Hans Jungmann.
Harry patted his chest, reached into his jacket pocket, and produced that first report the Pinkerton agency had sent him. Jungmann’s photograph lay inside. He’d looked at it only once, but it wasn’t a face he could forget. Thick, round, smiling idiot head. Shoulders like an ox. Belly like Santa Claus. On the night of the tenth of January, a week and a half after Olive had risen from Harry’s bed—well, such as it was—she’d let this fat German bastard roll on top of her and make her his wife. After a little practice—Jungmann looked like the type who needed a little practice—they’d made a baby together.
That single blurred photograph had sent Harry flying down to Cuba and into the arms of so many women he couldn’t actually remember them all, until he tired of promiscuity and settled into a kind of habit with beautiful Maria, who was kinder and more faithful than the rest, and also a very good cook. And now they had made a baby, too. Estoy embarazada, se?or. Merry Christmas, Harry, you’re going to be a father.
The old rush-seated chair still rested in its place near the easel. Harry sank down and leaned his forearms on his knees, staring at the folded letter in his hands. It was almost midnight now, and the year would be over. This unexpected year, that had turned out so vitally different from the one he had imagined, as he lay in Olive’s arms twelve months ago and drifted into a happy sleep. They were supposed to go to Italy, they were supposed to share a run-down set of rooms in Florence or a shabby little villa in Fiesole, and this baby that Olive held to her breast was supposed to be his. He had actually bought the ring. He had planned it all out. He had meant to ask her to marry him just as the sun rose on the first day of the New Year. What a romantic fellow, the old Harry Pratt.
And this dream, it had been so close! A hairsbreadth away, a few minutes on a clock, an Olive who was perhaps a little less noble, or a little more sleepy, and he would be the father of Olive’s child instead of Maria’s.
Did Olive think about this, too? Was she awake right now, as he was, in some room above some bakery in Brooklyn? He closed his eyes, and he thought he could almost see her, sitting in a chair with a baby in her arms, and her fat German bastard husband snoring contentedly in the bed behind her.
Except that, for some reason, in this moment, sitting in this room stuffed with memories, while the same eternal moon poured through the skylight to pool on the floor before him, he felt no rancor toward this man. For the first time, he felt no resentment for Hans Jungmann, or for the baby he had made with Olive, the girl who should have been Harry’s daughter. His chest still hurt, but it was a warm kind of ache, and as he pictured the baby’s tiny face, and Olive’s exhausted arms, the ache turned into something else, something fulsome and tender and unending. Forgiveness. Love. The inexplicable certainty that, in a way, this child did belong to him. That she and Olive belonged to him, always, carried about in some chamber of his heart that would never close.
Harry opened his eyes. The familiar room assembled again before him. What had happened here was gone, and he couldn’t have it back. Maybe he’d just been lucky to have it at all, even for a few weeks.
He turned his head to the wall that contained the fireplace. There was no fire, of course, but the ashes remained in a small and tired heap, hardened by the dampness of a year’s neglect. His gaze rose to the mantel, and to the bricks above it.
During that first frantic week of 1893, he had slid the brick out of its place every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes three times, hoping to find some message there from Olive. But the space remained empty and hopeless, and on that last day, when he had gathered up his paints and drawings, he hadn’t even bothered to look. Too mad at her. Too mad at himself. Too mad at God.
Harry rose from his chair and walked toward the mantel. The brick slid out easily in his hand, just as it always had. A few motes of dust and mortar floated out into the air. He stuck his fingers inside and felt something hard and ridged against his fingertips.
For a moment, he closed his eyes and let his hand rest where it was. The way you might savor a rare glass of wine before taking the first sip, because you didn’t want to rush these things. He’d learned that much from Olive, anyway. You didn’t want to rush something that happened only once, and was gone.
He drew the object out.
She had wrapped it in a square of old velvet. Harry stuck the envelope under his arm and unfurled the ends, one by one, taking his time. A small folded note lay on top. He opened that first. His fingers shook a little.