A Reliable Wife

by Robert Goolrick

  When they woke, they would not remember the dreams, but as they stood, day after day, at their relentless jobs, their hearts would ache for something they could not name.

  The faces would be as worn as the furniture, unloved and hard. Now and then, in the evenings, a look of wistful longing would come over the wives, and they would have a kind gesture for one of the girls, a kind word. The fathers would be drunk or grave or both, and sometimes violent, the children slow-witted and slothful and unschooled and uncared for, except in those few brief useless moments when the mothers could forget their hard lives. These were not the streets of the bounding ambitious muscular America, but of the tired and the lost and the dirty.

  Catherine felt a million miles away, in her warm fur coat and her gray silk dress that trailed in the snow no matter how she lifted it with her gloved hands. In the country, the snow was clean as a fresh bedsheet. Here it was filthy. The cold got into her boots and crept up her legs, despite her wool stockings. She felt removed from these houses and these habits and this life. She had always been a chameleon, taking on accents and manners suited to her circumstance, but now she felt as though she had changed into something new, and she couldn’t change back.

  Her pulse raced. The blood beat in her ears. She was finally going to reveal herself to Tony Moretti.

  They turned away from these streets and into others even more depressing. Here there was no pavement, no cobblestones, just mud tracks that ran between wooden houses, mostly unpainted, some with broken windows, all with tattered, filthy curtains hanging limply in the hard light. Linden Street, with not a tree in sight. Malloy and Fisk looked at her occasionally, as if to apologize, but she stared straight ahead, avoiding their gaze. She was lost in her own history now. Her history was unfolding with every step.

  They stopped in front of one of the three-story houses, painted a dull red, as though someone had made a brief effort, long ago, to make it look more respectable, more refined. Malloy checked his notebook. “Number 18. This is it.”

  She felt a chill and pulled her collar tightly around her neck. Mr. Fisk and Mr. Malloy hesitated, having come all this way with so much information at hand, and at last having no idea what to do.

  “Well. I’m cold. Let’s go in.” It was Catherine who broke the silence. “We’re here. It’s time we knew. Let’s get on with it.” She stepped up the stairs and tried the door, Malloy and Fisk following behind. It was unlocked and opened into a dark stairwell.

  “Third floor, Mrs. Truitt. It’s dark. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s hardly your fault.” She stepped aside and followed the two men up the stairs. And then they were knocking on the door, and then, after beats that snapped her nerves one by one, the door opened, and there in front of them was Antonio Moretti.

  He looked ravaged. He looked pure. He shone like a saint. He stood in a red paisley silk dressing gown, the front barely closed. He obviously wore nothing underneath, and he obviously didn’t care.

  “Mr. Moretti. There’s a lady here.”

  “So there is. I see. I always ask a lady to come in.”

  Malloy took out his notebook, as though that would help them to find their way. “Mr. Moretti . . . Mr. Truitt, we’ve come to take you home. Your father . . .”

  A shudder crossed his brow, fleeting, gone in a second. “What was that name? It’s not anybody I know. My name is Moretti. Tony Moretti.”

  “Mr. Ralph Truitt. In Wisconsin, where you were born.”

  “Won’t you come in? I have some brandy. It’s cold outside.”

  They didn’t want to, but the force of his eyes and the whiteness of his skin somehow drew them forward and into his sitting room. It was furnished elegantly, completely at odds with the house itself, with delicate French and Italian furniture, obviously good. The ceiling was draped with orange silk, like a tent, and Moroccan lanterns hung down, the light from the candles flickering. Probably still burning from last night. Beyond, they could see the ruin of a tented, brocaded bedroom, like a palace abandoned before a revolution.

  The room was littered with clothes, and he carelessly picked up a few items, as though to make a place for them to sit. Nobody sat. He turned to Catherine and smiled.

  “What was that name?”

  Again, the breathlessness made her voice faint. “Truitt. Mr. Ralph Truitt.”

  “And you would be . . . ?”

  “Mrs. Truitt. The new Mrs. Truitt.”

  “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It isn’t a name I know.”

  Malloy cleared his throat. “He is your father.”

  Moretti laughed, showing his alabaster throat, his cheeks dark with yesterday’s beard.

  “My father is named Pietro Moretti. My mother is Angelina. He played the accordion in Naples, where I was born. When I was three, he and my mother moved to America, to Philadelphia, to the Italian section of Philadelphia, where he played the accordion in one after another of the thousand Italian restaurants. He eventually owned one, owns it still, and my cousin Vittorio makes the food, it’s very good, by the way, and my father plays the accordion, and my mother takes the money.”

  Malloy interrupted. “You were born in Wisconsin. Your father is Ralph Truitt.”

  “Who are you?” Antonio demanded.

  Fisk stepped in. “We were hired by your father to find you.”

  “You’ve been watching me?”

  “For several months. Yes.”

  “That makes me very unhappy.”

  Malloy and Fisk looked at their hands. Antonio turned his gaze and spoke to Catherine.

  “I went to the conservatory in Philadelphia, one of those wretched snot-nosed children of the poorer classes who get to go to such places because the well-to-do public finds it costs nothing and they sleep better at night. Well, I was talented, sort of. I’ve played the piano in restaurants ever since. Actually, restaurants is a nice word for it. I wasn’t talented enough for concerts, and was too talented to teach. And besides, I hate children. I like adult company. Most adult company, at least. So here I am. I don’t know any Mr. Truitt. I’ve never been to Wisconsin, although it may be nice. It’s far away.”

  “This is a fabrication. We have the facts.”

  “You can check. I have papers, documents, a checkbook from the bank. Not much money, but you can look. My father still lives in Philadelphia. My mother is still named Angelina, and she still takes the money. Brandy?” He poured himself a glass, swirled it in the dim light.

  “Your mother was the Contessa Emilia Truitt. Your father was Andrea Moretti, a piano teacher hired by your mother’s husband, Mr. Truitt.”

  “A real countess. How charming. As much as I would like to exchange the restaurant life for a royal title, I’m afraid it isn’t true. Not a word. I could read you my mother’s letters. She begs me to come home and find a nice girl. A nice girl like the new Mrs. Truitt, no doubt. Why would Mr. Truitt want to see me if he’s not my father?”

  “He feels badly.”

  “Because his wife was a faithless whore?”

  Malloy looked at Catherine with a sidelong glance.

  “Because he was, because of circumstances, because he feels he was unkind to you, and he wants to make it up to you.”

  “By making me leave Saint Louis and go to Wisconsin? It doesn’t sound like much of a birthright.”

  “He’s your father. He has acted as your father since you were born.”

  A ripple of anger crossed Tony Moretti’s face. “My father has acted as my father since I was born. Would you like to see photographs? I don’t have any. My baby things? They’re in Philadelphia. It’s simple to prove who you are. It’s hard to prove you’re not somebody else. I’m not this man’s son, no matter how much he wants me to be. I’m sorry Mr. Truitt feels the way he does. I’m very accommodating in general. I wish I could accommodate him. I wish I could accommodate you, but hospitality is helter-skelter around here, and all I’ve got is brandy and you d
on’t want brandy and I want you to leave.”

  Catherine sat in a chair, swept clean of clothing, among which she noticed a pair of women’s dark stockings.

  “Mr. Moretti,” she said softly.

  “You were the lady, yes? The lady in black in the restaurant. The lady in mourning.”

  “Yes.” Her hand was trembling as she spoke. “I’m not in mourning, as I said. You play beautifully.”

  She pictured him in bed. She pictured him naked, aroused, lying back against silk pillows and waiting. Waiting for her. He smelled of last night’s stale cologne and the warmth of his bed. She could picture it all. She knew where he had been, what he had done. She smelled the woman who had recently left.

  She spoke clearly, directly to him, and he listened to her words with careful attentiveness. “You have suffered. He knows that. He knows you must be angry. He’s suffered, too. His heart’s raw with the nights he’s spent in hurt. He knows he has hurt you. He knows he treated you badly. Now he wants to make it right. He wants to bring you home, to the house you were born in, the big house, and make it alive again. I won’t say he loves you. Yet. He wants to love you. To be kind to you. To be forgiven for . . . for everything. Please. I don’t know . . .”

  “And what would you, Mrs. New Truitt, what would you do to make this ridiculous fantasy come true?”

  “I have promised him. I’m telling you. He’s rich. I would do anything.”

  “Give me your ring.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I lost my stickpin, remember? I like diamonds. Give it to me. I might want to give it to a girlfriend. I might want to wear it myself, one of my extravagances. I could make it into a new stickpin. It would attract attention when I play, don’t you think? The light? I may want to throw it in the Mississippi. I may swallow it. Give it to me.”

  “Mrs. Truitt,” said Mr. Fisk in genuine alarm.

  She hesitated a long moment, then she took off her yellow diamond and put it into his waiting hand.

  “There. He told me to do anything. I said I would. It’s yours gladly. Just come home.”

  “If it was home, if it had any connection to me, I would do it in a second, for you, and never need to take a ring from your lovely hand.” He slipped it on his little finger. “Small, but pretty.” It glinted in the light from the candles overhead, just guttering out.

  “Now I want you to get out. Leave me in peace. Do you think my life is so nice? It’s not. Do you think I’m surrounded by love? I’m not. But there’s enough that I don’t need to go through this charade.” He handed the ring back to Catherine. “Or your little country diamond. Get the hell out, all of you.”

  Malloy wasn’t finished. “Mr. Truitt, we don’t make mistakes.”

  Moretti turned in a rage. “Don’t call me that name one more time, I’m warning you. My name is Moretti. This is my day off. My hour of being nice to strangers is over. Take your insane story back to this country bumpkin, whoever he is, and tell him how wrong you were. No, better yet, get on a train and go to Philadelphia. Ask anybody. They’ll tell you where Moretti’s is, and ask them about their son. They don’t like what I do. They think piano playing is for girls. They want me home, too. I would far rather go to a home where at least I know the people. But I have a home here. And you’re in it. Now get out.”

  He opened the bottle and poured himself another big glass of brandy. Catherine could feel the warmth of it shooting through her veins like fire.

  “We’ll come back.” Fisk spoke softly. There was almost no threat in his voice. Just enough.

  “I don’t think so. I can’t imagine why.” Antonio sat down in a blue velvet chair, his scarlet dressing gown falling open across his chest. Catherine could see down his long torso to his navel.

  There was nothing else to do. They left, and they could hear him laughing as they stumbled down the stairs in the half-light. Humiliated, the two Pinkertons. Catherine, putting her ring back on her finger, smiled. She was somehow elated.

  On the way home, through the Sunday market, through the cheap dresses and thin coats and tin rings and frozen cabbage and copper cooking pots, she passed a man who sold birds. Yellow and blue and red canaries. Little songbirds. They looked half-dead with the cold, but she bought one, and an elaborate cage, and carried both home, holding the bird in her gloved hand, blowing her warm breath on its shivering body through the frozen Sunday streets of Saint Louis.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE WOULD WAIT for five days. Her heart was on fire, but she would wait. After that, though, she couldn’t wait any longer. Not one hour more.

  While she waited, she wrote to Truitt. Before she told him about Antonio, she told him of her plans for the garden. She told him about her reading, her long afternoons of research in the library. She told him about the high windows and the long quiet tables and the slanting light. She told him about the possibilities for the garden, about how she might make it bloom again. She was even tender, but no more so than she needed to be. After all, she barely knew him.

  She asked if she might buy some seeds and order some plants for the spring, to welcome Antonio home. She knew what his reply would be, that she could have whatever she liked, and she smiled, knowing it was true.

  She stood for hours in the Missouri Botanical Garden, looking at the impossible orchids, flowers white and elegant like Tony Moretti, blossoms exorbitantly delicate and beautiful. They might grow in the glass conservatory. She waited at the counters while the plant men cataloged for her what would and would not grow in the climate she described. How long was the spring? How hot was the summer? She didn’t know. She imagined what might or might not be true, and she bought carefully but with hope. She paid with cash and went to the bank for more. She arranged the arrival date. She bought a small silver pen and notebook with red and white Florentine endpapers, and she carefully noted the name and qualities of every plant she ordered.

  She thought of her garden. She thought of her life, her patchwork quilt of a life, pieced together from castoff scraps of this and that; experience, knowledge, clairvoyance. None of it made any sense to her.

  She had no knowledge of good. She had no heart and so no sense of the good thing, the right thing, and she had no field on which to wage the battle that was, in fact raging in her.

  At least a garden had order. A garden gave order to an untamed wilderness. She hoped for all these things. With her bird sitting on her finger, she hoped for order in her secret walled square, for some sense of what the right thing might be. Waiting was not good for her, she knew. Thinking was not good. It made her remember the past, and the past was the place she did not want to be.

  Tony Moretti was like her. He was like a secret garden. He believed the lies he told. He never faltered for a moment, never wavered. And he had won.

  She wrote again to Truitt and suggested that she visit Moretti alone, without the sharp intensity of Malloy and Fisk. She wrote that a gentler approach might make Moretti see the light. She was convinced, she said, that the Pinkertons were right; the man who called himself Moretti was his son. His son in masquerade. There was a feeling, she said, a tic in his eye, a curl to his lip that suggested to her that he was lying. He harbored bitterness, to be sure, and regret as well, she was careful to add, but he hid the truth behind his condescending charm and insolence, and he didn’t hide it very well.

  She told Truitt about Moretti’s languid, luxurious ways, his velvet furniture and his silk dressing gown. She told of his piano playing. She told him about the dark apartment, the rooms that revealed such exotic elegance, such assurance of taste.

  She asked if Truitt was sure, if he was certain that he wanted his uncertain son under the same roof. She knew there were parts of the past you had to let go of, certain lands that were irredeemably lost, sorrowfully lost, but, finally, lost forever. She wrote that she would wait for his answer before proceeding.

  He responded that he wanted nothing else. He wanted his son; that was his only wish. She should do wha
tever was necessary. She should go to his rooms. She should dog him in the street. She should give him money, whatever he asked for.

  Catherine herself was only a means to that end. He didn’t say it but she knew; it had been clear since he first told her she was to go to Saint Louis. She was both the lure and the instrument to accomplish Truitt’s deep desire. Foolish as it was.

  She would always know, now, that Truitt was a sentimental fool, that he would never imagine Catherine’s own desires, confronted with such a ravishment.

  There. At least she had covered herself. At least there would be no question of her conduct. Malloy and Fisk, even if they followed her, would have nothing to report.

  She was always and forever delighted and amazed at her own cleverness. There was no scheme she couldn’t see through. There was no outcome she couldn’t shape to her will. By making Truitt her accomplice, she made herself the heroine of her own deceptions, and she felt a freedom and a voraciousness she hadn’t felt before. She had at first been unsure of her footing with Truitt. Now she knew she had him.

  She walked through the streets at dusk, her karakul coat pulled tight around her throat, a veil hiding her face. She checked to make sure she wasn’t being followed, although now it hardly mattered. She walked past the brownstones, turned into the street of dingy clapboard houses, and stood in front of his red house.

  He would be getting dressed. He would be warm from the bath, and his clothes would be laid out on the bed. He would hear the knock on the door and hastily put away the opium pipe, the syringe, whatever his instruments of stupor and imagination and music, never far from his hand. He would hear the knock, and he would be ready for her. He would know who it was before he opened the door.

  She knocked. He opened. He stared at her for a long moment, and then his tongue was in her mouth, as slick and salty as an oyster. He pulled her inside, kicked the door shut, and kissed her with a ferocity that was familiar to her.