Señora, not the ex-Princess of Montefino. And you will learn something about Nolan Keefe. He’s an old man now, even by my ridiculous standards. A silly, cranky viejo who is more of an adolescent than a man. He frightens me, Mr. Lockwood, but I must sit in the musty parlor of the Villa Age d’Or and take my tea and nibble on their Danish butter cookies and wait out the endless gaps in our conversation. He brushes off the cookie crumbs that fall on his coat. They glimmer like flecks of gold under the window that catches the sun. I time my visits in this way, you see, to catch that precious sliver of light that comes in through that dusty glass.
“Often he does not touch his tea at all. It grows cold even as the last afternoon light wanes and we are left in the twilight of the parlor, waiting always until the last minute before turning on the lamp. There is no need for conversation when two old souls can sit side by side. We respond to each other like the tines of a tuning fork. When we speak it’s about nothing in particular. The weather. The pattern on the tea service. Butter cookies instead of pecan sandies. Anyone overhearing us would get the impression of two married dullards, filling the emptiness of their lives with the motions of a relationship. Well, Nolan doesn’t talk much because he thinks we have said everything to each other that is worth saying. If he reacts with a shudder to a chill in the air, he is commenting on much more than the temperature. It is a private language he speaks, and no amount of translating could convey the full meaning.
“I talk enough for the two of us: ‘The new nurse’s name is Millicent; I don’t believe I have ever known a Millicent before. What does her name mean? A thousand scents? Well, she smells of Pine-Sol, and not much else. Nine hundred and ninety-nine scents to go—musk and basil and lilacs and the sea.’ We could go on, my love and I. Once we started a list of scents we remembered, and every Wednesday we would add them to a yellow pad, and every new scent would lead us down a new path, would bring us face to face with a different place, a different hour, a different face.
“Every recollection was a delight, a gift of memory. We gave up on the list right after ‘freshly pitched hay,’ no more than thirty items or so. My Nolan grew tired of the game on the afternoon we were to reach fifty, a milestone day indeed—absinthe, Armagnac, aquavit, and fourteen to go. He tilted his head back and let out a big yawn such as cats do to mask their aggression. I nudged him, not because I didn’t sympathize with his boredom, I was pretty bored myself, but because he looked so undignified sitting there being rude. Heads turned toward us as he let out a melodramatic groan. There were other people in the parlor, the Wednesday regulars, we called them. They have rules about proper behavior at the Villa Age d’Or. You must make reservations for tea. Far from being onerous, their rules give me a feeling of security, to know that as long as my husband is there, as long as I show up for our appointed time on Wednesdays, every effort is made to keep our lives on track.
“After all, this is a privileged table, the one that catches the light between five and five-forty, and there are many Wednesday regulars in this room who would kill for it. I lean toward him as if to whisper a bit of gossip in his ear and my fingers curl around his arm and tighten until I feel him jerk it away. He stares at me in surprise and snaps his mouth shut.
“Am I annoying you?” he asks when his eyes meet mine.
“Of course not, my darling,” I reassure him. “But if I bore you, I will no longer visit you.”
Now Lockwood and Perla would get together one more time. The anticipation of the meeting gave the moment a sense of adventure tinged with the hopelessness of their relationship. The possibilities quickened his pulse and made his ears ring. They would have lunch together at a quiet fish place in Del Mar, something easy to digest, light on the garlic, with a crisp sauvignon blanc. They’d take their time. Savor the briny sea air. Put a final flourish on the meal with a mighty espresso. And then, with a shared sense of the sentimental value of their mission, go hand in hand to comfort old Nolan Keefe.
ABSORBED IN THE OBJECT.
At night the dark house in Anaheim echoes with whispers. Lockwood turns the recorder down to a murmur, but the voices curl under the door, around the corners, up the stairs. They slide on the hardwood floor and crawl along the carpeting and cling to the walls and drapes. First the low questioning tones, then the rise and fall of the lighter voice, musical even in the rapid cadence of argument and persuasion, of apology and derision.
In the past few weeks the sound of this voice has become as familiar as any in his life. He fears he has spent more hours within its range than hearing those of his closest friends, his mother, his wife—no other voice in his life has gone on so continuously, so relentlessly. Yet this is a voice without clear features. Sometimes she is a girl of twenty, plump and good-natured; at others she wears a garish mask, features distorted by a pain bigger than ordinary life; in a book of press clippings, her expression is often angry, afraid, humiliated. But rarely the face in repose, as Lockwood has seen it, softened and humbled by forgiveness and time.
Claire has asked Lockwood about Mercè Casals. There is no one answer, he says. She was like anybody’s grandmother. She was like any be-jeweled crone on Rodeo Drive. She was an old woman fading, fading away. Mostly, her features changed. Her face often surprised him. Her eyes were some days dry and dull with cataracts. Other times, when she remembered a particular moment, they glistened with tears.
The long drive from the beach always brought Lockwood home with his mind brimming with the possibilities of the life he has been handed, but frustrated and impatient with the elusiveness of his story. Like a new lover, the scribbler cannot pull the sum total of his beloved’s tastes and scents and features into a stable image.
“I liked you better before,” Claire blurts out one morning over breakfast. She has started sitting at the far end of the table to give him the increased room he has demanded for the biographies, the books on opera, and the files of magazine articles he continually pores over. “You were not so moody. You were content.”
Lockwood looks up from a scattering of clippings while the eggs and toast grow cold. “Ah, but I’m happy now, sometimes, anyway. Content is just one step away from resigned. I was getting resigned to being a drudge.”
“More coffee?” Claire reaches for the carafe. She pours even as he’s shaking his head. “Hell, Mark, drink coffee. It will help the foul mood you woke up in.”
He holds his cup toward her. “Thank you. I’ve been a jerk.”
“No, just somewhat self-absorbed.”
“Just absorbed in the object.”
“Of your affections?”
“Of my obsessions,” he corrects glumly.
“Not the same thing?”
“Jesus, Claire. Do you really think I was in love with this woman? At eighty-something?”
“Well?”
“Actually, I like her nurse. She’s from Mexico City. Very pretty. Twenty-six.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She frowns.
“She thinks I’m a loser, actually,” he adds cheerfully, as if to set her mind at ease. “I’ve got to run.” He pushes back from the table. “The Señora always visited her ex-husband on Wednesday afternoons.”
“Will they let you see him when they’re expecting his wife?”
“I’ll find out.” He gathers the files and envelopes into a leather satchel.
I SHOULD HAVE DIED YEARS AGO.
Sometimes after talking for an hour or two, Mercè Casals would lean back in her favorite chair and turn up the volume of her singing, which had been gently flowing for hours. She would close her eyes and wait for the sound of her voice to spark a memory. Her singing soared on the wings of an aria, a lyrical Mozart or a powerful Verdi; her voice filled the room, animating the space with her overwhelming presence, a reckless C bringing out a glint of light here, a reflection there.
Just