shook it. Leaves fluttered to the ground and I picked one up, staring at its brittle veins.
Violeta returned holding a square of old, yellowing paper and handed it to me. It was one of my portraits of Fanny — sprawled on her belly, her paws wrapped around a bone, her head tilted so she might gnaw at it with greater ferocity.
If only I could have held Fanny in my arms once more … How strange the heart is — hope that Violeta would not reject me again was kindled by our shared fondness for the dog and by her having kept my simple drawing, without a single fold, over twenty years of separation.
“You remember her?” I asked.
Her eyes turned glassy. “Oh, John, she lived a long and contented life, I hope.”
I spoke then of her disappearance during the French occupation. My voice was clipped by my desire to keep emotion at bay, and I spoke only of facts and dates. She bit her bottom lip and struggled against tears. Handing her back the sketch, our eyes met.
There are memories that are love itself: the touch of my mother’s hands; the scent of Papa’s pipe; Midnight’s grin. And Violeta’s eyes. I realized that she was both a stranger to me and the greatest of friends.
I whispered her name twice, and it seemed to me the most secret of incantations. I wanted to speak of our dead friend, but the tower of memories in me loomed too high right now to try to climb.
She looked down at her feet, and in her distraught expression I recognized the lass who’d been trapped in a room with neither windows nor doors. Yet I was an adult now and could break down walls too strong for the child I’d been. I held out my hand to her, but she would neither take it, nor gaze up at me.
“I shall never withdraw my hand,” I declared. “I shall stand here waiting forever for you to take it if I have to.”
I am not sure what made me say the peculiar words that followed. I can only think it was all the time I had passed in the company of Benjamin and Midnight — and my fear for the Bushman in his state of bondage. “Violeta, you may think the sun and moon have set forever upon the years we shared.” I gazed out at the horizon and pointed east, toward Jerusalem. “But there they both are, sun and moon, at the very same time, over the Mount of Olives. It is impossible, yet it is true. We are both afraid to step inside the waters of the river Jordan and to touch their reflections. But what you do not know is that we are already inside. Though we are older, we have never left. To know that for sure, all you need to do is take my hand — to take it now.”
She would say nothing. Her eyes closed as though never to open again.
“You may want me to repeat the past, but I’ll not do it. I now have some small power to do as I please. And neither I, nor the Daniel that lives inside me, shall turn away from you now. If we are to part, then you must return to your home and lock your door. And even then you may expect me to keep knocking — all night long if need be. I am a man now, and I have suffered, and I can outwait even a woman who once had no choices in life.”
When she snatched my hand, she gripped it as though she’d been in danger of falling. So filled with love and admiration was the look she gave me that I whispered, “May we begin again? May we try to make up for what was unfairly taken from us both — and from Daniel?”
Tears flooded her eyes. And mine. I took her in my arms and lifted her off the ground, turning her round and round.
“John, oh, my God, John …”
“I have known much death,” I told her gently. “We’ve both been broken. But you have found me. And I have found you.”
She clutched me tightly, shaking so violently that I feared for her. “I am holding you,” I told her, “and in my arms you may finally rest.”
She laid her head on my shoulder. We breathed together till our borders were all but erased.
“Remember the day we met — the Miracle of the Birds?” I asked.
“You were beautiful,” she whispered.
“You saved my skin. If you had not spit at the birdseller he’d have yanked my head off!”
We laughed, giddy with excitement. “Just now, at my door, I was horribly rude,” Violeta said. “I’m sorry.”
I switched to Portuguese.
“John, I hardly ever speak Portuguese. I may make errors.” She leaned down and reached for one of my bags. “Come on, let’s go back to my house.”
We had been through too much together to lie. “Aye, I’d like to stay with you, but only if you truly want me to. Violeta, I’m sure I shall be comfortable at any old inn nearby. I mean that. For the sake of all we have been through together, do not stand on ceremony with me. I confess I am far too weak from my journey and from all these emotions. I could not bear it.”
“Oh, John, you know there is no other place for you in this city.”
I’ve never lent much credence to the possibility of an afterlife, but I looked then into the sky and whispered to Father, who had chased her uncle from Porto, “She made it to New York, Papa. Your efforts have been rewarded.”
Violeta said how sorry she had been to learn of my father’s passing. I spoke of him as we walked to her door. I tried to put the events of his death into an understandable context for her but failed miserably.
“John,” she said, squeezing my arm, “you are all I ever dared to dream you’d become. And more. Your dear mother must be so proud of you. And your daughters … Tell me, are you great friends with them?”
“I think they are very fond of me — despite my oddness. But their mother, Francisca, died a year ago. It has been very hard on them. And now with me here …”
“I’d have liked to have met her. Did she love you greatly?”
“Yes, I think she did. We were the best of friends for many years.”
“That is a very good thing. And a relief to me, if you will forgive me. I always worried you’d never have your affection fully reciprocated.” She gazed down, shamed. “Because of what happened with Daniel and me.”
We studied each other. The heaviness in her eyes troubled me, and her lips were so very dry, as though she had withered through lack of love.
She covered my lips with her fingertips. “Please, John, say nothing yet.” She linked her arm in mine, and together we walked up her steps.
From her stoop, she gazed up and down her street, her head swiveling like a pendulum.
“You almost expect him too,” I observed.
She nodded and caressed my cheek. “I have lived alone for so long that I may not be a good hostess. I feel I ought to apologize beforehand.”
She would have liked to continue speaking, I was sure. But after looking down the block once more, she bit her lip instead, hard, almost drawing blood.
Violeta lived in a house nearly bare of furniture. I was given a room on the third floor overlooking the back garden, which was in a state of disarray. I had a bed and a washstand at my disposal, nothing more. Not even a chest or wardrobe. I suspected now that she had little money.
Violeta fetched me a pitcher of hot water so that I might wash my face. She inquired after my mother, and while she brought me towels and put new sheets on my bed, I told her about London.
“Would you consider slowing down a moment,” I begged her.
“John, we’ll talk later. You need time to rest. And I’m sure you must be famished. I’ll make some breakfast.”
“Do you still hate cooking?” I asked.
She shrugged. “A woman gets used to almost anything.”
She was still wearing her bonnet. When I asked if she’d take it off so I might see the glory of her hair, she wagged her finger at me. “That can wait till later too, young man.”
I would have liked to accompany her to the kitchen, but she wished to be alone. I had the impression all that first day that my presence had disoriented her so badly that she could simply not stand still for fear of toppling over.
Setting out my inkstand and paper on the floor, I sat on my haunches as Midnight had taught me and began a letter to my daughters, Mother, and Fiona, describing the more appalling and amusing aspects of the sea journey.
