Walking in Darkness

by Charlotte Lamb

  Staring out of the cab window, Steve came back to the present with a start, realizing they had arrived in the overcrowded multi-ethnic neighbourhood of the Lower East Side, where wave after wave of new immigrants had come to rest over the years: Jews and Italians, Chinese and Poles, all washing together in a colourful mix which filled these grey streets with terrific restaurants, shops which gave off a powerful foreign smell, local markets selling everything from French cheeses to Russian icons, Polish handmade leather shoes to Chinese herbal medicines.

  The cab pulled up outside a high apartment building among a row of others. After paying off the driver, Steve stood on the sidewalk, looking around in fast-falling twilight, catching sight of the East River, a bluish slate smudge between the close-set buildings opposite. You were never far from water on Manhattan: on the West Side of the city ran the Hudson, leading out eventually to the Atlantic, while the East River linked up the Atlantic with Long Island Sound.

  Traffic churned past. Many shops were still open, he saw a handful of people waiting to be served at a stall selling green bananas, tied bundles of lemon grass, round bronze onions and aubergines, the colours of the vegetables still sharp in the fading light. Steve suddenly felt hungry, realising he hadn’t eaten a proper meal for a day or so. He had had coffee and orange juice for breakfast, a sandwich at lunchtime, nothing in between. He threw a glance up at the freshly painted terracotta façade of the building behind him. Iron fire-escapes gave the row of buildings a skeletal structure. Now at twilight they cast elaborate shadows on the painted walls behind them. Which floor did she live on? With his luck it would probably turn out to be the top, and there would be no lift.

  Well, there were plenty of good restaurants within walking distance, he thought, if he could talk her into having dinner with him! She had told him she was living on a shoestring, so the idea of a free meal would probably be too tempting for her to resist. He hoped.

  The apartment-house lobby was dank and gloomy, as they often were in this neighbourhood. He checked out the mailboxes first and was relieved to find a first-floor flat had the name Narodni neatly printed in capital letters beside the name Janacek.

  He had to ring the doorbell several times before anyone opened up, and even then the chain was left on while a face peered out through the narrow crack. It wasn’t Sophie Narodni. This woman was much older; a very thin, febrile face, without make-up, faintly Oriental-looking, black eyes, slanting a little, a wide mouth and high cheekbones.

  ‘Yeah?’ Her voice was entirely American, not to say New York. Bronx-born, he decided as she added, ‘Wha’d’yer want?’

  ‘I’m looking for Sophie Narodni.’

  ‘She’s not back yet.’

  ‘Are you Lilli Janacek?’

  She gave him a suspicious look. ‘What if I am? I don’t know you. I’m cooking, I can’t stand here talking.’ The door began to close. Steve put his foot into it. The black eyes looked down at his highly polished shoe. ‘I only have to press this panic button, mister, and the apartment security alarm will go off. Get your foot out of my door.’

  Steve pulled out his press card, held it up. ‘I’m Steve Colbourne, I work for NWTV, maybe you’ve seen my show? If you’re interested in politics you will have. I just saw Sophie at the Gowrie press conference and wanted to talk to her about something important.’

  She looked at the photo on his press card, then, closer, at him, her black, thin brows making a perfect semicircle in surprise. ‘Sure. Sure, I’ve seen you on TV, I remember your face now.’

  ‘Could I wait for Sophie inside, please? It’s chilly enough to freeze the blood out here, and the lobby smells like a urinal.’

  She hesitated, then unhooked the chain. ‘I guess so, come in.’

  As soon as he had walked past her she put the door back on the chain. ‘I was just going to make some coffee – d’yer want some?’

  ‘I’d love some.’ He could smell something delicious; frying onions, or garlic, or both. He followed Lilli Janacek into a tiny kitchen. There was a pan on the stove. Lilli stirred its contents, poured in steaming pale golden liquid from a jug, stirred again, then turned down the heat and put a lid on the pan.

  ‘Chicken stew,’ she told Steve, turning round.

  ‘Smells wonderful.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s an old recipe my mother taught me.’

  ‘Czech?’

  ‘No, my mother was American – it was my father who was Czech. How do you like your coffee?’

  ‘Black and strong, no sugar. Thank you. Any idea where Sophie can have got to? The press conference ended an hour ago. Would she have gone to her office?’

  ‘What office?’ Lilli Janacek asked with heavy sarcasm. ‘She works from here. You don’t think that old skinflint of a Czech would cough up for an office? Before Sophie came, a friend of mine, Theo, worked for Vladimir, using his own home as an office, and being paid in peanuts. The monkeys in Central Park Zoo have better pay and conditions. Every cent Sophie spends she has to account for – she can just about pay my rent and her fares. If I didn’t feed her once a day, she probably wouldn’t eat.’

  Handing him a mug of coffee, Lilli led the way back across the little corridor into a sitting-room so small it just had room for a couple of armchairs and a TV, a dining-table squeezed into a corner with two chairs pushed under it and a set of narrow bookshelves running below the window. The threadbare carpet was a dingy beige but there were jewel-coloured little rugs scattered across it, and the walls were lit by red glass globes which gave the room a warmth and glow that made it look inviting.

  ‘I don’t allow smoking in here,’ he was firmly informed.

  ‘I don’t smoke.’ That got him a smile.

  Steve asked her, ‘What do you do? Are you a journalist too?’

  ‘I’m an artist, but I do the odd article for trade magazines. You know the sort of thing; pieces on modern art, on New York galleries, anything to bring in some income. Every little helps.’

  Sipping his coffee, Steve began to prowl along the shelves, looking at the books. Hemingway, Thurber, Wallace Stevens, Dorothy Parker, Jack Kerouac, Scott Fitzgerald.

  ‘Are these all yours, or are some Sophie’s?’

  ‘Sophie keeps her books in her bedroom. Those are mine, and before you ask, I don’t read contemporary authors, they bore me,’ Lilli told him. ‘Except for Toni Morrison. She’s so good it hurts, but most writers today, they got no style and nothing to say worth reading.’

  ‘Who does Sophie read?’

  ‘Are you in love with her?’

  He went red and laughed shortly, taken aback by the directness. He was used to giving out questions like knives, not getting them. ‘I only just met her today.’

  Lilli’s smile was mocking, a little cynical. ‘So what? It doesn’t take but a minute to fall in love. She’s quite a looker.’

  ‘She certainly is!’ Steve tried to sound very casual. ‘Has she got a boyfriend?’ Lilli might know about Don Gowrie, might have all the answers to the questions buzzing around his head.

  Tartly, she told him, ‘Ask her. I’m not gossiping about her to a guy I only just met.’

  He saw he wouldn’t get anything out of her. Undeterred, he asked, ‘How long has she been in America?’

  Lilli gave him a narrow stare. ‘What is this? The Spanish Inquisition? You can ask her that, too.’

  Steve shrugged and wandered over to the dining-table, stared down at a large black sheet of paper covered with white circles arranged in a wheel, a black and white image of a face in each, in the centre a lightly sketched outline of Sophie’s face which had the same spectral look, and between the circles a vividly painted border in the art nouveau style. The effect was mysterious and striking. ‘What’s this? Did you do it?’ he asked, bending to look at the circles.

  ‘Yes, I’m doing it as a Christmas present for Sophie. I photocopied old photos she has of her family, going back a hundred years.’

  ‘The copies are very faint,’ he observed,
peering at the face of an old man with a long grey beard. You could only just see his features, whereas another man, in a rather crumpled white shirt, open at the neck, could be seen quite clearly.

  ‘They are copies of copies of copies – Sophie had modern copies of old family photos. The originals are in the Czech Republic, in her family home. Before she went to London, Sophie borrowed them and had a photographer make copies. When I started my wheel I photocopied them, then I kept copying the copies, to make them even fainter if the person was dead.’ Lilli stood beside him and put her long, slightly grubby finger on another circle. ‘For instance, this is her sister, Anya, a little girl who died before Sophie was born.’

  The childish face was wraithlike, fading, only just visible. ‘It’s extraordinary,’ Steve said, oddly very moved as he stared at the child. His mother had lost a child, a little girl, before he was born, he knew, although she never talked about it.

  His parents had called her Marcie; she had been premature and had only survived a few days, was buried in the little churchyard half a mile from their home. His mother visited the grave now and then, and tended the tiny garden she had planted above it. It was that which had told Steve how much the dead child had meant to her.

  ‘You know, I’m sure my mother would be thrilled with something like this,’ he said slowly. ‘Do you accept commissions? If I brought some photocopies of my family photos, would you do one like this for me?’

  Lilli put her head on one side and considered him thoughtfully. ‘I’d have to think about that. I need to know a lot about my subjects. What’s your background? Where do your people come from?’

  He laughed. ‘Why do you need to know that?’

  ‘People are like trees, they have deep roots; they are fed by their roots, and if they’re uprooted to a new place they often die, if not in the body then in the soul.’

  ‘Unless they’re very strong, in themselves, like the people who came to the States from all over the world and found a new home here,’ said Steve soberly, and Lilli nodded.

  ‘Sure. Where they came from was so bad they would have died rather than go back. Sure. What about your people? How long they been in the States?’

  ‘My family are New Englanders on both sides, from way back in the eighteenth century. English on both sides. On my father’s side the first American was a sailor who jumped a ship bringing rum from the West Indies; on my mother’s side we come from a parson with Puritan leanings who emigrated to find freedom of conscience.’

  She studied him with those dark pools of eyes, frowning a little in concentration, then after a moment said slowly, ‘Yes, I see both of them in your face; the courage and recklessness of your sea-going ancestor and the fanaticism and stubbornness of the Puritan parson. Interesting combination. Yes, I would like to do a study of you.’

  ‘A study of me?’ he muttered, taken aback. ‘But I thought it was my family you would be studying?’

  ‘Before I can create one of my wheels I have to know the person I’m making the wheel for, because in each of us a little of our ancestors lives, and the sum total of the wheel will be you. I shall use only pictures of your family that seem to me to explain you.’ She eyed him with faint mockery. ‘Do you still want one?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but with faint hesitation, because he wasn’t sure he wanted her probing and prying, asking questions, making guesses. On the other hand, he liked to please his mother and knew she would be fascinated by one of those wheels.

  Staring at Sophie’s wheel, he asked, ‘Tell me, does the art nouveau border have a meaning, or is it just decoration?’

  ‘Art nouveau had a special meaning to the Czechs, it was a time of nationalist fervour, the turn of the century, and art and politics came together in a new way.’ She gave him a self-mocking little smile. ‘Also I love it, OK? I learnt to love it from my Czech father, I guess. And you didn’t ask how much, by the way. That’s the reckless sailor in you, ready to jump ship without knowing what he’s getting himself into!’

  He had never thought of himself as reckless and wasn’t sure he liked the idea. ‘I was getting round to it! So, how much?’

  ‘Four hundred dollars.’

  He was startled by the amount, but under her amused gaze he wouldn’t show it. ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ He held out his hand and she was about to take it when a telephone began to ring.

  Lilli groaned. ‘You know, I hate that thing. Always sounds urgent, always turns out to be nothing at all.’ She walked over to the windowsill where the phone was perched on top of a book. She picked it up. ‘Yeah?’ Then her face changed, she went paler than ever. ‘Oh. When? But how . . . Is she going to be OK? Well, can I see her? What ward?’ There was a pause, then she said curtly, ‘Yes, she has Medicare, of course she does. You’ll get your blood money, don’t worry.’

  She hung up and looked round at Steve. ‘God damn these people. All they care about is can she pay? Sophie can die in the street for all they care—’

  ‘Sophie?’ The name jerked out of him, shock making his voice shake.

  ‘There’s been an accident in the subway . . .’

  ‘That was Sophie?’ He thought how close he had come to finding out half an hour ago and could have kicked himself for driving away.

  Lilli looked at him sharply. ‘What? You heard about the accident? You know what happened? Did you hear it on the radio, or something? What did they say? The hospital wouldn’t give me any details, or say how bad she was.’

  He told her how he had seen the ambulance arriving. ‘They said someone had thrown herself under a train.’

  He felt sick as his imagination began to paint pictures of what Sophie would look like if she had been hit by a train. God, he thought, that lovely face. That body. Even if she lived, what would be left of either? ‘But it never entered my head that it might be Sophie,’ he muttered, his stomach churning.

  ‘I can’t understand how it happened,’ Lilli said. ‘She’s always so careful.’

  ‘When I talked to her she obviously had something on her mind, she was angry about something.’ He glanced sideways at Lilli, wondering just how much she knew, and what there was to know. Maybe his guesswork about Sophie had been way off? After all, the gossip about Don Gowrie was vague; indeed he was sure it had started long ago, before Sophie Narodni came to America. Mrs Gowrie had been ill for a long, long time, of course – there could have been a succession of ‘other women’ in Gowrie’s life. Sophie might just be the latest. And if she was, was she the type to kiss and tell? He didn’t think she was, but women were a law unto themselves. Who knew what they would tell each other? They seemed to need to talk, to confide in each other; they were in an eternal conspiracy against the other sex. ‘But I hadn’t got her down as suicidal,’ he said.

  ‘Suicidal? I don’t believe it. Not Sophie. Look at those faces in her wheel – the peasant strength of people who have survived the worst life can chuck at them,’ Lilli said, her Oriental eyes shadow-ringed with anxiety. She sighed. ‘But then what do we ever know of each other?’

  She was right, Steve thought, especially where women were concerned, Steve had never yet managed to understand a woman, even when he had known her most of his life, like Cathy Gowrie. He had honestly thought he knew her as well as he knew himself, they had known each other since childhood, but how wrong he had turned out to be!

  Lilli vanished down the corridor, came back wearing a raincoat, carrying a purse into which she was pushing a blue plastic folder. ‘The hospital admin people want proof that Sophie has Medicare,’ she said. ‘Sorry, but I’ll have to rush.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Steve said roughly. ‘We should pick up a cab easily enough at this hour.’

  Lilli gave him a sharp but unsurprised look. ‘OK.’ She opened the front door, then stopped, groaning. ‘Oh, my stew, I nearly forgot, it would be ruined.’ She hurried into the kitchen to switch it off, and Steve waited impatiently, so tense he felt as if he might come apart at the seams if he didn’t get to Sop
hie soon. He had to know what had happened to her.

  And why, he thought. Oh, yes, and why. The old joke came into his head . . . did she fall or was she pushed? Accident, suicide or . . . He shivered. My God, what was he thinking? That was crazy. Gowrie had been shaken to see her at the press conference, yes – but she couldn’t possibly be that much of a threat. Could she?

  Don Gowrie was dressing for a very grand dinner which would be held downstairs in his hotel, in a private dining-room glittering with crystal and silver under enormous chandeliers. Among the guests would be his father-in-law, Eddie Ramsey, who had flown in by helicopter from his Easton estate and was now resting in another suite. There would also be a whole host of other East Coast politicians, good old boys from way back who as far as the general public were concerned had apparently retired from public life yet still managed to manipulate and grease the handles of power without ever being caught doing it. Don Gowrie needed their support, their money and their influence, if he was to get his campaign bandwagon rolling fast. He had other backers; industrialists with even more money, people who wanted to be on the inside track if he did manage to get the presidential nomination – but these old men tonight were still vital to him. He needed to balance the different forces backing him; he didn’t want to be in the power of any one lobby.

  He stood back to look at himself in the dressing-table mirror, noting with satisfaction how good he still looked in evening dress. It suited him, the dark material, the smooth fit of that excellent tailoring. He really didn’t look his age, did he? He had to work at it, of course: diet and constant exercise kept his weight down and he had inherited a good constitution. Good genes, he thought, and his eyes darkened. A pity that . . .

  No, he wouldn’t think about that. It was a talent he had worked on all his life – the ability to push aside what he did not find convenient to dwell upon. He shifted his feet, sighing. That tie simply didn’t look right. Why the hell did he find it so difficult to tie a bowtie after all these years of doing it so often? He pulled the tie loose again just as a phone began to ring in the room behind him.