Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [120]
—Wait, he said.
He leaned over and wrote out a message in perfect cursive. Without relying on his tools, he folded it back and forth until he had one of his sharper models. Then he carefully aimed and sailed it out over the street toward the nursery on the eighteenth floor of No. 44. As it traveled it seemed to gather momentum. The lights of the city flickered as if they were supporting it, the way that phosphorescence seems to support a nocturnal swimmer. It went right through their window and landed silently atop a barricade.
Dicky hadn’t shown me the note, but I had read it over his shoulder.
Our bastions are under attack from all sides.
Our stores of ammunition are low.
Our salvation lies in your hands.
And, ever so appropriately, he had signed it Peter Pan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Now You See It
The first wind of the New York winter was sharp and heartless. Whenever it blew, it always made my father a little nostalgic for Russia. He’d break out the samovar and boil black tea and recall some December when there was a lull in conscription and the well wasn’t frozen and the harvest hadn’t failed. It wouldn’t be such a bad place to be born, he’d say, if you never had to live there.
My window overlooking the back court was so crooked you could stick a pencil through the gap where the frame was supposed to meet the sill. I caulked it with an old pair of underpants, set the kettle on the stove, and recalled a few sorry Decembers of my own. I was spared the reminiscing by a knock on the door.
It was Anne, dressed in gray slacks and a baby blue shirt.
—Hello, Katherine.
—Hello, Mrs. Grandyn.
She smiled.
—I suppose I deserve that.
—To what do I owe the pleasure on a Sunday afternoon?
—Well, I hate to admit it—but at any given moment, we’re all seeking someone’s forgiveness. And at this particular point, I think I may be seeking yours. I put you in the position of playing the fool, which no woman like me should do to a woman like you.
That’s how good she was.
—May I come in?
—Sure, I said.
And why not? When all was said and done, I knew I couldn’t bear much of a grudge against Anne. She hadn’t abused a trust of mine; nor had she particularly compromised herself. Like any Manhattanite of means, she had identified a need and paid to have it serviced. In its own perverse way, her purchase of a young man’s favors was perfectly in keeping with the unapologetic self-possession that made her so impressive. Still, it would have been nice to see her a little more off her axis.
—Would you like a drink? I asked.
—I learned my lesson the last time. But is that tea you’re brewing? That might hit the spot.
As I readied the pot she looked around my apartment. She wasn’t taking an inventory of my belongings as Bryce had. She seemed more interested in the architectural features: the warped floor, cracked moldings, exposed pipes.
—When I was a girl, she said, I lived in an apartment a lot like this one, not too far from here.
I couldn’t hide my surprise.
—Does that shock you?
—I’m not exactly shocked, but I assumed you were born rich.
—Oh. I was. I was raised in a townhouse off Central Park. But when I was six, I lived with a nanny on the Lower East Side. My parents told me some nonsense about my father being sick, but their marriage was probably on the verge of collapse. I gather he was something of a philanderer.
I raised my eyebrows. She smiled.
—Yes, I know. The apple and the tree. What my mother wouldn’t have given to have me take after her side of the family.
We were both quiet for a moment, providing a natural opportunity for her to change the subject. But she went on. Maybe the first winds of winter make everyone a little