Skyscape (23 page)

A stunningly beautiful woman from KPIX interviewed Margaret, and the hospital provided a publicity consultant, a woman with large hoop earrings who had once visited Arles “to see what van Gogh saw in his last days.” The problem was that the woman with the earrings had emphasized
his
, implying that these were Curtis's own, self-tailored last hours, and that it was a solemn and exciting experience to be so close to history.

Margaret ended the interview abruptly, saying that she wanted to be alone.

Her mother joined her at the hospital, and watched the television in the other waiting room. She would return to Margaret's room to report what the world was learning.

Margaret sat in a private waiting room, one reserved for families of people like Curtis. The room had more tasteful venetian blinds on the windows and fresh flowers; instead of tattered magazines there were newspapers, and instead of a television a bookshelf sat in the corner, apparently just installed. It smelled of glue and varnish, and its shelves were empty.

“Curtis is still critical,” said her mother. “But I can tell his condition is improving.”

Margaret felt hope. “How can you tell?”

“The spokesman for the hospital is calmer. He doesn't have that haggard look he did yesterday. He even smiled, a little.”

“So you can tell how Curtis is doing by how a spokesperson acts.” This was not a question. Her mother's attitude made a kind of sense.

“You can tell how things are going by reading between lines,” said Andrea. Margaret had the briefest conflict with the metaphor, the lines in a televised face being, as far as Margaret could imagine, generally enigmatic.

But it might be true. It
was
true. Margaret was sure of it. A spokesperson was a human being, and you could often tell what a person was thinking.

“Red Patterson is taking a break from his show,” said her mother. “He needs a different focus.”

“No doubt,” said Margaret, prepared to feel sympathy for the man because he had nearly been shot.

“Red Patterson is going to dedicate himself to Curtis,” said her mother.

Margaret was dazed by this news. “He is?”

Her mother's voice had an edge. “You should be thankful.”

Margaret tried to consider this.

“It was your idea, Margaret—and it was brilliant. You encouraged Curtis to see Patterson. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“It was a mistake,” said Margaret. “I didn't want Curtis on the show.”

“Curtis and Patterson belong together, don't you think? They're both out of some different sort of universe than our ordinary one.”

It must have caused her mother some special sensation to express herself so fervently. She had to take out her compact and apply fresh lipstick.

The compact snapped shut with the clean sound that brought Margaret back to her childhood. She had loved her mother so much. “Patterson says that his entire career will be Curtis now,” said Andrea.

After thirty-six hours, everything changed.

Margaret tried to see Curtis more often, but it was futile. Guards shook their heads sympathetically. Nurses smiled and said that she couldn't, not now. Dr. Patterson had given orders.

“Red Patterson's taking care of Curtis,” said Dr. Beal. “That's all I can tell you.”

Her first thought was that she no longer trusted Red Patterson. After all, she told herself, she was Curtis's wife, and she had the legal authority to decide her husband's medical fate. But she realized at once how wrong she was. She was being selfishly possessive. Of course Red Patterson would make the right decisions. Of course if anyone could save Curtis it would be the famous doctor.

Dr. Beal must have recognized Margaret's initial doubt. “Curtis is considered, in a special way, Red Patterson's patient. You're lucky. Curtis is lucky.”

“I have to make sure that Curtis is still alive,” said Margaret, feeling chastened.

“Good heavens, you must feel pretty far out of the loop to even worry about such a thing,” said Dr. Beal. “You have to trust us, Margaret. Do you realize what's happening? Right now, while we're talking?”

The doctor described the campaign to save Curtis. Surgeons were being flown in from around the country, kayaking expeditions, golf games, routine surgeries in far-off cities, all interrupted by Patterson's call.

Margaret accepted all of this, while disliking it for a reason she could not quite understand. Not only was the well-known artist in need of help, but the aura of Red Patterson had settled around the hospital.

Dr. Beal had changed. He had always seemed reserved. Now he thought for a moment longer before he made any remark. “Can I be frank with you, Margaret?”

She braced herself for bad news. “Please.”

“Patterson is controversial. Some medical people aren't exactly wild about him, others admire him a lot. Ordinarily, Patterson would have nothing to say in a case like this—he could offer some advice, but nothing more. Right now Patterson is so important that whatever he says goes. If he wanted to have Curtis moved from this hospital we would have to go along with him. Hospitals are a part of the real world, too. If he says we're doing a good job, our funding blossoms. If he says we stink—we do. The ordinary surgeons in this case are just that—ordinary surgeons. Patterson can do whatever he wants.”

Margaret recalled the deathwatch for her father, the afternoon outside glorious summer, willows and dry heat. Her mother had maintained a stoicism that caused Margaret to mistrust her, but now Margaret realized that her mother's manner disguised her own variety of deep feeling.

“You miss father,” said Margaret.

Her mother examined her nails, and laughed sadly. “Do you know what he would do if he were here?” said her mother.

“He would disguise himself as a doctor, go in and see how Curtis was doing, and if he didn't like what he saw, he would kidnap Curtis, right out of here.”

“He wouldn't do it, but he would talk about it,” said her mother.

Andrea was right. The chess genius's active mind had sometimes balked at physical danger, the barking dog, the skunk in the garage. Margaret wondered if, by arguing with her daughter, Andrea kept alive a deep conflict she had enjoyed with her husband, a conflict composed of love and exasperation.

Her mother added, “He would agree with you about Patterson. And he'd be wrong.”

“I am so glad to see you again,” said Bruno Kraft, kissing Margaret on the cheek. He was wearing a gray silk suit, and his dark glasses hid his eyes.

Margaret did not wait for him to ask. “He's still alive. But they use the phrase ‘in danger.' Stable, but still.…”

“In danger,” said Bruno thoughtfully, completing Margaret's sentence.

“He's going to be fine,” said Margaret's mother.

Margaret introduced the two to each other, relieved by the simple courtesy of the process, so that when Bruno turned back to her she was able to ask, “What is the press saying?”

Bruno smiled sadly, ironicly, to discount what he was about to say. “Bad news, but I have to confess that I've made a career of mistrusting what I'm told.” He folded his dark glasses and slipped them into the breast pocket of his jacket.

“We certainly don't need any pessimists here,” said Margaret's mother, smiling slightly to offset her words. Margaret thought her mother's response less than rational. The presence of the famous critic both impressed and antagonized her, as though now Andrea could not be the wisest figure in the forum.

“I understand that Red Patterson is looking after Curtis's needs,” said Bruno.

“With Dr. Beal's permission,” said Margaret.

“And yours, too, of course,” said Bruno.

“I haven't had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Patterson,” said Margaret.

“That doesn't sound right,” said Bruno.

Even in this moment of crisis, when Margaret and her mother were bound together by the past, and by the present, Margaret could sense her mother's impatience with, as her father used to put it, “Everything that sounded like the truth.”

“We certainly have no reason to object,” said Andrea.

Bruno smiled, perhaps slightly uncomfortable at stepping into a script written for mother and daughter. “I have to believe he'll be all right with such an illustrious physician looking after him.”

Margaret hesitated. “You're not here just to help Curtis.”

“Of course I am, my dear. And to help you. If there's anything I can do.”

“You thought he wouldn't survive,” said Margaret. “You want to know what happened to the drawings.”

Bruno looked at her as though discovering something of interest. “I was curious, it's true.”

“The drawings are lost.”

He seemed to grow taller. There was a short silence before he spoke. “They can't be ‘lost.' I saw what good care you took of them.”

“Curtis took them with him when he left, zipped into his portfolio. Maybe he was going to work on them some more, out in the desert. The drawings are gone.”

Bruno took the dark glasses out of his pocket, like someone who cannot wait to resume a disguise. He did not put them on. His eyes had that glint, that hard look she remembered from before. “They can't
all
be gone.”

Margaret looked away. “I've had to make some painful decisions about the future.”

“You should go home and get some sleep,” said Bruno.

“If Curtis lives—” The words stopped her. She felt grief stifle her. When she could speak again, she continued, “I have to realize that I haven't been able to help him. I have to face the truth. The question is: do I love him enough to let him go?”

“You're tired,” said Bruno.

“I've been telling her that for ages,” said her mother. “Poor Margaret.”

“Don't hate me because I let the drawings get lost,” said Margaret.

“Don't be absurd,” said Bruno. “It would be impossible for me to hate you.” It was true. He wanted to hold this poor creature in his arms.

Although the pictures simply could not be gone. The thought was an outrage.

“I kept Curtis in trust,” said Margaret. “So many other people could have been in my position. Maybe other women would have done a better job.” She looked hard at Bruno. “If I can't help him—I'll let him go.”

“I'm so glad,” said her mother. “It's for the best.”

Bruno gave Margaret's mother a long glance. Then, to Margaret, he said, “You and I must have a nice, long talk before too long.”

Dr. Beal had such an intense look that Margaret caught her breath, and waited for the news to be the worst possible. Bruno sensed it, too. She felt him stiffen beside her, and her mother stood up.

“You might as well go home and rest,” said Dr. Beal, displaying one of his joyless smiles. “Curtis is out of danger.”

25

It was nearly dawn. Andrea, Margaret, and Bruno shared a taxi, Bruno in the front seat beside the driver's clipboard.

What a sleepy little town San Francisco was, thought Bruno. The cable car tracks on Powell gleamed, long shiny strips, like scars where a wound has healed. A sole figure hunched along a curb, pausing at a trash bin to extricate a squashed aluminum can. It was too early for pigeons.

The taxi driver was a broad-shouldered woman, her hair gray stubble all over her head. It seemed to Bruno that he remembered a time when women went out of their way to look pretty. He remembered white gloves, cashmere, mock pearls.

“It's so thoughtful of you to drop me off,” said Andrea Darcy, batting her eyelids at him.

“We certainly wouldn't want you to come to harm,” said Bruno. He held the taxi door for her, and then sat where she had been sitting, in the back seat beside Margaret.

Bruno was aware that Margaret and her mother were involved in an armed truce. Bruno himself had few relatives left. He had one sister, a woman with florid handwriting, which appeared at Christmas, wishing him well from “Bea, Mike, Pepper and Honey.” The last two were animals, dogs, and inevitably the names of the final pair changed over the years. Mike was a biochemist at the University of Hawaii, and Bea was a high school principal. There were occasional pleasant visits to Honolulu. Bruno liked his sister, and enjoyed playing brother-in-law with Mike, a cordial, squat man addicted to plastic-tipped cigars. When Bruno had realized, long ago, that he would father no children of his own, the entire concept of family began to dim in his estimation.

A taxi can be a pleasant interior, momentarily one's own enclosed space. Bruno had, more than once, fallen in love in the back seat of a taxi. “You're doing wonderfully,” said Bruno.

“I have the feeling you're watching me,” said Margaret. “Through binoculars, from a great distance. To see what sort of stuff I'm made of.”

“You look so tired. We'll have our little talk some other time.”

“I know what you want,” she said, not unkindly.

“Curtis will survive,” said Bruno, hoping he believed this.

Margaret did not answer.

“I used to read your father's chess articles,” said Bruno. He was exaggerating; he had never played chess in his life. “He must have been a charming man.”

“My father loved his life, but my mother wanted something more simple, something a lot safer. They had real estate in Sacramento, vacations in Paris. My mother was proud to see her parties mentioned in the society pages, and Dad didn't mind it. He liked to go barefoot all day in the back garden.”

“Does your mother like Curtis?”

“She's afraid of him.”

“That's hard to imagine,” said Bruno, meaning that it was not.

Margaret gave him a smile Bruno found beautiful—calm, accepting. “I know you want to kill me,” said Margaret.

“That's being a little crude, don't you think?”