Skyscape (7 page)

Margaret felt a kinship with Mrs. Wye. It was a sudden rush of gratitude, affection. “You know how fond he is of you.”

Mrs. Wye's voice was strong. She lifted the aluminum stick. “If you need my help …”

Margaret thanked her.

“People expect everything of us,” said Mrs. Wye.

“Maybe they should,” said Margaret, knowing that Mrs. Wye did not mean simply
people
. “Maybe we're stronger than they are.”

Mrs. Wye was gone before Margaret remembered the photo album. Margaret wanted to share these images with Mrs. Wye, but instead she sat alone holding the big, hand-bound book, leafing through the pages herself. Here was Curtis smiling, hands on his hips, Stinson Beach stretching behind him. Here was Margaret on the same beach, her turn now, smiling back at Curtis. It was painful to see how happy they were.

And here was a picture taken at Santa Cruz. Curtis had swept her along in a sudden desire to drive down Highway 1, and Margaret had left the radio playing in her apartment, her drafting table lamp on, forgetting everything but Curtis. He had been like that in those days, impetuous, joyful.

Here was a photo taken by a stranger, a man happy to oblige. Two people stood smiling, windblown, just a little sunburned. Curtis had his arm around her. That night they had made love, the lights of the boardwalk spinning, the twirling necklace of the ferris wheel far beyond the motel window. She could see the light in her mind's eye, the way Curtis had looked, the subtle, shifting colors.

It was the first night they had spent together, and Margaret had awakened in the early hours. She did not know where she was for a moment, but she knew who was beside her, and what was happening to her life. She had been too excited to sleep again, awake until dawn.

And here was another picture, the two of them at a table in one of those South of Market clubs, his hand stretched across the table to take hers. It didn't seem possible to her that they used to go out like this nearly every night.

The first impression she always had, entering the room, was that it was entirely empty. The emptiness was complete, unbroken, as was the silence.

Curtis said nothing, lying there in the bad light.

“This isn't like being alive,” she said. “It's like pretending you're dead.”

He did not respond. A single strip of daylight fell across the bed, and across one of his legs.

Through a part in the curtain was the blue sky. The sky was not yet obscured by the afternoon clouds that always arrived over San Francisco Bay in June.

It was difficult to say what she had to say. “Nobody is watching you,” she said. “Nobody is trying to listen in on your conversation.” She couldn't help it—her voice trembled.

He wasn't listening.

Earlier she had folded a washcloth across his eyes. She had read of people doing this in former days, when it was thought darkness and a damp cloth might be a cure for headaches. The washcloth had been cold. Now it was warm.

After awhile you could see fairly well in light like this. The eye adjusted. The single slant of light was nearly too bright to look at. She continued, “People aren't tapping your phone. It isn't real—the way you think.” She didn't want to say the words. Talking about it made it sound worse. Phrasing it made her think: could he really be this disturbed?

There was a mirror across the room. She could see the reflection of a woman in a dark skirt, with long, dark hair, staring into the looking glass with an expression of calm. No one could have guessed what she was feeling.

“It's not even a matter of opinion,” she said. “Whether Caravaggio was a better painter than Rembrandt is a matter of opinion. This is a matter of what's real.”

It was like talking to herself. All right, she reasoned. Maybe that's all I'm doing. She could think of no better place to be.

She continued to speak, in a voice so low he probably could not have heard it anyway. “I was hoping that when I married you I could make you stronger.” Her mother had told her she was a fool. Curtis Newns would be nothing but trouble.

“I am not crying,” she said. “Not enough to bother you, anyway. Bruno is going to be here in half an hour. I don't want to see Bruno alone.”

There was a movement on the bed, the angle of elbow, the slant of knee changing slightly. She read the meaning: I don't blame you.

But he did not speak.

The nude drawings, the ones of me, she thought. “He'll want to buy something—whatever you have. And then he'll want to see what else you're doing—what big thing you're working on.”

His eyes were open. He was gazing at the ceiling.

“You want me to show him the drawings,” she said. “But he can't have them. He can't even take a photo of them. I'll just let him look.”

He continued his silence, but she did not feel so alone anymore. He was aware of every word. “You want him to think you're painting.”

She knew him. She savored his silence, and continued, “Curtis, I would do anything for you. But you care what people think.”

Curtis shifted one of his feet, slightly.

“And what people are going to think,” she said, “is that you're as bad as ever—too sick to see your old friend Bruno.”

She paused. She knew what Curtis would say: He's not a friend. She continued, “What will I tell him?”

She could sense the tension in him. She sat on the bed beside him, and ran a hand along his arm. “I'm afraid of what's going to happen to you.”

Sometimes he reminded her of a leopard, a mustang, a captured creature who could communicate alertness, acceptance, tension with every angle of his posture, the way he breathed. Just now he was saying: there is nothing you can do for me.

She said, “I'm losing you.”

8

The security guard in the lobby called to report that Mr. Kraft was here.

Margaret said that Mr. Kraft should come up, sounding just as natural as though Mr. Kraft was a regular visitor, or maybe someone arriving to measure the place for new curtains.

Maybe I should greet him at the door, she thought. Or maybe let him ring the doorbell, once.

He did not ring the doorbell. He knocked, and he arrived more quickly than Margaret had expected, so that she was far across the room, arranging a dry bouquet on the piano. This made her a little breathless when she reached the threshold.

Margaret opened the door, and he did not move or make a sound for a second or two. He looked at her, and she was aware of how much he could surmise at a glance. He seemed to know her at once.

He was bigger than his photographs, and better looking. The famous critic's hand captured hers. She was aware of the moment, having rehearsed it mentally so many times. She held forth her hand, and he took it, and she told him how pleased she was to meet him at last.

“Margaret Darcy,” said Bruno Kraft, and the way he said her name made it sound lovely. “I have looked forward to this moment for a long time. Someone should have given me fair warning—you are absolutely beautiful.”

Margaret gave a little laugh. “You're famous for your charm,” she said.

“I am famous for my taste,” he said. “And for my honesty.”

But he had called her by her maiden name, the name she used on her books. Perhaps this was a way of separating her from Curtis, an imaginary, momentary divorce.

“Honesty is important. And sincerity.” She was chattering, talking without bothering to think. She had warned herself against this. But it was such a relief to actually have him here, to have the anticipation over with, and she was giddy—the feeling surprised her. She was excited by something she had not expected.

She had anticipated his eyes, his searching, ironic glance. But she had not realized that she would find him immediately likable. True, he was impressive, accepting a coffee, making amiable chat about taxi cabs and traffic, but he looked so at ease with himself that Margaret found herself wanting to tell him everything.

Bruno Kraft held the cup and saucer in one hand, gracefully. “Andy Warhol said that Curtis was the best thing since the invention of the tape recorder. He said Curtis could fill up empty space better than Capote could fill up paper.”

“I hate the portrait Warhol did,” said Margaret.

“Curtis in Black Leather
. It's really quite lovely.”

“It makes Curtis look so angry.”

“You mean Curtis isn't angry anymore? Tsk Tsk.” He said this
tisk tisk
, archly, pretending, it seemed, to be someone in a comic strip.

“When we were married I knew we might appear to be an unusual couple to some people. A person with a quiet career married to—to
him.”
Margaret reminded herself that Curtis was upstairs, listening.

“He's not here, is he?” said Bruno.

He was letting her lie. She could read his eyes. She shook her head, not allowing herself to speak.

He seemed to enjoy this. “Curtis used to vanish for months at a time,” said Bruno. “Go underground. Actually, he was just hiding here. Or, rarely, up by the Eel river, fishing and drinking beer.”

Margaret decided to be just a little bold. “Actually, I thought I wouldn't like you.”

Bruno, head tilted back, eyes slitted in an exaggerated study, affecting surprise, but Margaret sensed real surprise, and some amusement. “Good Lord—an honest woman.”

“I wish you could stay here in San Francisco. Curtis and I could use an ally.”

He thought this over, and let her see him enjoying what she had said. “Strange that you say ‘ally,' not friend.”

She felt a flash of embarrassment. I am chattering, she told herself. “Both.”

“Some people simply can't understand what makes so many American women so odd. They are odd, you know. Most American women speak in these brittle voices. Imitation male voices, compensating for the deficiencies of nature. But you, my dear, are a perfect example of American womanly charm. If we had world enough and time we would be fast friends. Or, I almost said, fat friends, in reference to my being out of training recently. You, on the other hand, must never eat.”

“I love desserts,” she said. “I have a wonderful recipe for bourbon truffles.” She told herself that she sounded stupid.

“Then you have a fortunate metabolism. I admire that. I think that human beings blessed with one sort of talent, also have others. The talented so often are at least fairly good-looking.”

“I'm better at more than losing weight.” God—I have never sounded more like a complete ninny.

“I have one of your books,” he said.
“Starr of the Yard
. I gave
Starr of the Yard in Paris
to children of good friends. When you can convince Curtis to come to Italy again you must sign my copy for me. Curtis didn't like Italy much, you know. He tried to be polite about it.”

Starr of the Yard had various adventures, and worked with Scotland Yard in solving crimes. The crimes were mild, missing cows and stolen wheelbarrows, and, in the adventure taking place in Paris, a stolen tray of croissants. Starr's intelligent expression now adorned coffee mugs and T-shirts. He had the white splash of a star on his forehead, and an alertly cheerful frown a little like the look Bruno gave her now.

Bruno stirred his coffee, and then got up to step through the dining room to admire the view. “I like the fact that Curtis is still living in a high-security penthouse. An artist has to take care of himself.”

“Why was the painting there, in Bedford Square,” she said, “and not in the museum?”

“It was being restored.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “You remember sometime ago a Basque terrorist, I believe it was, attacked it with what used to be called an ice pick.”

She remembered well.

“There was a lab that was expert at sealing holes. Like a human celebrity, it paid a visit, was repaired. And was lost.”

It was hard to ask. “It is actually destroyed, then?”

“Completely.”

“Without knowing it,” she said, her voice breaking, “I held out some hope.”

“That's understandable. I'm so sorry.”

He had an accent that was hard to place, American with the precise
t'
s of a British news reader, an accent she took to be a pan-Atlantic, international brand of English. When she had dried her tears, she agreed with him that the Marin headlands he could see across the Golden Gate were beautiful. The tide was going, the black-blue water muscling outward.

He had asked the question, and Margaret was not answering him.

He asked it again. “What has he been painting,” but this time he did not inflect the words as a question. The words were nearly a subject heading. “Because I know you've been able to help him paint,” he continued. “I believe that.”

He turned to look at her. “You broke a thousand hearts when you married Curtis. Ten thousand women and roughly triple the number of men actually contemplated suicide.”

“You don't have to be kind to me,” she said.

“We adore you, Margaret.”

“He's not here,” she said. “Honestly.”

“Of course not. He's out in the woods, somewhere, I imagine up in Muir Woods. Or in Guerneville, canoeing. Fishing. That's what he's doing, I just know it.”

“That's right,” she said. “He's up there stream fishing with a Mepps double-zero. He orders them by the dozen—he keeps losing them on the rocks.”

Bruno chuckled.

“He isn't here,” she said. “He's not hiding from you.”

“He's hiding, Margaret, but I believe you, for the moment.”

She was impressed by this, as though belief were a style of thought one could adopt or not, as one chose. “He's up at the Yuba River,” said Margaret. “He needed to get away after—”

“After the news,” said Bruno. He was silent for a moment. “I was stunned. I still am. It's an outrage. They've ruled out terrorism, by the way. That entire part of Bloomsbury is gradually being renovated. It seems a welder's torch set off a minor blaze. They thought the fire was out, but that night it returned to life.”