Ssssshhhhhhh, darling, he said. Please stop crying. Just stop. Everything is okay now.
He looked over to see that Livia Pinheiro-Rima had returned to her facing seat. She leaned forward and reached into her little sequined bag that lay on the table and pulled out her cigarette case. Might a cigarette calm her? she asked.
The man shook his head no.
How about you?
No, thank you, he said.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima shrugged and lit a cigarette for herself. She exhaled and then leaned back into her chair and watched the man try to comfort his wife. I still think a schnookerful of schnapps would do her a world of good.
The man was unnerved by the almost amused way that Livia Pinheiro-Rima observed them and saw an opportunity to send her away. Perhaps you’re right, he said. Is the bar still open? Could you get her one?
The bar is always open, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. She stood up and leaned over the table so that her face was level with the woman’s, balancing herself on her arms. I’m going to get you a schnapps, she said, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to an imbecile. So stop your crying. As she stood she lost her balance and teetered a moment, and then steadied herself by leaning forward over the table again. She looked past the man, into the far distance, and softly belched. The man realized, for the first time, how very drunk she must be.
After a moment she stood up again, and when her tall body was unwaveringly perpendicular she patted her hair and set off toward the bar.
She’s gone, the man whispered to his wife, as if it were the presence of Livia Pinheiro-Rima that had upset her. He leaned closer and kissed the tip of her ear, which a part in her hair revealed. I’m sorry, he whispered into it. Please stop crying. He gently pushed her back into the chair and removed her hands from her face. He looked around for something to wipe her tear-stained face with but found nothing, so used his own hands. The touch of his hands on her face seemed to calm her. She laid her own hands on top of his so that they were both holding her face, and she closed her eyes and rocked herself back and forth and trembled with hiccupping breaths. After a moment she was still and quiet. She removed her hands from his and he lowered his, in a way that seemed choreographed and ritualistic, like the unmasking of the blind.
She looked straight ahead, at the empty chair were Livia Pinheiro-Rima had sat.
I woke up, she said, and I didn’t know where I was. You weren’t there. I was all alone. I thought I was dead.
You’re fine, he said. I’m here. I had just come down to the—
No, she said. Listen. For a moment she said nothing. She continued to stare straight ahead. I wasn’t alone, she finally said. There was someone in the room with me. She came out of the closet and stood by the bed. I could see her. She just stood there, looking at me. And when I spoke to her, she disappeared.
You were dreaming, he said. It was only a bad dream.
You don’t understand, she said. I saw her. And I saw her disappear.
We’ve had a terrible journey, he said. You’re exhausted. Tomorrow we’ll go to the orphanage and something new will begin. And you can forget all this.
I want to go now, she said.
Where?
To the orphanage! she said. I need to go now. I’ve got to see the baby now.
It’s the middle of the night, he said. There’s no way to get there. We’ll go in the morning. Let’s go back to bed.
She stood up and looked wildly around the lobby, as if a sign with directions to the orphanage might be posted somewhere. I’m going now, she said. I won’t go back to that room. You’re always—you never—you always abjure. You hesitate! You’re never, never impetuous!
The beaded curtains made a shivering sound as Livia Pinheiro-Rima passed through them. With both hands she carried a small silver salver on which sat three little glasses of schnapps. She walked toward them very slowly, her head lowered, watching the silver coin of schnapps jiggle in each glass. There was something ceremonial about her approach, something that could be witnessed but not interrupted, and so both the man and the woman stood silently and watched her cross the lobby.
She set the tray down on the exact center of the table and one by one positioned the glasses at the hours of three, six, and twelve. There, she said. Not a single drop spilt. She sat down in the chair she had vacated and lifted one of the glasses off the table. Sit down, she said to them both.
We’re very tired, said the man. We’re going to bed.
No! said the woman.
The man realized that her energy, her fury, had reached its peak and was subsiding. He sensed that Livia Pinheiro-Rima realized this too and looked at her. She had once again leaned back into the chair and was dangling her slipper, but now she held the glass of schnapps in her hand about a foot in front her, her naked arm curved, as if she were in an advertisement for that good, high life we all seek.
You’ve stopped crying, Livia Pinheiro-Rima said to the woman. Good for you.
I want to go to the orphanage, the woman said.
In the morning, said the man. Now we are going to bed.
I am going to the orphanage now, she said, but she just stood there, defeated, exhausted.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima sat with her little glass of schnapps still raised before her. She had not drunk from it, and her manner indicated she would not until the hysterical woman had resumed her seat. Sit down, she said again.
Sit, said the man, and gently pushed his wife down onto her chair. He sat in the one beside her and picked up the little glass before him. His wife sat but did not touch or acknowledge her glass of schnapps. She wore a vacant, defeated look. It was a look the man had seen on her face once before, many years ago, when they were first married and had invited some of her friends and some of his friends to a dinner party, their first dinner party in their new apartment, and it had not gone well, in fact it had gone horribly wrong: it was a miserably hot summer night and they had no air-conditioning, the food was badly cooked, and the guests—her friends and his friends—immediately assumed some weird hostility, and said unfortunate things to one another, and as the dinner progressed it became more and more palpably disagreeable, and the man had looked up from the table after the plates from the main course—a whole fish exotically baked in salt that was almost inedible—had been cleared to see his wife standing in the kitchen, gently tossing the salad, in a huge olive-wood bowl, a wedding present from her Italian grandmother, stoically lifting and turning the mess of leaves over and over again, and she had worn then a similarly stricken expression, as if she were tossing salad at the end of the world.
I think we should drink to miracles, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. They happen. They have happened to me. She raised her glass a little higher in the air.
The man picked up his glass and held it out. The woman continued to stare vacantly in front of her. She was somewhere else, he could tell. She was gone.
Yes, he said, to miracles. He touched his glass to Livia Pinheiro-Rima’s and then swallowed the schnapps. Then he put his glass down on the silver tray and moved the woman’s glass beside it. Livia Pinheiro-Rima still held her glass in the air.
We are going to bed now, said the man. You have been very kind to us both. Thank you.
He stood and helped his wife stand. He reached behind and lifted the fur coat off her shoulders, and she let herself be slid out of it. It was the heaviest coat he had ever encountered, so heavy that it seemed to surpass the category of coat. This is yours, I assume, he said to Livia Pinheiro-Rima. He carefully laid it across the seat.