It started with my cousin Rosaria, who bred lovebirds and who died in September, quite suddenly, of an invasive leukemia too late detected.
Actually – as Dolores explained to me in her matter-of-fact way that afternoon, me curled in the worn bucket seat of her Chevy as she took the exit from the turnpike nearest my apartment – actually Rosaria was only Esteban's wife, Esteban was the real relative, but he couldn't manage without her, poor man, what do you expect, after all? Three children in the house, too, an absolute wreck. She was going out to Texas; she wanted me to have her job.
"Why me?" I asked, not humiliated as I would have been a few years ago but puzzled, and she said, "Because you are doing nothing now. And it is easy money for you, girl, so young. Nine to four, better hours than the post office" – for Dolores, the writing did not count - "and much better pay. Also you are not like your mother, you have the hands for the work. Easier to keep it in the family."
I laughed a little – imagine that, I'm part of the family – and Dolores must have taken it as acquiescence. So it began.
Dolores and my mother, both issued from the ponderous loins of the quasi-legendary Mercedes (who saw spirits and once provoked a scandal by haranguing the priest on the steps of the church), nevertheless failed to have anything else in common, except possibly – for a few tempestuous months a year before my birth – my father. So it was that when Dolores' own husband died, she had no kindly sister to fall back on. It was doubtful in any case whether Dolores would have fallen back. There would be the waitressing; the housecleaning. My mother had inherited Mercedes' looks (those she had in youth), but Dolores had the hands, and the temper. She had been a verboten subject in our house, but by this time I had not spoken to either of my parents for more than a year.
(Amanda had laughed when I told her about the job. "My God," she said, "that's like nepotism, Rocio." I told her that was if I had taken the job in plastics like I was supposed to.)
Dolores had me drive to the ferry the next day, where she met me, sheaf of papers in hand. Everything arranged by phone; sign here, here and here. As the gently rocking embarkation rounded the Island, I caught sight of the white house jutting from the cliffs. It looked the way I had pictured it, open to the sea, a silent sentinel watching.
Dolores took me in through a side door, her wheeling her cart that was to be my cart. There was a rather complicated sequence of alarms ("You'll get the hang of them fast") and security systems in general ("Just don't worry about them being there"). A tiny service elevator took us up to the first floor. The doors slid open; I stepped out.
The first thing I noticed was the sun. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined one entire wall; light flooded the open space, pooling golden on the hardwood floor, reflecting off the dazzlingly white walls, the spare, elegant furniture. Then the paintings, a moment after. Paintings everywhere. Dolores had not said.
I turned slowly, in one spot. Diptychs, triptychs, broken fragments of fresco ravished from some dilapidated Tuscan church, panels still gleaming with gold leaf under the patina of centuries of lamp smoke. Everywhere my gaze fell angels danced and saints lifted their withered arms to heaven, billowing veils of carmine and lapis-lazuli frozen at the apex of the cosmic wind. Years of browsing through art books came alive. I was entranced.
Dolores watched me with her arms folded under her breasts, a little bemused – the images did not particularly touch her. When I turned back toward her she said, "I'm going through it once with you, girl. You'll have a list afterward, of course, but you should follow. Ready?"
As always, she didn't wait for my answer.
Nine to four, never earlier or later, every day six days a week – minus statutory holidays. Things to do every day, things to do every two days, things to do per week, per month. Dolores also told me something of the owners, in vague terms. Young - moneyed – wild was the word she used. I was never to meet them. Besides Dolores there was the chauffeur; secretaries who could sometimes drop in unexpectedly; cooks who arrived in the late afternoon to set up preparations for the evening (they made my lunch, three exquisite courses that sat on aluminum foil in the fridge when I arrived); other probably who were not occupied with the immediate sphere of the house. Almost always, Dolores was alone. She had access to about two-thirds of the rooms, and perhaps one-tenth of the keys. It was a house of secrets.
The first couple of weeks were conscientious, diligent. I vacuumed, swept, wiped the counters and the gilded frames of the artwork with a very slightly damp cloth to remove dust. Dust was the main enemy. I soon learnt how Dolores had been able to handle three floors of a mansion by herself: most of the rooms were completely unlived-in. Beds neatly made stayed that way, bathroom mirrors sparkled, windows closed tightly against the sea wind. Lovely and elegant, the interior decoration, muted pastels or gorgeous dark patterns and velvets. One bedroom caught my fancy in particular, all white satin on antique furniture of darkened oak, and great, organically swirling Art Deco candelabras; there was a locked door in one wall, as there was in almost every suite. The sterility was that of a glossy magazine.
("I dunno how you take it," Amanda said, staring into the mirror to apply her liner with short, sure strokes. "Big house like that, I would go nuts. No people, no nothing." Amanda had been debating club captain at the high school of her home town – "Hicksville, USA, Rocio" – and majored in Communications after that. Amanda had blond hair, an easy smile and a hankering after telejournalism; her father in San Fran was supposed to "come through" with a job for her. Amanda needed people.)
I didn't need people. But I began to go out of my way to find evidence of inhabitation. The library and study could always be counted on: there lay the half-read newspapers, the manila folders, the ever-active ansaphones. Babel of languages: "Monsieur Malloy, voici le représentant de Decca-Paris. Je vous appelle pour confirmer..." Malloy. Was that the name? There were others. I flipped through the papers in the in-box from time to time. Mundane reports, really, contractor's bills, shareholder communiqués, the occasional clipping on a South American land claim. Nothing that explained anything. Nothing, in fact, that necessitated an explanation.
The paintings were the most strikingly mutable, always disappearing only to surface a week later in a different suite. It was almost impossible to believe that they were all real, not copies, yet even copies this quality would cost tens of thousands. A Rembrandt – a Murillo – a Van Eyck woodcut – a pastel by Degas – one of Rossetti's tiny Conté sketches, the dusty lines as delicate as the veins in an orchid. I began spending an inordinate amount of time simply watching the paintings; not with the self-conscious absorption one musters for museums or for church but an almost dream-like concentration, as if I were reading poetry pasted on the wall in an illegible handwriting. It was true that something about the house made keeping track of time difficult. I spent an entire hour in front of a Delacroix, tracing with my eyes the brush-strokes that wove the intricate colours of a half-lit Moorish palace or a Moroccan maiden's tunic. A prayer repeated voiceless through the gaze.
I dug up reproductions for Amanda, from the old art periodicals I had lugged around with me from one apartment to another, and finally into the one we shared. "Here," I would say, sounding ridiculously obsessed, "this one, the 'Study for a Reclining Slave'... and this, the 'Virgin with Donor and Three Saints', see that?"
"Gorgeous," Amanda said politely, peering over my shoulder.
"Screw gorgeous. Look at her. Look into her eyes. There was a model for that picture, you can tell, it's not ideal enough. Do you have any idea where those eyes are now? Yet hundreds of thousands of men and women have filed in front of this picture and owned it in reproduction, the whole shebang. If they saw her in the street tomorrow they would know her face. And do you think she chose that? That hairdo, and that smile, and that goddamn stereotypical Madonna dress that looks like velvet drapes? You think she wanted immortality – like that?"
Amanda shrugged. "She's not here to see it, Rocio."
"That's the point. This is the only sort of immortality we've got – and it's a pretty frigging poor substitute for life. I mean, Richard the Third, okay, had no choice about Shakespeare. But if there had been one, the choice would have been between theatrical villain and some guy totally forgotten except by history geeks. You think he wouldn't have chosen the play? Wouldn't you have? We all die, Amanda, we all die and hope to get famous after. It doesn't get any better than that."
I didn't realize the danger until I saw the worried remembrance in Amanda's eyes – what most people don't know is that we went to college together, that she was with me when the changes began – remembrance, and doubt. "You overthink, Rocio," she said. I could have laughed.
But it was a danger.
For most of the day I was alone, and the isolation began to confuse itself with waiting. I found myself switching off the vacuum cleaner abruptly, listening for footsteps, laughter, pounding on the door, I'm sure I heard something, there, just now, wasn't there...?
Daydreaming was all too easy. I found myself remembering Mercedes for some reason, imposing Mercedes who died when I was five, Mercedes who had held court in my mother's living room (despite never forgiving her for falling for a gringo) and frightened my child-self to tears more than once. Yet other memories, semi-opaque only like fever-dreams: Mercedes lifting me out of bed in the dead of night, her ponderous hands as if disembodied, emerging from the white sleeves of the nightgown that flitted about her ankles like a ghost; the blast of dewy night air on my face. A glimmering.
"See the lights, nina? Watch them move now, Rocio, watch how the dead walk."
"I see them, grandmama..."
"Ai, those with their bone shrouds and glows, their firefly souls! That girl's eyes, she weeps tears pale and clammy as a toad's, does your gift see her, nina?"
"I see, grandmama, I see her, I see her..."
Things that never happened. Are our minds so cluttered with childhood dreams then, or am I the only one who carries this particular burden? How is it, really?
Mercedes sometimes seemed very close. This essence of reverie was at the heart of the house, like a snatch of melody repeated ad infinitum, the volume set too low for the ear to interpret.
Once it went on for just a moment longer in the renewed quiet of the house, silky, dizzyingly seductive laughter, trailing away into silence. I got up and made the round of the house with a heavy bronze statuette gripped firmly in one hand, checking all the points of entry – even the windows that faced the cliff – coming to a stop finally in front of the locked door in the white bedroom. Empty.
Easiest way out was to switch on the radio, blast it, loud. Television was good, too. There was a lacquered cabinet full of tapes for when the soaps got too grating; old films and new, The Big Sleep, Easy Rider, three copies of Blade Runner. With a background of noise, the house retreated almost to normalcy.
October morning. The Eagles strummed and blared from the speakers. I hummed along as I passed the mop over the gleaming wet floorboards, with a bit of lip synch at the more catchy bits. The scent of cleanser was comforting, salutary; warm soapy lemon-water. The song died away and another began, a simple guitar riff melding into a rolling melancholy drumbeat. I've heard it before, don't know the band but remember some of the words, and the song is one of those that compels listeners – no matter how tuneless – to bawl out the chorus:
She gave me life, I gave her death
My beautiful marquise
("I know what you mean," Amanda said. "That song – total singalong. It's evil. I don't know who it is though – Umpire something?")
I heard the voices then – through the ringing of the synthesizer bells, cool surreal changes – rapid voices in passion or argument, language indiscernible, and then the laughter again, sweet musical laughter like the breeze in an angel's wings, like the brush of a lover's hair across my cheek before I sink into dark waters. I ran upstairs to the white bedroom – why? I don't know – throwing the doors open. No one. And yet when I walked up to the satin-upholstered bed, I noticed a slight depression in the quilt; the shadow of a slender young body, curled at one edge of the pristinely made-up four-poster like a lonely child. Oddly touching, the imprint of a reclining head in the moiré pillowcase. I ran my fingers over the fabric and found it cool to the touch. Of course.
Yet when I lifted my hand away it brushed something light and ticklish as air, caught on a rough spot in the aged wood of the bedpost. I unsnagged it gently, lifted it up to the sun. A single hair longer and silkier than mine, gleaming copper as it caught the light. Auburn.
As I watched it crumbled – quite naturally, the way a charred paper does when handled – dissolving into dust.
That night the dreams started. I never could remember them. I do not think I ever will.
The important thing in all those hours was not to think. What could I think about, really? Death? Or the meaninglessness of it all? That's a good one. In university I'd hung around with a crowd of lovely coffee-consuming sophomores – earnest and bright as hell – and after the second hour in the café the talk would always turn back to The Meaninglessness Of It All. You could hear the capitals.
And I would drop out of the conversation.
I'd tried to explain my view once. It was dangerous, didn't they realize that? An idea like that replaces the name of God, so it works like the name of God. A mantra. Repeat it often enough, verbally or in your head, and you understand. You have a little mystical experience, like Buddha or St. Theresa of Avila. It was – and I screwed up right here, spiraling down into drunken poetic metaphors – it was like a punch to the gut, a fist through the painted paper screen of the world. The meaninglessness, and the death, and the people; all the people you love who think it matters.
It's a horror, of course. They all saw that. But the knowledge – the understanding – is something else. There's a difference between seeing a precipice before you, a wall at the end of your sense of time, and knowing that you've just walked over the edge.
And, whatever St. Theresa thought, there's no one there to catch you when you fall.
It didn't work, of course. Eventually I dropped out of university altogether. Considering I was in chemical engineering like my father – not the most existential of subjects – it might have been a dumb move. But at the time it seemed tied up entirely, and I can't say I regretted it. I wrote a little, nothing that got published; I bummed around. I got into touch with Dolores on a whim, and with her the rest of the family that my mother had lost contact with years ago. I found work sorting letters, other minimum-wage jobs (though Dolores' paid surprisingly well). And I was free.
You'd think it would have changed some – well. It probably did at that. If it weren't for my little existentialist experiment gone wrong I wouldn't have been cleaning floors. But all the dramatic hullabaloo of dropping out (and falling out with my parents, a direct consequence thereof) was just sophisticated amnesia. I needed real problems to keep me from thinking Death when I looked in the bathroom mirror. Instinct of self-preservation anchored in millions of years of biology, God of my nonexistent faith bless. You can't be depressed all the time, it's hard on the genes.
But I still overthink. So screw it, right?
The dreams woke me up now, crying. I would hear Amanda moving in the next room, worrying probably, too uncomfortable to pry, too hurt that I'd chosen not to confide in her. But I had nothing to say now except about the house, always the house, sprawling white palace in which I replaced old candles by new, scraping away the dusty pools of melted wax. They lived by candles. Then, all of a sudden, the dreams stopped.
A week before that the house had quieted. I no longer found myself pausing before the locked door of the white bedroom. And the patterns sunbeams made on the wooden floor no longer jarred me into reverie.
Amanda unpacking the results of her shopping on the kitchen table: oranges, rice crispies, Oolong tea. "...And if it weren't for that trophy wife of his it'll be settled, I swear to God. You know, Rocio, you're almost back to your normal snippy self. You've been so quiet lately." And me sitting motionless at the counter, wondering if I woke up or if I was just falling asleep again.
By mid-November the call was back with a vengeance. For the first time I realized it was a call; for the first time I felt from where it emanated. I paced for minutes at a time on the ground floor, feeling the unaccountable urge to descend.
At the same time the job itself became exponentially demanding. All the suites took on occupants from one day to the next; pillows to be plumped, fixtures to be cleaned, clothes to be picked up off the floor and wastepaper baskets to be emptied. In some rooms only the shift of a chair or a curtain's position betrayed a human presence; others were every day a mess. Sheets balled up in the middle of the carpet and cushions pulled off the couches, that sort of thing. One bathroom counter was covered with bottles of perfume, dozens upon dozens. I pulled open wardrobe doors to stare at the exponentially proliferating contents, the designer labels so new that the clothes hadn't had time to lose the odour of the boutique. Locked drawers multiplied. On at least three separate occasions I found bloodstains on the pillowcases. And yet never a single bedroom door closed to me when I arrived, as if they all abandoned the house by common accord at first light.
It made me laugh, finally. Here I was, ministering to a house of ghosts, all of them so well-mannered they always left the toilet lid down. Every one.
An unlocked door finally, at the tail-end of December – a self-locking mechanism that a draft had prevented from closing completely. I set a chair against it and started down the carpeted stairs it revealed. The walls to either side were blank but well-lit by florescent lamps at the landings; when I paused I could hear the whirring of a ventilation fan somewhere. After five flights I realized I was below ground level – I hadn't even known the house had a basement.
Seven flights took me to a polished basalt wall. As I stared at it, still feeling the same irrational tugging, I saw a crack in the reflective black stone, a hair-thin fault tracing the outline of a rectangle taller than it was wide. So. But I had no idea how to open it, and I was feeling very tired. I went over and laid my face on the cool gleaming surface.
I lost track of how long I stood in that airless niche with my forehead against the wall, in silence except for the subliminal hum of the fluorescent tubes and the ventilation which whirred on by its own esoteric schedule only to turn off again soon after. It was hot; my fingers explored the outline of the door and found no movement of air. Eventually I realized I was humming, a melancholy, vaguely Medieval-sounding melody in a minor key, an old hymn I had learnt in Sunday school. Because of Christmas, no doubt. I gave up and went upstairs, pulling the door closed behind me and feeling it lock.
It was 3:45, and I didn't have time to do the floors that day. Perversely enough, no little secretary called me the next morning to fire me.
"I dunno," Amanda said. "I mean, where do they go? Don't tell me they lock themselves in the cellar when you get there."
I mumbled something vague. Of course they don't – I mean, they probably all have jobs or something. Or another house. Who cares anyhow? Doesn't matter. Any way you look at it they're kooks.
What would Amanda say if I told her I could feel them, sense their dreams twining around me as I polished mirrors and folded sheets and put out new candles, that I knew they were down there?
Nothing, probably. Overheated imagination. You overthink, Rocio.
"Doesn't it freak you out, Rocio?"
"'Course not."
'Course it does.
New Year's.
I sat on the shuttle bus next to Amanda, the false leather of the seat sticky against my back. It was hot; crowded. I felt like a tourist at Disney World, maybe Epcot. At least it was dark.
Amanda's idea to go to Night Island. "Listen," she said, "you need some fun, OK? Lighten up. It sucks how you're always huddled in around yourself all the time, and what with my job and yours I hardly see you any more. We like bond while we're brushing our teeth in the morning."
She was going to California, she said – in August. Her dad had come through after all, he only needed some time to set things up with the trophy wife. She hummed now under her breath, peered at the droves of out-of-towners through her oversize Ray-Bans. Her bra straps showed under her spaghetti-string top. She was happy. And I felt that I should make an effort.
The bus ground to a stop; people struggled on and off. I stared out the window at a young man – two young men – standing on the other side of the immaculate amusement-park street. The taller one, pale with short ashen hair, seemed to be speaking earnestly to the other; a slight kid in an exquisitely-cut suit, younger than me. He was too pale for Miami as well; face as perfect as porcelain, the skin of a lovely doll with long curving lashes. As I watched he laughed, brushing back the shoulder-length hair that fell into his eyes when he lowered his head. His auburn curls gleamed in the backlight of the shop windows.
Amanda had turned toward me. "What are you looking at?" As I indicated the pair the boy turned his head to glance briefly at us. He turned back immediately, reaching up to adjust the coat lapel of his companion. His hand lingered.
Amanda raised her eyebrows at me amusedly and settled back into her seat, mouthing something I couldn't catch. She seemed startled that I didn't laugh. "Are you OK, Rocio?"
"Yeah," I said. The moment of disorientation passed, but I found myself incapable of remembering the thought that had gone through my mind the moment before. What had it been? Auburn hair, yes, The rich soft colour gleaming on snowy silk...
"Come on," Amanda said, "next stop's ours. I want to see some action before midnight."
By the time we hit our fourth club midnight had come and gone, and we were both a little drunk. Amanda carried her ridiculously high shoes in one hand, only putting them on briefly to get past the bouncers. We made a bee-line for the bar.
I was still debating between another screwdriver or something fancier when Amanda nudged me and indicated one corner of the room with her head.
"Lookit that," she said. "Aren't they freaking gorgeous?"
I looked. A pair of young men stood in respite from the crowd, dressed simply in jeans and leather jackets. And yes, they were freaking gorgeous. As I conceded this the blond one said something to his companion and set out in our direction.
"Mama," Amanda said breathily. She sat down at the nearest unoccupied table and crossed her legs. I followed suit, trying not to laugh. The truth was that this sort of situation made me uncomfortable, and Amanda knew it. When I'd made up my mind to get wasted, I preferred to get wasted in peace.
On the other hand, this guy was eye candy, sinewy grace and a smile that melted Amanda into a puddle. He even introduced himself, though I certainly didn't catch it over the pounding of the music. What he said next was far easier to interpret, seeing that Amanda's head was already discreetly bobbing to the beat.
"Care to dance?" he asked, for the form. He glanced first at Amanda then at me, then back to the other, dark-haired young man who had stayed in his corner, as if he thought his cruising buddy should get a cut of the profit. Amanda settled the question for all of us, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him out onto the dance floor. They disappeared into the heaving mass of bodies, sweat and dank cigarette smoke swirling in the oppressive air. The music was a rasping buzz of guitar, a bass thud like the pulse of blood in my ears. The strobes flashed like fitful Technicolor lightning, here illuminating bare shoulders – an outflung arm – a face uplifted in the mystical ecstasy of disco. I gulped down my drink, feeling vaguely abandoned, and searched out the fateful corner with my eyes. The other young man was still there, leaning against a pillar, dark grace like an oasis of calm in the hurricane of light and sound. He was watching me.
I pulled my gaze away, oppressed by a sudden, familiar sense of foreboding. The music had quieted to a lull of synthesizer fuzz, and suddenly I saw Amanda again, laughing, her arm twined around the blond man's neck, pressed against him, his face in her white throat, his pale hand moving up her back in an absent-minded caress.
I stood up, and the chair clattered to the floor behind me. Some madness there, dancing out of the reach of my drunken logic, some terror crystallized in me through the past months of solitude that I couldn't exorcise. I ran to them, grabbed Amanda's arm, pulled her away.
"Let's go," I said, not taking my eyes off him.
Anger, palpable as the pumping of my heart but foreign, not mine but his, his anger was only one of the many things I had become familiar with in that house, all unknowing. Then, as I stared into burning flint-blue eyes, the emotion was gone, replaced by a sense of – what? Puzzlement? Surprise? A flash of mischievous delight?
He let her go, with a shrug and a mocking twist to his mouth. "I leave you to your friend, ma chère," he said aloud, and the foreign words suddenly brought an intriguing accent in his voice into relief. "It was a hell of a great dance though." he turned and was gone, his last look for me – I know that you know what you know – ma chère...
But I really don't know anything, do I?
What a riot.
I started running, holding Amanda's arm in a death grip all the time. I only heard her frantic protests by the time we were halfway down the block.
"Stop! My God, stop it, Rocio, you're hurting me!" I stopped and she half bent over, clutching her arm to her stomach. "My God, what the fuck is wrong with you!"
I stared at her, not moving; my arms hung nerveless all of a sudden.
"Amanda -"
"I'm a goddam grown woman, Rocio, what the hell were you trying to do?" She sucked her breath in through her teeth, rubbing her arm. "Nearly pulled my arm out of its socket, you were so intent on saving me from dishonor. Shit..."
"Amanda," I said, "go home."
"You go home. I left my shoes in that goddam disco."
"No," I said. "Amanda, just... just go home, OK, do that for me. Look, I know that guy, all right, I can't tell you now, I don't know, but for God's sake do this one thing for me. Please."
Amanda was staring at me. I took sudden, grateful comfort in the feeling that she knew me. I prayed she would go. I prayed for her understanding.
"All right," she said. "All right, we'll go. We'll go right now, if I only know the direction to the -"
"No," I said. "you go. Go back to the apartment, don't wait for me. I'll take a bus next morning."
"You're kidding me." Her eyes searched mine. "Rocio, you are not serious."
"Amanda, please. I'll explain tomorrow, I promise."
She must have seen something in my face, because she nodded slowly. "OK. But it had better be good."
I left her on the sidewalk without another word. I didn't give a damn about tomorrow. And they were no longer interested in her.
Like in any other commercial area, the glittering glass and marble structures of Night Island overlay a warren of concrete and brick and steel mesh, fenced lots and service roads and myriads of criss-crossing alleys. Since I didn't bother to stop and think about where I was going, I got there in a straight line – though I had to climb a wall and any number of padlocked fences to do it. The sea.
By the time my feet touched sand I saw him. He sat on a solitary park bench whose feet were deep in the dunes, looking out at the lights of Miami glittering beyond the bay. It was cloudy, and Miami lit up the sky with a dull red glow. I wondered absently why I never noticed it. Light pollution was what it was. Add it to the list.
He turned toward me then, the wind ruffling his dark hair, and I knew he recognized me.
"You have a gift for seeing us, mademoiselle," he said softly. The thread of his voice mingled with the surf until I could not tell where one began and the other ended.
"My grandmother always swore she could see ghosts," I said crazily, à propos of nothing. He was silent, and still. I dropped my shoes in the sand and advanced toward him, hugging my arms against the suddenly cool air. "I never did, of course. Crazy old lady. You know what's funny?"
"How did you get here?" he asked. Something glittered in his eyes; this close I could see they were green, a perfect iridescent green like moss or the sheen of dragonfly wings.
"Fence," I said, as if it were an explanation. I nodded toward the lights of the house, which I could just distinguish on the hill. "Up there... who does it belong to, really? Enlighten me. Is it yours?"
He looked up, and back at me quickly. Then his face fell into the serenity of a mask, and he shrugged. "Not mine, mademoiselle. I own nothing."
"No," I said, sitting down. "I guess not. Neither do I. And that's what's funny. I mean, my aunt used to clean house for you, and now I do it. I'm twenty-three, I left school year before last, how do you do, I'm your cleaning lady. I get these ideas into my head and I can't get them out. Everyone tells me I think too much, that's my problem. All those beautiful paintings. It's a riot, really. And then there's you."
I was too loud, my words jarred. I couldn't understand what I was saying, I felt as if I were reciting a poem in a foreign language, a last prayer before the precipice, before the painted screen drops. Kyrie, eleison. Agnus dei, miserere nobis. And all the time he simply watched me, he and me on the knife's edge of the abyss.
He looked patient now and sad, oh so gloriously sad. He was beautiful. My eyesight was blurring.
"You and the others," I said, as quietly as I could. "The house, and the bus, and then in the club with Amanda..."
"I can't give you what you want," he said.
"To hell with what I want," I said. "I'm tired."
Green eyes met mine, piercing and lovely, and for one instant I breathed under the siren burden of his desire. Then he looked away, made a small gesture of resignation with one white hand. I became aware of a change in the air; a choice made. Some end – some obvious dénouement – some cup that had brushed my lips had passed me by instead.
Instead of what?
Mad thought, of course. I felt as if my heart were breaking.
"You are lucky, mademoiselle," he said softly. "You are needed. It would be terribly impolite to my hosts."
I was going to cry. "I don't understand you."
"Ah, mais si..." he said very soft, too soft, the words as if echoed through my inner ear without the intermediary of sound, "you understand me much too well."
Words hanging palpable between us. He brushed my hair from my face with cool fingers, rose. I turned on the bench to watch him go, his slim retreating shape dissolving into the darkness as I wept some immense and incomprehensible loss, my eyes blurring with tears that were mere mortal salt like the dark sea behind me.