a Perfect Stranger (1983)

by Steel, Danielle

  But even his failure to father children could not sever the bond that held them together over the years. It was a marriage in which she worshiped him and he adored her, and if the difference in their ages caused comment among others, it never bothered either of them. They played tennis together almost every morning, sometimes John Henry ran in the Presidio or along the beach and Raphaella ran along beside him, like a puppy dog at his heels, laughing and teasing and sometimes just walking along in silence afterward, holding his hand. Her life was filled with John Henry, her studies, and her letters to her family in Paris and Spain. She led a very protected, old-fashioned existence, and she was a happy woman, truly more of a happy girl, until she was twenty-five.

  Two days before John Henry's sixty-ninth birthday he was to fly to Chicago to close a major deal. He had been talking about retiring for several years now, but like her father, there was no real end in sight. He had too much passion for the world of high finance, for the running of banks, the acquiring of new corporations, and the buying and selling of huge blocks of stock. He loved putting together mammoth reale-state deals like the first one he had done with her father. Retirement just wasn't for him. But when he left for Chicago he had a headache, and despite the pills Raphaella had pressed on him that morning, the headache had grown steadily worse.

  In terror his assistant had chartered a plane and flown back with him from Chicago that evening, arriving with John Henry barely conscious. Raphaella looked down into the pale gray face as they brought him off the plane on a stretcher. He was in so much pain, he could barely speak to her, yet he pressed her hand several times on their way to the hospital in the ambulance, and as she looked at him in terror and despair, fighting back the tears that had clogged her throat, she suddenly noticed something odd about his mouth. An hour later his face looked strangely distorted, and shortly thereafter he fell into a coma from which he did not rouse for several days. John Henry Phillips had had a stroke, it was explained on the news that evening. It was his office that had prepared the press release, keeping Raphaella, as always, from the prying eyes of the news.

  John Henry stayed in the hospital for almost four months and had two more smaller strokes before he left. When they brought him home, he had permanently lost the use of his right arm and leg, the youthful handsome face sagged pitifully on one side, and the aura of strength and power was gone. John Henry Phillips was suddenly an old man. He was broken in body and spirit from that moment, yet for another seven years his life had dwindled on.

  He never left his home again. The nurse wheeled him into the garden for some sunshine and Raphaella sat with him for hours at a time, but his mind wasn't always clear anymore, and his life, once so vital, so busy, so full, had changed radically. There was nothing more than a shell of the man left. And it was this shell that Raphaella lived with, faithfully, devotedly, lovingly, reading to him, talking to him, comforting him. As the nurses who tended him around the clock cared for the broken body, she attempted to console the spirit. But his spirit was broken, and at times she wondered if hers was as well. It had been seven years since the first series of strokes. There had been two more strokes since, which had reduced him still further, until he was unable to do much more than sit in his wheelchair, and most of the time he stared into space, thinking back to what was no more. He was still able to speak, though with difficulty, but much of the time he seemed to have nothing more to say. It was a cruel joke that a man who had been so alive should be rendered so small and so useless. When Antoine had flown over from Paris to see him, he had left John Henry's room with tears streaming unashamedly down his cheeks, and his words to his daughter had been quite clear. She was to stand by this man who had loved her and whom she had loved and married, until he died. There was to be no nonsense, no whimpering, no shrinking from her duties, no complaining. Her duty was clear. And so it had remained, and Raphaella had not shrunk or whispered or complained for seven long years.

  Her only respite from the grim reality of her existence was when she traveled to Spain in the summers. She only went for two weeks now, instead of four. But John Henry absolutely insisted that she go. It tortured him to realize that the girl he had married was as much a prisoner of his infirmities as he was himself. It was one thing to keep her from the prying eyes of the world while amusing her himself night and day. It was quite another to lock her in the house with him, as his body decayed slowly around his soul. If he could have found the means, he would have killed himself, he said often to his doctor, if only to set both of them free. He had mentioned it once to Antoine, who had been outraged at the very idea.

  The girl adores you! he thundered and his voice reverberated against the walls of his friend's sick room. You owe it to her not to do anything crazy like that!

  Not like this. The words had been garbled but comprehensible. It's a crime to do this to her. I have no right. He had choked on his own tears.

  You have no right to deprive her of you. She loves you. She loved you for seven years before this happened. That doesn't change overnight. It doesn't change because you are ill. What if she were ill? Would you love her any less?

  John Henry painfully shook his head. She should be married to a young man, she should have children.

  She needs you, John. She belongs with you. She has grown up with you. She'll be lost without you. How can you think of leaving her a moment sooner than you must? You could have years left! He had meant to be encouraging, but John Henry had faced him with despair. Years' and by then how old would Raphaella be? Thirty-five? Forty? Forty-two? She would be so totally unprepared to start looking for a new life. These were the thoughts that rambled agonizingly through his mind, that left him filled with silence and his eyes glazed with anguish and grief, not so much for himself, but for her. He insisted that she go away as often as possible, but she felt guilty for leaving him, and going away wasn't even a relief. Always John Henry was on her mind.

  But John Henry repeatedly urged her to break out of her prison. Whenever he learned from Raphaella that her mother was going to New York for a few days, on her way to Buenos Aires or Mexico City, or wherever else, with the usual crowd of sisters and cousins, he was quick to urge Raphaella to join them. Whether it was for two days or ten, he always wanted her to join them, to get out into the world if only for a moment, and he knew that in that crowd she would always be safe, well protected, heavily escorted. The only moments in which she was alone were on the flights to Europe or New York. His chauffeur always put her on the plane in San Francisco, and there was always a rented limousine waiting for her at the other end. The life of a princess was still Raphaella's, but the fairy tale had considerably changed. Her eyes were larger and quieter than ever now, she would sit silent and pensive for hours, looking into the fire, or staring out at the bay. The sound of her laughter was barely more than a memory, and when it rang out for a moment, it somehow seemed like a mistake.

  Even when she joined her family for their few-day visits to New York or wherever, it was as though she weren't really there. In the years since John Henry's illness Raphaella had increasingly withdrawn, until she was scarcely different from John Henry. Her life seemed as much over as his. The only difference was that hers had never really begun. It was only in Santa Eugenia that she seemed to come alive again, with a child on her lap, and another teetering on her knees, three or four more clustered around, as she told them wonderful tales that kept them staring at her in rapture and awe. It was with the children that she forgot the pain of what had happened, and her own loneliness, and her overwhelming sense of loss. With the grown-ups she was always reticent and quiet, as though there were nothing left to say and joining in their merriment seemed obscene. For Raphaella it was like a funeral that had gone on for half a lifetime, or more precisely for seven years. But she knew only too well how much he suffered and how much guilt he felt for his invalid state over the last year. So when she was with him, there was only tenderness and compassion in her voice, a gentle tone, and a still gentler ha
nd. But what he saw in her eyes cut him to the very core of his being. It was not so much that he was dying, but that he had killed a very young girl and left in her place this sad, lonely young woman with the exquisite face and the huge, haunted eyes. This was the woman he had created. This was what he had done to the girl he had once loved.

  As Raphaella walked swiftly down the thickly carpeted steps onto the next landing, she glanced quickly down the hall and saw the staff already dusting the long antique tables that stretched down the endless halls. The house they lived in was one that John Henry's grandfather had built when he first came to San Francisco after the Civil War. It had survived the earthquake in 1906 and was now one of the most important architectural landmarks in San Francisco, with its sweeping lines and five stories perched next to the Presidio and looking out at the bay. It was unusual also because it had some of the finest stained-glass skylights in the city, and because it was still in the hands of the family that had originally owned it, which was very rare. But it was not a house in which Raphaella could be happy now. It seemed more like a museum or a mausoleum to her than a home. It seemed cold and unfriendly, as did the staff, all of whom John Henry had had when she arrived. And she had never had the chance to redecorate any of the rooms. The house stood now, as it had then. For fourteen years it had been her home, and yet each time she left it, she felt like an orphan with her suitcase.

  More coffee, Mrs. Phillips? The elderly woman who had been the downstairs maid for thirty-six years gazed into Raphaella's face as she did each morning. Raphaella had seen that face five days a week for the last fourteen years, and still the woman was a stranger to her, and always would be. Her name was Marie.

  But this time Raphaella shook her head. Not this morning. I'm in a hurry, thank you. She glanced at the plain gold watch on her wrist, put down her napkin, and stood up. The flowered Spode dishes had belonged to John Henry's first wife. There were a lot of things like that in the house. Everything seemed to be someone else's. The first Mrs. Phillips, as the servants put it, or John Henry's mother's, or grandmother's' . Sometimes she felt that if a stranger were to walk through the house inquiring about artifacts and paintings and even small unimportant objects, there was not a single thing about which someone would say, Oh, that's Raphaella's. Nothing was Raphaella's, except her clothes and her books, and the huge collection of letters from the children in Spain, which she kept in boxes.

  Raphaella's heels clicked briefly across the black and white marble floor of the pantry. She picked up a phone there and buzzed softly on an inside line. A moment later it was picked up on the third floor by the morning nurse.

  Good morning. Is Mr. Phillips awake yet?

  Yes, but he's not quite ready. Ready. Ready for what? Raphaella felt an odd tug in her soul as she stood there. How could she resent him for what wasn't his fault? And yet how could this have happened to her? For those first seven years it had been so wonderful, so perfect' so'

  I'd like to come up for a moment, before I leave.

  Oh, dear, you're leaving this morning?

  Raphaella glanced at her watch again. In half an hour.

  All right. Then give us fifteen or twenty minutes. You can stop in for a few minutes on your way out. Poor John Henry. Ten minutes, and then nothing. There would be no one to visit him while she was gone. She would only be gone for four or five days, but still she wondered if maybe she shouldn't leave him. What if something happened? What if the nurses didn't pay attention to what they were doing? She always felt that way when she left him. Troubled, tormented, guilty, as though she had no right to a few days of her own. And then John Henry would persuade her to go, emerging from his reverie long enough to force her away from this nightmare that they had shared for so long. It wasn't even a nightmare anymore. It was just an emptiness, a limbo, a comatose state, while their lives continued to drone on.

  She took the elevator to the second floor and then walked to her bedroom after telling the nurse that she would be in to see her husband in fifteen minutes. She looked long and hard in the mirror then, smoothed the silky black hair, and ran a hand over the tight, heavy knot of it at the nape of her neck. She took a hat out of her closet. It was a beautiful creation she had bought in Paris the year before when hats returned to the world of high style. As she put it on carefully, tilting it to just the right angle, she wondered for a moment why she had bothered to buy it at all. Who would notice her beautiful hat? It had a whisper of black veiling that lent further mystery to her large almond-shaped eyes, and with the contrast of the black hat and her hair and the little veil, the creamy white of her skin seemed to stand out even more than before. She carefully applied a thin gloss of bright lipstick and clipped pearls on her ears. She ran a hand over her suit, straightened her stockings, and looked in her handbag to ascertain that the cash she always carried on trips was concealed in a side pocket of the black lizard bag her mother had sent her from Spain. She looked, when she stood in front of the mirror, like a woman of incredible elegance, beauty, and style. This was a woman who dined at Maxim's and went to the races at Longchamp. This was a woman who partied in Venice and Rome and Vienna and New York. This was a woman who went to the theater in London. This wasn't the face or the body or the look of a girl who had slipped into womanhood unnoticed and who was now married to a crippled and dying seventy-six-year-old man. As she saw herself, and the truth, all too clearly, Raphaella picked up her bag and her clothes and grinned ruefully to herself, knowing more than ever how appearances can lie.

  She shrugged to herself as she left her bedroom, tossing a long, handsome, dark mink coat over one arm as she made her way once more to the stairs. The elevator had been put in for John Henry, and most of the time she still preferred to walk. She did so now, up to the third floor, where a suite had long since been set up for her husband, with three rooms adjoining it, for each of the nurses who cared for him in shifts. They were three matronly women, content with their quarters, their patient, and the job. They were handsomely paid for their services, and like the woman who had served Raphaella breakfast, they had somehow managed to remain unobtrusive and faceless over the years. Frequently she found herself missing the passionate and often impossible servants of Santa Eugenia. They were servile for the most part, yet often rebellious and childlike, having served her mother's family sometimes for generations, or at least for many years. They were warlike and childlike and loving and giving. They were filled with laughter and outrage and devotion for the people they worked for, not like these cool professionals who worked for John Henry.

  Raphaella knocked softly on the door to her husband's suite of rooms, and a face appeared rapidly at the door. Good morning, Mrs. Phillips. We're all ready. Are we? Raphaella nodded and stepped inside, down a short hall into a bedroom, which like her own room downstairs had both a boudoir and a small library. Now John Henry was tucked into his bed, staring across the room at the fire already burning behind the grate. She advanced toward him slowly, and he seemed not to hear her, until at last she sat down in a chair next to his bed and took his hand.

  John Henry' . After her fourteen years in San Francisco her accent was still evident when she said his name, but her English was perfect now, and had been for many years. John Henry' . He turned his eyes slowly toward her without moving his head, and then slowly he moved himself so that he could look at her, and the lined, tired face contorted into a half-smile.

  Hello little one. His speech was slurred but she could understand him and the agony of the smile now rendered crooked since the stroke always tore at her heart. You look very pretty. And then after another pause, My mother had a hat like that a long time ago.

  I think on me it is very silly, but ' She shrugged suddenly looking very French as she smiled a hesitant little smile. But it was her mouth that smiled now. Her eyes seldom did. And his never did anymore, except on rare occasions when he looked at her.

  You're going today? He looked worried, and again she wondered if she should cancel her trip.


  Yes. But darling do you want me to stay?

  He shook his head and smiled again. No. Never. I wish you would go away more often. It does you good You're meeting' He looked vague for a moment searching his memory for something obviously no longer there.

  My mother, my aunt, and two of my cousins.

  He nodded and closed his eyes. Then I know you'll be safe.

  I'm always safe. He nodded again, as though he were very tired, and she stood up, bent to kiss his cheek and then ever so gently let go of his hand. She though for a moment that he was going to fall asleep, but suddenly he opened his eyes as she stood staring down at his face.

  Be careful, Raphaella.

  I promise. And I'll call you.

  You don't have to. Why don't you forget about all this and have some fun. With whom? Her mother? Her aunt? A sigh fought its way through her, but she didn't let it escape.

  I'll be back very soon, and everyone here knows where I'll be if you need me.

  I don't need you' . He grinned for a moment. Not like that. Not enough to spoil your fun.