Stella glanced at the clock. “Jim telephoned. He said you and Harry had both been admitted to the hospital, so I rushed out.”
Bess heard a sound from the hall. A man appeared in the doorway, his figure obscured by the sun streaming through the windows behind him. “Oh, Harry,” Bess said, relieved. “There you are.” The man took a step forward into the shadows of the room. It was not Harry; it was Dash Weiss.
“Oh, thank God, she’s up,” she heard him say.
Stella shook her head. “Only just.”
Bess struggled to sit up. “Dash?”
“You have to come to Harry’s room. He hasn’t got much time.”
“Much time for what?” A nurse came in behind him and, seeing that Bess was awake, rushed over to her bedside.
“It’s okay, I’ve got her,” Dash told her, helping Bess out of bed and into a wheelchair.
“Come on, we’ve got to go.”
“Time for what?” Bess demanded. No one answered. Stella laid a thin blanket over her lap.
Harry’s room was three down from hers. Through the open door, she could see him lying in his hospital bed, unmoving. A tube had been inserted into the side of his mouth. One of the doctors was monitoring his heartbeat with a stethoscope. Nurses were standing along the walls, as if at attention. Bess screamed.
Stella touched her arm gently. “They say he had a gangrenous appendix. He’s had two surgeries since he came in. You’ve been out for days.”
Harry’s eyes flickered open, and he saw Bess. “Darling,” he mumbled. His lips were very dry; the skin was peeling off them. She stumbled out of her wheelchair and onto the edge of the bed. “Remember the code,” he whispered, gripping her hand. “Rosabelle, believe.”
“No, Harry,” Bess sobbed. “Don’t say that.”
“I have been tired for a long time. Sometime or other we all grow tired.”
“Give them a goddamn moment, would you,” she heard Dash say, behind her. He ushered everyone out of the room. He himself was the last to go. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, old boy,” he murmured. “About our quarreling.” They were two men who had lived a century between them, but in that moment they were merely boys again, shuffling cards together in Wisconsin, playing at fame. Bess reached for Dash’s hand, the same hand that had shaken hers so many years before, outside Vacca’s Theater. Whatever had become of Doll, she wondered. Pretty, petite Doll, with her ears like perfect shells? And Anna? It seemed like a lifetime ago. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Just a few moments ago Harry had been going into surgery, and suddenly she was sitting beside him and he looked ten pounds lighter.
In the quiet of the room after everyone left, she could hear Harry’s labored breathing. “In almost every respect, I think I am a fake, Bess,” he said. He was still lying on his back; he didn’t seem to have the strength to turn himself on his side and look at her.
“What are you talking about? You’re no fake.”
“Remember the song you sang for me on our wedding night. Don’t forget.”
“How could I forget?”
He looked at something over her shoulder. “I’ll come back for you. Promise you’ll look for me. Don’t give up. I won’t be able to rest until I reach you.”
Bess’s hand trembled against his. “What do you think you’ll find when you arrive?”
“There’s something I need to tell you . . . but I don’t know it all yet myself. I can’t know the whole truth of it in this life. But it will change everything.”
“How? How will it change everything?”
“We have to look for each other, Bess. Don’t give up.” His voice broke. “I’m . . . afraid,” he whispered. “And I’m afraid to say I’m afraid.” Then his eyes seemed to focus on Bess again. “You were such a pretty girl. You said you were too young to marry me. But you were all in white.”
He began to cough. He seemed to be struggling to say something else.
“Harry? What is it? Tell me—what are you seeing?” Bess was seized with fear. He could not leave her, he could not go without her.
His eyes fluttered shut. Bess reached for his face, stunned. His cheeks, which had been pink a moment before, seemed to turn blue before her eyes. It occurred to her that she was still holding Harry’s hand, but she was alone. She looked frantically around the room. No one was there. Across the room, the clock did not stop. There were voices in the hall, laughter from other rooms. The automobiles coughed outside, four stories below. Smartly dressed women in gray and white stepped onto the sidewalks, carrying sandwiches in brown bags. But somewhere else Harry’s afternoon was luminous, luminous with color, and he could not see them.
Chapter 18
THE KNICKERBOCKER HOTEL
Halloween 1936