Hunting Midnight

by Richard Zimler

  “Would you consider slowing down a moment,” I begged her.

  “John, we’ll talk later. You need time to rest. And I’m sure you must be famished. I’ll make some breakfast.”

  “Do you still hate cooking?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “A woman gets used to almost anything.”

  She was still wearing her bonnet. When I asked if she’d take it off so I might see the glory of her hair, she wagged her finger at me. “That can wait till later too, young man.”

  I would have liked to accompany her to the kitchen, but she wished to be alone. I had the impression all that first day that my presence had disoriented her so badly that she could simply not stand still for fear of toppling over.

  Setting out my inkstand and paper on the floor, I sat on my haunches as Midnight had taught me and began a letter to my daughters, Mother, and Fiona, describing the more appalling and amusing aspects of the sea journey. Of Violeta, I said only that she was looking very well and that her house was comfortable.

  As I wrote, I added tails, snouts, and paws to my letters, just as Midnight would have. I felt him staring over my shoulder and praising my penmanship as finally worthy of a Bushman.

  When Violeta called me down, I found she had laid out her oval sitting-room table with pretty blue and white porcelain – like Mother’s, with a windmill pattern.

  “I shall never forget her many kindnesses to me,” she told me. She took my hand and brought it to her lips. “That is for your mother when you next see her.”

  I gave her Mama’s message of love, then made quick work of a chicken pie that she had been kind enough to purchase for me at a nearby pastry shop.

  We were seated at opposite ends of her table, by the windows to her garden. Her yellow curtains were closed tight. She asked questions about my sea voyage in a voice of studied calm, endeavoring to keep her own nervous nature in check.

  Standing, she lifted away a corner of the curtain to gaze outside. When she turned back to me, her face was drawn and sad.

  Believing I must have offended her with something I’d mentioned about my trip, I said, “Violeta, I shall stop droning on about nothings. Please forgive me. It’s just that I’m extremely agitated. I wish to know everything about you coming to America. I want to hear about your life.”

  She fiddled with the lace of her fichu. “No, no,” she said with a frown, as though the very idea of talking about herself was distasteful. “I am certain it would only put you to sleep.”

  “Ao contrário,” I countered. “I would love to hear the story of your travels.”

  “John, why don’t we go for a walk,” she proposed in Portuguese.

  “A walk? Now?”

  “It sometimes helps me. Though you’d have every right to refuse me. You’re probably too tired.”

  She used the formal tense of you in addressing me. It was upsetting and I was unable to read her intentions. “No, I’m fine,” I assured her, “and a hearty walk might be just the thing. Yes, let’s see a bit of the city!”

  While she got ready, I took advantage of my time alone to caress open the drawers of a breakfront in her sitting room. I did not know what I hoped to find. At first, I came upon only thread, remnants, and other such nothings. Then, in one of the lower drawers, I discovered an ancient leather ball, the size of a man’s fist. It was one of Fanny’s – I could still see her jagged teeth marks, as though she had only just made them.

  *

  Violeta and I ambled down John Street without speaking, under the shade of cottonwood and horse-chestnut trees. The warm sunlight danced on and off my shoulders.

  “Are there many Africans in New York?” I asked Violeta.

  “There must be several thousand.”

  “None are kept as slaves, I hope.”

  “I’ve been told that any Negro who was born in New York after 1799 is considered free by birth. Those who were born earlier are still in bondage. Though most, I think, have been sold elsewhere. I confess I’m not sure, but there can’t be very many left in the city – a few hundred perhaps.”

  At Broadway we turned north. I watched the passersby under parasols and the carriages rushing here and there – admired the cleverly painted shop signs, as well.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” I smiled.

  Violeta had walked ahead. “Yes, indeed,” she replied matter-of-factly, waiting on me.

  Risking being run down by a wagon or trampled by a horse, I stood at the center of Broadway to gaze south at the stone fortress at the tip of the island and the masts of sailing ships beyond. Then I faced the other way and looked out toward a horizon of woods far to the north. I am in New York now, I whispered – not only to myself, but to Midnight as well. Making a fist in my pocket, I added, And nothing can stop me from coming for you. Not even a chance for a new life.

  *

  On our walk, Violeta asked me no questions at all, and I dared not make further inquiries of her. I grew glum and quiet. Onlookers must have presumed an unhappy marriage. When we reached Grand Street, a popular boulevard of shops perpendicular to Broadway, Violeta said, “I should like to continue on with you, but there are things I need to attend to at home. We’ll meet in the afternoon for tea. Shall we say four o’clock?”

  Before I could say anything, she rushed off. Cursing her inscrutability, I continued my walk. Curiously, I thought of Lourenço Reis, the necromancer. I suppose that in my childish mind I believed that Violeta had been placed under a wicked spell and that only I might free her.

  *

  At three-thirty I started back toward home. Violeta had baked a dozen scones during my absence, and the smell was heavenly. Watching me with charmed eyes, she said, “You eat as you always did when your mother was out. Crumbs everywhere.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  She laughed; our time apart had plainly rekindled her affection for me. “Very good indeed, you evil thing!”

  I again asked her to tell me how she had reached New York.

  “Not now, it would just spoil our fun,” she replied.

  We talked instead of events in Portugal and Europe over the past two decades. On her insistence, we spoke in English. I sometimes framed my replies so as to try to learn whether she had maintained a correspondence with her mother and brothers. But she was too clever for me and wouldn’t give anything away.

  *

  After tea, I headed upstairs to finish my letter to my family. To my surprise, I discovered a room full of new furniture: a chest of drawers with brass handles, a handsome case clock with lion’s feet, two comfortable armchairs in willow-green brocade, and a dark mahogany writing desk on which Violeta had left a note:

  John, you will always have a place in my home. And I shall make no claim upon your time while you remain here. It is enough to find you doing so well. After all I have lived through, after so much that I never wish to see again, to find that someone for whom I have nothing but fond affection has become so fine a person … Well, let us just say that your presence is a gift I had no right ever to expect. Indeed, if you will excuse my emotion, it is the greatest gift I could ever have imagined. Be patient with me. Fondly, Violeta.

  That night, I awoke at three in the morning. Venturing down the stairs, I discovered Violeta fast asleep in her chair. I considered waking her so that I could help her up the stairs. Instead, I tiptoed away like a thief to her bedroom door. I planned to hunt through her wardrobe and secretary, to search under her mattress and pillows, but I stayed only a moment; over her bed hung the round tabletop Daniel had carved and left her as his last gift. The likeness to her at its rim was still uncanny, but when I moved closer, I discovered that cuts had been made in her cheeks and eyes. None of the other children’s faces had been damaged in the least.

  *

  The next morn over breakfast, I summoned the courage to tell Violeta about Midnight.

  “Was he the small man I sometimes saw you with in the months before I left Porto?”

  “Aye, he befr
iended me after … after Daniel’s death. And after we had ceased being friends. If he hadn’t helped me, I’m sure I’d never have lived to adulthood.”

  I told her then how he and I had watched her from afar in New Square. “He’d prayed for the Hunters in the Sky to help you reach America,” I said.

  “Then there were two of us praying for that,” she replied quietly.

  I naturally had to speak of my father’s treachery and of the ruination of my parents’ marriage. She listened attentively to everything I said, her chin on her fist. Her only movement was to give my hand a firm squeeze when I spoke of my certainty that Mama had ceased loving me for years.

  *

  Speaking of Midnight left me in a state of anxious despair, and I knew I could wait no longer to make my travel plans to Alexandria. I told Violeta that I wished to book my passage immediately, to which she replied in a firm voice, “Yes, it would be wrong for you to let our renewed friendship delay you. We can talk at far greater length – and with greater ease – when you come back and start designing your tile panel.”

  At a shipping agency on Broadway, I learned that the journey to Alexandria would take only three days if we were blessed with good winds. I signed on to the Exeter, a frigate leaving the following day.

  That evening, after supper, I told Violeta of my imminent departure. I should have liked to speak of many things before going – of Francisca and the girls most of all. I also wanted her to tell me about her life, but she went pale at the news of my leaving so soon. When I went to comfort her, she told me that the excitement of having me in her home had left her nearly sleepless and she needed to go to bed before she fainted from exhaustion. She pushed my hands away roughly, then apologized.

  “Please speak to me,” I pleaded. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

  “I cannot.” She moved her hands into a position of prayer. “John, have mercy on me.” She slipped out of my grasp and rushed up to her room.

  I awoke near one in the morning, having dreamed of Midnight standing before my bed, speaking in sign language with whirling hand gestures. I could understand nothing of what he wanted to tell me.

  After a moment, I heard Violeta stepping down the stairs. When I heard her open the back door, I went to my window. By the moonlight, I could see her threading her way through the weeds in her garden. I’d have sworn she was naked.

  XXXVII

  The night air in Violeta’s garden embraced me with its damp warmth as soon as I slipped outside. It was as though I’d entered a liquid dream. I crept in my bare feet, wearing only my dressing gown. After about ten paces, I spotted her, sitting on a low wooden bench, gazing up at the sky. Scattered moonlight blanketed her in leaves of darkness and light. She might have been a goddess of night. Her long hair shimmered silver and black down her back. I knew then that I’d been waiting for her to remove her bonnet not just since the moment of our reunion but ever since I was eleven. I stood very still, unwilling to compromise her modesty, but she must have heard my breathing, because she started in fright.

  “It’s me,” I rushed to say. I stepped forward and held my hands up to apologize. “Just me.”

  “John, dear God, you nearly made me shriek.” She shook her head and patted the bench next to her. “Quick, sit here where no one can see you.”

  She made no attempt to conceal her nakedness. I dropped down next to her, careful not to brush against her. She pointed up to the starry sky. “Right there is the Archer,” she told me. “He can find things, John – even tiny beings like you and me. So whenever I am feeling unsure of myself, I look for him.”

  She spoke to me in Portuguese using the informal you, as though we were once again intimate friends.

  “Midnight said that all the stars are hunters,” I told her.

  With her fingertip, she reintroduced me to the constellations. Then, caressing my cheek with the back of her hand, she said sweetly, “If there is anything I can do to help find Midnight, then you must tell me – anything at all.”

  The suggestive smoothness of her skin made me shiver. So true to her youthful self was she in the starlight – so forthright and good of heart – that I was left speechless. I was confused: How could I ache with longing nearly every night for my wife and yet feel so fortunate at being near Violeta?

  “It is quiet out here in the early morning,” she whispered. “One would almost believe we were back at our tarn in Porto.”

  Facing me, she guessed the cause of my shame and grinned. “John,” she said, slapping my thigh, “do not be such a baby. I am not inconvenienced by your desire. The only ally I have ever had among men has been their physical need for me. It is the only thing I’ve ever been able to trust in them.”

  “I don’t seem to understand anything of what has come to pass in my life,” I confessed. “Why Daniel died, how I got to this precise moment, why you and I have again met.”

  She looked at me gravely. “I have no answers for you. None.”

  Warm breezes swirled around us. Relief at being with Violeta’s old self made me smile. “It’s as though we are hiding from our parents.”

  “My mother will never find me here.” She stole a look toward her house. “The weeds are too high for her to see me.”

  “And the house too dark.”

  “Night is good for me. I see less then. Let night have its dominion.”

  “Violeta, except for now, you seem to be wherever I am not.”

  She took my hands and stood up. “Sing,” she pleaded. “Any of the old songs. Please, John, sing for me.”

  I sang the first verse of “Ae Fond Kiss,” her favorite song by Robert Burns: Ae fond kiss, and then we sever, ae farewell, and then forever…. She gazed away forlornly toward wherever my melody was taking her. “John, you would like me to be the same, but I can never be,” she said. “That is why I have been so silent and difficult at times.”

  “You mistake my wishes. I only want your happiness.”

  She looked down at me with a pained expression. “John, we come from different worlds. Happiness ceased being my purpose many years ago. Now I merely wish to have my own life. If that means that I must be lonely at times, then it isn’t such a high price to pay. Maybe it’s no price at all.”

  “Is that true? Is having your own life really enough?”

  “If you were a woman, you would not need to ask that,” she declared.

  “I cannot believe men and women are so different.”

  She sighed. “John, if you were me, you would also wear a bonnet all the time – just to keep men’s eyes from you. If I were to tell you that there are women my age who dream of their husbands dying young so they might be their own person, so they might have their own property and friends, would you think me mad?”

  “Is that true, Violeta?”

  Replying with a solemn nod, she said, “Come…. Come with me now and I’ll tell you what you’ve wanted to hear. It’s a story that no one but you will ever know.”

  She led me inside and took a crocheted blanket of green and gold stripes from her sofa, wrapping it tightly around herself. We sat next to each other at her oval table and, by the light of a single candle, she began to tell me of her life since we’d last been friends. She spoke first of working for a chandler in Lisbon and living in a tiny room above his workshop, where she had a view over Graça Square. “I was so happy to be free of my mother and brothers that even my loneliness was a blessing. I belonged only to myself. And my hair” – she gathered her tresses around to her front and breathed in their scent – “grew back. I would let no one cut it.”

  “Did you know how much I loved you back then?”

  “I did. But you were just a small lad. And I was becoming a woman.”

  “How I wish Daniel had lived. He might have changed everything.”

  I’d have liked to say much more, but the subject of the past seemed too dangerous.

  “Perhaps the dead can be generous,” I observed hesitantly. “Daniel might be glad that w
e’ve found each other again.”

  “Perhaps. But others, John – others can be unforgiving…. Let me continue before I lose my courage.

  “John, the chandler I worked for was a good man – very clever and kind. Then one day I saw my uncle Tomás in Graça Square. After that, I peeked out of my room and our shop only on rare occasions. He was looking for me, to take me back. He was probably sent by my mother.” She shivered and clutched her blanket around her neck. “A few weeks later I was approached by an Englishman promising work at a woolen mill near London. I left with him. Uncle Herbert, I called him. He said that I would be working with other girls from Portugal and Spain. He was kind to me at first.”

  “But when you arrived in England, you discovered he had lied.”

  “Yes. I was given frilly new clothes and set to work as a prostitute in Hyde Park. I was sixteen by then. I cannot tell you how many men asked me to call them Papa.” She laughed. “I learned to say whatever they wanted – papa, darling, sweetheart. In English, French, Spanish – even German! Yes, I learned many useful things over those years.” She leaned back, seemingly resigned to the way her life had gone.

  “Was there any chance of escaping?”

  “I thought so. Secretly, I believed myself indomitable, that no one could hold me forever. I was sure that since I had got the better of my uncle and my mother, I would now win my life back. I was so very naive and optimistic. That was something we always had in common, you and I. Not like Daniel. I think he was born knowing damnation, which is perhaps why he fell in love with me.”

  At that moment, I felt the urge to confess how I’d betrayed him. I knew this was my chance, but when I tried to summon the right words, I found none.

  “John, we do not have to speak of these things,” she said, sensing my discomfort.

  “No, I wish to. More than anything. It’s what I’ve most wanted since my arrival.”

  “Twice I tried to run. I was beaten so badly by my pimp that I could not walk for a week each time. The second time, he tied me down to my bed and invited men in to use me – chimney sweeps, dustmen …” She wrinkled her nose. “I will tell you a secret – I didn’t care so much that they were having their way with me, only that they left me crawling with vermin. After that, I stopped believing in the story I had told myself, of winning against the odds. I wrote a new one, in which triumph lay in making the best of my circumstances. Destiny had made me a whore. So for five years, until I was twenty-one, all I aimed for was to please the men of London. We each need a simple goal, I think. You know, an English general once told me I had a very soldierly attitude toward my work.” She gave a short, brittle laugh. “He meant it as a compliment, John,” she added, annoyed that I’d not found it amusing. “Poor sweet John, always trying to protect Violeta. Please, have no regrets on my account – I was good at my work. You know, it just occurs to me that I never once looked up into the night sky in all those years in England. I even came to wonder why I’d made such a fuss about my uncle. And why I’d dreamed of America.” She stood up. The candlelight cast an ominous shadow on the wall behind her, as though she were being followed. “No, being a woman was not what I’d thought it would be. But what ever is? And it was better than being a child – much better. You know, John, I can’t even say why I murdered him. That seems to me unforgivable. A murderess ought to have a very good reason, don’t you think?”