then away. Lily’s eyes opened and veered to the left to fix upon Michael. Magdalene went on with her rosary, eyes taking in all of them slowly, and then returning to Michael as he went on.
It was as if Michael had forgotten they were there. Or he didn’t give a damn anymore.
“I saw him,” he said in a raw ragged whisper, “and ah…he told me so many things. But he didn’t tell me this would happen. He didn’t tell me she was coming home.”
Mona took the small velvet chair beside him, facing the bed.
She said in a low voice, resenting the others, “Julien probably didn’t know.”
“Do you mean,
“Hamilton, what are you doing here?” asked Mona.
“We’re all taking turns,” said Magdalene in a little whisper. Then Hamilton said, “We just want to be here.”
There was something decorous about all of them, yet despairing. Hamilton must have been about twenty-five now. He was good-looking, not beautiful and sparkling like Pierce, but very handsome in his own too narrow way. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to him. He looked directly at her as he rested his back against the mantel.
“All the cousins are here,” he said.
Michael looked at her as if he hadn’t heard these others speaking. “What do you mean,” asked Michael, “that Julien didn’t know? He must have known.”
“It’s not like that, Michael,” she said, trying to keep it a whisper. “There’s an old Irish saying, ‘a ghost knows his own business.’ Besides, it wasn’t really him, you know. When the dead come, they aren’t there.”
“Oh no,” said Michael in a small, weary but very sincere voice. “It was Julien. He was there. We talked together for hours.”
“No, Michael. It’s like the record. You put the needle in the groove and she sings. But she’s not in the room.”
“No, he was there,” Michael said softly, though not argumentatively. He reached over almost absently and picked up Rowan’s hand. Rowan’s arm resisted him slightly, the hand wanted to be close to the body. He gripped it gently and then he leaned over and kissed it.
Mona wanted to kiss him, to touch him, to say something, to apologize, to confess, to say she was sorry, to say don’t worry, but she couldn’t think of the right words. She had a deep terrible fear that he hadn’t seen Oncle Julien, that he was simply losing his mind. She thought about the Victrola, about the moment when she and Ancient Evelyn had sat on the library floor with the Victrola between them, and Mona had wanted to crank it, and Ancient Evelyn said, “We cannot play music while Gifford is waiting. We cannot play radios or pianos while Gifford is laid out.”
“What did Oncle Julien actually tell you?” asked Pierce, in his baffled innocent fashion. Not making fun. Truly wanting to know what Michael would say.
“Don’t worry,” said Michael. “There’ll be a time. Soon, I think. And I’ll know what to do.”
“You sound so sure of yourself,” said Hamilton Mayfair in a low voice. “I wish I had an inkling of what was going on.”
“Forget about it,” said Mona.
“Now we should all be quiet,” said the nurse. “Remember Dr. Mayfair might be listening.” She nodded vigorously to them, a silent signal that they must pay attention. “You don’t want to say anything…disruptive, you know.”
The other nurse sat at a small mahogany table, writing, her white stockings stretched tight over her chubby legs.
“You hungry, Michael?” asked Pierce.
“No, son. Thank you.”
“I am,” said Mona. “We’ll be back. We’re going downstairs to get something to eat.”
“You will come back, won’t you?” asked Michael. “Lord, you must be so tired, Mona. Mona, I’m sorry about your mother. I didn’t know until afterwards.”
“That’s OK,” said Mona. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to say I stayed away all day because of what we did. I couldn’t bring myself to come under her roof with her like this and me doing it with you, and I wouldn’t have done it with you if I’d known she was coming home so soon and like this. I thought…I thought…
“I know, baby doll,” he said, smiling at her brightly. “She doesn’t care about that now. It’s OK.”
Mona nodded, threw him her own secret passing smile.
Just before she went out the door, Michael lit another cigarette. Snap, flash, and both the nurses turned and glared at him.
“Shut up,” said Hamilton Mayfair.
“Let him smoke!” said Magdalene.
The nurses looked at each other, obdurate, cold. Why don’t we get some other nurses? thought Mona.
“Yes,” said Magdalene softly, “we’ll see to that right away.”
Right on, thought Mona. She went out with Pierce and down the steps.
In the dining room sat a very elderly priest who must have been Timothy Mayfair from Washington. Clean and old-fashioned in his unmistakable suit, black shirtfront and gleaming white Roman collar. As Mona and Pierce passed, the elderly priest said in a loud echoing whisper to the woman next to him:
“You realize when she dies…there won’t be a storm! For the first time, there won’t be a storm.”
Twenty-seven
AARON WASN’T BUYING it either. They stood together, the three men, out on the lawn. Yuri wondered if later this would rank as one of the worst days of his life. Searching for Aaron, finding him at last in the evening, at this big pink house on this avenue, with the noisy streetcars passing, and with all those people weeping inside. And Stolov with him, every moment, an overbearing and confusing presence, uttering formal and soft words constantly as they had gone from the hotel to the Mayfair house on First Street and finally uptown to “Amelia,” as this sprawling mansion was apparently called.
Inside dozens of people wept, the way gypsies weep and wail at a funeral. There was much drinking. Clusters of persons stood outside smoking and talking. It was convivial yet tense. Everyone was waiting for something.
But no bodies were coming here. One was in the vault already, Yuri had learnt, and the others were in the freezer of the hospital very nearby. This was not a gathering to mourn; it was a defensive coming together, as if all the serfs had fled to the shelter of the castle, only these people had never been serfs.
Aaron didn’t seem tense. He looked good, all things considered, as robust as Yuri had ever seen him, of good color, and with a sharpening to his face which came from his cold suspicion of Stolov as Stolov talked on and on. It seemed as if Aaron had become younger here, less his aging bookish self and more the energetic gentleman of years before. His white curly hair was longish and fuller around his face, and his eyes had their characteristic brightness. Whatever had happened here had not weakened him, or aged him. There was that deep tone of discouragement in him but it was now turning to anger.
Yuri knew because he knew Aaron so well. If Stolov knew he didn’t show it. Stolov was too busy talking, trying to persuade them to his point of view.
They stood far away on the close-clipped grass, beneath what Aaron called a magnolia. It had no blossoms, this tree. Too early. But it had the largest shiniest green leaves.
On and on
Aaron’s eyes moved back to Stolov. Stolov had not glanced at Yuri. Stolov’s attentions were entirely fixed upon Aaron, as if this was a victory he must have.
