For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

  “‘Just as death is certain to one that is born, So birth is certain for one that has died. Therefore, the thing being unavoidable, One should not mourn.’”

  She stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Bill asked.

  “I don’t feel like reading anymore.”

  “I thought you believed in all that stuff.”

  “It doesn’t mean the same now,” Janice said, closing the book. “It makes me feel all—I don’t know, afraid inside.”

  Bill turned to her.

  “That’s all right, honey,” he said. “I know what you mean. Maybe we’ve had too much of all this gobbledygook. Why don’t we go back inside before the rain comes?”

  “All right,” she said, trying to smile.

  He kissed his finger and put the finger on her lips. She smiled, though she looked suddenly pale, and then the wind rushed into the trees, shaking down twirling trails of dead oak leaves.

  Bill sprang to his feet.

  “Here it comes!” he yelled. “Just throw it all in the blanket!”

  Janice tossed the books and a fallen wine cup into the center of the blanket. Bill pulled the four corners together, and, like a hobo, slung it over his shoulder and grabbed her hand.

  “Come on!” he shouted.

  A dull, roaring boom echoed over the distant flatlands, and instantly the air grew even cooler, turned direction, and before they were halfway through the meadow the rain hit them like a cold wall. Laughing, hair bedraggled and matted, they dashed into the lobby, trailing water over the carpets.

  Bill embraced her and the contents of the blanket spilled over the floor, knocked a potted palm against the window.

  “Next Friday,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ll come home next Friday.”

  “For a day or two, Bill,” Janice cautioned. “Dr. Geddes said—”

  “I know, I know. He’s right, of course. Oh, Janice, buy us some of that awful orange liqueur we like. You know, from Belgium. And get some flowers.”

  “I will, I will.”

  They kissed again, and a massive roar of thunder rattled the windows.

  Janice rode home on the late afternoon train. The rain had given her a slight chill. At Des Artistes she took two aspirins, a hot bath, and lay in the suds, luxuriating. She thought again and again about Bill, and his body, and his eagerness, and she thought it would drive her insane.

  She removed the aquarium from Ivy’s room. Outside, the rain lashed at New York, a peculiar blue rain that seemed to shed its darkness over the rooftops. If there were no children, she thought, Bill could use the room as a study. That aspect of it was still undecided in her mind. It still seemed a profanation to think of other children in Ivy’s room, and she closed the door quietly behind her as she left.

  The next day Elaine beckoned for Janice to follow her into the large office studded with Elaine’s designs, calendars, and sketches for future projects.

  “You don’t have the experience a lot of designers have,” Elaine said. “And maybe you’re a bit rusty on a few graphic techniques. But we get along awfully well, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” Janice agreed, her heart beginning to race.

  “Then would you consider working here full time?”

  “Would I? Oh, I’d love nothing better.”

  “Now, I can’t pay you very much, but it would be a salary. You wouldn’t have to start worrying at the end of every project.”

  Janice drew herself up proudly.

  “Elaine,” she said, “there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do than work with you.”

  Elaine laughed delightedly. “Splendid.”

  At lunch, Elaine and Janice worked out the details of her job. Janice listened with a kind of rapture she had not known since the days when she first met Bill.

  “And your husband?” Elaine asked after a while.

  “What? What about my husband?”

  “Is he going to mind your working full time?”

  “No. He’ll be delighted.”

  Elaine smiled enigmatically.

  “You’ve never talked about your husband,” she said. “All I’m trying to do is to be fair about it. For some women, it becomes a problem.”

  “I really and truly appreciate what you’re saying, Elaine, but I’m sure Bill will be very, very pleased. And the money will help.”

  Elaine watched Janice growing slightly uncomfortable.

  “You’ve never mentioned what your husband does,” she said.

  “He worked for Simmons Advertising. He was the third vice-president. But he’s not been well. He suffered a nervous breakdown, and is hospitalized.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elaine said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “That’s all right,” Janice assured her. “It’s been a long haul, but he’s much improved now.”

  Janice splurged recklessly and treated herself to a new raincoat, designed by Bill Blass, with a cape that extended out over her shoulders and left the arms free. The October chill was in the air, and the driving rain everywhere glimmered in the gloom, catching stray headlights beaming like lurid eyes out of the gutters.

  That night Bill telephoned.

  “Honey,” he said, “guess what? I’ve got a fever of a hundred and two degrees. Courtesy of that damned picnic.”

  “Oh, Bill, what a shame.”

  “The clinic doctor has been tapping on my chest and feeding me big yellow pills and I can’t stop throwing up.”

  “Oh, Bill!”

  Bill moved from the receiver to cough. It was a long, hacking cough that sounded painful.

  “To make a long story short,” he said, a bit out of breath, “I won’t be there on Friday unless I can shake this.”

  Janice sank down in her chair, the weight of disappointment nearly a physical sensation.

  “It’s probably because you’d exercised that day,” she said.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I loved seeing you again. And thanks for the books. I really mean that.”

  Janice, staring, brooding at the black windows, watched the long dribbles of gleaming water-drops, each trailing a splattered light out of the void.

  “Although, if you stop to think about it,” Bill continued, “it doesn’t all add up.”

  “What? What doesn’t?”

  “That stuff you read to me. From the Bhagavad Gita, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, it doesn’t quite add up.”

  Janice licked her lips. She sat up, partially out of the chair, on its edge, and held the receiver carefully.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Look. All that twaddle about the eternal soul going on and on, and all that. Even when the body dies.”

  Janice closed her eyes. For a split second, a headache threatened to form, then it receded, more by an act of will than anything else. She almost wanted to hang up.

  “Bill, I really don’t like talking about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” he complained. “It’s loony. If there’s one great eternal soul, like a universal spirit, then what the hell happened to Ivy? Know what I mean? It could all have just flowed back, or whatever. Instead of that conflict—”

  “Bill, please, I beg you—”

  “I mean,” he added in a softer voice, “she sure as hell didn’t have to go through what she did. Christ, when I remember how she suffered—”

  “Bill!” Janice yelled.

  “What? What are you yelling for?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not yelling. I only was trying to say that—that it’s still not easy for me—to remember.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Frankly,” Bill said, “I’m surprised. You had a lot of time to work it out. More than I had, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Yes, but it’s all so distant, so confused, I mean. Bill, I can’t think about it anymore. I tried. I tried for the longest time and never made sense.”

 
“Okay, okay,” Bill conceded. “I shouldn’t have said anything. This fever’s baked my brain anyway. But you got to admit that the Bhagavad Gita is a little naive after what happened to us.”

  “All right, Bill. I’ll admit it. But tell me about your chest. You sound absolutely dreadful.”

  “I always did have weak lungs. I think I’m out of commission for a while. Listen, honey, could you do me a favor?”

  Janice smiled, tucked her feet up under her as she sat back into the soft folds of the chair.

  “Anything, darling,” she said.

  “This library here is pretty puny. All they’ve got are some encyclopedias and the Guinness Book of Records. Could you make a run to the library for me?”

  “Sure. I’d love to.”

  Holding the receiver against her collarbone with her chin, she reached into a drawer and coaxed a pencil and a note pad from it.

  “What kind of books would you like?” she asked.

  “Well, as I said, this Hindu stuff is pretty weak dishwater, from what I can gather. Now listen closely. There’s an older religion. It’s called Jainism. It goes back to even before the Hindus knew how to cross their legs and scratch themselves.”

  Janice put the pencil and pad down on her lap.

  “Bill,” she whispered. “Don’t—”

  “Jainism,” Bill said. “You want me to spell that?”

  “No, it’s not necessary.”

  “Great. I really need this help on the outside. Right now, I feel like somebody pumped up a balloon inside my head. Are you there, Janice?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Okay. And if I’m not up to seeing you next week, just mail the books here, will you?”

  “Yes,” she said without enthusiasm.

  “Wonderful. Now take care of yourself. Keep warm. It’s really miserable all over the East Coast tonight.”

  “I will,” she said dully. “And Bill—”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful. And get your rest. Do what Dr. Geddes says.”

  Bill chuckled, a familiar, warm kind of laugh that came from deep within his throat.

  “I’ll be a model patient, sweetheart,” he said. “I love you. Now be a good girl and we’ll be together soon. I promise.”

  She sensed he was about to hang up. There was so much more she wanted to say, to warn him in some obscure way, but none of it came to her.

  “I love you, too,” she said softly. “Good-bye, darling.”

  He hung up. Janice wrote the word Jainism on the pad, tore off the top sheet, and stuffed it into her purse. She threw the pad and pencil back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Outside, the night seemed to belch forth a cold, hard rain from its blackest interior.

  Janice put off her trip to the library as long as possible. Finally, she went to the New York Public Library, asked for assistance, and found that the Jains occupied so small a segment of religious thought that they hardly merited a single book to themselves. With the librarian’s help, Janice plucked three volumes which seemed to have the most information, and she checked them out.

  The books hung together on a shelf in the kitchen, casting a small, gloomy shadow when the light was on. When the light was off, they melded into the general darkness.

  When she saw him next, Bill was dressed in his robe; a tray of orange juice, several small bottles of capsules, and several discarded magazines were at his side. He looked impatient when she came into the room.

  “Did you bring the books?” he asked, his eyes slightly bright, as though the fever which had wracked his body for several days had not entirely dissipated.

  “Right here,” Janice said, drawing them from her purse. “Aren’t you even going to say hello?”

  “I’m sorry,” Bill said, grinning. “You look just fabulous, Janice. I just ran out of reading material, lying here like King Tut. A guy could scream from boredom.”

  He took the books from her, casually flipped through them, and put them on the night table next to his pillow. He pulled her down and let her kiss him.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “Really, I am. They thought it had blossomed into a walking pneumonia, which is why they kept me here. But it was really a kind of bronchitis. That’s all.”

  “Are you sure?” Janice asked. “I was so worried when you called.”

  “Positive. Could you open the window a half inch? A little fresh air would do wonders.”

  Janice went to the window. She heard him stretch over, and when she turned back, he was paging through the top book, his back to her.

  “Thanks a lot, honey,” he murmured. “These look just fine.”

  “If you really have to read them now…”

  Bill turned and smiled guiltily.

  “Poor Janice,” he said. “You come all this way to watch your addled husband reading in bed. Come on. Let’s mosey out of here.”

  Bill slipped from bed, modestly turned from her, and dressed. Janice was shocked to see how much weight he had lost. His hip bones almost protruded from his flat stomach. Even his legs looked thin. When he was dressed fully, he turned and escorted her from his room. First, however, he slipped the topmost book into his jacket pocket.

  “Depressing little place, isn’t it?” he confessed as they walked up the corridor. “I just can’t wait to get out of here. Dr. Geddes means well, but— Here, let’s duck into the library. At least it’s comfortable in there.”

  Bill opened a door and they entered a large room containing long shelves of books, globes on stands, a few antique brass lamps, some geographer’s maps on the walls, and tall, clean windows with maroon curtains.

  “Pretty fancy, isn’t it?” Bill said. “The clinic buys this stuff from auctions. All the one-room schoolhouses that are disappearing. Well, this is where they disappear to.”

  Bill turned away slightly from her, looking out the window, peering into the mist that rolled inward from the rain, blotting out the hill where he had caught his fever. There was a long silence. A horse, more silhouette than substance, walked slowly out of the mist, like a harbinger from a mysterious landscape.

  Turning back to Janice, Bill studied her curiously.

  “What have you got in your handbag?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on. I see something with ribbon on it.”

  Janice smiled, then reached down to her purse and pulled out a glass jar. Inside were round, milky-white balls. Janice held out the jar to him, enjoying his puzzled expression.

  “Go on, coward,” she insisted. “Try one.”

  “They look like marbles.”

  Frowning, Bill unscrewed the lid, reached in, and popped a candy into his mouth. Nothing happened, so he bit into it. Suddenly, his expression changed.

  “Holy shit,” he marveled.

  “They’re filled with Calvados cognac,” Janice said. “Aren’t they great?”

  Bill helped himself to another.

  “Crazy. Where’d you find them?”

  “From Elaine Romine.”

  “Yeah? Well, thank her for me. Jesus, I haven’t had strong stuff since… since… since the trial. No, in New York…I don’t remember.”

  Bill bit into another candy, savoring the hot, stinging sensation of delicate apple cognac. Janice guessed now that he remembered everything that had ever happened, and it broke some barrier between them. Possibly the last barrier, she thought hopefully.

  As they calmly ate, two more horses came out of the mist, rubbing shoulders, gazing quizzically into the library windows.

  Janice leaned back into the extraordinary comfort of the dark red chair, watching the horses, absorbing the tranquility of the ceaselessly moving yet ever-unchanging mist out over the meadow. There was really no sense of time at all, like the rainy days on Sunday afternoons when all motion at Des Artistes stopped, and the floor was littered with the New York Times, and the breakfast dishes were still on the dining room table. Bill caught her looking fondly at him, wistfully.

  “Do you
remember how it was at home? Sunday afternoons? We’d just all sort of lounge around, listening to the rain? Sometimes Ivy would go play with Bettina. And we’d make love… before a crackling fire. God, how beautiful it was.”

  Janice nodded, startled by the coincidence of their thoughts.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Bill asked reflectively. “But she’s gone. Our Ivy.”

  Janice watched him. There were no signs of agitation on his face, only a tired and bittersweet resignation. Bill reached out to the window and traced a heart with his finger. He put an arrow through the heart and then the initials I.T. and B.T. He winked at Janice.

  “Remember?” he whispered. “She used to put those on the windows. Ivy Templeton loves Bill Templeton. I’ll never forget.”

  Janice squeezed his hand warmly as they sat in the two heavy chairs, listening to the calm, steady drizzle outside. Janice felt the drowsy atmosphere taking hold of her. She sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Bill was browsing through the book on Jainism.

  “It says here that a seal was found dating back to at least fifteen hundred B.C.,” Bill said. “On it is a cross-legged figure wearing a horned headdress, three faces, and surrounded by jungle animals. It’s a proto-Yoga figure.”

  “Bill,” Janice said, trying to smile and keep her voice calm, “what is this sudden interest in all this?”

  “No sudden interest. It just seems weird.”

  Janice turned away to look out the window. The heart with the initials had melted downward into a grotesque, slumped form. Janice wiped out the lines with the palm of her hand.

  “Listen to this, Janice,” Bill insisted. “Jainism goes back before the Hindus. To a non-Aryan antiquity, that predated the sacred writings.”

  “Bill, please. I’m really not interested.”

  “All right. Sorry. Let’s just look out the window and count raindrops.”

  “Why are you angry? I just said—”

  “Right. You did say that. Well, maybe you’re right. Why should you care? All this garbage.”

  For an instant, Janice could only watch the strange expression on his flushed face, a mixture of determination and confusion. He put the book under his right thigh, as if to guard against anyone’s taking it away.