The City When It Rains (31 page)

And yet, she was there, clearly and powerfully, a voice so lost, and yet so entirely distinct, that her death suddenly came to him as something personal for the first time. He thought of her by the window, her mind shooting through the darkness that surrounded her, a vast sea of flickering lights, red, blue and yellow, burning in her head, burning in the darkness behind her and which, perhaps, she had finally tried to escape by easing herself to the ground on a cool white stream of rain.

He read the paper a final time before returning it to Maitland's file drawer, then headed toward the subway.

Outside, he could still feel her around him as he scuttled along the wet bricks of Columbia Walk, then took a train to the Village. It was as if she'd entered Maitland's office while he read and wrapped him in the texture of her anguish. Sentence by sentence, the web of her tiny black script had coiled around him, her words lined up like figures before a firing squad as she struggled madly for some bizarre frozen purity before letting it all fizzle away in long blank spaces and end finally in the coup de grace of an uncompleted sentence: “Given the note/tone/mood of excresence here we may/can/will only/inadequately say/declare that it is/composed/authenticated/ with the heart of a …”

He got off the train at 14th Street and headed east, still thinking of her, rooted in her, his eyes hardly taking in the legions of street-peddlers who spread their rain-soaked merchandise along the whole desolate strip that led to the river.

He could see Joanna already waiting for him as he stopped at the corner of First Avenue. She was sitting near the restaurant's front window, the table she always preferred, her eyes watching the flow of traffic as it moved southward toward the Bowery. As he watched her from across the street she looked hazy, incorporeal, an artist's sketch of a human being he'd decided not to paint. For a moment, Corman stood in the rain, watching her as she sipped her margarita casually, fingering the rim of the glass as she always did. He thought of taking a picture of her as she sat in the window, then decided it would seem posed, Joanna only a model who took direction well.

Her eyes drew over to him when he came through the door.

“Hi,” Corman said quietly, as he stepped up to the table.

Joanna smiled. Her eyes misted. “Leo's going to be okay,” she said, her voice breaking slightly.

Corman nodded, bent forward and kissed her, then started to move away.

She held on to him, her arms squeezing tightly around his body as he continued to stand over her. “Benign, that's what they said,” she told him. “Completely benign. Like a wart, no worse than that, only inside.”

Corman sat down opposite her and took her hands in his. For an instant, he saw Sarah's face float up from just beneath Joanna's, disappear, then return in a faint, wavering image that swam in and out of his vision.

“I knew you'd be happy about it,” Joanna said. She daubed her eyes. “Sorry, sorry.” She drew the handkerchief from her eyes. “You've never seen me cry before, have you?”

Corman gazed at her. “No, I don't think so.”

“Yeah, that's part of it, I guess,” Joanna said. She hesitated a moment. “You don't know all that's been going through my mind, Corman. What happens is, you lose control. You can think anything.” She took out a cigarette and lit it shakily. “I asked myself all kinds of questions,” she said. “Things about Leo. And about us, too.” She squeezed his hand. “Especially, you know, in a situation like this. I thought maybe I'd been bad for Leo all these years. Bad for his life, I mean.” Her eyes grew very serious. “You can take a lot of things, Corman, but you never want to think that anybody would have been better off if they'd never met you.”

Her fingers were still in his, but he could feel himself releasing them one by one, small dry reeds he was feeding to the fire.

“I mean, nobody should give somebody else that much grief, right?” Joanna said.

He allowed the last finger to slip from his grasp.

“I even thought maybe I was bad for you,” she added.

He drew back slightly and lowered his hands into his lap.

“You don't always know how things will end,” she said.

“You never do,” Corman said quietly.

Joanna put out the cigarette, lit another and laughed nervously. “I always wondered why you weren't involved with a younger woman,” she said.

Corman shrugged.

“No, really.”

Corman shook his head. “I don't see the point of talking about it.”

Joanna glanced away from him, fingering the salted rim of her margarita. “I guess not,” she said. “Anyway, I've been doing some thinking. I really have.” Her face tensed. “David, I'm going to stay with Leo from now on. That's what I've decided.” She paused a moment, drew in a second deep breath. “Just Leo.”

In his mind Corman saw her curled in Leo's naked arms, snoozing beside him in their bed, living in the tightly sealed jar of predictability and taking comfort in knowing with absolute certainty how it would finally end.

“Did you hear me?” Joanna asked.

“Yes.”

“It's what works,” Joanna told him curtly. She waited for him to answer, then added, “Doesn't it?”

Corman didn't answer.

Joanna crushed out another cigarette. “But not for me, is that what you mean?” she asked with a sudden sharpness. “That look you just gave me.”

“I don't know what works for you.”

“No, I guess not,” Joanna said brittlely, then waved her hand. “Forget it, Corman.”

Suddenly, he realized she would be easy to forget since nothing of any real importance had ever happened between them. He felt closer to Sarah Rosen, had seen her more utterly revealed.

Joanna's eyes bore into him. “You have to make accommodations, don't you?” she asked. “You just can't live as if there's no tomorrow.”

Corman stared at her silently.

“You were my hedge against being bored,” Joanna told him matter-of-factly. “That's what it all comes down to.” She reached for another cigarette, then stopped herself. “You can't have everything. Only a kid believes that.” She waited for him to say something and continued when he didn't. “I wanted it all. That's always been my problem. I wanted Leo at home with the laundry. Good, steady Leo. But I also wanted someone waiting for me in a little restaurant or a hotel room. You, or someone like you.” She looked at him as if she were making a final confession. “I've always had a lover. Long before you, Corman. Always.” She drew in a deep, determined breath. “But I'm giving all that up now. Completely giving it up.”

Corman leaned forward slightly and fought to keep his attention on her. But she already seemed very small and far away, made of gauze or flash paper.

“It's what I've decided, that's all,” Joanna said firmly. “I just wanted to let you know.” Then she reached toward him and touched his face gently. “My last lover,” she whispered.

He hardly felt her hand, and let his eyes drift toward the street.

Joanna seemed to sense the distance that already divided them. She looked at him closely. “David? Are you all right?”

He turned back toward her, but saw Sarah's face again instead, all her agony building within him.

“David?” Joanna repeated.

His lips parted wordlessly.

Joanna's eyes hardened. “You don't care, do you? That I'm leaving. You're not even thinking about it.”

Corman didn't answer.

“You're thinking about something else,” Joanna said. “Your own thing.” She glared at him fiercely, then began gathering her things, snapping up her cigarettes and lighter and dropping them angrily into her purse. “You turn everything into something else,” she said hotly. “Some big fucking deal. In your head. A federal case.”

She stopped for a moment and gave him an icy stare. “You know something? I never felt you were really with me. Even in bed—somewhere else.” She jerked herself to her feet. “I'm getting out of here.”

He didn't try to stop her, and in an instant she was gone, the sound of her high-heeled shoes clicking first along the tile floor, then beyond the door and out into the street.

For a long time after she'd left, Corman continued to sit in place, his eyes concentrating first on her empty glass, then his own hands, finally settling on the few dark figures who sat here and there in the shadowy light at the back of the restaurant. In photographs, each one would look dramatically alone, an isolated shape in a shroud of faded light. Inevitably, he knew, a grim futility would gather in every frame, and because of that, he tried to imagine a way to show each figure differently—to compose, once and for all, a picture that could say what is without declaring that it had to be.

CHAPTER
THIRTY

“I
T'S AWFULLY LATE,
” the woman behind the reception desk told him.

“Well, he doesn't sleep much,” Corman said.

“Yes, but, we have regular …”

“I can't always make it during regular visiting hours.”

The woman eyed him a moment longer, trying to determine what she should do.

“Look, nobody else comes to see him,” Corman said softly. “Just me. Nobody else.”

“Well, okay,” the woman said reluctantly. “Go on down.”

The room was at the end of the corridor and Lazar's face filled with quiet recognition as Corman came through the door.

“How you doing?” Corman asked.

The old man's light blue eyes rested silently on Corman's face. He sat up very slightly and pulled his head forward. A long strand of gleaming white hair fell at a slant over one eye.

Corman walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. “I'm sorry I missed you last weekend,” he said. “I had some things I had to do.”

The old man nodded. “D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d … ”

“I had to handle some things about Lucy,” Corman continued. “Nothing big. Just some stuff with Lexie and her and … you know.”

One of Lazar's eyes narrowed. “D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.”

“Nothing bad,” Corman assured him quickly. “She's not in any trouble or anything.” He tried to smile. “This'll surprise you. I did a shoot with Harry Groton this week.”

A small hesitant smile formed on Lazar's lips. “D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.”

“At the Waldorf,” Corman said. “Some big wedding or something.”

The old man grinned dismissively. A silvery string of drool descended slowly from the corner of his mouth and gathered in a glistening pool on his white bedshirt.

Corman took a cloth from the end of the bed and wiped the old man's mouth.

“Groton's leaving the paper,” he said. “Pike offered me his job.”

Lazar shook his head slowly. “D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.”

Corman smiled thinly. “You probably think I shouldn't take it.”

Lazar nodded. A single hand came from under the sheet, crawled toward Corman's wrist, then encircled it.

“I haven't decided yet,” Corman said. “But I have to have some money, Lazar.”

Lazar's face softened almost imperceptibly.

“You know how it is,” Corman added. “With money.”

Lazar nodded. A second tangled strand of white hair fell across his forehead, dangling between his eyes.

Corman pushed it back. “Do you have a comb?”

Lazar shook his head.

“I'll bring you one next time.”

The old man stared at him scoldingly for an instant, then smiled.

“I have to let Pike know in the next few days,” Corman told him. “I don't know what to do.”

Lazar's head drooped forward slightly.

“It's steady money. That's the one good thing about it.”

Lazar raised his head slowly, the white eyebrows twitching slightly. “D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.”

“A woman jumped out a window down in Hell's Kitchen about a week ago,” Corman said.

The old man's eyes widened somewhat.

“I took some pictures,” Corman added. He drew the small stack from the camera bag and showed them to Lazar one by one.

He looked at them intently, eyes narrowing more forcefully with each one. Then he nodded slowly.

“I don't know much about her,” Corman said. “She went to Columbia. She wrote an essay.” He returned the photographs to his bag. “There's this guy I know in publishing. He says maybe a book, something like that.” He heard his own words, how disjointed they were. He leaned forward and drew the old man gently into his arms. “Christ, Lazar,” he whispered. “I'll never be the same because of you.”

The old man began to cry softly, his shoulders shaking.

“I know, I know,” Corman said, then waited until Lazar had regained himself and eased him back onto his pillow. “Lucy says hi,” he told him.

Lazar smiled tremulously.

“I was going to bring her by on Sunday,” Corman said. “But she's going to be with Lexie. You know, up in Westchester.”