Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (31 page)

After that everything happened with lightning rapidity. She was never to recapitulate exactly
how
it happened because she had reached the end of her life on this pleasant autumn afternoon, the last afternoon she was to know. Her brain, in those final few moments, transmitted the truth, that someone was inside her apartment, but before she could move, or even tell herself that she must run, turn and run, a figure loomed suddenly, darkening the doorway, a shocking apparition that short-circuited her mind as it sent her reeling back in the hurry of its flight.

There was a bend in the stairs toward the top: she landed there and, as her hands groped for something to grab onto, the intruder stumbled over her sprawled form. An excruciating pain as one of her hands was ground under a heavy foot, then she hurtled down the stairs like a sack of flour. Her mind whirled with the plummeting and the pounding footsteps and finally, as the interloper tangled with her helpless body near the bottom, she was swiftly knocked out by a foot flying against her jaw.

The piano-playing neighbor, alerted by the horrendous commotion, found her there, looking quite peaceful though in a gruesome position, with her head knocked through the wall and one of her hands mangled and pulpy. A grocery bag on the story above had tumbled over in the melee, spilling some of its contents through the wicks of the railing: a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice, in splinters and slowly flooding the vinyl floor, dripped down in crimson splashes.

The neighbor, shaking, ashen, brought cold towels, chafed the girl’s wrists, but after a while she realized that Miss Martinson was dead, so she ran back inside her apartment and called the police. They were there in five minutes, a siren announcing their arrival. “This lousy city — ” the neighbor said, her teeth chattering. She would not be playing any more Brahms Ballades tonight. The police questioned her.

“No, she was single.”

“Family?”

“I don’t know much about her. She was a lovely girl.”

“Do you know of anyone we can contact?”

“She has a friend. Yes, I know his name. Ehrenberg. Anton Ehrenberg.”

“A boyfriend, is he?”

“Something like that. They were together a lot.”

“He live here too?”

“No, she lives alone. Lived alone.”

“Do you mind coming up to her apartment with us?”

“Yes, all right.”

Between them they found Clover’s address book. Under E, Anton Ehrenberg’s number. Clover’s keys were still in the lock. The police locked the door and gave the keys to the neighbor. Also Clover’s pocketbook. “I’m Lieutenant Malone,” one of the officers said. “We’ll be in touch with you. Just a formality, you understand. Thank you very much, ma’am. You have any tranquillizers, you better take one. You look beat.”

“I’m all right.”

They had called Lenox Hill Hospital from Clover’s apartment. The neighbor got a little hysterical about it: she said, “The hospital, get her to the hospital. If you take her to the morgue I’ll raise a stink about it. That man has to go and see her this way, and it’s not going to be on some marble slab. Call the hospital — ”

“Don’t worry,” they soothed her. “Of course it will be the hospital, ma’am.”

Soon a second siren shrilled up the street. Two attendants took Clover away on a gurney and put her inside the ambulance. Then everyone went away and the neighbor closeted herself inside her street-floor flat and locked the door, leaned against it.

This lousy city …

After a while her mind began to accept the facts. That lovely-looking Miss Martinson. Such a nice girl. How could you live in this lousy city? Sooner or later it could happen to you too.

She checked the locks again and got out the bottle of scotch.

The Martinson family cremated its dead, and so there was a quiet noonday service at Fresh Pond on Long Island. No eulogies, just a few words from the Bible, the ones applicable to death.
I
am the Resurrection and the Life
… Mrs. Martinson and her other daughter, the married one, April. April’s husband. Mrs. Martinson’s sister and her sister’s husband. Anton Ehrenberg. There was no “viewing,” the casket was closed, with sprays of red roses blanketing it. There was a profusion of flowers overall, scenting the air and bright as the day itself, which was ablaze with sun. April told them that her mother had been against it, but people wanted to “do something,” and flowers, being the traditional offering, seemed the logical thing.

Ruth and Helene and Christine and Meryl had driven out in a rented limo, which would take them back again: after that they were going to be together for a while, probably at the Carlyle, for a quiet talk. Nobody wanted to think of food, it would be just coffee and brandy. There were quite a few people from Clover’s agency and numerous others whom April said were clients of her sister’s. An organist played “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

Anton sat with Clover’s family, accepted, one of them. He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, they all agreed, a fine-looking man. He wore a white carnation in his buttonhole and there was an earnest, attentive expression on his face as though, if he attended carefully to everything that was said it might be explained to him why his Clover was dead.

After a while the music came to a stop and then a young man in a cassock recited his little litany in a soft and cultured voice. Without the sound of the organ it was very, very quiet in the small chapel. “Whosoever believeth in me shall never die,” the minister asserted. He had a hairline with a widow’s peak and the hint of a cowlick at the crown of his head: he seemed shockingly young.

He held a handsome, gilt-edged, leather-bound copy of The Book in his hands, not reading from it but just clasping it loosely. He had memorized the passages, as if out of respect to the mourners, or maybe to show that he was no novice at these obsequies. Then he finished speaking. The organist improvised softly. Soon two tall gentlemen (attendants of the mortuary, one supposed) took charge of the casket and bore it to a door that had been unobtrusively opened at the left of the chapel, into which it disappeared, to be consigned to the flames and eternity.

Once again the organ.
Sheep Shall Safely Graze
. People seemed uncertain for a few minutes, and then one by one slowly got up, looking as if they were suffering from low back pain, as if it were difficult and distressful to move. A low murmur of voices as sympathy was offered to Clover’s family. April came over and asked if they would come back to her aunt’s house, her mother would like them to, Ruth and Helene and Christine and Meryl. “Just a few friends,” she said.

Yes, of course they would, though they would have preferred different, each of them knew, longing for escape from the palpable presence of affliction that hung about, like a fog, like a miasma. Hollow-eyed, drawn and numbed, they climbed back into the limo again and rode back to Manhattan.

• • •

Mrs. Martinson’s sister lived in Manhattan House, which was a replica of the Colonnade, or rather the reverse, as the former had been the first to go up. The rooms were large and gracious and well appointed, with any number of plants that clearly thrived in the abundance of light and air. April showed those who had not visited before where the bathrooms were, coats were deposited on a bed in the master bedroom and the fog had lifted a bit because when someone died you made every effort to cling to the comfort and solace of others for as long as you could, before the visits and the cards and the letters tapered off, so you made the most of it, the faces and bodies and proximity of friends and strangers. That was why these gatherings so often appeared to be festivities rather than keenings — to quell for as long as possible the full force of grief and anguish.

There was a tasteful buffet laid out on the dining room table and, perversely, appetite returned as you did the civilized thing, observed the amenities and helped yourself to a slice of succulent ham, filled your plate with olives and stuffed celery and a wedge of quiche. “You girls were such good friends to Clover,” Mrs. Martinson said, her eyes dry but bloodshot, the little veins etched in pink. Ruth’s eyes filled. Ruth, the disciplined one, the toughie, looking at life through a vision unclouded by sentiment. “We’ve been friends,” Meryl said, “for a very long time. Mrs. Martinson, will you be in New York for a while?”

“Yes, I do think I will. I’m a widow, you know, no reason to hurry home. I’ll be staying here with my sister for a while.”

“I hope we’ll see you again. If there’s any possibility, would you let one of us know? Just a quiet lunch some day.”

“That’s very thoughtful, and thank you. I shall have to see how things go.” She was sitting on a high-backed chair, a slender woman in a tailored suit. Beside her was her sister, Mrs. Bradley, and on her other side her brother-in-law. “You must eat something,” both were urging her, though they were plateless themselves.

“Yes, of course, later. Not just yet.”

“Not later, this won’t do,” her brother-in-law insisted, jumping up. “Just a few nibbles, or else you’ll be sick.”

“Perhaps some coffee. Please, don’t fuss, Howard, all right, coffee then. And girls, please have some more quiche, more ham, there’s enough for an army.”

“I think I’d like coffee,” Meryl said. “Mrs. Bradley, may I get you a cup?”

“I’m going to skip coffee but thanks, dear.”

“I think I’ll skip the coffee too,” Christine said. The aroma of it, which she generally found enticing, was making her a little ill. Her friends were queuing up at the urn, at which April was in attendance.

“Does it keep you awake?” Mrs. Martinson asked earnestly, as if her very life depended on the answer. You could see she was speaking mechanically, that her responses were purely automatic, polite and pertinent. She was talking to one of Clover’s friends, but afterwards would never remember which one of them it had been.

“I’m afraid it might, yes.”

“Wouldn’t you like a drink?” her sister suggested.

“Oh yes, do have a drink,” Mrs. Martinson said. “I’d very much like one myself, but the doctor’s shot me up with sedatives, so I don’t dare. My son-in-law is being bartender, April’s husband.” She patted Christine’s hand. “You go have a nice, hearty scotch, it will do you good.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing I can get for you?”

“Nothing at all, my dear. You’re very sweet.”

On the way to the drink table Anton Ehrenberg was suddenly at her side. She had observed him, as had her friends, standing talking to one or another of the guests and acting, in a quiet way, as a kind of host. He seemed to be very much a part of the Bradley household, and Christine realized that he and Clover must have been frequent visitors to this apartment.

“We met briefly at the ceremony,” he said.

“Yes, of course. You’re Anton. I’m Christine.”

“May I get you something to drink?”

“Yes, thank you. I was just on my way to the table for one.”

He introduced her to April’s husband. “I’ve heard your name often,” the younger man said with a smile. “What can I give you? Scotch, bourbon? Vodka — ”

“Scotch, please. Just ice and water, no soda. Thanks very much.”

“Anton?”

“Nothing for me, thanks.” Anton, his hand on Christine’s arm, looked about. “We can sit over there,” he suggested. “A little out of the way from the others. You don’t mind?”

“No, of course not.” She saw that his boutonnière was drooping. He guided her toward a secluded corner of the room. “Now we can talk,” he said, giving her a quick look. “I hope you don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind, Anton.” Why should she mind, she thought, bleeding for him. Poor soul, he looked ravaged, and desolation washed over her, the way things turned out, your props taken away from you at the very drop of a hat and always when you least expected it. Clover dreaming that she was standing at his gravesite and now it was Clover who was dead.

“Mrs. Martinson is lovely,” she said. ‘I’ve never met her before. I hope she will stay for a while, it would be so much better for her to be with her sister for a bit.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Particularly alone as she is.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“She has April, fortunately. And her grandchildren.”

“Yes, that is a — a blessing.”

“I suppose April didn’t bring the children?”

“No, I understand they’re in the care of some friends.”

That took care of Mrs. Martinson, Christine thought. But what about Anton? We can talk, he had said, but this bereaved gentleman had nothing to talk about, it seemed. What the hell was there to talk about for either of them? A vision of Jack’s apartment flashed in on her, so vivid that everything else seemed to fall away, the crowded room and the people and the buffet table and Mrs. Martinson sitting there in her high-backed chair with her pink-veined eyes.

“What are you going to do?” she asked Anton, the words saying themselves aloud, the words she was really asking herself. She wanted to bite them back, because of course he could never understand what lay at the bottom of them. “I’m sorry,” she rushed on. “I shouldn’t have-”

His face changed, dark Austrian eyes flickering, first with shock and then with such a look of pain that she had to turn away. After a while there was an audible swallow, as if he were drinking his tears.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t imagine what I will do.”

When she looked back at him he leaned toward her. “What will you do?” he asked. “Clover told me about your problem, that you were disturbed and unhappy.”

“Do you mean she told you about — she told you that — ”

“That there was a love affair? Yes. I heard a lot about her friends, they meant a great deal to her. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh. No, I don’t mind, of course not.”

“She said you had decided to end it.”

“Yes.”

“Did you want to?”

“No, but I can’t see any other honorable way. As a matter of fact I’m still wavering, not really out of indecision but because — well, this — ”

She gestured toward the room. “Clover. How can I think of anything else right now? If ever — ”

She turned away again, tears scalding her eyes. Please, not in front of suffering Anton, she prayed, and mastered herself. When she faced him again she was composed and, God knew, he certainly was. He nodded, as if acknowledging her regained self-possession.

“Well — ” He felt his carnation tentatively, then glanced down at it. “This seems to have had it,” he remarked, and pulled it out of his lapel. He regarded it briefly and then put it in his jacket pocket.

“You and Clover had lunch together the day — the day it happened,” he said. “I wonder, did she say anything special that day?” He smiled apologetically. “You always hope for some revelation, you understand, something you can remember, cling to. It’s, of course, simply a shot in the dark.”

He had singled her out, and now Christine knew why. It was she who had been the last to see Clover, she with whom Clover had spent a few of her last hours. He was waiting now, with a pathetic eagerness, a desperate hope.

“Yes,” she said, remembering back. “She said that if you found something that made your life a joy, a splendid joy, you must hold on to it. She said it was monstrous to kill a living thing, that the price, whatever it might be, was worth it.”

A flicker in Anton’s eyes again, then a searching look, speculative and grave. After a while he said, “Do you think she paid a price? I mean, that we couldn’t be married?”

“I think both of you did, Anton. But I feel that, without a doubt, it was worth it. Anton, she was the happiest of women. You must know that.”

It was late afternoon when they left the gathering: most of the others had taken their leave earlier, but Mrs. Martinson seemed loath to relinquish the company of her daughter’s close friends. They talked quietly until well after four-thirty. “Yes, please do call me,” Clover’s mother said. “I really think that yes, I shall be here for a good while longer.”

At the door Anton grasped Christine’s hand. “I understand you’re looking for a job,” he said. “Clover told me that too. She asked me to help you.”

“It was one of the things we talked about that — that day.”

“I told her that certainly, I would be delighted to help you find something. You’ll allow me, I hope?”

“I will certainly be very grateful, it’s kind of you, Anton.”

“Not at all, simply a pleasure, and it might take my mind off things a bit. You can understand that. I don’t like to lose track of Clover’s friends. Fortunately I’m in touch with quite a few people in the business world, even if I am a foreigner.”

He reached in an inner vest pocket and pulled out a leather case from which he extracted a card. “If you’ll call me on Monday morning, Christine, I’ll have something lined up — a few things.”

“I’m so grateful.”

“No, I am. In a way I’m looking for a lifeline. I guess you can understand that too.”

“Yes, very well.”

“You’ve helped me a bit, you know.”

“I hope so. But as a matter of fact, it was you who helped me, Anton.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, which was that of an older man whose skin was starting, very slowly, to groove, and he suddenly seemed to be worn, and tired, and in a sad and irrevocable way somewhat wilted, like the white carnation which rested now in his pocket.

She left Ruth at Ruth’s street corner, both of them white and drained, and continued on home. But she didn’t go all the way up, instead turned her steps downtown again. It was early enough to table dinner preparations for a while and she was in no hurry to return to that apartment. She had had no walk that day, no reason why she shouldn’t have one now.

Along Lex as far as Sixty-first Street, then veering over to Third. Jack’s street just ahead. Not to see him. Just to stand, for a moment or two, looking down toward Second. Just — well, because it gave her some small comfort to do it.