Kraven Images (6 page)

From their very first encounter, Kraven had had his doubts about Widerschein. Why then had he always paid up?
Perhaps
it was the sheer effrontery of the charlatan that had appealed to him, a kind of homage due
il miglior fabbro
, the better fabricator.

Now once again he dug into his pocket. Bloody hell, his wallet and cheque-book were in the bedroom. ‘Unfortunately, at the moment …’

‘Take your time. The first lesson the poor scholar learns is patience. “Charity is never late.”’

Early’s grin was stuffed with wickedness. ‘I hears my coffee perking now. You wanna bet the rabbi he thirsty? I
knows
he feel better for a cup.’

Widerschein ran his fingers through his curly red beard.

‘Rabbi Widerschein has many more calls to make. We mustn’t delay him,’ said Kraven.

‘Naturally, I wouldn’t want I should be a trouble.’

‘You ain’t no trouble, rabbi. Coffee up anyways.’

‘Coffee, two years now, I don’t drink.’ He struck his chest with the back of his thumb and offered an illustrative belch. ‘But perhaps a glass tea? Wouldn’t hurt. A twist lemon, a lump sugar.’

Early returned bearing a tray on which sat two cups of coffee, a glass of tea, a saucer of lemon slices, a bowl of sugar cubes, milk, and suitable spoons. Putting the tray on the coffee table, she sat herself next to Widerschein. ‘Help yourself.’

‘
You rotten bastard! Why didn’t you wake me? D’you know how late it is, for God’s sake!
’

In the bedroom doorway stood Stella, stark naked, angrily scratching her hip. Kraven’s jaw dropped, his scalp prickling. As for Widerschein, he clapped his hands to his eyes. Early grinned, delighted: ‘What I tell you? He frisky, frisky what he is.’

Stella saw that she and Kraven were not alone. ‘Excuse me.’ She turned with solemn, stately dignity, re-entered the bedroom, and quietly closed the door.

‘Near as I can tell, we needing another cup of coffee.’ Early got up. ‘Clean the bedchamber hisself, heh-heh-heh.’

To know Stella dead and yet to see her living! My God, did she always sleep like that? Kraven felt giddy. His lover still breathed, and he was released from Death Row, granted a full pardon, found innocent of all charges! The Kraven demons, who, in his late Onkel Ferri’s sweetly demented imagination, stood ever on offensive alert, must indeed have been asleep.

Widerschein separated the fingers before his eyes and peeped about. He lowered his hands to his lap, his cheeks aflame. ‘Your wife, Professor Kraven, you’re married?’

‘No.’

‘So who says it’s my business? Sometimes from immorality too we can learn a lesson. Meanwhile, what I have seen, maybe could be I didn’t see. All I know is, like I say, go know. But it is clear that here there are private matters, delicate matters, no one should stick in his two cents. A stranger, I mean me, Menachem Widerschein, has no place. The tea, just the same, is delicious.’ He took a large swallow and smacked his lips.

Early returned from the kitchen with another cup of coffee. She sat down close to Widerschein, who rolled his eyes heavenwards as if seeking deliverance, a man who had tumbled undeservedly into the Valley of the Shadow, where dwelled fornicators and gentiles. Early shook her head at Kraven. ‘Heh-heh-heh.’

* * *

‘NO, DON’T GET UP.’

Stella spoke totally without irony. It was inconceivable to her that Kraven and Widerschein would not seek instantly to rise to their feet. They watched her majestic approach, awed. She was clothed now, immaculate, cool, regal. She sat
down
on the ottoman at Kraven’s feet, her unsupported back gracefully straight. Smiling, she radiated the room with light. Inclining her head towards Kraven, she took his hand in hers.

‘What a horrid mess we sometimes make of our lives, don’t you agree?’ She sighed. Her smile was gentle, bittersweet; her eyes guileless, trusting, appealing. ‘There’s no point in pretending. Obviously Mr Kraven and I have a problem. It’s not your problem, I know, but through our carelessness we have exposed you to it. I’m truly sorry. It’s unforgivable. Dare we ask for your understanding, perhaps even for your help?’

‘I with you, honey.’

‘Rabbi?’

‘The Talmud tells us that the olive tree, in its desire to praise the Creator of all things, twists itself, is bent and crooked,’ said Widerschein mysteriously. Stella paused, expecting him to elucidate, but he merely closed his eyes.

‘Upstairs in my apartment, at this very moment, my husband is frantic with worry.’

Early bit her lip; Widerschein bit his nails.

‘My husband is the dearest, the kindest man that ever lived. I love him very much, you must believe that. But I also love Nicholas … Mr Kraven.’

Kraven started. Love? Never before had she spoken of love. She was an amateur, after all, overplaying her part, turning pathos to bathos, drama to melodrama. Where was the Stella of the bikini panties, the Stella who gasped and groaned and thrust, the Stella of mindless ecstasy. Well, that Stella could scarcely emerge here. But love? That was a subject he had learned never to broach with the Stella he knew. She would have hooted him off the stage.

‘But neither Mr Kraven nor I matter in this.’ There could be no doubt that she held them, had correctly gauged her audience. ‘Whatever I tell Robert, my first thought is to
spare
him pain.’ They were swallowing it, gobbling it down, this sentimental glop, this overcooked stew of clichés. And now she was turning to him, her eyes piercing in their sincerity. ‘For some time now, Nicholas, I think you’ve wanted – whether consciously or not – to force me to confront our situation squarely.’

Kraven spluttered.

‘No, no, don’t protest, darling. What you want does you credit. Look
beneath
the surface. Think. What was the
real
reason you didn’t wake me this morning?’

Because I thought you were dead, you sly bitch!

‘Actually,’ said Kraven, ‘I didn’t wake before ten myself. And you, you were sleeping so peacefully, so beautifully –’

‘Robert says I sleep like a corpse.’

‘Like an angel.’

She had written his part in this second-rate melodrama and he was playing it letter-perfect. She had bewitched them all.

‘At any rate, it was already so late I thought you might as well sleep a little longer. At least until I came up with some course of action. Why wake you into panic? But then Early arrived, and after her, Rabbi Widerschein. There was nothing I could do.’

‘Man wouldn’t let me into the bedchamber, come high tide or low, said he clean it his own self.’

Stella raised Kraven’s hand to her lips. She looked up at him with shining, adoring eyes. ‘Darling, how noble of you, how gallant! A
beau geste
indeed! Your concern for my reputation has … I’m touched … you’ve made me so … I –’ Choking off her words, Stella turned her head abruptly away.

‘Beautiful, jess beautiful.’

Stella rallied, smiling bravely through tear-filled eyes. ‘I’m all right now. Look, everyone, there are four of us here, four heads and only one problem. Surely among us we can find the solution. Darling, what do
you
think I should do?’

‘Well, to begin with, I’d like to say I agree with you absolutely about not hurting Robert, poor old fellow. But having said that, I must add that your reputation is also important. To me it’s sacred.’

‘Darling Nicholas.’

‘Let’s suppose you went out yesterday evening. For cigarettes, perhaps –’

‘I don’t smoke. You know that.’

‘Well, for something, it doesn’t matter what. You remember walking to Broadway. The shop was closed – there, that’s a realistic detail, lends a little substance. And that’s
all
you remember. Temporary amnesia. You must have been wandering all night. At any rate, you came to yourself half an hour ago, sitting on a bench, say. Be exact: near Columbus Circle, another detail. You took a cab home.
Et voilà!
’

Stella shook her head, smiling sadly at him. ‘Is that the best you can do?’

‘For a perfesser,’ said Early severely, ‘you kinda poor in smarts.’

‘My sweet, you’re an innocent. Believe me, it’s not that easy to lie. I should know,’ she added bitterly, ‘I’ve been living a lie now for almost two years.’

Kraven felt queasy, un-Markolike, beyond his depth. Stella seemed to believe absolutely in the fiction she was creating before them. Could it be that the events of the past hour had unhinged her, had shaken her loose from the plane of reality and precipitated her into a scene from a three-handkerchief tearjerker of her impressionable girlhood? Was she some sort of schizophrenic? Did that delicious body harbour a host of differing personalities? The wild amoralist of his Thursday-night amours had long since given him reason to question her sanity. He had paid too little attention, perhaps.

Stella turned to Widerschein. ‘Rabbi?’

Widerschein stroked his beard gravely. ‘As I see it, we deal here with a question of adultery.’

Stella flinched.

‘To solve a problem, first you must identify it. The Talmud says, “The man who calls a date a fig, except he wants to save a human life, is a no-goodnik.” And Rabbi Gamliel comments, and again I translate, “Don’t make hanky-panky with the truth.” We’re talking maybe from pinochle here? I don’t think so. No, we’re talking from adultery. You don’t like the word is one thing, the truth is another. Listen, to make you feel better, Bathsheba probably didn’t like it either. About her you know. So, any questions? No? Good. We begin.’ He turned to Stella. ‘You Jewish?’ The question was punctuated by an upward corkscrew motion of the right forefinger.

‘No, rabbi, I’m not.’

‘Your husband, could be he’s Jewish?’ The identical gesture, now with left forefinger.

‘No.’

‘Okay, you were perhaps married in a synagogue, under a
chupa
, a rabbi officiated?’ Both fingers at once now, spiralling upwards in complementary directions.

‘No, no, and no.’

‘Aha!’ Widerschein smacked his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Then there’s no problem.’ He saw the puzzlement on their faces. The simplicity of these laymen! The simplicity, especially, of gentile women! He leaned forward, both hands open, palms upward, as if revealing something fragile and precious. ‘Turns out, you’re not married, don’t you see? Not married, no possibility of adultery. No adultery, no problem. It’s simple. You thought you were talking from a fig. Wrong. You were talking from a date.’ He sat back, satisfied. ‘Hoo boy, are you lucky!’

There was a moment of utter silence, and then Kraven began to laugh. Early cut him off. ‘Rabbi, you as crazy as
he
is.’

‘Thank you, rabbi,’ said Stella. ‘Mrs Byrd?’

‘Honey, ’fore you does anything, you best choose up which of ’em you wants.’

Kraven’s stomach began a slow churn complicated by delicate lateral flutters.

‘I must tell Robert the truth.’

‘Stella, don’t react too hastily, for pity’s sake. Have you considered –’

‘I realize now I’ve been considering it for months, ever since I began noticing your little slips. For example, the time you phoned when he was still home.’ It had been after eight. Poore-Moody should have been well on his way to Brewster by then. ‘The time you had the bottles of wine delivered in mid-afternoon.’ He had given a clear order that they not be delivered before eight-thirty. ‘And today, not waking me up. That’s what I was thinking about while I was inside dressing. I don’t doubt, darling, that consciously you were motivated by concern for my honour. But subconsciously you were forcing the moment to its crisis. What you wanted from me was a decision. And that is Early’s point too. She knows I must decide.’ Stella stiffened her back. ‘Nicholas, I can’t, I won’t, give you up.’

Early and Widerschein simultaneously released a sigh.

Kraven’s stomach gave a sudden lurch. ‘Stella, be very sure –’

‘Darling, darling, I
am
.’

‘Stella, I –’

‘No need to say it, my precious one, my own dear Nicholas, I’m as happy and, yes, relieved as you are. In the long run, it’s a kindness to Robert too.’

Kraven admitted himself baffled. This was a Stella beyond his ability to interpret. What was it she contemplated? Separation, divorce, remarriage? Stella, it seemed, adored him. Think of it! But did he love Stella? It was she who had squelched that possibility. He looked at her. Lord, she was beautiful. Arousing. But love? Whatever love was,
if
he was
capable
of it then Stella was for him. He needed to rethink their relationship, that was all. It was necessary to dismantle the defences she herself had caused him to throw up around him.

But then she winked at him. What could it mean? No, she was playing a role, enjoying herself.
Did
she actually love him? Go know, Widerschein Would say. Stella had created a little drama. Let it run its course. Meanwhile, there sat Widerschein and Early, knife and fork at the ready, as it were, eager to carve up and chew every word. There was time enough to learn of her actual intentions. For the time being, he would play along.

‘Stella, I –’

‘No, I know what you’re going to say. But I must tell Robert alone, in my own way.’

‘T’ain’t right. Let him go with you, honey.’

‘Er, yes, of course. You can’t face this ordeal alone, Stella.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Good grief! I’ve a meeting with the College President and the Dean of the Arts in less than an hour. The hell with it! Give me a moment to phone and cancel.’ Was Stella acting? If so, let her learn his mettle.

‘But it must be important.’

‘Well, in its way. But what is more important than us? The College is creating a new Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. It seems I’m to be offered the initial directorship, God knows why.’

‘He does,’ said Widerschein.

‘In any case, I’m sure they’ll agree to meet at some other time, almost sure anyway.’

‘Nonsense! Of course you’ll attend the meeting. I’m not going to begin our life together by interfering in your career. What must you think of me? Anyway, I insist on talking to Robert alone.’ She leaned towards him and kissed him on the lips.