Bereavements (11 page)

There were so many children, mostly boys, gathered in front of St. Agnes (“a big red church,” Mrs. Evans had relayed to Dori)—lounging on the steps, draped around the pillars, clinging and posturing over three grime-stained statutes—that it appeared more like a hometown farewell celebration for a departing heroback-to-the-wars than a somewhat clandestine collection of one small boy.

They were behaving very badly: boisterous, wild, some fighting vigorously, whether good-natured or not, others chasing friends, snatching books, bags, hats, the few girls among them shrieking maniacally in delighted horror and feigned shock as small asses were thoroughly goosed and pubescent breasts grabbed with more sadism than passion.

So magical, however, was the sight of the Rolls, polished mirror-bright, glittering with chrome, as it slowly, majestically turned the corner and quietly nosed its way to the littered curb fronting the church, that it might have been a hearse bearing that most revered of all corpses just unhung from the cross.

The car stopped before a silent, open-mouthed crowd, each child glazed of eye, arranged in an impressive tableau on the church steps as if all were veteran actors in a scene from the
Passion Play.

It was impossible to single out Angel, though Dori tried for the game of it, looking from face to face, black, white and every shade in between, imagining foolishly that one would be marked with an expression of unmistakable recognition.

He’d been instructed to wait, and wait he did for the first few moments. But no one, certainly not the boy (“probably
dark-
skinned,” Mrs. Evans had said, “probably
ragged,
a
whisp
of a child,
enormously
shy,
introverted”
), separated himself from the rest. All were mute and motionless, tantamount to mass-hypnosis, except for one small girl who evidently found the situation—whatever it meant to her—intolerable, and ran, frightened and crying, down the steps, disappearing into an alley beside the church.

An aged nun passed, limping, aided by a cane, one arthritic hand busy with a tangled rosary, finding neither the limousine nor the children worthy of more than an unseeing glance.

Dori left the motor purring, got out, and with his usual, if now somewhat self-conscious grace, opened the back door and stood silently attentive, a sentinal at his post.

Dark-skinned? No, not at all: faintly olive, the sun-tanned silk of corn. Ragged? No. New, hip-hung levis, clean white T-shirt, a dark nylon jacket, expensive if soiled sneakers, beads, a bracelet, a tiny silver pearl of an earring; the only “cheap” note was a kind of crackerjacks ring on his left hand—a ruby of bright red glass. A whisp of a child? No: a bit lean, but strongly-made and well-proportioned, the stamp of his handsome father already upon him.

Shy, introverted? Perhaps, but not at the moment. He came down the steps with the swagger of all
Three Musketeers
combined, pride and triumph in each slow, measured step.

If his eyes were very wide, unblinking, half paralyzed with fright as he approached Dori, it was not visible in his easy walk. He got into the car as if it were his daily habit, settling back against the soft cushioned seat with an attitude both decadent and bored.

Only as the car sped away did he suddenly turn, grinning through the back window, jabbing his middle finger upward, unmistakable advice to the crowd left behind as to what they could now do with their jeering ridicule and disbelief.

The time was virtually the rush hour, traffic already heavy. Driving downtown, Dori decided that Park Avenue, although the lights weren’t staggered, was as good as any. He glanced into the rear-view mirror several times and when he saw the boy straining for a look at the car’s elaborate dashboard, he pulled to a curb. With a grin, Angel leaped out and moved up front.

“How fast can it go?”

Surely that had to be the first question. But after that, the car was forgotten and Dori was bombarded with queries about Mrs. Evans.

Was she old? Was she pretty? She wasn’t (nose wrinkled) fat? She was rich, wasn’t she! Where did she live—that is, in an apartment or a house or what? And, how is it she’d had so many husbands; “I mean—” (actually the number didn’t matter) “— how come they all died?”

And her son, too—what about
him?
Why did
he
die? I mean
how?
I mean—he must have been young, sort of
my
age—right? So how come . . . ?

There was an endless supply of “how come’s,” and Dori was surprised to learn how much Angel knew. For her own reasons, Mrs. Evans had apparently told the boy on the phone any number of things about her private life.

The reply to the question about where she lived caused considerable amazement.

“How can anyone live in
three
houses?”

Dori smiled, enjoying the boy.

“Well—One at a time, of course.” His enjoyment deepened, recalling Mrs. Evans’ words for February and March—
the bitter months
—which they spent in Palm Beach; “that’s in Florida,” he told Angel, who had never heard ot it. “The spring we spend on Long Island”—
when things are fresh and green;
“and usually the fall, too”—
to see the leaves turn their heavenly gold.
“We usually go about now—to Long Island, and stay through November, sometimes until Christmas, particularly if there’s a week or two of Indian summer. The rest of the time”—
the dreary months—
“we spend here, in New York.”

“In a house,” Angel supplied, still with disbelief.

“Well—There are very few
houses
in Manhattan. We call it that. It’s a converted Brownstone: four stories high and each a floor through: twelve rooms, I believe, though I’ve never quite counted; that excludes the kitchen and storage rooms which are in the basement—or at least on the ground floor. The real basement with the furnace and all is under those. And there’s an enclosed garden in the back.”

“I live on the fourth floor,” Angel offered, discovering at least one feeble affinity. “But it’s a pain in the ass.” He regretted the last word and hesitated. “I mean—having to climb all them stairs all the time.”

Dori glanced at him. “Mrs. Evans has an elevator.”

This silenced the boy altogether, but some moments later, sufficiently recovered, he asked about Jamie.

Dori frowned slightly, thinking it best not to answer.

“Perhaps Mrs. Evans will tell you—whatever you want to know.”

The next hurdle were “the husbands;” the question was a bit timid to be sure, nevertheless forthcoming. “Why . . . I mean how, did they all die?”

Dori thought for a moment, desiring a satisfactory yet circumspect reply.

One of them, Mr. Vincenti, had died of pneumonia, after an embolism—”that’s a blood clot—moved from his leg to his lungs.”

Another was presumed dead (declared so, legally); the circumstances somewhat mysterious. It was thought that his private plane had crashed; in any event, “it disappeared . . .” Dori hesitated to say “over the Bermuda Triangle” . . . but it had, it was true, so he did, watching Angel’s eyes widen a little.

And the third (actually the first in time, and Jamie’s father) had been killed by a bull, gored to death.

This was apparently even more exciting than being devoured by the Bermuda Triangle.

“He was a toreador!?”

“Or a matador; I confuse the two. Yes. Celebrated. World-famous.”

“But I thought all bullfighters were Spanish?”

Dori shook his head. “Not at all. But Mrs. Evans’ husband was. Why is that surprising?—de Vinaz Rojas. Carlos de Vinaz Rojas.”

“But my father is Spanish. So am I . . . I guess.”

Were congratulations in order?

“Ah—so,” Dori replied, Japanese style, and both of them laughed, liking each other, Angel so much, so quickly, there were instant tears in his eyes.

Dori stopped for a red light. “Tell me about your father. Surely he doesn’t fight bulls, too!”

All the light went out of Angel’s face.

“No.” One word only; then an aching, finger-picking silence until they got to the house.

His father.

Why she should trouble so much about exactly what to wear was a bewilderment to Mrs. Evans, but, hanger after hanger in hand, she draped herself with dress after dress from a wardrobe that was twenty feet long in a walk-in closet that occupied an entire wall.

Still—justifying her behavior—it was the first time, the very first time she was to abandon her mourning. She didn’t want to risk adversely affecting the boy with an appearance that was nunlike, intimidating, sorrowful or severe, but after so many months of unrelieved blackness and veils, every color, even the darkest, was an unexpected shock. All the reds were impossible, whatever the shade or mixture: rose, wine, magenta, pink. The greens, even the subtlest, looked cheap; the blues, icy, forbidding.

She decided it had better not be a true color at all, and finally chose something metallic: a burnt crazed gold with a delicate thread of mingled black and green.

The fabric was a kind that whispered when she walked. This seemed a pleasant if rather silly diversion, rather like a light, shy knock on the door of a stage that announced her coming before she appeared.

She was about to go to the phone and call Rose to help her, then changed her mind, deciding against all the unsolicited opinions and advice that would ensue; the usual delays and fuss.

The dress was no bother, but her hair, freshly washed, looked like a fright wig. Still, it was always easy to manage. She brushed it quickly, parted it perfectly in the center, pulled it back, securing it with pins and a small jeweled comb Jamie had given her. This, the comb, was a sudden fresh wound, and the pale hand hesitated, then finally, with determination, pushed it into place.

Shoes? They didn’t matter because they didn’t show, so she wore what she had been wearing all day: old, comfortable, dark brown.

Rings? She opened the largest of her jewel boxes. Yes; a few.

Bracelets? Why not? They’d be fun. Six, or eight, or ten of thin pale gold, like a gypsy. Let them jangle—speak if words with the boy became too few or a silence unendurable.

Finished, she stood back for a view in her mirror, turned, and turned again.

Admit it!

She looked truly handsome, the faint blush of rouge high on the cheekbones, touched to her lips, deceptively warming the corpse, giving an appearance of life to an otherwise bloodless complexion. How much her health had gone! How she had let it go, of course, in one of the subtler forms of suicide. But she hadn’t time to think of that. Not now.

A perfume! She stopped, embarrassed. The bath soap had left scent enough. She was behaving less like a mother preparing for a long-awaited visit from a son than a wily temptress anxious to seduce a potential lover!

The phone rang, no more abruptly than usual, but so it seemed, just as it seemed inordinately insistent and loud! Had stupid Rose in her dusting accidently turned up the little volume wheel underneath?

Answer it!

Why let it ring five, six, seven times, the first button glowing, as if she was still in her bath or too depressed to want to speak to anyone at all?

Because she
knew
it was Dori—calling to report that there
was
no Angel,
no
red church, no
Madison
Avenue, not even a street numbered 103rd.