After the Fire (29 page)

“No? And so who reduced it, if not my friend?”

“Nobody. You pay the balance every month.”

“Well,” he said. “Well.”

“I was stupid and childish not to have guessed that you were doing it.”

“For a childish woman, you aren't doing too badly.”

Now his hand was stroking hers. His nails were immaculate, and she liked that; too many men were careless about their black-rimmed nails. His wristwatch was a sculptured gold band, like a bracelet; tiny diamonds were embedded in his gold cuff links, and she did not like that. But the second glass of wine was beginning to buzz in her head, and what difference did it make, anyway?

“I wanted you to have a decent place for the kids, Hy. And for yourself, too. You're a lovely woman. The women I meet are all the same, interchangeable, you know what I mean? They look the same and they talk
the same, mostly nonsense. You're a bookworm, and still you're never boring. I've never felt this way about anybody. You're probably too good for me to get any idea about you. I guess I've told you this before. If I haven't, I meant to.”

Hyacinth switched the subject. “You're too kind to me, Arnie. As soon as I finish up and get a job, I'm going to pay you back for everything.”

“Don't be a fool. Do you think I'd accept it? Drink the wine. It's a hundred and fifty dollars a bottle, for God's sake—don't waste it. And caviar—eat it up! I won't even tell you what that costs.”

“He sprinkles money,”
Gerald had said.
“You'd think it was water. Well, he's got no wife, no children, no house—that makes a difference.”

“When we're through here, I want you to come upstairs a minute, Hy. I want to show you something.”

“Not your etchings?”

She was not sure whether her remark was witty or merely stupid. But at any rate, he laughed and explained that, no, the things were only some toys he had bought for the kids and hadn't wanted to entrust to their care on the plane.

Upstairs in his room, he displayed a fancy, expensive calculator for Jerry and a marvelous doll in riding clothes, complete from helmet to jodhpurs, for Emma. When these had been wholeheartedly admired, he brought out a small velvet box.

On seeing it, Hyacinth felt a shock. Could he possibly have in his head what Francine always swore he
had? But no. It was only—although
only
was hardly the right word—a very fine gold chain holding a pendant made of two cherubs, female and male, with large diamond eyes.

“Turn around. Let me put it on for you,” he commanded.

In the mirror that hung between the windows, she beheld herself. Her cheeks were flushed. Her dark hair gleamed, her eyes gleamed, and the pendant gleamed on the white skin above her cleavage.

“Oh, Arnie,” she cried, “it's lovely! Lovely. But—”

“But I shouldn't have done it,” he mocked. “And why shouldn't I, please?”

Because,
she wanted to say, and did not say,
I am already too obligated to you, and I don't want to be.

“You do too much,” she murmured. “It gets harder to find words to thank you.”

“You can at least give me a kiss.”

Obligingly, she moved toward his cheek, but he, moving faster, pulled her to himself and found her mouth instead. Her first impulse was to resist, but as he increased the pressure, her strength rushed away, and they stood there, firmly attached from mouth to hip. Now her will rushed away, and thoughts raced through her agitated mind: It's the wine, I'm weak, it's been two years since I've felt anything.

His fingers were undoing the buttons of her blouse, which opened in front. His skin was fragrant with pine, or spices, or sweet hay. He was strong. Her thoughts kept repeating: It's been so long. How good not to resist, to float. Close your eyes. Let him….

They were in a suite, and when she opened her eyes, she saw past a door that was ajar. She saw a bed already turned down for the night; it was white and crisp. There he would take off her clothes and lay her down—

Oh, no! What are you doing, Hyacinth? You wanted
somebody,
but not just
anybody
. You don't want
this
man. You'll be sorry five minutes afterward if you do this. Oh, no!

“What is it?” Arnie cried.

She was so ashamed! And he would be terribly angry. He would think she was a common tease, one of those despicable women who lead a man on and then deny him.

“I can't. Arnie, I can't,” she whispered. “Please don't be angry at me.”

Like hers, his face was flushed. He had been ready, and she had hurt him, had hurt this very decent, kindly man.

“I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry. It isn't you, Arnie, it's just that suddenly I got scared. I don't understand myself. I guess I'm just not ready yet.”

Absurdly, they were still standing there, only inches apart. For a moment, neither spoke. Arnie's eyes had narrowed, his face hardened.

“What do you think you're doing?” he began, and stopped. “No. You didn't start it. I did. I'm sorry, too. Button your blouse.” And he turned away, for her breast was exposed. And he repeated quietly now, “It's not your fault. I started it.”

Some women would say that a night in bed was little enough to give him for all the good he had already done
her. But she was just not one of those women, not able to do it.

He must have read the doubt and regret on her face, because he tried to comfort her. “You have no trust left. That's what it is. I understand.”

“Yes, you do understand, and without knowing half of it.”

Her knees were so weak that she had to sit down. She trembled, and he saw that. He saw everything.

“Am I unstable?” she whispered.

He came to sit next to her. “What? Unstable?” he asked.

“Gerald thinks I am. Am I?”

“Well, if you ever were, Hy, you sure as hell aren't now.”

It was wild, it was utterly reckless and senseless, this need that all of a sudden possessed her. It was jumping off a cliff into midstream, throwing her life away. But she did it now. She did the unthinkable.

“I
was
in the office that night. I've already told you that Gerald thinks I did it. He isn't altogether wrong. I was in the office that night, and I lied to you before. I guess I didn't know you well enough to trust you with my life.”

And she continued, “I was smoking. You remember that I was almost addicted then? Haven't you noticed that now I never touch a cigarette? I made a vow: Oh God, never again.”

“Jesus, I'm sick!” Arnie said, and he looked it, sick and aghast.

“I went crazy, you see. I trashed everything and
walked up and down, smoking one cigarette after the other. That's how the fire started. It was all on account of that girl, and now here I am!” she cried. “Here I am. That's the reason he has my children. That's what it's all about. I had to sign them away, don't you see? Or else, or else—”

“I do see,” he said gently. “I do.”

“Even now I'm not out of the woods. And I never, never will be. I shall never have my children. I shall never forget the innocent man who died because of me.”

When he put his arm around her, she laid her head on his shoulder; no passion now, no desire was in the contact this time, only the will on his part to give some comfort, and on her part the need to receive whatever he could give.

“It was an accident, Arnie, I swear it was. The curtains must have caught fire, and so it spread. Do
you
believe I did it on purpose? Tell me honestly, do you?”

“Knowing you, I'll say absolutely not. I don't see why he should make such a charge and be so upset, anyway. It wasn't even his building. I owned it.”

“He was tired of me,” she said simply, “and that gave him an excuse. Now he has all the pleasure of his children without the nuisance of me.”

“You, a nuisance?”

“It happens all the time.”

“It wouldn't happen to me if you would—I don't know whether you ever would consider—no, now's not the moment.”

Suddenly, a terrible fear surged through Hyacinth's blood and chilled her very bones. What had she done?
Clutching his arms, she stared into his face, crying wildly, “Arnie! You would never let anything of this slip, would you? Not by accident? I trust you, Arnie! It's my life! My children's lives, too, if the worst should happen to me. I haven't even told Francine. I'm afraid she would get so enraged one day that she would go to Gerald, and that would be the end of me. She despises him.”

“Hy, put it out of your mind. I've already forgotten it. I never heard it. You never told me anything.”

Perhaps she had been naïve. Naïveté was her major flaw, Francine said, and Gerald had said it often enough, too. Yet sometimes in this life, you have to trust somebody.

“I trust you, Arnie,” she repeated.

He stood up. “I'm going to get a taxi and take you home.” He kissed each cheek. “I'm here for you, Hy, and I'll wait for you. I won't rush you right now. But think it over.”

F
or some months, on weekends and in the evenings after classes, Hyacinth had been sewing, saving her work and showing it to nobody. It had become her habit to listen to music while she worked. I've gone through ten operas, she calculated, and enough clothes to make a small collection.

The upholstery-fabric skirt still hung in a closet. Out of the same cobalt-and-ruby cloth, she had made a jacket to be worn with a finely pleated chiffon skirt, in either of those two colors. These also hung in the closet. The apple green dress that she had made for Francine, who had worn it on her trip to Mexico and loved it, had now been duplicated in green satin of the finest quality and was naturally, she thought, twice as successful. The same closet held a plain black dress with a modified seventeenth-century ruff of superb white lace, a suit of gray menswear woolen piped in scarlet, a flowered linen suit, various knee-length pants, and blouses.

One day she stood looking at them all and wondered what they were for other than to give pleasure to her while she created them. She had not the least desire to wear them. The clothes she already owned were more than adequate for her lifestyle: classes, the weekend afternoons with a few of the women she had befriended in the apartment building, along with Francine's occasional visit to New York. Francine's social life was far busier than was her daughter's.

When she went to Florida, it was never for more than two days at a time. The children came north, but also briefly. Arnie, whenever he came to the city, took her out to dinner, but never above the ground floor of his hotel….

It was as if that evening had not even occurred. A complicated set of emotions was hers: gratitude and a deep affection. What his feelings after her rejection of him might be, she could only guess. Obviously, he wanted to see her; otherwise, why would he come to her? Surely he had other women who gave him what she would not give him. Perhaps it was simply a case of being sorry for her, more especially so now that he knew the whole story.

As she stood ruminating about her life and absently gazing at her work, she decided one day that it really would make sense to try selling it. If it should turn out not to make sense, nothing would have been lost. So before fifteen minutes went by, she had swept the closet's contents into a large flat box and gone downstairs to call a taxi. Not ten minutes later, she arrived at one of the city's most fashionable Madison Avenue shops, there to exhibit her work to the manager.

Is it possible, she asked herself as she watched him examine the contents of the box, that he is accustomed to such eccentric behavior as mine? For now, on second or third thought, she was shocked by what she was doing and would gladly have run out of the place if that would not have been even more eccentric behavior.

Apparently, this rather elegant gentleman was not shocked. On the contrary, he was even showing some interest. Silent minutes passed. Tissue paper rustled.

“I like the menswear suit piped in red with a lace blouse beneath it,” he told her, smiling a little.

One by one, he emptied the box and examined each article slowly, then repacked them all with care.

“Well, I don't know,” he said, looking Hyacinth up and down.

She looked back, thinking, he doesn't know how to get rid of me nicely.

“Well, I don't know. Your work is interesting. You didn't expect a positive answer just like that, did you?”

Hyacinth wanted to say, sir, I didn't expect a positive answer at all; do I look like such a fool? Yes, I suppose I do, or I wouldn't have come here in the first place. Look at the names on the floors below: every big wheel from Milan, Paris, and New York is there. And she herself shook her head.

“How about writing your name here and your phone number, and maybe a little bit about yourself? Give us some time to think. You'll hear from me, one way or the other.”

In a dreamlike state, not sure whether she was fooling herself or whether the gentleman was fooling her,
Hyacinth picked up her box and took a taxi back home.

When, not very many days later, the telephone rang and she heard an unfamiliar voice, she thought at once that it must be that gentleman's secretary calling to tell her that Mr. So-and-So regrets, that although he appreciates your coming to see him, etc., etc.

Instead, it was the secretary to a very, very famous name in fashion: Lina Libretti. What Chanel had been in Paris forty years ago, Libretti was today in New York— or if not quite a Chanel, she was—well, a Libretti. It seemed she had been told about the clothes that Hyacinth had displayed at that fine Madison Avenue shop. And would Hyacinth be interested in bringing them to the office tomorrow or the next day?

Completely overwhelmed, Hyacinth replaced the receiver. Of course she knew Lina Libretti, and not only because everyone else did, but also because on several occasions Ms. Libretti had come to speak at the Institute. She was a dark little dynamo of a woman, still with a strong European accent. So it was that on the following afternoon, Hyacinth set off for Seventh Avenue with the flat box under her arm again, and in her heart a mixture of fantastic hope along with some very realistic, cold-water common sense.