Violet’s chest begins to move again, to take the heavy air back into her lungs. “I’ll find something for us. I’ll ask Planck and Einstein to write letters for me. I know they will. We can go to England—”
“For God’s sake, not tonight.” He kisses her forehead. “Please. Not tonight. Give me that, won’t you? A day or two, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“A day or two, that’s all.”
“Is it . . . is it all this . . . Austria and Serbia . . .” She tries again to picture the map of Europe, the tangled and meandering borders, the crosshatch railways, the red lines of disputed frontiers. This murdered Archduke: what was his name? What right had he to determine her life, the lives of millions? Surely it would come to nothing. She whispers: “Do you have to report to your regiment?”
“Shh. Go back to the house now, Violet. Wait for me. Trust me, do you hear?” His hand finds hers and squeezes her fingers. “Look at me.”
“I can hardly see you.”
“Do you trust me, Violet?”
“Yes, I trust you.”
“Good.” Another squeeze, a long kiss, and he releases her hand. “Go back to the house. Be ready for me, do you hear?”
“Yes.” Her fingers find his cheeks, his strong neck, his shoulders scattered with petals.
“And Violet?”
“Yes.”
He seizes her close and whispers in her ear. “Don’t let him touch you.”
“No, never. Never again.”
“Good. If he touches you now, by God, I’ll kill him.”
? ? ?
WHEN VIOLET arrives in the room she shares with Walter, she’s relieved to find it empty. She looks in the mirror at her flushed face, the scarlet petals in her hair. She plucks them out, one by one. As she confessed to Lionel, she keeps no diary; instead she tucks the petals into a folded sheet of stationery and places them in her drawer, among her underthings.
Violet takes off her clothes and returns to the enormous cheval glass in the bedroom. She now looks no different than before. Her face has composed itself, her skin is even, her lips innocently pink. Only her breasts give her away, puckered like raisins at the tips, despite the turgid warmth of the bedroom air.
A door slams distantly, making her start. She washes her face and teeth; she changes into a long and shapeless nightgown and crawls into bed, to the furthest possible corner, and switches off the lamp. Her last thought is that she’s too giddy to close her eyes, too elated for sleep.
She wakes when Walter enters, some untold time later, not because of the sound of his entrance but because of the impatient energy that bursts into the room with him. He strides about, silent and coiled, bathing and changing in a thick cloud of brandy. When he enters the bed, he reaches for her, for the first time since leaving Berlin, even though her back is turned and her body is quite still.
Violet’s skin shrivels away from his touch, but she doesn’t move. She imagines herself a stone, though her heart thuds beneath Walter’s searching hand.
“Violet.” His voice falls downward on the last syllable, like a warning. He turns her on her stomach.
“Stop it, Walter,” she mutters.
His fingers scrape against her legs, lifting her nightgown.
“No,” she says, more clearly, pushing against him, thrashing to lift herself, but his body lies like a rope atop hers, forcing her chest and face into the pillows.
His hands grip her legs. He’s too strong, there’s no fighting him, her limbs can find no purchase in the soft mattress. He hisses in her ear: “Lie still, child.”
“Walter, I’m . . . I’m poorly,” she gasps. “My poorliness.”
His body suspends above her.
“It . . . it started this evening, just after dinner.” Violet lies clenched, dragging for air, praying Walter does not put his hand between her legs to demand the nonexistent proof. She can feel him panting atop her, smell the brandy as it seeps from his mouth. Is he counting up the weeks? Does he remember? Is he too drunk? Does he notice the rhythm of her female calendar at all anymore?
Walter swears in her ear and falls away.
Violet lies limp, unable even to shake. When Walter’s pants subside into regularity, she curls herself into a slow ball at the edge of the bed and stares at the wall with eyes that will not close.
Vivian
By the time I’d finished shopping with Gogo and dragged myself up the sour-smelling stairs to my apartment, I was sober enough to study the Metropolitan files at length. What I didn’t have was time. I had to dress and head back uptown to the Lightfoot mansion on Seventieth and Park.
I tried calling Aunt Julie, but there was no answer. I called Cousin Lily instead.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” I said.
“I have not. Is this about Violet?”
Tap tap tap went my suspicious finger. Sniff sniff sniff went my . . . well, you know about my nose. “Ha! You are holding out. Otherwise those two sentences would have gone in reverse order.”
“Vivian, why would I hold out on you? I’m on your side.” So guileless.
“Because it has to do with your own mother.”