made of ungainly—but pleasing—twisted braids. It established itself. Maybe she’d buy it when Joanna finally left. What would Joanna charge her mother? “How’s Barney?” she said. “Acting fresh?”
“Same as ever.” Joanna sat down at Con’s computer and began typing. “Look, Barney’s a sexy guy. He has sex on his mind—sex and art. Sometimes it’s hard to know just where one ends and the other begins.”
Con lingered in the doorway. “So he wants to make sculptures out of his interns?”
“Something like that,” Joanna said. “What can I do? I’ve never learned so much in my life. The tricks he shows me with metal—I never did anything like this in school. And the guy’s sense of shape is incredible.”
“You’re sleeping in here tonight, remember?” Con said. “On the inflatable mattress.”
“Should I get my stuff now,” said Joanna, “or can I answer my e-mails?”
“No hurry.” The sushi arrived. Con had ordered many maki rolls. Marlene didn’t come, and Con called the airport again—hungry, tense, distracted by Jerry’s ordinarily unmomentous presence. She was on her way from kitchen to bedroom, when she happened to glance at the apartment door as it opened on its own. Marlene was quite late, but here she was, walking in without ringing and somehow without the look of someone arriving. She carried nothing but a black tote bag with a map of the London underground, which swung from her shoulder. Her glasses were lopsided on her strong face, and the reflection on them from an overhead light fixture made her look like a Cubist painting.
She didn’t seem to know where she was, despite the confident step. Con peered into Marlene’s face and saw the moment at which Marlene recognized her—saw her intelligent, greedy pleasure. Con stepped forward, shy, and hugged her friend. She reached up to run her hand over Marlene’s well-shaped head, as she might with a child, though even in age Marlene looked formidable, with her white hair waving a little around her ears, emphasizing her big, haughty nose. The hair felt not quite clean. Now the tote bag, which looked heavy, slid to the floor, and Marlene grasped Con’s shoulders. “My daughter!” she said, in a familiar, slightly mocking falsetto; the tone mocked the supposed daughter and somehow confessed sincerity at the same time, because it was self-mocking as well. The eyes were dark and annoyed. She straightened her glasses. “The cabbie has my bag,” she said. Now her voice was deep. “He took all my money, the bastard, after driving me all over the city.”
“You’ve been driving around all this time?” said Con.
“Oh, I waited for a while at the airport. I thought maybe you’d show up after all.”
“I’m sorry,” said Con. “I’ll get your bag.”
“Apparently you don’t bother to lock your doors, here in the country,” Marlene said. Her perfume, which suggested air and wind, had never changed over all these years. “Downstairs,” Marlene continued, “as I was about to ring, somebody came along. I guess I don’t look like a terrorist.”
“Sit down,” said Con. Con led Marlene into the kitchen and went downstairs. She retrieved a black wheeled overnight bag from the cab and brought it to the elevator, enjoying the brief, tired, relieved solitude, and even the elevator’s familiar creakiness, in which she took the kind of pleasure a real country dweller—who could legitimately keep doors unlocked—might take in the ruts on his untraveled road.
Marlene was not in the kitchen but in the study. There, a half-finished sculpture lay on the floor. Balls of twine surrounded a central solid shape; but Marlene was considering something large and dark red on the table. “Is this an ashtray?” she said, picking it up. She had always been slim, with long, narrow hands. (“I should have been a pianist,” she’d said in Con’s girlhood; the tone suggested that playing the piano was a slightly hilarious concept. At other times she said, “I should have been a poker player” or “a gun runner” because she could lie without getting caught.) Con had no ashtrays. She’d forgotten that Marlene smoked. Surely she didn’t still smoke? What did doctors say to women in their eighties who smoked? “No,” she said.
“Where did you get that?” said Marlene.
“Do you need to smoke in here?” said Con.
“No. Maybe one. That ashtray was mine.”
“It was my mother’s,” said Con.
“She liked it, so she took it,” Marlene said.
“If you have to smoke, I’ll give you something,” Con said. “I don’t use it as an ashtray.” As a child
, she remembered, she had run her hand around and around it. It would be dirty with ashes, and her mother would tell her to stop. Her mother stopped smoking and it remained an ashtray, and then her mother stopped letting friends smoke in her apartment, and the dish became a candy dish, or just a pretty object. “Do you like sushi?” she said.
“Raw fish?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Is that what we’re having? As a matter of fact, I had a snack at the airport.”
Con got her into the kitchen, which was too small for so many people. She set the table. “Jerry’s here,” she said.
“Your first husband?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s he doing here?” Marlene tapped on the table. Obviously she wanted to smoke.
“He comes to New York on business these days,” said Con. “He stays here sometimes.” She didn’t want to talk about the afternoon, about Marcus Ogilvy’s secret that was not a secret—but was, since nobody knew about it but Con and Jerry. She had been too lenient with Jerry.
“Just don’t let him get too close,” said Marlene presciently, as Jerry hobbled into the kitchen, apologizing for not coming to say hello right away, shaking hands, glad to see Marlene, whom he’d known only slightly when he and Con had been married. Con called Joanna. “I’ve got Joanna, too,” she said.
“I thought we might be alone,” said Marlene.
By the time they ate, it was nearly ten, and Con was glad; there need not be an evening. Marlene ate maki rolls matter-of-factly with her long fingers, not bothering with chopsticks, soy sauce, or wasabi. The four of them ate everything Con had ordered. As soon as the food was gone, Marlene produced a cigarette from her pocket and lit it. Joanna left the room, and Con went to make up a bed for Jerry on the sofa. If they’d been alone, she’d have invited him back to her bed. She noted that Joanna had brought an armload of bedding into the study.
Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn Page 19