21
Everywhere I looked, as I came into Harrisburg, there was a disturbing sense of deja vu: a feeling of strangeness, of alienation, which utterly failed to disguise the fact that what I was seeing was all too familiar.
Paris: where my parents had met.
Leningrad: my own Russian city.
Now this place, a town where every turning led back to my past…
I was like an amnesiac who builds up a new life only to find it repeating the first. Market Street was still there, but looking seedy and grim: Ppmeroy's held on, but the old Capitol Theatre had finally expired, drowned in a miasma of kung-fu movies and stale popcorn smells. Yet, despite the decay, despite Three Mile Island, it was still the same place. In the years when we'd had that cabin in the Tuscaroras, it had represented something special to me, a sort of benchmark for American normalcy. Having been brought up either outside the country or in Washington, I think I took Harrisburg as representative of the places where "ordinary people" lived.
The broad, lazy Susquehanna with the early-morning mist rising around its islands, and the long run of solid, middle-class homes out on Second Street, united in my mind the America of the pioneers and the America of Ike. How could such a place be the scene of the crime? Yet it must be — since I was returning to it. And if it was, what had the crime been, and who had committed it?
But I put those questions on hold. For one thing, I was still tired after the flight back from Paris; it was ten in the morning as I drove into town, but God only knows what time my body thought it was — some hour, in any case, when my eyes ought to have been decently closed rather than blinking back a cold drizzle on Market Street. And there were other considerations as well. Brightman's safe-deposit box held an immense fortune, a fortune that rightly belonged to May; or so I supposed. But I also hoped that it might contain the answers to a few of my questions, and for that reason I wanted to be the first one into it — which meant, in turn, that I was going to commit fraud. But impersonating Brightman might not be so easy. A Canadian driver's license and a foreign birth certificate weren't the best identification in the world, so I was keeping my fingers crossed.
The bank, when I reached it, didn't do much for my nerves. Guarded by fluted Greek columns, it had the air, inside, of a proud, prosperous Victorian railway station: huge fans turned slowly beneath the domes of its high vaulted ceilings, and aisles of red velvet ropes led you up to the tellers. All of this communicated probity so powerfully that I had a mild urge, as I went up to the counter, to confess my larcenous intentions— though by this time, even if I didn't know it, such a confession would have been impossible, for there was no longer a crime to commit. My request to get into Brightman's box, accepted routinely, quickly produced a Frown, Looks, and Whispers, then Professional Concern, and finally Profuse Apologies— delivered by a civil young man named Mr. Corey.
"I'm sorry for the delay, Mr. Brightman, but there seems to be some sort of mix-up. According to our records, this box was canceled and all outstanding charges cleared as of yesterday afternoon."
I took it well, on the whole. No staggers; no fainting spells. Merely the sort of frown which anyone, having been informed that their safe-deposit box has been canceled by someone else, surely has the right to assume. And I was cool enough to play the Affronted Customer reasonably well.
"I don't know about your records, Mr. Corey, but most of yesterday I was either thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic or in a taxi trapped inside the Holland Tunnel. I certainly wasn't in Harrisburg, and I certainly didn't cancel my box." Taking the key from my pocket, I held it up in front of his nose. "When you cancel a box, don't you get the key back?""
He looked unhappy. I'm not sure what I felt, though my anger was only partly an act — I'd come a long, long way to get to this point. On the other hand, I probably didn't have much right to be surprised. Why should the last act of this drama be any simpler than the earlier ones? In any case, after a certain amount of backing and filling a lady was fetched: one of those older, professional women whose eyes, never quite focusing on anyone, radiate, hostility everywhere. But with a prim nod she solved our little mystery.
"This was yesterday afternoon, Mr. Corey. Mr. Simmons was really the one who handled it. A lady appeared with legal papers giving her title to the box as executor of her father's will. She was Canadian, I think — she had Canadian papers and Commonwealth papers. And she had a lawyer. Mr. Simmons spoke with him."
"Do you remember her name?"
"Mr. Simmons has it in his file, Mr. Corey. If I remember correctly, the lady's name was also Brightman."
I was very smooth, the Truth Dawning on my face with fair conviction. "This begins to make sense, Mr. Corey. Miss j Brightman is my sister… in fact, she is the executor of my father's estate — she's been living with him up in Toronto — and I suppose some of my papers must have got mixed up with his. It's not impossible, you see. We're both Harold; I just never use the 'junior.'"
This was a touch too elaborate. Mr. Corey looked dubious. 't But his ultimate concern was the bank, so he took advantage of this opening to say, "I take it, then, that no harm's been done?"
"No. And certainly nothing that the bank's responsible for." I looked at the woman. "Could you tell me when my sister was here? You said yesterday…"
The lady too how had her doubts and solicited Mr. Corey's nod before speaking — and managed to do so without actually addressing me. "She came in around one and left her papers with Mr. Simmons. She returned much later, around half past four. I'm not sure when she left."
I nodded. "Maybe she's still in town, then. Or I'll contact her in Toronto. In any case, thank you for your trouble… and here, you'd better keep this."
I then pushed Brightman's key over the counter and, before Corey could speak, extended my hand. By then, I think, suspicions had definitely formed in his mind, but the civilities were his sharpest reflex. We shook, said goodbye, and a moment later I was out on the street.