For the rest of the night I didn’t sleep. Is there really such a thing as a sleepless night? Much later, a psychiatrist would tell me that people who complain of sleepless nights actually do sleep—but dream they are awake. To me this is one of those fine distinctions that mean nothing.
In any case, my memory of that night is less of anxious inertia than of ceaseless and exhaustive labor. I was in our Paris apartment—not the apartment as I had lived in it, but as it had been photographed for Vogue: bleached of color, bereft of human presence, expensive, cold, magnificent, and austere. All night I walked the corridors and paced the rooms, trying to commit them to memory, a surveyor without tools. I have a poor sense of direction—though there might be an alarm clock in my head, there is no compass—and so I have never quite accepted that the apartment faced south on one side and north on the other, because to me it felt as if it faced east on one side and west on the other. That was something else I did during that night: try to situate the apartment in space, correct my perspective, align myself.
Obviously I felt guilty—for how I had talked about the apartment, for my cavalier treatment of Julia. “Beautiful things are their own reward,” she had said—words at which I had scoffed. Yet who was I to doubt their authenticity, I whose aesthetic sense was no more sophisticated than Daisy’s? Most people are exactly what they appear to be, I have found. To imagine otherwise—to think that in our absence our loved ones lead secret lives, sleep with the concierge’s son, shoplift diamonds—is just self-amusement. I wish Julia hadn’t spent so much time playing solitaire, but she did, and so it made sense that she should have wanted an expensive, cold, magnificent, austere apartment to play it in. Nor was the woman who stayed home and played cards all that remote from the girl who had defied her family and run off with me to Paris. For the signal quality of Julia’s character was immobility of purpose—and is it such a long journey from immobility of purpose to immobility? Too often, what looks like change is really just a hardening of the spirit.
In any case, she slept that night. Her breathing slowed, her skin cooled. The engine idled. The resumption of sexual relations, I am told, often has a soporific effect on women. For me it was unsettling. I was now so habituated to Edward’s body, its hardness and hairiness and seeming indestructibility, that I found myself treating Julia with an excess of caution, as if I were Gulliver and she some Lilliputian bride … Not that my wife was delicate. Far from it. Though small, she was sturdy—as sturdy as Edward. My fear of crushing her physically, I knew, was really a fear of crushing her morally … I wondered if this was how my father had felt, returning from his mistress to find my mother passed out at the kitchen table: regretful, guilty, sorry—and wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of there. And, at the same time, glad to be home. For there is always something comforting about returning home, especially when you have been tramping about in the wilderness, rowing and boxing. It is like meeting someone with whom you share a native language after weeks of stumbling about in a foreign one. The fluency comes as a relief, even if the things you need to say most you cannot say.
At long last, the sun rose. Julia got out of bed. I kept my eyes shut until I heard the bathroom door click shut. Then I jumped up and got dressed.
“Oh,” she said when she came out. “I thought you were asleep.” She too was dressed. She had dressed on the sly, where I couldn’t watch her.
“No, I’m up.” I felt my pocket for the keys. “Well, are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” she said. “But, Pete … couldn’t we have breakfast here this morning? At the hotel?”
“Why? What’s wrong with the Suiça?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. I’ve just been thinking, why waste the money when breakfast here is included in the price? And since we’ve been in Lisbon, we’ve been spending money right and left.”
“A cup of coffee’s not going to make any difference.”
“Restaurants, drinks, gasoline for all those excursions you make with Edward. Things add up. Do we even have enough cash to pay the hotel bill? Have you checked?”
“We will when I sell the car.”
“But you haven’t sold the car.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll sell it.”
“I can’t see why you haven’t sold it already, given how eager you claim to be to get away.”
It was this last remark that took the wind out of my sails. We went downstairs. The dining room was crowded with our fellow guests, none of whom I had bothered to get to know and few of whom I recognized. There was only one free table. It abutted, on one side, the door to the kitchen, and on the other a woman so fat that I could barely squeeze past her to get into my chair.
“God forbid she should get up to make room,” I said.
“Not so loud,” Julia said. “She’s speaking English.”
The woman was indeed speaking English—that schoolroom English that is the lingua franca of exile. “Me, I have a visa, I have money,” she was telling a companion whose back was turned toward us, “and now they say me I cannot sail on the Manhattan—the Manhattan is only for Americans.”
“Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“They’re only letting Americans on the Manhattan.”
“I know. Iris told me. What of it?”
“But there can’t possibly be more than six or seven hundred Americans in Portugal. The ship will sail half-empty.”
“What a pity. It means I can’t give her my ticket.”
“The Liberty statue, she turns her back on me and spits,” the woman said.
A waiter in a stained uniform approached our table, poured us coffee from a dented silver pot, and was gone again. I took one sip of the coffee and spit it out.
“This coffee is terrible. It’s even worse than at French hotels.”
“Really? I don’t see what’s wrong with it.”
“Then why are you putting in sugar? You never put in sugar.”
“I’m allowed to put sugar in if I want. Anyway, you’re putting it in.”
“Yes, but I always put it in. And why hasn’t he brought us anything to eat? Garçon!”
“Just relax. You’re not going to starve.”
“At the Suiça we’d have been served by now.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, if you’re so keen to go to the Suiça, just go.”
“I’m only pointing out that if the purpose of this exercise is to get our money’s worth, the least we can expect is something to eat. Or is this really about the Frelengs?”
“What about them?”
“That we’re more likely to run into them at the Suiça.”
“I’m not afraid of running into them.”
Unceremoniously, the waiter dropped a basket of croissants onto our table. I bit into one. “These are stale,” I said. “They’re not even proper croissants. Only the French know how to make proper croissants. Italian ones are bad enough, and these are—Julia?”
But she was gone. Vanished. It was as if a portrait had run out of its frame.
I found her in the room, furiously rubbing lotion into her hands.
“What happened? Why did you leave?”
“It was her. Aunt Rosalie.”
“Where?”
“In the dining room. I don’t think she saw me. I think I got out in time. Go down and see if she’s still there.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise I’ll have to stay in the room all day.”
“All right. But Julia—how will I know her?”
“She was sitting two tables away from us. Alone. Wearing a cap—a sort of sailor cap.”
I returned downstairs. Sure enough, two tables from ours sat a woman in a sailor cap. She was not Aunt Rosalie. She was Georgina Kendall.
“Ahoy!” she called, waving with nautical gusto. “Eddie’s friend, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m so bad with faces, I wasn’t sure. Join me for coffee, won’t you? Was that your wife? She left in rather a hurry.”
“She wasn’t feeling well.”
“Too much absinthe, I’ll bet.” She winked. In the glare of the dining room I saw how spotted her skin was, like the endpapers of a book. “Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing here, and I’ll tell you. We got thrown out of our hotel in Estoril. It was Lucy’s fault. That girl! She had too much champagne and tipped over a vase. One of those big Chinese vases. Ten to one it was a fake, but try convincing a hotel manager of that. Luckily, our driver took pity on us and brought us here. Not the Aviz, but, as I told Lucy, it’s only for a few days, until the Manhattan sails. She wanted to take the Clipper, but one has to draw the line somewhere. I’m not made of money! And what about you? Will you be sailing on the Manhattan?”
“Us? Yes.”
She leaned in confidentially. “You’ve heard, of course, that they’ve decided not to let foreigners on board. Such a lot of griping about that, though if you ask me, it’s the only way. Especially after what happened last month, when the Manhattan went to Genoa. The idea was the same as here, to pick up stranded Americans, only they didn’t bother to control the sales of the tickets, and foreigners bought them all up. Jews. A friend of mine was on board, she wrote to me about it. The ship was packed to the gills with ’em! They were camped out on the floor of the Palm Room, the Grand Salon, even the post office. So many babies, the laundry couldn’t cope with the diapers. Now, I hope you believe me when I tell you that I have all the sympathy in the world for those people—all the sympathy in the world—but when we reach the point where an American citizen can’t get his laundry done on an American ship … Well, the line has to be drawn somewhere, don’t you agree?”
“And how is your book going?”
“Oh, like a dream. You know, I really don’t understand what Eddie was carrying on about that night. All I can think is that he’s planning a book of his own and he’s mad that I’ve beat him to the punch. And are he and Violet sailing on the Manhattan, too?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Oh, good. We’ll have loads of fun, the five of us. The six of us. And really, you must admit”—here her voice downshifted into seriousness—“it’ll be a far more pleasant journey, far more pleasant, if it’s just our sort.”
The waiter arrived with coffee—which gave me the chance I had been looking for to make my excuses and return to the room.
Julia was standing by the window, peering out at the street.
“What took you so long? Was she there?”
“No. I mean, yes. But it wasn’t her. That’s why I was so long. I knew her. I’d met her with Edward.”
“Who?”
“That woman. The one who isn’t your aunt.”
“But it was my aunt. You must have been talking to the wrong person.”
“Julia, how many women in sailor caps do you think there are in that dining room?” I touched her on the shoulder and she flinched. “Really, darling, you shouldn’t be so nervous—”
“Stop it. It was her. I saw her.”
“I’m sure you think you saw her. But you were mistaken. It’s probably because you’re so nervous—”
“Don’t believe anything she tells you. Promise me you won’t. She’s a liar.”
“Julia—”
“My mother thinks she killed Uncle Edgar. Very convenient that he was buried at sea. It meant there couldn’t be an autopsy.”
“But I thought he died of a diabetic coma.”
“We only have her word for that. Hers and the ship doctor’s—and God knows they can’t be trusted … And to think that she actually had the nerve to come back to New York every winter, and take a suite at the St. Regis—the St. Regis, of all places!—and throw tea parties. Of course, we always refused her invitations. Well, I went once. Just out of curiosity. And God, what a disappointment that was. I’d expected her at least to be glamorous. Instead of which, here was this lumpy little thing in Dior. And she couldn’t even see that she was being snubbed. That was the irony of it. She thought she was having her cake and eating it too, that she could live it up in France and come home and be welcomed with open arms.”
“How sad.”
“And then, after we moved to Paris, she started sending me these letters, insisting I should visit her in Cannes, repeating all that nonsense about how we were just alike, how I was the daughter she’d never had. Once she even showed up at our apartment, the way she used to show up at my mother’s.”
“Really? When was this?”
“Six, seven years ago. I didn’t want to tell you. I had the maid say I was out. But I could hear their conversation. Rosalie didn’t believe it for a second—she knew I was there. Which must have just sharpened her determination to find me. To show me up.”
“But Julia, isn’t it possible she doesn’t want to show you up? That she’s just looking for—I don’t know—a kindred spirit?”
“Oh, God!” Julia turned away. “Thank you for confirming my worst fears. Thank you for confirming that my own husband thinks what everyone else in my family does. That I’m just like her.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Listen to me. I’m saying that when you look at it objectively, the circumstances of your lives do bear a certain surface similarity—”
“And therefore we’re the same on the inside? Is that it? Two peas in a pod? And now we’re going to arrive in New York on the same ship. When we get off, she’ll be clinging to me … Oh, I can’t bear it.”
“But Julia, none of this is going to happen. Please, darling, none of this is even real. That woman you saw in the dining room isn’t your aunt. Your aunt’s not here. Look, shall I take you downstairs and introduce you to her so that you can see for yourself?”
“No! God, no … All these years I thought I was free, but it was a lie. Paris was only a reprieve, a stay of execution. I’ll never be free.”
“Julia—”
She held up her hand. “Please. Stop talking.”
“But you don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I don’t need to. Whatever you say will be wrong. It always is. Even when you think you’re saying the right thing. Especially when you think you’re saying the right thing.”
Suddenly she was very quiet.
“Lie down,” I said. “Maybe you should take a pill.”
“I don’t want one.”
“It’ll calm you.” I fetched the Seconals from the bathroom, shook one onto my palm, and handed it to her. She swallowed it. I closed the shutters and laid her atop the coverlet. “Just rest,” I said, removing the tiny shoes from her feet. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see about selling the car.”
This wasn’t true. I was going to the Suiça. I was going to look for Edward.
As I was crossing the lobby, Senhor Costa waved me over to his desk. He was holding the telephone, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. “Sir, for you. Madame Freleng.”
“Madame Freleng?”
He nodded. I took the phone.
“Pete, is that you? It’s Iris. Look, are you alone? Is Julia there?”
“No.”
“Good, because I need to talk to you privately. First of all, how is she?”
“How is she? How should she be?”
“That’s why I’m calling. The way you were behaving last night—it was very … well, worrisome. Perhaps you don’t see it so clearly, just how close to the edge she is. Edward’s terribly upset about it.”
“Edward is?”
“He was up all night. And so I’m calling to ask you, please, to be gentler with her.”
“I want to speak to Edward. Pass me to Edward.”
“I can’t. He’s out. But it was he who asked me to call. I’m sure you don’t believe that. I’m sure you think this is some machination on my part, some scheme, but it isn’t. I am genuinely afraid for Julia’s life, Pete. We both are.”
Right then Georgina came out of the dining room. Her cap was askew on her head. Halfway to the elevator, she stopped in her tracks and began rooting through her pocketbook. Perhaps she was looking for her key.
“Anything Edward has to tell me, he can tell me himself,” I said to Iris and hung up the phone—at which Senhor Costa, in that time-honored manner of eavesdroppers, got very busy with his ledger.
“Sir,” he called as I was heading for the door.
“Yes?”
“As you may know, the Manhattan is to sail in a few days.”
“Yes.”
“May I assume that you and your wife—”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps we could speak of settling the bill—not right at this moment—”
“Of course. If you get it ready, I’ll pick it up when I get back.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Whatever Georgina was trying to find in her pocketbook she still hadn’t found. I walked right past her, through the revolving door and into the bright morning. A few pigeons smudged the sky. Otherwise it was blamelessly blue. And I thought: She is afraid of me. Iris. She is more afraid of me than I am of her.