The Debt of Tamar (28 page)

“What’s the celebration?” the driver pressed.

She looked down at the cream colored dress that bathed her skin like a tub-f of milk.

“No celebration.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.

After a few minutes she felt the car slow to a stop. When she opened her eyes she could see Mr. Rumie standing curbside with his arms latched behind. He peered into the window, then reached for the handle. She heard a click before the door swung open and the cool air rushed in. With an outstretched arm, he reached for her hand and picked her from the black lacquered seat as lovingly as the gardenias he plucked for his lapel. He welcomed her as though she were a gift.

She stepped out, her feet landing gently on the wetness of the evening’s pavement. The wind moved like velvet ribbons past her cheeks settling on her chest with a dash of crispness that hinted at September. He held her hand as though inviting her to curtsey, then exclaimed, “My G-d, you look beautiful.” She was still for a moment, while the glare of flashing cameras illuminated her frame as lighting does a bare tree in winter. He gathered her in his arm and weaved past a small hoard of guests, quietly humming a song that had been stuck in his head for the past thirty-five years. When he reached the narrow stairs leading up to the gallery’s entrance, he stopped, falling limp on his cane. Then, he turned to Hannah and exclaimed, “You’ve exhausted me with beauty this evening.”

“I’m not beautiful, you should see my mother,” she managed, in an attempt to steer his attentions from her.

“I’m sure she is,” he continued, twisting his cane to the ground as he spoke, “but I’m here to say that you take after your father. He always was the good looking one.”

His words startled the both of them, and lingered like spilt wine that continued to drip off the edge of their thoughts because neither dared to move or wipe it away. Rumie looked through the gallery’s opened doors at the portrait of Davide Herzikova. “There’s something you should know.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head. “There’s time for that. Not now. Not here.” Remembering the assemblage of art critics and collectors waiting inside, he continued. “Hurry, they’re all waiting for you.” He’d made all the arrangements and received all the most important RSVPS necessary to promote Hannah’s exhibition.

When she stood unmoved, he gestured in a shooing motion.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“I’m too old and ugly to spoil your debut. I’ll be right behind you.”

She made her way up the staircase through the entrance of the Edward Rumie Art gallery. As she came face to face with the life-size portrait of David Herzikova, she wondered what he would think of her now. She turned away from his almond eyes because she could not bear to face him at this moment.

“Ashish Rakesh.” A young man with dark, sunken eyes approached her. “I wanted to congratulate you. I’m very impressed with your work.” She smiled and turned away only to be assaulted by a man whose name came down on her like a stamp. “Jonathan Templeton. New York Magazine.” He flashed an immaculate tooth-capped smile. “When you’ve got a minute, I’d love to interview you for this piece I’m doing for the arts section of the upcoming issue.”

She heard her name roll off the tongues of eastside art dealers and French critics. She turned away from a hoard of swanky, lean-limbed ladies who smoked cigarettes as though it were the fashion. Their hair and bangs were cut to the same disturbingly accurate, angular perfection as their black cocktail dresses and stiletto heels.

A flash, a smile. She shook hands and toasted with her champagne. A bit of chardonnay spilled over the edge but everyone was still laughing and smiling their linear laughs and double-edged smiles.

Her portraits covered every wall of the gallery. Mrs. Ethers, the Rabbi’s son, the town’s seamstress, all of the countless portraits—an expression of relief emerged for the first time upon the canvases. Relief that the power of their secrets, their ordinary joys and pains were finally recognized for what they are,
extraordinary.

Crystal chimed overhead while the New York glitterati toasted their champagne glasses and sauntered through the room dropping names like business cards. They offered their acquaintance along with their well wishes and brief, bloated Anglo-Hapsburg ancestral tales of lineage. Snippets of praise languished in every corner of the gallery. Critics seemed fascinated by her subjects, the “suburban bourgeoisie,” one critic claiming that her portraits “speak louder than her muses would ever dare.” After a half hour or so of curt introductions, the room grew quiet to the tinkling attention of a spoon clattering crystal.

“Can I have your attention for just a minute,” exclaimed Mr. Rumie. “Let me take a moment to formerly introduce New York’s riveting new talent, Ms. Hannah Herzikova.” A clapping sensation assaulted her ears while flashing cameras stripped away the protective layer of her eyes. She caught her bearings and smiled for the cameras, making her way through the crowd to Rumie, who held a glass of champagne for her. He embraced Hannah and felt the hot salt of her tears against his cheek. He pulled away and searched her eyes. “Is something wrong?” His voice was crisp and clear against the murmurs and laughter that surrounded them.

“It’s perfect.” She took her glass and clinked her champagne to Rumie’s, downing more than she could handle. “Everything is perfect,” she said, her eyes tearing a little.

His white brows sloped and he stood unmoved with the champagne in his glass still untouched. He felt her pain as though it were his own. Then, he leaned in to whisper, “You did everything you possibly could for him.”

She looked up, somewhat startled. “It was you, wasn’t it?” You came to the house, you were looking for Papa,” she said as the memory of the day came back to her.

Still, the champagne glasses clinked and the critics sauntered past. “How does it feel?” a grey haired waif interrupted. “Oh by the way, the caterer did a hell of a job, Rumie. Send me his number will you?” She smiled thoughtlessly then popped an olive tartine into her mouth. “Brilliant!” she marveled, then wandered off into the crowd.

Hannah reached out with both hands and touched his glasses. Cautiously, she slid the thick frames away from his face. He didn’t try to stop her and he didn’t pull away, just stood quietly as she examined his face unmasked for the first time. Above his eye, a prominent scar zigzagged horizontally like an electric bolt.

“Who are
you
?” she asked.

He took his glasses from her. “Let’s just say I knew your father when I was a boy.”

Hannah looked away. “Why are you doing this for me?”

He cleared his throat but before he could answer, she shook her head and said, “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“Ok.” He squeezed her hand.

She smiled as she felt something like hope fill her.

“Get out of here. I’ll cover for you.”

“You’re not angry?”

He shrugged his shoulders and chuckled. “At the risk of sounding condescending, I couldn’t be prouder.”

She stood to leave then turned around one last time. Above all the evening tête-à-têtes and soiree banter, she could hardly hear her own words. “He was your brother,
n’est-ce pas
?”

Their eyes locked for a long moment before he reached to his lapel and pulled a handkerchief across his rouged face. With shoulders hunched, he lowered his chin into the cocoon of his own embrace.

“Thank you.” She reached out and took his hand, then headed out with an urgency she had not known until that moment.

Leaving his cane hanging from the back of his chair, he stood up straighter than his brittle bones permitted and walked over to the portrait of Davide Herzikova. Looking up into the rapid brush strokes of his almost almond eyes, he said aloud, “Forgive me, Brother, I know I’m too late. Forgive me.” Edward straightened his bow tie and smoothed back his hair. After a few moments he said to himself, “There’s work to be done.” Then, he rounded the room sampling hors d'oeuvres and entertaining ladies. A small knot found its way into the dark spaces of his throat, but still, he managed to charm buyers and critics whose stellar reviews he was counting on for the sake of his dead brother’s child.

“He’s gone.” She surveyed the empty room. A set of fresh, perfectly pressed bed sheets were tucked neatly around the edges of the painfully flat, lifeless bed. “It’s empty,” Hannah said aloud.

“Left a few hours ago,” Dina, the on call-nurse said as she emptied the nightstand of Selim’s personal effects. “It was time for that boy to go,” she said as she stooped down to empty the bottom drawer.

Hannah’s eyes fell back to the perfectly fluffed, unmarked pillow on the bed. “Where?”

“Went home,” she said coolly. “Wherever that is.”

Hannah rounded the corner to the front desk to try and coax the attendants into giving her some information. Their lips moved but all she heard was “patient confidentiality.”

As she drove away, she followed the familiar road back towards a place she’d called home. She turned the windshield wipers to full speed but they did nothing to stop the rain. Her headlights stretched into the black night illuminating just a few yards of glistening tar on the unmarked road ahead. She felt the forest brooding while the scent of wet pine crept upon her as she drove. She breathed in the thick, wholesome scent, wanting to hold her breath forever. Everyone and everything was escaping.

She drove through the ivy-laden wrought iron gates, then headed down the winding road that weaved through the valley towards her house. The winds and wet soil had caused the old mailbox to tilt forward just a little. The lid fell open like the palm of a beggar’s hand. Inside, old bills and damp coupon fliers stuck to the walls with their cornered edges flapping like the wings of a trapped bird.

She stopped the car in the driveway and listened to the rain as it tapped against the glass. Then, instead of heading up over the bridge to the oak-eyed house on stilts, she followed the stone path down to her studio, past the chipped pots and barren shrubs, and around the rotting tomato garden to the side entrance of her quiet studio space. She pushed the door open slowly, then stepped through a few inches of floodwater muddying the edge of her long dress.

The room was completely empty, the portraits, far from home, abandoned in a gallery over an hour’s drive away to be scrutinized by strangers. When she reached down to remove her soaking shoes, she noticed a white envelop floating a few inches above the splintered wooden floorboards. After retrieving it, she withdrew a letter, translucent and sopping from within. The ink was smudged but still clearly legible.

Hannah,

I came here to congratulate you, but even at midnight, you’ve not returned home. I wanted to be the first one to tell you that the show sold out in just a few hours. Your paintings went to business moguls and enthusiastic young collectors. After several missed calls from an unfamiliar number, I received a bid via text message for the entire lot. When I informed the interested party that half the paintings had already been sold, he (or perhaps she?) immediately transferred the funds to secure whatever works were still available.

Tomorrow, you’ll return to find only bare walls.

Success is yours.

Edward Rumie

In that moment, she began to doubt herself and what she had done. Hannah dropped the letter and watched it float lifelessly in a few inches of flood water. She stood motionless as an invisible current carried the paper in a floating loop.

The air hung low and cool on the earth, beckoning the city’s inhabitants to take an evening stroll in the mist. In the horizon, a few birds could be seen, their black wings flapping leisurely across a sun that showed like a glowing medallion hung low in the plum colored sky.

Crickets chimed in the distance as the bellows of passing steam-ships filled the sky above the Bosphorus, like prayers that had risen and hung like wet, drizzling clouds.

Hannah and Edward approached the building. It was a modest honey-colored villa with enormous windows and faded red roof shingles. By the entry, an orange tree blossomed surrounded by a thin ring of fallen leaves and chunky shards of broken roof tile.

“What if this is a mistake?” Hannah turned to Edward.

“It’s not a mistake,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I’m not sure I can do it. Go up there…”

“Of course you can.”

She swallowed hard. “Come with me?”

“I will if that’s what you want. But I don’t think it’s what you want, not really.”

“No,” she sighed.

“Hannah, there’s nothing to be afraid of now.”

“Then why am I am afraid?”

“You’re not sure what you’ll find up there.” He nodded towards the apartment overhead. “It frightens you.”

“Maybe we should go back—”

“
Really
? To where? Where is back now, Hannah?”

“Back to the hotel. Back to New York. Back to before. Just back!” she nearly shouted.

“No,
chérie
.”
He sighed, then leaned the weight of his body against his cane. “There’s no going back. This world, it pushes you forward.” Edward Rumie cast his eyes down, then ground a dried leaf to dust with the tip of his cane. “
Go
,” he kissed her then turned away.

Reluctantly, she stepped forward then pressed the buzzer lightly, eliciting a low hum from the monitor. After a minute, she tried again and waited anxiously before turning to Edward. “No one’s home.”

“Give it a minute.”

She turned her head upward and took a few steps back to see if she could observe anything through the second story window. The shades were drawn behind a long row of windows.

Behind them the sun slipped away while the glow of fireflies filled the yard with freckled luminosity. The weeping of muezzins began to sound the call to the
Maghrib
prayer. One after another they chimed from countless minarets dotting Istanbul’s skyline.