Mount Terminus (3 page)

Jacob? she said. Is it you? Is it really you?

That she knew his face without a moment's hesitation left him unable to speak.

My dear, dear, Jacob, she said. It's Rachel.

Yes, I know, he said. Of course, I know. How could I not?

And now, her eyes, too, filled with tears. They fell from the soft bulb of her chin and ran rivulets through the pitch, down the arm of the virgin mother, over the lines forming the newborn's head. He sat beside her and took her hand, and for a long time they remained there, silent, expressing their awe with searching looks, looking at each other with immense curiosity, imagining in their recollection of each other how they must have appeared in the intervening years. After a long while, she expressed her regret for not having said goodbye to him the day they departed the orphanage. She said how often she'd thought of Jacob, described in what ways she continued to feel his absence as if he were a phantom limb. She told him she had returned to the Asylum after she and Leah had settled into their new lives. She had hoped to find him there, but he had already moved on, and, she thought, perhaps he was angry with her for having been so selfish and unfeeling, angry enough to have irreversibly broken the bond they shared. That she sat beside him now, Jacob told her, was all that mattered. And they continued to study each other until she no longer saw the boy she once knew and began to apprehend what he had become. Touching the corners of his eyes with her charcoaled fingers, she said, Look at you. So young, yet so old. She could intuit how alone he had been. She could see in the lines that had begun to prematurely form on his face at what an unnatural rate he had grown into a man, and she promised him in that instant, We will never be apart again.

*   *   *

Every Saturday, they met at the bench set before Tiepolo's painting, and every Saturday, Jacob asked why Leah hadn't come to see him, and every Saturday, Rachel made excuses for her sister, until she could make no more. Leah, she confessed, hadn't visited him not because she didn't have the desire to see him, but because she was unaware she and Jacob had been reunited. Rachel, in short, had no way of telling her, as it had been some years since she had been estranged from her sister. This Jacob couldn't begin to comprehend. It was incomprehensible to Rachel as well, but it was the truth. Jacob asked how such a thing was possible. And Rachel described the ways in which their adopted mother, Alexandra Reuben, had deliberately and maliciously undermined Rachel and Leah's devotion to each other. From the moment they moved into their new home, Alexandra favored Rachel; she appealed to her better self; enticed her with gifts and rewards, with love and affection. When Rachel conducted herself well in company or performed well at school, when she met her potential, her mother praised her and held her up as exemplary. Leah, on the other hand, could do nothing to satisfy her. No matter how much effort Leah put into her music, her appearance, the manners with which she conducted herself, Alexandra voiced displeasure. Disheartening displeasure. No matter how well her sister played or sang at her recitals, Alexandra escorted her through the reception hall with her arm entwined in hers and in the most anodyne tones made apologies to her friends for her daughter's inferiority. If Leah expressed an opinion in company about a book she had enjoyed or about a fashion she found appealing, Alexandra twisted her words and revised her sentiments to make them sound foolish and uninformed. Once their adopted mother had successfully undermined Leah's confidence, she began to appeal to her baser instincts; she imparted to her dark secrets and gossip about the men and women who visited their home; and when she did so, she expressed, on the one hand, her disgust with the improprieties perpetrated by members of their closed circle, while, on the other hand, she whispered her tacit approval. About a young woman traveling unescorted by a man of standing, or about a mistress engaged in an affair with a married man, she might say: They should feel the blackest shame choke at them in the darkest hour of the night. Of course, she would say in the same breath, One must consider, how does a young woman not unlike yourself, Leah, rise above her lowly position?

It wasn't enough for Alexandra to merely encourage Leah to commit her own acts of transgression, she went so far as to manufacture them for her, by whispering, in the strictest confidence to her fellow matrons, lies about her own daughter's exploits with strange men. Rachel and Leah dismissed their mother's cruel and unscrupulous behavior as that of an unhappy woman too long alone and uncared for. They tried to take pity on her, but as time passed, as the sisters' obscurity fell into relief and became more and more a distant memory, Leah's resolve to deflect her mother's fictions weakened, and she began to believe in and embody the character Alexandra invented for her. Taboo began to fascinate her. She began to imagine, to speak of ways in which she could challenge the limits of propriety, and soon thereafter she started to embrace her mother's vision of her. While Rachel studied or painted, Leah dressed provocatively for evenings out with young men; she returned late in the evening. When this didn't provoke the desired reaction, she extended her stay out until the early morning. When Alexandra continued to show her indifference, Leah didn't return for days at a time; and then, not long after she turned sixteen, she fulfilled her mother's expectations of her, and didn't return at all. Rachel lost her sister to the city streets. Her own image of herself, the sound and smell of herself, her own flesh, disappeared into the shadows; the most intimate and integral part of her had become estranged. And this absence weighed upon her, she told Jacob, expressing itself in darker and darker visions of the world.

*   *   *

Jacob promised Rachel he would find Leah, and when he did, he would set things right and care for them both. Rachel's shame, however, was too great to immediately agree to this course of action. She feared facing Leah again. She was unaware of it at the time, but was now convinced she had played a part in alienating her sister from the small, precious world they had entered together. She could have spoken her mind, but chose not to. She could have defied Alexandra, but didn't. She could have fought more obstinately against her self-interest, but she didn't want to lose her favored position in her mother's heart, or, for that matter, put at risk the comforts of her mother's home. It was evident to her now in hindsight, the many ways she had betrayed her sister. She had spent a great deal of time trying to imagine the life Leah had been leading, and she wasn't convinced she wanted to become acquainted with its details. If I were Leah, she said to Jacob, I would be unforgiving, perhaps even vengeful.

Despite Rachel's reservations, Jacob felt obligated to discover what had become of Leah. He had the means to look after her, and, if she were willing, he intended to extend his hand. On the bench in the museum, he and Rachel had fallen in love. He wanted to marry her, and she wanted to marry him, and Jacob, who for so many years had missed both sisters equally, couldn't imagine a wedding without Leah. Wouldn't she feel greater shame, he asked Rachel, if they didn't search for her, to tell her of their plans, to have her present on the day they were joined? If they didn't make the effort to search her out, wouldn't it then be impossible to reconcile with her? To this, Rachel reluctantly agreed. Jacob hired an investigator, who instructed them some weeks later to visit the Freed Music Hall and take in an evening performance. On a Friday night, they sat together at the foot of the orchestra, and from there watched descend from the rafters on the seat of a swing whose ropes were twined in vines, Leah, singing the role of the ingénue, Eloise, a sylph whose songs were composed with melodies sweet and light, with lyrics laden with double meanings that left the gruffest men in the audience rapt with celestial and indelicate thoughts of streams and meadows, and Eloise, as she had been billed: dressed in white linen, her red lips spread in a girlish smile, golden locks curled over the nape of her neck, her bust bulging forth against the constraint of a corset, her pink fingers pulling up a silken slip to her naked thigh.

The reunion that evening was more pleasant than Jacob and Rachel anticipated. It appeared all of Rachel's fears were unfounded. Leah warmly embraced her. She shed tears over the time lost between them, but over a meal in a nearby tavern, she insisted she had no regrets. She assured them she was content. In fact, she couldn't have been more enthusiastic when speaking of the life she had chosen for herself. She had traveled to many cities, performed before a great number of audiences. Foolish men regularly sent expensive gifts to her dressing room, and Samuel Freed, for whom the hall was named, paid her a salary that afforded her a fine suite in a hotel not very far from the park's promenade, where she and Rachel had stood so many times as young girls. She had missed Rachel, she said, but she couldn't bear to complicate the fragile world Rachel occupied with Alexandra, so she decided when she left home to spare Rachel any trouble she might cause her. She was confident they would be together again, when the time was right.

Upon hearing of Leah's success and happiness, Jacob could see in Rachel's face how greatly relieved she was. She embraced her sister again and told her of their plans, and when Leah heard the news, the two sisters embraced a third time, and Leah said how wonderful and appropriate it was that she and Jacob should once again fall into each other's company by happenstance. Like Rachel, she expressed her profound regrets for having abandoned Jacob in the manner they did, and told him how often she had thought of her beloved companion over the years. Let us all forgive one another, shall we? she said. Let's say we'll let the past lie in ruins. In the months leading up to the wedding, Leah was consistently in good spirits and full of good cheer, whether she sat with Rachel in Jacob's home for dinner or was out with Rachel, making preparations for the reception. She graciously arranged with Samuel Freed to hire musicians from the hall and introduced Rachel to the florist who arranged the flowers in its lobby. Leah went so far as to sit beside Alexandra in grudging silence on the day the young couple stood under the chuppah to exchange their vows. All, it seemed, was reconstituted. All, it seemed, was how it should have been.

*   *   *

The newlyweds spent their wedding night in a hotel in the city and the following day rode a steamer upriver into the countryside, where they stayed at an inn on the edge of a lake. For several weeks they honeymooned, and it was there, on a walk up a hill overlooking the lake, they discovered the Woodhaven home in which they would live. Leah helped Rachel pack the items she would take with her from Alexandra's home, and sent stagehands to assist Jacob in dismantling Mr. Liebeskind's machine shop, to relocate it upriver. On the day the boxes were unloaded, Jacob was called away to the city on business. He would be gone for only three days, but he wanted Rachel to join him. He didn't want to be away from her for a moment, but she insisted she remain behind to unpack. Jacob traveled by train from Woodhaven and was ferried across the river to the naval yard, where he spent the afternoon installing a research telescope in the captain's quarters of the U.S.S.
Maine
. The following day, he did the same, and that night he returned to Mr. Liebeskind's home to find Rachel had changed her mind. She had decided to join him after all. They dined out together, then went to bed, and because they had nowhere to be, they stayed wrapped in each other's limbs for the better part of the following day and night. The next morning when they awoke, Rachel packed their bags and on they went to the train. All this time, at the station, inside the carriage on their journey home, they held each other close, and when they reached the threshold of their new house, Jacob playfully lifted up his new bride in his arms and carried her inside, only to find standing there Rachel, who looked at Leah in Jacob's arms.

There was her sister, dressed in her clothes, her hair mussed, her face flushed. All Rachel could say was that she didn't understand. To which, Leah said, Look at me. Look at me and tell me you don't know my reasons. Jacob set Leah down and, as the two sisters stood before each other in a frozen moment in time, he looked from Leah to Rachel and back again to Leah, and for the life of him, he couldn't tell them apart. All he could do was look away as Rachel listened to her sister unburden herself of the great unhappiness and hardship she had endured since she was driven out of Alexandra's home. There was no great success. She had no suite by the park. She was, more or less, kept by Samuel Freed in a small room inside the music hall, where he took from her whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. For years, this had been their arrangement. For years, she had been his favored girl. This was the sacrifice she had made to escape the cruel woman who raised them. Now do you understand? she asked Rachel. Do you not understand why I want you to endure the lasting discomfort of this moment? Rachel was too hurt and dumbfounded to speak. Leah removed a slim paper tube from her pocket, marked Jacob's cheek with a streak of red lipstick, and made her exit. When Rachel found her voice, all she could say to Jacob was, How could you not know it wasn't me? How could you not know it was her? Jacob had no answer and, as he rubbed away the stain on his face, he was left to wonder if, perhaps, he had known. But how could he?… Yet how could he not?

*   *   *

For many months, Jacob and Rachel lived as if they were in mourning. Rachel covered all the mirrors in black cloth so she wouldn't be reminded of Leah. She ordered Jacob to the springs near their home, where she insisted he be ritually cleansed in the presence of a rabbi. She fasted and prayed, and, in the company of the rabbi's wife, she, too, visited the springs to immerse her body and cleanse her spirit in the living waters. Only after these rituals and further months of reflection was she prepared to once again accept her husband. Not long after she had managed to achieve some semblance of inner harmony, however, Rachel received from Leah a birth announcement and a photograph of Simon Abraham Reuben, a child whose face resembled Jacob's, and all she had worked to forget was now undone. She fell into a dark state of melancholy, refused to eat or get out of bed. For weeks she barely uttered a word. One morning Jacob awoke, in the room to which his wife had long since banished him, to find Rachel wasn't in the house. He searched for her everywhere, and eventually discovered at the train station that she had departed for the city early that morning. Jacob, instinctively knowing where to go, went directly to the music hall, where he learned from a stagehand that Rachel had been there and moved on. The stagehand had sent her to Samuel Freed's residence, and there, too, Jacob went, and when he arrived, he walked into the entryway, where, to his horror, he saw Samuel Freed sitting at the bottom of a stairwell, weeping over an unmoving Leah, whose dead body was still thick from pregnancy. Samuel Freed looked at Jacob and described to him in what raving manner Rachel had barged in. She ran upstairs, lifted Leah's child out of its crib, and, claiming the boy was rightfully hers, started walking out with it. Leah chased after her. When she reached for the baby, Rachel stepped out of the way and Leah tumbled down the stairs. She has the child, Samuel told Jacob. You'll find her, and the boy, and you'll bring him back to me. Do this, and I'll show you mercy. Don't do it, and I swear to you, Rosenbloom, I will see you and your wife destroyed.