He turned and walked away along the deck with his strange, elastic walk. Jordan turned to look at Lysa.
Nobody with eyes like that . . .
Jordan realized he didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know anything about her life or why she was in New York. He couldn’t decide if the reason he hadn’t asked was because he was afraid of being indiscreet or because he was afraid of what she might say.
During the brief time they had spent under the same roof, they had seen little of each other. Jordan had been busy with the case, and whatever Lysa was busy with, she seemed to be in possession of an enviable resource: a sunny but determined character, an optimistic irony with which to confront any small unpleasantness she might find in her path.
There had been just one night when he had come back very late and, as he tiptoed past her room, had thought he heard her crying. But when they had seen each other in the morning, there had been no trace of those tears on her face.
‘How come there’s such a big difference in age between you and Christopher?’
‘Oh, it’s a very simple story,’ Jordan replied, trying to keep his voice as light as possible. ‘My father was a good-looking young man without a penny who played tennis very well. Christopher’s mother was a good-looking and very rich young woman who played tennis very badly. They met and fell in love. There was just one small problem. He was a young man with qualities that in some circles are considered faults, she was a young woman born and brought up in one of those circles. Before the wedding, her parents made my father sign a prenuptial agreement as big as a phone book. Things were fine for a while but then the inevitable happened. My father gradually realized that his wife was growing closer to her circle and leaving him more and more on the outside. When he asked her to follow him and make a life of their own, he was rejected in no uncertain terms. His father-in-law was of course only too ready to show him the door. My father left that house as he had entered it, without a cent in his pocket. And it was made harder and harder for him to see his son. Then he met my mother, and twelve years after Christopher, I was born. The first time Chris and I met, he was already launched on his political career and I’d just left the Police Academy. Through no fault of our own, we were two brothers with no brotherly feelings towards each other. And that’s how things have always stayed.’
At this point, the waiter arrived, carrying two plates.
The food Lysa had ordered wasn’t fried snake, but an excellent fish dish cooked in a delicate basil and coconut milk sauce. As they started eating, Jordan made up his mind to tackle the subject he had avoided up until now.
‘I don’t think my life has been all that interesting, when you come down to it. But you haven’t yet told me anything about yourself.’
Lysa made a gesture with her hand that did not chime with the shadow that had passed for a moment across her eyes. She hid behind a smile that was still not sufficient to conceal her bitterness.
‘Oh, well, it’s quite simple. All I need to tell you is that nothing has been simple for me.’ She paused briefly but significantly. ‘Ever.’
She seemed to be talking as much to herself as to him.
‘I was born in the middle of nowhere. If I told you the name of the place, it wouldn’t mean anything to you. It was the kind of place where everyone knows everything about everyone else. My father was a Methodist pastor and my mother was the kind of woman who could only have been the wife of a man like that. Devoted, silent, accommodating. Can you imagine how it must have been for a man obsessed by God, proudly watching his only son grow up and then realizing that by the age of fourteen he’s sprouting breasts? I was hidden, like a punishment for his sins, and for the world’s sins, until his love of God prevailed over his love for his child, male or female. At sixteen, when I left home, without even touching the door, I saw it close behind me.’
Jordan was not sure he wanted to hear any more. All his life he had lived in a black and white world that excluded shades of grey. The things that had been happening to him lately had changed all that, and so had the people he had been meeting – including Lysa.
He had finally understood the attraction she exerted over him. Beautiful people didn’t usually have much character, because they had never suffered, never had to work hard for anything, always found lots of other people willing to give them everything on a plate. Lysa was beautiful, but in her case nothing had been simple.
Ever.
‘After that, I moved from one place to another. It was the usual story everywhere I went. Running away from the people who were interested in me, when they discovered what I am. The people I was interested in running away from me for the same reason.’
‘Hasn’t there ever been anyone?’
‘Oh, yes. As in any self-respecting story of disillusion, there was a moment of illusion. There was a man in the first place I stayed. A nice man, lively, friendly. He was an actor. I should have known that when you spend your life pretending, it comes easily. But when we were together he made me laugh till I cried.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘What always happens. The laughter ended and only the tears remained.’
Lysa suddenly changed expression, adopting a light tone, out of modesty or out of fear that she had already given too much away. She became again what she always was, cheerful but hidden.
‘So, here I am. Do you know the joke about the dreamer, the madman and the psychiatrist?’
‘No.’
‘The dreamer builds castles in the air, the madman lives in them, and the psychiatrist collects the rent. That’s the reason I came to New York. I’m tired of building and living, now I’d like to collect some rent.’
Jordan realized all at once that he had to talk clearly to this woman. And he didn’t like what he intended to say, because he knew she wouldn’t like it either.
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
Lysa picked with her knife at part of the fish she had on her plate. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I think I ought to look for somewhere else to stay.’
‘I understand.’ Curt, brief, almost indifferent.
Jordan shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think you do.’
He put his knife and fork down on the plate. He did not want to distract Lysa or be distracted by anything himself.
‘When I was a child, I lived with my parents in Queens. Next door lived another little boy, named Andy Masterson. Obviously, we often played together. One day his parents gave him a little electric car. I remember him going around, sitting in that little red plastic car with his eyes glowing with joy. I knew I couldn’t have one and I kept watching him, hoping that at least he’d let me have a little ride in it, but it never happened.’
‘Your friend Andy wasn’t a generous child.’
‘I don’t think he was. But that’s not the point.’ Jordan looked straight in Lysa’s eyes. ‘I remember the way I wanted that little red car. I wanted it desperately, with all the imagination I possessed. I wanted it with the force and intensity and sadness that only a child can have.’
‘That must have been a big problem.’
Jordan took a deep breath and lowered his eyes. ‘No. That was a small problem. The big problem is that, right now, I want you much more than I ever wanted that car.’
When he looked up again, he saw Lysa’s eyes on him. For a moment her expression did not change. Then her face hardened and she got up from the table.
She spoke without looking at him, with the tiredness of déjà vu in her voice. ‘I think you’re right. Maybe it is better if you look for somewhere else to live. I don’t think I’m hungry any more. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll wait for you by the bike.’
She walked away, her hair dancing in the breeze from the river. Jordan felt more alone than he had ever been in his life, alone with his little regrets and his little shames, which made him feel a little man.
He waited a few moments and then called the waiter and paid the bill. The wa
iter understood from his expression that something had changed between the two of them. He accepted the tip and thanked him, but without his former ebullience.
Jordan walked across the gangway. There was the Ducati, and there was Lysa, standing next to it, her face already hidden behind the helmet. As had happened before, he immediately felt nostalgia for her face, but knew there was no smile beneath the dark visor. For him or anyone.
Without saying a word, Jordan took refuge in his own helmet, got on the bike and waited for him to join her.
When he felt her get on behind him, he started the engine, and they set off on their silent journey back to New York.
CHAPTER 25
Maureen Martini woke with a strong feeling of itching in her eyes. Gently, she passed her fingers over the bandages, as if that small gesture could in some way alleviate the discomfort. She had been warned that it would happen – irritating that tingling.
After the operation, the small scars left by the intervention had healed with a speed that had surprised even Professor Roscoe, the surgeon who had performed the transplant. Such an accelerated recovery time had accentuated the generally optimistic mood. And today was the day she would find out if they were right or wrong. At exactly eleven o’clock the bandages were to be removed and they would leave her alone to face the future.
Torn between optimism and pessimism, she hadn’t slept well during the night. In one of the few moments when she had slipped into a kind of half-sleep, she had found herself immersed in a strange dream, which had struck her by the extraordinary clarity of its images and even now, after waking, had left a stronger memory than most dreams.
The setting of the dream was a child’s room. Not the room she’d had as a child in Rome: she didn’t recognize the furniture, and vegetation and a riverbank could be seen through the window. She had been sitting at a desk and she could see her own hands drawing something. The drawing showed a man and a woman. The woman was leaning against a table and the man was standing behind her. Childish as it was, the drawing was very precise and it was clear that the two were making love. Then a door to her left had opened and a man with a moustache had come in. She had shown him the drawing with the pride and innocence that only a child could feel. The man had looked at it and then lost his temper. His lips had moved, though she couldn’t hear what he was saying, and his face had turned red. He had waved the drawing in front of her eyes then torn it up. Then he had grabbed her by the hand, dragged her to a closet, and bundled her into it. Maureen remembered the man’s face vanishing as the door closed and the darkness devoured her.
She had woken clammy with sweat.
She was in Manhattan, in her mother’s apartment on the top floor of a brownstone building at 80 Park Avenue, not far from Grand Central Station. Maureen would have preferred to stay in the apartment her father owned downtown but it was obvious, given her condition, that during her convalescence she would need a woman’s care.
So, after the operation, she had reluctantly agreed to spend that time in Mary Ann Levallier’s apartment. Despite her mother’s natural concern about what had happened to her, Maureen was under no great illusion about the nature of their relationship. There was a kind of atavistic affection between them, but anything resembling friendship didn’t seem to be on the cards.
Muffled by the double glazing, the noise of the New York traffic reached her from below. This was the city she knew best, after Rome. She had always been suspended between two different worlds: she was part of both and yet did not really belong to either. Only one person had ever formed a bridge between the two worlds for her.
One person.
And now . . .
Ever since she had woken at the Gemelli Hospital, her life had been a rapid succession of monochrome sensations. The darkness had forced her other senses to form some vague idea of what was happening around her. Even the journey from Rome to New York had been a series of fragmented emotions.
And in all that time, in that darkness, Arben Gallani’s earring had never stopped swaying and Connor’s blood-drenched body had never stopped falling in the dust, and Maureen had never stopped screaming.
The voice of Professor William Roscoe, the surgeon who was going to operate on her, had been just one more voice that had superimposed itself for a while on her long, silent scream. A deep baritone, with a soft accent she couldn’t quite identify but which wasn’t the dry, sharp accent of New York. She remembered sensing his presence by the bed. He had smelled of clean shirts and aftershave.
‘Miss Martini,’ he had said, ‘the operation you’re going to have is relatively straightforward, and has a fairly short postoperative period. Two new corneas will be implanted and I’ll use stem cells to avoid any problem of rejection linked to your genetic peculiarity. I think we’ll be able to remove the dressings in a few days, and I can practically guarantee that you will see again. The only complication is that you’ll subsequently have to undergo a couple of very minor operations, using more stem cells, to stabilize the new corneas. In addition, I’m afraid you’ll have to wear dark glasses for a while, but that’ll merely add a touch of mystery to your usual charms. Have I been thorough enough, or is there something you’d like me to clarify?’
‘No, you’ve been extremely clear.’
‘Don’t worry. As I said, in a week at the outside you’ll see again.’
‘Of course I’ll see again,’ she had replied calmly.
Of course I’ll see again. Not because of what I want to see but because of what I must see. A face looking down the barrel of a gun . . .
The operation had been the squeaky wheels of a gurney, more disinfectant smells, voices in an operating room full of lights of which she could sense only the heat, the prick of a needle in her arm, and then nothingness. The anaesthetic had been a simple leap into a deeper darkness, during which she had been able to allow herself the luxury of not thinking.
When she had come round, she had been greeted by the voices and hands of her father and mother. And her mother’s perfume, discreet and exclusive. Maureen had tried to picture her, sitting by the bed, elegant despite everything. A mixture of class and self-control. At other moments she would have called it coldness, but now she preferred to give her mother the benefit of the doubt.
By now, the itching in her eyes had worn off, and she needed to go to the bathroom, a banal physical need that made her feel alive. She did not want to call her mother, nor did she want to submit to the attentions of Estrella, the Hipsanic housekeeper. Even that obstinate little gesture towards self-sufficency pleased her. She got up from the bed and groped her way cautiously towards the bathroom, narrowly avoiding a cabinet and an armchair. Reaching the wall, she ran her hand over the cold, smooth surface until it felt the glossier surface of the bathroom door. She found the handle and turned it until she felt it give. She pushed open the door, took one uncertain step inside the room and suddenly . . .
. . . there’s light and a woman’s face covered in blue paint under me. We’re lying on the floor and around us everything is white, with splashes of colour, and I’m on top of her body and part of me I didn’t even know I had is moving in and out of her and she’s warm and moist and I see her face turning pale as the colour gradually drains away. I see her but can’t hear her as she reaches orgasm – and then suddenly I’m standing. Now I can see my penis and I grab it and shake it, drops of sperm spattering all around me as I fall into the bottomless pit of a pleasure I’ve never known before. Now I’m on the ground and . . .
. . . I’m standing in front of a mirror and my face looks at me, a face as red as if covered with the blood of a thousand wounds. It looks out at me through that bright rectangle from another world, a world that seems to have made madness its basic rule. My lips move as I aim a finger at my image like a gun and . . .
. . . I’m walking towards the door at the far end of this huge room that’s filled with light and I open it and in the darkness of the landing there’s a motionless figure and then the figure ste
ps forward . . .
Maureen was kneeling on the floor with her hands on her temples, again engulfed by the darkness. She felt exhausted, as if after a nightmare or an orgasm, especially the latter. She was drained as if the pleasure she had just felt had been real, even though she had experienced it as a man. The hand she had felt moving over the penis had been hers, and so was the sperm that had spurted out, and so was that part of the body she shouldn’t have, couldn’t have.
She bent slowly forward until her hot forehead touched the cold marble floor, cooling her fever.
It isn’t possible. It isn’t possible . . .
She was on the verge of panic when the door opened.
‘Madre de Dios, what’s happening, miss? Wait, I’ll help you.’
It was Estrella. Maureen heard her steps coming closer. At the same time, she heard the clack of her mother’s heels approaching from another part of the apartment. She felt the comfort of two strong hands.
‘Come, miss, lean on me. I’ll take you back to bed.’
Estrella helped her to her feet and guided her through the bedroom, supporting her with her sturdy body. Halfway to the bed, Maureen heard her mother’s voice.
‘What happened, dear? Did you feel sick?’
‘It’s nothing, Mother. I slipped and fell.’
‘How is this possible, Estrella? I thought I made myself very clear. Miss Maureen was not to be left alone for a moment.’
Maureen shook her head. ‘It’s nothing to do with Estrella. It’s entirely my fault. I wanted to go to the bathroom by myself and I slipped. I’m fine now.’
‘I’m surprised that in your condition,’ her mother said, irritation now replacing concern, ‘you still want to show off with such acts of bravado. I can’t believe it. What sense is there in that?’