Spirit Lost (17 page)

On the ivory-and-mahogany table were the two glasses, both half full. But no, how foolish, that could not be proof that she had come
—he
could have drunk the cognac. What, then? He rose and shook out the sheets, hoping to find something, a pin, a comb, a ribbon, even a strand of hair. Naked, he stalked around the attic, peering at the chair she had sat in, the rug where she had stood, and back to the bed where they had lain together. There was nothing, no sign at all that she had been there.

It was only when he slowly, achingly, began to dress, forcing himself to move against his exhaustion, that he saw the small bruise she had made on his shoulder with her teeth. He could not have done that himself; he could not have reached that place with his own mouth.

And tonight, dammit, Willy was awake when he came into the bedroom. The lamp on her bedside table was on, and she was reading, propped against pillows. When he entered the room, she raised her head and stretched and yawned.

“John?” she questioned. “What time is it?”

“Late,” he replied. “Go back to sleep.” They both were speaking softly. He had dressed in the attic a few minutes before; now he stood by his closet and took off the clothes he had just put on. He managed to slip into his pajama top with his back still turned to Willy, so that he was buttoning it when he turned to her. So she could not see the mark Jesse Orsa’s teeth had left.

“John,” Willy said as her husband slipped in next to her and sank down, groaning into the comfort of the warm bed. “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, of course not,” John said, keeping his voice normal. “I just fell asleep up there, honey.” He forced himself to turn toward her, to look at her. For the first time in his life he did not want to touch his wife, but he made himself reach out and stroke her arm. Her hair was down, falling loose over her plump shoulder, and she was wearing one of her sexy, sheer lacy nightgowns, the sort of thing she seldom wore in the
winter when it was so cold. “I know it’s odd,” he went on, speaking to her unspoken questions. “I didn’t know I’d end up working at all hours like this. It’s so hard to explain … how the ideas and the energy come. I—I work awhile, and then I get so tired, and I either sit down and rest, or tonight I just lay down and fell asleep on the bed awhile. Then I woke up and knew exactly what I want to do to finish the painting. I’m almost finished. And it’s good and it’s different.”

“I’m so glad,” Willy said. She reached out to caress John’s face. She smoothed his hair. “I’m so glad your work is going well for you.”

She moved closer to him in the bed, nudging her bosom against his chest. Her legs softly slid against his. She brought her face to his, meaning to touch her lips to his, but he drew his face back, turned his head away.

“No, Willy, please,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. “I’m tired,” he said.

Willy pulled back, all the way back, removing every bit of her body from his. The expression on her face changed completely. She had been soft, loving, lovely; now she looked puzzled and angry and sad.

“Johnny—” she began.

“Please, Willy,” John said, forestalling her. Again he forced himself to reach out and touch her arm. “Please understand. I’m exhausted. Wait till you see what I’ve done, I think you’ll understand then. Or maybe I’m coming down with a cold. Don’t be angry. I just have to sleep. Okay?”

“Okay,” Willy said, but her eyes were worried. She pulled away from John and turned out the bedside lamp.

John immediately fell into a churning dark sleep. Willy lay beside him, staring into the dark night, wondering.

The next day, John finished the night harbor scene and started a new canvas. Again it was a night scene, an ocean scene, this time from the perspective of a boat approaching land, approaching the town of Nantucket where the land rose in a gentle sweep, with the gold dome of South Church crowning the arch. In this painting all the houses were gray shingle, and it was late, dark, and foggy, so that the houses on land seemed to float and
fade and waver with the same sliding insubstantiality of their reflection in the dark water. Everything was gray or black except for the gold dome of the church, which was washed in a cold sweep of moonlight that deadened the gold sheen to a gloomy near white.

Willy came up to see what John had done. “Oh, John, this is quite powerful,” she said about the finished canvas. “And this—it will have more color in it, won’t it? Doesn’t it seem a bit … 
dark
as it is now?”

“It’s meant to be dark,” John answered. “I like it dark.”

It was after dinner. They had eaten in a friendly silence, drinking lots of wine, and John, relaxed, yet anticipating the night when Jesse Orsa would come again, had invited Willy up to the attic to see what he had accomplished. So she would know he was working, he thought in the back of his mind. So she would understand why he was so preoccupied, so tired. So she would leave him alone.

Now Willy came up behind John and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his back. “Mmm,” she said, nuzzling him. “You’re so warm. Come down to bed now, sweetheart.”

“I can’t, Willy,” John said, tensing at her touch. “I want to work some more.”

“But you’ve worked all day,” she complained. “You’ve done so much. Come relax for just a little while.…” She moved her hands down his torso until they touched his crotch. “Come down to the bedroom just for a while. Then you can come back up to work.”

His body did not respond to her touch. He stood very still, feeling cold and distant from his wife.

“Willy,” he said, “I want to work. If I come down now, I won’t be able to; the impetus will be gone.”

Willy let her arms fall away from her husband’s body and stepped back. For one moment she was tempted just to walk off down the stairs in complete silence, letting that silence speak for her anger and pique. But she loved him so, and he had been working so hard. These pictures he was doing now—she might not care for them, she might find them dreary, even unpleasant, but she was no judge of art, and she had no idea how much this work was taking out of him. She had promised herself that she would help John in his attempt to work; that meant being good-humored even now, at times like this, when he was ignoring her.

“All right, Johnny,” she said, keeping her voice pleasant. “I’ll go down and let
you get back to work.”

As she turned, she saw the other end of the attic, which was in shadows now that the lights were off; she saw the two glasses on the table. She saw the rumpled bed. A cold spasm constricted her heart, a cramp of fear. But what was it she was afraid of? She warned herself against foolishness and went on down the stairs.

John painted for a while, though he was not wholly concentrating; he kept looking at his watch. It was after nine, then after ten—she had come last night around ten. Then it was after eleven. He stopped painting, for he could think of nothing else but whether she would come or make him wait another night. He cleaned his brushes, straightened his work area.

Finally, when he heard the town clock striking midnight, twelve golden strokes, he looked over to see Jesse Orsa seated in one of the chairs. She was wearing a dressing gown of dark purple velvet with black fur cuffs and collar. And nothing underneath. Her hair was tied back with a purple ribbon.

He crossed the room and knelt before her, taking her hands in his.

“I was afraid you weren’t coming,” he said.

“I meant not to come,” she replied. “I meant to stay away. I don’t want you to get tired of me, bored with me,” she said.

“Oh,
Christ
,” John said, “Christ, Jesse Orsa. You know I could never get tired of you. My God.”

He untied her robe and parted it away from her naked body, and as she sat there, he kissed her all over, burying his head in her sweetness, breathing in the scent of her as if it were the breath of life.

In the next two weeks, she came to the attic seven times. The nights she didn’t come, he fell asleep on the bed to awaken at three or four, cold and stiff and disoriented. He would go down to the second-floor bedroom to finish sleeping with Willy. The nights she did come, they made love for hours, so that he stumbled, nearly sick with love, into bed far after midnight.

Willy did not question him. He was grateful for that; gratitude was the best
emotion he could muster toward Willy these days. He was wild with lovesickness for Jesse Orsa; he was overcome with lust.

Some nights they talked a little before they fell asleep or while they were making love. It was John who initiated the talking, every time.

“Tell me who you are,” he would beg, holding this small woman from him for a moment, searching her face.

“You know who I am,” she would say, smiling, her face all innocence and love.

“But how can you be here? I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand. Why must you
understand
? Isn’t it enough that I am here?” she would ask, and pull him to her so that he would cover her with kisses in answer.

Another time, when he was in her, thrusting into her, he looked down at her and said angrily, “You are a ghost, aren’t you? Tell me. You are a
ghost
.” He was holding her arms down with his hands.

“I am a ghost,” she said, not smiling. Her eyes, her dark eyes, were black with depth. “But I am real. I am real.”

And another time, when she was on top of him, moving in slow glides, her bare arms raised, holding her thick, long hair up away from her breasts so that he could see all of her—even then he knew she was proud of herself, narcissistic. That time, when she was making him crazy with sexual pleasure, he clasped her thighs and said, “I’ll do anything for you. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I’ll do anything for you. I’ll give you anything. Anything.”

She bent to kiss him, and they talked no more that night.

The night before, when they were together, after they had finished making love, he lay looking down at her, where she was gracefully collapsed onto the bed, her body rosy from sexual heat. Her eyes were closed. He studied her.

“How is it you can be here?” he asked, running his hand over her smooth, flat stomach. “How is it you can be here, so truly
here
, and then vanish so completely?”

“It’s a miracle,” she told him, opening her eyes, smiling. “Truly it is, John. A miracle. Can’t you accept that and let the wondrousness of it convince you that it is right?”

“But I want to understand,” he protested. “Jesse Orsa Wright, you lived a century ago, and yet you are here now, a ghost, and yet a living, breathing woman. How can this
be? I want to know.”

“John,” she said, raising up and touching his face with one slender hand, “don’t be impatient. Please. I promise you that soon … soon … you will know all that I know.”