By Joan Schweighardt
1929. Manhattan. Estela and her one-time cousin JoJo have made a terrible mistake. They have tried to keep JoJo’s existence a secret. But Jack Hopper, Estela’s father, has known all along that his daughter has been lying to him. He’s come to suspect that whoever it is that she is hiding has been hurting her—and stalking him. Now he has learned where this mystery man can be found, and he is going after him. Estela, the narrator of River Aria, hopes to catch up with him and explain things, before it’s too late.
Excerpt from River Aria, Book Three of The Rivers Trilogy
He reached the art school and stopped in front of it. I could see from my angle just near the curb that the doors were wide open. He had to be able to see people milling around inside; the reception area would be just there, as soon as you got through the small vestibule. Surely he would conclude that an event was going on, that this was not the time to go in and make an inquiry. I was so busy trying to catch up to him before he made a decision that I tripped over the edge of the curb and went down on one knee and popped back up again. Now there was mud on my skirt. Go home, go home, go home, go home, I screamed inwardly. But he went forward, up the marble stairs and into the building.
A half a minute later, I was inside the vestibule, where I hoped to find him lurking, but he was not there; he had to have entered the reception room, or slipped away without me seeing. I peered in and saw him, and was immediately overcome by a searing recognition of my helplessness. I was as physically unable to propel myself forward as I would have been if I were standing on the edge of a precipice—which, in many ways, I was.
He was only yards away from me now, standing at the back of the crowd, having a look around. His hair and shoulders were wet, as were mine. Except for the slow movement of his head, he stood perfectly still. His posture, the way his hands hung like dead things at his sides, suggested apprehension. It still seemed possible that he would change his mind and turn and leave. Anyone in his right mind could see this was not the time or place to be questioning people about the whereabouts of someone whose name he didn’t even know—assuming Ana had told me the truth.
As long as he stood still, I had a grain of hope. And he stood still for a long time, so long that I began to see the assemblage through his eyes: a grand gathering of the elite, the wealthy, most of them people of age. Men in suits, stripes and plaids, their trouser creases as sharp as knife blades. Some of the oldest fellows were in tailcoats, their pocket watch chains gleaming. Many leaned on walking sticks with silver and gold handles fashioned to look like extravagant versions of every animal of prey imaginable. The women had their faces disguised in thick makeup. Indifferent to the season, they wore fur boas and cloches in every color and style: beaded, fringed, feathered, adorned in silk flowers. Gold, diamonds and pearls dripped from their ears and necks and wrists. Some were dressed in short shifts like the women at the speakeasy, but more wore gowns, with wide flowing sleeves, elaborate bows at their hips or layers of ruffles sweeping the floor. They stood in clusters, these aging patrons of the arts, cheese-filled cherry tomatoes or triangles of jam-covered toast or long gold- or silver-tipped cigarettes holders (sans cigarettes, discouraged, apparently, in this house of art) held so delicately between their gloved fingertips they might have been butterflies. Some stood in pairs, facing the wall, contemplating, no doubt, the merits of the paintings before them.
A living picture, a tableau vivant! There had to be sound, but I could not hear it. There had to be movement, but to me the assemblage appeared frozen in time and place, a painting in the making. Jack Hopper, standing there, not among them but still at the edge of the crowd, was a part of it.
But then he began to move, slowly, still looking left and right, an anomaly in the sluggish moment. He held his shoulders high and rigid, turning his body this way and that so as not to jostle an arm or rattle a canapé free from anyone’s uplifted hand. He was making his way to the center of the room.
He got there, then stilled again. Moments passed. He dropped his shoulders eventually, perhaps in defeat. I glanced to my right and took in the coat tree there, three or four coats hanging from it. When he came to his senses and turned to leave, I could easily hide myself there. But he wouldn’t come to his senses, I realized all at once, because he had found Iara.
With so much else on my mind, I had forgotten about her. But now I said to myself, of course; how could he fail to miss her? The painting had been strategically placed, centered on the main wall, all the other artwork off to either side as if to thwart any distraction. I glanced at the other work but couldn’t take it in. Like Jack Hopper, Iara was all I saw.
JoJo’s painting was subtle but vibrant and dramatic, nearly a living thing. Iara was peaceful, at rest, yet utterly alive, her dark eyes gleaming with some secret knowledge. I’d seen the painting only in JoJo’s dark room—the tomb—and never at more of a distance than a few feet. It made my head spin to see it now, in the light, to see that even the dark background was full of colors—swirling deep greens as if from the lushest part of the rainforest—I hadn’t noticed before, to see the soft rosy shadows along Iara’s cheek and neck and above her breasts, the kiss of ivory on her visible shoulder.
Jack Hopper’s lips parted as if in awe, and he approached it. If I had not been paralyzed by circumstance, I might have run into the room in that moment, crying, Doesn’t that one look just like me? Everyone says so, though of course it’s not! But even if he could have been persuaded into believing I was not the subject, he would know the scarf Iara inclined on; I’d worn it all winter!
He moved closer yet, until there was no one between him and the painting. He tilted his head; he had to be viewing the signature: João C Hopper. Mr. Black had talked JoJo into using the C as a substitute for “Chao” for his work here in America. JoJo hadn’t liked giving up the truest part of his name, that which came from his mother, but he understood that without Felix Black, he’d be back on the river putting aside fish heads for Tia Adriana’s stews. A name was a name. As for Hopper, he hadn’t bothered arguing that that was in fact the name that should have been dropped, that it had turned out not to be his name at all. I’d never asked him about that. I’d assumed he’d chosen to use it because it was what was on his traveling papers.
Jack Hopper leaned in closer. Ordinarily JoJo’s handwriting was pathetic; why should Jack Hopper be able to decipher it when no one else could? But the truth was I’d commended JoJo when I saw the way he’d done his signature this time, with a brush no less. He’d made a decent job of it. It was legible. So what might Jack Hopper be thinking? Something incestuous was going on? Some stranger had painted his daughter naked and then stolen her (and his) name? That she’d sold the name to him, for the price of the two wads of bills he kept under his mattress? Wild winds and raging river waters had to be brewing in his head; they were in mine.
He moved his jaw from side to side, the way a person might upon biting down on something rotten. His hands turned into white-knuckled fists. He rubbed them up and down his hips, as if he knew he should hide them in his trouser pockets but couldn’t quite manage the task. His face was flushed. Back in the days before he’d become so dark, Nora would get flushed like that dancing, and every time he would say, There she is now, my red rose of Allendale. I gasped to think how different things had been, and not so long ago. It became clear to me that this was my fault, that none of this would be happening if I hadn’t come to America.
He turned to the person standing nearest him, a middle-aged lady wearing a raspberry-colored suit with at least two brown fox pelts draped over her shoulders. She was talking to someone, a younger man. Jack Hopper took a step closer and positioned himself so he was just beside her and interrupted her with a question, his index finger pointing toward Iara. She glanced at his finger, then examined his attire, his work trousers and twice-patched wool vest, fine on the streets or at home but not appropriate in this gathering. She gave him a moment to take in her mask of indignation and then she acquiesced and answered his question with her own index finger, pointed vaguely toward the right. Without bothering to thank her—she wouldn’t have noticed anyway; she’d already gone back to her conversation—he turned and set off slowly to seek the object of his contempt. When his eyes narrowed, I knew he’d found him.
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Joan Schweighardt is the author of nine novels, two memoirs, two children’s books and various magazine articles, including work in Parabola Magazine. She is a regular contributor to Occhi Magazine, for which she interviews writers, artists and filmmakers. In addition to her own projects, she has worked as an editor and ghostwriter for private and corporate clients for more than 25 years. She also had her own independent publishing company from 1999 to 2005. Several of her titles won awards, including a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers,” a ForeWord Magazine “Best Fiction of the Year,” and a Borders “Top Ten Read to Me.” And she has agented books for other writers, with sales to St. Martin’s, Red Hen, Wesleyan University Press and more.
Her most recent work is The Rivers Trilogy—Before We Died, Gifts for the Dead and River Aria—which moves back and forth between the New York metro area and the South American rainforests from the years 1908 through 1929.
