“A little naptime,” said Rex, oblivious. He laughed and rubbed his hands together.
After Lewis came over the wall that evening, he explained the story of Rex’s recovery: after the incident at Hubie’s wake, the veiled dancing girl felt remorse and came to the cottage where Rex was recovering to apologize. She’d apologized so thoroughly that she now spent all of her time there, and when Mrs. Woolley sent spies, they were told she was a housekeeper. As she had been: Rusalka had worn a black wig to the dance.
Dulcy, who assumed no one knew a thing about her past life, couldn’t imagine how this could go on without people knowing, without Rex recognizing Rusalka.
“Because there’s no moral to the story,” said Lewis. “Rex probably wasn’t looking at her eyes, but I think he always knew who it was and wasn’t in the mood to complain. It was Samuel who didn’t have an eye for detail.”
“Has he ever been in love?”
“He thinks he has. I’m not sure that he knows, yet.”
Once, when he was tipsy, Samuel had told Margaret and Dulcy about a love affair. He’d said that there’d been no question of meeting the parents, and then, “gone.”
“She left?” Margaret had asked. “She died?”
Samuel had nodded his head, and a tear trickled into his moustache.
“Died how?” Dulcy asked Lewis now.
“If it’s the object of affection I’m thinking of, his appendix burst,” he said. “I didn’t like him any more than I like Grover. He was hard on Samuel. I’ve made myself forget the name.”
He made fun of her later in bed, making love again, when her shock still hadn’t worn off. It was a wide world out there. Surely, given her upbringing, she’d had a little insight?
Dulcy pulled away and watched him in the lamplight; he watched her back. “I was referring to your father’s medical expertise,” said Lewis.
“Ah,” said Dulcy. But she thought about his mention of her birthday, her sister, Seattle, and she climbed out of bed.
“Stop,” said Lewis. “I’m sorry. Come lie down again. Don’t leave me this way, Dulcy.”
The room echoed. He grinned—he pointed skyward, still intent on the moment, and didn’t realize what he’d said. She took his bowler hat from the bedpost and lowered it gently on top of him. She wondered if she was about to lose everything.
“What’s my name, Lewis?”
He looked down at the hat and up at her face, and his smile flattened. They watched each other.
“You said you loved me, and you wouldn’t lie to me.”
He took the hat off his lap and sat up. “I love you, and I would never lie to you.”
“But you have.”
“By using the name you wanted me to use? By loving you even though you were lying to me?” He spun the hat across the room. “Fine. Maria, then.”
She was shaking. “Who did you talk to, when you were in New York?”
“I had friends in the city who’d known you. They were talking about your death, and they called you Dulcy, not Leda, and I guess that’s how I’ve thought of you ever since. But I already knew. I remembered you from the train, and when I read the papers, after you disappeared, I could see your face, and it was horrible to think you were dead. So, you know, it was quite nice to see it again at the Elite. And quite interesting.” He stood and walked slowly toward her; he kissed her neck and wrapped his arms around her.
“Interesting,” she said, into his neck. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to run away,” said Lewis. “I would do anything to keep you with me, and keep your secret, and keep you safe. Don’t doubt me. I don’t give a fuck what your real name is, and I don’t even mind that you’ve lied to me. This is all about survival.”
???
Everything was brighter in Livingston, all the time, than other places she’d lived. It was different than the bleached light of the seaside, or a lakeside town like Westfield: desert light, and desert temperatures, but sometimes the wind sounded as if it were coming from an ocean, rather than roaring down an ancient mountain or arriving directly from a thundercloud above. At five in the afternoon it was ninety degrees; at five in the morning, forty. She finally listened to the women who told her to shut the house down in the morning and open up at dusk, and when Lewis managed to retreat to the hotel before light, he left at exactly the point she wanted him for warmth.
But the light: out here, you could see everything headed your way. There was less of a looming sense than she remembered from storms coming over water, but when the scalding light gave way to a wind and black clouds, the fear was just as immediate. She had moved to a place where parasols came to die, were inverted into shuttlecocks and torn from hands, moving like squid. Samuel published a brief account of a rancher’s wife who’d invested in an extra—sturdy model and lost an eye to a rib. Livingston was supposedly too mountainous for tornadoes, but the air still turned green, and from her bedroom window they were lucky enough to see the moment when a cottonwood on the river bottom corkscrewed and slammed flat.
A spark started on Macalester’s roof, and the doctor’s wing and plunge at Eve’s Spring burned to the ground. Despite talk of lightning, Samuel made noises about delving into the string of recent fires, or simply hiring a Pinkerton to follow Gerry. They all took a drive to see the charred resort at Eve’s Spring, and Dulcy and Margaret wandered around collecting broken bits of azure tile from the cracked pool, hot water steaming up from the fissures.
A few days later, Lewis took the train to Helena with Samuel for a dinner at the Press Club. She didn’t expect to see him the next night. When Irving knocked on her door, Dulcy was surprised, but Irving looked astounded to be making this trip at all. He wouldn’t meet her eye.
“Mr. Braudel is sick, and he asked me to get you.”
“He doesn’t want a doctor?”
“He only asked for you to come. I don’t think he’s so sightly, but he said don’t fret.”
Irina was arguing over a bill with the Sanborns and did not see Dulcy take the stairs. The door was unlocked, and when she pushed it open to a gust from an open window, she had a flash of Miss Randall’s room after Lennart’s search, but this was controlled chaos, and the open window was a relief. He’d been sick, and he’d overdosed himself with quinine and rendered himself temporarily deaf, but he bellowed apologies and deranged sallies while she motioned to keep his voice down, so that the people in nearby rooms wouldn’t hear lines like Can’t you do that without clothes or I am so sorry just put me down you don’t need another invalid.
She didn’t; it was true, but Walton’s illness had been hopeless and revolting and made her angry. Lewis’s made her desperate. By nine he’d stopped shaking, and she hiked the window and waved a book for a fan. He and Samuel had seen a friend, drunk too much, been stupid. “Is this attack any different?” she asked. “Does it ever change, if you drink or you’re tired?”
Lewis still couldn’t hear, and he wasn’t yet a lip reader. “I was sick by the Philippines.”