by Frank Deford
“A soldier in a foreign land, in the midst of a war, meets a local girl. They can’t speak the same language, they—”
“Double Ones,” said Hugh, with a sigh.
“Are you being facetious?”
“No, darling, not at all.” He sat down next to Nina and took both her hands in his. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you something. I was scared. I thought maybe if we came here, it would be easier, and—”
“Yes?”
And then Hugh told Nina about how he was standing in gallery twenty-seven when Constance fell to her death, and how he heard the dogs barking and felt the chill wisp of a breeze and then Adonis’s leg, warm and alive. “Oh my God,” said Nina. She fell against Hugh’s chest, and he held her there.
Later that day, when they were strolling through the garden at Rubenshuis, they saw Roy and Sue across the way. He was carrying a bouquet of tulips. “Where in the world would you find tulips in November?” Nina asked.
“I suppose the right hothouse florist—if it matters enough.” Right at that very moment, as a matter of fact, Nina and Hugh were standing by a sign which identified the great tulip beds that bloomed there in season, behind the little hedges that had kept Mr. and Mrs. Rubens’s favorite flowers safe from any marauding peacocks.
Neither Hugh nor Nina were really very surprised when next they visited Rubens’s burial chapel in Saint James and saw there—beneath the painting where Margareta as the Madonna held her baby—tulips scattered about. Nina was the one who noticed, however, that curiously, the flowers were not evenly distributed. Some were upon Rubens’s tomb. The others upon Helena’s, to his right. There were no flowers upon the tomb to the left, where Isabelle, the first wife, lay.
Nina thought about that and wondered, but it was not until she awoke at dawn the next morning that she understood. “Of course,” she said out loud. She tore out of bed and ran to the window. She seemed to know what she would see there. And: yes. Before the great statue of Rubens in the Groen Plaats, there stood Roy and Sue, holding hands, gazing up at Rubens, as behind him, the first rays of the morning’s sun began to brighten the cathedral spire.
Nina shook Hugh, rousing him. “Quick, get dressed,” she snapped, starting to throw on a sweater herself. Hugh didn’t question a thing; her urgency was sufficient for him to obey. Splashing water, running hands through their hair, tossing on jackets, they rushed to the elevator and out the hotel, hurrying toward the statue.
Roy and Sue saw them coming, and a bit wary, turned to leave. “No, no, wait,” Nina cried out. And they did. She and Hugh caught their breath before them, and then, as quickly as she could, Nina searched their faces. And she said one word: “Margareta.” And again: “Margareta?”
And yes, after a moment, some measure of recognition came to Sue’s face. Then a smile. She turned to Roy, “Yes, yes. Margareta. My last Madonna.” She stopped, embarrassed.
But, in another moment, he nodded. “Why, there was that awful murder…”
And then both Roy and Sue looked at Nina. “But how did—” she began.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve met Margareta.” Nina was glowing. She turned to Hugh. “Don’t you see, darling? Sue was Rubens, and Roy was Helena.”
He nodded—and really, rather casually. “You know,” he said, “Jocelyn told me once that the classic Double Ones of all time were Rubens and Helena.”
Sue and Roy shook their heads, in the wonder of it all. “We often thought we were crazy,” she said.
“No, no. You were them,” Nina said. “You were.” And she embraced them both, tears forming in her eyes.
The sun had risen just enough now, to come over the gables of Rubens’s Antwerp, to shine down upon his statue, to light, for another day, upon his face. Beneath it, shyly, Roy and Sue smiled up to him, and then began to drift away, waving a little. Roy stopped and winked, and then they strode off, hand in hand.
Hugh put his arm around Nina’s shoulder. “Now, that’s the end of it,” he said. “No more. It’s just the twenty-first century for us from now on.”
Nina cuddled up and mumbled agreement. And she did keep that pledge to Hugh that she made in the shadow of Peter Paul Rubens. But if Nina her best not to puzzle anymore about reincarnation, she did always wonder anew about the mysteries of love, of how a man and a woman might ever find each other’s hearts. Whenever. Wherever. And how hard it is for any two people even to find just a little, tiny bit of forever to share.
About the Author
Frank Deford’s work can be found across a broad range of genres. He has written fourteen books on many subjects. Two of them, Everybody’s All-American and Alex: The Life of a Child, were made into movies. Mr. Deford has also won numerous high honors as a magazine writer and is a member of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. On the radio, he has been a commentator on National Public Radio for more than twenty years. On television, where he is now a correspondent for RealSports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO, he has won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award. This is his seventh novel. Mr. Deford resides in Connecticut with his wife, Carol.
