A Trick of the Eye

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  “Well, I should be going,” I said, getting up from my chair. “Good-bye, Roberto.”

  He got up. We shook hands. He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “When we are young and strong and proud,” he said in a faltering voice, “we all set out to do a great battle with life. Most of us lose, and no one really wins in the end. God bless you, Faith. And do not forget what I told you—be careful.”

  Chapter 17

  I left Broken Ridge that afternoon and took the next flight from Denver back to New York. The cabin was nearly empty. I had a row of seats all to myself. I closed my eyes and thought about Madi, about Cassandra, about the tape of them making love. Suddenly, like the brief cut of a horror film, an image of Cassandra being stabbed through the heart by her father flashed through my mind. I snapped open my eyes and lurched forward, stifling a cry.

  There was no doubt that Madi had told me the truth. I had an image of him leaving the bar, hunched over and defeated, a sad man, far less potent than he’d first appeared to be. I thought about his admonition to be careful. Gradually, however, he receded in my thoughts as I began to concentrate more and more on Holt Griffin—the man of the world, the monster of private life.

  Who was Holt Griffin? Was he really as charming, attractive, and erudite as people said? Surely, he must have been. How else could he have fooled everyone into thinking he was a person of great probity and honor? Or perhaps he was not as fine as people said he was, even on the surface. Perhaps people had made allowances for him because of what he seemed to represent. His position in the world was such that everyone wanted to believe the legend. And yet, there must have been some who sensed the uncomfortable truth about him and who had declined to come forward either out of loyalty or fear, or the hope that they would one day be included in his circle.

  I wondered, had I met Holt Griffin, what I would have thought of him. Would I have been seduced, like so many others, by his looks, his elegance, his knowledge, set against that brilliant background of wealth and culture? Or would I have somehow seen through to the core of the man? Would something, some telltale sign, some peculiarity in his expression or his manner, have given away the evil twist in his heart? I liked to think I would have recognized the man for what he really was.

  His actions had been evil. Of that there was no doubt. Yet was he thoroughly evil, someone of no conscience whatsoever? Or was he himself the victim of one direly misplaced passion? Holt Griffin had died of an overdose of drugs, Madi said. I wondered, as Madi did, whether he killed himself on purpose or out of carelessness? Can such a person be forgiven?

  I thought of Cassandra and the misery she must have endured. I remembered a job I’d had once, working in a nineteenth-century dinosaur of a house in upstate New York where I’d been contracted to touch up some murals. Over the gigantic stone fireplace in the great hall was an inscription carved in marble: WEALTH HATH NO SWAY. At the time, it had made me chuckle. I could almost see the self-righteous robber baron who’d commissioned it as a perverse atonement for the excesses of his life, of which that fifty-room Queen Anne Revival house was an egregious example. For some reason, I thought of this in connection with Cassandra. It seemed to explain agony in the midst of luxury: WEALTH HATH NO SWAY.

  Finally, there was Frances Griffin. Only now did I begin to fathom the depth of her guilt and the pain in her life. Who was this strange old survivor, and what did she want from me? I suspected Madi was right. There was some ulterior motive in her having chosen me to paint the ballroom. But what?

  The plane landed at eleven o’clock, New York time. I took a taxi into the city and reached my apartment before midnight. I called my upstairs neighbor, whom I knew to be a night owl. She came down to deliver Brush. He was happy to see me. I tried calling Harry, but there was no answer. I left a message on his machine to please call me the minute he got in, no matter what time it was. There was a strange message on my own answering machine from a Mrs. Edna Grubek. I called the number she’d left, which turned out to be the Howard Johnson’s motor lodge on the west side. I asked for Mrs. Grubek, but she’d had her phone turned off for the night. I left my name and a brief message that I was returning her call. I thought it was most likely a wrong number.

  I got into bed with some of the newspaper clippings I’d collected on the murder. Brush curled up alongside me as I went through them. I was only interested in the photographs this time, for I knew the articles themselves were mostly fiction. I lined up the pictures of Holt, Cassandra, and Frances, and stared at them for a while. The grainy image of Holt Griffin was in some ways the most interesting. I found it fascinating how completely he’d fooled the world into thinking he was a great gentleman. He certainly appeared the part, but his patrician good looks, clean and sharp, gleaming with achievement, now seemed to me as sinister as an unsheathed hunting knife.

  Cassandra looked so pathetic to me now, like a scorched sunflower. She resembled her father more than her mother, which must have titillated the narcissist in him. I could see where he might have looked upon her as a younger, female version of himself and found her irresistible.

  However, the photograph of Frances Griffin disturbed me most. I recognized her clear, cold gaze looking out at me from the youthful face in the newspaper. Her eyes hadn’t changed with age. They were unsoftened, undimmed. They still wanted something.

  I thought back to one of our early meetings, when Frances Griffin had said to me, “One day I’ll need all your compassion.” I remembered the phrase. It had struck me as odd at the time. I still wondered what she meant. Finally, overcome by fatigue, I put the pictures aside, intending to close my eyes for just a moment.

  When I woke up it was early the next morning. The clippings had all slipped to the floor and the light was still on. I got out of bed, anxious to get to The Haven as soon as possible. I heard the telephone ringing when I was in the shower. Hoping it was Harry, I ran out of the stall and grabbed the phone.

  “Yes!” I panted, dripping wet.

  “Hello, Miss Crowell?” said a woman with a midwestern accent on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “My name is Edna Grubek.” Her voice was slow and deliberate.

  “Oh yes. You called before.”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “I’m Harry’s sister.”

  “Harry Pitt?”

  “Well, yes,” she said.

  I felt a queasy feeling in my stomach. I knew something was wrong.

  “Where is Harry? I’ve been trying to get in touch with him.”

  After a long pause she said, “I’m afraid Harry is no longer with us.”

  I was seized by dizziness. I sank down on the bed and clasped the sheet to my naked, wet body.

  “What?” I heard myself say. “What?”

  “Yes,” she continued. “He passed away the day before yesterday in the morning. Heart attack. Bang—just like that.”

  “But I spoke to him—” I said, recalling my last conversation with Harry from the airport.

  “Listen, my poor husband was talkin’ to him on the phone when it happened. His dog died and he was real upset. If you ask me, I think that’s what did it. I came in soon as I could get a flight. Now I’m here getting things sorted out. We’re flying him back home to Cincinnati for the funeral. I just got rid of the dog.”

  She went on talking, but I didn’t hear her. I just kept imagining Harry in front of me, hearing his voice. I couldn’t believe I was never going to see him again.

  “So, can you come over to Harry’s apartment and pick it up?” I heard the woman say.

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I said, can you come over to Harry’s and pick it up?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The picture.”

  “What picture.”

  “The one he left you. The one I’ve just be
en telling you about. It’s not too big.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve lost track.”

  “That’s okay, honey. You’re upset. It’s understandable. I’m upset too, even though Harry wasn’t, well, you know, much a part of the family. Thing is, I’m leaving tomorrow morning first thing, and I hate carting this darn thing over back to the motel with me and leaving it down at the front desk.”

  “What . . . what is it?”

  “I just told you, honey, it’s this old picture Harry left for you. It’s all crated up. You’re the only one he left anything to, ’sides me and Joe, of course. Sorry it’s such short notice, but could you come over and get it?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m over at Harry’s. I’ll be here all day packing things up.”

  “Packing things up?”

  “Yup. Was here all yesterday, most of the night. My oh my, there’s a lotta stuff.”

  I suddenly had a hilarious vision of Harry, dead, propped up on one of his silk pillows, staring glassy-eyed, as this incongruous-sounding relative packed his life away in plastic garbage bags in front of him.

  “Where exactly is Harry?”

  “Well,” she plodded on in her twangy voice, “the remains are at the airport. I’m taking him back home with me. Joe and I thought it was the Christian thing to do, you know.”

  “I’ll come over now.”

  I threw on some clothes and raced downstairs. I hailed a taxi, got in, gave the driver Harry’s address, and sat back on the torn, black seat. As the cab jerked along the streets, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remain calm. I arrived at Harry’s building in a short time and took the elevator up to his apartment as I had done so many times in the past.

  I rang the doorbell. An older woman wearing green-rimmed harlequin glasses and a tan polyester pantsuit opened the door. She was neat and pleasant-looking, with strong features and an aura of stocky good health about her. The thick lenses of her glasses made her brown eyes seem disproportionately large and slightly bulging. Her short, tightly permed gray hair had a bluish tint to it. She was holding a sheaf of plastic bubble-wrap in one hand along with some masking tape.

  “Hello, I’m Faith Crowell,” I said.

  “Edna Grubek. Come in, come in. Thanks for coming over. ’Scuse my appearance, won’t you?” she said, smiling, patting her hair. “I’ve been sorting things out all day. My Lord in heaven, my brother has more stuff than a pack rat.”

  I couldn’t believe this was a relation of Harry’s, no less his own sister. Harry had never talked openly about his childhood, but sometimes he alluded to it in vague, derogatory ways. Early on in our friendship, I’d made a concerted effort to delve into his past. I asked him where he’d come from, how he’d grown up, who his parents were, if he had any sisters or brothers. The subject clearly pained him.

  “Please,” he said softly in the middle of my interrogation, “if you don’t mind, it’s not a time I care to think about.”

  In that moment, I saw all of Harry’s apparent sophistication suddenly melt away, revealing the sad, lonely little boy that was his core. I never broached the subject again, and I learned to avoid making even the most casual inquiries into his prior history. He never volunteered anything. Throughout our friendship, however, I noticed he had a fascination with people who had managed to eradicate their pasts and become something else—Frances Griffin being a major case in point. He would speak about them in oddly contradictory ways, admiring them and denigrating them at the same time, as if he couldn’t make up his mind how he felt about them. I suspected this was because he couldn’t make up his mind how he felt about himself and his own self-invention.

  So this was Harry’s sister, I thought, as I followed her down the long corridor toward the living room. She appeared to be his opposite in every way, from her style of dress to her voice, down to her gestures, and the way she seemed to view the world. From the looks of it, her clothes had been chosen for function rather than fashion. I wondered how Harry would have reacted to her outfit, particularly the white shoes with green laces and the little handkerchief dripping from her breast pocket, patterned all over with ducks and guns. Also, Mrs. Grubek’s ungrammatical twang was a far cry from Harry’s clipped, faintly English accent. One or two comments she made about Harry’s career led me to suspect she viewed art as little more than expensive wallpaper. “All that fancy stuff he went broke on” was one of her more pointed references to Harry’s career.

  She might have sturdier values than the ones that guided Harry, but there was no question with whom I would have preferred to spend an evening. Harry was fun and had a profound appreciation of art and great craftsmanship. I doubted the same could be said of Edna Grubek. If they were from the same family, how on earth, I wondered, had Harry managed to transform himself so completely into the esthete he was?

  Walking behind her, I recalled the many happy times I’d spent in that apartment. Just before entering the living room, I hung back for a moment, closed my eyes, and conjured up my favorite image of Harry, wearing a brocade dressing gown, cigarette smoke flaring from his nostrils, drinking red wine, holding court. Harry had designed the perfect stage set for his invented self. It was hard for me to believe that he was no more, and that his passing had little effect on the world beyond the dispersal of some goods.

  I had quite a shock when I entered the room. The fabric had been torn away from the walls. The tented ceiling hung down in huge pieces of cloth, its tattered insides exposed. The chandelier was gone—only the chain remained. The furniture had been pushed into two piles on either side of the room. There were packing crates and boxes all around, some sealed up with masking tape, some with their contents bulging out. The carpets were rolled up, revealing a splintery, dried-out wooden floor underneath.

  “Sorry ’bout the mess,” Mrs. Grubek said. “Some people from the building came to see the apartment and they wanted to take a gander at what was back of all that junk on the walls. Good thing they did ’cause we discovered a leak. Now let me see, where did I put that darn crate? Lordy me, I had it right here.”

  I watched her as she rummaged around the room. The more I studied her, the more she reminded me of a thinner version of Harry. The closely set eyes, the large forehead, the mouth turned down at the corners giving a slightly hangdog look to her expression—all were diminished versions of Harry’s fleshy features.

  “Sure is a bitch getting all these loose ends tied up in no time,” she said, apropos of nothing in particular. “Oh, here ’tis.”

  She pulled out a small crate from behind one of the round tables covered with a drop cloth, lifted it with some effort, and presented it to me.

  “There you go.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’re selling most of this stuff. It should help a little.”

  “If you have a problem with funeral expenses or anything, I’d like very much to contribute if I may. Harry was very dear to me,” I said.

  “Oh, no thanks. We’ll manage. Always have. But that’s a kind offer. No, my Joe’s a saint. He helped support Harry for the last couple of years even though, well, you know . . .”

  “No. What?”

  “Even though he didn’t approve of Harry’s, well, persuasion,” she said, pursing her lips slightly.

  I felt she was trying to be as tactful as possible. Nonetheless, I found myself rising instinctively to defend him.

  “Persuasion,” I said. “You mean that he was gay?”

  She blushed.

  “Oh listen, dearie, when it’s up to me, I say live and let live,” she said apologetically.

  I could see she meant well. I smiled at her and nodded. She seemed relieved.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “if you want to come out to the funeral, we’re having it the day after tomorrow in Cincinnati. You’re more than welcome.”

  Part of me wanted
to see Harry properly laid to rest. Another part wanted to attend simply out of curiosity. But I decided I was better off not going. I very much wanted to remember Harry the way I’d always known him, the way he’d presented himself, the way he wanted to be remembered. I had the sense that were I to go out and unearth the roots he’d spent a lifetime burying, I would somehow be disloyal to his memory.

  “That’s very nice of you,” I replied, “but I don’t think I can.”

  She shrugged as if to say, “suit yourself,” and started to walk out of the room. I followed her, carrying the crate. It wasn’t heavy, but quite bulky. Mrs. Grubek opened the front door. She offered to help me downstairs with it but I declined.

  “Good-bye,” I said. “Forgive me for not shaking hands.”

  “Good-bye, Faith. Thanks for coming over. Saved me a trip.”

  “Thank you. God bless Harry.”

  “Amen.”

  We looked at each other for a brief moment. Then she closed the door.

  On the way home in the taxi, clutching the crate, I thought about Harry, and about death. Harry was still there for me in my imagination, more vivid than ever in some ways, now that I knew I was never going to see him again. Yet, at the same time, he was gone forever. It was as if some part of my life had come to a halt when I wasn’t looking. I’d moved on, suspecting nothing, expecting to turn around and see my friend at my side the next moment. And then he wasn’t there. He had stopped, and I had gone on. Was death that simple?

  When I got home, I put the crate on the kitchen table and examined it more carefully. The lid had been opened and nailed shut again. I pried it open gently with the claw of a hammer. Brush sat on a chair and looked on as I took the wooden cover off the box. The picture was small, measuring about a foot by a foot and a half, wrapped in newspaper, nestled in a pile of excelsior. I lifted it up out of its packing with the utmost care. Bits of the excelsior floated to the floor. While Brush jumped down from his perch to play with them, I carried the still-wrapped picture into the living room and placed it on the couch. I felt certain that Harry had left me some kind of message.