Loving (8 page)

He couldn't resist stretching out a hand to rumple her hair. His voice was hoarse but gentle when he spoke again. "You look very pretty today, little one ... in your black suit."

She said nothing for a long moment, and then she walked past him, preparing to make lunch. His eyes never left her, and when her back was turned, he finally asked. "What is it that you're not telling me, Bettina? I get the feeling there's something you have on your mind." He felt stupid once he had said it. Every stick of furniture her father had owned was being sold at auction, it was natural that she should be disturbed. Yet he had the feeling that there was more than that. He had seen something even more painful in her eyes. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I've sold the apartment."

"What? Already?" Bettina nodded mutely. "And when does the new owner take possession?"

Bettina looked away and tried to catch her breath. "Tomorrow, I said I'd be out by tomorrow afternoon. As a matter fact it's in the contract."

"And who was the fool who let you do that?" Ivo looked at her ominously and then held out his arms. "Never mind who, I can guess. It was your father's idiot lawyer. Oh, Christ." And then all she knew was that he was holding her and it didn't quite feel as though the world had come to an end. "Oh, baby ... poor baby ... all the furniture and now the whole place. Oh, God, it must feel awful." He held her and swayed softly, and in his arms she felt suddenly safe.

"It does, Ivo ... it does ... I feel..." And then the tears suddenly crowded into her eyes. "I feel as though ... they're taking away ... everything ... as though there's ... nothing left. Just me, alone in the apartment ... it's already over ... there is no more past ... and I have nothing, Ivo ... nothing at all...." She was sobbing in his arms as she said it, and he only held her tight.

"It'll be different one day, Bettina. One day, you'll look back at all this and it will seem like a dream. A dream that happened to somebody else. It will fade, darling ... it will fade." But how he wished he could make it fade quickly and make her pain disappear. He had already made a decision before he left for London, but he wondered if this was the right time. He waited until she was quieter before he asked her any questions, but then he brought her into the living room and sat her down next to him on the couch. "What are you going to do tomorrow, Bettina, when you move out?"

She took a deep breath and looked at him. "Go to a hotel."

"What about tonight?"

"I want to sleep there."

"Why?"

She started to say Because it's my home, but it sounded ridiculous, it was only an empty apartment. It wasn't anyone's home anymore. "I don't know. Maybe because it's my last chance."

He looked at her kindly. "But that doesn't make much sense, does it? You've lived there, you've collected all the good memories it had to give. And now it's all gone, it's empty, like an empty tube of toothpaste, all squeezed out. There's no point keeping it a moment longer, is there?" And then, after only an instant, he looked at her more deeply. "I think it would make a lot of sense if you moved out today."

"Now?" She looked startled, and once again like a frightened child. "Tonight?" She stared at him blankly and he nodded.

"Yes. Tonight"

"Why?"

"Trust me."

"But I don't have a reservation...." She was clutching at straws.

"Bettina, I've been waiting to ask you this, but I'd like you to stay here."

"With you?" She looked startled, and he laughed.

"Not exactly. I'm not a masher after all, darling. In the guest room. How does that sound?" But nothing had really registered. Suddenly she felt very confused.

"I don't know ... I suppose I could ... just for tonight."

"No, that wasn't what I had in mind. I'd like you to stay until you get settled, till you find a nice place of your own. Something decent," he admonished gently, "and the right job. Mattie could take care of you. And I'd feel a lot better if I knew you were safe here. I don't think your father would have objected. In fact I'd say it was what he'd have liked best. Now" --he watched her eyes carefully--"what about you?"

But her eyes were filling slowly with tears. "I can't, Ivo." She shook her head and looked away. "You've been too good to me already, and I could never pay you back. Just today ... the desk ... I can't ever--"

"Shh ... never mind...." He took her in his arms again and gently stroked her hair. "It's all right." And then he pulled away to look at her and tried to coax her to smile. "Besides, if you're going to cry all the time, you can't stay at a hotel. They'd throw you out for making too much noise."

"I don't cry all the time!" She sniffed and accepted his handkerchief to blow her nose.

"I know that. In fact you've been unbelievably brave. But what I don't want you to be is foolish. Going to a hotel would be foolish." And then more firmly he added, "Bettina, I want you to stay here. Is that so awful? Would you really hate it, being here with me?" But all she could do was shake her head. She wouldn't hate it. In fact that was one of the things that frightened her most. She wanted to be there with him. Maybe even a little too much.

For a moment she wavered, and then sighed again as she blew her nose. And then at last she let her eyes find his. He was right. It did make more sense than going to a hotel. If she just didn't feel like that ... if he weren't so damn good-looking in spite of his age. She had to keep reminding herself that he wasn't forty-seven or even fifty-two ... he was sixty-two ... sixty-two ... and her father's very dearest friend ... it was almost like incest ... she couldn't let herself feel that way.

"Well?" He turned to look at her from where he stood at the bar while he was reproaching himself for thoughts similar to hers.

She sounded almost breathless as she answered. "I' do it. I'll stay."

Their eyes met and they smiled. It was an end and a beginning, and a promise, and the birth of hope. For them both.

By Saturday it was over. They had to go back to the apartment, to pick up the last of her stuff. She had spent the night before in Ivo's guest room, catered to and pampered by the jovial and warmhearted Mathilde, who had prepared their dinner and in the morning brought Bettina a tray. Ivo was glad to be able to restore her to comfort again. It had to be a relief from the emptiness of the apartment she had hung on to almost till the end.

"I told Mrs. Liebson I'd be out by six." Bettina looked at her watch nervously, and Ivo took her arm.

"Don't worry, we have time." He knew how little she had left there. He had gone over with her the night before to pick up one of her bags. And his heart had ached for her when he saw the sleeping bag stretched out on the floor. Now it was a question of a dozen suitcases, two or three boxes, and that was all. He had assured her that there was room in his store-room and Mathilde had already cleared two closets for her. It would be more than enough.

As usual Ivo's driver was waiting, and he sped them quickly over to Fifth and was rapidly at Bettina's door. She clambered out quickly, and Ivo was hard on her heels. She looked up at him questioningly. "Do you really want to come up?"

He realized with a flash of understanding what was on her mind. "Do you want to be alone?"

Her eyes wavered as she answered. "I'm not sure."

He nodded softly. "Then I'll come." And she looked somehow relieved.

Two porters were summoned, and a few moments later they all stood in the empty front hall. There were no lights lit and it was dark outside. Ivo watched her as she stared bleakly past the front hall.

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder at Ivo, and then at the two men. "Everything is upstairs in the front bedroom. I'll be right back, I want to check around." But this time Ivo didn't follow her. He knew she wanted to be alone. The two men scurried off to get her things, and he lingered in the hallway, listening to her footsteps as she wandered from room to room, pretending that she was checking to see if anything had been forgotten or mislaid. But it was memories she was collecting, moments with her father that she wanted to touch for one last time.

"Bettina?" Ivo called out softly. He hadn't heard her heels in a long time. But at last he found her, standing tiny and forgotten in her father's bedroom, with tears streaming from her eyes.

He went to her, and she held him, whispering softly into his arms. "I will never be back here again." It seemed hard to believe. It was over. But it had been for a while.

Ivo held her gently. "No, little one, you won't. But there will be other places, other people, who may one day mean almost as much to you as this."

She shook her head slowly. "Nothing ever will."

"I hope you're wrong. I hope that--that there are other men you love at least as much as him." And then he smiled down at her very gently. "At least one." Bettina didn't respond.

"He didn't leave you, little one. I hope you know that. He simply moved on."

That seemed to reach her, and suddenly she turned around and walked solemnly from the room. She paused in the doorway and held out her hand. He put an arm around her shoulders and walked her to the front door, which she locked for the last time, and slipped her key under the door.

The sun was streaming in the dining room windows as Mathilde poured Bettina a second cup of coffee. She had been intently studying the newspaper, and suddenly she looked up with a smile.

"Thank you, Mattie." The month of living at Ivo's had been restful for her. It had helped heal the wounds. Ivo had made everything easy. She had a beautiful little room, three meals a day of Mathilde's excellent cooking. She had all the books she wanted to read. She joined him in the evening to go to operas, or concerts, or plays. It was not unlike living with her father, yet in many ways it was a far more peaceful way of life. Ivo was a good deal less erratic, and his every thought seemed to center around her. He had spent the last month with her, almost every evening, going out to interesting places or sitting home by the fire and talking for hours. On Sundays they did the Times crossword puzzle together and went for walks in the park. It was March and the city was still cold and gray, but now and then the air smelled of spring.

He looked over his paper at her now with a smile. "You look embarrassingly cheerful this morning, Bettina. Any reason for it, or were you still thinking about last night?" They had gone to the opening of a new play and they had both loved it. Bettina had talked passionately of it all the way home. Ivo assured her that one day she would write something even better than that. And now she was smiling at him, with her head tilted to one side. She had been reading Backstage, the little weekly theatrical paper she had to travel halfway across town to buy.

"There's an ad in here, Ivo." Her eyes were full of meaning and he gave her his full attention.

"Is there? What kind of ad?"

"There's a new repertory group forming, off Broadway."

"How far off Broadway?" He was instantly suspicious. And when she gave him the address, he was more so. "Isn't that a little remote?" It was a grim neighborhood near the Bowery. One which Bettina had never even seen.

"What difference does that make? They're looking for people, actors, actresses, and technical people, all nonequity. Maybe they'd give me a chance."

"At doing what?" He felt dread crawl up his spine. He had been afraid of something like this. Twice he had reiterated his offer of a job at the paper, something nice, decent, and slightly overpaid. And both times she had refused. The last time with such vehemence that he no longer dared to mention the offer.

"Maybe I could get some kind of technical job, helping set up the scenery, working the curtain. Anything. I don't know. It would be a terrific opportunity to see how the inside of a theater works ... you know, for when I write my play."

For an instant he almost smiled. She was so incredibly childish at times. "Don't you think you'd learn more just going to see the successful shows on Broadway, like last night?"

"That's different. It doesn't show me how everything gets put together behind the scenes."

"And you feel you have to know that?" He was stalling and she knew it. She laughed gently.

"Yes, Ivo, I do." And then, without saying more, she went to the phone in his study across the hall, the paper still clutched in her hand. She was back five minutes later, beaming at him. "They said to come down today, around three."

Ivo sat back in his chair with a discouraged sigh. "I'll be back from lunch then. You can take the car."

"To this theater? Are you crazy? They'll never hire me if I show up in a limousine."

"That wouldn't be the worst news I'd heard all day, Bettina."

"Don't be silly." She leaned down to kiss his forehead and lightly touched his hair. "You worry too much. It'll be fine. And think, maybe I'll get a job out of it."

"Then what? You work in that horrendous neighborhood? How do you propose to get there every day?"

"On the subway, like the rest of the people who work in this town."

"Bettina--" He looked almost menacing, except that behind the menace was fear. Fear of what she was doing, where she was going, and of what it might mean for him.

"Now, Ivo...." She waggled a finger at him, blew a kiss, and disappeared into the kitchen to say something to Mathilde. Feeling very elderly, Ivo folded his newspaper, called out his good-byes, and left for work.

At two thirty that afternoon Bettina made her way to the subway, disappeared into its bowels, and stood waiting in the dank chill for a train to arrive. When it did, it was smelly, graffiti-covered, and half empty; the only other passengers seemed to be old women with curling hairs on their chins, thick elastic stockings, and shopping bags, filled with mysterious items, that seemed to pull at their frail shoulders like rocks. There were a few teen-aged boys wandering by, and here and there a man nodding off to sleep with his face buried in the collar of his coat. Bettina smiled to herself, thinking of what Ivo would say to all this. But he would have said a great deal more had he seen the theater at the address given in the ad. It was an old ramshackle building that had been a movie theater some twenty years before. In the interim it had often stood empty, housed some unsuccessful porno ventures, and at one time been turned into a church. Now it was being reinstated as a theater, but not in any grand style. The repertory group would do nothing to revive the exterior of the building, they needed the few pennies they had to put on their plays.