Pete Hamill - North River

I’ll be back as soon as possible. I promise. But I have to find my husband first. I’ve reached out to people who might know him, and at least one was encouraging. I can’t say more.

I’m writing this from a table in the Plaza Real, a beautiful square down near the bottom of the Ramblas, the great street of Barcelona. It’s early morning. Later it will be crowded. I’m learning the map of the tables in the plaza. The table of the communists. The table of the left Republicans. The table of the anarchists. The table of the socialists. There is no table for the conservatives, or the monarchists, or the fascists. At least I don’t know if there is. I doubt it, not here in red Barcelona, where the bishops now keep the doors of all churches locked against the rabble. At the Plaza Real, everybody reads newspapers and smokes cigarettes and drinks the tallest glasses of beer this side of York-ville. There is much talk of armed struggle, which I’ve picked up from scraps of conversation. I’ve bought a sketchbook and charcoal and sketch at the table, as attentive as a spy. I’m staying at a small pension a few blocks away from the Plaza, cheap and clean, but noisy at night. By the time you read this, I might be at another place, so keep using American Express. Try to send me a photograph of Carlito.

One other thing, Daddy. It’s hard for me to say this, but Momma is not coming back. You must face that reality. She is almost certainly dead. It’s time for you to get on with your life. I know that I’m not a very good person to be telling you how to live your life. In my own foolish way, I’ve done what Momma did to you: disappeared. But I know I’ll be back. Momma will not come back. You should find a good woman who will love you in the way you deserve.

With all my love, and please hug my little boy, who is also yours,

This time he did not weep. He read Grace’s letter again, and looked for his fountain pen to write a reply. Full of anger. The pen was not in his jacket. He must have left it on his desk. And now, a sense of relief brought on drowsiness, and he did not want to go back down the stairs. He knew where Grace was. At least he had that. He knew that five days earlier she was safe enough to sit at a café table and write to him. His reply could wait until morning. Perhaps by then his fury would be gone, like the end of a fever. He moved to the bed and picked up Byron, but he did not read. He thought: Tomorrow I must buy a camera.

Dearest Grace,

I was so happy to hear from you, to know (more or less) where you are, and that you are safe. Please don’t worry. What is done is done, and I suppose you must finish your task before coming home again. It has been bitter cold here, and the casualties of the Depression are everywhere. But we are getting by, better than most.

Carlito is a delight. He is now a champion with the paddleball. He is also a southpaw. He has grown about half an inch since he got here, and is a huge fan of bacon and eggs, Italian bread, and bagetti with meatballs. He seems to add between seven and ten words of English every day. I’ve hired a housekeeper, an Italian immigrant woman who speaks English. She is in your old studio, and Carlito is next door. Between her and Monique, I can still do my work.

Send me messages as often as possible. Later today I’ll buy a Brownie and make some photos. Thank you for what you said about your mother, though I haven’t yet accepted that final reality. Here, too, is a little bit of money. Above all, do not vanish.

With much love,

He slipped a hundred-dollar bill inside the envelope, and a second sheet of blank paper to hide it better, then addressed the envelope and sealed it. He sat there for a long moment. He had erased his anger. He hoped his words were not too cold or pompous. Then he heard the boy jumping down the stairs. “Ga’paw!” the boy shouted. “Ga’paw!”

They came in a steady line: two men who needed quinine; a sixteen-year-old girl with permanent headaches; a haggard man who had been coughing for seven weeks; a man suffering from what was surely leukemia; a fat wheezing woman whose swollen legs refused to take her across a room; a woman with tuberculosis who could never afford the pampered exile of Saranac Lake. He did what he could.

Monique went off to mail the letter to Barcelona and to buy a cheap camera and some film. Her annoyed look was still in place. I have to talk to her, find out… Then the last patient was gone, and Delaney sat there looking at old mail. He tore some of it in half and dropped it in his wastebasket. He riffled through the Daily News. The phone kept ringing, but Delaney ignored it. Then an aggravated Rose came through from the kitchen and lifted the receiver.

“Dr. Delaney’s office,” she said, the way Monique always answered the phone. She listened, then picked up a pencil.

“What’s the address, you know, where you live?”

She wrote down the details. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll tell the doctor. No, I don’t know what time he can come. Fast as he can. But in the afternoon, after he eats.”

She started for the kitchen, and the telephone rang again. She sat down in Monique’s chair and picked it up.

“Dr. Delaney’s office. Okay, what’s the problem? You got stabbed? Where? No, I don’t mean your house, I mean what part of your body? The knee? Where was your boyfriend — on the floor? Lady, listen to me, listen to me, okay? The doctor don’t do house calls for stabbings! That’s for the cops. You call the cops right now, okay?”

Now Carlito was there too, trying to understand what was keeping Rose from the kitchen, and Delaney was standing in the open doorway to his office, looking down at Rose and smiling.

“You’re doing great, Rose.”

“These people, your patients, they’re all a little crazy, ain’t they?”

She looked at him in a blank way.

Delaney smiled again and said: “They have good reason, some of them.”

Monique came in near the end of lunch, her face ruddy from the cold, carrying a small bag. She sat at her desk, saw the notes made by Rose. Delaney came to her.

“Someone’s been sitting at my desk,” she said in an arch way, as if telling a child a story about bears.

“Yeah, the phone kept ringing, and Rose —”

“It’s my desk, Jim,” she said in a clipped way.

“Of course it is.”

“You want her to do my job, send me home.”

She was more than annoyed now; she was angry.

“Ah, Monique, for God’s sake —”

“She’s taking over this house. I don’t like it.”

Delaney sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Better you than me.”

“I need you, Monique.”

“Yeah.”

She took a new Brownie from the bag and explained it in a crisp way to Delaney, the two of them examining the apparatus and reading the instructions and inserting a roll of film.

“You can figure out the rest,” Monique said, and sat down at her desk. Delaney thought: Maybe her boyfriend has moved to Alaska.

On Sunday morning, puttering in the kitchen with Carlito, Delaney saw Rose as she was leaving. She had light makeup on her cheeks and a faint trace of lipstick on her mouth. Her long blue coat was brushed clean, and the wide shoes were polished. She did not say where she was going, and he did not ask. It was Sunday. Her day. And it would be foolish to worry about her. She smiled as she handed him the camera. Carlito hugged her hips.

“You remember how you do this?” she said.

“I think so.”

“Maybe you better get more film, Dottore.”

She said “film” the way the Irish said it. Two syllables.

“Maybe you could get a shoeshine too.” She smiled. “You de-serve it.”

“Okay, Rose.”