Richard Zimler - Hunting Midnight

“Yes,” she replied.

I walked to her, hope and gratitude in my heart. Kissing her lips — as I’d wanted to for more than two decades — sent such an electric charge through me that I felt myself tugged out of my own body.

To be with her meant everything to me; I was at the center of the world. There, deep down inside our union, my lost arm was not so burdensome a handicap as I had thought.

Afterward, she lay her head against my shoulder and drifted off to sleep.

At length, I thought of Francisca. She seemed so very different from Violeta; they were women born under constellations guarding separate territories of the night. Perhaps it was that, more than anything else, that made me believe my wife would not begrudge me any happiness I might now find in my new life.

I stroked Violeta’s hair while she slept, as I’d always desired. The simple movement of my fingers calmed me, and the soft feel of her made me believe that I’d finally reached home. I knew now that all would be well between us.

Indeed, over the next weeks, our relations were everything I’d hoped they’d become. We went for long walks into the northern wilds of Manhattan Island, watching blue jays, kingfishers, and other birds more unfamiliar to me. She collected fire-colored oak leaves, and I bought her flowers. We munched chestnuts in the parks and chased each other up the staircase. For the American holiday of Thanksgiving she prepared a turkey with cranberry preserves. For a sweet, she made me rabanadas, as my mother had taught her. We never discussed what had taken place between us because there was now no need. In the silence of our bed at night, it seemed to me we’d finally made up for Daniel’s death. Our union was a triumph over betrayals, madness, gravestones, and forever good-byes. It was proof that resurrection was possible. Perhaps it was even another miracle.

I was not sure if Violeta could have a child at this late date, but when we merged in the night I desperately hoped that she could.

The second event to spur my personal renewal was my decision to begin making tile panels and pottery again, and for this purpose I had the small shed at the back of Violeta’s garden cleared. I purchased a secondhand potter’s wheel and tile-making tools.

Centering a pot with one hand proved not nearly so difficult as I had imagined, and within a few days I was able to make modest bowls, plates, and jugs. I also finalized my sketches for a tile panel of field slaves I wished to make, though I found that without my arm I did not yet have the stamina for such an ambitious project.

I finally sent a letter to my mother and daughters explaining that I wanted to stay in New York and requesting that Esther and Graça come as soon as possible. I apologized for disrupting their lives yet again and would explain all upon their arrival. About my arm, I said only that I had received an injury while in the South, but that it was nothing to be concerned about; my American physicians had pronounced me in fine health. I had not yet found Midnight, I said, but I was now fully engaged in the hunt once again.

By now, I understood that I was fond of Violeta in a way that went far beyond declarations of passion and gestures of affection. In a vague way, I knew we were made of different elements, but that seemed all the better, as though our alloy would prove stronger than any purity.

One day when we were out walking, I broached the subject that had been consuming me for so long. “Violeta, I’d like to have a child — to start a new family with you in this youthful country.”

She went pale. I sat her down on the nearest stoop and squatted next to her. “What is it? I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I am, John. It’s just a shock. Give me a moment.”

“If you’re worried about my daughters, I’m sure they’d love having a baby brother or sister. Though we mustn’t allow them to choose the name,” I said with a laugh. “They prefer all the worst ones.”

She reached up with her hand to touch my mouth, and I kissed her fingertips. She said, “Enough, John, let us talk about it later. I’m just too stunned right now to speak.”

I reasoned I’d give her a day or two to adjust to the idea before speaking of it again. The next evening, however, Morri and I were obliged to dine at the home of William Arthur, her headmaster. Violeta had asked to be excused, as relations between her and Morri were still a bit tentative. We returned home much earlier than we’d expected, as Mr. Arthur was an early riser and was always in bed by ten o’clock.

Finding Violeta absent from the sitting room, I took the stairs two at a time to our bedroom, planning to dive upon her, but she was not there. On intuition, I went to the window of the room in which I’d previously slept. I discovered her sitting in her garden, swathed in a black Portuguese mantilla. In her hands was the tabletop Daniel had carved for her just before his death. She was sobbing.

I ran down to her, but nothing I could say or do would stop her tears.

“Please tell me what’s wrong — is it Daniel? I often think of him too, you know.”

Looking away from me, speaking in Portuguese, she said, “I do not love you, John. Not as you would wish. Not like I loved Daniel.” She reached a trembling hand to her mouth. “I never shall, you see, so we must never have a child.”

“Then why … why did you come to me?”

“It was the only way to rid us both of the angry resentment that had developed between us. It was the only way to help you.” Gazing up at me with eyes full of sorrow, she said, “I warned you that you ought not to fall in love with me. I did everything I could to show you that.”

I understood then that she had kept so much distance between us because she did indeed wish to save me from herself. In an odd way, she had been more generous through our weeks of disappointment than she had been in sharing her bed with me. There had been no true complications between us from her point of view; she had simply never loved me.

I stood up, sensing my life spinning slowly to a stop. But I was not angry or even sad. Though it was a paradox, I felt both hollow and very heavy. I felt that I was composed of all the thoughts I’d had of her over the last twenty years — all my prayers and wishes. I was very tired — of myself most of all.

“You did indeed warn me,” I told her in a voice of stone, unwilling to break down. “I genuinely thank you for that. And for trying to help. I see now what a dilemma I put you in.”

I pressed my dry lips to her cold cheek and glided up the stairs as a specter. From my room, I watched her sitting in her garden for more than an hour. Then she went inside, leaving the tabletop on her bench. Staring at it through that forest of dark weeds, imagining my face as Daniel had carved it, I saw how I’d never wanted to understand the plain truth of our relationship. Even as a lass she had told me that I could hope for nothing more than friendship.

When she returned to her garden, it was with a long knife. My heartbeat jumped and my eyesight dimmed; I was sure she was about to take her own life.

When I reached her, she was defacing the portrait Daniel had carved of her, slashing at it with a violence so deep that I stepped back without knowing it, nearly toppling. I would have liked to still her hand, but I knew by now that she did not want or need my protection.

The next day, I did without breakfast and took a lonely walk along the Hudson River, thinking of the child we’d never have. I met Morri after school and explained solemnly what had taken place between Violeta and myself. I told her I intended to spend a weekend outside of the city so that I might think out my future — and that of my daughters.