EDDIE WAS half-asleep, slumped in the battered old chair in the corner, when there was a knock at the door. He did not move or respond in any way. He barely heard the rapping through the haze of drink. The dog, which hadn’t been walked or given any attention, made a sad woofing response as he lay at his master’s feet. Coralie waited in the dim stairwell, comforted by the chatter of birds echoing from the tack room in the stable. The day had grown unseasonably warm and she wasn’t properly dressed for the weather in her black wool dress and heavy coat and the cotton gloves that made her fingers itch in weather such as this. She suffered from the heat, and with anxiety, but she pushed her nerves away. When there was no answer from inside the loft, she rapped on the door again. The future was spun from moments such as this. If she backed away, it might all unravel. She knocked again, more urgently. There was Eddie’s voice at last, but his reply was far from pleasant. He shouted that whoever was bothering him should go the hell away and leave him in peace.
The door was unlocked, which seemed foolish in this area of Manhattan, where crime was rampant along the docks. But perhaps Eddie assumed that the worst had already happened to him, and had no fear of any further abuse. Coralie had been worried by figures lurking on Tenth Avenue, but she had been let out in the street with no recourse, for the liveryman insisted he would give her a ride back to Brooklyn only after dark, when he was sure the Professor wouldn’t spy his carriage. She had no choice but to go forward, and so she pushed open the door to peer inside. It was afternoon, but the room was dark, the curtains drawn and no lantern lit. The only bit of brightness drifted down from the domed ceiling window, slashes of light that dashed across the horsehair plaster walls. Mitts rose upon seeing Coralie, trotting over to greet her. She recognized the dog who had followed her through the woods and who now yipped cheerfully, clearly glad for a visitor.
When Eddie looked up he thought he had conjured her or perhaps he was not truly awake. There she was, the woman from his dreams. He leaned forward, puzzled and grateful in equal measure, wondering if the gin he’d been drinking was the cause of his fantasy. Despite his drunken state, he realized she had brought his beloved camera, which he’d mourned, believing it to be lost forever. A grin broke through his somber expression.
As for Coralie, she now grasped what the police had done to him, for as Eddie shifted forward she saw that his face was blue with bruises. Far worse, one hand had bandages that covered a wooden splint. Eddie gazed down at himself, disgusted by his circumstances. “They broke it with a two-by-four.”
In the corner were the empty bottles of booze he’d been nursing, as much for the ache of failure inside him as for the pain in his hand. Coralie blamed herself for his condition; she’d done nothing to protect him. She went to him and sat in his lap, her arms around his neck, face buried against his scruffy shirt, still stained with blood. She could feel the heat inside him, and the stirring of his desire. He was experienced with women, but certain she was an innocent he didn’t act on his desire, not as he would have wished to. He had no idea how many books she’d read in her father’s library, with graphic illustrations that she mimed when performing in the tank. It was pretense, meaningless to her. She knew how to excite her viewers, but every move she made was heartless and cold. The chill water, the icy glass, the way she touched herself, all of it was only to thrill her admirers. With Eddie she did not wish to disappear, to become another element, removed from herself. She slipped off her coat and her gloves, relieved it was too dark for him to glimpse her hands. Let him think she was an ordinary woman, and let her be so on this one afternoon. He had no idea that she was a monster and a monster’s daughter.
He murmured she was too good for him; he was a man with a spotty past and a future that was likely going nowhere. Coralie told him the past was of no consequence, and that the future was unwritten. They curled up around each other, and time meant nothing to them. If Eddie could have broken his watch and stopped the movement of the hours, he would have. When he insisted she talk about herself, she avoided personal details and instead told him stories of the world she’d known: of a wonder who drank gin for breakfast and slept with two wives; of the Queen of the Bees, whose poor, abandoned hive had pined for her; of a man who had no fear of lions, though he’d lost his arm to one. She herself was ashamed of all she’d seen and done, and of the many ways her audience had violated her as they watched her in their drunken state of ardor. But for all the wickedness she’d known, she’d never been kissed. Once they began, she could not stop. How strange it was that Eddie, who’d been with so many women, now seemed shy, while she burned with each kiss. She urged him on, unbuttoning her blouse. He groaned with the delight of having her in his arms, intoxicated and somewhat maddened. He kissed her more and more deeply, then forced himself to back off. He’d wanted her for so long, even before he knew she was real, but he wouldn’t allow himself to take advantage of the situation.
“You don’t know me,” Coralie insisted. “I’m not an angel. I sometimes doubt if I am even human.”
Eddie laughed, not at all understanding her meaning, so she begged him to light the lantern. If he wanted to know who she was, then she would reveal herself, though she wept as she did. She showed him her hands, what she considered her deformity, the flesh that separated her and made her different, but also made her herself, the woman he didn’t want to let go of, not even after hours had passed with her in his arms and the liveryman shouted up that it was time for her to leave. She left behind the blue wool coat, neatly folded, on the chair, and the handkerchief containing Hannah’s belongings on the table. He examined the tokens, holding them tenderly. Two black buttons, a comb, hairpins, a golden locket on a chain, and two keys that he held in the palm of his hand.