He tried to imagine Aleph leaving behind plague-stricken London to come here. He tried to imagine her being married in this village—married, in fact, while London burned behind her . . . because if he was remembering correctly, September 4th of 1666 was smack in the middle of the Great Fire of London. He tried to picture a festive occasion regardless—guests resigned or indifferent to the destruction happening just scant miles away. And Ester Velasquez under the marriage canopy, freed at last from the burden of all she’d once attempted. Had it been a relief?
During the months he’d labored over her handwriting, he’d gradually formed a mental image of Ester Velasquez: petite, large-eyed, too skinny, pale with dark hair. Emily Dickinson, he realized with a jolt—with a slightly Jewish nose. Had she truly become mistress of the once-grand house on the rise above the river? He imagined her, her spidery letter aleph retired for good, making her rounds supervising the servants’ labors. Walking dozens of times each day past the expensively carved stairwell in which she’d entombed the brief budding of her intellectual and personal freedom. Perhaps she’d found moments here and there to unlock the cupboard and reread the papers, mementos of her lost liberty. Though perhaps she hadn’t—perhaps she’d found the rec-ord of her bygone opportunities too painful to visit.
He shook off the thought. It was unlikely, wasn’t it, that he’d ever fathom the mindset of an obscure seventeenth-century English Jew. Ester Velasquez had lived, scribed a while—then, in the wake of the rabbi’s death, been saved by Manuel HaLevy’s offer of marriage. Perhaps she’d been content here in Richmond, perhaps not. No one would ever know. And in any event, it had nothing to do with him.
He sat in the airless records room, a 334-year-old roster in his hands. It dawned on him that he’d been counting on Ester’s story not to fizzle out in some trivial, humdrum ending. Alongside Helen, he’d ignored the unpleasant fact that Wilton’s vision of Ester’s aptitude and temperament was the most likely one. Instead, he’d wanted Ester’s story to serve up something staggering: some triumphal parade showcasing the very qualities Aaron wished to see in his own reflection. He’d wished Ester to be independent, clever, indomitable, rebellious. He’d expected her story to serve as something unseemly: his own coronation. But in fact history was indifferent to him. It didn’t matter what he wanted.
The world had simply closed over Ester Velasquez’s head. And it could just as easily close over Aaron’s.
This should not have been news to him.
In a rush of obscure panic, he searched the records for further news of Ester. Childbirth or death, perhaps both at once? He slid his finger down the lines, searching for her name, now wanting only the ending to the goddamn story that had gripped him all these months. Across the room, Anne was glancing reluctantly at the clock. He knew she was trying to delay, until the last possible moment, telling him he needed to leave. He turned pages; he’d made it through 1667, then 1668, 1669 . . . but the records were growing longer with every year, the population of the area apparently rising. Thus far he’d found no further mention of Ester HaLevy, though one Benjamin HaLevy, presumably Ester’s father-in-law, had died in 1667. There seemed to be no children so far, though perhaps in the 1670s?
“I’m afraid it’s time,” Anne said. She was standing beside his table, one hand, with its trimmed-to-the-quick nails, resting tentatively on the back of an empty chair.
He offered her a humble smile. “I wonder if I couldn’t go through just a few more pages?”
“No,” she said simply. “Sorry.”
Small wonder he couldn’t get anywhere with the Patricias; even in their youth they respected the importance of limits. He packed up his notes. Preceding Anne down the series of corridors and stairs, her quiet tread trailing him, he wanted to turn and compliment her—yet though he meant it sincerely, he could think of no way to say it without sounding sarcastic: you’ll go far.
On the street he hesitated. He wasn’t ready to return to the bus station, but didn’t know where else to go. Anne, who had locked and tested the main door, now descended the building’s stone steps and started for the main street—but seemed to hesitate as well.
“If there’s any other way I can help?” she said.
Her blue eyes were clear and lovely. He paused to curse a world that might never offer such a girl romance, or whatever it was she dreamt of. And he had a sudden, intolerable feeling that the shape of that world just might be his fault.
“Thanks anyway,” he said. “It’s just—I’m trying to find out when someone died.”
She waited.
“It’s 1670 or later,” he said. “Ester HaLevy.”
Nodding, she took out a notepad and wrote down the name. Then, with a slight flush, Aaron’s mobile number. “I’ll have a look for you.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Truly.”
She turned and disappeared into the steady foot traffic.
The afternoon had turned to evening. All around him, English people were returning to their homes. But in an instant the foreignness of living abroad, which had sustained Aaron all these months, had lost its magic—and he saw how his new, exotic existence had allowed him to ignore the isolation that was the bedrock of his life, whether in England or in the United States. He, unlike these strangers striding with their briefcases and packages up the long, curving hill, had no one to go home to.
Some candle inside him was dangerously close to guttering. A definition of loneliness surfaced in his mind: when you suddenly understand that the story of your life isn’t what you thought it was.
He fought back. So what if Ester had married Manuel HaLevy? It wasn’t necessarily a defeat. At least she’d escaped the plague. And who knew that she didn’t eventually fall in love with HaLevy, however much of a cretin the guy initially seemed? That, he resolved, was what he’d tell Helen Watt—for suddenly, maddening though Helen could be, he wanted to give her the gift of a gentle ending. Look, he’d tell her. Puppy love blossoming out of disdain. Ester decided to marry the guy she once despised.
Helen wouldn’t be fooled for an instant. Ester—Aleph—could not have wished to marry a man with no patience for learning.
Through a break in the trees he stared down miserably at the mute river. Then, to his own surprise, he turned uphill rather than back down toward the station. He’d buy himself a beer at Prospero’s.
But he didn’t.
Bridgette answered the door. It seemed to take her a moment to place him. A small, wry smile formed on her face. She stood there for a long time, smiling. So long, he began to feel foolish.
“Hi,” he said.
“Still curious?” she said.
He said, “A bit.” Then added—a beat too late—“About the house.”
That was what he meant. It was what he thought he meant. He’d turned off the street and walked up the narrow path across the Eastons’ newly manicured front garden because he thought, somehow, that seeing the house once more might help him gain some still-elusive understanding of Ester Velasquez’s choice.
“By all means, then,” she said, “come see the house.”
He wasn’t sure whether to join her laughter.