Daughter of Regals (38 page)

Sometimes it didn’t pay
to be too careful. Bluntly, I said, “You can’t do that, either. You’re still
bleeding.”

At that, her eyes
widened; she was like an animal in a trap. She hadn’t thought as far ahead as
work. She had come out onto the sidewalk without one idea of what she was going
to do. “Reese—” she began, then stopped to explain, “My brother.” She looked
miserable. “He doesn’t like me to come home when he’s working. It’s too important.
I didn’t even tell him I was going to the doctor.” Abruptly, she bit herself
still, distrusting the impulse or instinct that drove her to say such things to
a total stranger.

Knots of people
continued to thrust past us, but now their vehemence didn’t touch me. I hardly
felt the heat.

I was locked to this
woman who needed me, even though I was almost sure she wasn’t the one I was
meant to help.

Still smiling, I asked, “What
did the doctor say?”

She was too baffled to
refuse the question. “He didn’t understand it. He said I shouldn’t be bleeding.
He wanted to put me in the hospital. For observation.”

“But you won’t go,” I
said at once.

“I can’t.” Her whisper
was nearly a cry. “Reese’s show is tomorrow. His first big show. He’s been
living for this all his life. And he has so much to do. To get ready. If I went
to the hospital, I’d have to call him. Interrupt—he’d have to come to the
hospital.”

Now I had her. When the
need Is strong enough—and when I’ve been given enough permission—I can make
myself obeyed. I let go of her arm and held out my hand. “Let me see that
handkerchief.”

Dumbly, as if she were
astonished at herself, she lowered her hand and give me the damp cloth.

It wasn’t heavily
soaked; the flow from her nose was slow. That was why she was able to even
consider the possibility of going to work. But her red pain was as explicit as
a wail in my hand. I watched a new bead of blood gather in one of her nostrils,
and it told me a host of things I was not going to be able to explain to her.
The depth of her peril and innocence sent a jolt through me that nearly made me
fold at the knees. I knew now that she was not the person I had been sent here
to help. But she was the reason. Oh, she was the
reason,
the victim
whose blood cried out for intervention. Sweet Christ, how had she let this be
done to her?

But then I saw the way
she held her head up while her blood trickled to her upper lip. In her eyes, I
caught a flash of the kind of courage and love that got people into trouble
because it didn’t count the cost. And I saw something else, too—a hint that on
some level, intuitively, perhaps even unconsciously, she understood what was
happening to her. Naturally she refused to go to the hospital. No hospital
could help her.

I gave the handkerchief
back to her gently, though inside I was trembling with anger. The sun beat down
on us. “You don’t need a doctor,” I said as calmly as I could. “You need to buy
me some coffee and tell me what’s going on.”

She still hesitated. I
could hardly blame her. Why should she want to s around in a public place with
a handkerchief held to her nose? But something about me had reached her, and
it wasn’t my brief burst of authority. Her eyes went down my coat to my shoes;
when they came back up, they were softer. Behind her hand, she smiled faintly. “You
look like you could use it.”

She was referring to the
coffee; but it was her story I intended to use.

She led the way into the
coffee shop and toward one of the booths; she even told the petulant waiter
what we wanted. I appreciated that. I really had idea where I was. In fact, I
didn’t even know what coffee was. But sometimes knowledge comes to me when I
need it. I didn’t even blink as the waiter dropped heavy cups in front of us,
sloshing hot, black liquid onto the table. Instead, I concentrated everything I
had on my companion.

When I asked her, she
said her name was Kristen Dona. Following a hint I hadn’t heard anybody give
me, I looked at her left hand and made   sure she wasn’t wearing a wedding
ring. Then I said to get her started, “Your brother’s name is Reese. This has
something to do with him.”

“Oh. no,” she said
quickly. Too quickly. “How could it?” She
wasn’
t
lying: she was
just telling me what she wanted to believe.

I shrugged. There was no
need to argue with her. Instead I let the hints lead me. “He’s a big part of
your life,” I said, as if we were talking about the weather. “Tell me about
him.”

“Well—” She didn’t know
where to begin. “He’s a sculptor. He has a show tomorrow—I told you that. His
first big show. After all these years.”

I studied her closely. “But
you’re not happy about it.”

“Of course I am?” She
was righteously indignant. And under that, she was afraid.” He’s worked so
hard—! He’s a good sculptor. Maybe even a great one. But it isn’t exactly easy.
It’s not like being a writer—he can’t just go to a publisher and have them
print a hundred thousand copies of his work for two ninety-five, he has to have
a place where people who want to spend money on art can come and see what he
does. And he has to charge a lot because each piece costs him so much time and
effort. So a lot of people have to see each piece before he can sell one. That
means he has to have shows. In a gallery. This is his first real chance.”

For a moment, she was
talking so hotly that she forgot to cover her nose. A drop of blood left a mark
like a welt across her lip.

Then she felt the drop
and scrubbed at it with her handkerchief. “Oh, damn!” she muttered. The cloth
was slowly becoming sodden. Suddenly her mouth twisted and her eyes were flail
of tears. She put her other hand over her face. “His first
real
chance.
I’m so scared.”

I didn’t ask her
why.
I didn’t want to hurry her. Instead, I asked, “What changed?”

Her shoulders knotted.
But my question must have sounded safe to her. Gradually, some of her tension
eased. “What do you mean?”

“He’s been a sculptor
for a long time.” I did my best to sound reasonable, like a friend of her
brother’s. “But this is his first big show. What’s different now? What’s
changed?”

The waiter ignored us,
too bored to bother with customers who only wanted coffee. Numbly, Kristen
took another handkerchief out of her purse, raised the fresh cloth to her nose;
the other one went back into her purse. I already knew I was no friend of her
brother s’.

“He met a gallery owner.”
She sounded tired and sad. “Mortice Root. He calls his gallery The Root Cellar,
but it’s really an old brownstone mansion over on 49th. Reese went there to see
him when the gallery first opened, two weeks ago. He said he was going to beg—
He’s become so bitter. Most of the time, the people who run galleries won’t
even look at his work. I think he’s been being for years.”

The idea made her
defensive. “Failure does that to people. You work your heart out, but nothing
in heaven or hell can force the people who control
access
to care about
you. Gallery owners and agents can make or break you because they determine
whether you get to show your work or not. You never even get to find out
whether there’s anything in your work that can touch or move or inspire people,
no matter how hard you try, unless you can convince some owner hell make a lot
of money out Of you.”

She was defending Reese
from an accusation I hadn’t made. Begging was easy to understand; anybody who
was hurt badly enough could do it. She was doing it herself.— but she didn’t
realize it.

Or maybe she did. She
drank some Of her coffee and changed her tone. “But. Mr. Root took him on,” she
said almost brightly. “He saw Reese’s talent right away. He gave Reese a good
contract and an advance. Reese has been working like a demon, getting ready,
making new pieces. He’s finally getting the chance he deserves.”

The chance he deserves.
I heard echoes in that—suggestions she hadn’t intended. And she hadn’t really
answered my question. But now I had another one that was more important to me.

“Two weeks ago,” I said.
“Kristen, how long has your nose been bleeding?”

She stared at me while
the forced animation drained out Of her face.

“Two weeks now, wouldn’t
you say?” I held her frightened eyes. “Off and on at first, so you didn’t take
it seriously? But now it’s constant? If it weren’t so slow, you’d choke
yourself when you went to sleep at night?”

I’d gone too far. All at
once, she stopped looking at me. She dropped her handkerchief, opened her
purse. took out money and scattered it on the table. Then she covered her face
again. “I’ve got to go,” she said into her hand. “Reese hates being interrupted,,
but maybe there’s something I can do to help him get ready for tomorrow.”

She started to leave.
And I stopped her. Just like that. Suddenly, she couldn’t take herself away
from me. A servant can sometimes wield the strength Of his Lord.

I wanted to tell her she’d
already given Reese more help than she could afford. But I didn’t. I wasn’t
here to pronounce judgment. I didn’t have that right. When I had her sitting in
front of me again. I said, “You still haven’t told me what changed.”

Now she couldn’t evade
me. couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand. Slowly, she told me what had
happened.

Mortice Root had liked
Reese’s talent—had praised it effusively—but he hadn’t actually liked Reese’s
work. Too polite, he said. Too reasonable. Aesthetically perfect. emotionally
boring. He urged Reese to “open up”—dig down into the energy Of his fears and
dreams, apply his great skill and talent to darker, more “honest” work. And he
supplied Reese with new materials. Until then, Reese had worked in ordinary
clay or wax, making castings Of his figures only when he and Kristen were able
to afford the caster’s price. But Root had given Reese a special, black clay
which gleamed like a river under a swollen moon. An ideal material, easy to
work when it was damp, but finished when it dried, without need for firing or
sealer or glaze—as hard and heavy as stone.

And as her brother’s
hands had worked that clay, Kristen’s fear had grown out of it. His new pieces
were indeed darker, images which chilled her heart. She used to love his work.
Now she hated it.

I could have stopped
then. I had enough to go on. And she wasn’t the one I’d been sent to help; that
was obvious. Maybe I should have stopped.

But I wanted to know
more. That was my fault: I was forever trying to swim against the current.
After all, the impulse to “open up”—to do darker, more “honest” work—was hardly
evil. But the truth was, I was more interested in Kristen than Reese. Her eyes
were full Of supplication and abashment. She felt she had betrayed her brother,
not so much by talking about him as by the simple fact that her attitude toward
his work had changed. And she was still in such need— Instead Of stopping, I
took up another of the hints she hadn’t given me. Quietly. I asked, “How long
have you been supporting him?”

She was past being
surprised now, but her eyes didn’t leave my face. “Close to ten years,” she
answered obediently.

“That must have been
hard on you.”

“Oh, no,” she said at
once. “Not at all. I’ve been happy to do it.” She was too loyal to say anything
else. Here she was, with her life escaping from her—and she insisted she hadn’t
suffered. Her bravery made the backs of my eyes burn.

But I required honesty.
After a while, the way I was looking at her made her say, “I don’t really love
my job. I work over in the garment district. I put in hems. After  few years”—she
tried to sound self-deprecating and humorous—”it gets a little boring. And
there’s nobody I can talk to.” Her tone suggested a deep gulf of loneliness.

“But it’s been worth it”
she insisted. “I don’t have any talent Of my own. Supporting Reese gives me
something to believe in. I make what he does possible.”

I couldn’t argue with
that. She had made the whole situation possible. Grimly, I kept my mouth shut
and waited for her to go on.

“The hard part,” she
admitted finally, “was watching him grow bitter.” Tears started up in her eyes
again, but she blinked them back. “All that failure—year after year…..” She
dropped her gaze; she couldn’t bear to look at me and say such things. “He didn’t
have anybody else to take it out on.”

That thought made me
want to grind my teeth. She believed in him—and he took It out on her. She
could have left him in any number Of ways—gotten married, simply packed her
bags, anything. But he probably wasn’t even aware Of the depth Of her refusal
to abandon him. He simply went on using her.

My own fear was gone
now; I was too angry to be afraid. But I held it down. No matter how I felt,
she wasn’t the person I was here to defend. So I forced myself to sound
positively casual as I said, “I’d like to meet him.”

In spite Of everything,
she was still capable of being taken aback. “You want me to—?” She stared at
me. “I couldn’t!” She wasn’t appalled; she was trying not to give in to a hope
that must have seemed insane to her. “He hates being interrupted. He’d be
furious.” She scanned the table, hunting for excuses. “You haven’t finished
your coffee.”

I nearly laughed out
loud. I wasn’t here for her—.and yet she did wonderful things for me. Suddenly,
I decided that it was all worth what it cost. Smiling broadly, I said, “I didn’t
say I needed coffee. I said you needed to buy it for me.”

Involuntarily, the
corners of her mouth quirked upward. Even with the handkerchief clutched to
her face, she looked like a different person. After all she had endured, she
was still a long way from being beaten. “Be serious,” she said, trying to sound
serious. “I can’t take you home with me. I don’t even know what to call you.”