Under the Shadow [antikvár]

MEMORIAL The friends and business acquaintances of the dead man, gathered in a perfectly appointed town house for a hastily arranged memorial service, are dressed as if for a costume party. The deceased's fiancee, the casual focus of curious eyes, is clad as a Crusader who feigns—such is the excellent masquerade— womanhood. At the moment, she is making a gesture of rejection to a man kneeling before her in shapeless white robes, his arms spread in supplication, adoration, or complaisance. The red cross on the woman's fleur-de-lis-spangled gypon catches glancingly the candlelight which illuminates the lavishly furnished buffet. Beyond, in slightly menacing shadows, her ancients and advisors hover. One might think that the kneeling man is in some actual danger, but this is not the case. The deceased, so fragments of conversation and gossip gathered here and there suggest, apparently swallowed a bottle of poison at the table of an undistinguished restaurant known for its heavy sauces, too rich desserts, and haphazardly placed bowls of unidentifiable spheroids, many of them translucent. There is the sweet chiming of a teaspoon against a crystal wineglass. The guests break off their conversations, refresh their drinks, and form a loose cluster at one end of the drawing room, at the other end of which, the deceased's fiancée, looking now quite genuinely masculine, holds up a small painting. It depicts a kitchen window seen from just beyond a wooden fence. Behind the streaked, dirty pane, the blurred figure of a scowling young woman can be descried. She seems to be naked, or partially naked, and with her left hand stiffly held before her, makes a gesture of rejection. The fiancée, whose name is Jeanne Sousa, or Souze, holds the painting higher, and speaks. "Friends," she begins, her voice low with emotion, or, perhaps, feigned emotion. 7