The Forgotten Room(115)

Epilogue




NEW YEAR’S EVE 1893


Harry


To his surprise, the room looked exactly the same. Maybe the auction company hadn’t bothered with the worthless scraps of furniture up here; maybe nobody had even ventured up the stairs. There was the Chinese cabinet, probably still filled with his drawings; there was the easel, tilting slightly to one side. The battered chaise longue, still covered in disreputable old velvet; the sheepskin rug, right there in the middle of the floor, scattered with cushions . . . well, he looked away from that. There was only so much nostalgia a fellow could take.

The thing was, he hadn’t planned to come up here at all. He was going to let it all lie. If the newspapers were telling the truth, his father had gotten no more than he deserved, losing his fortune after the usual kind of Wall Street skullduggery, in which you tried to cover up your losses and ended up making them worse, dragging down a few thousand innocent middle-class shareholders and a bank or two along with you. Prunella? She could take care of herself, no doubt about that. Gus—poor bastard—Gus was dead.

And Olive was still married; there was nothing an honorable man—and Harry liked to think he had a streak of decency left, despite everything—nothing he could do about that.

She had a daughter. The Pinkerton man had sent him a note last month. The little girl had been born right above the bakery on the day after Thanksgiving, and they had named her Lucy. Harry had read the note and said a prayer for mother and daughter, and he had tossed the paper into the kitchen fire and watched it burn. He had closed his eyes and pictured Olive holding a baby girl to her breast, a baby girl who wasn’t his, and his heart had hurt so much, he thought maybe he was having an attack. Somebody save me. Maria had come in and asked him what in the name of the holy blessed Virgin he thought he was doing, staring into the fire like that. Nothing, he said. She said was there anything she could do, and he didn’t say another word, just turned around and took her to bed right then and there, kept her there most of the afternoon, and on Christmas Day she told him she was pregnant, se?or. Feliz Navidad.

He was on the boat the next morning, heading to Miami and the train for New York.

Now here he was, and nothing had changed, and everything had changed. Nobody lived here anymore; nobody lay with somebody on that sheepskin rug and went to heaven. Nobody danced around the ballroom in silks and jewels; nobody sketched anybody’s beautiful pale breasts in the lamplight. Nobody lived and loved and wept. Just furniture, and memories.

God, the memories.

He’d thought it would hurt, coming up here like this, looking around the place and thinking, inevitably, of everything that had happened. And sure enough, the memories had crashed down on him the way the waves hit the beach before a hurricane, one after the other, each one merging foamily into the next. Meeting Olive on the stairs, under the moon. Sketching Olive. Olive in her black dress and white pinafore apron, ducking around a corner. Olive lying like a nymph on the old velvet cushions, Harry kneeling above her, Olive lifting her arms to draw him down, to wrap her legs around him and throw back her head as if she couldn’t take any more, and then she did.

Olive’s extraordinary face, her huge doe eyes, her spirit and her longing and her striving.

Olive gone.

That terrible morning. Waking up alone, hearing the commotion. Poor stupid Gus, carried half-dead into his room. Looking for Olive, desperate for Olive, more and more desperate. Her room tidy, her trunk gone. Looks like she’s done a flyer, said the cook, shaking her head, and the housekeeper ran for the cabinet to count the silver.

Painting frantically, waiting for news, because there was nothing else he could do but paint. Paint, damn it. Pour his heart out onto that damned wall. And when they found her—this was how he imagined that moment, when she returned to him—he wouldn’t say a word of recrimination, not a hint of reproach for breaking his heart. He would take her in his arms and show her the mural he’d made while she was gone. This is for you, Olive. This is you, Olive.

This is how much I love you, Olive Van Alan, daughter of my father’s architect, the man who used to indulge my interest in drawing by showing me how to draft, and once told me about his brilliant daughter named Olive, the light of his life. Only you wouldn’t trust me enough to tell me who you were. I waited and waited, because I wanted you to trust me enough. But you never did.

You ran off instead, and married the first man you met.

Hans Jungmann.

Harry patted his chest, reached into his jacket pocket, and produced that first report the Pinkerton agency had sent him. Jungmann’s photograph lay inside. He’d looked at it only once, but it wasn’t a face he could forget. Thick, round, smiling idiot head. Shoulders like an ox. Belly like Santa Claus. On the night of the tenth of January, a week and a half after Olive had risen from Harry’s bed—well, such as it was—she’d let this fat German bastard roll on top of her and make her his wife. After a little practice—Jungmann looked like the type who needed a little practice—they’d made a baby together.

That single blurred photograph had sent Harry flying down to Cuba and into the arms of so many women he couldn’t actually remember them all, until he tired of promiscuity and settled into a kind of habit with beautiful Maria, who was kinder and more faithful than the rest, and also a very good cook. And now they had made a baby, too. Estoy embarazada, se?or. Merry Christmas, Harry, you’re going to be a father.