The green room was more beautiful than Meghan could ever have imagined. It bore no resemblance to the parched landscape of Drogheda at this time of year, and that, of all things, did not make it any easier for her. The walls were draped in a pale, cool green silk fabric that took on a warmer hue in the lamplight. On the floor lay a carpet depicting intertwined plants, rivers and birds – half jungle, half courtly map of a continent that nobody in this house really knew. Curtains with Mexican tile patterns hung at the window; a green blanket with Andean stripes lay over the bed; next to the armchair stood a small table made of dark wood, topped with Caribbean-style ceramic bowls, all glazed green. Even the bathroom continued the colour scheme: green tiles, green towels, green soap dishes, as if Vittorio had had the continent of America transformed into a single botanical dream.
Lito stepped inside, but did not stop in the middle of the room. He first walked back to the door and closed it just as Vittorio had asked. Then he looked around, not with the curiosity of a tourist, but with the gaze of an actor assessing the set he’d just stumbled into.
Meghan stopped by the bed. She touched the duvet, but immediately withdrew her hand. The fabric was coarser than it looked. It reminded her more of sheep’s wool than of silk.
“This room is meant to be America, but it has evidently decided that America is only allowed to be green. I recognise Mexico in the patterns, perhaps Peru in the blanket and something Caribbean in the bowls, but everything has been tamed to fit into a European guest room. It isn’t wrong enough to be ridiculous, and not true enough to be reassuring.”
Meghan didn’t look at him. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands in her lap, her back too straight. Lito took the armchair, far enough away from her that no gesture could be misinterpreted as an advance.
“You needn’t worry that I’ll get too close to you. I’m here because the Cardinal has placed us in one of his colourful experimental set-ups, not because I consider this night conducive to romantic misunderstandings. If you wish, I’ll remain silent, but I won’t pretend that silence is always the same as respect.”
Meghan raised her head. There was nothing aggressive in his voice. That made him more dangerous.
“So you think you have the upper hand over me because you speak kindly and look as though you wouldn’t hurt a fly. Men like you have done more damage to my life than men who were simply rude, because with them at least you realise straight away that they want to take advantage. I’ve learnt that a pleasant tone is no guarantee of a decent heart.”
Lito took in her words without defending himself.
“You’re not talking about me, even though I’m the one sitting here. You’re talking about Luke, and perhaps Arnie, and perhaps every man who later told you that you needed to be more traditional, more generous or more understanding, whilst he himself had long since walked through a door that remained closed to you. I won’t deny that you’ve been hurt, but I won’t let you use that hurt to make a judgement about me and my boyfriend.
Neither of us ever got married and then abandoned a wife and children.”
Meghan stood up. She walked over to the window but didn’t draw back the curtain. Behind the green drape lay Greece, dark and indifferent.
Something moved in the corridor. Vittorio was on his way back from the red room to the console table with the water carafe. He had no intention of stopping in front of the green room. Then he heard Luke’s name and stopped after all, not out of curiosity, but out of that unfortunate sense of duty that sometimes places a priest precisely where he ought not to be.
Inside the room, Meghan continued speaking. Her voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be loud to cut through the air.
“Luke was my husband, and I didn’t realise that my own life beside him was nothing but a shell. He took money, dignity and order with him when he left, and left me with the role of the wife who hadn’t noticed a thing. After that, every man who loved another man looked to me like a reminder that I hadn’t been able to read my own home.”
Lito lowered his gaze to the green carpet. The woven rivers flowed in all directions, without ever reaching anywhere.
“I understand better why you’re looking at me as if I were a piece of evidence in Luke’s trial. But I’m not the man who left you, nor am I the man he went off with. If you have to hate me to keep from being broken by him, then I can endure that hatred for a while, but I won’t return it.”
Meghan turned round. Her eyes were dry, but not calm.
“You speak like someone who’s always had a stage beneath their feet. I didn’t have a stage; I had children, bills, a family that only managed to function through its own piety, and a son who loved me at least enough that I didn’t have to doubt myself every hour. Justine demanded something from me that I couldn’t give, because after Luke, all I knew how to do was guard a loss.”
Lito didn’t take in the name Justine straight away. He let it hang in the air, sensing that Meghan hadn’t just spoken it, but had almost let it slip out.
“Dane wasn’t just your son to you, but also proof that you could still be loved. Justine, on the other hand, was alive, demanding, brilliant and never prepared to settle for the scraps of a weary mother. Perhaps you didn’t love her any less, but you often saw her as an accusation, and children know that, even if no one tells them.”
Meghan sat down again. This time she didn’t look offended, but hurt. The difference was subtle and cruel.
Vittorio closed his eyes in the corridor. He should have carried on walking now. A confessor must not receive through a door what no one had confided to him. But the keyhole through which the sounds seeped was not closed, the night was not safe, and the house had lost its old rules ever since Valeria’s fall—or plunge—or leap.
Meghan spoke more slowly, as if she first had to pry each word free from an old thorn.
“Valeria Sebastienne wrote to me before she came here; she lay in wait for me once when I was buying a gown in Gilley, and she threatened to pursue me to the ends of the earth because I had cheated her out of her inheritance. At first there were hints, then copies, then a tone as if she’d already won, because she knew I’d remain silent for too long after the first letter. She had no truth in her hands, Lito, but something worse: blurred images, poor-quality snippets, shadows into which anyone could read whatever they wanted to believe anyway.”
Lito remained very still.
No act, no polite shock. Just attention.
“You don’t have to say it if you think saying it makes it stronger. But sometimes an image becomes more powerful when it remains alone in the dark, because then you start to think of it as bigger than it is. I can listen without becoming the image, and I can distinguish between what a photograph shows and what people want to make of it.”
Meghan clasped her hands together. She felt ashamed, like a woman confessing a sin.
“They were pictures of Ralph de Bricassart and me. Not clear, not unambiguous, not even good enough to arouse more than doubt in the mind of a sober judge. But a judge was never the audience before whom Valeria wanted to destroy me; she wanted my family, the church, Australia, Drogheda and all those people who would rather turn blurriness into scandal than show compassion. She demanded the entire inheritance that would otherwise have gone to me and my childless brothers. She wanted to publicly expose Ralph for getting me pregnant whilst I was still married to Luke.”
Vittorio’s eyes flew open in shock.
The name Ralph carried more weight in the corridor than any sound. He wasn’t surprised. That was the worst part. A part of him had known this truth for years, lurking in the half-light, without ever voicing it. Ralph’s gaze, Meghan’s silence, Dane’s face, the way grief in this family always smacked of forbidden love.
In the room, Lito sat motionless. His next words didn’t come quickly. They only came when Meghan raised her head and sought his reaction.
“I won’t use his name to hurt you. I’ve seen in my own life how people turn love into a headline, because the headline comes more easily to them than their hearts. If Valeria only had photos, then perhaps she had enough for cruelty, but not enough for the truth. But now I understand Justine even more: she didn’t know that Dane was only her half-brother, did she? She suffered because she thought it was the man’s favour over the woman’s – that’s why you loved Dane more than her. But in reality, you loved Dane’s father more than Justine’s. It was never her fault!”
Meghan looked at him, and this time her gaze wasn’t hostile. It was contrite, but alert.
“She didn’t just threaten with the photos. She threatened to claim that Dane wasn’t Luke’s son, but Ralph’s child, and that was the part that sickened me the most. Dane was Ralph’s son, and I know that as surely as a mother can know anything at all, but Valeria didn’t need the truth, because the mere doubt would have been enough to desecrate the dead once more.”
Lito took a slow breath. Even he, who was usually at a loss for words, had to search for them now.
“So she didn’t just want to meet you, but also Dane, Ralph and Justine – even if Justine were to be the last to be told. She didn’t want to prove anything, but to smear, and she clearly understood that families sometimes react more strongly to insinuations than to facts. That’s particularly cruel, because a dead son can’t defend himself against the rumour being hurled at him.”
Meghan didn’t cover her face. She might have done so earlier. Now she sat there, letting the sentence hang before her.
“I’ve already lost Dane, and yet I was afraid of losing him all over again because of this rumour. That sounds mad, because the dead can’t be taken away, but a mother knows that even the memory of a child remains vulnerable.
Valeria didn’t hold a gun to my head, but held a blurry photograph up to my soul, and I hate myself for the fact that it worked. I never loved Luke, only Ralph, but Ralph loved me too—it’s just that he loved the church more than he loved me. I was content with Dane. And that was the reason I didn’t fall apart when Luke left me high and dry without my money and ran off with Arnie: I had to live for Dane, God’s forbidden gift to a lover. And I put up with the fact that he wanted to become a priest. Outwardly I agreed, but inwardly I laughed at this twisted sense of humour on God’s part: like father, like son. But did you know that, despite his studies and his position as Ralph’s secretary, Dane had chosen to allow himself to be demoted to the post of village vicar in Gilley, just so he could be near me? Valeria threatened to put that photo up all over town on the day of his installation. ‘The bishop’s son and the farmer’s mistress’ as the parents of the new vicar.”
In the corridor, Vittorio placed a hand on the wall. Not for support, but to remind himself that he wasn’t in that room. It wasn’t his confession. It wasn’t his right. And yet the night had made him a witness.
Lito was now speaking more gently, but not in a sugar-coated way. Meghan would have perceived gentleness as condescension.
“I don’t think you need to hate yourself for being afraid. People who threaten us don’t seek out our strengths, but the places where we’re already barely holding on. If you’d given Valeria money, she might have demanded more; if you’d remained silent, she would have sold that silence as guilt; and if you’d screamed, she would have taken your scream as proof.”
Meghan looked towards the door. The shadow of the keyhole suddenly looked like an open eye.
“Do you think Vittorio knows? He’s Ralph’s friend, or something akin to that—which, amongst men of the church, may be called friendship as long as no one names the price of that protection. I’ve sometimes thought he senses everything Ralph didn’t say, and that’s precisely why his silence frightened me more than any question.”
Vittorio lowered his head.
He hadn’t wanted to know, and yet he’d suspected it. That was one of the most convenient sins of educated people: mistaking a hunch for mercy until it was too late to save anyone.
Lito stood up and walked not towards the door, but towards the window. He pulled the curtain aside a finger’s breadth. Outside lay not America, but the Greek darkness. Meghan was reflected in the glass of the green room, small and pale.
“Perhaps he suspected that there was something between you and Ralph that could not be spoken of openly. Perhaps he remained silent because, in Rome, silence sometimes looks like pastoral care, even when it’s just friendship. But I don’t believe that any man, not even a cardinal, has a duty to initiate an investigation against a friend of his own accord.”
Meghan laughed softly. It wasn’t a cheerful sound, but a human one.
‘Your impression of the Church probably comes from an Inquisition film in which you played an Aztec sorcerer who was burnt at the stake by Dominicans, but in such a way that his immaculate body could remain in the camera’s focus for long enough beforehand. You love the Spanish Church more than the Greek one, even though you’re here drinking coffee and eating bombé with an Italian cardinal. You like mothers, as you said earlier, and perhaps that makes you more dangerous than Wolfgang’s switchblade or Sun’s fists. You speak of love as if it were possible, and that is tragic in this house: whoever loves perishes by love, but without that love he would not live.”
Lito let the curtain fall back. He did not smile. The remark had struck a chord with him, because it wasn’t just about Meghan.
“My mother saw me when I thought my life would be over if she really saw me. She didn’t understand everything, and she didn’t need to understand everything to keep loving me. Ever since then, I’ve known that love isn’t always wise, but it can endure, and sometimes endurance is the only kind of miracle we’re entitled to.”
Meghan closed her eyes. For a moment, the green room was no longer a false paradise, but simply a room in which a woman had to endure a possibility she’d denied her own child.
“I don’t know how to love Justine the way she needs to be loved. Dane was my son, and with him, love was easy, because everything I love about his father, he had in an even more innocent form. Justine stands before me like a mirror that offers no forgiveness, and sometimes it’s not her I hate, but the woman I am in that mirror.”
Lito sat down again, this time a little closer than before, but still keeping his distance.
“Then perhaps you could start by no longer blaming her for being alive. I’m not saying this to be cruel, but because she’s been hearing that accusation for a long time, even if you don’t voice it. A child who has survived doesn’t need a mother who loves the dead less, but a mother who allows them to breathe without having to be a substitute for the dead.”
Meghan opened her eyes. In them lay a pain older than this night, and yet brought into new light by it.
“Is that from one of your Mexican films? I’m afraid I’ve never seen any of them. If I could love like that, perhaps I would have been a better woman. Perhaps Luke wouldn’t have left me then, perhaps Dane wouldn’t have had to go to Rome, perhaps Justine wouldn’t have learnt to turn every tenderness into a performance. I know that’s nonsense, but guilt is rarely logical; it is merely tragic: What I want, I must not do; what I am allowed to do, I have no interest in; and what I owe Justine, I have no interest in; and what interested me, Justine doesn’t care about: like a Minotauran labyrinth.”
In the corridor, Vittorio exhaled quietly. He knew he had to leave now, before eavesdropping turned definitively into an intrusion. But at that very moment, Meghan uttered the sentence he could no longer ignore.
“Valeria didn’t know everything, but she knew enough to weave my love for Ralph, my shame towards Luke and my grief for Dane into a single ugly rumour. If she had to die tonight, it wasn’t because she knew the truth, but because she turned every splinter into a blade. I didn’t kill her, Lito, but I’d be a liar if I said her death didn’t give me some satisfaction, because, whoever pushed her, I thank God for that person and their courage.”
Lito bowed his head. He didn’t grant her absolution. He wasn’t a priest, and perhaps it was just as well that he wasn’t.
“I believe you when you say you didn’t kill her, and I also believe you when you say that part of you feels relieved. Both can be true, and that’s precisely what makes it hard to appear innocent in the morning. But perhaps this night isn’t meant for everyone to appear pure, but rather so that no one is left alone with the filth Valeria wanted to leave behind. And there’s something else I must tell you: you don’t have to thank God on my account – I didn’t push Sebastian Valerienne either!”
Vittorio finally stepped back. He was almost about to open the door and call out “Valeria Sebastienne” into the room, but he pulled himself together just in time.
He moved as quietly as he could, but the old floor was less forgiving than he was. A floorboard creaked. In the green room, they both fell silent.
Meghan looked towards the door.
“Is there someone in the corridor – an animal, a person, the murderer? I heard it, and this time I won’t let anyone convince me it’s just the house.”
Lito went to the door and opened it just a crack. He looked out. No animal, no person, and certainly no murderer.
Lito looked from the corridor back at Meghan. He could sense just how frightened she was. “No animal, no person, no murderer – and no male murderer either. The corridor is empty; it was probably just the wood creaking.”
Meghan didn’t reply until after a long pause.
“Then do what door closers are supposed to do, and close the door. I’m tired now and am going to get some sleep. It’s fine if you lie down on the other side of the bed, but keep your trousers on!”
In the green room, they were both silent for a long time. Whilst Meghan lay down on the bedspread in her dress, Lito took off his shoes, socks and shirt, but kept his trousers on. He took a malicious pleasure in the fact that Meghan cast a furtive glance at him, no longer with revulsion but with respect. She nodded before he lay down beside her. He could feel her breath, but fell asleep before he could even hear her say “Goodnight”.
