A Trick of the Eye

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  “Go on,” I urged her.

  “If I’d known . . . I would have said—” She halted again.

  “What? What would you have said?”

  The old woman took hold of my hand and studied it, measuring it against her own.

  “Tiny, delicate hands,” she mused.

  She looked at me with an expression of surprise, as if she weren’t seeing me at all, but someone else.

  “I’m sorry, my darling,” she said plaintively, staring into my eyes. “Please forgive me, Cassa . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “Mrs. Griffin, I’m not Cassa.”

  I can’t say whether or not she heard me for she just sat there for a long time holding my hand, swallowing thick sobs. I didn’t know what to do so I just watched her. Her grief was so intense, so full of passion, I felt embarrassed, as if I were witnessing some sort of sexual act. I hadn’t the vaguest idea what to say to her. What does one say to a person who’s grieving over such an irreparable loss? Had I been an old friend or someone with more of a shared history, I might have felt comfortable reaching out and hugging her in her moment of distress. But as it was, I felt powerless to help her, fearing that any gesture on my part might seem hollow or be misinterpreted as too familiar. I longed to turn away, to get up and leave that stifling room.

  Mrs. Griffin let go of my hand. She cleared her throat as if she were about to say something. But instead, she simply rose from her chair and walked slowly toward the door without uttering a word. I watched her leave, then sat motionless in my chair for a long time, staring out the window with her last words ringing in my ears.

  “Please forgive me, Cassa . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.”

  What did she mean? Sorry for what? What did she want Cassandra to forgive her for?

  Finally, Deane came in and announced that Mrs. Griffin was tired and that I was free to go back to work or take the rest of the afternoon off, as I wished. To which room, I wondered, had she retreated for solace—her bedroom or some other? The room in which Cassandra had lived as a child, the room in which she had died?

  Later that day, when I left the house, I wondered if Mrs. Griffin was watching me. I knew one thing: I was going to be watching her.

  Chapter 5

  Instead of going back to work, I took the afternoon off. Leaving The Haven I began to drive, just drive, with no particular destination in mind. I kept seeing Cassandra and Roberto Madi as myself and John Noland. Suddenly I pictured John Noland stabbing me through the heart. I pulled over to the side of the road to catch my breath.

  I started up the car again and drove around aimlessly until I found myself in my old neighborhood in the Village, near Washington Square. Except for the more apparent seediness of the sidewalks, the area hadn’t changed much since I’d lived there fifteen years earlier. The turn-of-the-century architecture and the narrow, winding streets always reminded me of a slower, more graceful era. It was here that I’d met John Noland, here that we’d conducted our affair around the cafes, jazz clubs, theaters, and restaurants that shaped the neighborhood. We lived near enough one another for felicitous encounters, for last-minute trysts, and for me to spy on him. Now, once again, I found myself driving by his house, looking up at his window to see if he was home.

  He lived on the second floor of a brownstone off Bleecker Street, or at least he’d lived there once. After we’d stopped seeing one another, I would go out of my way to walk past his apartment. Sometimes I even lingered around, waiting to catch a glimpse of him, dreading the thought of seeing him with another woman, yet morbidly titillated by the idea. Once, I actually staked him out. I stood on the street until dawn, staring up at his windows, catching intermittent glimpses of him smoking, drinking, pacing around his apartment as he worked through the night. During that vigil I realized how much closer I felt to John when I wasn’t with him, when I was observing him from a distance, or just thinking about him. I finally grasped how unsatisfying our relationship had been.

  I didn’t know if he still lived there. It had been so long since I’d seen him or been in contact with him. Had he moved? Had he died? No, he couldn’t be dead, I thought. I’d have heard, or else I’d have seen his obituary in the Times. I’d taken to reading the Times’ obituary pages in the last couple of years. They had replaced marriage announcements as a source of personal news for me. Surely John Noland, the now-esteemed writer, would have been as respectfully reviewed in death as he had been in life, perhaps more so.

  I parked my car and looked up at the familiar row of windows on the second floor. The old routine. The third window to the left, I knew, was his office—or used to be. The one next to it his bedroom—or used to be. The shade had always been drawn in that room. It was drawn now.

  I got out of my car and went into the entranceway of the brownstone to check and see if he still lived there. No harm in that, I thought. It was still the same old hall, dim, butter-colored, with blackened cracks in the white tile floor, still the scent of cats, and, by God, still his name in a slot in the same mailbox, scrawled on a yellowing file card: John Noland.

  The mailbox was stuffed. He must be away, I thought. Well, that was par for the course. He would go away frequently to research those elegant books of his. It was fascinating to me how a man harboring so much personal angst and passion could write in such a detached manner. What was that last book of his? I stood in the hallway trying to recall the title. I remembered reading a review a year or so ago, which said that it was “nobly historic.” Then it came to me: it was about the colonization of Peru as seen through the eyes of a missionary and an Inca who become friends and then die together in some violent, worthy way. What was it called again? I thought for another moment. Oh yes: Men of Stone. Perfect.

  I walked out onto the street again thinking of the time John and I spent together, making love, fighting, making up. I recalled the day I’d gone into his office and rifled through a pile of correspondence, my heart thundering as I found and read a letter from another lovesick woman. I confronted him with it.

  “Who is this woman who says she loves you and that you love her?!” I had screamed at him.

  “It’s none of your business,” he said, easing the letter from my hand.

  “Why do you do this to me?”

  “You do it to yourself,” he replied.

  And it was true. I did. Again and again.

  We talked about getting married. I even bought a white lace dress in case we decided to go and do it on the spur of the moment. I wanted to be prepared. I’d always wanted a white wedding. Now, I reflected as I stood on the sidewalk, if I have a wedding, it will be white all right: white dress, white flowers, white hair.

  Standing on the street, unable to tear myself away from the building, I remembered the day John phoned and I told him, on impulse, that I didn’t want to see him anymore. And this time I really meant it. I think I surprised myself as much as I did him. My tone of voice was uncharacteristically cool. He asked me what he’d done. Was there someone else? No, I said, he’d done nothing in particular and there was no one else. I just didn’t want to see him again—which wasn’t true. I did want to see him again, but I was suddenly sick of the pain, maybe even a little bored with it. Hearing him plead with me, I was tempted to give in, but instead I said, “Good-bye,” and hung up. He never called me back.

  I found the strength to move out of the neighborhood, uptown. I stopped wondering if I’d made the right decision, stopped making surreptitious pilgrimages to his house, stopped sitting by the phone waiting for him to call. I stopped searching the mail every morning for his cryptic notes and postcards. When they came—and several did—I read them and threw them away instead of keeping them. John Noland’s early correspondence and my father’s birthday cards to me from distant places had lain in two piles, side by side in a hidden drawer in my desk for years, until one day I got tired of knowing the piles were there a
nd burned them both. I went about my life in a different way, forming a new collection of feelings, settling into my state of resigned contentment.

  Whenever I saw John Noland’s books reviewed, I smiled. Occasionally, browsing through a bookstore, I’d pick up a copy of his latest novel. I’d look at the picture on the back of the jacket and think, there he is, still craggy-handsome, still taut and lean, still the ladies’ man, but getting older. I always glanced at the dedication in his books. One read: “For S. R.—With Love.” Poor “S. R.,” I thought as I replaced the book on the shelf. Poor love.

  When I got home that evening, I thumbed through all the newspaper clippings about Cassandra again, reading snippets of them aloud to myself and Brush. I fell asleep with the light on and had a dream I didn’t remember clearly. I awoke the next morning considerably more tired than when I went to bed.

  I didn’t see Mrs. Griffin for more than two weeks after our strange lunch together. I went to work every day, but there was no sign of her and no word from her. That was fine with me. Our encounter had left me feeling vaguely embarrassed, and her words, “Please forgive me, Cassa . . . ,” kept echoing in my mind. The incident had jolted the rhythm of our relationship, and we both needed to recover. She’d revealed too deep a part of herself too soon. We really didn’t know one another well enough for a dramatic scene of tears and mistaken identity. I felt the necessary balance could only be restored by time and distance.

  During this period, I worked hard to little avail. I sat for hours in the ballroom smoking, sketching, conjuring up ideas, only to dismiss them the next day as too trivial or too bland. I found myself wondering just exactly how Mrs. Griffin was spending her days. As far as I could tell, she never went outside and she never received visitors. No one but tradesmen called at the house. She never came down to work or stroll in her garden. She never looked in on me. She remained all by herself, attended only by servants. So, I asked myself, what on earth did she do all day? Did she read or watch television? Did she spend time in her costume rooms trying on her memories? Or did she have some secret project to fill her hours?

  Though I never saw her, I felt the old woman’s presence as I worked, and I developed the uneasy impression of being watched by her. Little things happened. The birds would suddenly stop chirping, and I sensed there was someone walking around outside. But when I went to look, there was never anyone there. Sometimes I strolled around the building at lunch and noticed faint footprints in the soil, small, made by a woman’s shoe. Sometimes I could have sworn I heard someone crying softly outside.

  At first I dismissed these incidents and thoughts. Gradually, however, the feeling of being watched became so pronounced I wondered if she wasn’t somehow spying on me from a secret hole in the wall. I found myself turning around abruptly in the middle of a sketch to search the walls for an eye.

  One day, I made a point of coming to the ballroom very early in the morning when the rising sun was still low in the sky. I stood in the center of the room turning around slowly, and, by God, there it was: a tiny pinprick of sunlight, barely visible behind a column, stabbing the east wall at eye level. I walked over to it in order to examine it more closely. It was a miniscule hole just big enough to peer through. I stuffed it with paper and made a note to have it plastered properly. This particular game was over, and I had won. At least for now.

  In time, I got to know the ballroom as one gets to know a close friend, complete with moods and flaws. Built for an old-fashioned ritual, it had an air of sadness about it, perhaps because it would never again be used for the purpose for which it was intended. I knew Mrs. Griffin would not give another ball there. She was too reclusive, too old. This brought to mind the question of just why she wanted the room done up at all. Perhaps, I thought, it was to fix some sort of memory she had, or wanted to have, of lighter, more innocent times. Increasingly, I felt a desire to make the room—how to put it?—happy. Slowly, with this idea in mind, a plan for its design began to take shape.

  Since every great ballroom must always look as if it’s ready for a ball, I decided simply to make it ready. I planned to give the stark, classical space lots of company, fantasy, and music—to create a dance, a coming-out party, in the middle of which I’d place the debutante herself—Cassandra Griffin—poised to step onto the dance floor, a true princess in her long white dress and tiara of youth.

  As this inspiration settled into place, I thought to myself, Cassa, you and I will live together for a few months while I immortalize your crowning moment. I’ll come to know you and perhaps even myself a little better as a result. I’ll live with you and re-create your finest moment, and maybe even solve the mystery of your death.

  Having decided to proceed with this scheme, I began sketching directly onto the ballroom walls. My charcoal pencil flew across the plaster as a hundred ideas occurred to me at once. I felt the burst of energy every artist longs for when ideas start gushing from that magic spring deep in the subconscious. I worked furiously until I’d realized my inspiration with a series of detailed sketches.

  At the end of a week, the ballroom had come alive with people and musicians, animals and flowers. Each panel told a little story, and each story had in it a touch of whimsy. I was particularly fond of the vignette in which a small dog, hiding in the folds of a woman’s long dress, has lifted its leg on her escort. The woman, smoking a cigarette in a long holder, and the young man, in white tie sipping champagne, are oblivious to the dog’s mischief. I sprinkled other, similarly irreverent scenes over the generally decorous cotillion crowd: a waiter staring down a grand dame’s décolletage as he offers her a plate of hors d’oeuvres; an old roué pinching a young girl’s bottom; a woman pulling up her skirts too high to the delight of her escort. At the center of the gala was a blank-faced portrait of the debutante herself, Cassandra Griffin.

  My supporting characters in place, I now needed Mrs. Griffin to approve the plan. I knew she wasn’t spying on me anymore—I figured I’d taken care of that. I wanted her to come to the ballroom to see what I was proposing, though I suspected she came to look over my work every night after I’d gone. After making my request to Deane, who said he would consult with Mrs. Griffin and get back to me, I wandered around the grounds waiting for her answer, feeling both elated and nervous at the prospect of seeing her again.

  I knew I’d done good work and hoped she would approve, but I was still wary of her. I couldn’t quite figure out this odd little game she was playing with me, or if, indeed, it was a game at all and not just some figment of my imagination. I wondered how she would behave, given the unexpectedly intimate nature of our previous encounter. I knew it was best to let her set the tone for this meeting.

  Later that day I was summoned to Mrs. Griffin’s bedroom. She sat propped up in her silk canopied bed, resting against a mountain of pillows, looking so old and shrunken that for a moment I didn’t recognize her. Her head appeared much smaller. Wispy gray strands of hair covered her skull.

  “Get me my hair,” she said imperiously to a maid, who promptly disappeared into the dressing room.

  “I’ve had a spell,” she said.

  She held up a hand mirror and examined her face in the glass.

  “Hideous,” she said with a self-deprecating little laugh. “Simply hideous.”

  Putting the mirror down, she looked at me with those large pale blue eyes of hers.

  “I used to take great pains with my appearance, you know. I was famous for it. Never a hair out of place, even to go around the corner. Good grooming is a full-time occupation, and I was very good at my job. No one’s ever seen me like this, except my maid, of course.”

  I wondered why she was allowing me to see her in this sorry state, and then, as if reading my mind, she said: “But I wanted you to. I wanted you to see me without any artifice.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She thought for a moment. “I think perhaps it’s because I want your
good opinion, and it’s easier to get people’s good opinions when they feel slightly sorry for you.”

  I let go a perplexed little laugh.

  “Why on earth should you want my good opinion? I don’t understand.”

  “No. I know you don’t. And you won’t for a while. I’m not sure I quite understand it myself. But I think it’s fair to say that one day I’ll need all your compassion. Compassion is the most necessary ingredient in all relationships. Everything depends on it. Everything rises and falls with the amount you use. You’ll need quite a bit for me.”

  She picked up the mirror again and studied herself.

  “I used to love looking in the mirror,” she said. “It reassured me.” Tracing one or two deep wrinkles on her face with the tip of her finger, she sighed, “I never imagined myself getting old . . . How old are you now?”

  “Thirty-nine,” I replied without hesitation.

  “Ah! At thirty-nine I was immortal. . . . Do you imagine yourself getting old?”

  I shrugged. “Yes and no. I try not to think about it. Sometimes I feel quite old already.”

  “That’s because you’re alone,” she said. “Being alone ages you.”

  “You think so?” The thought had never occurred to me.

  “Oh yes,” she said firmly. “One needs contact with others to stay young.”

  The maid brought in two wigs on stands. Mrs. Griffin chose one, and placed it on her head, expertly tucking the errant wisps of her own hair beneath it.

  “Did you know I wore a wig?”

  “I thought you might,” I said.

  “I hate them. They’re hot. But, as you can see, my own hair is impossible now. It used to be luxurious—though not, if I do say so myself—my best feature as it often is with plain women. If I weren’t so vain, I’d just wear a scarf. But I am vain. I used to lie about my age all the time. I was nearly thirty-three when Cassa was born but I told everyone I was twenty-eight. Now there’s no point in lying about anything. There,” she said, holding the mirror away from her to get a better view. “That’s a bit better . . . Well, maybe not.”