The City of Mirrors
Page 65
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Time moved then; we were walking, I didn’t know where. Liz was still holding my hand. I sensed the presence of water, and then the Hudson emerged. Decrepit piers jutted long fingers into the water. Across the river’s broad expanse, the lights of Hoboken made a diorama of the city and its lives. The air tasted of salt and stone. There was a kind of park along the water’s edge, filthy and abandoned-looking; it did not seem safe, so we headed north along Twelfth Avenue, neither of us speaking, before turning east again. I had given no thought at all to what would happen next but now began to. In the last hour, Liz had spoken of things that I felt certain she had told no other person, just as I had done with her. There was Jonas to think of, but we were also a man and a woman who had shared the most intimate truths, things that, once said, could never be unsaid.
We arrived at the apartment. No words of consequence had passed between us for many minutes. The tension was palpable—surely she could feel it, too. I couldn’t say for certain what I wanted, only that I didn’t want to be away from her, not for a minute. I was standing dumbly in the middle of the tiny room, searching my mind for the words to capture how I felt. Something needed to be said. And yet I could say nothing.
It was Liz who broke the silence. “Well, I’m going to turn in. The sofa folds out. There are sheets and blankets in the closet. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Okay.”
I could not make myself move toward her, though I wanted to, very badly. On the one hand there was Liz, and all we had shared, and the fact that, in every way, I loved her and probably had since the day we’d met; on the other, there was Jonas, the man who’d given me a life.
“Your friend Lucessi. What was his first name?”
I actually had to think. “Frank. But I never called him that.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“He was in love with somebody. She didn’t love him back.”
Not until that moment had this chain of thought, in all its starkness, come clear to me. Call Fanning, my friend had written. Call Fanning to tell him that love is all there is, and love is pain, and love is taken away.
“What time is the car?” she asked.
“Eight o’clock.”
“I’m going with you, you know.”
“I’m glad you are.”
A frozen moment passed.
“Well,” Liz said, “I guess that’s it.” She retreated to the bedroom door, where she paused and turned to face me again. “Stephanie is a lucky girl, you know. I’m just saying that in case you haven’t figured it out.”
Then she was gone. I stripped to my boxers and lay on the couch. Under different circumstances, I might have felt foolish, daring to think that such a woman would take me into her bed. But I actually felt relieved; Liz had chosen the honorable route, making the decision for both of us. It occurred to me that not once, neither at the restaurant nor as we’d walked, had I thought of Stephanie in the context of any betrayal I might have contemplated. The day felt like a year; through the windows, I heard the wash of the city, an oceanic sound. It seemed to creep into my chest, where it matched itself to the rhythm of my breathing. Exhaustion poured through my bones, and soon I drifted off.
Sometime later, I awoke. I had the unmistakable sense of being watched. A sensation, vaguely electrical, lingered on my forehead, as if I had been kissed. I rose onto my elbows, expecting to see someone standing over me. But the room was empty, and I thought I must have dreamed this.
—
About the funeral, there is little to say. To describe it in detail would be a violation of its confidential grief, its closed circuit of pain. During the service, I kept my eyes on Arianna, wondering what she was feeling. Did she know? I wanted her to know, but I also didn’t; she was just a girl. No good could come of it.
I declined the family’s invitation to lunch; Liz and I returned to the apartment to retrieve my luggage. On the platform at Penn Station she hugged me, then, revising her thoughts, kissed me quickly on the cheek.
“So, okay?”
I didn’t know if she meant me or the two of us. “Sure,” I said. “Never better.”
“Call me if you get too blue.”
I stepped aboard. Liz was watching me through the windows as I made my way down the car to find an empty seat. I remembered boarding the bus to Cleveland, that long-ago September day—the drops of rain on the window, my mother’s crinkled bag in my lap, looking to see if my father had stayed to watch my departure, finding him gone. I took a seat beside the window. Liz had yet to move. She saw me, smiled, waved; I waved back. A deep mechanical shudder; the train began to move. She was still standing there, following my carriage with her gaze, as we entered the tunnel and disappeared.
* * *
18
May 1992: The last of my coursework had been completed. I was to graduate summa cum laude; offers of generous graduate fellowships had come my way. MIT, Columbia, Princeton, Rice. Harvard, which had decided it had not seen the last of me if I cared to stay on. It was the obvious choice, one I felt bound to make in the end, though I had not committed, preferring to savor the possibilities for as long as I could. Jonas would be going back to Tanzania for the summer, then heading to the University of Chicago to start his doctoral work; Liz would be going to Berkeley for her master’s in Renaissance literature; Stephanie was returning to Washington to work for a political consulting firm. The graduation ceremony itself would not happen until the first week of June. We had entered a nether time, a caesura between what our lives had been and what they would become.
We arrived at the apartment. No words of consequence had passed between us for many minutes. The tension was palpable—surely she could feel it, too. I couldn’t say for certain what I wanted, only that I didn’t want to be away from her, not for a minute. I was standing dumbly in the middle of the tiny room, searching my mind for the words to capture how I felt. Something needed to be said. And yet I could say nothing.
It was Liz who broke the silence. “Well, I’m going to turn in. The sofa folds out. There are sheets and blankets in the closet. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Okay.”
I could not make myself move toward her, though I wanted to, very badly. On the one hand there was Liz, and all we had shared, and the fact that, in every way, I loved her and probably had since the day we’d met; on the other, there was Jonas, the man who’d given me a life.
“Your friend Lucessi. What was his first name?”
I actually had to think. “Frank. But I never called him that.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“He was in love with somebody. She didn’t love him back.”
Not until that moment had this chain of thought, in all its starkness, come clear to me. Call Fanning, my friend had written. Call Fanning to tell him that love is all there is, and love is pain, and love is taken away.
“What time is the car?” she asked.
“Eight o’clock.”
“I’m going with you, you know.”
“I’m glad you are.”
A frozen moment passed.
“Well,” Liz said, “I guess that’s it.” She retreated to the bedroom door, where she paused and turned to face me again. “Stephanie is a lucky girl, you know. I’m just saying that in case you haven’t figured it out.”
Then she was gone. I stripped to my boxers and lay on the couch. Under different circumstances, I might have felt foolish, daring to think that such a woman would take me into her bed. But I actually felt relieved; Liz had chosen the honorable route, making the decision for both of us. It occurred to me that not once, neither at the restaurant nor as we’d walked, had I thought of Stephanie in the context of any betrayal I might have contemplated. The day felt like a year; through the windows, I heard the wash of the city, an oceanic sound. It seemed to creep into my chest, where it matched itself to the rhythm of my breathing. Exhaustion poured through my bones, and soon I drifted off.
Sometime later, I awoke. I had the unmistakable sense of being watched. A sensation, vaguely electrical, lingered on my forehead, as if I had been kissed. I rose onto my elbows, expecting to see someone standing over me. But the room was empty, and I thought I must have dreamed this.
—
About the funeral, there is little to say. To describe it in detail would be a violation of its confidential grief, its closed circuit of pain. During the service, I kept my eyes on Arianna, wondering what she was feeling. Did she know? I wanted her to know, but I also didn’t; she was just a girl. No good could come of it.
I declined the family’s invitation to lunch; Liz and I returned to the apartment to retrieve my luggage. On the platform at Penn Station she hugged me, then, revising her thoughts, kissed me quickly on the cheek.
“So, okay?”
I didn’t know if she meant me or the two of us. “Sure,” I said. “Never better.”
“Call me if you get too blue.”
I stepped aboard. Liz was watching me through the windows as I made my way down the car to find an empty seat. I remembered boarding the bus to Cleveland, that long-ago September day—the drops of rain on the window, my mother’s crinkled bag in my lap, looking to see if my father had stayed to watch my departure, finding him gone. I took a seat beside the window. Liz had yet to move. She saw me, smiled, waved; I waved back. A deep mechanical shudder; the train began to move. She was still standing there, following my carriage with her gaze, as we entered the tunnel and disappeared.
* * *
18
May 1992: The last of my coursework had been completed. I was to graduate summa cum laude; offers of generous graduate fellowships had come my way. MIT, Columbia, Princeton, Rice. Harvard, which had decided it had not seen the last of me if I cared to stay on. It was the obvious choice, one I felt bound to make in the end, though I had not committed, preferring to savor the possibilities for as long as I could. Jonas would be going back to Tanzania for the summer, then heading to the University of Chicago to start his doctoral work; Liz would be going to Berkeley for her master’s in Renaissance literature; Stephanie was returning to Washington to work for a political consulting firm. The graduation ceremony itself would not happen until the first week of June. We had entered a nether time, a caesura between what our lives had been and what they would become.
