HECTOR WORKED ON THE WEEKENDS, doing two shows every night. Thursdays he also performed, but only once in the evening. Mondays and Tuesdays he rested, staying away from the theater. He began his day with a cup of coffee and a piece of toast for breakfast, reading a book by the window.
Around lunchtime he headed to the outdoor market that stretched behind the former convent of Saint Ilse. There he purchased vegetables and fruits, meats and fish, and all manner of other foods. He paused at the bakery on the way back home for a fresh loaf of bread and bought a newspaper at the newsstand. Then he proceeded to cook himself lunch. Hector learned how to make his own meals out of necessity, when he had been penniless and young, but he had grown to enjoy the process and though he did not reject the notion of restaurants, he preferred home-cooked meals when he could manage them. He also took pride in his self-sufficiency.
When he was done eating, Hector read the paper, then went out for a stroll. He liked Boniface because of its narrow streets and alleys that led nowhere. It was easy to get lost there, and every block offered a strange new treasure. There was a store that sold only music boxes next to a perfumer’s shop, but take one turn, and you’d come to an oddly quiet alley that ended in a cemetery. There were sedate, hidden gardens and boisterous establishments. Places for contemplation and spaces for noise and life.
In the evenings, Hector stopped at a coffee shop and regularly patronized the Pearl and the Swine, where all manner of musicians performed. On occasion he visited one of the playhouses at the Green District.
That day the sun shone brightly. Hector thought he might depart for his walk earlier than usual, so he could take advantage of the wonderful weather. He sat by the window in his leather chair, about ready to put away his book and prepare himself, when a knock made him raise his head.
He stood up and walked toward the entrance. He was in his old, collarless lounging robe. He had not expected any visitors.
“Yes? Who is it?” he asked.
The silence made him move quickly, telling him he should hurry, and he flung the door open.
Nina looked at him, her eyes cool and her face composed. He was somewhat sad to see she was perfectly coiffed, her hair gathered at her nape. He’d liked her hair loose, a bit unkempt, as if the wind had been toying with it all day.
She looked like a lady now, and he thought perhaps her fashionable dress and prim hair were supposed to serve as a type of shield.
He stepped aside, allowing her in without a word.
When he closed the door, Nina spoke, her voice brusque. “What do you think you are doing, sending me beetles for many days now?” she asked.
“I thought you might like them,” he replied.
“Why would I want anything from you?”
“I forgot your birthday. I purchased twenty beetles, thinking—”
“That you might buy my forgiveness with a few presents? That perhaps you can assuage your guilty conscience?”
“I do not ask you to forgive me,” he said, “but I want to try to make amends.”
Nina turned toward him and stared at him with utter ferocity. “How dare you say that, when you gave Valérie my letter, when you played me for a fool, when you did not even bother sending word for almost a whole year.”
“What letter?” he asked, frowning.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. The letter I wrote to you.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You lie.”
“I would not.”
She looked surprised, her anger perhaps retreating back a tad, yet only a tad. She shook her head in exasperation. “Fine. That does not invalidate my other points.”
“Nina, I am sorry. For everything. I want—”
She brushed past him and he noticed the way she was moving her fingers, frustrated and angry. He could tell she wanted to dash objects about his home, her nervous energy palpable, those fingers of hers almost electric.
“No, you don’t get to want anything,” she replied. “You tricked me. Both of you. You were not pursuing me, you were chasing after her. I thought you liked me. I thought you were my friend. You should have told me the truth.”
“How could I tell you?”
“I don’t know how!” she shouted.
She sat on the chair by the window, where he’d been lounging, looking outside. On his table, papers rustled under the influence of her thoughts, and he feared she might send them scattering about the room.
But no.
She held her hands together tight, as if to keep herself from tearing his house apart.
“I do like you, Nina,” he muttered.
She did not look at him. Her eyes were on the sky.
“I thought, sometimes … I’m not sure exactly what I thought. Valérie, she was like a stubborn splinter under my skin you can’t remove no matter how hard you try. But then, at times … it was pleasant spending time with you. I thought, if I took a chance—”
“You thought you could make her jealous. Maybe you decided you could settle for second best. Never once did you think about me,” she said.
How to answer her? He could not deny it. He pressed a hand against the windowpane, staring at the same clouds she was staring at.
“How can you think to make amends? How can you send me presents, as if to purchase your peace of mind?”
“I don’t know, Nina.”
Truly, he did not. The beetles had been a bout of madness. He had wanted to cheer her up; selfishly perhaps, he had thought to summon her.
There were spells, superstitions of the troupe. Herbs for love and for good fortune and for summoning, and though he never quite believed the folktales, he had wished to believe them in this case. Wished her there, in his home, for it was impossible.
But she’d come and her pain was raw, and he could not think how to say any of the things he’d thought he’d tell her if he ever had the chance.
The extent of his regret.
The explanation for his grievous actions.
“I did write to you. I wrote several times. If I didn’t send the letters, it is because it is as you say. How could I ask you to forgive me in a single letter?” he asked.
She offered him no answer.
“I am sorry,” he said.
He turned to look at her. Her hands were trembling and he saw the way she swallowed. Would she weep? What had he done, coaxing her to him? He ought to have left well enough alone.
“I do like you. You must not think … What you must understand is that I truly cherished the moments we had together,” he told her. “There were many times when I would be amazed at how easily you could make me smile. You do not realize how difficult a task that is. I am not good with others.”
He was growing desperate, anxious, and all he wanted was for her to believe the truth in his words. All he wanted was for her to somehow understand. As if, if she understood, some of the monstrous misery he shouldered might melt away.
“You do not know what it is like to want something for so long, you forget why you even wanted it in the first place, until the only thing left is a gnawing need and there is nothing that can fill it. And even though everything in your body tells you that you are killing yourself wanting it, you cannot stop.”
Nina stood up, her movements casual. Her face was distant. He wasn’t sure she had heard him. Perhaps she did not care. She hardened with every second that passed, and he found this alarming.
He did not want to see her grow this weary.
“You said you wrote me a letter,” he told her. “What did it say?”
“Nothing important.”
“Nina, please,” he said knowing instinctively that it was important.
And there was a coolness to her eyes, which had been gentle and honest. There were the seeds of disappointment in the curve of her mouth, melancholy in her movements when before he’d only ever found a vibrant joy of the world.
Hector knew what she’d written. Not the words but the meaning. It was engraved in the space between them.
He took a step toward her. A painting fell down, knocked off the wall by her power. It was but a reflex; he recognized the untamed expression of her talents. But it stopped him in his tracks, and if he’d thought for a second that he might move closer to her, now he realized this was impossible.
He had no right.
Hector sighed. “If there was anything in my power that I could give you, if there was anything I could do to make you happy, I would do it. You must believe that. And if you ever would ask anything of me, know that I would answer affirmatively,” he told her.
“I don’t need anything from you,” she said.
He could feel around them, all around the room, her restless energy burning the edges of everything in sight.
“I sent the beetles because I am a silly man who understands nothing. But I also thought you might take pleasure in them. I want you to be happy, I want … to know that you are happy, to know you are well.”
Nina looked at him blankly, as though he’d spoken in a language she did not understand.
“You were my friend,” he said. “I was a fool.”
“You pretended to like me,” she replied.
“No, no, don’t return to that,” he said sternly. “I liked you. I like you still. You can believe anything you wish about me, but not that my affection was false. I’ve liked you since I met you—more than that, I admire you—that’s the truth.”
She conveyed a wordless wonder. The conviction in his voice drew her toward him. She took a tentative step, then another, but she stopped at the third as if she’d remembered an important point.
Nina bit her lip and there was a girlish quality about the gesture, but then she fixed her eyes on him, steady and calm. “I thought I could never forgive you, but I realize that is not the case. I stand here before you, and I do not hate you as I thought I would. But I cannot forget either,” she said.
They were quiet. Her talent, which had been perceptible a few moments before, simmered and died.
“Please send no more gifts, Mr. Auvray. Send nothing more,” she said. She was trying to keep emotion out of her voice and could not manage it, but when she walked out, she did it with composure. She’d broken the colored glass windows in Oldhouse, might have broken the world in half in that moment, but she’d learned to rein herself in.
He’d taught her card tricks, but he hadn’t taught her that.
He went to the window and looked down, scanning the street below, until he saw her marching out into the street. She turned a corner and she was gone.
The sun, as if mocking him, had shrouded itself behind a cloud.
It was he, then, who sent papers and writing instruments scattering across the table with a flicker of his eyes, happy to hear the noise of them landing against the floor and filling the silence she’d left behind.