Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [43]
This is not entirely true, as she well knows; her father, having woken from his Fourth of July nap, could indeed be looking for her at this very moment. But she also knows that the day itself permits a certain latitude not normally available to her and that if she is clever, and her father has drunk enough, she will be able to excuse her absence to her father’s satisfaction.
Haskell finishes washing his hands and dries them on a cloth Malcolm is holding. Olympia watches him unroll the cuffs of his shirtsleeves and fasten the links, which he has kept in his trouser pocket. He removes his apron, wads it into a ball, and tosses it into a laundry basket in the corner. There is a smear of blood near his shoulder, and his face has lost some of its color with fatigue. Later, she will understand that he is biding his time, thinking hard about the consequences of taking her with him to the room in which Mrs. Bonneau and her charge wait; for he understands, as she does not, that she is about to see something for which no preparation will be adequate and which, once witnessed, can never be erased from the memory.
He lifts his coat from the hook on the back of the door. “There is a satchel of boiled cloths in the cabinet in the next room, Olympia,” he says. “It is not heavy. If you would bring that, we could go now.”
• • •
The light has softened some, and there are shadows on the streets. A cool, damp breeze from the east slips through the narrow alleys and washes over them at regular intervals. The sky is a vivid azurine, unblemished by clouds. It will be a lovely evening, Olympia knows, and even now, on this ugliest of streets, the light plays wondrously upon the bricks, catching a pane of glass and making it shimmer silver, turning the tops of the leaves of the trees a trembling pink. They walk side by side, saying little, trying to ignore the filth in their path, not only the detritus of the city’s daily life but also the leavings of a holiday’s many revelers: broken bottles, some human waste, articles of clothing shed and not retrieved, puddles of dishwater slung from second-story windows, wrappings of half-eaten food, crockery that reeks of beer. More than once, Olympia fears for her head and wishes fervently that she had a hat. But they reach the designated row house without incident and climb the stairs to the place where the unfortunate woman lives. Haskell opens the door and walks in without knocking.
The room is no bigger than the one Olympia sleeps in at Fortune’s Rocks, a cramped chamber with only one window that looks out upon a wall not ten feet away. Though it is still day, there is little light, and it takes a moment for Olympia to adjust her eyesight to the gloom. On the bed, a woman lies in apparent agony, for she writhes and clenches her teeth and then lets her breath out in sharp gusts, calling out words in a French so accented and tortured, Olympia cannot understand her. Her skirts have been rucked up to the tops of her thighs, and even from the doorway Olympia can see the blood on her skin and on the grimy pillow ticking beneath her. Her naked legs, moving and twisting on the bed, are a shock to the senses, and Olympia feels as if she had upturned a rock and come unexpectedly upon a mass of transparent worms, colorless from never having been exposed to the sun.
Olympia breathes shallowly. She fights the impulse to gag and to back out of the door.
In a moment, Haskell has shed his jacket. A quick perusal of the room indicates an absence of a water pump, and she can see him deciding to forgo washing his hands in the interests of time. As he sits upon the bed, his fingers disappear beneath the slim modesty of the thin band of cloth that hides the most private self of the woman, whose name, Olympia learns, is Marie Rivard. Haskell occupies himself thus for a moment and seems to confirm what he has been