Girl in the Moonlight (29 page)

I had been there only a few minutes when, at the stroke of five, a woman appeared in the revolving door that led into the grand lobby. She had a scarf tied around her head and wore a long beige raincoat. At first I didn’t recognize her. But when she removed the scarf, I knew it was Cesca. I came walking toward her, and, when she saw me, her face lit up with a wide smile. Raising both arms, she cried, “Wylie,
amor!
” I embraced her, inhaling the faint though familiar scent of jasmine and roses.

I led her to my table. “It’s wonderful to see you,” I said. A waiter had appeared, and I asked Cesca what she would like to drink.

“I’ll just have some green tea,” she said and, speaking to the waiter, ordered in Catalan.

There’s something different about seeing someone after a while once we get past the age of thirty. Bodies change, skin begins to sag. For some it happens more quickly than for others. I met an old prep school friend of mine for a drink one evening after work. We hadn’t seen each other since graduation. At school he had been lean, handsome, a gymnast. His hair long in the style that was current then. The man who came up to me saying “Wylie!” could not have been more different. Before me stood a fat, bald man, bearded and wearing glasses. It turned out he worked at our old school’s development office. His purpose was not so much to renew an old acquaintance as it was to hit me up for a donation.

The Cesca who sat across from me now was not the same woman I had once known. The beauty was still there, but it
was subdued, like an oil painting in need of restoring, the colors muted, the canvas slightly cracked. She was not yet forty but looked older. Her daily proximity to the dead and dying had leeched some of her natural vitality. There was a grayness to her now, as though she had spent too much time underground, deprived of light and air. She was thin, her jeans hung loosely about her legs. The lines in her face were more pronounced. Her hair was cropped short, and her clothes, I noticed, were worn, practical. On her feet an old pair of sneakers. The only ornamentation she wore was a small gold crucifix around her neck. She could have been a maid on her way home from work.

But time and usage had not damaged the crooked smile, the bewitching eyes. “Let me look at you,” she said, smiling. She shook her head. “I can’t believe it. After all this time. Here you are. You don’t know how much I’ve been looking forward to it.”

She asked to see photographs of my son, and I spent several minutes chattering about the mundane, unexpected joys of fatherhood, as well as the inevitable complaints of late nights, car sickness, the anxiety of getting into the right preschool. Already Kate wanted to have another.

“Is that what you want?” she asked.

“Yes, I suppose so. I never really wanted a child in the first place, but now that I have Mitch I can’t imagine life without him.”

“You’re very lucky. I don’t think I’ll ever have children.” She had told me about what had happened years ago with Blackwood.

“You still could.”

She shook her head and smiled. “No. That’s not God’s plan for me, I think. A child requires a mother’s full attention and love. I have too many other people that need me here. It wouldn’t be right.”

I didn’t know what to say and filled the silence by ordering
another scotch. “Would you like something to eat?” I offered. “They have some wonderful tapas here.”

“No thank you. I’m not hungry. This tea is perfect.”

There would be no elevator trip, I knew. The air of license that had once enveloped her like perfume had dissipated. The party was over. The band had gone home.

We talked about her work, where she lived. Her patients. “I don’t go out very much anymore,” she said. “This is a real treat.”

“Are you happy here?” I asked. “Doing what you do?”

She nodded her head. “Very. Why? Don’t I seem it?”

“I can’t tell. You’ve changed so much.”

“Yes, I suppose I have. I don’t think that’s a bad thing though, do you? It’s not like I was happy before.”

“Weren’t you? You always seemed to be having a good time.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? A good time and happiness are completely different. The one is a form of restlessness, a kind of fear of inadequacy. The other is its antithesis—peace. That’s how I feel now. At peace.”

I sat there comprehending while she sipped her tea. For some reason, her words made me think of the story of Ferdinand the bull. How he had this powerful body built for fighting, but all he wanted to do was smell the flowers. The paths we follow are not always the obvious ones.

“I’m glad for you,” I said. “So does that mean you won’t be coming back to New York? To Amagansett?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I won’t rule out anything. I don’t miss the city, but I do miss Amagansett. It’s my home more than anywhere else, even if there are so few of us left now. Maybe I’ll go back next year. For Christmas. We’ll see.”

“And you mean to stay in Barcelona and keep working at the hospice?”

She put down her cup. “That’s another question. I feel that
I can do so much here, but there is great need elsewhere. It’s no great hardship living in Barcelona. It’s a beautiful city, safe, clean. I’d love to stay, but we’ll see. Maybe there are other places in the world where I’m needed more.” She shrugged and smiled. “Who knows?”

There is something daunting about encountering people more selfless than you are. It is why we show respect to priests, to the sick and crippled, to winners of the Medal of Honor; they have given up more than we ever will. While the rest of humanity tries to figure out how to make our lives easier and more comfortable, they know what it is to suffer; even greater, how to ease suffering. They have come through the refining fire and emerged on the other side, changed, purer.

I didn’t know what to say to Cesca. She had chosen the greatest fight of all: to fight death knowing there was never any hope of victory. From me, though, any encouragement would have sounded hollow, false. I had no basis on which to form a judgment; her world of pain and open sores and daily mortality was far from my hyperbaric world of worrying about elevation heights, courting clients, and commuting to the office. I couldn’t blurt out that her life would be nothing but an endless cycle of pain and suffering. Because, after all, was it? Her choice was the heroic one. There are those people for whom the arduous way is the only way.

I was ashamed that I found such a course unthinkable. But she had always been braver than me. She, like all her family, was a risk taker. Uncowed by second thoughts, willing to dive from the high board on a dare, or climb the tree and leap onto the roof. And I would always be the one wishing I was them.

It was time for her to go. She stood up, gathering her still-damp coat. I didn’t want her to leave yet. There was still so much to discuss. “Wait, stay and have dinner with me,” I said.

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I need to return to the hospice. One
of my patients needs me. Besides, I thought you said you had plans tonight.”

“I do. But I can get out of them.”

She shook her head. “No, but it would be nice to spend some more time.” We were facing each other, and she took my hands in hers and said, “Tricky Wylie. It’s so good to see you again. I see you still have the cuff links.”

“Of course.”

She smiled and rolled up the sleeve of her sweater to reveal the used Cartier watch I had given her years before. “It is the last little luxury I permit myself. It makes me think of you.”

I blushed. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Just be happy. You’ll still write me? I enjoy your letters. I always have.”

“I enjoy yours too. You write a wonderful letter. Too bad I didn’t find that out until recently.”

She giggled. “I know. I was shameful. But I’ve tried to mend my ways.”

“I promise I’ll write. Good luck.”

“Thank you.” She leaned forward and embraced me, and I held her tightly, feeling the warmth of her body, its lean but supple strength. She could live on locusts and rainwater. “Take care, Tricky Wylie,” she whispered in my ear.

“No, you take care.”

She looked at me for a second with the old mischievous flash of fire, the promise of sin in her eye, and released my hand. “I will. God bless you.
Adéu
.”

I watched her walk away, stopping just before the revolving door, over which sat an ormolu clock and flanked by a brace of massive green marble columns. She turned and, with a smile, gave a final wave before disappearing into the street.

T
HE SKY OUTSIDE WAS TURNING ORANGE AND PURPLE. I
had decided what to keep and what to throw out. What I did not want went into the Dumpster. The work was tiring, down four flights of stairs, out to the front yard, and back up again, two steps at a time, empty-handed. Despite the cool, I removed my coat. The exertion made it easier to act though. The only thing I felt when I threw a box over the side of the Dumpster and watched it spill open on impact was the desire to go up and bring back another. There is a strange satisfaction in smashing one’s past. It was liberating even if it hurt. There is no point in being halfhearted about it. Don’t just give them a little shove, take a hammer to them, burn them to the ground. Do the job good and proper.

By the time I was finished, the sun was almost down. It would be my last sunset here. The ghosts of summer lingered in the air.

With my few treasures in the back of my car, I walked out of the house for the last time. I got in my car and retreated
down the driveway, abandoning it like a defeated fort. Its loss would take years to truly sink in. It was, after all, my home. Rooms I knew so well would appear unbidden in my dreams, come to mind in idle conversation, or be reflected in the morning light if it shone in a certain way. I was now unmoored, a ship without a port. I was prepared to be asked, “Didn’t you used to have a place out there?” I would answer vaguely in the affirmative. We can only have one place of innocence, and this was mine.

There was one more visit to make, one more last good-bye. I drove farther east as darkness descended, down country roads that hinted at a disappearing rural past, adding time to my return trip to the city. Half an hour later, I stopped by a low split-rail fence and turned left.

I had only been there before in daytime. My headlights reflected off the gravestones. Fallen leaves lay on the ground. The air was still, silent. There was a smell of woodsmoke from someone’s house to keep out the cold. A light in the distance. Otherwise it was black. From inside the car, I couldn’t see stars, but I knew they were there.

Many artists and writers have been buried here. Pollock, Krasner, Liebling, his wife. More recently, Paolo and Esther. Also local families; working men and their wives; children who lived only a few years interred beneath humble, untended graves. In the corner was a large plot surrounding a dark marble monolith with a Star of David, and the name
BAUM
carved deeply in the midsection. Around it were several smaller stones. I stopped the engine but left the lights on so that they shone on the graves. I knew where I was going.

The biggest stone had the names Isidore Baum and Ruth Baum inscribed on it. Next to that was a smaller stone with Aurelio’s name and the dates of his short life. It was hard to believe
how many years had passed since his death. A brief epitaph:
AMB L
’
AMOR DE LA SEVA FAMÍLIA
. With love from his family.

There was one other grave, this one more recent. Cesca’s.

SHE HAD BEEN AS GOOD AS HER WORD. SHE HAD GONE
where the need was greatest. Several months after I saw her in Barcelona, she had volunteered to go to Rwanda. In one of her last letters, she had written:

The people here are desperate. Not only is AIDS running unchecked here but there’s a terrible civil war too. Thousands of people are dying every day. Men, women, children. They have almost no one to help them. You wouldn’t believe the conditions even if I told you. It’s a nightmare and we live in a constant state of fear. But something needs to be done. There are only a few NGOs willing to help. If we don’t do it, then the human misery will be even higher. The group I’m with is one of the best, though. We have a strong international reputation, a huge donor network, first-rate logistics, and dedicated doctors. Every day we manage to save lives, but there are so many we can’t. It’s heartbreaking but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else or doing anything else. I hope you don’t think that sounds too crazy. Here I have a purpose. I don’t know if you pray, Tricky Wylie, but if you do, don’t pray for me. I already feel God’s love. Pray for the souls of those who need His help more
.

I had heard about the slaughters there. Seen photographs in the
Times
of the hundreds of bloated bodies littering the shores of Lake Kivu. I couldn’t imagine the horror of the place. But like a fireman, she was intent on running toward the conflagration, not away from it.

She had been killed two months after arriving in Rwanda.
There had been a mortar attack on the village where she worked and lived. It wasn’t clear at first which side was responsible.

Kate had called me with the news. She had been at home, the television on in the background. She thought she’d heard a familiar name and ran into the room. A reporter in a flak jacket with a British accent was standing in front of a smoldering building. “The attack took place before dawn . . .” It had been a massacre, a dozen or so villagers killed, several Western aid workers. One of them American. Francesca Bonet. A blurry image from her wilder days appeared briefly on screen. Kate quickly dialed the phone.

It was all over the news for several days. The
Times
published several sober background pieces on the civil war, and the peril faced by doctors and aid workers in that part of the world. There was also a small obituary that focused mainly on Izzy and Cosmo, and Cesca’s relationship to them. It was not enough that she had died. There had to be something notable about her. It was not enough simply to have been killed thousands of miles from one’s home, helping people incapable of helping themselves. The black-and-white photograph they ran of her was perfect though. It had been taken in her twenties on the beach in Amagansett; a slight strand of loose hair blown across her cheek, she looked simple, natural, sweet as a girl. Kitty had given it to them. People were asked in lieu of flowers to send money to several different charities. A memorial would be held at an unspecified date in the future.

The tabloids, predictably, ran titillating headlines such as
TRAGIC HEIRESS
and
MILLIONAIRE MARTYR
. I could barely read the words. It was like a review of an opera that focused only on the first act. There were several photos of Cesca taken at various parties. One was at Studio 54 sitting between Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. In each she looked radiant, the cynosure of all eyes. Those articles too mentioned Izzy, Cosmo, the family’s
wealth and support of the arts, and, briefly, referred to Aurelio’s death. Several people were cited in the story, claiming to be “old friends” and saying how Cesca was trying to “turn her life around,” but I had never heard of any of them.

Even more irritating was how inaccurately they depicted Cesca, as though she was not a real woman but a stereotypical poor little rich girl. Someone with more money than sense, whose self-destruction was brought about by self-indulgence. What they missed was her humor, her intelligence, her sensitivity, her appetite for life, her humanity, her nobility. She had ceased being a person and become a cautionary tale. Of all that was unfair about her death, this might have been the most unfair of all.

There was, finally, a more moving tribute, thoughtfully written several months after her death, appearing in a small Catholic magazine. It paid homage to the sacrifice Cesca had made, recognizing the spirit of compassion that had driven her to reject her former life and embrace the suffering of unknown others. The author had obviously done her research and had spoken to a number of people who had known her. Kitty was quoted. Cosmo. A few of those she had worked with in Barcelona and, finally, in the little village outside Kigali where she had died. One of them, a Dutch nun, said: “When she first arrived, we had no idea who she was, or where she came from. It was obvious that she was extremely lovely, but she gave no indication whatsoever of vanity. She never complained. We only found out that she was rich after she died. She was there to work, to heal. I could see she was a tortured soul, though. She had found God in the end. There’s great comfort in that, bless her.”

During this time, I could barely function. I stumbled through my days, feeling sick to my stomach. The surreal shock of hearing Cesca’s name mentioned on television, seeing her face stare
up at me from the newsstand. Even though we had parted ways for what I had assumed was the last time, a part of me still died with her. Waking up in a cold sweat, feeling like an amputee, automatically reaching for a phantom limb, only to remember it is gone and will never be there again. For many nights, after Kate had gone to bed, I sat up in the living room, unable to sleep.

Kate and I attended the memorial held at a Catholic church downtown. It was crowded, drawing not only those mourners who knew Cesca or the family but also the ghoulishly curious. I saw a number of people I recognized but hung back, seeking to blend in with the crowd, and found a seat at the rear of the church.

Lio. Cesca. Death had come too early and too often to this family, as though they were forced to pay a grim levy for the excess of their gifts. I prayed for them all, adding an extra prayer that I would not have to mourn for this family again for a while. That they had given enough.

In the front pew I spotted Kitty, looking shattered. I could only imagine her grief, having to bury another of her children. And such children. Such beauty. Such unrealized promise. How could that happen? It was cruel. Shocking. What would she do? Roam from room to room in the darkness like a madwoman? Lock herself in Cesca’s room, weeping over the detritus of her daughter’s life? Curse God? Or would she have been sedated by a friendly doctor? The human brain can only absorb so much pain before it begins to shut itself down. I wanted to reach out to her. To offer myself as a vehicle on which she could pour out her tears, her anger, her agony. I felt I owed that much to Cesca, to the whole family.

But I also didn’t want to intrude, to disturb them in their bereavement, the minor family friend unwelcomely breaking the silence with a finger on the doorbell or a call on the phone.
And, in their eyes, who was I to share their pain, after all? Did I even have the right? The privilege to mourn Cesca as they did? It would be like commiserating with the thief who burgled you.

Cesca would have laughed at my situation, would have felt no such compunction. She was never afraid to show her emotions. She would have marched right up and said what she had to say, always finding the right words, the right tone. She was like an animal who ate when she was hungry and slept when she was tired. Her needs and wants were straightforward, vital, uncomplicated. Come on,
hombre,
she would say to me. I need to fuck now. And we would.

Several weeks after the memorial, I received a letter from a law firm. It informed me that their client Ms. Francesca Bonet had left me a small bequest. A painting. If I would contact them and give my address they would send it to me. I replied, asking that it be delivered to my office. The painting arrived via registered mail rolled in a large cardboard tube. I signed the receipt and closed the door. There were no instructions, no note.

But I had a suspicion of what the painting might be. Was there any other canvas she would leave me? Among her many talents, painting was not one of them, so I doubted it would be anything of her own creation. Nor was it likely to be something random. A simple objet d’art or memento. No, there could be only one explanation. I tore off the tape that sealed the tube and eagerly shook the canvas out, tantalized by the rough, unpainted surface of the verso side. A few glimpses of color daubed at the edges. But I knew immediately I had been right.

It was Aurelio’s nude.
Cesca en la llum de la lluna
. I had not seen it for years, but it had always stayed with me, since that first time in his studio on the Barrio Chino, years before. How proud of it he had been. How dazzled I had been. There she lay, Cesca in the glory of her youth, bold, provocative, as stirring as an ode, as desirable as love. I remembered those breasts, those thighs, they
were as familiar to me as my own body. I felt my breath catch, my pulse tremble. The memories it brought back. The emotions. The never-ending sadness at her loss.

And then I had to laugh. Admiring her playfulness, her sense of humor. It was just the sort of thing she would do. She had hit me an unreturnable shot. Who’s tricky now, Tricky Wylie? I could almost hear her say. The crooked smile, the wink that was as inclusive as a shared secret, the sweep of her life. Do not forget me, she was saying. I won’t let you forget me.

As if I ever could. She was still always in my mind, my default daydream. I would see her on street corners, in crowds, the head that just turned, the person who had just left the room. She was still everywhere to me. If I closed my eyes, I could still hear her voice, feel her touch.

But it was too much. I knew I couldn’t keep the painting in my office, and my apartment was out of the question. I felt like a bank robber who was sitting on a fortune but couldn’t spend a nickel of it for fear of being caught. The thought of it hanging anywhere else, where it might be seen by strangers, was abhorrent. I had a horror of it winding up over a bar or in the den of some aging playboy or even in the hands of one of my descendants.
What was Uncle Wylie thinking? He must have been quite a dog in his day
.

No, Cesca had given it to me for a reason: It was to be a reminder, but I was also supposed to protect it. So I had placed it in the attic of my father’s house, burying it like a pot of gold, placing it like an ark behind a curtain, never thinking I would need to move it until long after it had ceased to matter. Knowing that one day I might destroy it, but not yet. Maybe, when I was old and the memory of my youth had begun to fade, I would take out the portrait and look at it, and remind myself that some loves are not meant to be, no matter how badly you might want them.

I PLACED MY HAND ON THE COLD STONE. I WAS DRAINED
from saying good-bye. Lio, Paolo, Esther, my father, my house, Cesca. The ones whom I loved most, who had shaped me for good or ill, were gone. A new man stood there beside her grave. The last lines had been cut. The barque was moving out into the open water in search of an unknown shore. I wasn’t too old, not yet. There would be new shoals, new hazards, new lands to explore, but the old ones were gone forever.