Читать книгу Gramercy Park - Paula Cohen - Страница 8

ALFIERI KNOWS NOTHING of Upton’s tears, nor would he care greatly if he did. Twenty years of singing before audiences all across Europe have accustomed him to that phenomenon, and left him largely indifferent to the power he has to make men weep. Audiences themselves are of negligible importance; they provide an excuse for him to sing, and enable him to spend his life doing what he desires by rewarding him prodigiously well for it, but they are not the reason he sings.

They are, however, the reason he is here. Paris has named him “Le Rossignol,” the nightingale; London knows him as “the Lord of Song”; to all of Italy he is “Maestro Orfeo.” His fame has become such that walking unmolested in the street—any street, in any city in Europe which boasts an opera house, and in many which do not—has become a near impossibility for him. He has left Europe to regain, for a while at least, his own soul; and Upton’s tears, did he but know of them, would be of infinitely less moment to him than what he will have for dinner.

Rising at last from the piano, more satisfied with the sound of his voice than he has been in months, he flings the curtains wide, noting with approval that the room faces onto Gramercy Park itself. The trees dance in the May wind, beckoning and abundantly green, and he unfastens the latch on one of the tall French windows and pushes the double panes outward. The fresh air, rushing into the long shut-up room, smells the color of the leaves, and all but sparkles in its clarity.

He breathes it in deeply, hands resting on either side of the window, idly watching a couple walk arm in arm in the park while two small girls chase each other in and out of the trees, and he suddenly realizes that he is happy—truly happy—with the sheer, effervescent happiness of youth; happier, in this house, than he has been in years. The very walls seem to greet him kindly, and to embrace him, as if they have been waiting for him for a long, long time.

No one lies in wait for him here, just outside the door. No one clamors for him, clutches at him, prays to him, leaves gifts for him, or flowers, or notes. If he must be lonely—God!—then let him be alone. He has not known such relief as this, such lightness of heart, for twenty years. He can be solitary in this house, and happy, the vast walls around him forming an impenetrable shell. Until he returns to Europe, he will revel in this solitude, wallow in it, free of hangers-on, of the endless crush of people that surrounds him always: smiling, weeping, fawning; ready to sell themselves at a moment’s notice, to trade their husbands or wives, sons or daughters for the slightest hint of stature, power, influence, fame … eager to suck the very breath from his lungs, or the soul from his body if he will only let them …

The breeze blows, cooling his face again, carrying music with it from the other side of the park … the raucous, lighthearted sound of a hurdy-gurdy, drifting on the air. He listens … “Libiam’,” it pulses, “ne’ dolci fremiti, che suscita l’amore …” the brilliant brindisi in waltz time from La Traviata. “Let’s drink to love’s sweet tremors,” it says, “to those eyes that pierce the heart …”

Verdi, wafting in from a New York street … the melody a reply to his own music at the piano. He is not one to ignore omens: the welcoming house and its grateful solitude, the sense of remembering what he cannot possibly know, his discovery of the music room, the arias, statement and answer: it all means a successful stay in America. He needs to see no more … he and the house have clearly chosen each other, and his possession of it will begin, appropriately, here. With both hands he seizes the sheet which drapes the piano, snatches it off and tosses it to the floor, then moves on, stripping the cover from each chair and table in his progress around the room.

The open window does not illumine the farthest corners, which remain lost in shadow, but Alfieri does not even notice; his mind is too full of his newfound elation, and his own momentum carries him along with no slackening of pace until, turning to wrest the cover from an armchair backed against a distant wall, he stops with a quick intake of breath.

Something—someone—is curled within it.

Except for Upton, somewhere in the bowels of the house, he should be completely alone, and so for several heartbeats he only stares in disbelieving silence. The figure does not vanish from beneath his gaze; it merely huddles deeper into the cushions, moving Alfieri to confirm the evidence of his eyes. As he stretches out his hand to touch what he knows cannot be there, the figure puts its hand out to ward off his, and Alfieri finds himself grasping the fingers of …

A child. A little, pale, sad-eyed child clothed in black, more like the ghost of a child than a living one … except that its fingers are real, small and very cold, and the nails are ragged and bitten. The child raises its head—her head—and meets his eyes for one moment only, then looks away.

It is long enough.

Her face glimmers white in the gloom, and he can see the marks of illness plain upon it. A hint of freckles once dusted her cheeks; they have faded now, with the rest of her, and the blue hollows beneath her eyes look like old, old bruises. The eyes themselves, gray-green and very clear, are even older: windows onto some ancient, bottomless grief; haunting, in the face of a child.

His own joy of a moment ago is dwarfed by the magnitude of this pain. He covers her hand with his own, speechless in the presence of such sorrow, and raises it to his lips.

The shadowy room, the silent house, the young girl with her old eyes: there is a dreamlike quality to them all, as if Alfieri has stepped out of the stream of time into a moment which has been there always, waiting for him, and which he has always known would come. He will never entirely leave it again; for the rest of his life a part of him will be there still, in the dusky room, at the instant she raises her eyes, with his lips against her hand.

The moment passes; the child lowers her eyes, her hand slips from his; the spell is broken. Time takes up where it had left off: the wind stirs the curtains, the sound of a passing carriage rises from the street below. Nothing has happened at all, except that Alfieri’s life has changed forever, and that he knows it.

“Who are you?” he says, when he can speak again. “How did you come here?”

“I live here.” She speaks with her head down, and directs her words to the fingers clenched in her lap.

“Here? But this is an empty house.”

“It’s not empty. I live here.”

“With the furniture all covered over and no light? How do you live in this place? Are you alone?”

“Two of the servants have stayed on. There are candles for the evening.” Her words, almost inaudible, are disjointed and utterly incomprehensible to him. “Don’t look at me, please. Just let me go away again. This is the closed part of the house, and I mustn’t be found here. I was walking for my exercise, but I became tired and fell asleep. The music woke me.”

“You are not one of the servants. That is not possible.”

The wan cheeks flush an imperceptible pink as she draws herself up in the depths of the chair and lifts her chin for the first time. “This is my guardian’s house.”

“Truly? I was told that the owner of this house had died.”

The momentary bravado fades; she droops again and her small voice falters. “He did. But he was still my guardian.”

He looks at her bowed head. “My dear, I am so sorry. I was not thinking …” She does not move.

“What is your name?” he says gently.

“Clara. Clara Adler,” is the whispered reply.

“Then, Miss Adler, as there is no one to introduce us properly, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Mario Alfieri.”

“How do you do, Mr. Alfieri.”

“Well, thank you. Very well. And how do you do, Miss Adler?”

“Better,” she says. “I am better, now. I have been ill.” Her own words suddenly recall her to herself. “Oh, but you mustn’t look at me,” she says, shrinking further into her chair.

“Why?”

“My hair …” At her words he realizes, with a small jolt, that it has been cut pitifully close, like a boy’s. Unable to hide the disgrace of her shorn head with her hands, she covers her face, instead. “Please don’t look at me.”

“And if I told you,” he says, “that until this very minute, when you brought it to my attention, I had not noticed your hair, would you believe me?” He touches her sleeve. “I promise you it is true.”

“How can that be?” she says through her hands. “I am so ugly.”

“Not ugly. Never ugly. Only recovering from an illness. Your hair will grow back.”

“Not for years.”

He laughs. “Do you wish to know why I did not notice your hair? I was looking too much at your lovely eyes.”

She lowers her hands. Those eyes are spilling slow tears, which she wipes with the handkerchief he offers her. “I am sorry,” she says. “Please don’t think badly of me.”

“Badly? Of you?” He shakes his head. “You are still weak and you have had a shock, which is my fault. I do not wonder at those tears. Are you strong enough to return to … where do you live in this great house?”

“My rooms are on the next floor. I will be all right. I am stronger than I look.”

“The stairs will not be too much for you? Let me help you.”

He takes her hand again and helps her to rise. Her head, with its ragged, dark curls, reaches no higher than the middle of his chest.

“You needn’t,” she says. “I can get there by myself.”

“No gentleman,” he replies, “would ever permit a lady of his acquaintance to return home unescorted. Now that we have been introduced, I must see you safely home.”

They climb the stairs together, stopping every four or five steps to allow her to catch her breath and rest.

“You are so kind,” she says. “I hope it didn’t frighten you too much to find me there.”

“Oh, after the initial shock I bore up quite well. I must admit that, at the very first instant, I did think that I had stumbled upon a ghost—which would have been most interesting, for I do not believe in them—and for a few moments I thought that I would have to rethink all my most deeply held philosophies. But it is you who are truly brave. To wake and find a total stranger in your house, tearing the covers from the furniture? How I must have frightened you!”

“No,” she says. “I heard you singing. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”

When they reach their destination, Alfieri opens the door for her and stands aside to let her pass.

She hesitates, not knowing what etiquette might demand in such a situation. To remain alone with a stranger cannot be proper; but he has been so kind that, surely, it would be terribly rude simply to send him away. “Would you like to come in?” she says shyly. “Perhaps you would like a cup of tea?”

Alfieri loathes tea. A true son of his country, his beverage is coffee: thick, strong, and taken black.

“I would love a cup of tea,” he says.

HOME” CONSISTS of two rooms, a bedroom and a sitting room, facing south and east over the garden at the back of the huge house. The sitting room is a pleasant, airy chamber, with sunlight falling like water through curtains of lace, and its bright comforts seem touched with some kindly magic, permitting it alone to escape the dark spell which has plunged the rest of the house into profound sleep. Adding to the feeling of enchantment is a table before one window, set with covered dishes, a cup and saucer, a round blue teapot, and a small kettle which steams cheerfully above a spirit lamp, as if invisible hands had been there only moments before. While Clara busies herself with the tea things, taking for her own use a glass tumbler fetched from the table beside her bed, Alfieri examines his surroundings.

His eyes travel from the soft rugs on the floor to the books piled on the tables, to the hoop of half-finished embroidery lying on the window seat, to the mantelpiece, which is white marble carved with swags of roses. Upon it sits a vase filled with tulips and anemones, a fountain of bright reds, blues, and yellows; on the wall above hangs a portrait of a girl with long chestnut hair tumbling about her shoulders, looking like a flower herself in a pale blue gown. The artist, with masterly hand and eye, had captured his subject at a magical time—no longer a child, not quite a woman—and Alfieri stares at it, once more feeling something that he cannot explain … the tilt of the head, the slant of the eyes, the oddly knowing expression, smiling and infinitely sad … all achingly familiar—and then he is back, and realizing that the wan little creature now pouring out tea is the faded shadow of the portrait’s original.

“My guardian had me sit for it, two years ago,” Clara says, following his gaze. “I was very young then.”

“So I see. How young, if I might be permitted to ask?”

“Seventeen.”

“Why then you are very old now,” he says gravely, and is rewarded by one of her rare smiles.

“Sometimes I feel very old. I tire so quickly.”

“You must give it time.”

“It’s taking so long.”

“I know. But you will grow well and strong. If you do not believe me, I will show you.” He takes the teacup she has handed him and quickly drinks off its contents, leaving a small amount in the bottom. Swirling the remaining liquid around, he pours it out into his saucer and holds the empty cup out for her inspection.

She peers into it. “Do you read tea leaves?”

“I am famous for it. In my family I am the only one permitted to read them. It is a rule.”

“Whom do you read them for?”

“My brothers and sisters and their children.”

“Does what you read always come true?”

“Always.”

“What do you see there?”

He holds the cup to the light and rotates it between his hands. “I see a very beautiful young lady—radiant with health, and with long, chestnut hair—in a park. Not a little park, like the one outside here, but a big one, like the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris. See this?” He points to a smudge of tea leaves inside the cup.

“What is it?”

“A ship. And here are waves and seabirds.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means that you will grow well and strong, and travel across the sea.”

“You are very kind,” she says, looking away. “But I think not. Not I.”

“Miss Adler, do you doubt me? You do me an injustice. I have predicted it, and, as my family will tell you, my predictions are never wrong.”

“But …” She stops, puzzled by a new thought. “Mr. Alfieri, forgive me, but I fear you’ve made a mistake.”

“Never. Not with tea leaves. It cannot be done.”

“But that is your teacup. You would need to read my glass to tell my fortune, wouldn’t you? That was your own fortune you just read.”

Alfieri smiles gently and puts down the cup.