Gramercy Park. Paula Cohen

only half in jest, and taking Dyckman’s elbow, steers him into the rushing Manhattan river called Broadway.

       Chapter Six

      HAD HE BEEN ASKED where he intended to go upon leaving Buchan’s office, Alfieri would have given no definite answer, but the vague response would not have been an evasion—nor would it have been a result of his discomfiture at Buchan’s hands, for he is far less discomfited than Dyckman believes. It would simply have been a true reflection of his state of mind, which seesaws between a soaring elation at being so completely unrecognized in this city that he can melt, unnoticed, into the madness of a Wall Street lunch hour, and a gnawing apprehension concerning the welfare of the child—for so he still considers her, despite Buchan’s denial—in the Slade house.

      And yet the mere act of walking is the perfect answer to both moods, reinforcing his heady sense of liberty while diverting his mind. He begins, therefore, merely to walk, with no particular destination in mind; and because this simplest of all pleasures has been denied him for years, he studies everyone and everything in his impromptu journey—buildings, window displays, the dress, manners, speech, and gestures of his fellow pedestrians, the never-ending current of wagons, omnibuses, carts, and carriages jamming Broadway—with the greed of a starving man at a banquet and the smile of a discharged convict, causing more than one passing stranger to give him wide berth.

      After a while, however, he settles upon a direction and bears northward at a leisurely pace, savoring his freedom, stopping here and there to enter a store and browse among the merchandise; even halting once on the crowded pavement to admire the sheer magnitude of the Post Office Building—a vast, layered wedding cake of a structure that dwarfs the simple, classical grace of City Hall immediately to its north—and to marvel at the swirling human stream, not the least specimen of which pays him any mind, unless it is to push impatiently past him as he slows the flow of traffic at this busiest of intersections.

      His path up Broadway should lead him, eventually, right to the front door of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. It is a walk of slightly more than three miles, but he first takes a blissfully solitary midday meal in a dark little restaurant down a flight of steps, then simply loiters his way up the street. His frequent detours, his pauses, his brief excursions into this or that shop to inquire about some item in the window, or to make a small purchase to be sent on ahead—not out of any need, but solely for the pleasure of being at liberty to go into a shop like any other customer—take up the time, and it is nearly four o’clock when he reaches Union Square, where Broadway meets Fourteenth Street.

      There, pleasantly tired, he seats himself on a bench and contemplates the final leg of his journey. In the last week, he has become sufficiently familiar with New York to be able to navigate its busiest streets more or less successfully. He knows, for instance, that to continue in a straight line up Broadway, which runs up the western side of Union Square, is to arrive at his hotel, now a mere nine blocks distant. But he also knows that to walk east, across the bottom of the square, and then one block further, is to come to Irving Place. And once on Irving Place, a left turn and six swift blocks will bring him to Gramercy Park.

      Both wisdom and prudence dictate the former route and an uneventful arrival at his hotel. But his journey has left him quite drunk with forgotten spontaneity, and the amount of attention he has attracted on the street has almost convinced him that he has become invisible; and these facts, added to his still-lingering disquiet about the welfare of Miss Adler, and his sudden realization of her nearness, set up a siren song inside his head against which the sober claims of wisdom and prudence have small chance of being heard. Gramercy Park it is to be, if for no other reason than to put his concern to rest, once and for all, about his self-appointed protégée.

      At least entering the Slade house poses no problem. The kindly disposed Mr. Upton, perhaps in gratitude for the sublime singing that he had been privileged to hear, had presented the front-door key to Alfieri when the two men parted yesterday; and whether the house agent’s key had been the culprit then, or whether the lock had merely grown rusty from disuse, the front door gives no trouble today.

      Upton has also left the generator in working fettle, and a simple push of a button is all that is needed to banish the darkness of the great hall. But Alfieri is reluctant to trouble that darkness now, overcome by the sense that such a disturbance in the house’s hushed equilibrium—a rude thrusting of light into the echoing dusk—might break the enchantment and cause both the magical child and her chamber to shiver into nothingness before he can reach her. He steps into the hall, to be enveloped once more by its whispering welcome, and, leaving the twilight intact, climbs the stairs.

      If some part of him had believed that he would find her in the music room again today—as if she were, in fact, a ghost, forever haunting that particular chamber—that part of him is disappointed, as is the part which looks for her in her own room. She is off again, on another wander, and the prospect of speedily locating someone so very small in a house of this size is not bright. But now that he has come this far, the thought of leaving without seeing her again is suddenly unbearable to him; and reasoning that it is still beyond her strength to reach, and return from, the ground floor, he begins his search on the floor immediately above.

      His reasoning is sound. He finds her, after several tries, in a book-lined study in the north wing, not far from the music room, seated by the window, gazing out at Gramercy Park. An open book lies forgotten on the table before her; and as the door swings open she turns her head, startled. At the sight of Alfieri her colorless face becomes even paler, and she rises to her feet, clutching the edge of the table.

      Everything about her is as he remembers it, even her astonishing eyes with their burden of grief. They rest on his face now with something between shock and wonder, rendering him, once more, momentarily dumb.

      “Forgive me,” he says, slow to find words with the weight of her gaze upon him. “I have frightened you again. I seem forever destined to terrify you when we meet.”

      “You came back,” is all she says.

      “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

      “I didn’t know. I thought—to see the house, maybe.” And with the acknowledgment that she may not, indeed, be the object of his visit, a pink flush creeps up her face.

      But Alfieri shakes his head, unable to take his eyes from her. “I have seen the house. Piccina, it is you that I needed to see again. I was afraid that—perhaps—I had frightened you, telling you that I would buy it.”

      “There’s no one I would rather it belonged to.”

      “You are very kind. But if I have caused you any pain …”

      “You mustn’t think that.”

      “And yet—forgive me, again—but your eyes were not so swollen yesterday, I think. You have been crying.”

      “Ah, that,” she says, looking away at last, her fingers fidgeting and twisting. “That’s nothing. I slept badly last night. I often sleep badly.”

      He watches her hands tearing at themselves, wanting to take them in his own hands, to quiet them. “My dear,” he says, “if I have been the cause of any discomfort, or troubled you in any way, I humbly beg your pardon. I would not hurt you for the world.”

      The pity in his eyes is almost more than she can bear.

      “I’m so glad you came back,” she whispers.

      “I too. We had such a good talk yesterday.”

      “Oh, yes.”

      “And I am in no hurry today. Are you? Then, if you would—and if I am not imposing upon your hospitality—and if you do not think me so terribly ill-mannered for inviting myself—perhaps we might have another cup of tea together?”

      Pausing for rest halfway up the stairs, leaning on his arm, she looks up at him, hesitantly.

      “Will you forgive me for something too?”