The Other Adonis

by Frank Deford

  Fernandez and the others tensed, their guns all sighted on Constance. “Put the knife down!” Fernandez screamed. To him, of course, it looked as if Constance was preparing to bring it up so that she could drive it down into Nina.

  Nina screamed back, “Don’t worry. It’s okay” —even as the blade pointed straight at her. She knew that Constance had only taken up her pose. And Bucky knew that, too.

  Fernandez, of course, didn’t know. He didn’t know she had been the other Adonis. “Put the knife down or I shoot!” he yelled.

  She only held the knife high above Nina, but now she was twisted around so that she was looking back down at Bucky, where he crouched in fear. And now she smiled so sweetly at him, because now Constance saw the red and black diamonds, the patterned tiles upon Mr. Rubens’s studio floor. And yes, of course, Margareta was sitting upon them, reflecting the true love that a woman had finally been able to draw from him.

  Maybe Constance’s arm quaked a little at that moment. Even for one so strong, it was, after all, always such a difficult pose to hold. And this time, too, there was no spear to lean on for balance, but only one arm to hold up free, the knife within that hand shaking.

  Fernandez twitched, too. “Jesus,” he said, “she’s going to kill Dr. Winston.” So once more he screamed for Constance to let go the knife, and once more she ignored him. But now she was gone completely from this place and time. Just the red and black tiles. Just Margareta upon them. So now, when her arm seemed to waver just a bit more, Fernandez decided he could wait no longer. He brushed the raindrops from his eyes, then steadied his right arm with his left, sighted the target better, and squeezed off one round.

  The shot rang into Nina’s and Bucky’s ears as no other sound had ever stunned their hearing. Thereafter, had even the greatest hypnotist in all the world tried to hypnotize Bucky, never could he succeed, for all Bucky would hear is the eternal echo of that sound, smashing whatever reverie there might be in his trance.

  The bullet lodged in Constance’s right shoulder—a fine shot for a pistol in a drizzle. Her body shuddered as the shot pierced her body, and maybe that impact would have been enough by itself to pitch her over the edge. But Bucky was looking at her at that instant—as she at him—and the way he saw it then, and the way he would always remember, was that Constance could have saved herself.

  But maybe, she thought, maybe if I reach out for help, Margareta will rise up off the red and black tiles and she’ll grasp me, and we’ll fall to our deaths together. Ollie could not do that to the only woman he ever loved. Besides, there was their baby to think of. Mr. Rubens would need him for his Christ Child in his painting above his tomb.

  So Bucky was certain that when Constance looked at him and so sweetly sighed, “I love you, Margareta,” she still could have saved herself. But instead, Constance only held the pose for an instant more, and then tensing her legs, she purposely pushed herself off, even tumbling far enough out to fall beyond the curving wall, to smash, in death, clean upon the sidewalk.

  As Constance fell, Nina was sure she heard Bucky call out softly, “Ollie.” Not a wail this time. Not a screech. Just a sad murmur.

  It was the strangest thing, Hugh thought. Hardly had he stepped into gallery twenty-seven, even before he began to approach Venus and Adonis, he was sure he heard dogs barking. Dogs? He would have dismissed the thought, but the one other visitor in the room, an older woman with an English accent, was standing next to the guard and Hugh heard her say, “Might that be a dog I heard?”

  The guard nodded, dubiously. “Must be a seeing-eye,” he said, peering around the corner into the next gallery .

  Hugh nodded himself. But then he thought: a seeing-eye dog? In a museum? What blind person would come to an art museum, where there are only things to see? And anyway, damn it, it hadn’t been one dog. Hugh was positive: it had been two—two happy barks, the one overlapping the other.

  And suddenly, at that moment, a chill touched him. A breeze? A wisp of something or other? Whatever, in that instant, Hugh couldn’t help himself, and he found himself hurrying forward, rushing toward Venus and Adonis.

  There was no doubt in his mind that he saw it. He couldn’t understand it, of course, and he couldn’t rationally accept it, but damn it, he saw it happen. Not in a flash, either, but in real time. Suddenly, there before him, where the two hunting dogs had barked, Venus pulled Adonis to her by his shoulder and she kissed him. Nothing long and passionate—but only an affectionate kiss, as you would welcome back someone who had been away. That was the way Venus kissed Adonis, and the dogs barked again.

  And then the painting was still once more.

  Hugh shuddered. But he had the presence to look around, and he saw that he was still alone in the gallery, that the guard had remained in the adjoining room, looking about for that seeing-eye dog. And so, Hugh reached up and touched the painting. It was solid and it was cold where his fingers rested for an instant on the ground where Adonis stood. Hugh removed his hand and started to back away, but then he had the urge to reach out again. This time, he touched Adonis himself, his left leg, that great, muscular calf.

  It was warm. Maybe (Hugh wasn’t positive about this) it even quivered a bit. But, yes, it was warm. No doubt.

  Hugh stepped back, then, just as the guard returned, and he looked to heaven and murmured a prayer. As he left, he put a smile on his face and said to the guard, “Well, I guess I will be that peasant in Bolivia next time.” The guard, of course, didn’t have a clue.

  Some day, Hugh thought, maybe he would tell Nina what he’d seen, what he’d felt. Or maybe not. After all, for how deeply that Nina believed, maybe even she wouldn’t believe him if he told her about this experience. Anyway, that decision could wait. For now, it was all too much for Hugh, because he couldn’t any longer be quite sure who he was. Then again, he wasn’t altogether certain whether that even mattered, so long as whoever he was, wherever in time he might be, he and Nina belonged to God. Wasn’t that all that really counted?

  On the roof at that moment, the both of them crying, Nina and Bucky crawled back along the ledge where strong arms helped them across the gap and over the hedge to safety. They stood there, then, in the Roof Garden, above all the moist green of Central Park, both of them sobbing in a shared embrace, and never mind that the drizzle had become a real rain, and somewhere distant there crashed the last thunder of that summer.

  After

  The three of them had to fight through the sidewalk crowds just to reach the museum’s side entrance. All they’d wanted was a quiet day when the museum was closed to the public, but when Nina and Fernandez had agreed on this Sunday in November, neither of them had thought to remember that it was the day of the New York Marathon.

  But it was the most glorious autumn morning, Central Park simmering in fiery shades, and if it was bedlam out on Fifth Avenue, inside the Metropolitan it was wonderfully eerie in its silence. And that was the way Nina had wanted it for this one final, private visitation.

  They had to troop up the grand staircase because the escalator was turned off. Nina lagged back with Fernandez, watching Bucky and Phyllis ahead of them, holding hands. Phyllis, it seemed to Nina, appeared the more nervous. After all, she’d never been to gallery twenty-seven before; for her, it was the fear of the unknown. It was different now, too, for Bucky, more than two months since the shot and the death. As they approached the Rubenses, he even called back, “Don’t worry, Mr. Fernandez, I’m okay,” and he put his arm, reassuringly, around his wife’s shoulder.

  That way, he steered Phyllis before The Holy Family with St. Francis. “Well,” Bucky said to her, almost matter-of-factly, “that’s me. When I was Margareta.”

  Phyllis stood closer, scrutinizing it, then she turned to look over to Bucky, her eyes beseeching. “What am I supposed to say?” she asked. “That you were kinda cute? I mean, Bucky, there’s just no training
for this in the wife’s manual. Nobody’s ever come to a museum with their husband before when he was…you know.”

  “Yeah,” Bucky said.

  Phyllis looked back at the painting. “Well, you had a sweet face,” she decided.

  “That’s what everybody always told me,” Bucky said, which sounded all the weirder to her.

  “So, where’s Adonis?” Phyllis asked then. By now, of course, she knew just about all of it; Bucky had told her everything about his romance with Constance.

  He pointed down the wall, past the little Van Dyke, and Phyllis started to walk that way. But now, suddenly, Bucky held back. With a nod of his head, he gestured to Nina, and she stepped over to stand with Phyllis before the huge painting. Her eyes examined Adonis, up and down. “That was his love?” Phyllis asked Nina.

  “Well, it was Margareta’s, yes.”

  “Okay, I guess I got it,” Phyllis said, and she went over, took Bucky’s hand again, and without another word, they walked briskly out of the gallery. Of course, although Phyllis didn’t notice, as they passed by Margareta, Bucky gave her a thumbs up for one last time.

  Downstairs, they all thanked Fernandez, and he advised them to hurry if they wanted to get across Fifth Avenue before the marathon reached here. The three of them hustled down the sidewalk behind the crowds, and just managed to duck across before the cops closed off the street. The leaders in the marathon—two Kenyans and a Mexican—were in The Bronx and bearing down on Manhattan.

  At her office, Nina took out her key, but just before she could put it in the lock, the door flew open. Hugh stood there. “I made the coffee already,” he said.

  Nina said, “Phyllis, Bucky—I don’t think you’ve met my husband, Hugh Venable.”

  Bucky looked curiously at Hugh, then blurted out, “Hey, I know you.”

  “Jocelyn’s service.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Bucky turned to Nina. “I told you how much I liked this guy. You never told me that you—”

  Nina held up her left hand, showing off her rings. “We were just waiting for your blessing.”

  Impulsively, Bucky kissed Nina on the cheek. “Hey, a bride! Congratulations.”

  “Come on,” she laughed, pushing him toward her office. Then, she turned back to Phyllis. “Enjoy the coffee. Bucky and I will only be a few minutes, I’m sure.” And the two of them went into her inner sanctum, closing the door.

  Bucky threw himself on the couch, giving out a big stage sigh. “You all right, Mr. Buckingham?” Nina asked.

  “Yeah, I needed that. I had to say good-bye to Margareta.”

  “And Ollie?”

  “Oh, I think I did that already, back when—”

  “Yeah,” Nina said, blowing on the coffee, waiting him out. And finally, he said, “All right, doctor, what did you decide about all this?”

  Nina sipped her coffee. “Well, first I know—I know how sorry I am for Jocelyn and Constance.” With her free hand, she crossed herself.

  Bucky said, “Amen,” and suddenly, he was struggling to hold back tears. Nina reached down and patted his shoulder.

  “And then,” she went on, “then I think…no—I’m certain—that there was a woman named Margareta who lived with her husband, Jan De Gruyter, in Antwerp around 1635, and…” Nina stopped and looked squarely at Bucky before she said this: “And as sure as I believe in God, I believe that you were that woman.”

  “Amen.”

  “I believe that you—Margareta—fell in love with a scoundrel…well, worse, a murderer. Charming and handsome, but a murderer. And he called himself Ollie then, and he became Constance Rawlings in this time and place. And I believe that Ollie and Margareta met at the house of Peter Paul Rubens, and then they were caught in flagro delecto by her husband—by your husband—and he murdered Ollie. But I believe that Ollie—and you—came back to life in this century, and by chance, you met each other in Philadelphia twenty years ago, and then, again, this past February 11th, you met again, reincarnated as Double Ones. That is what I believe.”

  “Yeah,” was all Bucky said. “Exactly.” Nina crossed over to her desk. Bucky asked, “What about your husband?”

  “Hugh?”

  “Yeah. I mean, he’s a preacher. What’s he think?”

  “He doesn’t want to talk about it, but the evidence is just too overwhelming—even for my Doubting Thomas. And you know, Bucky, I can’t explain it, but Hugh did have some kind of change of heart…of mind. That very day Constance died. And then, after I showed him this…”

  Nina picked up a large manila envelope. Bucky knew immediately it was from Europe. Even in the homogenized global economy, manila envelopes are the one thing made differently outside the United States. “This arrived a couple weeks ago,” Nina explained, holding it up then coming over and sitting down next to him on the couch. “It’s from Inspector Stoclet,” she said, opening it up.

  “Really?”

  “In the beginning, I’d told him that Jocelyn was doing some sort of genealogical research in Antwerp.”

  “Well, that’s kinda true,” Bucky said.

  “Yeah. Afterwards, I kinda forgot all about that, but damn if the inspector hadn’t already gotten someone to start checking out the stuff I’d mentioned to him.”

  Nina took out the papers and went on. “These are some old records—copied from the Antwerp city archives. A fire destroyed a lot of records, and after the war most of them were moved from the town hall to an old building on Venusstraat, wherever that is, and even after all this time, not everything has been cataloged yet. Still, the inspector’s man hit some pay dirt.”

  Bucky leaned forward, looking at the paper Nina showed him. “There’s something called the Liggere,” she said, pointing to the word. “Inspector Stoclet describes it as a ‘book of membership’—a census, I guess—of old Antwerp. And sure enough, in 1635, a Jan De Gruyter is listed as residing on…are you ready?” Bucky nodded. “On Schuttershofstraat.”

  “Schuttersh—? What?”

  “Schuttershofstraat.”

  “I can’t even say it.”

  “Yeah, well, if you go back and listen to the tape when you’re speaking as Margareta, you say it loud and clear. And why not? It was the street you lived on.” Bucky only shook his head. “And, by the way, that street’s in”—Nina looked down and read—“de derde wijk—the third quarter. The same as where Rubens lived.”

  Softly, Bucky just said, “Go on,” and Nina turned to the next page.

  “The policeman working for Inspector Stoclet had no luck in finding any listing for a Jan De Gruyter in a couple of other places. One is something called Eed, which is ‘a book of oaths,’ whatever that is. Or the Costuymen, which is some sort of a law record of Antwerp.”

  “Nothing, huh?”

  “No, but remember: a lot of records were burned years ago, and a lot more weren’t complete or haven’t been filed. But—now get this—the inspector’s man did find the city tax records for 1635. It’s called the”—Nina read—“Tiende Penning, which means ‘Tenth Coin.’”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter what it’s called. But what does matter is that these tax records were kept by the Spanish who ruled Antwerp at that time. And the Tiende Penning was very, very complete.”

  “Tax guys always are.”

  “Exactly. Now take a look.” She handed to the sheet to Bucky. “See: Jan De Gruyter owned a house on Schuttershofstraat, where…”—Nina traced a line of fine ink penmanship—“… where he resided with his wife, Margareta, his two children, Adrien and Magdalena, and a servant—”

  “Wow. Jackpot.”

  “—Clarissa Martens. You—Margareta—even mentioned her name to me.”

  “The woman who took care of the kids when I was with Ollie.”

  “Yep—the
y’re all there: Jan, Margareta, the kids, the servant. The Spanish IRS didn’t miss a thing.”

  Bucky whistled. “But you know,” he said, “this is really just icing on the cake. If you’d showed me this a few months ago, I would’ve been stunned. But now? All this does is prove what I already knew, anyhow. What we already knew.”

  Nina smiled in agreement. “And there’s one other thing.”

  “More?”

  “After the police finished searching the city archives, they checked the records at Saint James Church.” She passed him the photocopies. “The marriage of Margareta Engelgraef to Jan De Gruyter—October 30th, 1629. The baptisms of their children—Adrien in 1630, Magdalena in ’32, and there: a third child, born in March of 1636, then baptized that fall on All Saints Sunday, at the time of their seventh wedding anniversary.”

  “So I was pregnant when Ollie was killed?”

  “You most certainly were.”

  “But wait a minute, Nina. How could that child possibly have been baptized at Saint James? I mean, my husband had caught me in bed with another man. He wouldn’t have tolerated keeping me around after that, would he? And would he go along with baptizing a child that wasn’t his?”

  Nina stood up. “I’ve thought about that. First of all, assuming that you’d still been servicing your husband—and De Gruyter sounds like a sex-on-demand guy—well then, he couldn’t be sure whose child it was, could he?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Margareta was positive it was Ollie’s baby. So was Constance—the instant she saw him in the painting—‘my deare childe.’ But still, you know how men are.”