That night Catherine had the strongest dream of her life, in which the world of the dream was full-blown, in dependent of the gaps in sense that dawn and awakening re veal in dreams. She was running down a long corridor in a dark city. She could feel her arms wet with something, she could smell the thick redness of it, and in one hand she carried something; the feel of it was familiar and fatal. She turned a corner and went through two large doors out into the night, stone steps dropping before her feet. She stopped for a moment and there, at the base of the steps, was a woman she’d never seen before. The woman wore a spotted dress and had long amber hair. Catherine didn’t think her dreams could invent someone so distinctly. The woman raised a camera and aimed it directly at Catherine, who turned and ran back the way she had come. A while later Catherine woke. There was a beginning and end to this dream she’d forgotten before she even opened her eyes. She was alone in her room with the kitten and the black map against the wall, everything just as it had been before she went to sleep. But she had the feeling she’d been somewhere else.
In the days and nights that followed, her face became more. Her eyes became more and her mouth became more. Her hair became more. Her beauty blossomed like the flower of a nightmare; it pulsed through the house. The throb of it kept her awake at night; the throb of it kept Llewellyn awake at night. They both lay awake feeling the throb and pulse of her face at opposite ends of the house. I’m caught in America, thought Catherine, where people know their faces and wear them as though they own them. Perhaps, she thought, in the beginning their faces were the slaves of their dreams. Perhaps, she thought, in the end their dreams are the slaves of their faces. At his end of the house Llewellyn thought to himself, It wasn’t enough to capture her face within the boundaries of a photograph; it hasn’t rid me of the vision. He got up and, for the first time in two years, went into his study. When Maddy woke in the morning she was flooded with joy to hear the sound of his typewriter.
Maddy was no less distressed by Catherine’s presence in the house, but the sound of her husband working after so long was a welcome sign of normality. She rationalized to herself that the recent strange dynamics of the house hold were a kind of catharsis for her husband, some last bit of eccentricity to be dispensed with before he got down to serious labor. The studio still called every day and Llewellyn still stubbornly refused to return the calls; but now at least Maddy could sound convincing when she explained he was at work, and once she even held out the phone in the direction of the closed study so Eileen Rader on the other end could hear the telltale clatter. Maddy wanted Catherine out of the house but decided to forgo that confrontation a while until Llewellyn had gotten the new script well under way. Besides, a new plan of action had presented itself with Richard and one of his increasingly frantic phone calls. “He’s writing, Richard,” she said one day.
“At the studio,” Richard said dubiously.
“Not at the studio. Here, in the house.”
“Really?” There was silence. “Listen, Maddy. I have a rather large favor to ask. Some kind of bash is happening here at the hotel in June, some anniversary or other.” A pause. “I may need a place to stay.” Another pause. “Should the management decide to collect on any outstanding bills, in anticipation of… inviting some guests to leave.”
“For God’s sake, Richard,” she said. Richard, she thought, living here? Along with the crazy housekeeper… and then Maddy realized the opportunity.
“It would only be for a while, of course,” Richard said quietly, keeping his dignity. “I wouldn’t make a nuisance of myself, honestly—”
“Richard,” she cut in, “there’s a room in back. It’s not much. As far as I’m concerned you’re welcome to stay a bit. But there’s the housekeeper…”
“Housekeeper?”
The one you brought here, you idiot. “The one you brought here, Richard. Remember? Almost a month ago?”
More silence and then he said, “Yes, I remember now.”
“I think you should talk to Lew about this. Maybe you can come by this evening or when it’s convenient. I mean, you’re a friend. Surely you take priority over a housekeeper, I should think.”
“I haven’t been sure of Lee’s priorities in a long time,” Richard finally said. “Maybe we were never as good friends as all that,” he added almost questioningly, hoping Maddy would contradict him. When she didn’t, he said quickly, “I’ll be by this evening.”
She hadn’t contradicted him because it struck her as odd that Richard, who’d known her husband some twenty years, since he was a nineteen-year-old New York poet named Llewellyn, now called him Lee, like everyone else in this town.
When Richard showed up that night he’d had at least two stiff drinks. Llewellyn greeted him warily and Maddy had the feeling her plot was a mistake. The two hadn’t seen each other in a while. Heard you’re working, Richard said. Llewellyn answered as though in a trance. Richard, who was wary himself, and drunk on top of it, did not ask this particular evening if Llewellyn was writing him a part; he was afraid to. As do
