The Day of Atonement (47 page)

I knew better than to read anything into that. I knew better than to expect anything other than a slap in the face. However she chose to greet me, I would endure it.

I walked half a block from where the coach had dropped me. The streets were wide and tree-lined, and the sky was brilliant and nearly cloudless. Here and there strolled gentlemen and ladies in fine clothes and fashionable hats. Some had little dogs upon leashes. The spring air was beginning to warm but was still brisk, and the scent of flowers was everywhere. I admired the green lawns and the beautiful homes. In other quarters of the city, it was true, those little dogs would be stolen, slaughtered, and cooked within half an hour of making their appearance. Even so, I was in London and happy to be there. I was at liberty, free to walk the streets and bear my own name.

I found Mrs. Carver’s stately new house—all red brick and square columns—and approached the front door. A liveried servant answered almost the moment I rang. I presented my card, and the servant studied it.

“Mr. Foxx,” he said, “I have standing instructions to receive you.”

I followed the servant to a sitting room where I was told to wait. I listened to the ticking of the clock and muted voices from outside, and the shuffle of servants’ footsteps on the floor above me. Somewhere
one of those fashionable little dogs barked. I waited, and it seemed to me that I also waited to find out what sort of man I was, what all the things I had done had wrought. I had saved lives and taken them. I had sought justice and delivered suffering. I had committed crimes and forgiven crimes and refused to forgive others. I did not know what all of that made me, but I so wanted to find out.

I stood facing the window, looking at nothing, listening for the sound of her footsteps, and I wondered what her first words would be. How would I find the strength to answer? I dared not wish for one outcome or another, but only for her happiness. That was what I wanted to see on her face. I wanted to see that all she had suffered, unbearable though it was, had not destroyed her. I wanted to see that Lisbon had not broken her as it had broken me so many years before.

I heard voices in the distance, a servant and a woman’s voice. Roberta’s. And still I waited. I thought of all the things I did not feel—anger and frustration and that wretched, tearing, unbearable impatience with the world as it was. Somehow I had let those things go. I thought of what I did feel: fear. For the first time in years, I was afraid, and I hugged myself with the pleasure of it.

From outside the room, a woman walked upon the floor, her shoes tapping the wooden planks as she approached. I listened to each step, and then the slight squeak of the slow twist of a doorknob.

Terrified and hopeful, I turned to look upon her face and to hear what she had to say.

All historical novels present their own challenges, but trying to recover eighteenth-century Lisbon, as it was before the earthquake, is one of the most difficult tasks I’ve undertaken as a writer. There were numerous books, both those from the time of the earthquake as well as more contemporary studies, that helped me get a sense of the time and place, but I never could have written
The Day of Atonement
without insight into the period from the fantastic historian Paolo Scheffer, who walked me through contemporary Lisbon and helped me to see the city as it was. I am grateful as well to my Portuguese editor and fellow comics fan Luis Corte Real for helping me navigate the city, and for the many insights from the brilliant Portuguese novelist Pedro Almeida Vieira. I am also grateful to the many historians at the Lisbon Museu da Cidade who answered my endless questions, and to the kind people at the Conceição dos Cardais. I owe much to Matt Richtel and Eileen Curtright, who labored through early drafts of the book and helped me to revise it, and for the many ideas and patient readings from Jennifer Hershey and Joey McGarvey at Random House. Again, I must thank my agent, Liz Darhansoff, for making all I do possible. Thanks, as always, to my wife, Claudia, for putting up with my crap, and for my children, Eleanor and Simon, for helping me keep things in perspective. And because I always like to mention my cats in my acknowledgments, I shall do so once again: cats!

By David Liss

A Conspiracy of Paper

The Coffee Trader

A Spectacle of Corruption

The Ethical Assassin

The Whiskey Rebels

The Devil’s Company

The Twelfth Enchantment

The Day of Atonement

D
AVID
L
ISS
is the author of
The Day of Atonement, The Twelfth Enchantment, The Devil’s Company, The Whiskey Rebels, The Ethical Assassin, A Spectacle of Corruption, The Coffee Trader
, and
A Conspiracy of Paper
, winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and children.

davidliss.com

@david_liss