by
Bruce Memblatt
In an oak paneled drawing room twenty flights above Fifth Avenue Percy held the photograph to the lamp. “This is the last one taken of her in 1930 aboard a steamship. You see it’s faded around the edges. You can barely make out her face, but, Gray notice she’s pursing her lips? We think this photo was taken during a trip to Hawaii Hermione made after she finalized her divorce in Reno.”
Percy slipped the photo onto the center of the desk. Next to it a legal pad and a manila folder, whose contents spilled over the blotter, sat amongst a small crushed glass ashtray and a smoldering cigar.
Frustrated, Gray’s ancient eyes squinted. He pointed at the picture. “Interesting she’s wearing two identical bracelets on one hand, but one is loose. See how she slips her finger underneath it as if the small bracelet were a shield.”
“Hmmm a shield against the world?” Percy paused, and he ran his fingers over the photograph and said, “look, a strand of white pearls.”
“A satin blouse.”
Percy grinned. “That ridiculous hat.”
“How old is she now?” Gray handed a silver pen to Percy.
“One hundred and four,” Percy coughed. No doubt, Grey was a clever man but he was perpetually somewhere else. Not lost in the thick of daydreams, but in calculating his next move. There was always a next move for Gray. Percy rarely felt completely at ease in his company; his thin tongue, his high cheekbones, his feigned indecision.
“Beneficiaries? I mean besides you, Percy.”
“I guess a few distant relatives scattered about. You’re her attorney, don’t you know?”
Gray gazed toward the ceiling and sighed. The light from the desk lamp reflected off the rim of his glasses. “Yes, but I’ve never met her. When is the last time anyone has seen her?”
Percy put the cigar out in the ashtray. “Um, with the exception of a cadre of nurses, maids and attendants that sort of thing and, of course, me she hasn’t seen anyone for forty years.”
“They say she locked herself away from the world. They say it’s been years since she’s seen the sun, had a breath of fresh air.”
“I’ve been the caretaker of this penthouse since 1989. Do you know how many times she’s been here, Gray? Once, just once. Twenty years ago she checked herself into that hospital, and that’s where she’s remained, watching old movies and playing with porcelain dolls.” His knuckles rapped against the surface of the desk “I don’t think she’s been ill a single day since she’s been there, of course, I mean physically, but it’s just a regular hospital, as you know, not some kind of loony bin.”
Gray stepped over to the fire place and leaned against the mantle. “Well as you know my concern is her last will and testament. I need her signature, Percy.”
Percy knew what was required of him. This signature meant a trip to the hospital to see Hermione. Hermione Maison, sad and wealthy, one hundred and four year old, daughter of Hugh Maison who made his fortune in gold in the early part of the twentieth century. The woman he maybe loved long ago. The woman who employed him for the last fifty years who one fine day sequestered herself from the world, but it wasn’t one fine day it was a gradual process of withdrawing inward, turning to dolls and the flicker of a television screen. Hermione, so rich she could have anything she desired wanted nothing. Without dreams or hopes, the hospital provided an umbrella from her fear of sickness and death like a cocoon, but no one knew the truth, not even Percy.
He walked Gray past the arched foyer down the long hallway to the door. “We’ll go tomorrow, Gray, in the morning.” As the door softly closed he took a glance at the wall. Hospitals were expensive. Maybe they’d have to sell another Rembrandt.
Hermione still had over two hundred million in assets in the bank, but when some quick cash was required she’d call and instruct Percy to pull a painting from the wall. Rembrandts, Monets, Degas,’ Van Goughs; you name it and you’d find it on the walls of Hermione Maison’s Fifth Avenue penthouse.
On the drive to the hospital Percy began to whistle. Gray sat next to him fidgeting with his umbrella. The windshield wipers edged mechanically across the window. Gray suddenly turned to Percy and said, “two hundred million is a lot of money, Percy.”
“Two hundred million isn’t what it used to be.” He grabbed the wheel tightly turning up Third Avenue. Pulling into traffic, the bumper lights on the car ahead materialized in dissolving red dots through the wall of rain on the window.
“Tell me, do you think she’s still capable of handling her money?”
Percy’s eyebrows jolted. “What are you getting at?”
Of course, he knew what he was getting at but it was so transparent, so beneath Gray, or was it?
Gray indignantly sighed, “You know what I’m getting at.”
“Would you like a Rembrandt, Gray?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just a small joke,” Percy said and smiled inside. “As you’ll soon see, Gray she still has her wits about her.”
As they pulled up to the front of the hospital on Ninetieth Street Percy broke the silence that hung over the car since Gray’s clumsy miscalculation. With a step on the brake and the turn of a key he said, “Gray I want you to understand something before we proceed. Hermione has been my employer for the last fifty years and my loyalty to her is unshakable.” He paused, pulling an envelope out of the glove compartment. “And, one more thing, when we get up there don’t jump on her. Let her get used to your presence. Remember she hasn’t seen an unfamiliar face for twenty years.”
Gray opened his umbrella as he stepped out of the car. His wrinkled hands shook as if just rudely awakened from sleep “Well, of course, what do you take me for Percy I’m not an oaf.”
“Just so you understand.” Percy said as he shut the car door.
The long corridor on the Twelfth Floor East of the hospital reminded Percy of a museum because the hall ran down a section of the hospital which didn’t house the average Blue Cross Blue Shield patient, but catered to people like CEO’s, sultans, celebrities, and the occasional president. This was where the rich and powerful waited for their surgeries. Brushing against Gray’s side as they neared Hermione’s room at the end of the hall, and the private nurse that sat in a chair by her door, Percy prayed she was still as lucid as she was during his last visit over six months ago. A forgotten memory of the first time he noticed the change in Hermione opened like a door in his mind. It was a tiny thing. One wintry day she refused a call from her mother, just a silly phone call, but there was something in her eyes, or rather a lack of something, an emptiness that seemed to consume Hermione, as more and more calls went unanswered, as more and more invitations went unopened.
The door to Hermione’s hospital room opened.
There she lay on the bed; her head perched against a pillow, her hair long and silver. Her glazed pupils flinched and struggled. Was there anyone still behind them? Percy wondered as their eyes crossed.
Her bed wasn’t an ordinary hospital bed. A linen canopy draped overhead. Of course, it wasn’t an ordinary hospital room. Nothing was ordinary about Hermione not the tiniest thing. He imagined her blood rarified and purple. Gray stood by the door silently holding his briefcase and his damp umbrella.
Percy heard the sound of her voice begin to crackle in a coarse yet sweet whisper.
Her hand shook while she pointed at Percy and then her fingers extended past him towards the door, “Percy, who is that?”
“Your lawyer.”
Her eyes looked towards the ceiling in a sigh. “He looks kind of foolish.”
Percy grinned and whispered, “Don’t they all, Madame?”
“What does he want?” She said tugging on her nightgown. Before Percy could respond she pointed at Gray again calling through the room
“Come closer.” And then her hands fell and faintly lingered over her sheets in a tumble.
Gray began to step towards the bed. His umbrella fell out of his hand and dropped to the floor. Percy watched and thought how strange Gray’s stance appeared. When Gray was within inches of Hermione’s bed she called again, “Come closer.” For an instant in his mind Gray heard gulls and he smelled salty air as if he were walking by the sea.
Then Hermione’s voice intruded against his vision as she raised her hand and said. “What is it that you want, sir?”
Gray stood still before her. “A new will, I’ve a new will that’s needs your signature.”
Percy watched certain there was connection between them, but he knew that would be an impossibility. It was then when Hermione Maison looked Gray forcefully in his eyes and faintly cried “Don’t I know you, sir?”
A vision of the sea filled Gray’s head again for the tiniest of seconds. A perplexed look crossed his face. A perplexed look crossed Percy’s face. They had met before; Percy realized the connection he’d noticed between Hermione and Gray was concrete, his intuition was correct, but where? When?
Gray stammered “No, I don’t think we’ve met.” Then his hands trembled as he clumsily tried to open the briefcase that still remained in his hands.
Percy intervened, “Are you all right, Gray?”
Gray swallowed as if his mouth were parched. “I’m fine…”He began to stutter when the gulls appeared in his ears again, and then his eyes saw a large white wing swerve towards his head. He lunged to the floor. Percy lunged after him. Grays’ briefcase opened like an umbrella. Papers brushed across the floor resembling dry leaves on an autumn day.
“Good God, Gray what is going on?” Percy cried, as he tried to pull Gray from the floor. This was no ordinary day. Percy knew he was on the verge of a great discovery. He looked at Hermione; her eyes contained an eagerness he thought had vanished long ago.
She stared steely at Gray as he rose from the floor.
Their eyes met again. She cried from her bed. Gray cried from the floor. “It can’t be!”
It was then Gray saw a steamship in his head docked at the harbor in New York. He was running towards the ship as it began to pull away from the pier. He saw her among the crowd, young, her hat blowing in the breeze, standing on the bottom deck, grasping a doll in her hand.
Then Hermione spoke directly into Gray’s eyes, her hands drifting in a memory. “Why didn’t you board the ship? I was waiting for you. I said I’d be waiting. I held the doll as if it were you. Hoping it was you.”
Grey drew closer to Hermione. “I tried, my love. I wasn’t going to come at all when I found out who you were. Why didn’t you tell me you were Hermione Maison?”
Percy stood and watched in awe as Hermione continued; he could almost smell the sea himself.
“In those days things were different you know.” She pointed at Gray. “I was going to reveal all, once you got on board. I got the divorce. What more could you ask? I did it all for you, for us.”
Gray sat on the edge of the bed inching closer towards her restless hands. “Five minutes, I was five minutes late. I wasn’t going to come at all, resigned to a life without you, but I had to be with you. I ran towards the plank. They wouldn’t let me board. It was too late. I never heard from you again.” His eyes began to puddle.
“Five minutes,” she said. Her hands, no longer trembling, began to reach for Gray’s shoulder. “My life destroyed in five minutes. I thought you abandoned me. I cried. I cried for years. I disappeared from myself and from the world. How could you be so cruel? I put all my trust in you.” Her eyes grew cold and clear. “How could you not find me?”
“I was young and foolish.” Gray said, his hands clutching her blanket.
“I was the fool. And today you appear as a lawyer.” Her lips pursed. Her hands clenched his back searching in vain for a moment she lost long ago.
He reached for her.
“I’m so sorry.” He said as their hands met.
“One last embrace,” she pled. Her arms wrapped steadfastly around him.
“My love,” Gray replied while her hold grew firm.
She held him tightly and long, grasping him hard, feeling all the wasted years pass between her fingertips, feeling the promise of her life disappear in five forgotten minutes. He hardly struggled as if resigned to his fate. Blood began to drip from his neck as the strength of her squeeze multiplied with each grip. Her nails ripped deep into his chest while his legs loosened and fell, dangling over the side of the bed. She grabbed his head, holding and clutching it as blood seeped from his eyes. His hands fell limply to his sides.
Gray was dead.
Percy stood paralyzed as his eyes took in the sight of Gray, limp and soggy, his life’s essence pooling over the bed, onto the floor, and across her nightgown. It was a strange dream, a mirage. He wasn’t standing there watching silently as Hermione Maison killed the love of her life in a tormented embrace.
Tears poured from her eyes. She pushed Gray’s body off the bed. He fell slowly. A small thud sounded as he hit the bloodied floor. Then she cried to Percy. “Home, I want to go home.” A tear ran down her cheek. “Now that my life is nearly over I want to live. Take care of him, Percy.”
Percy understood. He knew what was required of him. In that moment he loved her for her pain, for all the years she’d lost. He loved her more than he ever had before. He’d dispose of Gray. He’d pay someone at the hospital. Somehow it would be taken care of. She had paid enough and she had enough to make Gray disappear forever.
“Madame, I’ll arrange everything,” Percy said smiling confidently at Hermione. “It may take a day to settle matters and get you back home, but I assure you it will be done.”
She fell into the bed. Her eyes searched the room as if she’d just woken from a dream.
The following day a nurse wheeled Hermione Maison out her exclusive hospital room and down to the street below where Percy waited patiently keeping the motor running in the car.
After he opened the door and the nurse guided Hermione into the back seat of the vehicle she turned to him and said. “I think a gift is in order for you, Percy. Is there still a Renoir on the wall?”
“ I think so, Madame.” Percy smiled as the car pulled into traffic.
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