* * *
Alma Belasco was so accustomed to giving orders and keeping her distance, and Irina so accustomed to receiving orders and being discreet, that they would never have come to appreciate each other were it not for Seth Belasco, Alma’s favorite grandson, who made it his job to pull down the barriers between them. Seth met Irina shortly after his grandmother moved to Lark House. The young woman fascinated him from the start, although he could not have said why. Despite her name, she had little in common with the East European beauties who in the previous decade had taken the men’s clubs and model agencies by storm; in fact, from a distance Irina could be taken for a scruffy-looking young boy. She was so inclined to remain invisible that it took a good pair of eyes to even notice her. Her baggy clothes and knitted hat pulled down low did not exactly make her stand out. Seth was attracted by her mysterious intelligence, her impish, heart-shaped face with a deep dimple in the chin, her startled greenish eyes, her slender neck that emphasized her vulnerability, and her skin, so white it seemed to glow in the darkness. Even her childlike hands and chewed nails moved him. He felt a previously unknown and disturbing desire to protect her and shower her with affection. In the winter, Irina wore so many layers of clothes that it was impossible to judge the rest of her appearance, but several months later, when summer forced her to abandon the protective coverings, she turned out to be well proportioned and attractive, in her own raggedy way. The knitted cap was replaced by gypsy head scarves that could not completely cover her head, so that a few locks of almost albino blond hair constantly framed her face.
At first, the only link Seth could establish with her was thanks to his grandmother, since none of his usual seduction techniques appeared to work. Later on, he discovered the irresistible power of writing. He told her that with his grandmother’s aid he was compiling a century and a half of the history not only of the Belasco family but of San Francisco itself, from its foundation to the present day. He had been mulling over this vast saga for fifteen years: a raucous torrent of images, anecdotes, and ideas. If he could not get it all down on paper it would drown him. This was something of an exaggeration—the torrent was little more than a tiny trickle—but his description so caught Irina’s imagination that Seth had no choice but to set to work. In addition to visiting his grandmother, who contributed her oral history, he began to collect information from books and the Internet, and to collect photographs and letters written at different time periods. This won him Irina’s admiration, but not Alma’s. She accused him of having grandiose ideas and sloppy habits, a fatal combination for a writer. If Seth had paused to reflect, he would have admitted that both the book and his grandmother were nothing more than pretexts to see Irina, this creature straight out of a Nordic saga who had materialized where least expected: in an old people’s home. But however long and hard he reflected, he would have been at a loss to explain the irresistible attraction she exerted on him: her tiny orphan’s bone structure and consumptive pallor were the exact opposite of his ideal woman. He usually went for the healthy, tanned, cheerful girls who were so common in California and in his past. Irina showed no sign of being aware of the effect she had on him; she treated him with the casual kindness usually reserved for other people’s pets. Her polite indifference, which he would once have seen as a challenge, left him in a constant state of shy paralysis.
Seth’s grandmother began to dig among her memories to help her grandson with a book that, by his own admission, he had already spent ten years writing in fits and starts. No one was better qualified to aid him in this way than Alma, who had the spare time and was not yet afflicted with any signs of senile dementia. Alma took Irina with her to visit the ancestral Belasco residence at Sea Cliff, to go through her boxes that no one had touched since she had left. Her old bedroom remained under lock and key, entered only for cleaning purposes. Alma had disposed of almost all her possessions: she gave her jewelry to her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, with the exception of a diamond wedding ring reserved for Seth’s future wife; her books to hospitals and schools; clothes and furs, which no one dared wear anymore in California for fear of animal-rights protesters who might launch a knife attack, to charity shops; she distributed other things to whoever wanted them, keeping only what mattered to her: letters, diaries, press cuttings, documents, and photographs. “I have to sort out all this stuff, Irina, I don’t want anyone rummaging in my private life when I am really old.” To begin with she tried to do it all on her own, but as she began to trust Irina she began to delegate to her. The young woman ended up in charge of everything, apart from the letters in yellow envelopes that arrived from time to time, which Alma always made vanish immediately. Irina was under strict instructions not to touch them.
Alma doled out her memories to her grandson in a sparing manner, one by one, to keep him hanging on for as long as possible, because she was afraid that if he became bored of fluttering around Irina, the famous manuscript would be returned to a bottom drawer and she would see far less of the young man. Irina’s presence was essential to the sessions with Seth, otherwise he became distracted waiting for her to appear. Alma laughed to herself when she thought how the family would react if Seth, the heir to the Belasco dynasty, were to get together with an immigrant who lived by caring for old people and washing dogs. She herself did not consider it such a bad idea, as Irina was far more intelligent than Seth’s previous athletic but short-lived girlfriends; yet Irina was a rough diamond, and required polishing. Alma set herself the task of providing her with a veneer of culture, taking her to concerts and museums, lending her grown-up books to read instead of those absurdly lengthy novels about fantasy worlds and supernatural creatures that she so enjoyed, and teaching her proper manners, including how to handle cutlery at table. Irina had learned none of this from her peasant grandparents in Moldova or from her alcoholic mother in Texas, but she was quick-witted and grateful. It would be easy to refine her, and it would be a subtle way of paying her back for attracting Seth to Lark House.
THE INVISIBLE MAN
A year after she started to work for Alma Belasco, Irina began to suspect the older woman had a lover. She did not admit her suspicions to Seth until much later. At first, before Seth had lured her into the intrigue, she had never dreamed of spying on Alma. She had been drawn into Alma’s private world gradually, without either of them realizing it. The idea of a lover started to take shape when Irina was sorting out the boxes Alma had brought from the house at Sea Cliff and when she examined the silver-framed photograph of a man that Alma kept in her bedroom, which she polished regularly. Apart from a smaller one of her family in the living room, there were no other photos in the apartment. This caught Irina’s attention, because all the other residents at Lark House surrounded themselves with photographs to keep them company. All Alma said was that the man in the portrait was a childhood friend. On the rare occasion that Irina plucked up the courage to ask something more, Alma changed the subject. Still, Irina managed to drag out of her that his name was Ichimei Fukuda, and that he had painted the strange canvas that hung in the living room, a desolate snowy landscape beneath a gray sky, with dark one-story buildings, electricity posts and wires, and the only sign of life a black bird in flight. Irina couldn’t understand why, from among the wealth of artworks the Belasco family owned, Alma had chosen such a depressing picture to decorate her home with. The portrait of Ichimei Fukuda showed a man of uncertain age, his head quizzically tilted to one side, eyes half-closed because he was squinting into the sun; even so, his look was candid and direct. He had a fine head of straight hair, and the hint of a smile on his thick, sensual lips. Irina felt herself irresistibly drawn to his face, which seemed to be either entreating her or trying to convey something of vital importance. When she was on her own in the apartment she studied the portrait so avidly that she began to imagine a full-length version of Ichimei Fukuda, endowing him with physical attributes as well as inventing a life for him: broad shoulders, a lonely character, someone whom sufferi
ng had taught to keep his emotions in check. Alma’s refusal to talk about him only further aroused Irina’s desire to meet him. In one of the boxes she found another photo of the same man on a beach with Alma. Both of them had their pants rolled up, sandals in hand, and were wading in the water, laughing and splashing each other. The couple’s attitude suggested love and sexual intimacy. Irina guessed they were alone there and had asked a passing stranger to take this snapshot of them. If Ichimei was more or less the same age as Alma, Irina calculated he must be in his eighties now, but she was certain that she would recognize him if ever she saw him. Ichimei had to be the reason behind Alma’s erratic behavior.
Irina could predict Alma’s disappearances from her melancholy, self-absorbed silences in the days leading up to them. These gave way to a sudden, barely controlled euphoria once she had made up her mind to leave. She was waiting for something to happen, and when it arrived, she was overjoyed. She threw a few clothes into a small overnight bag, told Kirsten not to go to the workshop, and left Neko for Irina to look after. The cat was old, and suffered from a series of quirks and ailments. The long list of recommendations and medicines for his care was stuck to the refrigerator door. Neko was the fourth in a line of similar cats, all with the same name, that had kept Alma company at different stages in her life.
Alma would leave with a lover’s haste, without saying where she was going or when she thought she’d be back. Two or three days would go by with no news from her, and then all at once, as unexpectedly as she had left, she would reappear, with a beaming smile on her face and her toy car’s gas tank nearly empty. Irina was in charge of her accounts and had seen the hotel receipts. She had also discovered that on these adventures Alma took the only two silk nightgowns she possessed, instead of her usual flannel pajamas. She wondered why Alma slipped away as though she were committing a sin; after all, she was a free woman and could receive whomever she liked in her Lark House apartment.
Inevitably, Irina’s suspicions about the man in the photograph infected Seth. Even though Irina had been careful not to mention her doubts, Seth’s frequent visits led him to notice his grandmother’s repeated absences. Whenever he raised the subject, Alma said she was going to train with terrorists, or experiment with the hallucinatory drug ayahuasca, or gave some equally absurd explanation, in the mock-sarcastic tone they employed with each other. Seth decided to enlist Irina’s help to solve the mystery, although this was not easy to obtain, as the young woman’s loyalty to Alma was absolute. He had to convince Irina that his grandmother was in peril. Alma appeared strong for her age, he told her, but the truth was she was delicate, had high blood pressure and a weak heart, and was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, which was why her hands shook. He couldn’t give her any further details, because Alma had refused to undergo the required medical examinations, but the two of them needed to keep an eye on her and avoid her running any risks.
“We want our loved ones to be safe, Seth. But what they want for themselves is autonomy. Your grandmother would never accept us poking our noses into her private life, even if it is to protect her.”
“That’s why we have to do it without her realizing it,” Seth asserted.
* * *
According to Seth, early in 2010 his grandmother’s personality underwent a complete change in the space of two hours. Although she had been a successful artist and someone who always fulfilled her obligations, she suddenly cut herself off from the world, family, and friends, shutting herself away in an old people’s home that was beneath her and deciding, in her daughter-in-law Doris’s opinion, to dress like a Tibetan refugee. She must have had some kind of short circuit in the brain, Doris said. The last they saw of the former Alma was when she announced, after a perfectly normal lunch, that she was going to take a nap. When at five o’clock Doris knocked on her bedroom door to remind her about that evening’s reception, she found her standing at the window staring out into the mist. She was barefoot, and in her underwear. Her splendid formal gown lay abandoned on a chair. “Tell Larry I’m not going to the reception, and that he can’t count on me for anything for the rest of my life.” Her emphatic tone brooked no argument. Her daughter-in-law closed the door silently and went to give her husband the message. The gala was to raise funds for the Belasco Foundation and was the most important event of the year, putting the family’s ability to attract donors to the test. The waiters were putting the finishing touches to the tables, the cooks were busy with the banquet, and the chamber orchestra musicians were tuning their instruments. Each year, Alma gave a short speech that was always more or less the same. Afterward she posed for photographs with the most important benefactors and spoke to the press. That was all that was asked of her: the rest was handled by Larry, her son. That night they had to make do without her.
The dramatic changes started the next day. Alma began to pack her bags and decided that very little of what she had would be of any use to her in her new life. She had to simplify. First she went shopping, and then got together with her accountant and her lawyer. She allotted herself a modest pension, handed the rest of her wealth over to Larry without instructions as to how he should spend it, and announced she would be going to live at Lark House. In order to avoid the waiting list she purchased the right to become a resident from an anthropologist, who for the right price was willing to wait a few more years. No one in the Belasco family had ever heard of the place.
“It’s a rest home,” said Alma vaguely.
“A nursing home?” asked Larry with alarm.
“More or less. I want to live the time I have left without complications or burdens.”
“Burdens! I hope you don’t mean us!”
“And what are we going to tell people?” exclaimed Doris.
“That I’m old and crazy. That wouldn’t be far off the mark,” Alma replied.
The chauffeur drove her there with her cat and two suitcases. A week later, Alma renewed a driving license that she hadn’t needed in decades and bought a lime-green Smart car. It was so tiny and light that once, when it was parked on the street, three mischievous youths tipped it on its roof and left it with its wheels in the air like an upended tortoise. Her reason for choosing it was that the garish color made it visible for other drivers, and its small size meant that if by some misfortune she ran someone over, she would most likely not kill them. It was like driving a cross between a bicycle and a wheelchair.
“I think my grandmother has serious health problems, Irina,” Seth told her. “And she shut herself up in Lark House out of a sense of pride, so that no one would find out.”
“If that were the case, she’d be dead by now. Besides, no one shuts themselves up in Lark House, it’s an open community where people come and go as they like. That’s why we don’t admit people suffering from Alzheimer’s, who might get out and wander off.”
“That’s exactly what scares me. My grandmother could get lost on one of her excursions.”
“She always comes back. She knows where she’s going, and I don’t think she goes there alone.”
“Then who does she go with? A boyfriend? You can’t possibly think my grandmother stays at hotels with a lover!” Seth said mockingly, but Irina’s serious expression cut his laughter short.
“Why not?”
“She’s ancient!”
“It’s all relative. She’s old, not ancient. In Lark House, Alma is considered young. Besides, love can strike at any age. Voigt thinks it’s good to fall in love when you’re old: it keeps you healthy and wards off depression.”
“How do old people do it? In bed, I mean?” asked Seth.
“Taking their time, I suppose. You’d have to ask your grandmother that,” Irina responded.
Seth soon succeeded in winning Irina over, and the two of them began trying to solve the puzzle. Once a week, Alma received a box containing three gardenias that was left at the reception desk by a delivery boy. The box never included the sender’s name or the florist’s, but Alma displayed
neither surprise nor curiosity. She also regularly received yellow envelopes, again with no indication as to who had sent them. Alma would throw these away after extracting from them a smaller envelope, with her name and old address at Sea Cliff handwritten on it. None of the Belasco family or their staff had either seen these envelopes or forwarded them on to Lark House in the bigger yellow ones. They knew nothing about the yellow envelopes until Seth mentioned them. He and Irina were unable to discover the identity of the sender, or why two envelopes and two addresses were necessary for the same letter, much less where this unusual correspondence ended up. Since Irina found no trace of the letters in the apartment and Seth nothing at Sea Cliff, they assumed Alma must have stored them in a safe-deposit box at her bank.
April 12, 1996
Yet another unforgettable honeymoon with you, Alma! It’s been a long time since I saw you so relaxed and happy. And for us to be greeted like that, in Washington, with the magical sight of one thousand seven hundred cherry trees in bloom! I saw something similar in Kyoto many years ago. Does the cherry tree my father planted at Sea Cliff still bloom each year?
I remember how you stroked the names inscribed in the dark stone of the Vietnam Memorial and told me that stones speak, that you can hear their voices, that the dead are trapped inside the wall and cry out to us, outraged at their sacrifice. I’ve been thinking about that. There are spirits all around us, Alma, but I believe they are free and do not harbor any resentment.