Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

“No. Thanks, Ernie. I just haven’t eaten today.”

“Well, I’ll bring you up a sandwich, okay?”

She smiled gratefully. When they got to her floor and the doors opened, her knees once again felt weak. Ernie assisted her to the door.

“Oh, I’ve lost my key,” she said.

Ernie produced a ring of keys, found hers, and opened the door. The vista of stained-glass windows, familiar carpets, and the lovely painted ceiling was too much for her. It wanted to reclaim her, to drain away every bit of strength she had gained in India, to reduce her once again to an automated shell struggling for the smallest spark of life.

“Have you been sick, Mrs. Templeton?” Ernie asked. “You look like you lost twenty pounds.”

“A little bit, Ernie. But I’m fine now. Has there been much mail for me?”

“I can check for you. You want me to open some windows before I go?”

“Thank you.”

As he opened the kitchen window, fresh air began to circulate through the apartment. Already the familiar sensation had risen like dust in a breeze: Ivy’s door that was always ajar, the wedding portrait, now a perpetual reproof, the souvenirs of happier times, all now bitter mockeries. And yet she felt that this time, for the first time, she was equipped to fight them all, even conquer them.

The telephone rang: a harsh, strident shriek that startled her. It was Elliot Hoover.

“I’ve gotten a room at the Windsor-Newton. It’s only three blocks away. How are you feeling?”

“Very strange. It’s very weird to be back.”

“Have you called Dr. Geddes?”

“No. I’ve been afraid to.”

“Well, call him. He’ll have to prepare Bill to accept my presence.”

Janice sat down again, unsteadily, on the couch.

“It seems so sudden. Everything seems to be rushing ahead so fast.”

“You’re worn out. Get some sleep. There’s a restaurant on the corner of Columbus and Sixty-eighth. We can have breakfast there. Right now call Dr. Geddes and arrange a meeting for tomorrow.”

He waited for Janice to respond.

“Isn’t that what we want, Janice?”

“Fine. That will be fine.”

After she hung up, a peculiar emptiness circulated around the apartment. Her confidence was evaporating. She began to think it might have been a terrible mistake to have brought Elliot Hoover to New York. She remembered the hostility Bill once had for him. True, Bill now was a believer, a purer believer, in some ways, than Hoover. But did that mean he would accept the man who had disrupted his life? Whose existence stood for everything he had once hated? But then, Bill was different now. And she fought the doubt that threatened her.

The doorbell rang, Ernie brought a plate of sandwiches with hot tea. She thanked him. As she ate the roast beef and bread, a bit of confidence returned. After the hot tea, she felt remorseful that she had ever doubted what she had done.

But when she telephoned the Eilenberg Clinic Dr. Geddes was adamant. He would not permit Elliot Hoover to speak with Bill. Janice had the distinct impression that Dr. Geddes was trying to shield Bill from her. But at last he agreed to meet Elliot Hoover for a short interview the following afternoon. That was no guarantee that he would let him speak with Bill.

That night Janice slept uncomfortably in her bed for the first time in two months. She had bathed, and then examined her naked body in the full-length mirror. Her hips now jutted out, angular, and her breasts seemed slimmer. But mostly it had been the face that shocked her. What a stranger she had become to her own eyes. Then came the silence. The silence of lying in bed in an apartment vacated for so long, doubly vacated by two others, one dead, the other emotionally dead, but both leaving residues of sorrow at every corner, every object in the place. So she lay, her body oriented halfway between India time and Western time, listening to the vague sounds of the city.

Elliot Hoover was a welcome sight in the small restaurant at the corner of Columbus Avenue. He rose politely as she came in and beamed a lovely smile.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

“I was a little anxious,” she confessed, sitting down beside him. “It’s so strange to be back. I feel I’m living someone else’s life.”

“Your previous kind of life will soon try to catch hold of you,” he warned in a kindly way. “Don’t let it. Now, this restaurant seems to specialize in palachenka, those breakfast crepes from Vienna, filled with cream and fresh jam.”

“Sounds lovely.”

The palachenka were delicate as a layer of snow and about as thick. The jam was country-fresh, homemade, and it was so peaceful to sit in the corner booth, among the sagging East European faces that hung over the nearby tables, arguing in Yiddish, Russian, or Hungarian, that neither wanted to break the spell. Outside, the sunlight bathed Columbus Avenue in a crisp, clear light, and small pools of water from night rain reflected the shops upside down.

“When will Dr. Geddes speak with us?” he finally asked, as gently as he could.

“Not until late this afternoon. He can’t leave Ossining until three o’clock. He’ll meet us about four o’clock at the hospital.”

He touched her right hand, which had begun to crumple the white napkin into a ball.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said softly. “In some way, Bill must know that help is on the way.”

She smiled and relaxed. “I hope you’re right. So much rides on this.”

“Trust me. And trust yourself.”

He looked around the restaurant, enjoying the babble of European voices, the easygoing, inelegant comfort of the place, where the customers and the staff knew each other as old friends.

“Then we have the whole morning to ourselves,” he said, turning slowly back to her.

“Do you want to see the little girl?” she asked simply.

He nodded, very slowly, a gesture of serious determination. “God knows I shouldn’t. And yet—”

“It may be difficult, considering all that’s happened. Still, we can try.”

“Is the child…pretty?”

“Yes, Elliot. She’s a lovely girl.”

His eyes seemed to soften and he smiled a gentle, sad smile as he settled back in his chair and signaled the waiter for the bill.

When they arrived at the Hernandez address he stepped very slowly onto the pavement. He smoothed his hair back, adjusted his coat, and looked up and down the street.

She took him by the arm and escorted him into the dark and fetid gloom of the tenement, stumbling over broken toys strewn over the cracked floor. As they climbed, the echoes of their steps preceded them like an ominous, bass tremolo.

She felt resistance in his arm, but he resolved to go farther, climbed the next flight, and then his body tensed again. He perspired heavily. He was ashamed, but he could not hide his nervousness.

“I don’t think I can go on,” he whispered.

“Elliot, you’ll haunt yourself for the rest of your life if you don’t.”

He started to answer her, then grimly closed his mouth and followed her into the darkest part of the stairwell. She thought she saw his lips move, as though he purified himself by some quiet prayer.

They emerged onto the top landing. Graffiti had been sprayed in huge black swirls since she had last been there. Parts of the tile on the floor had been badly marred, even dug up, as though by heavy boots or some sort of portable equipment. There was no other sign of the police having occupied the place. It was a scene of sadness, the dinginess relieved only by the light at the very far end, at the fire escape, where the Master had escaped from her grasp so suddenly and so terribly.

“Was it here that Bill…?”