Bereavements (26 page)

The answer was probably as curious and complex as she had expected, or was entitled to, or deserved. After the longest of pauses and with his eyes looking carefully at each flake of snow as it pelted against the window and melted to a tear:

“I think because . . . I wanted this to happen. If it could.”

This? It meant nothing, nothing!

“What, Angel,
what
to happen. What is ‘this?’”

“Well—I think I wanted you to come lookin’ for me.”

She glanced at Dori, then her eyes returned quickly to the boy.

“You needed
proof?
. . . that much proof . . . of my—interest and concern, of my . . .” (could she say love?) “ . . . my deepest, my deepest affection?”

Now he was embarrassed. “Well—I don’t know about that. All I mean, I guess, is that I jus’ . . . wanted you to fine me.”

Mrs. Evans pushed herself back in her seat to get a longer, more enveloping view.

“
Find
you!
Where?
In these streets where I have looked for you day after day, week after week, up and down, creeping along like a hearse! Poor Dori! See him! He is sick to death of me and my wandering. ‘Turn right; turn left; go past his school, his home, now the playground, now the church; slowly now . . . ’
Find
you!”

She was breathless. “Aren’t you
found?! Here
you are—beside me!”

Angel smiled faintly; then his lips compressed as he nodded jerkily, his tic returning. He glanced idly at Dori before turning to the window to examine a snowflake, the largest, the most perfect, so far, to hit the glass.

“Look!” he said, but no one had time before the crystal vanished.

That evening, Mrs. Evans looked up the word “found” in her dictionary and, of course, found:

found v. pt. and pp. of find.

And under find she found:

find v. found, finding—v.t. 1. to come upon by chance; meet with; 2. to learn, attain or obtain by search or effort; 3. to discover or recover (something lost); 4. to gain or regain use of;
to find one’s tongue;
5. to succeed in attaining, gain by effort:
find safety in flight, to find occasion for pity;
6. to ascertain by study,
to find the sum of several numbers;
7. to discover by experience, or to perceive:
to find something to be true;

and finally:

8. to provide or furnish, I
will find what you require.

Unable to write, Bruno managed to read, or rather, reread, since he turned to the classics, those books—
Pride and Prejudice, Silas Marner
—he had read growing up. They now eased his troubled heart like the well-meaning if not entirely helpful solace of old friends.

He had called Mrs. Evans several more times, discreetly separating each by a day or two, but always encountered the intractable Rose and had to bang his bruised head against the stone wall of her indifferent voice, her cruel manner, of necessity accepting her word (which he doubted, of course) that “Madam isn’t at home.”

Did a servant dare to take upon herself the decision as to whom her employer did or did not speak? Yes or no, the wall remained when he called—he’d lost count, the tenth or twelfth time. The next time, when he was ready to be brash, insulting, demanding—a man answered, astonishing him.

It was Dori, in Rose’s temporary absence, but to Bruno it was, first, a houseboy (whom he didn’t know Mrs. Evans employed), then a butler, then a family friend. But finally, because, like the imaginary enemies of paranoia who grow from one to two to many to everyone, the obsession gathering the increasing straws of its own logic and raison d’etre to form the scarecrow of a centered, functioning self—the voice that informed him, nicely enough, that “Madam cannot answer the phone at the moment” (no reason given) but “would the gentleman care to leave his name?” was the voice of “one of the boys” who had answered her ad, and one of whom, by now, she had grown so fond of, he was able to take upon himself the responsibility and privilege of answering the phone.

Bruno couldn’t speak, made no reply, merely listened as the voice repeated: “Hello—? Hello—? Hello—?”

Forty minutes later, forgetting properly to dress for the cold, he was standing in the shadows of a building across the street, opposite the Evans home.

There, soon numbed by the icy weather, without scarf or coat or hat, merely a light shirt and sweater, he waited. There he watched.

Although Martin could enjoy the more (or most) expensive of New York City’s finest restaurants, wouldn’t you know that he preferred the theatre atmosphere of
The Russian Tea Room
and
Sardi’s ?

Mrs. Evans didn’t care
where
they dined, leaving the decision to him. But no matter where—to his annoyance and increasing distress—she was always passive, languid, stylized, postured, unreal; not at all interested in food, though she ordered, and ate virtually nothing of whatever was brought.

Worse: she reacted little if at all to his (delightful) conversation, his many
bon mots,
staring at him across a flickering candle with empty if not troubled eyes.

However, and this seemed a decided plus in his favor, she was always exquisitely groomed and gowned, and tastefully if not lavishly jeweled—which pleased him greatly because it attracted so many wondering and admiring eyes—even, if word got around who she was, a photographer or two.

Her hair was worn in a new style each time, so evidently she bothered with a hair-dresser, or perhaps Rose was the gifted expert.

He pointed out celebrities—actors or entertainers—when they appeared, and although she glanced at them, it was with neither recognition nor interest; they could all have been uniformed santitation men collecting the day’s refuse.

On most occasions, and this was also considered a plus or might soon be, she drank a good deal, becoming slightly more animated as the evening progressed, laughing a little at his wit or humor, actually listening or pretending to listen if he had a “wicked” anecdote to tell about this person or that sitting near them or at a table or two away.

When, for example, a prominent composer-conductor came into
The Russian Tea Room
one night, a man so celebrated that she herself recognized him, having seen him conduct many times at Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, Martin, leaning close, mentioned a well-known if long-dead actor’s name, whispering that “he” (the actor) had been found dead in “his” (the conductor’s) wife’s bed! He had a heart attack during you-know-what. So the police had to be called, of course. “After all—a death!” And his eyes sparkled.

Mrs. Evans’s eyes didn’t sparkle, but the corners of her mouth curved up a tiny bit. How wonderfully silly and amusing this young man really was!—and handsome besides: in his navy-blue—was it Brooks Brothers?—suit, soft, rolled white collar, and very sedate and proper blue-figured tie. How shiny his shoes! How immaculate and glossy (but not lacquered) his fingernails! How perfect his teeth! How easy and quick his smile! How beautiful his hair!—as carefully coiffeured, it seemed, as hers. Above all, how anxious, how determined he was to please, to give her pleasure, if pleasure in any way could be endured.

“
Dear
Martin!” she said.

And later: “Dear,
dear
Martin!”

Still—

To what avail, Martin wondered, the number of “dears”? How about “dear, dear,
dear
Martin?”—or even to the fourth and fifth powers. Or the seventh? Or the ninth?

Having spent all her “dear’s”—as many as she could spare, or apparently had with her—she again became as mysterious as the Sphinx, and quite as silent—a dull figure of speech, but somewhat apropos, because now she was drawing hieroglyphics on the tablecloth linen, pressing firmly into it with one end-prong of her silver fork.

But she
was
actually writing!—he could see—a word, or initials, unconsciously. Mildly curious, he leaned forward and read it upside-down.

Bruno was sent on an errand: a package of bound galleys to deliver to an author who lived on East 67th Street near the river.

Coming back, walking idly a few blocks before taking the crosstown bus, he discovered a tiny antique shop, and among many interesting things in its crowded window, he saw half a dozen old-fashioned straight-edge razors.