The Bookstore

by Deborah Meyler

  I run out of the house into the freezing air, without any clear idea of where to go except away from Cornelius van Leuven, away from his bribes, and most of all, away from the last thing that seemed to be in his eyes. I thought I saw pity.

  The early dark is coming, flooding everywhere. Two lamps along the drive are already lit, throwing clear pools of light on the ground. I can hear the party, the famous van Leuven Christmas party, and I turn away from it. I will go back to the little blue room in the other house, and collect myself.

  There is frost over everything; everything is still. The stasis of everything is discordant with my inner turbulence, and gradually it calms me down. I walk down Cornelius’s boxwood drive to the public lane. It takes a long time. As I turn into the lane, I walk into the faintest cloud of boxwood scent, hanging as if left over from the summertime. It reminds me so much of long summer days in England that I can hardly bear that I am so far from home. I know that England is much more often about waiting for buses that don’t turn up, under a sky as dismally white today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow, but with that fragrance surrounding me, I am caught up in a strawberries-and-cream, leather-on-willow, Pimm’s-in-the-garden-with-mint-and-cucumber sort of England that it now seems insanity to have left.

  I fish my phone out of my bag, and try to call my mother. There is no signal.

  I finally reach the Winslow House. It is not locked, of course, because nobody is worried about thieves. I peep into the sitting room—the French windows that face the sea are closed but there must be gaps in the frames, because the gauzy curtains move gently. The piano keys are glimmering softly in the twilight. There are Hopper pictures that have this juxtaposition of house and ocean, an open door with open sea beyond. When I saw them in England, I thought they were Magritte-like fantasies, but now I think he probably drew from life. How privileged they are, the van Leuvens and all the rest of them, that this is here whenever they want it. How privileged I should feel, to be here at all. But I do not fit.

  I move into the center of the room, catch a wisp of a reflection of myself in the mirror that startles me. I turn to look fully. In the pale dress that I chose for the party, with my hair pinned up and some of it now falling down from the running, I could be the ghost of a sad girl who lived here a century ago or more. Sadness permeates the room—I don’t know if it is mine or if it belongs to some forlorn spirit. Anyway, we suit each other.

  I go over to the grand piano, sit down, stroke the keys. I can play to about grade one, the first foothill rather than the last pinnacle. I’ve never played on a grand. I start to play a very simple version of the Moonlight Sonata that I learned when I was a child.

  I don’t turn on the light. It’s the Moonlight Sonata, after all, and it goes with the mood of the room. I get it wrong at first; it’s a long time since I played. But I get the hang of it, and my absolute solitude is conducive to playing it well.

  Music is like poetry. It can stop you thinking. But it can also open you up. I put my loneliness and my sadness and my happiness into the music; I play my simplified Moonlight Sonata for children as if I am Alfred Brendel. I play like a musical genius, except for all the wrong notes.

  When I finish, I sit quietly for a moment. I wish that Luke could have heard that, so at least he would know I have some sort of soul.

  There is a noise, and I jump. Cornelius van Leuven is standing in the doorway like a revenant. He has his hands in his pockets.

  “You play exceptionally badly,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “Can you play the rest? Can you play the third movement?”

  I look at him with my eyebrows up. We both know that I can’t.

  “I can,” he says. He is leaning now against the doorway.

  “From memory?” I say. I should say, How could you say those appalling things to me, and haven’t you ever heard of knocking, and are we really going to talk about Beethoven rather than the facts that face us?, but I don’t.

  “No. But Carter will have the music.” He pushes himself from the doorpost, rifles through a pile of sheet music on a table, and switches on the lamp near the piano. I get off the stool and he sits down on it, opens the music.

  “Like you, I feel more like the first movement,” he says. “Do you know enough to turn for me?”

  “Just about,” I say. He rests his fingers lightly on the keys while he studies the music for a few seconds, and then he starts to play.

  He plays with the absolute assurance that I expected, but also with an emotion that I would never have imagined, not from the man who stroked the plasterwork in his study with such gentle menace. He plays what I played, without going wrong, and under his slower, more deliberate fingers, the sonata becomes a lamentation. Is it because I am not doing what he wanted me to do? A lamentation for his son? It seems deeper. It seems, because he is not a young man, to be sorrowing for all that should not have been, for all that might have been. It is sadness outpoured.

  He sits in silence at the end, as I did, without moving. I walk over to the window, and then about the room, as if I will find a place where I am comfortable. It was perhaps clever of him to play the piano with me. Maybe in The Art of War it is offered as a tip for disarming your opponent.

  I think of the music Luke played for me in The Owl, the music from the old men in Alabama, the music they play on the music system at The Owl. There is so much sad music that my baby is listening to in the womb: Emmylou Harris and Dock Reed and Leonard Cohen and now Beethoven. I wonder if it is influential—I don’t want to set my baby’s temperamental thermostat to “low” by accident. I have to hurry out and buy some jolly stuff.

  “In my study just now,” Cornelius says, looking straight ahead of him, “I put you through a test. It was important to me, to Olivia, to all of us, to know what sort of person you were.”

  I do not say anything. When plans go awry, and then someone protests that they were just testing you, it seems so clichéd as to be almost comical. Almost.

  “We are from a very old family. I know Mitchell saw it as his duty to offer marriage to you, and I respect him for that. But before allowing such a thing—‘allowing’; Mitchell is an adult—before acceding to such a thing, we had to ascertain, beyond doubt, that you were not—that there were not ulterior motives involved.

  “I know I was hard on you. It was hard to do it. But I am pleased to say, Esme, that you passed my test.”

  I stand in the middle of the room, on a faded blue carpet that is probably an Aubusson or something. I trace the arabesque pattern with my toe before I look up.

  “But, Mr. van Leuven,” I say, as softly as he spoke to me earlier, “I am afraid that you did not pass mine.”

  His skin whitens, and he moves out to the hallway without a word. He opens the heavy front door, and then pauses. Over his shoulder, he says: “You might think to be a little anxious about where my son is, Miss Garland. There was a time when he seemed incapable of straying from the side of the woman he loved. The explanation might be that he has outgrown that.” He lifts his shoulders gently. “Good night,” he says.

  I go upstairs. I take off my party clothes, and brush my teeth. My doleful intent is to lie down and go sadly to sleep. Perhaps I can contract consumption in the next few hours and waste away poignantly, as I listen to the sea outside the window and the clinking of the chains on the boats. I imagine the stricken faces of the guilty around my deathbed. “Can we at least save the child?” Cornelius will ask, shadows in his cheeks from his secret understanding of the part he has played. And the priest, or the doctor, the authority in a black coat, will say, “In such cases, the outcome is doubtful. We can but pray.”

  This gives way to a more prosaic rehearsing of the interview with Cornelius and the rest. I decide that this passive-aggressive dream of death, and soaking my pillow with bitter tears, is all craven. I get dressed again, this time with a thick cardigan over the top of my dress. I splash my face with cold water and stride back to the party. The s
triding helps. The party is now an energetic and drunken buzz of noise. I can’t see anyone I recognize. I go from one room to a second, but I falter at the third. I have come, sober, pregnant, wrapped in a cardigan, to find my fiancée, to tear him away from the party, and possibly from his love. I may as well be in slippers with my hair in rollers. Why did I even pack a cardigan?

  There is no Mitchell, no Anastasia.

  “Hi!”

  A woman comes up to me; she is one who was speaking to Anastasia earlier. She looks glittery and brittle. She takes a long, practiced gulp of champagne.

  “Esme, right? Such a pretty name. Where did you get it?”

  “My name? I am named after my great-grandmother.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Mitchell was looking for you a little while back. He’s gone down to the beach,” she says.

  “Oh, right. Right. Thanks.” I suspect her motives. Why would he be down at the beach? It’s freezing.

  I turn away, not to chase Mitchell anywhere, but to go back. The cardigan, the hurt; I can’t hide either of them.

  When the path forks, I know I should take the left fork back to the house. I stand still for a minute. The moon is up, and I can see my way easily. I will just see if he is there.

  I reach the fence and take a few steps on the soft white sand. Then I see them. There, at the water’s edge, is Mitchell, looking out to sea. And about two yards to his right, looking likewise out to sea, is Anastasia.

  They are not in a passionate embrace. They are not touching, they are not speaking, they are hardly even moving.

  I feel almost as if I am turned to stone myself. Their intimacy couldn’t be more clear if I were catching them in bed together. People get drunk at parties and they have sex with each other and that is that, but this is something else.

  I make myself stay, make myself face the truth.

  The night is very bright. There is moonlight on her hair.

  He turns slightly to her and speaks. I can’t hear at all, they are too far away, but I can see very clearly, and their bodies and gestures are saying all there is to be said. Anastasia, when she has listened, turns her head away from him. Her neck is so elegant—all her movements are so elegant, like a dancer’s. He speaks again, explaining, requesting—whatever it is, he wants her to understand.

  She is wrapped in something against the cold, some blanket or other, and her arms are folded—not in the adamant way that people normally fold their arms, but as if to protect herself, shield herself. He is talking to her, and she is nodding. She looks down at her feet, moves the sand with her shoe. Mitchell moves to her, and raises his hand as if to stroke her hair, but then takes it down again without touching her. He moves away. Her head leans fractionally to his, as though she is yearning towards him. They stand and stand. After long minutes, his hand goes to her arm, and he just holds her upper arm through the blanket. It is a movement full of restraint, as if he can’t permit himself more than this, the comfort you would offer a stranger.

  He walks away, rapidly, to the left, towards the Winslow House.

  Anastasia stays where she is for a minute, and so do I. I should go weeping away.

  It isn’t very pleasant, being the object of duty rather than desire. Their love turns me instantly into a pitiable object. No matter what I am like, I am the pitiful third, outside the charmed world that is its own justification.

  Anastasia is unknowingly walking straight towards me. I do not move. When she sees me, she pauses for a fraction of a second and then comes, stopping before me. There is silence for a while. I say, “You love him.”

  She shakes her head. “No. I don’t. I don’t.”

  Tears are in my eyes, but I hope I can stop them from being in my voice. “It is all right,” I say. “You don’t need to—”

  “No!” she says. “It isn’t like that.” I realize she sounds truthful rather than alarmed.

  “I just saw—”

  “What you saw,” she says, wearily, “is Mitchell having his little drama. I knew he would have to find a way. He did; it’s done.” She pauses, and then says, “We didn’t get to talk earlier. But here’s what I think. I know he’s the father. But my advice is to run.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “You love him, I know,” she says.

  I assent.

  “Love someone else,” she says, and then, after looking at me for a long time, she says, “I know. Well then. Come on, it’s cold.”

  She parts from me at the path, and I go back to the house.

  I go upstairs, and get ready for bed, again, and slip between the sheets. I stare up at the ceiling. Is life when you are going to get married supposed to be like this? What will it be like afterwards, if it is this difficult now? Mitchell is lying in the other bed.

  Into the darkness his voice comes.

  “Esme, I have to tell you something. I took Anastasia to the beach tonight. I was very worried, because according to my parents, she was still—she still had some feelings for me. I want to be completely honest. I took her to the beach to tell her there could never be anything between us again. She was upset—very—but I think, eventually, she will be all right.”

  I do not speak. He comes out of his bed with a bound, and crouches by me.

  “I love you absolutely, Esme Garland. Body and soul. In the morning, I am going to wake you up, early, and give you hours of unimaginable pleasure. Now go to sleep.” He pads back over to his own bed and lies down. In seconds, I can hear the sound of snoring.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When we come back from the Hamptons, I have an immediate shift at the drab little store that Olivia really would be pained by. It is sunny and cold. Tee, the guy from the South Bronx who sometimes cleans the windows, and sometimes sets up at midnight outside Barnes and Noble with a sheet full of books (“When Barnes and Noble closes, I open”), is at this moment fast asleep in the middle of Broadway, outside the shop. His hood is up, he has his bag under his head, his fingers are interlocked on his stomach, he is having a noonday snooze in the sun.

  I watch from behind the counter. People stride or saunter around him, and he just sleeps. He doesn’t care that people can see his face while he’s sleeping, while he’s not in control of it. Someone nudges someone else to look at him and his restful unconcern; a girl on her own, covert and uncertain, takes a picture of him with her phone. Someone else says that phrase that someone was bound to say, the prideful announcement of belonging and singularity: “Only in New York.”

  A thin man in jeans and a faded yellow sweatshirt looks intently at him as he passes, then glances quickly around. He has an undirected twitchiness about him that looks like guilt, but might be need. He has some mark of affinity with the ones I know are homeless, but I don’t know what it is. He comes back, crouches down next to Tee with his back to me. When he gets up again, Tee is still asleep, but his bag is gone.

  I put my hand on the counter as if I can vault over it, but my body stays disappointingly grounded. Instead I skirt around the counter, out into the street, and run as fast as I can downtown, after the guy. He has not even dodged down a side street; he is just walking along. I run past him and turn around to face him.

  “Give it back,” I say furiously at him. “Give it back. How could you?” I manage not to say, And at Christmas too!, but only just.

  The guy stares right at me, and he is just as furious back. He rips the strap off his shoulder and slaps the bag into my arms.

  “Who the fuck are you to tell me who I am?” he spits out, and pushes me out of his way.

  I don’t understand. “I didn’t!” I say. And then, to his back, I yell, “But he’s a street guy, he’s homeless! You don’t do that.”

  “Fuck you,” he shouts out, without turning around.

  I run back again to the shop, running because I am still angry. Tee is still fast asleep.

  I sling the bag underneath the counter and cover it with the New York Times.
Luke is putting dust jackets in acetate on the upstairs table. I take the key out of the till and go up the stairs.

  I recount to Luke everything that has just happened. He runs his thumb along the top of the acetate to make a crease, and turns the jacket to make sure it looks right.

  “Dennis found this,” he says. It’s a first edition of The Old Man and the Sea.

  I don’t know why he is saying that instead of responding to my story. I stand still at the top of the stair and wait. Nothing happens. I go downstairs again and sit down. Customers come in and ask things, and I answer and look for books for them, and chat, and help them. The man with the towel on his head comes in and takes himself up to the mezzanine to look at the first editions, and I hear Luke chatting to him. Tee eventually stumbles in, rubbing his face.

  “You seen my bag?” he says.

  I give it to him.

  “Thanks,” he says, half out of the door again. “I’ll see you later.”

  Towelhead Man comes down to buy a signed copy of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Luke comes with him.

  “You’ll like it,” says Luke to him. “I did.”

  Luke goes out, and comes back with a takeaway cup that he puts on the counter.

  “Chamomile,” says Luke. “I thought it might calm you down.”

  “I’m calm,” I say. “You have a rapport with Towelhead Man.”

  “Or John, as he likes to call himself. Esme, you shouldn’t have chased that guy for Tee’s bag, it was really dumb. You know, he could have had a knife, yadda yadda yadda.”

  “How could he steal from Tee?” I say. I’m repeating what I said before. “I mean, they’re both homeless. I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, you really don’t,” says Luke. He is smiling at me. I find it disconcerting. “You want them all to be in a union? A merry band of thieves, like Robin Hood? The only people they’ll steal from are Bill Gates and Donald Trump?”

  “No,” I say, injecting scorn into it, but I think, Yes. That’s exactly what should happen.

  He is cradling his brow in his hands now.