The Lover From An Icy Sea Page 43

  “You got a preference?”

  “Huh?”

  “Park or Madison? They both go uptown. Doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Park. It reminds me less of Madison.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  They rode in silence. Once they’d gotten across town to Park Avenue South, the cabbie managed to get his car in synch with the traffic lights. They were uptown in record time. Kit gave the cabbie a ten-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Good choice, by the way.”

  “Huh?”

  “Park.”

  “Oh, yeah. Experience.”

  Kit walked into the lobby of The Fitzgerald and past the doorman’s console. “Can I help you, sir?” the doorman asked.

  “No, you can’t. But maybe you can help your friend, Mr. Kelly. I suspect he’ll be needing some help pretty soon.”

  “Uh, Mr. Kelly took indefinite leave as of this morning, sir.” Although this doorman didn’t recognize Kit, it was obvious to him from Kit’s pair of remarks that he’d been a prior visitor. The doorman let him pass.

  Kit opened the elevator door and walked in, then pressed the button to the thirteenth floor. Lucky thirteen he thought to himself for the first time. Has to be one of the few buildings in New York with a thirteenth floor. In most buildings, floors went automatically from twelve to fourteen.

  The elevator arrived. He got out and walked to her front door; rang the bell three times, allowing more time to pass between rings. Nothing. He banged on the door. Nothing. He banged again—harder. Nothing from inside, although a neighbor opened her own door and peeked out.

  “Can I help you, son?”

  In this case, ‘son’ didn’t offend Kit in the least. He had a pair of grandmothers her age, and this form of address under the circumstances was consequently familiar—and welcome.

  “I’m looking for Daneka Sorensen. I have reason to believe she’s inside, and that something may be—.” The woman studied Kit for an instant.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think I’ve seen you here before. I’m not nosy,” she lied, “but I believe I heard Miss Sorensen talking to someone on the telephone just a few minutes ago. She was out all day—probably at work or something. But then she came home about forty-five minutes ago. Sounded upset. She made a telephone call. I haven’t heard anything since.”

  Kit made a mental note to befriend this woman. She could probably tell him quite a bit about Daneka’s dog-walking habits.

  “Would you happen—?” he was about to ask her if she might have a key when the woman produced one herself.

  “Why don’t you try this?” she suggested. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind—you being a nice young man and all.”

  “Thank you very, very much, Mrs. —?”

  “Parker-Bradford,” the lady said as she extended a hand. “Rosy Parker-Bradford. Just ‘Rosy’ to friends, mind you. I don’t generally keep tabs on my neighbors, you understand. I’m frankly too busy just keeping tabs on myself!” she giggled. “But in Miss Sorensen’s case, I make an exception. She seems to have a pretty busy night life, and I rather like to stay up with the times, if you know what I mean. I can’t stay up with the owls anymore and I certainly can’t stay up with her, but I keep an ear out just to make sure everything’s all right.”

  “And I’m sure she’s very grateful for that. Everyone should have such a guardian angel,” Kit added with a smile. He opened Daneka’s door and handed the key back. “Thanks again.”

  “Well, you just call again if you need anything.” Kit looked briefly over her shoulder as she took the key back. He noticed a glass standing bottom up on a table next to the wall separating the elderly lady’s living-room from Daneka’s. No, of course she didn’t “keep tabs.” She just liked to listen. And if a water glass helped her to listen better, well, then—who was he to find fault. Kit was suddenly thankful they’d never had sex in the living-room.

  From the front door, he could hear the shower running. That would explain why she didn’t hear me ringing or knocking. He walked back and peeked around the corner of the bathroom door. There she sat, hair wet, in terrycloth robe, on the edge of the bathtub. Kit reached in and turned off the water. She didn’t react. He pulled her up and into the bedroom. She didn’t resist; instead, she started to untie her belt.

  “Don’t bother,” he said.

  She dropped her hands, then walked—very precisely—to her vanity, where she sat down, picked up a hairbrush and attempted, listlessly, to brush the tangles our of her hair. He gave her a minute, during which he studied her lifeless and repetitive movements, then noticed the bandage on her arm. When she showed no sign of stopping, he walked over and took the brush out of her hand. She didn’t object. He pulled her up out of her chair, and her robe fell open. That’s when he noticed.

  “Jesus, Daneka! What’s this?” he said as he pushed the robe off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. She registered nothing, made no effort to cover herself up, no effort to hide the multiple bruises from the base of her neck clear down to her knees. In places where her skin was not red or purple, it was stretched, lined, or waterlogged. She looked as if she’d aged twenty years since he’d last seen her naked. Her nipples were raw, her breasts scratched. He turned her around. She didn’t resist. Welts lined her buttocks and upper torso, and the backs of her thighs showed what looked like teeth marks. “I want to know. NOW!”

  “Oh. Those. I fell off my bicycle riding in the park,” she said as she picked up her robe.

  “You don’t have a fucking bicycle, Daneka! Come clean with me right fucking now or I’m history. We’re history.”

  “I thought you—and we—already were. I thought maybe you’d just come back for your little houseplant. Or to see if I’d joined the daughters of the air like a good little mermaid.”

  “Stop fucking with me, Daneka!”

  “Oh, is that what we’re doing?”

  “Where were you today? I called here several times,” he lied. “I called your magazine,” he lied again. “They didn’t even know you were back in town. Your P.A. told me you were still in Europe. I looked up Ron’s number,” he lied a third time, “and I called him. He thought the same thing as your P.A. Where the fuck were you?”

  With each mention of a new avenue of investigation, Daneka’s face had turned a brighter shade of red. Perhaps she was actually ashamed. If she had a conscience, he could still reach her. Without a trace of it, he knew, the case was hopeless. He held his breath.

  “You did WHAT?” she screamed. He had his answer. “Who gave you permission to call my place of work? Who gives you permission right now to ask me anything at all? My life-style and I don’t require your particular approval, Kit. Who the fuck do you think you are anyway? Some little two-bit photographer and petty landscaper with a fondness for strawberries and kinky bananas is what you are! Fuck you, Kit!”

  Her mention of bananas now made him feel acutely ashamed. He would never forgive himself for that. At the same time, he understood her tactic and had no intention of letting it—and her—succeed. He might not be able to help her back from the brink, but he was not going to allow himself to be insulted and belittled at the same time.

  “How easily we go—and how little time it took us to get there—from ‘fuck me’ to ‘fuck you,’ he said.

  “Yeah, fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” she screamed through a spray of saliva.

  “You forgot to add ‘harder’,” he said at the same level tone.

  She swung. He saw it coming, however, and grabbed her wrist in mid-swing. Unfortunately for Daneka, he grabbed it hard—and it was the injured wrist. She cried out in pain.

  Although he was at that moment livid and wanted to give back as good as he was getting, it hadn’t been his intention to hurt her physically. She sat down on the bed in apparent agony. He took her arm with one hand and unwrapped the gauze with the other. Wh
en he saw the wound, he remembered the exact circumstances that had produced it in the first place.

  He went to the bathroom, took a fresh washcloth off the shelf and put it under cold water. He then wrung it out, returned to her side and applied the cloth with a firm but gentle pressure to stop the bleeding. He would’ve liked to offer an apology, but decided against it.

  After a few minutes, Daneka put her hand on Kit’s and left it there. It might—he realized—be the last time she’d ever touch him with anything like affection.

  Chapter 72

  Daneka began her story slowly, calmly, as seemingly detached from it as she now was from everything and everyone else. If Kit appeared to be unmoved by her narration, appearances in this case were not an attempt at dissimulation. That’s not to say that he was unmoved by the tragedy of it, but rather that he was unmoved by the meta-tragedy, by whatever it was that had compelled her to keep this story a secret for so long. He also suspected it might not be altogether true.

  “I have a daughter—Annemette. You know that already. She lives in the West Village. She doesn’t go to school. I pay for her tutoring—she’s essentially home-schooled, though not by me. At an early age, I had her at Trinity. She lived with me. Trinity was the ideal place for young children, and she was happy there. While the other kids got smarter, however, she didn’t. It became apparent that she wasn’t going to succeed at Trinity.

  “I found a studio apartment for her in the West Village and moved her in. I visit with her three, four times a week—usually for dinner. When my mother comes to visit, she always stays with her. She says she prefers Annemette’s place—and Annemette’s neighborhood—to mine.

  “The first call I make from work every day is to her. Often, too, the last call.”

  “And her father?” Kit asked. “Where is he?”

  “Dead. He died before she was born.”

  “Suicide?” It was a risk, but Kit was willing to take it. If he could somehow get her to trust him, he still felt there might be a way back.

  Daneka didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “No. He died a natural death. He was much older. He was also quite rich by Danish standards. That’s how I managed to get out of Rønne and come here to New York. I had enough to pay for college and then two years of J-School—and to keep an apartment up on Amsterdam not far from the campus.”

  “But why the secrecy until now? I don’t understand. I also don’t understand why you call her ‘Annemette’ while your mother calls her Margarette. Is ‘Annemette’ some kind of pet name?”

  “You’ll understand better when you see her.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Tomorrow’s soon enough. As a matter of fact, we can do the shoot tomorrow if that works for you.”

  “NOW, Daneka!”

  She looked at him and knew, at a glance, that her options had run out. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  She called Ron. “Be here in fifteen minutes. We’ll meet you downstairs.” That was it. No “how-do-you-do.” No “nice to hear your voice again, Ron.” Just “be here.” Kit hoped she paid him well.

  Daneka threw on a pair of jeans—no frills or make-up. They took the elevator down, walked out and past the doorman, then arrived curbside just as Ron did. She gave him the destination, nothing else.

  Traffic at that evening hour was heavy as they traveled down Fifth Avenue. As soon as he got to Seventy-ninth Street, Ron turned right into the park, crossed it and came out the other side. He then continued on over Central Park West, Columbus, Amsterdam, Broadway and West End. When he reached Riverside Drive, he turned left and headed downtown.

  Fifteen minutes later, Ron turned left again at Fourteenth Street and drove into the Meat District. Even with the windows up, it smelled beefy, obscene. ‘Carnal’ was the word that next came to Kit’s mind as he surveyed the odd juxtaposition of warehouses and whorehouses, the bright reds of fresh sides of beef alternating with the soft reds of lights behind curtains suggesting an equally meaty commerce, if not quite so fresh. The entrances to some of the clubs were either gaudy well beyond bad taste or simply sinister in their depravity. As if it were possible to stand out in this sea of black and red, one locale in particular looked as if it might even smell bad. Or maybe it really did—and Kit was made aware of the smell only because Ron seemed to have slowed down as they approached it. There was no neon or other sign to announce its mission or purpose—just a distinctly brutish-looking doorman standing in front. To Kit, the man looked as if—as a child—he might never have seen the sun.

  Kit noticed that Ron was looking at Daneka in the rearview mirror as if expecting to get a signal of some kind from her. None came. He continued on for another block and a half.

  “This is good, Ron,” she finally said.

  He pulled the car over not to the curb—there was none here—but to cobblestones running down and merging with the asphalt. Kit looked down and noticed a pool of water—black as night, but with a distinct, sub rosa tinge of red as if the secret of its coloring might be hinted at, but not declared openly. Ron drove through it and brought the car up on dry land. Kit opened his door, and both he and Daneka stepped out.

  She led him up to the front door after the two of them had mounted a chipped cement stoop. She rang the buzzer—two short rings, followed by one long ring, followed by another two short ones. Kit assumed it was some kind of secret code she and Margarette—or Annemette—used as a signal.

  He got a confirmation of his assumption when the buzzer on the inside of the front door sounded and the door sprang loose from its electronic latch. Daneka pushed it open and they ascended three flights of stairs to the top floor. A single, bare, fluorescent bulb illuminated each floor except the top one, which might’ve been entirely dark but for the light leaking out from under an apartment door.

  The door opened just wide enough for one curious eye to peer out. Satisfied that that visitor was the same one who’d just sent an encoded signal from downstairs, the door opened further. Kit saw a face and heard a voice.

  “Mama!” the voice said. Kit thought it was the loneliest sound he’d ever heard.

  The girl whose voice he’d just heard opened the door wide enough for the two of them to walk through. In the dim light, Kit looked hard at her and decided that she was, in fact, no girl at all, but a woman not too much younger than he. How is that possible? he wondered.

  He made a quick survey of the room before he sat down. It was bare except for the essentials: one table; two chairs; one sofa more the size of a loveseat, but clearly not serving that purpose; a single bed in the corner of the room—a single pillow upon it—a single lamp standing next to the bed and serving as the only source of light for the entire room. Windows which might otherwise look out onto a street and therefore offer some source of light—at least during daylight hours—were boarded up with cardboard.

  Before he could think too hard or long about any of this, his attention was arrested by the sounds coming out of the mouth of this girl-woman: slow; deliberate; barely audible. Daneka’s answers were also slow and deliberate, though clearly audible. Kit realized with a start that this girl-woman—this daughter of Daneka, this long-withheld secret, this “Margarette” to one, and “Annemette” to the only other women remaining in the Sørensen family—was profoundly handicapped.

  Kit collapsed onto one of the two available chairs and listened to the labored way in which Daneka explained to Annemette-Margarette that she and Kit would return the next morning without fail, bright and early, to take her to his place in order to take her picture. Upon hearing the mention of Kit’s name, the girl looked up and noticed his presence for the first time. It was just a brief acknowledgement, however, before she ducked again behind her mother and grabbed her around the waist.

  The girl implored her mother not to leave—not yet. Daneka continued to comfort her—but with words and gestures, Kit thought, more suitable to a small animal. The petting eventually achieved its desired result: she calmed down. But not before Kit, taking
advantage of Daneka’s distraction, was able to slip the picture of Dagmar out of his wallet and put it, face down, on the table. Daneka then managed to walk her daughter to the bed and get her to lie down. Once supine and so no longer quite able to keep her arms around Daneka’s waist, she put the thumb of one hand into her mouth and the other hand between her legs. Daneka continued to stroke her hair until she eventually fell asleep.

  Daneka signaled wordlessly to Kit that they could now leave. They slipped quietly out the door, and she tested the knob to make sure it had locked from the inside.

  Once back outside, and as if by mutual consent, they walked. Ron followed at a distance and drove at a pace mimicking their own, with only parking lights illuminating the car’s forward motion and an occasional street lamp illuminating their path. Daneka announced she wanted some supper, and they stopped in at a small restaurant off Bleeker Street. She ordered a hamburger, very rare, with raw onions. Kit ordered a glass of wine—white. They didn’t talk.

  At the conclusion of their meal, Daneka was the first to speak. “Shall we go?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  She got up from the table, handed Kit her credit card and walked out the front door. Kit paid the bill and signed the credit card receipt, then followed her out to where Ron had parked the car. Daneka sat in the back seat, her door open. Kit ducked down and stuck his head in, but found himself at a loss for words. Instead, he returned her credit card and added the receipt.

  “Aren’t you getting in?” she asked.

  “No. I think I’ll walk.”

  “All the way to Ninety-sixth Street? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “No. All the way to St. Marks Place. It’s just a few blocks across town. I’m going home.”

  Daneka looked at Kit with a kind of dumb curiosity for a few seconds, then closed the door. “The Fitzgerald, Ron,” he saw rather than heard her say just before the door bolted shut.

  Chapter 73

  Kit walked—lost once again in this newer miasma of contradictions, all stinking even worse than the offal of the meat district he’d just left behind. That there was no way back for her was now clear. If she could treat her own daughter this way, how much worse could she treat him? The answer wasn’t something he even cared to contemplate. Only one thing drove him now: self-preservation. He was in deeper than he’d ever been; deeper, he considered, than he’d likely ever be again. One didn’t just dismiss a love affair like this—unless one happened to be a woman named ‘Daneka.’