KALEIDOSCOPE II PART 8
By Cynthia Hatch
"Squirt it!"
The eagerly offered explanation startled them both in the quiet of the chamber that had held only their own soft voices, and they turned to see Mouse standing at the entrance, hands deep in his pockets, as if he was making a concerted effort not to wave them around in his excitement, revealing his presence.
"Mouse. It's impolite to listen in on others' conversations. You know that."
"Not listening -- telling. Had a thingy once -- like a flower. Found it up top in the trash behind a magic place.' He emphasized the word "found" out of a long perfected and almost automatic sense of self-preservation. "A little tape, a little glue. Put the bulby thing in the pocket. Squeeze it. Blam! Got Jamie with it. Got Winslow too --boy, was he madl" He was fairly dancing up and down at the memory, which he clearly found every bit as delightful as his more useful accomplishments.
"Your theories are welcome -- always, Mouse. It is your manners that are in question."
"Didn't want to disturb you and Catherine."
She smiled to herself at this clumsy attempt to hide behind the sanctity of their time together. It was obvious that Mouse was in awe of the love they shared, but not above using it to appeal to his mentor's softer side.
"What's disturbing, Mouse, is to have you creeping up on us when we least expect it. We are glad to see you, but please -- let us know when we're about to enjoy your company."
Catherine sat quietly during this exchange, wondering if Vincent had ever felt the need before to admonish Mouse on this issue. He was certainly wise in doing it now. There had been several times lately when she would have hated the thought of someone watching them unobtrusively, and there would be many more. Happiness trembled through her at the awareness that he was paving the way for those moments to come, and the realization that he had been too engrossed in their conversation -- in her -- to note his prodigy's arrival.
"Okay good -- try to be noisy. Hard for a Mouse, right?" He quipped uncertainly.
"Yes, hard, but greatly appreciated -- believe me."
"Speaking of appreciation," she interjected. I've never had the chance to thank you Mouse, and I don't really know how to do it. You saved our lives."
"Didn't mean to," he glowed shyly. "Just glad I did. Better than a hole, better than a surprise for Father -- helping you and Vincent."
"Can I please give you a hug?" She rose from the chair and went to where the boy stood squirming in not altogether comfortable anticipation. He looked, she thought, like an appealing puppy, eager for affection but so brimming with energy and high-strung enthusiasm that he might be hard to hold on to. She caught him in a bear hug. "Thank you, Mouse. I'll never forget what you did. Never."
Once again she felt the surfacing of that maternal instinct. Here was another lovable soul who had grown up -- if Mouse could truly be said to have grown up -- without a mother's love. He'd had no one at all. It was a testament to Vincent's patient nurturing that he could tolerate human contact at all, so long had he been a solitary, skittish creature of the shadows. But his home was here now -- in the light of Vincent's limitless love and that of Father and the others. What an extraordinary creature had blossomed in that gentle light, and how much richer they all were because he hadn't withered in the dark. He blushed furiously, as she kissed his cheek, the internal battle between deep pleasure and an inbred discomfort showing clearly in the ingenuous face.
"Maybe you should save hugs for Vincent. Don't want to make him mad."
"Oh, I have plenty more," she assured him. "Vincent doesn't need to worry."
He had risen behind her and now came around to embrace Mouse himself. "You have my thanks as well, Mouse. You kept Catherine safe when I was unable to do it myself. In saving her life, you saved mine." He kissed the boy's tousled hair.
Such displays of affection that might come only awkwardly to most men, came easily to him. She thought it must be the aura of virility that surrounded him, defined him, and his total, if unexamined, ease in that masculinity that allowed him to make such gestures seem natural, when most men would find them vaguely threatening.
Mouse had dearly reached his tolerance level for affection. "Gotta go now. Gotta feed Arthur. Is that okay, Vincent?"
"Yes, it's okay."
"I'm glad I got to see you, Mouse. Give my love to Arthur."
The boy smiled, a lopsided, endearing smile, and turned to the refuge of the tunnels, where the confusion of emotions would doubtless soon be subdued under the intricate workings of his ever active mind.
"I think he felt he had to get permission to leave, as well as to come in." she ventured.
"I'm afraid he did." He held his arm out, inviting her back to the chair, pulled so carefully close to his, and they both sat down to continue their discussion. "What Mouse suggested could be close to the truth."
"I know. It's the kind of thing I've considered, but of course, if it's true, it only makes the case that much harder. If no one at the museum is involved, then we have no trail at all. It could be anyone."
"Anyone with the means to dispose of a well-known work of art."
"That's what the experts are following up. They're working from the other end -- identifying people who deal in such a specialized kind of stolen goods, collectors who hoard their art out of the public eye. There's no way anyone would be foolish enough to try and sell it to a legitimate buyer."
"What will you do next?"
" I'm not sure. Maybe reexamine the tapes taken from the video cameras to see if we can spot anyone behaving suspiciously in that gallery. I have a feeling, though, that this person would have covered himself pretty well. It's much more likely that the thief will be caught -- if he ever is -- by someone at the other end of the task force, someone with connections to receivers of stolen goods. It will irk Joe no end to see the taxpayers' money wasted. He's unhappy enough to have all these special agents taking up our conference room and our time, when they're probably going to get all the credit anyway. I'm afraid he sees this as a victimless crime."
"But it isn't, Catherine. Such treasures belong to everyone. There are an untold number of victims."
"That's exactly how I feel about it. which reminds me, you haven't opened your present. Those treasures are yours as well. Vincent. This is a way we can see them together." He opened the bag and pulled out the oversized book. She watched as he leafed through the pages, carefully, reverently. "It's beautiful, Catherine."
"I chose it because the reproductions were the truest. The colors are amazingly accurate. They do it with a kind of computer. Isn't that strange, to think that something so cold and technical could give the truest interpretation of something so inspired?"
He shook his head. "Not really. The men who created these masterpieces had great vision, Catherine -- genius. The same must be true of those who conceived such unimaginable technology. It is only the medium that is different."
"I like the way you look at things," she said with such warmth that he turned to her. "And I like the way you look at me."
He continued to do so, and she marveled that he could bid her heart to race, her breath to almost stop, without touching her at all. "Perhaps I understand your thief all too well."
"What makes you say that?" She was surprised the words came out clearly, since her lips seemed poised for something far more exciting than forming mere syllables.
"I know what it is. Catherine, to see true beauty and feel the overwhelming temptation to possess it."
Any possibility of a reply was lost as her mind was swept clear of thought, her mouth intent on nothing but its response to his, as he kissed her. When he broke the contact, it was only to nudge gently with the soft down of his upper lip against her own.
"I have something to tell you, Catherine." The words whispered across her lips, more felt than heard, their faint touch rendering her immobile, hypnotized.
"What?" she whispered into his open mouth.
"We have another visitor."
There it was tap-tapping on the outer edges of her consciousness -- the sound of the cane intermingled with footsteps and finally the too loud voice: "Vincent, may I come in?"
"Of course, Father." Vincent had eased back into his chair, looking perfectly composed.
She closed her eyes a moment. Grand Central -- no, more like Penn Station -- at rush hour -- in the rain -- during the Christmas season. She opened them again, as Father entered the chamber.
"Ah, Catherine, I heard that you were here. How have you been?"
"Just fine, Father. Are you well?"
"Well enough. This infernal dampness has done nothing to remind me of that, however. One would assume that bad weather was among the distasteful things we left behind in coming here, but I fear these old joints of mine are still very much in tune with the climate."
"Here, Father, please -- sit down." Vincent had risen and stood at ease, arms folded, as the older man accepted the offered seat.
"Thank you, Vincent. I'll only stay a moment. Well, what have we here?" He peered through the glasses that seemed more often to be perched on his nose these days.
"It's a gift -- from Catherine. Pictures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art."
"I see. A very handsome edition. May I?" He turned a few pages, sometimes-bending closer, more often leaning back to put the proper distance between the pages and his aging eyes. "I have similar prints in my collection, but nothing so fine as this -- not so vibrant. Dear lord, I'd forgotten the colors." He sat back, removing his spectacles, to rub his eyes, almost as if the pure brilliance of the illustrations had strained them.
"It doesn't include everything they have, of course, but a lot of my favorites are there, and I wanted to share them with Vincent. Did you know that the museum keeps nearly half their collection under the building?"
"Oh, yes -- in a tunnel, a water pipe, to be exact."
"Really?" Catherine looked at him, surprised.
"Years ago that was the primary pipe carrying the city's water supply from upstate to Manhattan. Long abandoned, of course. Sealed up, but it appears on many of our maps."
" I've been doing research on the museum, and yet I come below and you tell me something that everyone above seems to have ignored or forgotten."
Father smiled wryly. "Yes, well, sometimes I wonder if the separation between our two worlds is really an illusion, if there aren't far more powerful forces drawing us together, than holding us apart."
She threw Vincent a quick look, which he returned under lowered brows. If Father noticed he gave no indication, and she wasn't at all sure whether he had been alluding to them or merely to the troublesome effects of the weather.
"Well, I shall leave you two to your book. Vincent, you won't forget the situation below the Carnegie Hall threshold? There's a need for strong backs there. Believe me, I wish mine qualified, but I'm afraid it isn't so."
"Your work is more important. Father. We attempt only to hold brick and mortar together. You hold all of us together. Sleep well."
"You should try to stay warm," she called after him and felt immediately embarrassed, telling a doctor what to do for his aches and pains.
"I'll remember that. Thank you, Catherine." He turned at the entrance, his expression unreadable, looking at them. What did he see, she wondered, that made him pause? There was only her own slight figure in the carved chair, Vincent still standing by the table, the two of them encircled by candlelight, the rest of the chamber in shadow.
"The work beneath Carnegie, Vincent. It can wait a while yet." He nodded and left them.
"I'm never sure, if he really approves of our time together, Vincent, or if he simply sees it as inevitable and doesn't want to cause friction. "
Vincent returned to sit beside her. "I doubt that he knows himself, Catherine. Remember he sees the same unknowns that we do, the same fears, yet he observes only a little of the joy. Know that whatever doubts may trouble him, he wants nothing more than our happiness -- yours as well as mine."
"I do know that," she nodded, thinking that happiness could be such a simple thing: sitting here now under his mild, blue gaze. the book of beautiful pictures awaiting their exploration, the promise of a whole evening spent quietly together.
"Show me, Catherine. What did you see on Sunday?."
She took him on a guided tour that soon was abandoned as one or the other would remark on another illustration in danger of being bypassed, and they would sit, speaking almost in whispers, heads bent together over the book, wisps of their hair becoming intertwined. She told him how she'd thought of him while looking at "Girl Asleep.'
"An early work?" He looked at her, brows raised.
"I think it is. How did you know?"
"The colors, Catherine." He turned to find a later example of the artist's work.
"The blues and yellows," she agreed, "they dominate his later work, but don't you love the quality of the light, the quietness?"
"As if a moment on a real day were frozen in time."
"I always feel if you could look out one of Vermeer's windows, you would find an entire city going about its business, just as it was when he was painting."
"Like the tapestries in the Great Hall -- a door to another world."
"I'd love to see those tapestries again, Vincent --just the two of us. Do you think we could go there sometime?"
"It can be very cold in the Great Hall when it is empty, Catherine."
"It wouldn't be empty, Vincent. You and I would be there."
A trace of a smile crossed his features. "Then we'll visit it soon -- I promise."
They continued their study of the Vermeers, puzzling over the way his colors seemed to intensify over the years, while the work of his contemporaries grew merely darker. Catherine guessed that it must be due to the special pigments he used, but after staring at the pages for a long time, Vincent announced there were no blacks and browns, as commonly used in the shadows. "And the white, Catherine -- it's composed of many colors."
"Like sunlight. No wonder it looks so real"
They continued on, sometimes discussing the artists themselves or their techniques, sometimes veering off into speculation about the time or the people and places depicted. He wanted to hear about other works she had seen in the great museums of Europe, and she. who had always been reluctant to bring up her worldly experience for fear it would cause him to feel more acutely his own lack of freedom, felt grateful that she no longer had to withhold a part of herself. His freedom was in his soul, and the look in his eyes when she described her travels, told her that he was experiencing every word.
There were moments when she would steal a look at his profile, as he sat absorbed in the pages before him, and note the satisfaction it gave her to see the lowered lashes etched in candle glow. There was pleasure too in the hard warmth of his thigh necessarily pressed against hers beneath the little table, but she didn't allow her attention to linger there long. So engrossed were they in this easy time together that she thought little of the passing hours and wondered at her own certainty when at last she exclaimed that it must be very late.
"How do you know that, Catherine?"
"I'm not sure." She thought a moment, sensing that he felt in her an explanation she hadn't recognized. "The subways," she said suddenly, "the trains -- they're not as frequent."
"Catherine," he shook his head in admiration, "you are truly becoming a part of this world."
"I'm not sure what Father would say about that. I've kept you from your work again, and you must sleep sometime."
"It is just as late in your world. You too need to rest." He picked up his cloak and took her hand. They wound their way back toward the park entrance, speaking in whispers till far from the hub of the tunnel community, aware that most people were long asleep.
"At least it isn't raining again," she observed as they made their way to the mouth of the tunnel. He moved to step outside, and she laid her hand on his chest. "You shouldn't go out, Vincent. Stay where it's safe."
"There is safety in darkness, Catherine. Look."
She followed his gaze to a curled moon, so slender it gave no light to anything but its own fragile shape. The night was windless and black, still warm, and she relaxed a bit, as he followed her out into the open air.
"I had a wonderful time tonight, Vincent," She turned to slip her arms around his waist.
"So did I. Thank you for sharing your world with me, Catherine."
"And yours with me. Will it be a long time, do you think, before we see each other?"
"A very long time -- perhaps tomorrow?"
"It does seem far away, but, yes, tomorrow will be fine. Shall I come here?"
He nodded. "And to the Great Hall, if you like."
"That would be wonderful. But you must promise me that you'll find time to sleep."
"I will," he assured her, "and to dream." He bent to brush his lips lightly against hers, a brief spark not allowed to catch -- not here in the still solitude, wrapped round with shadows, where it would be so easy to be lost, careless, and where solitude was, after all, only an illusion. Beyond the trees the lights of the city still flared. The park itself they knew to be alive with the sporadic patrols of those sworn to maintain its peace, and perhaps the furtive presence of the predators who would disrupt it.
She looked back, as the glare of a street lamp captured her. He had disappeared, become one with the ambiguous shadows of the trees, but she knew he was there and knew he would remain, silent and unmovable, until he could feel that she was safely home.