Nightwork

"The next day, I went down to the gallery to collect the two paintings. Evelyn had an appointment with a friend at the embassy and I was alone. Bonelli seemed happier than when I had last seen him. There were three more red tabs on the paintings on the walls and I supposed that accounted for the improvement in his spirits. As he wrapped my canvas he hummed a tune that I recognized as an aria from Tosca. Quinn was not there, 'He has had a sudden seizure of talent,' Bonelli said when I asked about him. 'Since you talked to him, he has been home painting night and day.'

Further wanderings of father, I thought, coming up.

'I think you must take some of the credit, Mr Grimes,' Bonelli said. 'He was very despondent, sitting around here from opening to closing, looking at more than a year's work on the walls and nothing happening, nothing. An artist, especially a young artist, becomes desperate for a little encouragement.'

'Not only artists.' I said.

'Of course you're right,' Bonelli agreed. 'Despondency is 'not only the privilege of artists. I myself sometimes have days when I wonder if I have not totally wasted my life. Even in America, I suppose...' He shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.

'Even in America,' I said.

* * *

When I got back to the hotel, Evelyn had not yet returned, and I put the paintings side by side on the mantelpiece, with a note on which I merely wrote, 'To Evelyn. In gratitude, Rome,' and the date. Then I went out and walked down to the Via Veneto and sat at Downey's on the terrace, drinking coffee and watching the crowds walk by. I wanted Evelyn to see the pictures and the note without me.

When I got back to the hotel, she was lying on the bed, propped up against the pillows, staring at the paintings. She was crying. Without saying anything, she motioned for me to come over to her and pulled me down beside her and kissed me.

After a while, she said, 'I'm a bitch.'

'Oh. come on now,' I said.

She pulled away from me and sat up. I have to tell you why I came over here. To Italy.'

'I'm delighted you came,' I said. 'Let's leave it at that. And I don't want to hear why you think you're a bitch.'

'I'm pregnant,' she said. 'By you. I ran out of the pill the day I met you. You don't have to believe me, you know, if you don't want to.'

I believe you,' I said.

I was all ready to have an abortion,' she said, 'when Lorimer called me.'

'I'm glad he did.'

'I've always said I didn't want children,' she said. 'But when David told me where you were ... I suddenly realized I'd been fooling myself. About that. And about a lot of other things, too. I've quit my job. No more government for me. I was destroying myself m Washington. Along with just about everybody else I knew there. I had a cold-blooded lawyer's proposition I was going to put to you....'

What was that?'

'I was going to ask you to marry me,' she said.

That's not so awfully cold-blooded,' I said.

'I was going to tell you we could get a divorce after the baby was born. I didn't want an illegitimate child. Big, hotshot, hardboiled, liberated woman that I am, the scourge of the Department of Justice.' She laughed miserably. 'And I was ready to behave just like a brainless, marshmallowy little flirt just out of finishing school. But then, after this week we've had...' She gestured helplessly. 'You've been so good. The pictures were the final touch. I'll handle it by myself.'

I took a deep breath. 'I have a better idea,' I said. 'Why don't we get married and have the baby and not get divorced?' As I said it I knew I was wrong to have done so. There were shadows hanging over me, shadows that had to be dissipated before I could marry anyone. Chief among the shadows was that of Pat. I had almost asked her to marry me, too, and that had come to nothing. I had tried to forget her, but had I? More often than I liked to admit I dreamed about her. Even in bed, with Evelyn sleeping beside me, I had dreamed about her.

It was with relief that I heard Evelyn say, 'Not so fast. Not so fast. First of all, I might be lying...'

'About what?'

'About who's the father of the child, for instance.'

'Why would you do that?'

'Women do, you know.'

'Are you lying?'

No.'

'That's good enough for me,' I said.

'Even so,' she said, shaking her head, 'not so fast. I want no repenting in leisure in my house. No long faces of regret year after year. Save your spontaneous gestures of generosity for lesser events. Think it over for a while. Let's both think everything over for a while. Let's both be sure we know what we're doing. Let's give ourselves a couple of weeks.'

'But you said...' Her sudden resistance made me irrationally stubborn. 'The reason you came to Italy...'

'I know what I said. I know the reason I came to Italy. It's no longer operative. That's a word that's very popular in Washington these days.'

'Why is it no longer operative?'

'Because I've changed,' Evelyn said. 'You were a stranger I was going to use. You're not a stranger any longer and I can't use you.'

What am I now?'