The Color of Light (62 page)

Leo was at the window, fiddling with the blinds. Afterwards, he leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed, basking in the weak winter sunbeams that filtered in between the slats. In the light, his thinning hair was as white as snow.

“I have something for you, my dear,” he said. From under his arm he produced a manila envelope. His hands under the command of a slight but perpetual tremor, he undid the clasp and pulled out a black-and-white photo. Tessa watched him struggle, understanding that she must not offer to help him with it.

When he had it out, he gazed at it fondly, then placed it in her hands.
Saint Valentine’s Day, Paris, 1939,
it said in a small neat script at the bottom.

She gazed at the characters from Rafe’s story, seeing them take on contours, come to life. A woman with serious gray eyes who must be Beata.
A tall man with blond hair and telltale round glasses who must be Sawyer Ballard. Leo himself, neat, dapper, suave. Next to him must be Margaux, in a tight chignon, something a little pitiless in her expression. Colby, identifiable by his warm smile. Rafe, or rather, the eager, driven young man he used to be, staring forever at the woman in the center of the photograph, a slender, dark-haired sylph with a heart-shaped face. She wore a black dress with white polka dots, her white-gloved hands folded in her lap. The tragic beauty of her eyes marked her clearly as Sofia.

“Her beauty extended to the inside, as well.” Leo remarked quietly.

Tessa looked at him, this man who knew her grandfather’s sister when they were both young, his fragile skin marked with age spots, his trembling hands. It was hard to connect him with the self-assured young man in the photograph, poised to take over the world.

He was pensive, communing with his ghosts. “You may have that one. I made you a copy.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lubitsch,” she said.

“Thank
you,
my dear.” he said with a small bow and a courtly smile. “You have given me great pleasure during your time here.”

Gaby came into the room, peremptorily closed the blinds, shutting out the sun. Leo gave out a little sigh, almost imperceptible.

Together, Tessa and Gaby opened and closed drawers, quickly laying out the tools he would need to design. His special Swiss scissors, the blades long and light. The headline and subhead to each story, cut into long strips. Sheets of body copy, color xeroxes of the photographs, all neatly trimmed and clipped together.

Leo was on a roll, they finished three new stories as the afternoon waned into evening. Deftly, Tessa and Gaby taped down the bits of typography and illustration and photos and charts and whisked them off to Production. Leo chatted to Anastasia in French as he stood at the counter, sedately laying down type, frowning at it, moving it elsewhere.

At seven o’clock, the sun long gone, Leo gave them a small wave and glided out the door. Thea left first, then Gaby. Ram was effortlessly wrapping an orange scarf around his neck in a way that made him look like he was ready for a
GQ
photo shoot. If Tessa tried to tie it that way, the scarf would just end up looking messy.

“Elle was fired,” he said. “I bet Anastasia asks you to stay on.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I am so behind on my thesis project. I should be in my studio right now, as a matter of fact.”

“You’ll have to do better than that. She can be very, um, convincing.” He was wearing a voluminous dark coat with a high collar, a white kerchief bound artfully around his head. Now he was pulling on a pair of leather gauntlets. “I’m doing the clubs tonight. Someone may not make it into work tomorrow. How do I look?”

She smiled. “Like a character in a Toulouse–Lautrec painting.” When he raised an eyebrow, she corrected herself. “I meant, you look fabulous.”

“Thank you, honey,” he said. “That means a lot, coming from a big slut like you.”

The way he pronounced it, there were two syllables; ssssss-
lut.
She sighed in exasperation. “Were you born talking that way,” she said, “or did you have to take a class?”

His eyes crinkled in a smile. At the door, he hesitated, turned back. He had recently grown a caterpillar’s worth of hair under his lower lip, and now it twisted in a frown. “Crumpet,” he said, a look of concern crossing his marvelously styled face. “If that’s what you really want, to spend more time painting, you should tell her. You’re too nice. You have to do what’s best for you.”

“Tessa!” The hairs prickled up at the back of her neck. Anastasia was still in Ram’s office.

“She won’t hurt you,” he promised. “Much.” He turned and then he was gone.

Reluctantly, Tessa poked her head around the door. The lights were off, it took her a moment to acclimate to the dark. Anastasia had raised the blinds, and she was sitting at Ram’s desk, her feet up, gazing out at the skyline. Upon seeing Tessa, she fluffed her hair and smiled.

“Join me.” she said, gesturing at a chair. Tessa slunk in and took a seat. “Why are you still here? Raphael will kill me, he says you need to spend more time on your homework.”

“Gaby needed the raw food story for tomorrow morning,” she muttered.

Anastasia smiled again. “Very dedicated.” She turned towards the window. “Beautiful, isn’t it. I love the city at night.”

Tessa studied her dramatic profile, nodded.

“I’m sure Ram told you. Elle found another job.” She slipped off her shoes, wiggled her painted toes. “You could stay on with us, you know. Everyone here loves you.”

Tessa said. “I should get back to my thesis project.”

Anastasia chuckled. “Yes, of course you should. But you still have to eat, my darling. Sometimes I think our Raphael has his head in the clouds, so irresponsible, letting his beloved students think they have a future in art. This dream he has of recreating a world that appreciates his kind of painting…that’s all it is. A dream. He does not seem to know that painting is already dead. They held the funeral the day the camera was invented.”

Without warning, she snatched off her glasses. Tessa gazed into the dark eyes, captivated by their lava-lamp glow.

“My
petite jeune fille,”
she said, almost tenderly. “You really love him.” She leaned back in her seat, sighed. “Of course you do. He is like a puppy dog with you. I am thrilled for both of you. Really I am.”

Then she smiled convivially, lowered her voice in a playful, just-us-girls sort of way. “All right, I admit it. I have to know. Has he ever…
tasted
you?”

Taken aback, Tessa shook her head.

“Incroyable!
It was hard to believe with Lucian Swain. It is even harder to believe with Raphael Sinclair. Well, my dear. I am impressed. He can be very persuasive.” The red light danced joyously in her eyes. She sighed expressively. “I feel so comfortable with you…like you are my niece. Should I tell you a story? I shouldn’t. So, I will. Of course, this was many years ago, in a very different world. Lisbon, before the war. We were bringing this girl back to our hotel room. I think she was Jewish
—
we had promised to help her with papers to get out.” Anastasia’s large brown eyes assumed a serious expression. “It seems so wrong now, but back then, who knew how badly it would all turn out?
De tout façon.
Back to our Raphael. So beautiful, so charming, such a gentleman. With that voice, those eyes…I don’t have to tell you. This girl turned around as we entered the elevator, just in time to see his eyes change, to witness as the fangs broke through his gums, and she began to scream.

“I thought we were done for. He moved so quickly, and with such grace; I have never seen anybody move like that. With one hand, he reached out and took her elbow. Not with force, anyone can use force; he held her with the strength of his compassion. I saw her look into his face, knowing what he was, and she quieted down like an obedient child, moved into the circle of his arms, offered him her neck, knowing she would, in all likelihood, die.

“He made her
want
it. I have never seen anyone do a thing like that in my life.” She sighed. “Of course, that was all a very long time ago.”

And you miss it, don’t you.
Tessa found she was trembling.

“Does it disturb you, hearing that story?” When Anastasia smiled, Tessa could see the tips of her fangs. Her voice dropped lower, became a sultry purr. “A girl from your background, with someone like Raphael Sinclair…I can imagine there must be something of a disconnect. So many differences…perhaps it is not of concern to you right now, but later on, they may come to haunt you, when these differences have grown from a minor inconvenience to a monster with nine heads. In my experience, it is always best to be honest and upfront from the beginning.”

She shifted in her seat, reaching for a sheaf of manuscripts. Weak with relief, Tessa thought she was being dismissed. But no, Anastasia was merely switching the subject. “So,” she said, flipping through a story titled,
Break Up or Make Up? 25 Signs That It’s Time to Cut Him Loose.
“What is happening with our boy?”

“I don’t know. We’re not supposed to be seeing each other.”

Anastasia nodded sagely. “He is so lost without you, so sad. I am getting worried. I haven’t seen him in this kind of distress since…oh, since he lost Sofia and the little boy.” She stared out the window. “He was never the same after Auschwitz. Something broke inside of him.”

“Auschwitz?” Tessa repeated. Anastasia must be mistaken. She corrected her. “But he wasn’t in Auschwitz. The train had already left.”

Anastasia turned to look at her. “Of course he was in Auschwitz. Didn’t he tell you?” The truth dawned on her in a slow, steady stream. An incredulous smile snaked up the sides of her red mouth.

Tessa paled. She shook her head in denial, kept shaking it. Anastasia was still talking, but it fell on deaf ears. She hadn’t heard a word after
didn’t he tell you?

“Go home, my dear.” Anastasia was saying, with a wave of her long, French-manicured fingernails. “You look tired. Don’t worry. There will be plenty more xeroxing left for you tomorrow. And when you have a chance, do ask Raphael about the Angel of Healing.”

Tessa felt sick; she went back to her desk and retrieved her coat, stood by the elevator and punched the buttons. After a moment, she decided to take the stairs. It was twenty-two flights to the ground level. But she had to get out of there before Anastasia came out of the office and started telling her more things she didn’t want to hear.

The knock on the window came long after midnight. She thought she had dreamt it at first; she waited a moment, and there it was again.

Flinging the covers aside, she flew to the window. Rafe smiled when he saw her, laying his gloved hand flat on the windowpane. She spread her fingers over his on the cold glass. They both smiled, and then she went to the front door and buzzed him in.

There were no pleasantries this time. He strode into the apartment and swept her up in his arms, burying his face in her hair, holding her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. She leapt on him like a cat, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist. He carried her to her room, as she covered his face in kisses and he struggled to free himself from his coat.

He kicked the door shut behind them, laid her down on the bed. With a single movement, he stripped her of her nightgown, and she lay there like a nude by Modigliani, blue in the moonlight, looking up at him.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said.

“Me too.” she said.

“You heard what happened.”

“Yes.”

He sank onto the edge of the bed. “I’m falling apart, Tessa,” he said. She couldn’t see his face, hidden in shadow. “I think about you all the time. Whether I’m at a party flirting with strangers, or at a meeting with those wankers on the board, whoever it is, whoever I’m with, it’s always you.” To her astonishment, he was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Every girl on Fifth Avenue carrying a portfolio, I think it’s you. A girl laughs outside my window, and I think it’s you. Each leaf I hear skittering across
the pavement, I think it’s you. Every barking dog, every creak in the floor, every ring of the phone, it’s you, it’s you, it’s always you. Last night, when I saw that damned David with his arm around you…” his voice was breaking. “I’m afraid I’m losing you.”

“Never,” she said fiercely. She took him by the lapels, pulled him closer. “Do you hear me?
Never.”

She rose to her knees, took off his hat, kissed his soft, sad mouth. At first he didn’t respond, and then his hands moved, slipped down her sides. She unknotted his tie, pulled it free of his shirt. Quickly, she undid the buttons, pulled his shirt over his head. He fumbled with his trousers and let them slide to the floor.

For a moment he stood before her, nearly naked by the light of the moon. It picked out the rise and fall of his chest, the ripple of abdominal muscles, the tops of his hipbones; and then he was next to her under the blankets, drawing her close, and he could feel the sustaining touch of her heated body against his bare skin. When she raised her face to him for a kiss, he knew he had been wrong in ever doubting her. The inside of his head filled with warmth and light, and he began to move against her, and she against him, and the world was filled with their sounds, the rustle of sheets, the silky friction of skin against skin as their bodies came together.

She climbed on top, straddling him. She had never done that before, it was just like in his dream, her upturned breasts, the moonlight on her skin, the tips of her hair brushing his face, nothing between them but a pair of white satin shorts. He dug his fingers into her hips, slid his hands to her bottom, shaped like an upside-down heart.

“I want you,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”

With his thumbs, he smoothed the tumbled hair out of her face. “Are you sure?” he whispered back.

She nodded. With one continuous motion, as graceful as a ballet dancer, he rolled her over, and then he was kneeling between her knees. Her soft eyes held his, he could see that she meant it, he could smell the commingled scents of her desire and her fear. He brought his lips to her throat, kissed the place where her pulse pounded at the surface. Between them, the yellow ring revolved slowly on the chain around his neck.