A Perfect Stranger

by Steel, Danielle

  We're not right. We were very, very wrong.

  Were we? He faced her squarely as they sat there. Do you really believe that?

  What choice do I have, Alex? How can I believe differently? What I did killed my husband, drove him to suicide. Can you really tell me that I've done nothing wrong?

  Yes, and so would anyone else who knew the story. You're innocent, Raphaella. No matter what your father says. If John Henry were alive, I'm sure he would tell you the same thing. Are you sure he didn't leave you a letter? He searched her eyes as he asked her. It seemed odd that John Henry had left nothing, he seemed like the kind of man who would. But she only shook her head again.

  Nothing. The doctor checked when he got there, and so did the nurses. There was nothing.

  You're sure? She nodded again. So now what? You go to Spain with your mother to atone for your sin? She nodded once more. And then what? You come back here? He mentally resigned himself to a long, lonely year.

  I don't know. I'll have to come back to settle things. I'll put the house on the market after the estate has been cleared. And then she faltered and stared at her feet as she spoke in a monotone I suppose I'll go back to Paris, or maybe Spain.

  Raphaella, that's crazy. He couldn't keep his hands from hers anymore. He clasped her long thin fingers in his own. I love you. I want to marry you. There's no reason for us not to. We haven't done anything wrong.

  Yes, Alex. She pulled away from him very slowly, retrieving her hand from his. We have. I have done something very wrong.

  And for the rest of time you'll bear that burden, is that it? But more to the point he knew as he sat there that for the rest of time he would remind her of what she considered her great sin. He had lost her. To a quirk of fate, of timing, to the insanity of a tired old man, to the evil interpretations of her father. He had lost her. And then, as though she knew what he was thinking, she nodded and stood up. She stood looking at him for a long moment, and then softly she whispered, Good-bye. She didn't touch him, or kiss him, and she didn't wait for an answer. She simply turned and walked slowly down the stairs as Alex watched her, aghast at what he was losing, at what she was doing. In her unrelenting black garb she looked like a nun. This was the third time he had lost her. But this time he knew it was for good. When she reached the well-concealed garden door, she pushed it open and closed it behind her. She did not look back at Alex, and there was no sound after the door had closed. Alex just stood there for what felt like hours, and then slowly, aching and feeling as though he were dying, he walked painfully up the stairs, got into his car, and drove home.

  Chapter 31

  The funeral was as private as they could keep it, but there were still well over a hundred people in the pews of the little church. Raphaella sat in the front pew with her mother and father. There were tears on her father's cheeks, and her mother sobbed openly for a man she had barely known. In the pew immediately behind them were the half-dozen relatives who had accompanied her mother from Spain. Alejandra's brother and two of her sisters, a cousin and her daughter and son. The group had allegedly come to lend support to Raphaella as well as Alejandra, but Raphaella felt more as though they were the prison guards, come to escort her back to Spain.

  It was she who sat dry eyed through the funeral, staring blindly at the coffin covered in a blanket of white roses. Her mother had taken care of the flowers, her father the rest of the arrangements. Raphaella had had to do nothing, except sit in her room and think of what she had done. Now and then she thought of Alex, of his face when she had last seen him, of what he had told her. But she knew that he was wrong in what he was thinking. It was all so obviously her fault, as her father had told her, and Alex was only trying to assuage her guilt. It was strange to realize that she had lost both of them at the same time. She had lost Alex as much as she had John Henry, and she knew as she sat there stiffly, listening to the music, that she would never see either of them again. It was then that the tears began to flow slowly, rolling mercilessly down her cheeks beneath the thick black veil until they fell silently onto her delicate hands folded in her lap. She never moved once during the entire ceremony. She only sat there, a criminal at a tribunal, with nothing to say in her own defense. For a single mad moment she wanted to jump up and tell them that she hadn't killed him on purpose, that she was innocent, that it was all a mistake. But she wasn't innocent, she reminded herself silently. She was guilty. And now she would have to pay.

  When it was over, they drove to the cemetery in silence. He was to be buried beside his first wife and their son, and Raphaella knew as she looked at the grassy knoll where they were buried that she would never rest there with him. It was unlikely that she would ever again live in California. She would return for a few weeks, in a year, to pick up her things and sell the house, and then one day, she would die and be buried in Europe. It seemed more fitting somehow. She had no right to lie here with him. She was the woman who had killed him, his murderess. It would have been blasphemy to bury her in his plot. And at the end of the prayer said by the priest at the gravesite, her father glanced at her as though saying the same thing.

  They drove back to the house once again in silence, and Raphaella returned to her room. Her packing was almost done. She had nothing to do and she didn't want to speak to or see anyone. No one seemed particularly anxious to speak to her. The whole family knew what had happened. Her aunts and uncles and cousins did not know about her affair, but they knew that John Henry had committed suicide, and their eyes seemed almost accusing to Raphaella, as though they were saying again and again that it was her fault. It was easier for her not to see them, not to see their faces or their eyes, and now she sat in her room, again like a prisoner, waiting and envying John Henry for his courage. If she had had the same bottle of pills, she would have taken them too. She had nothing left to live for and she would have been grateful to die. But she also knew that she had to be punished, and dying was too easy. She would have to live on, knowing what she had done in San Francisco and enduring the looks and whispers of her family in Spain. She knew that forty or fifty years later they would still tell the story and suspect that there was more that they didn't know. By then perhaps word of Alex's existence would have accompanied the rest of the story. People would talk about Tia Raphaella who had cheated on her husband' you remember, he committed suicide ' I don't know how old she was' maybe thirty' you know, she was really the one who killed him.

  As she heard the words in her head, she dropped her face in her hands and began to cry. She cried for the children who would never know her or know the truth about what had happened to her here, she cried for Alex and what had almost been, for Mandy whom she would never see again, and at last for John Henry ' for what he had done' for what he had once been ' for the man who had loved her so long ago and proposed to her as they walked along the Seine. She sat alone in her room and cried for hours, and then silently she walked to his bedroom and looked around for a last time.

  At nine o'clock her mother came upstairs to tell her that it was time to leave the house to catch their plane. They were taking the ten-thirty night flight to New York, which would get them in around six in the morning. New York time, and at seven o'clock they would catch the flight to Spain. The plane would arrive at eight o'clock that evening local time in Madrid. She had a long journey ahead of her, and a very long year. As the man who did their heavy cleaning picked up her two bags and took them downstairs, she walked slowly down the main staircase, knowing that she would never live here again. Her days in San Francisco were over. Her life with John Henry was gone now. Her moments with Alex had ended in disaster. Her life was, in a sense, over.

  Ready? Her mother looked at her gently, and Raphaella looked at her with the empty eyes Alex had seen that morning, nodded, and walked out the door.

  Chapter 32

  In the spring she received, via San Francisco, a copy of her children's book, which was due out sometime late in July. She eyed it quietly, with a sense of distance. It see
med a thousand years since she had started that project, and it seemed so unimportant now. She felt nothing for it at all. As little in fact as she now felt for the children, for her parents, her cousins, or even for herself. She felt nothing for anyone. For five months she had moved like a zombie, gotten up in the morning, dressed in her black clothes of mourning, gone to breakfast, returned to her bedroom, answered the scores of letters they were still forwarding to her from San Francisco, all of them letters of condolence to which she responded on the heavily black-bordered stationery suited to the task. At lunchtime she would emerge again from her bedroom, and immediately afterward she would once again disappear. Now and then she would take a solitary walk before dinner, but she was careful to discourage companionship and to beg off if someone insisted on coming along.

  It was clear that Raphaella wanted to see no one, and that she was taking her year of mourning very much to heart. She had even decided immediately after her arrival that she had no desire to stay on in Madrid. She went to sequester herself at Santa Eugenia, to be alone, and at first her parents agreed. In Spain her mother and the rest of the family were accustomed to the business of mourning, they did it for a year, and the widows and children of the dead always wore solid black. And even in Paris it wasn't an entirely unusual thing. But the zeal with which Raphaella threw herself into her mourning struck everyone strangely. It was as though she were punishing herself and atoning for countless unspoken sins. After the first three months her mother suggested she go to Paris, but the suggestion met with an instant refusal. She wanted to stay at Santa Eugenia, she had no desire to go anywhere else. She shunned everyone's company, even her mother's. She did nothing anyone knew of except stay in her room, write her endless letters in response to the cards and letters of condolence, and go for her solitary walks.

  Among the letters that came after her arrival was a long and heartfelt one from Charlotte Brandon, reaching out to the young woman. She told her bluntly but kindly that Alex had explained the circumstances of John Henry's passing and that she hoped that Raphaella would be wise enough not to blame herself. There was a long philosophical part of the letter, in which she wrote that she had known of him as a young man and she had gathered over the years that his infirmities must have come as a spirit-crushing blow, that in light of what he had been and then had become, in light of his affection for Raphaella, his life must have been a prison that he had longed to flee, and that what he had done, while certainly difficult for those who survived him to understand, may well have been the final blessing for him. Although a selfish act, Charlotte wrote to Raphaella, it is one that I hope you will come to accept and understand, without the egocentricity of self-accusation and selfflagellation. She urged Raphaella to simply accept it, be kind to his memory, and to herself, and move on. It was a plea to Raphaella to be good to herself, whatever that might mean.

  It was the only letter to which Raphaella did not respond immediately as she sat by herself for endless hours in her ivory tower. The letter from Charlotte languished for weeks on the desk, unanswered. Raphaella simply did not know what to say. In the end she answered simply, expressing her gratitude for the kind words and the woman's thoughts and hoping that if she found herself in Europe she would stop at Santa Eugenia and say hello. However painful for Raphaella the mental association of Charlotte and Alex, she had been fond enough of Charlotte in her own right, and in time she would like to see her again. But when she made the suggestion, she did not anticipate a note from Charlotte in late June. She and Mandy had just flown to London, as usual, to promote Charlotte's latest book. There was also going to be a movie tie-in so she was very busy. She was scheduled to fly on to Paris and then Berlin, but as long as she was in Europe, she was thinking of flying to Madrid to see some friends. She and Mandy were longing to see Raphaella and wondered if they could either lure her to Madrid or drive to Santa Eugenia to see her for an afternoon. They were willing to undertake the trip to see her, and Raphaella was deeply touched. Enough so that she didn't dare refuse to see them, but attempted to discourage them with kind words. She explained that it was awkward for her to leave Santa Eugenia, that her assistance was needed to keep an eye on the children and see that things ran smoothly for her mother's innumerable guests, none of which was true of course. Since the rest of the family had begun to arrive for the summer, Raphaella had been more elusive than ever, and often took her meals on a tray in her room. To the emotional Spaniards around her it didn't seem an unusual posture during mourning, but nonetheless her mother was growing increasingly concerned.

  The letter that Raphaella addressed to Charlotte in Paris was put on the same silver salver where the family left all of its outgoing mail. But on the particular day Raphaella left it, one of the children scooped it all up in his knapsack to mail it in town when he went shopping for candies with his sisters and brothers, and the letter to Charlotte slipped out of his hand before he reached the box. Or at least that was the only explanation Raphaella could discover when Charlotte called her three weeks later, in July, having heard not a word.

  May we come to see you? Raphaella faltered for a long moment, feeling at the same time rude and trapped.

  I' it's so hot here, you'd hate it' and you know, it's so awkward to get here, I hate to put you to so much trouble.

  Then come to Madrid. Charlotte's voice had been filled with good cheer.

  I really can't leave here, but I'd love to. It was a blatant lie.

  Well, then it looks as though we have no choice, do we? How about tomorrow? We can rent a car and come down after breakfast. How does that sound?

  A three-hour drive, just to see me? Oh, Charlotte ' I feel awful' .

  Don't. We'd love to. Is that all right for you? For a moment she wasn't sure if Raphaella really wanted them, and she suddenly wondered if she was pressing herself on her and Raphaella would rather not see them at all. Perhaps the link with Alex was still too painful for her to bear. But she sounded well to Charlotte, and when she answered again, she sounded as though she'd be pleased to see them.

  It'll be wonderful to see you both!

  I can hardly wait to see you, Raphaella. And you'll barely recognize Mandy. Did you know she's going to Stanford in the fall?

  At her end of the conversation Raphaella smiled gently. Mandy' her Amanda' it pleased her to know that she would still be living with Alex. He needed her as much as she needed him. I'm glad. And then she couldn't help asking. And Kay?

  She lost the election, you know. But you must have known that before you left. That was last year. As it so happened, she had known it, because she had seen it in the papers, but Alex had refused to discuss his sister with her during the brief revival of their relationship. For him there had been an irreparable break between them over Amanda, and Raphaella had often wondered what he would have done if he had known about Kay's letter to her father. He would probably have killed her. But Raphaella had never told him. And now she was just as glad. What did it matter? Their life together was over, and Kay was his sister after all. Darling, we'll catch up on all this tomorrow. Can we bring you anything from Madrid?

  Just yourselves. Raphaella smiled and hung up, but for the rest of the day she paced her room nervously. Why had she let them talk her into it? And what would she do when they came? She didn't want to see Charlotte or Amanda, didn't want any reminders of her past life. She was leading a new life now at Santa Eugenia. This was all she would allow herself to have. What was the point of staying in touch with the past?

  When she came down to dinner that evening, her mother noticed the nervous tremor of her hands, and she made a mental note to herself to speak to Antoine. She thought that Raphaella should see a doctor. She had been looking ghastly for months. Despite the brilliant summer sunshine she stayed in her room and remained ghostly pale, she had lost fifteen or twenty pounds since she'd arrived from San Francisco, and she looked frankly unhealthy compared to the rest of her family, with her huge dark, unhappy eyes in the painfully gaunt, waiflike face.
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  She mentioned in passing to her mother however that she was having two guests from Madrid the next day. Well, actually they're from the States.

  Oh? Her mother looked at her warmly. It was a relief that she was seeing someone. She hadn't even wanted to see her old acquaintances in Spain. It was the most earnest period of mourning Alejandra had ever seen. Who are they, darling?

  Charlotte Brandon and her granddaughter.

  The writer? Her mother looked surprised. She had read some of her books translated into Spanish and she knew that Raphaella had read them all. Would you like them to spend the night? Raphaella shook her head absently and went back upstairs to her room.

  She was still there late the next morning when one of the servants came upstairs and knocked softly on her door. Do+|a Raphaella' you have guests. She hardly even dared to disturb Raphaella. The door opened and the fifteen-year-old girl in the maid's uniform visibly quailed.

  Thank you. Raphaella smiled and walked to the stairs. She was so nervous that her legs felt like wooden posts beneath her. It was odd, but she hadn't seen any friends in so long that she didn't know what to say. Looking serious and a little frightened, in one of the elegant black summer dresses her mother had bought her in Madrid and still wearing the black stockings, she walked down the stairs, looking frighteningly pale.

  At the foot of the stairs Charlotte waited, and she gave an unconscious start when she saw Raphaella approach. She had never seen anyone looking so anguished and unhappy, and she looked like a portrait of sorrow in her black dress with her huge grief-stricken eyes. There was instantly a smile there for Charlotte, but it was more like a sad reaching-out across an unbridgeable chasm. It was as though she had slipped into another world since she had last seen her, and as she watched her, Charlotte felt an almost irresistible urge to cry. She managed somehow to quell it and took the girl in her arms with a warm, tender hug. She realized as she watched the gaunt beauty hug Amanda that in some ways she was even more beautiful than before but it was the kind of beauty one only looked at, one never touched, and one never really came to know. Throughout their visit she was hospitable and gracious, charming to them both, as she showed them the house and the gardens, the historical chapel built by her great-grandfather, and introduced them to all the children who were playing with their nannies in a special garden built just for them. It was an extraordinary place to spend a summer, Charlotte found herself thinking, and it was a relic of another life, another world, but it was no place for a young woman like Raphaella to be buried, and it frightened her when Raphaella told her that she planned to stay there.