by Lucy Foley
‘I can’t.’
‘Excuse me?’ The priest frowns. ‘She is keeping you imprisoned in some way? But you are free to visit me here.’
‘I mean that I can’t leave her. This is what I mean when I say that she has bewitched me.’
‘Ah,’ the priest says, with something almost like a smile. ‘But this sort of attachment can occur without the work of witchcraft. We call it, then, an infatuation.’
‘Father. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything else.’
The priest steeples his hands. ‘My advice, my son, would be to take yourself away from the problem. Your mother’s family has lodgings near the hamlet of Cervo, I think?’
The captain nods.
‘Go there. Eat good food, drink wine, feel the sun on your face, swim in the sea. I know the priest there. I will send a letter with you, so that he may understand your predicament, and guide you.’
The captain leaves strict instructions with the housekeeper not to allow the girl to go anywhere unchaperoned. As an afterthought, he goes, too, to the studio of the painter.
‘I want you to make my likeness too.’ He names a sum.
‘Of course. Shall I come to your house tomorrow, to begin?’
‘No. You are to come with me to my residence near Cervo.’
He sees the man’s hesitation: and in this is all the proof he would need, if he did not have it already. For a poor painter to be reluctant to take such a lucrative commission shows the tie upon the man must be strong indeed. But, in the end, the money is enough: the man accedes.
The weather is fine in Cervo. But the captain can no longer appreciate the warmth of the sun on his skin: he feels cold, all the time. His nights are sleepless, and his appetite does not return. His days are spent sitting for the painter, and visiting the priest in his coral church, praying only half-heartedly for freedom from her. For this is perhaps the most insidious effect of the sickness: he does not truly want to be rid of it.
As the painter works, the captain looks at him, trying to decide what it is that has drawn her affection while he himself has failed. He is hardly a majestic example of manliness, after all. His limbs are thin, his features somewhat crooked. His manner is weak, the captain thinks, scornfully, almost timid. It is ridiculous. He would want his rival to be a worthy match for himself, at least. One day, he can stand it no longer.
‘What is it,’ he asks the man, through his teeth, ‘what is it that a puny, womanly creature such as yourself can offer a woman? Explain it to me.’
The painter looks at him, stunned. ‘I don’t understand your meaning, sire.’
‘Oh, I think that you understand me well enough.’
‘I’m sorry, sire, but—’
‘I mean that I am trying to understand why that whore would pick a rodent like you over me.’
Perhaps it is his use of ‘whore’ that does it. A change comes over the other man. He looks, suddenly, a little taller, and his eyes gleam. All of a sudden he seems to have forgotten that he is in the captain’s pay. ‘Because,’ he says, ‘you don’t understand anything of her. Because you have tried to own her, and you can’t own another human being – least of all a woman like her. You can only love her.’
Cervo. The name, when he sees it on the page, gives a thrill. Hal is certain that the town had not been on the Contessa’s original itinerary. And yet, by chance, he happened to visit the place today. He recognizes the description of the coral-hued church. He has spent the day, quite literally, in the other man’s footsteps. Ridiculous, to suppose it anything other than coincidence. And yet would it be such a step to imagine that he is being in some way influenced? He has already accepted another impossible thing: the fact that a compass, five centuries old, is moving as though driven by some internal mechanism.
He puts it down. He needs fresh air. Another walk outside. And … yes, he will go down to the swimming pool again, to make sure.
When he steps outside the strange song of the frogs fills the air again. He climbs the steps leading down towards the pool, so that he can just make out the dark rectangle of water.
The water looks silver from this angle; like liquid mercury. To swim in it, it seems, would transform one. He finds himself beginning to shrug off his clothes, stripping down to his briefs. He is tempted to take off even these; but the possibility of someone else being awake too stops him. The cool night air surrounds him. Now he begins to climb down into the colder embrace of the water, exhaling quickly as it reaches his thighs, his waistband, his chest. He turns onto his back, and pushes away from the edge, the breath tight in his chest. When he glances down at himself his submerged limbs appear pale and unfamiliar, as though they do not quite belong to him. Finally, with an effort of will, he dunks his head and surfaces filled with a strange euphoria. He swims several lengths, up and down. He is beginning to enjoy himself: there is something transgressive about it, this swimming through silver darkness while the rest of the world sleeps.
He briefly thinks that he hears his name called. But then he decides that it must be the strange musical effect of the water in his ears. He ploughs on, making swimmer’s turns at the ends, tucking his body around itself – movements not performed since school, and yet sewn forever into the fabric of him. He is cutting through the water now rather than tussling with it. His body is a graceful, efficient machine. The breath is singing through him. Again, he thinks he hears his name. Again, he decides it is some strange distortion of the wind and water. He swims on. Finally, he surfaces for air. And recoils in surprise when he sees the figure at the end of the pool. He blinks furiously. It is her.
She is definitely awake. They watch each other like two animals, wary, alert. Neither of them speak. Keeping her eyes on his she takes the hem of her nightshirt and in one fluid motion lifts it over her head. He stares. He never saw her like this on that night in Rome: it had been too hot, close, fast. Still, she keeps her gaze fixed on him. She makes no effort to cover herself – and this is the bravery of her, he thinks, her ability to overcome her natural reserve. She is far braver than him. She descends into the water. He moves toward her, and holds out his arms. She steps into them.
Now, suddenly, it is hot, close, fast – far more so than before. More of everything than before. She is biting the skin of his shoulder, her legs are wrapped about his back, and at the centre of everything a pleasure so intense that it is almost agony.
Afterwards, they remain together for several minutes at the corner of the pool. Neither of them speaks. He is amazed by what has occurred. He strokes her wet hair with his hand, feels her ribcage rise and fall against him with her breathing. His mouth is against her neck beneath her ear, where the pulse beats fast beneath the skin.
Later, they lie in his bed, the sheets tangled about them. This time it is slower, more controlled. Until she pushes him over, gently, so that she can move on top of him, her legs tight about him. Both of them, then, make more noise than they should.
Afterwards, in a kind of wonder, he says without thinking: ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ And then the horror of it grips him. He feels repelled by the spectre he has allowed into the room.
31
Her
1948
I have impeccable taste, as our acquaintances say. I know which white burgundy to serve with a lobster dish, which is the best table at Le Pavillon, what to order there. We host dinners at the apartment in New York, at the house in Southampton. Every so often, I will catch sight of myself reflected in the mirror at some event and I will think: she looks like one of them.
Because there are two women. There is Stella and there is Estrella. I am aware of how this sounds: a little like madness. I am not mad. We all have different selves, I think, that we become, or promote, depending on the company. The difference with me is that in all company – and especially with my husband – I am Stella now. Stella, who wears designs by Balmain and Jacques Fath, who has learned to smoke cigarettes from a silver holder, and to drink champagne with the gla
ss cradled just so. Who has almost all but covered up her history with fluency in this new life. I enjoy being her. It is only when I am alone that I remember Estrella, the child–woman who tried, and failed, to be a mother to Papa and Tino, to keep them safe. Estrella, who had to make decisions, who chose wrong. I am only her when I sleep. I return to that time when I lost everything – when I lost myself, too, and I wake breathing hard, cold with sweat.
At other times I lie in bed awake, and worries that in the day are manageable become looming fears. I don’t know my husband at all, I think. Worse, still, I don’t know myself. I think: Estrella is slipping from me, gradually – but Stella is merely a shell, all surface. Love, once, made me strong. Without it, I am weak. Once, my responsibility was to care for another human being, to make choices that might – that did – mean the difference between life and death. Now my sole responsibility is to present myself well. I don’t even know which are my opinions any more, and which are ventriloquized from those about me. It would be better, I think, to be eking out a penniless existence in Madrid, than to be living this false one. It would be better to be one of those women I glimpsed in the hotel bar.
In the morning, I am always better able to reason. Back in Madrid, I remind myself, poverty would have been the best possible outcome. As Papa’s daughter, I might by now be imprisoned, or dead. Spain could not be a home for me. And the whole of Europe is ablaze with war.
Of course I know my husband. I certainly know him as well as – if not better than – the wives of my acquaintance know theirs. I know his thoughts on opera (Wagner, not Verdi), on the way Southampton society is changing (not for the better). I know what champagne he likes (Tattinger). I know his thoughts on Harry Truman. I know, yes – say it – what he likes in bed. Anyway, how well can anyone know another person, even the one they live with? He is attentive, he is generous – extravagantly so. Though it is perhaps shameful to admit it, I like being looked after. I like being treated like something precious. Wouldn’t you?
Is this not enough? Even if it were not – or at least not enough for happiness – I have no other option. I find that I must always return to that. I don’t think I could get back to Estrella now, even if I knew for certain that I wanted to. Too much has happened in between. Sharp edges have been worn into yielding softness. I am pliable as clay. This life is, on the whole, extremely easy: as easy, as reading from a script. Being her was a constant struggle. It meant caring too much.
Sometimes, for this reason, I think it is for the best that we don’t have children, though I know that this is a source of disappointment for him. He arranged for me to see a doctor about it, but the results came back normal. He doesn’t mention it again for some time after that.
But a few months after the visit to the specialist there is an incident. I know then that he has not stopped thinking about it. We have been intimate, and I am back in my bathroom, getting ready for bed.
‘Spit it out.’ He has appeared, suddenly, behind me in the mirror.
I am so surprised that the opposite happens: I swallow it. He moves towards me. I have seen the look on his face before, in relation to other people – staff, business associates who cross him. Never with me, though.
And suddenly, he has me by the throat, and I feel myself being bent over the sink.
‘Spit it out,’ he says, again.
I try to speak, but his hand is so tight about my throat that I can’t do it. And then he has released me, and I am retching into the basin.
‘What was it?’ he says. ‘What did you just take?’
I pick up the glass bottle, and show him the label. ‘The doctor prescribed them – your doctor – to help me sleep. To stop the sleepwalking.’
His face changes. And then he has dropped to the ground and put his hands around my waist, like a supplicant.
‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I shouldn’t have doubted you. I know you wouldn’t deceive me.’
I find myself on the stretch of Fourth Avenue between Astor Place and Union Square that they call ‘Book Row’. I believe that any volume that you might care to find could be sourced here, if you looked hard enough. My husband can’t understand why I don’t buy books new. I think it is the idea of the lives they have lived before coming into my hands. The pages smell of these past lives. The covers are creased, soft as skin. Sometimes I find the mark of a pencil – occasionally a name – and there is a strange excitement in it.
Usually I only shop at the front of the store, among the English-language novels. I’m not sure what’s different, today, but I find myself drifting to the other end of the shop where there are several untidy shelves of books I have never really looked at before. If you look carefully, the bookseller – an elderly man who I have never heard speak a single word (perhaps he can’t) – has inscribed markers in the wood of the shelves. These are the foreign language books. A surprising number of languages are represented here: evidence of the number of nationalities crowded together onto this small island. I move along the shelves. French. German. Spanish. I stop. I am suddenly aware of my heart beating in my chest. It seems so loud in this quiet space that I’m certain the elderly man must be able to hear it. I’m not sure why I’m looking here, or what for. No: that isn’t quite true.
I find various editions of Cervantes’ plays. A collection of poetry by Lorca. And suddenly, there it is: his name. Papa. My own name: the one lost when I married. My hand trembles as I ease it from the grip of the other volumes. Then I see something odd. The title is wrong. His book is called La Lucha – The Struggle. This is La Pelea – The Fight. A small but definite difference. I pick it up, looking behind me guiltily, to see if I am being observed. I am not. I find the description of its contents, and discover the thing I suspected, but did not believe until I see it here, in print.
It is my father’s second book; the one that was never published. The war, and his death, came before it could even be sent to the publishers.
My mind races through several impossible conclusions. And then, rifling through the pages at the front, I see: Foreword by Salvador Ruiz.
‘My brother,’ I read, ‘was a great mind taken from us far too early. He had given a copy of the book to me just before he died in the struggle he wrote of, the fight of a liberal man against Fascism. I was fortunate enough to be able to escape Madrid following the bombing of my house there – though I left with a heavy heart. My exile, however, away from the suppression of free speech that still exists in Spain, has allowed me to ensure that this great work finds a readership at last.’
It is dated: 1945. University of Lausanne Press. There is a little about him, too. He has retired to a village in the Swiss Alps, where he is writing a book of his own.
I make my way back to the apartment with the book pressed to my chest. Uncle Salvador is alive. I even know where he lives. I could write to him at the university.
But back in the apartment, I find that every attempt feels wrong. I find myself asking why he deserted me, and Tino. But this is the wrong tone to take, too hectoring, destructive. Perhaps I should describe what happened to me. But it all begins with Tino. I cannot write about him. I can’t find the words, or even commit his name to paper. Then I find myself trying to explain the person I am now, the life I live now and realize I am ashamed. My uncle, like my father, was a man who shunned ostentation, or superficiality. He would not recognize the woman I have become. I can’t do it. I have gone too far, changed too much. He is a part of my former existence. I crush the paper into a ball.
I tell Hal of my discovery.
‘He doesn’t know that you’re alive?’
‘No. He left me in Spain. He didn’t wait to find out if we were alive then.’ I see his expression. ‘You think I should have contacted him.’
‘I don’t know,’ he says, carefully, ‘I just think that he might have spent his life feeling guilty about having left, before he could make sure that you were safe. He might have made the decision in a moment of fear, and spent the rest of his
life regretting it.’
‘It isn’t the only reason, though. He wouldn’t recognize her – the person I was – in who I am now.’
He reaches for her, with the hesitancy, the strange shyness, that comes to them both in the moments where they aren’t driven by desire. ‘I didn’t know you, then,’ he says, ‘but I recognize her.’
32
At breakfast the next morning the weather seems to have forgotten itself, and launched into summer. Already, it is too hot to be sitting in full sun. Aubrey has covered himself with lotion that has made him paler than ever, and has found the deepest possible patch of shade, beneath a parasol. Against the colour that surrounds him, he looks as though he has been rendered in negative.
Hal glances at Stella as little as possible. Merely to look for too long, he senses, would be to give all away. She must be playing the same game, for throughout the meal her face is turned resolutely seawards.
‘Well,’ the Contessa says, ‘I think we must find a way to cool down. This is a day to be out on the water.’ As Hal is wondering if she intends them all to clamber into the tiny, unstable tender of the yacht, she turns to the Conte. ‘What do you think? Time to give the old lady an outing?’
*
This old lady is a speedboat. Despite her great age she is as beautiful, perhaps more so, than the day she was handmade from caramel-coloured teak. On her boards: a pair of matching water-skis shaped like butter-knives.
‘Have you ever done it?’ The Contessa turns to Hal.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure I fancy my chances. Though I have skied before – badly. Will you try?’
‘Alas no, my surgeon has forbidden me. I used to be very, very good,’ she says, ‘I am not embarrassed to say so. I could balance on the one ski only. Those days are gone now. But it gives me almost as much pleasure to see others do it.’
