The hind was dying in the arms of Grand Loup.
If one studied the painting closely, it was apparent that the arrow had also pierced the hand of the saint as he stroked and calmed and sought to protect the terrified animal.
You have wounded me also, Grand Loup seemed to say. And just as deeply.
It was in her carrel in the Art History library, surrounded by the insubstantial but luminous presences of St Gilles and the wounded hind, that Cap was taken by surprise one day.
‘So this is where you hide,’ Cabot said.
‘Simon! Oh my God, you startled me!’ Cap pressed a hand over her heart. An intense silence passed between them and lasted for hours, or for what seemed like hours. At last Cap said, by way of explanation, by way of pulling herself out of freefall, ‘I was somewhere else. Paintings obsess me. I get lost in them. I lose track of everything.’
‘Same thing happens to me,’ Cabot said. ‘In theoretical physics the sheer mathematical elegance of a theory can mesmerise me. Sometimes I don’t even notice that I haven’t slept for two days. But can we go somewhere else to eat and drink and talk?’
‘So, Lilith,’ Cabot said in a bistro in Gramercy Park. ‘I thought I might find Vanderbilt here. That’s why I came looking.’
‘I haven’t had any contact for weeks,’ Cap said. ‘He never answers my calls. I was hoping you might bring news.’
‘He’s not in New York?’
‘You know he’s at Harvard.’
‘I thought I knew it, but apparently he’s moved off campus and I haven’t been able to reach him. I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘Nor do I.’
‘To be honest, I’m lying about why I came down,’ Cabot said. ‘Or partly lying. I’m seriously worried about Vanderbilt, but it was also an excuse to see you.’
He reached across the table and rested his large hand over Cap’s. She had a visual image of the hand of St Gilles above the slash in the dying hind’s flank. She felt comforted. She made no attempt to move her hand.
‘I thought McVie might know where Vanderbilt is,’ Cabot said. ‘I know McVie lives in Somerville somewhere. I called Dryden for his home phone number but when I tried it I got an operator who said the number had been disconnected. I tried the phone book and called every McVie in Somerville but not one was the right one and none was very helpful.’
‘McVie was killed,’ Cap said. ‘In Vietnam.’
‘Dear God! Why don’t I know about that? Why wasn’t it in the alumni newsletter?’
‘It was very recent. But how many Dryden alumni get drafted? Who would be keeping track?’
‘Jesus!’ Cabot was shocked by sudden new knowledge. ‘Our kind never get drafted.’ He added, a tad defensively, ‘But we do have distinguished officers in the US Marines. Alumni, I mean. Dryden has a sterling service record. We have alumni who’ve been killed in Vietnam.’
‘I don’t know whether I should say that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I do know McVie’s death has devastated Ti-Loup.’
‘Who?’
‘Sorry. Childhood nickname. I mean Vanderbilt. He’s working in the butcher shop on weekends to make amends. At least to try.’
‘Butcher shop?’
‘McVie’s father has a butcher shop in Union Square.’
‘Good God! I had no idea. I mean, I knew they lived in Somerville but I guess I assumed … Actually I never gave a thought to what they did.’
‘McVie used to work for the family business and now Vanderbilt has taken his place. If he’s moved off campus, I suspect that’s where he’s living now. He must have moved in with the McVies.’
‘Then we should rescue him,’ Cabot said.
‘I don’t think he’d see it that way. I don’t think he’d appreciate that view of the McVies. But I would like to see him. Talk to him.’
‘Then come up to Boston for the weekend. You can stay with my family. I drove down and I’ll take you back with me.’
‘All right.’
‘Or you could stay with me. I have my own apartment now in Cambridge, a stone’s throw from MIT.’
‘Yes, you told me.’
‘Would you stay with me?’
‘I’ll think about that,’ Cap said.
‘Can I ask you something personal, Lilith?’
‘I can’t promise I’ll answer.’
‘You and Vanderbilt …? Is there something between you?’
‘There’s our entire childhood between us. There’s France. There’s language and culture. There’s the village we grew up in. There’s our First Communion. There’s seven years, every day, with our Jesuit tutor. There’s the chateau and the gardener’s cottage, there’s my father and his mother … There’s everything.’
‘Wait a minute. First Communion? Jesuit tutor? So you’re not really Jewish after all?’
‘No, I’m not really. I hope you won’t ask me to explain. It’s too complicated.’
‘Okay, I won’t ask. But all that – childhood, First Communion, France, etcetera – it’s stiff competition. But apart from all that? I mean … you know … is there something between you now?’
Cap sighed and studied her hands. ‘I honestly don’t know. I can’t answer that even for myself.’
‘But he matters to you.’
‘Of course he matters to me.’
‘Too much for anyone else to matter?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m staying at a hotel in Greenwich Village tonight. It’s just a short walk from here. Would you like to come for an after-dinner drink?’
‘I think … yes, I think I would, Simon.’
11.
Cabot’s studio apartment off Kendall Square, tenth floor, had a view not only of the Charles River and of MIT itself but also of the splendid gold dome of the State House crowning Beacon Hill across the river. Below Beacon Hill, the Boston Common spread itself out like a softly lumpy green quilt. Cap could see the swans and the swan boats on the pond.
‘That’s where the British troops were mustered,’ Cabot said. ‘The Redcoats, 1775. Marched from there to Concord to silence the shot heard round the world.’
‘Your ancestors marched? Or fired the shot heard round the world?’
‘Good God, neither. My great-great-great-whatevers were still living in Salem then and were far too busy making a fortune in shipping to get involved in the Revolution. They didn’t even move to Boston till the ruckus was well and truly over. They weren’t about to risk the family wealth by getting embroiled in a war.’
‘But if they were in shipping, their ships must have taken sides. Redcoats or Revolutionaries?’
‘Neither. They were privateers. They shipped opium, slaves and rum. Why do you think the family is so devoted to benefaction of the arts and of all that is charitable and good? It’s about atoning for family sins.’
‘Does your mother think that?’
‘We all think it, we all know it. Every wealthy family has skeletons in the closet. We’re not about to give it all away but we do want to buy salvation. Ever asked Vanderbilt how the family got its money?’
‘Oh, Vanderbilt knows very well. He’d like to divest.’
‘Divesting’s a bit extreme. Better use of accumulated wealth can be made.’
‘History’s always thick around us, isn’t it?’ Lilith said. ‘Vanderbilt and I used to find rusty bits of armour and chunks of sword blade in the woods around the Vienne. Our tutor said they were from the Hundred Years War.’
‘Not great on European history,’ Cabot admitted. ‘When was the Hundred Years War?’
‘Mid-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century, roughly speaking, between the French and the English, when England owned nearly half of France. You know – Joan of Arc and all that.’
‘Don’t know. Know nothing at all, I’m afraid. My father and my mother will know. You realise they adore you. They are counting on you to save me from the philistines in physics.’
‘Ah, Simon. You are so refreshingly unco
mplicated.’
‘I have a feeling that’s not a compliment.’
‘It was meant as a compliment.’
‘But you are addicted to complicated people.’
‘Am I?’ Lilith thought about this. ‘I think I haven’t known many uncomplicated people. I don’t know if it’s a European thing or a Catholic thing, but it’s not an American thing. I envy Americans.’
‘You shouldn’t. We’re manic. We never feel we’ve got to where we should have got. We can’t rest. We can’t stop.’
‘Direct opposite of people like me. We’re lost in a maze. Every move has to be weighed.’
‘That’s not the impression you give. Complicated, yes, which makes you compelling. But not lost. You’re like my mother and my father. Lord of all you survey.’
Lilith was astonished. Her own mother and her own father knew that life could be snuffed out in an instant. They weren’t lords of anything except their own moral decisions and their own acts. ‘My father used to say: You can never see around the next curve. So you live that way. You don’t want to be ashamed of your final act and you never know what is going to be that last act.’
‘That’s a daunting credo. I prefer not to worry about what’s round the next curve. Speaking of which, are we going to Somerville today?’
‘Ah. Speaking of which, would you mind if I went alone? I mean, I’ve been there before. I’ve met the McVies. And I just think it would be better if I talk to Ti – talk to Vanderbilt alone until I can get a sense of …’
‘Of whether he’s cracked up or is just depressed?’
‘Yes. If it must be put so bluntly.’
‘As long as we have dinner with my parents tonight,’ Cabot said. ‘As long as you bring Vanderbilt along, no matter what state he’s in.’
‘I’ll try. About bringing him, I mean. I don’t feel very hopeful on that score, but I will certainly join you and your parents for dinner.’
The butcher’s shop in Union Square smelled exactly like La Boucherie Monsard.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ti-Loup demanded. He had a cleaver in his right hand and it descended like a guillotine blade on the massive oak block, splintering a shank bone of veal.
Cap closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘This smells like Petit Christophe,’ she said in French.
The woman who had ordered veal looked nervous. ‘Maybe I’ll come back later,’ she said. ‘If you could have the shank packaged and labelled?’
Ti-Loup seemed to hear nothing, not even the jangling bell as the shop door opened and closed on Union Square.
‘Ti-Loup? Tu vas bien?’ Cap was not conscious of speaking in French. She smelled in French. The odours of butcher block and animal flesh reached her in French.
‘Sorry. Don’t understand you.’ Ti-Loup spoke in English and his gaze was hostile and blank.
Cap felt alarm. ‘Ti-Loup?’
‘Is there an order you want to place?’
‘Yes, it is disturbing,’ Brother Damian agreed. ‘It is quite disturbing. Pat McVie’s parents find it disturbing. They have been talking to Father Augustine and to me. I believe it’s a stage of shock and guilt. I believe it will pass. The thing is, you see, he doesn’t want to be a Vanderbilt. He doesn’t want to be part of the privileged elite who never get drafted, never get shipped to Vietnam, never get killed. He holds himself accountable for the death of Patrick McVie. He says, and I’m quoting him, The sons of butchers are the sacrificial lambs.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Wait and pray,’ Brother Damian said. ‘I am in a certain amount of trouble with my own order for discussing Vietnam issues – all points of view – with students in the Marist school where I teach. These are serious life-and-death issues for my students, patriotism versus those who are used as cannon fodder. They know they can be drafted any day. It’s a race issue and a class issue, they can see that. I’ve involved Patrick in coming to discussion groups at the school.’
‘Patrick?’
‘Vanderbilt. He asked to be introduced to the students as Patrick McVie. He’s trying to be the lost son.’
‘This sounds frightening. It sounds dangerous.’
‘Yes, it is. I’m not trained as a pastoral counsellor but he trusts me and he won’t talk to anyone else. He does have suicidal thoughts.’
‘Why won’t he talk to me? He knows he can trust me.’
‘He isn’t sure of that.’
‘How can he not be sure?’
‘He knows you’re in touch with his mother. He knows you’re in touch with the Cabots. That bothers him. He’s … well, for the time being, he’s paranoid, I think. I hope and pray it’s a very brief phase, but he’s not sure of anything at present.’
‘Shouldn’t we …? Shouldn’t he be …?’ Cap was casting about for a way to ask if Ti-Loup should be hospitalised. ‘Tell him,’ she said, but could not think of a comfort formula sufficiently potent. ‘Tell him that whenever he’s ready to talk to me again, I’ll be waiting and I’ll serve roasted rabbits.’
Cabot called Lilith several nights a week, late, sometimes very late, sometimes after midnight, from his MIT lab. She had her own phone line at the Goldbergs. One weekend a month, she would explain to the Goldbergs that she was going to Boston or that she was staying with a friend in Greenwich Village.
‘Can we hope,’ Aaron asked, ‘that you are seeing Ti-Loup?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t ask me that question.’
‘We won’t ask,’ Myriam promised, ‘but we won’t give up hope, and you shouldn’t either, Lilith.’
‘I find hope, when it’s hopeless hope, cruel and destructive. I think it’s saner to turn the page and move on.’
‘You may be right,’ Myriam said. ‘But sometimes waiting after all hope is gone is worth the wait. After all, that’s how we found Grand Loup and you.’
‘But while one is waiting?’
‘That is the difficult part,’ Myriam conceded. ‘You do what you have to do to survive and function. And Simon Cabot is a very sweet young man.’
12.
Sometimes, when Lilith answered the phone late at night, the caller did not speak. When that happened, she did not say, ‘Simon?’
She waited.
Sometimes a minute would pass.
‘Is that you, Ti-Loup?’ she would ask if more than a minute passed.
Then the caller would hang up.
In early spring, March ’68, two months before she expected to graduate from NYU, Lilith Goldberg sensed a dark shadow above the page of the book she was studying. She was ensconced in her carrel in the library.
‘Simon!’ she said. ‘You startled me.’
‘I’m not Cabot.’
‘Ti-Loup! Dear God!’
‘You were expecting Cabot.’
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘That’s my role. The Grim Reaper.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, stop it, Ti-Loup. Don’t be so tiresome and so self-pitying.’
‘Is that how you see me?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know. You’re not the only one who’s faced death and loss. How does it help to push everyone away?’
‘You want me to leave?’
‘No, I don’t. I want you to snap out of it.’
‘Brother Damian said you promised that when I was ready to talk, you’d be waiting and you’d serve roasted rabbits.’
‘Ah …’ Wisps of wood smoke seemed to rise from the library stacks. ‘I will. I will. But a bit of notice in advance would have helped. In Manhattan, you can’t pick up skinned rabbit at the deli. Probably not even at the butcher’s shop in Union Square.’
A ghost of a smile flickered across Ti-Loup’s face. ‘True,’ he admitted. He turned and paced up and down the narrow passageway between the stacks. ‘You think I’m not trying, but I am. I’m trying to snap out of it. I’m trying to make restitution. Brother Damian and I are working with inner-city kids. I tutor them. I take them on cross-country runs.’
&nb
sp; ‘Ti-Loup, that is such good news. You’ve joined the Resistance.’
‘I came to ask something. Will you come to my graduation in May? I don’t have anyone else.’
‘Of course I’ll come. But won’t McVie’s parents be there?’
‘I can’t ask that. It’s too cruel. It would be blasphemy. It should be their son in cap and gown.’
‘Surely Brother Damian will be there?’
‘He feels he can’t. He feels it would be disloyal. Harvard is like Pilate to the Boston Irish, washing its hands of the blood of those who get drafted. Will you come?’
‘Of course. Will you come to mine at NYU?’
‘Will Cabot be there?’
‘Well, yes. The whole Cabot family. And the Goldbergs. And your mother.’
‘My mother?’
‘You know, Ti-Loup, your mother and I write to each other regularly.’
‘Then I won’t be there.’
‘Do you have any idea, Ti-Loup, of how much you’ve hurt her?’
‘Does she have any idea of how much she hurt me?’
‘Yes, she does. She gave me all your letters, unopened. I told you that. She said she thought it was for the best when she did it but now she knows she was wrong. She would do anything to undo the past.’
‘No, she wouldn’t. She would never have let me work as a butcher in St Gilles. I couldn’t bear to have either of my parents at my graduation. They would poison it. You can come or not come as you choose. There won’t be anyone else.’
‘I’ll come. But I’ll be devastated if you don’t come to mine.’
‘You’ll survive. You’ll always survive. You’re tough as nails.’
Legend has it that since the first graduation ceremony in 1642 it has never rained on a Harvard Commencement, always held outdoors in Harvard Yard. Even God wouldn’t dare to mar the day, the myth goes. In fact, in more than three centuries, it has rained a handful of times, but on the day of Ti-Loup’s graduation the sun was hot and bright and the grass and the trees in the Yard were lushly green and the graceful white spire on Memorial Church was almost blinding. Even so there was a subdued note to the celebration and many of the students wore black armbands. Less than two months had passed since the assassination of Martin Luther King and the speakers made sombre reference to that event.
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