The Day of Atonement
Page 35
“I told myself he would be caught with or without me, and better the money should be in my hands than the Inquisition’s. Of course I was deceiving myself. Then, when I sensed you sought the truth of those events, I blamed a crass Englishman, already ruined. By that time, I had begun to suspect your true identity—you look so much like your father—that I thought it best to put you off my scent. I am embarrassed, but what truly shames me is that I clung to my lie, even to the point of asking you to abandon Mr. Franklin lest you discover my treachery. After you refused me, I decided you must know the truth. I was sick of the lies.
“On my behalf, I can only say that I am a product of this nation, this city which lies in ruins about me as I write these words. Lisbon has suffered as it deserves, and I will too.”
“Where, precisely, can I find Luis Nobreza?”
Mr. Weaver’s expression was impossible to read. “He has taken rooms not far from my house. He asked that I send word when you reached town, which I have done. And he has requested that you call upon him immediately.”
I said nothing.
“What will you do?” Mr. Weaver asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He set in motion events that resulted in the destruction of my family, but it was ten years ago, and he is an old man. You must tell me what is the right thing.”
Mr. Weaver shook his head. “You do me too much credit if you think I can answer a question such as that. But I have trained you for a long time, and I think you can read the signs as well as I can. What do you make of his decision to wait here for you?”
I considered this. “It is an impossible situation he puts me in, and he knows it. I think he has already decided what he will do. He wants only that I might witness his choice.”
Weaver nodded. “I think so too.”
“What of my other friends from Lisbon?” I asked after a moment.
Weaver smiled. “Mrs. Carver has set herself up with a fine townhouse near Grosvenor Square. She has become quite the talk of the town, you know. A beautiful and rich widow never wants for friends.”
“Did she ask me to call on her too?”
“Not with words,” Mr. Weaver said. “But I know she hopes to see you. As does your friend Franklin and his wife.”
“His wife?”
“Yes. Apparently he met a Frenchwoman on the road, much younger than himself, and they took to each other.”
For the first time in weeks, I laughed. Somehow, amid all the bodies and ashes, something good had managed to unfold.
I delayed for several days before revealing to any acquaintance that I had returned. I spent that time mostly sleeping and eating, but also inspecting the money left for me and using to it to obtain new clothes. I had my hair tended to, and I took pleasure in receiving a proper shave for the first time since—well, since Enéas had shaved me months before. Since then it had been all stubble and my own clumsy efforts with a dagger and cold water.
Mr. Weaver had made it clear that I might stay in his house as long as I wished. Soon I would find a place of my own, but I was not ready. Not quite yet. Once more I had come to London, a refugee of Lisbon by way of Falmouth. Once again, I stayed with Benjamin Weaver, a man as kind as he was intimidating. The last time I had been too frightened, too devastated, to appreciate the friendship offered me. This time I wanted it for its own sake. I wanted to savor such goodness as there was in the world, because I knew that goodness was real, and I knew it was rare.
On the morning of my fourth day in London, I wrote to Luis Nobreza and told him I would call on him at noon. I received a reply, but noon came and went. I had no intention of going. Luis needed to do what he thought best, but I did not want to witness it. I had no wish to gaze upon my friend with his throat cut or hanging from a rope or with a bullet to his head. I knew with absolute certainty that he intended self-murder. Perhaps I might have found the words to save him, but I had not the energy to look. Sometimes the transgressions between human beings cannot be forgiven. They can only fade with time.
Instead of waiting for the news of Luis’s death to reach me, I hired a hackney coach and ordered it to take me to Grosvenor Square. I had already found Mrs. Carver’s address in The London Magazine—she was indeed a most popular lady, and many men had made it clear that they would gratefully accept her hand in marriage. Thus far she had refused them all.
I knew better than to read anything into that. I knew better than to expect anything other than a slap in the face. However she chose to greet me, I would endure it.
I walked half a block from where the coach had dropped me. The streets were wide and tree-lined, and the sky was brilliant and nearly cloudless. Here and there strolled gentlemen and ladies in fine clothes and fashionable hats. Some had little dogs upon leashes. The spring air was beginning to warm but was still brisk, and the scent of flowers was everywhere. I admired the green lawns and the beautiful homes. In other quarters of the city, it was true, those little dogs would be stolen, slaughtered, and cooked within half an hour of making their appearance. Even so, I was in London and happy to be there. I was at liberty, free to walk the streets and bear my own name.
I found Mrs. Carver’s stately new house—all red brick and square columns—and approached the front door. A liveried servant answered almost the moment I rang. I presented my card, and the servant studied it.
“Mr. Foxx,” he said, “I have standing instructions to receive you.”
I followed the servant to a sitting room where I was told to wait. I listened to the ticking of the clock and muted voices from outside, and the shuffle of servants’ footsteps on the floor above me. Somewhere one of those fashionable little dogs barked. I waited, and it seemed to me that I also waited to find out what sort of man I was, what all the things I had done had wrought. I had saved lives and taken them. I had sought justice and delivered suffering. I had committed crimes and forgiven crimes and refused to forgive others. I did not know what all of that made me, but I so wanted to find out.
I stood facing the window, looking at nothing, listening for the sound of her footsteps, and I wondered what her first words would be. How would I find the strength to answer? I dared not wish for one outcome or another, but only for her happiness. That was what I wanted to see on her face. I wanted to see that all she had suffered, unbearable though it was, had not destroyed her. I wanted to see that Lisbon had not broken her as it had broken me so many years before.
I heard voices in the distance, a servant and a woman’s voice. Roberta’s. And still I waited. I thought of all the things I did not feel—anger and frustration and that wretched, tearing, unbearable impatience with the world as it was. Somehow I had let those things go. I thought of what I did feel: fear. For the first time in years, I was afraid, and I hugged myself with the pleasure of it.
From outside the room, a woman walked upon the floor, her shoes tapping the wooden planks as she approached. I listened to each step, and then the slight squeak of the slow twist of a doorknob.
Terrified and hopeful, I turned to look upon her face and to hear what she had to say.
For Eleanor and Simon
Acknowledgments
All historical novels present their own challenges, but trying to recover eighteenth-century Lisbon, as it was before the earthquake, is one of the most difficult tasks I’ve undertaken as a writer. There were numerous books, both those from the time of the earthquake as well as more contemporary studies, that helped me get a sense of the time and place, but I never could have written The Day of Atonement without insight into the period from the fantastic historian Paolo Scheffer, who walked me through contemporary Lisbon and helped me to see the city as it was. I am grateful as well to my Portuguese editor and fellow comics fan Luis Corte Real for helping me navigate the city, and for the many insights from the brilliant Portuguese novelist Pedro Almeida Vieira. I am also grateful to the many historians at the Lisbon Museu da Cidade who answered my endless questions, and to the kind people at the Conceição dos Cardais. I
owe much to Matt Richtel and Eileen Curtright, who labored through early drafts of the book and helped me to revise it, and for the many ideas and patient readings from Jennifer Hershey and Joey McGarvey at Random House. Again, I must thank my agent, Liz Darhansoff, for making all I do possible. Thanks, as always, to my wife, Claudia, for putting up with my crap, and for my children, Eleanor and Simon, for helping me keep things in perspective. And because I always like to mention my cats in my acknowledgments, I shall do so once again: cats!
By David Liss
A Conspiracy of Paper
The Coffee Trader
A Spectacle of Corruption
The Ethical Assassin
The Whiskey Rebels
The Devil’s Company
The Twelfth Enchantment
The Day of Atonement
About the Author
DAVID LISS is the author of The Day of Atonement, The Twelfth Enchantment, The Devil’s Company, The Whiskey Rebels, The Ethical Assassin, A Spectacle of Corruption, The Coffee Trader, and A Conspiracy of Paper, winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and children.
davidliss.com
@david_liss