The servants who had not accompanied her parents to East Hampton, where she was supposed to have been as well, had been dismissed, and she was alone in the house. On Saturday night she descended the five flights from her rooms on the top floor to the kitchen in the basement, and on the wide marble stairs between the first and second floors she danced—because she could dance beautifully, because the stairs were challenging to the choreography, because she liked the sound of her shoes clicking against the glossy stone, and because she imagined that he was watching her, and, better yet, that someday, though it seemed impossible given the situation, he really would watch her as she descended these stairs. She wondered if, in what she hoped had been his infatuation, he had noticed her body, through which she could express a great deal both effable and ineffable. Then, still on the stairs, she paused, recalling that he had.
In the kitchen, dangerously happy as she listened to the radio, she made herself a light dinner, which she ate standing up at a limestone island beneath a huge pot rack. On a bed of lettuce, greens, and cherry tomatoes, she put two enormous prawns, two sea scallops, and some crabmeat. This she dressed with olive oil—no vinegar, she did not like vinegar—a pinch of salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of paprika. To the left of her plate she placed a linen napkin and silverware—she did not like to put silverware on the right, without a napkin upon which it could rest—and to the right a wine glass three-quarters filled with Champagne. Champagne seemed to follow Catherine wherever she went. She opened the metal bread drawer in front of and below her, took out a roll, put it on a small bread plate, and stepped back. The bubbles in her glass seemed to rise and dance in synchrony with the songs on the radio. She was so happy she was silly, and she sang her version of a song that, even after she sang it, she could not get out of her head:
Picka you up in a takasee honey,
See-ah you abouta halfa past eight!
Picka you up in a takasee baby,
Donah be late!
She would not have eaten while standing up and moving to music had she not been overbrimming with expectation. “Goddammit,” she said out loud, encouraged by just a little Champagne, “if I have to throw him over, I’ll throw him over.” Then she stopped, two feet from the plate, staring at it as if it were a calculus problem. “No one,” she said, “has ever thrown Victor over. He doesn’t throw over.” And then she said, “But I will!” and she was happy again, lightened, confident.
The next day, Sunday, she walked from Sutton Place to the tennis courts in Central Park to meet a friend and college classmate, a beautiful, unpredictable, Cuban blonde who was scandalously married to a Jewish neurologist, the scandal being not that he was Jewish, for so was she, but that he was a neurologist, which by her family’s standards was insufficiently dynastic. Her mother had once said, “To live without chauffeurs is to live like an animal.”
Catherine and Marisol in tennis whites turned so many heads that they were embarrassed. The male tennis players, sometimes missing their shots, could not refrain from glancing at them, first at one and then at the other, like spectators, rather than players, at a tennis match. Had Harry been home and looked out his windows fronting the park, he could have seen them, distant but dazzling. Instead, he was half searching for her on every street in the city. As he was walking home, they were finishing their game, and as he passed the playground and came out onto Central Park West, Catherine was a few hundred feet to the east.
On her way home, she continued to hear in memory the tennis balls that, struck by earnestly wielded rackets, sounded like a continual and uneven popping of corks. When she crossed the bridle path literally in the shadow of the San Remo, two horses trotted by, high and handsome. On one was a man perfectly attired in riding boots, jodhpurs, a tweed jacket, a tie, and a very fine hat. With a carnation at his lapel, and an expert seat, he was turned in the saddle, speaking to his daughter, a girl of seven or eight, just as elegantly attired but in miniature. Though her horse was somewhat smaller than his, she was confronted with the universal terror of rich young children, a terror that Catherine herself had faced and mastered, that of sitting on a spirited horse proportionately two and a half times higher, faster, and less amenable than her father’s horse, with her legs having no chance of gripping its sides to keep her steady. The father had seemed as fixed in the saddle as a fact of gravity, but his daughter just rested there, balanced only by her grace and that of God. She was, however, unafraid, for she trusted him, and as they rode he gave good and learned advice, and by his love and by the grace of God, she stayed on.
A majestic staircase, with shiny white balusters and a red-brown chestnut rail, was set against the Sutton Place wall of her house, rising in switchbacks from the second floor to the sixth, past large windows that looked out onto the street. Thus she had been told, ever since she had been moved from the nursery to the sixth floor, never to take the stairs while dressed immodestly, lest the “poor people” who lived in the cooperative apartments across Sutton Place catch a glimpse of her déshabillé.
Once they reached their destination, these stairs opened onto a generous landing that ran the width of the building south to north. A left turn would take one along a gallery lined with lighted paintings to an architraved door at almost the north end, the entrance to her rooms. A long hall led into the depth of the building, and off this were a bathroom and dressing room, a study, and a bedroom together taking up less than half the floor. The major part and major room, into which the hall spilled as naturally as a brook, was an immense living area that led two steps down to a terrace. From this room, with a fireplace, grand piano, and American and French impressionist paintings glowing like jewels, one could look easily out over the river to Queens. The view was industrial and grim, but the water was wide and the sunrises almost blood red. The ships and barges that raced by, their speed doubled by the fast current, were close enough so that it was possible to see the color of the helmsmen’s eyes.
Very few captains wanted to take their boats upriver when the current was running against them or downriver when it had shifted, but often they had to, and often they did. And when they did, vessels that at other times might appear and disappear in seconds would labor for five or ten minutes to move through the waters directly in her view. Where ordinarily when they rode on the current the pilots seemed breathlessly to guide them as they fell, pilots who guided them against the current were breathless as if from the exertion of climbing.
Immense volumes of foam in an oxygen-white avalanche were disgorged from straining propellers as they churned the river, which did not cease its resistance for a split second. The strain was so great and the force streaming against the prows so steady that the main task of the pilots was to keep the current dead ahead lest they be swung around and hurled sideways downriver or onto the rocks. Catherine had many times seen a barge and tug forced to come about. Mostly they had saved themselves, surrendering their hard-fought battle to run apostate with the current they had opposed, but more than once she had seen a panicked boat beach itself against the unforgiving banks.
And all this from the tranquility of her living room. Or from the terrace, which now that it was warm had a line of potted orange and lemon trees joining the evergreens that had remained outside through the winter. Cushions had been restored to chaises and chairs, and glass tops to wrought-iron tables. When she returned from playing tennis with Marisol, she closed the French doors to the terrace because a cool wind from the sea had pushed the warm air out of Manhattan like a croupier’s rake moving chips across a felt-covered table.
Although the sun had yet to set, it was low and all her views were by now in shadow. She left the lights off until shortly after eight, when she switched them on because she wanted to make sure that without knocking anything over she could get to the phone if and when it rang, and because she had to be able to see her watch so that she would not sit for hours bereft, unknowing, and like an idiot, if he failed to call. If he didn’t call, she would be very angry but hear
tbroken all the same. The lamp she switched on had been mounted on a Chinese vase. Though the shade was off-white and pearly, the white of the porcelain was absolute, and the blue like that of the ocean on a cold day.
Not having brought a key with him into the army, when he had returned from Europe Harry had to ask the super to make a new key for the apartment. During the time it took to find the super, go down to the workshop, and have the key made, he was stricken with grief, for he knew that his father’s death would come home to him with finality only when he stepped over the threshold. But as he turned the key in the lock, he was unprepared for what he would see.
Virtually nothing remained. Other than walls of books now stacked on the floor and covered with dropcloths, there were several boxes of files, letters, and photographs. Another box held a few cameras, some watches, his father’s folding knife, and a pair of binoculars, all familiar to him. Gold, silver, bank notes, stock certificates, and a small amount of precious jewelry were in a safe-deposit box to which the lawyer would give him the key when making out the papers that lawyers prepare in such circumstances.
But in the apartment itself, other than the boxes and books and a few pieces of good furniture, nothing was left. Even the curtains had been removed, and the walls were freshly painted white. He had to open windows to vent the paint fumes and, early in September, cool the air. His father had had warning and enough time to dispose of his clothes, the contents of drawers, and things that would be difficult for his son either to throw away or to keep. The message was clear: start over and anew. Harry might not have understood this as well as he did had he not just been through four years of war. Now he knew, and he was grateful to his father and loved him all the more.
One of the first things he did was something he had vowed to do if he came back alive. Having fought through France, he loved it immeasurably, and had always loved its painters. So, with a not inconsequential part of his inheritance, he went to an auction at Parke-Bernet and bought—for $6,000, the price of a house—a Manet: sea, sky, and flags whipping in the wind. It would have been frightening to spend that much money had he not just returned from North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Nijmegen, and the Bulge, where money didn’t mean much. He put the painting above the fireplace in his L-shaped living room overlooking the park. Well lit and deep blue, the Manet drew the room into a placid infinity. Every other thing—an English partners’ desk, sofas that he re-covered in damask, new drapes and carpets—seemed naturally to fall in place around it and become more beautiful because of it.
He reshelved the thousands of books on the newly painted bookcases that lined the south and west walls of the living room, and had shelves built in what had been his father’s bedroom, which he made into a study. He refinished the dining room table, replaced the icebox with an electric refrigerator, and made his old room at the back austere, with, however, a double bed.
He lived quietly, with almost no visitors, waiting on events. Deciding not to take any important steps until he had passed at least a year in civilian life, he had spent nine months without the need for action or decision. At work he did little, leaving almost everything to Cornell Wright. He attended to his health, read, and spent a lot of time sitting in the park or in his apartment, thinking and remembering. He knew that his capacity for action could be unleashed in a flood, that the world could instantly become demanding and dangerous once again. But this was his holiday and his rest, for which he was grateful even as he knew it could not last.
Contrary to her every impulse but with complete certainty that it was the right thing to do, at eight Catherine rose, walked to the table that held the instrument of which she had been thinking for two days and at which she had been staring for half an hour, removed the handset from its cradle, and rested it on a notepad beside the phone. Then she opened wide the French doors, crossed the terrace, and stood at the railing, the glossy leaves of a potted orange tree touching her on one side and those of a lemon tree brushing against her on the other.
A ship moved fast in the current, riding from Hell Gate at speed and under lights. It came into sight like charging cavalry, passed as fast as cars on a highway, and rushed downriver into the gathering darkness. She followed it with her eyes. When it had passed, she went in, picked up the telephone, and took it out to the railing, handling the long cord carefully because she didn’t like unnecessary tangles. Before replacing the handset, she crushed a lemon leaf in her fingers, closed her eyes, and inhaled the scent. Now ready, she mated handset and cradle. Checking her tiny watch, which was never accurate despite the several times each year it was repaired, she saw that almost fifteen minutes had passed since the appointed time.
Uptown and west, Harry sat in his living room. The park was visible through four large windows, its lights twinkling as new leaves put them in and out of view according to the wishes of the breeze. Over the reservoir the canyon-front of Fifth Avenue and the higher buildings behind it began to come alight, a red sun having left the stone in shadow and the lights dim but rising. In the corner of his eye was the blue Manet framed in gold and shining like the sea. He had determined not to call until 8:20, but it was difficult to hold fire.
Overcome with the sudden conviction that he had already waited too long, he dialed at 8:15 exactly. The switching and relay took long enough so that Catherine’s phone rang a little after, a great relief to her, as even the short time she had waited after freeing her line had filled her with apprehension that he had tried to call and would not call back, or that he hadn’t called and never would. She let it ring six times, picked it up, and, as if she had been surprised and had no idea who might be calling, casually said hello.
“Is this Catherine?”
“Harry?”
“Where are you?” he asked. “I always ask, when I don’t know, where the people are to whom I’m speaking on the telephone. It makes them less disembodied and abstract, and brings them closer.”
“East Side,” she said. “Fifties.”
“Near a window?”
“Looking out.”
“What do you see?”
She said, “I see a park: flower beds, trees. There are white, pea-gravel walks.” She had deliberately tilted her head down so as not to see the river and Long Island on the opposite bank, and she had omitted to mention that this was a description not of a public park but of the largest private garden in Manhattan.
“I have no idea where that is. I thought I knew every inch of Manhattan. Is it a corner of a park, or a park that I missed? It’s not Bryant Park, which is west of Fifth Avenue, and isn’t in the Fifties. Where is it?”
“You’ll see, someday. What about you?”
“I see Central Park as if from the bridge of a ship, a hundred and ten feet up—which is high enough to remove you from the noise of the street but low enough to keep the expanse of the park immense and the leaves visible one by one. Because it’s dusk I can see the lights glowing in the mass of buildings on Fifth Avenue.”
Her heart beat fast as she waited for what would come. As he looked out at the cliffs, now shining, and she at swift ships backlighted by the newly risen moon, Harry Copeland said to Catherine Thomas Hale, through the copper lines that tied together with electric current every cell in the body of Manhattan, the words—which though simple were excitingly charged with many meanings—“May I see you?”
5. Catherine’s Song
HER INSTRUCTION WAS that as the music came up she was supposed to take a breath, the kind of breath, as if in shock, that signals great emotion. It had to come just before the percussionist sounded the automobile horn, which elided into a trolley bell, which then became a torrent of music that transformed the dark theater into the streets of Manhattan in a blaze of light.
“Can you do this?” the director asked. “Think of yourself as, remember, the girl from Red Lion, Pennsylvania, or somewhere, somewhere where they have chickens. You step out of the station, and there all at once is the city. You’ve never seen anything like it. It’s
overwhelming. It takes your breath away. That’s what we want.”
“They have chickens in New York, Sidney,” she said.
“Live ones?”
“Yes.”
“Not in the restaurants where I eat. I’m asking, can you do it?”
“I can do it,” she said, “but I’ll have to practice.”
“Practice taking in a breath?”
“If you want me to express what you want me to express. . . .” She paused, and looked up at the darkness beyond the blinding spotlights that pinned her onstage. She waved her hand in a questioning spiral. “The whole city. If you want me to convey the life of the city, on this stage, in a single breath—I mean, really—you’ll have to have a little patience.”
“The music has something to do with it too, dear,” the director told her condescendingly. She was the youngest member of the cast, and it was her first part.
But, with one great exception, which she had not overcome, it was both easy for her and in her blood to hold firm. “The music, Sidney, has more than just a quarter of a second with which to work.”
He relented. “All right, everyone take a break so she can practice breathing. At Bryn Mawr, didn’t they teach you to breathe?”
“That’s not what they do at Bryn Mawr. It’s a college. You learn to breathe way before that. Capisce? I need fifteen minutes.” This was just the beginning of her song, as hard as it was, and the song itself, arrestingly beautiful, would have to follow with just the right tone, the right pacing, and the right gloss.
She hurried backstage to stairs that rose to the grid, and as she ascended she realized that, never having been there, she didn’t know if she could reach the roof this way. Even if she could, the view might be blocked, and even were it not, would she find enough in what she would see, because in Manhattan after the war the great and the heroic had given way to tranquility and rest. She drifted up through the darkness, unsure. The higher she climbed, the more the activity below, seen through a black matrix of ropes, bars, wires, and flats, seemed like a miniature of the city itself. Lighting technicians brought up crazily timed sunsets and sunrises in orange and gold, and replicated the terra-cotta-colored rays that in late afternoon make the high façades of city blocks into cathedrals of light. The people moving in the wash of the kliegs seemed to flutter like masses of wings, and in the flare of tungsten fair hair looked like the gold that sparkles in sunlit rock.