A Reliable Wife (12 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

On seeing him, she had felt the sexual pulse of the city begin to beat. She had not noticed. She wondered, at any hour of
the day and night, how many people were making love at exactly that minute. Behind every window the sexual act was being completed
second after second. The poor with their ecstatic, animal grunts, the rich with their unimaginable refinements and perversions.

She couldn’t sleep. She felt Truitt was watching her, that Truitt had known all along this would happen.

Sunday finally came. It was bright, bright and hard and cold, with snow in the air. They had said two o’clock. He would be
awake, he would be sober, he might be alone. She was ready. She wore her gray silk dress, her wedding dress and her diamond
engagement ring, and the long fur coat she had bought. As though they could protect her. She felt she was pretending to be
a proper matron going to make a call on a distant relative.

Mr. Malloy and Mr. Fisk walked her silently through bright, slick, shiny streets that led away from the hotel, from everything
new and modern, and then through streets that weren’t nice, that were silent on a Sunday. They walked away from the fine stores
and the streets so brightly lit at night, until they came to a neighborhood of low brownstones, houses not in good repair.
They were without yards or even window boxes, just dingy marble stoops. Catherine could picture the rooms behind the grimy
windows, rooms she herself had lived in, low, cramped, greasy from years without care. The furniture, too, would be old and
comfortless, the floors unswept, the smell of onions frying, of cheap cigars, the windows always closed, a room in the back
where the mother and father slept, another for the children, no matter how many, and one thing, or two, brought from the country
and cherished. Sad, hard lives, without affection, without any moment but the present and that not to be enjoyed but endured.
The only rhythm of their lives was the incessant turning of the machines in the factories where they worked, and their dreams
in the night were of the little towns they had come from, the sun rising and setting, the turning of the seasons, the crops
planted and grown and tended and harvested.

When they woke, they would not remember the dreams, but as they stood, day after day, at their relentless jobs, their hearts
would ache for something they could not name.

The faces would be as worn as the furniture, unloved and hard. Now and then, in the evenings, a look of wistful longing would
come over the wives, and they would have a kind gesture for one of the girls, a kind word. The fathers would be drunk or grave
or both, and sometimes violent, the children slow-witted and slothful and unschooled and uncared for, except in those few
brief useless moments when the mothers could forget their hard lives. These were not the streets of the bounding ambitious
muscular America, but of the tired and the lost and the dirty.

Catherine felt a million miles away, in her warm fur coat and her gray silk dress that trailed in the snow no matter how she
lifted it with her gloved hands. In the country, the snow was clean as a fresh bedsheet. Here it was filthy. The cold got
into her boots and crept up her legs, despite her wool stockings. She felt removed from these houses and these habits and
this life. She had always been a chameleon, taking on accents and manners suited to her circumstance, but now she felt as
though she had changed into something new, and she couldn’t change back.

Her pulse raced. The blood beat in her ears. She was finally going to reveal herself to Tony Moretti.

They turned away from these streets and into others even more depressing. Here there was no pavement, no cobblestones, just
mud tracks that ran between wooden houses, mostly unpainted, some with broken windows, all with tattered, filthy curtains
hanging limply in the hard light. Linden Street, with not a tree in sight. Malloy and Fisk looked at her occasionally, as
if to apologize, but she stared straight ahead, avoiding their gaze. She was lost in her own history now. Her history was
unfolding with every step.

They stopped in front of one of the three-story houses, painted a dull red, as though someone had made a brief effort, long
ago, to make it look more respectable, more refined. Malloy checked his notebook. “Number 18. This is it.”

She felt a chill and pulled her collar tightly around her neck. Mr. Fisk and Mr. Malloy hesitated, having come all this way
with so much information at hand, and at last having no idea what to do.

“Well. I’m cold. Let’s go in.” It was Catherine who broke the silence. “We’re here. It’s time we knew. Let’s get on with it.”
She stepped up the stairs and tried the door, Malloy and Fisk following behind. It was unlocked and opened into a dark stairwell.

“Third floor, Mrs. Truitt. It’s dark. I’m sorry.”

“It’s hardly your fault.” She stepped aside and followed the two men up the stairs. And then they were knocking on the door,
and then, after beats that snapped her nerves one by one, the door opened, and there in front of them was Antonio Moretti.

He looked ravaged. He looked pure. He shone like a saint. He stood in a red paisley silk dressing gown, the front barely closed.
He obviously wore nothing underneath, and he obviously didn’t care.

“Mr. Moretti. There’s a lady here.”

“So there is. I see. I always ask a lady to come in.”

Malloy took out his notebook, as though that would help them to find their way. “Mr. Moretti . . . Mr. Truitt, we’ve come
to take you home. Your father . . .”

A shudder crossed his brow, fleeting, gone in a second. “What was that name? It’s not anybody I know. My name is Moretti.
Tony Moretti.”

“Mr. Ralph Truitt. In Wisconsin, where you were born.”

“Won’t you come in? I have some brandy. It’s cold outside.”

They didn’t want to, but the force of his eyes and the whiteness of his skin somehow drew them forward and into his sitting
room. It was furnished elegantly, completely at odds with the house itself, with delicate French and Italian furniture, obviously
good. The ceiling was draped with orange silk, like a tent, and Moroccan lanterns hung down, the light from the candles flickering.
Probably still burning from last night. Beyond, they could see the ruin of a tented, brocaded bedroom, like a palace abandoned
before a revolution.

The room was littered with clothes, and he carelessly picked up a few items, as though to make a place for them to sit. Nobody
sat. He turned to Catherine and smiled.

“What was that name?”

Again, the breathlessness made her voice faint. “Truitt. Mr. Ralph Truitt.”

“And you would be . . . ?”

“Mrs. Truitt. The new Mrs. Truitt.”

“I hope you’ll be very happy.”

“Thank you.”

“It isn’t a name I know.”

Malloy cleared his throat. “He is your father.”

Moretti laughed, showing his alabaster throat, his cheeks dark with yesterday’s beard.

“My father is named Pietro Moretti. My mother is Angelina. He played the accordion in Naples, where I was born. When I was
three, he and my mother moved to America, to Philadelphia, to the Italian section of Philadelphia, where he played the accordion
in one after another of the thousand Italian restaurants. He eventually owned one, owns it still, and my cousin Vittorio makes
the food, it’s very good, by the way, and my father plays the accordion, and my mother takes the money.”

Malloy interrupted. “You were born in Wisconsin. Your father is Ralph Truitt.”

“Who are you?” Antonio demanded.

Fisk stepped in. “We were hired by your father to find you.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“For several months. Yes.”

“That makes me very unhappy.”

Malloy and Fisk looked at their hands. Antonio turned his gaze and spoke to Catherine.

“I went to the conservatory in Philadelphia, one of those wretched snot-nosed children of the poorer classes who get to go
to such places because the well-to-do public finds it costs nothing and they sleep better at night. Well, I was talented,
sort of. I’ve played the piano in restaurants ever since. Actually,
restaurants
is a nice word for it. I wasn’t talented enough for concerts, and was too talented to teach. And besides, I hate children.
I like adult company. Most adult company, at least. So here I am. I don’t know any Mr. Truitt. I’ve never been to Wisconsin,
although it may be nice. It’s far away.”

“This is a fabrication. We have the facts.”

“You can check. I have papers, documents, a checkbook from the bank. Not much money, but you can look. My father still lives
in Philadelphia. My mother is still named Angelina, and she still takes the money. Brandy?” He poured himself a glass, swirled
it in the dim light.

“Your mother was the Contessa Emilia Truitt. Your father was Andrea Moretti, a piano teacher hired by your mother’s husband,
Mr. Truitt.”

“A real countess. How charming. As much as I would like to exchange the restaurant life for a royal title, I’m afraid it isn’t
true. Not a word. I could read you my mother’s letters. She begs me to come home and find a nice girl. A nice girl like the
new Mrs. Truitt, no doubt. Why would Mr. Truitt want to see me if he’s not my father?”

“He feels badly.”

“Because his wife was a faithless whore?”

Malloy looked at Catherine with a sidelong glance.

“Because he was, because of circumstances, because he feels he was unkind to you, and he wants to make it up to you.”

“By making me leave Saint Louis and go to Wisconsin? It doesn’t sound like much of a birthright.”

“He’s your father. He has acted as your father since you were born.”

A ripple of anger crossed Tony Moretti’s face. “My father has acted as my father since I was born. Would you like to see photographs?
I don’t have any. My baby things? They’re in Philadelphia. It’s simple to prove who you are. It’s hard to prove you’re not
somebody else. I’m not this man’s son, no matter how much he wants me to be. I’m sorry Mr. Truitt feels the way he does. I’m
very accommodating in general. I wish I could accommodate him. I wish I could accommodate you, but hospitality is helter-skelter
around here, and all I’ve got is brandy and you don’t want brandy and I want you to leave.”

Catherine sat in a chair, swept clean of clothing, among which she noticed a pair of women’s dark stockings.

“Mr. Moretti,” she said softly.

“You were the lady, yes? The lady in black in the restaurant. The lady in mourning.”

“Yes.” Her hand was trembling as she spoke. “I’m not in mourning, as I said. You play beautifully.”

She pictured him in bed. She pictured him naked, aroused, lying back against silk pillows and waiting. Waiting for her. He
smelled of last night’s stale cologne and the warmth of his bed. She could picture it all. She knew where he had been, what
he had done. She smelled the woman who had recently left.

She spoke clearly, directly to him, and he listened to her words with careful attentiveness. “You have suffered. He knows
that. He knows you must be angry. He’s suffered, too. His heart’s raw with the nights he’s spent in hurt. He knows he has
hurt you. He knows he treated you badly. Now he wants to make it right. He wants to bring you home, to the house you were
born in, the big house, and make it alive again. I won’t say he loves you. Yet. He wants to love you. To be kind to you. To
be forgiven for . . . for everything. Please. I don’t know . . .”

“And what would you, Mrs. New Truitt, what would
you
do to make this ridiculous fantasy come true?”

“I have promised him. I’m telling you. He’s rich. I would do anything.”

“Give me your ring.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I lost my stickpin, remember? I like diamonds. Give it to me. I might want to give it to a girlfriend. I might want to wear
it myself, one of my extravagances. I could make it into a new stickpin. It would attract attention when I play, don’t you
think? The light? I may want to throw it in the Mississippi. I may swallow it. Give it to me.”

“Mrs. Truitt,” said Mr. Fisk in genuine alarm.

She hesitated a long moment, then she took off her yellow diamond and put it into his waiting hand.