The apartment was the one next to the elevator. It took him a while to figure out how to unlock all three locks. He had to turn the keys in the opposite direction from what he was used to. The door was heavy, and fell shut behind him with a contented click. He found the guest room at the end of the long hall. Near the front door was a study where he found some telephone directories. Françoise Kramsky? No, as was to be expected, there was no listing under that name. He looked for the church.
In the White Pages he found neither a John, nor a St. John, nor a Church of St. John. There was more than a column of churches, from the Church of All Nations to the Church of the Truth. But the listings seemed to be random. In the Yellow Pages, between Christmas Trees and Cigarettes, he found a listing of churches by denomination. He was certain that a church destined to become the biggest in the world after St. Peter’s wouldn’t belong to a minor denomination, and so concentrated on the Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Catholic churches. The tiny letters blurred before his tired eyes, whirled around, found themselves again in long rows, and marched down the column of listings.
CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. The name was in larger print, and in bold. Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. There was a map on the wall of the study. He found the cathedral and also located the Epps’ apartment. It wasn’t too far away. Georg felt as if he had made it.
21
HE WOKE UP ON THE COUCH in the study, still dressed, curled up and aching. He crossed the hall to the living room. The sun cast a broad band of rays through the large windows. He looked out. Below him was a stream of traffic, and across the street lay Central Park. Skyscrapers in the distance towered into the clear blue sky of Manhattan. He opened the window and heard the noise of the traffic, the clattering of the subway under the street, and the children in the playground at the edge of the park.
Outside, he drank in the atmosphere of the city. He walked uptown along Amsterdam Avenue. The buildings, at first tall and well maintained, shrank into four- and five-story houses. Fire escapes hung black and heavy into the streets. The stores had signs in Spanish. The streets became louder and more lively. The pedestrians were increasingly black and Latino; there were more drunks, panhandlers, and teenagers carrying boom boxes. He walked fast, his eyes flitting over buildings, people, cars, traffic lights, hydrants, mailboxes.
Georg didn’t see the cathedral until he reached the intersection. The cross street was flanked by low Gothic buildings, behind which the massive gray cathedral rose up. He crossed the street and took out the photograph of Françoise with the print of the cathedral hanging on the wall behind her. He compared it to the building in front of him. The towers to the right and left of the portal only reached the height of the nave, and the cupola over the crossing was still in bare cement, but otherwise everything matched perfectly. Steps stretching the whole breadth of the cathedral led up from Amsterdam Avenue to the five portals.
The inside was gloomy and steeped in secrets, the dim light coming from lamps and the stained-glass windows. The columns faded upward into the darkness. He walked through the nave with the respect his parents had always shown on entering a church. Only the area around the choir stalls was brighter. He found the gift shop on the left, and strolled among the display cases and tables, his eyes scanning the books and cards, soaps, fruit preserves, sweatshirts, bags, and cups, until he came upon a large print. He recognized it. Françoise had cut off the lower part where it said: THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE. MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. CRAM AND FERGUSON, HOYLE, DORAN AND BERRY, ARCHITECTS, BOSTON. It was the front view of the west facade. He kept reading the text over and over as if it might reveal something.
On his way back to the entrance he sat down. Now what? Did this mean that Françoise was living in New York, or just that she had lived here before? Someone could have given her the print as a present, or she could have bought it at a flea market or in a junk store. She had cut off the reference to New York, but it wasn’t clear whether she was trying to cover something up or whether she just didn’t want the text. If she had been in New York but was no longer here, he might as well look for her in Paris, Sydney, or San Francisco. But even if she was in New York, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
His eyes had adjusted to the dim light. The distant voices he heard came from a tour group visiting the cathedral. The chairs in the row were battered, some with frayed wickerwork. The columns no longer melted into the darkness above, but were supporting a ribbed vault. No secrets-just bad lighting, gloomy corners, empty space, and distorted acoustics. But no secrets.
He got up and went back to the gift shop. He showed the cashier Françoise’s picture, an enlarged close-up of her reading on the bed. “Do you happen to know her?”
The young woman looked at him cautiously. “What do you want? Who are you?”
He had conjured up a romantic story: Françoise had visited Europe, their meeting in France, their love, a silly lover’s quarrel in which he had walked out in a huff, his not being able to find her. He looked the cashier in the eye and then lowered his gaze: such a foolish quarrel, his foolish pride, his foolish temper, he was ashamed of himself. Then he raised his eyes again with a sincere and determined look. “I’ve come to ask her to marry me.”
Since the cashier had not been working there very long, she took him to her boss, who had been the manager for ten years. The manager didn’t remember ever seeing Françoise either, but all that meant was that Françoise hadn’t worked there during the past ten years. Whether she had been a customer was another question-that, she couldn’t say. She herself wasn’t always on the floor, and she’d had many shop assistants over the years.
22
GEORG WAS NEVER SURE whether people were won over by his tale because they believed it, or because he was so sincere. Besides his romantic tale he also had one in which he was a young lawyer and Françoise an acquaintance of a client in France who didn’t know her full name or address. She was to be a key witness in a trial, the trial was vital for the client, and the client vital for Georg, who was an up-and-coming lawyer. What people liked about both tales was the role played by the picture of the cathedral, their cathedral. They looked at the photo carefully, gave the matter some thought, said they were sorry they couldn’t help him, and sometimes suggested where he might look further.
He spoke to current and former priests connected with the cathedral, with parishioners who had been volunteers, with the head of the Ladies Guild, the head of the theater workshop. Nobody recognized the face in the photograph. At times he felt her face becoming more unfamiliar to him every time he took out the picture and showed it. Was this the face that had smiled at him, that he had seen from so close, and touched and kissed? He felt that his growing unfamiliarity had to do with Françoise’s lowered eyes. But perhaps it would be even worse if her eyes had been visible. Maybe they, too, would wear away as he kept taking out the picture and showing it around. Usually the past lurks unnoticed behind the present, but Georg felt as if the past was being slowly sucked away under his helpless gaze.