Random Hearts (25 page)

He did.

"I love you."

Instead of some physical expression of validation, she got
up, walked away, paced the room, her arms hunched against her body.

"You don't mean that," she said.

Her reaction startled him.

"That's what it all boils down to. However you
describe it, that's the way I feel. I love you. It is everything. I love
you."

"You can't..." She groped for some way to stop
what Orson had also once said to her. Between them, it would always be the
ultimate comparison. The sluice gates of memory were opening, spilling out.
"You said it to her." Her voice rose with anger and frustration.

"It wasn't like this."

"Then it is empty to say it."

"But it's what I feel," he said.

"Did you feel it then?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does." She wanted him to feel what she
felt, the feeling beyond words, the feeling of eternal possession, of
selflessness, of a love so pure and refined that nothing could shatter it, a
love that defied betrayal. And words. "Don't you see?" she cried,
wringing her hands.

"No, I don't. I love you. I want to devote my life to
you. What more can I say? There is nothing in life that I want. Nothing but to
be with you, to hold you, to be near you. However you describe it, it comes
down to that."

"You can't know for sure. Not so soon."

"I know."

Still, something inside told her it was not enough, that
they had not yet struck the essence of it. She would force her anger to cool,
then would come back to him, embracing.

The focus of everything had narrowed down to that one tiny
center of intense heat, like the heat of the sun, captured into a single tiny
beam through a magnifying glass. What she wanted, needed, longed for was the
ultimate assurance. No matter what transpired in a life lived, however age
would paint her, whatever her failings—whether she was bored or excited,
comforted or irritated—whatever circumstance might buffet her, change her,
sicken her, stunt her, embellish her, whatever her faults or flaws, her
attributes, her capacity to enjoy or give joy, to enlighten or diminish, the
ultimate value of their relationship would remain as pure and untrammeled as
refined gold. Purer than that. More lasting than that.

How was it possible to declare such a thing, to promise it
irrevocably? The best that could be pledged was this feeling now, at this
single moment of time. Could she promise more than that?

No!

In the end she would be alone, unloved and unloving. What
she craved was impossible to achieve, nor was it possible to erase the memory
of the past. Soon she would have to eliminate the last reminder of the past,
Edward himself. That would leave her with the only person in the world to whom
her future would belong, the only person she could ever trust with her life,
permanently, eternally.

Herself.

Three weeks after they had moved into the apartment,
Vivien's house was sold. Twice a week she had called the broker from a
telephone booth and received a report on the sales effort.

Edward accepted the news more with concern than unmitigated
joy. They had talked of going away and, at the beginning, had explored endless
possibilities. Since they had both cut away all moorings, any place in the
world would have suited them.

The nature of the game was to be together, as they were
now. Beyond that was the void.

Yet, regardless of how he studied her, there was always a
point beyond which he could not penetrate. At times she drifted, grew vague and
brooding, then she would surge up in intensity and passion. She alternated
between reflective silence and curious probing questions.

"Do you think you know me, really know me?"

"I'm not sure," he replied.

"Just testing. I don't think I know you."

"Not consciously."

"What does that mean?"

"That we probably know each other deep in our
subconscious. Really well. Totally."

"I don't believe that for a minute."

"Then why do you ... make me feel so physically complete?
What makes that happen?"

"Chemistry."

"But why you?"

"I don't want to think about it. Just feel. That's all
I want to do. Just feel. No past. No future. Only to feel what I feel."

"And what is that?"

"It has no definition. And if it did, it wouldn't
matter."

"But it must have some definition. Surely there are
words to explain it."

"There are no words for that."

It seemed a refrain, and he longed for her to frame her
feeling for him in direct and simple language. He wanted her to put it flatly,
nakedly. Perhaps a simple "I love you," despite all its clichéd
meanings. He did not ask any other assurance beyond that.

But he did. not press her, he accepted her own special
definitions and those that he would concoct at her urging. What was happening
was beyond any of his experience. Perhaps it was, he told himself secretly,
beyond the ability to articulate, something infinitely ethereal and spiritual,
a perfect melding of desire and mutuality. He had never known such perfect joy.

On the surface, they existed in this finite world: a room,
a bed, space, the present. To him, the past was dead, unmourned. Sometimes,
merely to test himself he tried to dredge up old images. When they came, the
definition was so feeble that it barely had the power to preserve itself, like
a Polaroid picture that did not take.

Nothing intruded on the glory of the present, which was
being with Vivien. Vivien was all life, an entire world, her body eternity, her
spirit an indestructible force inside him. How could words convey that? He
lived in a cocoon of fulfillment and ecstasy.

"I do love you."

Sometimes she would be playful.

"Just that? But how do you know? How are you
sure?"

"I know."

"That's no answer."

"I feel."

"That's no answer."

"I'll give you proof."

They made love, passionate, intense, culminating as they
crested on a single wave, the all-perfect legendary ninth wave.

"What does this prove?" she asked when they had
cooled.

"That the body is the cathedral of the soul."

She laughed.

"I want to worship in your cathedral."

"Forever?"

"Of course forever."

"Do you love me?" she pressed.

"More than that."

But while coping with her questions, his questions had
their own special perils. Why had this happened? First had come the random
selection of joined lives: he and Lily, she and Orson, then the coming together
of Lily and Orson. More random selection: betrayal and death. Each phase had
triggered the other, expanding the mysterious connections, culminating finally
in he and Vivien.

Why?

Between the frenetic love-making, they began to expand
their verbal excursions. It was all part of the basic investigation of
themselves. They talked of their general interests, favorite foods, flavors,
seasons, colors, actors, political ideas, a panoply of sensations that might be
a clue to the spark that set them off and joined them. Nothing fit with the
smoothness of a jigsaw puzzle. There were always wrong angles, jutting tabs,
bad fits.

"Ordinary people, that's us," she would say when
it became apparent that whatever worldly talents or interests were inside them
were unremarkable.

He would tick off the obvious categories of assets, and she
would respond.

"General education?"

"Fair to middling. No marketable specialties."

He had majored in political science, she in psychology.

"Blood and breeding?"

"Not thoroughbred, but good sturdy stock."

"Physical aspect?"

"To others, well, sort of pleasant."

"And to you?"

"Surpassing beauty."

"It's in the eye of the beholder."

"And I'm the beholder."

"So am I."

In other words, he thought, nothing special, except to each
other. He would have to look elsewhere for answers. Give it time, perhaps a
lifetime, which suited him fine. A lifetime with Vivien, like this, was all one
could wish for.

There were moments when he truly felt that they had reached
some nadir of communication, transcending experience and gender, as if they had
achieved a cloning effect. Yet he still could not find the words to describe
it, except in that way, which sounded more wishful than actual. However he
wished it to be, he could not truly get inside her mind. And she could not get
into his.

Which was why the subtle changes he began to detect began
to worry him. Sometimes he was awakened by her soft sobbing, but when he asked
her the matter, she would say: "Just happy."

Which satisfied him for a time. But when it persisted and
he pressed her, she would answer finally: "It will go away."

"What will."

"This. Us."

"Never." Again he would proclaim his feelings.

"It's not enough," she would sob. "It's
transitory. It will disappear, disintegrate. You'll betray me. Perhaps I'll
betray you."

"Nonsense." He tried to joke her out of it.
"I'll never let you out of my sight." He meant it, envisioning a life
like this, with every moment together.

"It's true," she said.

Despite the foreshadowing, he was stunned when it happened.
He had gone with her to the title company, and the settlement had gone
routinely. She received a certified check for nearly $200,000, which she
slipped into her purse.

"This is it, the last of it," she told him in the
car. As he drove, he watched her. The lines on her face were smooth, betraying
no anxiety. When their eyes met, hers turned away. Something strange was
happening inside her. At first he had thought it was his own paranoia reacting.
Wasn't love a form of paranoia? With that to sustain him, he tried to dismiss
his growing concern. Was she drifting away from him on strong but invisible
currents? He could not bear such thoughts. Nor could he imagine what life had
been or could be without her. By then, Lily had become merely a name, a
non-person, someone he had seen in a movie who was briefly engaging but
forgettable.

When they got back to the apartment, at first she sat on
the bed, trancelike, lost in herself. He puttered in the kitchen, making them
coffee. His hands shook. His heart pounded. The sense of menace was pervasive.
Last night they had, as always, clung to each other. But something was
happening, something ominous.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"But I feel something, and it frightens me."

"I know."

When he brought the steaming coffee mugs, she waved hers
away, and he put it on the floor beside the bed. Watching her, he backed away
and sat on the floor against the wall, sipping the hot liquid.

"I'm leaving," she said, drawing in her breath,
her eyes moist but alert. The words seemed to break something inside him. His
ears buzzed with crashing sounds. He hoped his body would explode. His mind
told him to eject his thoughts, to empty itself of everything, to vanish.

"It would always be between us," she whispered,
her words crashing into his consciousness like clanging cymbals. Yet he
wondered if she had existed outside his imagination.

"But I thought..." he stammered.

"I just can't live with the danger, Edward."

"What danger?"

"That it won't last, that it will go away."

"Then you can't love me, that's why you don't say
it."

"And if I said it? What would it mean? They're just
words, Edward. Just words."

"What about feelings?"

"I don't trust them. Inside me they will always seem
like a lie. I can't live with this fear. It will corrode me. The only certainty
I can find is myself, in myself. You see..." The tears bubbled over her
lower lids and slid onto her cheeks.

"But I thought we had smashed the past."

"You may have. I can't. There is still one thing left
to do."

"Me?"

She nodded.

He continued to sit, paralyzed and inert, unable to find
any spark of life in himself, extinguished.

He watched her rise, take out her suitcases, and begin to
pack. It was too unbearable to watch, like observing a gaping wound in himself,
blood flowing freely, his life slipping away.

When the knock came, he could not relate it to anything
outside of himself. When it persisted, he looked at Vivien and saw her fear.
There was no escaping its urgency. He crossed the room and opened, the door. It
was McCarthy.

"I found it," he said. "I found their
place."

Outside, it was warmer. The afternoon sun threw shafts of
light through the still barren branches of the trees, defining the expanding
buds. She could detect the unmistakable signs of the earth's thaw, and it filled
her mind with memories of past springs in Vermont.

She had let herself be persuaded, not by words, but by the
nagging feeling that she must not leave until all the tangles of her past life
had been broken. It had taken every ounce of her courage to make her decision
to leave Edward, and there was little left to resist. In her mind it would be a
ritual, the final cremation.

It had been an idea that had loomed large between them with
its promise of exorcism and revelation. But hadn't she already had her
exorcism? Hadn't she faced the ultimate reality of womanhood, exploded the last
remaining myth of the necessity of male attachment? What she had concluded was
that it was better to be self-contained, better to control her own destiny
without the encumbrance of this powerful magnetism that made her dependent on
something outside herself. There were signs, too, that the magnetism had
fulfilled its purpose, leaving her with its inevitable consequences. That, too,
would have to be eliminated.

She sat in the seat beside McCarthy. By silent consent,
Edward sat alone in the back.

"It's not far," McCarthy said.

She had disposed of her key but was not surprised when
Edward had produced his, confirming what she had intuitively sensed.

Although McCarthy looked ahead impassively as he drove, he
spun out a monologue without interruption.

"Must have had a practical streak, your wife did,
Davis. I traced it through a cash purchase she made at Woodies—a box spring,
mattress, sheets, and pillows. Nothing more. Got the employees' discount and
had it delivered to J. Smith, Eighteen Twenty-five Parkend Street, Arlington.
Had it right about the time frame and distance. J. Smith. If you want to be
anonymous, J. Smith is your best shot. More J. Smiths than anything else in the
telephone books of the U.S. Actually, I had it a couple of weeks ago, but I
held on to it." He paused and cleared his throat. "I ready brooded on
it, but coming so soon after that FBI thing, I thought it might be a little too
much to take. Lousy, the way they moved in on you like that. Just one more road
to take. In this business that's the way it is. You got to admit the logic in
it, though, especially..." He took a deep breath but still did not look at
either of them. "Hope they didn't shake you up too much. Hell, you two
together was a surprise to me, too. I knew you sold the house, Mrs. Simpson.
Then, when you settled today, I figured you might be cutting out somewhere. I
hope I'm doing the right thing. But somehow I feel that if you don't tie up
this one loose end, you'll always have some lingering feeling of mystery. Not
knowing, you know, only half knowing, can be a tough thing to live with. Hell,
it's none of my business." His eyes darted to the rearview mirror.
"You forgive me, Davis? I'm a shit when I'm drunk, although I guess you
should have known that ... about the pregnancy. Should have told you at the
time. My fault. This is also my fault. Don't try to put it together. Nothing
ever happens by accident, even in my business." He laughed suddenly, making
a croaking sound. "I never did tell the Feds where it was, being a sneaky
bastard. Anyway, you'll be happy to know that they got to the bottom of the
crash. Something about the deicing solution not being enough to keep the ice
off while the plane waited on the runway. Simple as that. It's the simple
things that foul you up every time." He squinted at the windshield and
brought down the sun visor to shut off the glare of the slanting sun. "Not
far. I didn't go in. As a matter of fact, I'm not going in. This is not for me.
It's out of my system now." He pulled up in front of an older garden
apartment project, not unlike the one they had chosen themselves.

"Around the back," he said. "Ground floor.
I'll wait here."

Edward got out of the back and opened the door for Vivien.
She remembered the project. It was one of those they had inspected on the very
first day. She speculated on what might have happened if they had stumbled on
it. Would it have foreclosed on what had come after? Or was that inevitable?

They did not speak as they walked around the back of the
building. The apartment, Number Two, had its own entrance. Like theirs, mature
trees blocked off the sunlight. It was also a lower-middle-class community,
working people whose lives were played out in constant economic stress. A
perfect place for anonymity, she thought: few children, hardworking single
people or couples. It was a factor that neither of them had considered, perhaps
deliberately.

The door to the apartment showed signs of age and long
usage. Multiple paint jobs had made a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to cover
the chips and chinks. Below the bell lever was a place for a name card, but
none was in it.

Like the name they had chosen, a sense of anonymity
pervaded the entrance. With pale, trembling fingers, Edward fumbled with the
key, inserting it finally. Before he turned it, he looked up at her.

"Doesn't seem important anymore," he said with
sadness. When she did not answer, he turned the key. The lock clicked open, and
he pushed at the door with the palm of his hand.

Feel nothing, she urged herself as she followed him inside.
With the single window blocked by the trunk of a close-growing tree and the
last fading rays of a winter sun throwing sparse light, the apartment seemed
enveloped in a smoky haze. It took some moments for her eyes to focus.

When she was able to see clearly, her gaze swept the room.
The walls were painted in a nondescript dingy color. Like theirs, it was a
single room with a small Pullman kitchen and a door that led, obviously, to a
bathroom. Jutting out from one wall was a mattress on a box spring, neatly
dressed in a fitted sheet and two matching pillows. At its foot was a folded
pink blanket.

In terms of space alone, the sense of emptiness was
pervasive, almost stifling. Her eyes darted toward Edward. Yet she sensed that
something existed in this room that transcended the Spartan setting. It might
be only fantasy, spun out of her knowledge of what had taken place here, but
Orson's presence seemed to rise out at her, enveloping her in a gauze of
compelling power—not the shuddering eerie presence of a haunting ghostly spirit
bent on vengeance and disruption, but more like the cry of a helpless,
vulnerable tragic child, pleading for compassion.

She felt the hate and anger seep out of her.

A gurgle of response started in her throat, but she
remained silent. Behind her, she could feel the faint rustle of Edward's
movements, his breath shallow and steady. Was it a sign? Did he feel what she
was experiencing? As she turned toward him, her sweeping vision caught the
glint of crystal, probably from the last single ray of declining light. Beside
the mattress, at first hidden from her view, was a small bud vase. In it were
the remains of a single sweetheart rose, its dry petals resting sadly on a
weary wizened stem. Only then did a sound rise from her lips—not a stifled cry
of repressed pain, but more like a bleat of a young lamb saved from slaughter.

"We must forgive them," she whispered. He turned,
hesitant at first, then let himself rush into her waiting arms.

"Of course."

In the sweet silence between them, she heard her words.
Uncertainty, too, had vanished.

"I love you," she whispered.

"And me you ... for always."

"At least for now," she said.