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Maria Callas sings arias through the record player. A birthday cake holds eight candles; seven decades and one for good luck. Bruce sits alone in the library, in the dark, away from their modest celebration. Twenty-nine years old, thirty next March.
“Bruce? Are you in here?” asks Dick from the doorway, allowing a rectangle of light from the hallway to stretch across the rug. “Alfred’s cleaning up from dinner, and I thought we could play cards together?”
The leather of the armchair is worn. It used to be Thomas Wayne’s chair, but the wear has been caused by his son over the twenty years of curling up here. Self-comfort. Watching the dark expanse of the lawn and the forest through the library’s arched window. His thumb brushes the smoothest area of fabric by the edge of the armrest, out of habit. Thomas Wayne died at thirty-eight. “Bruce?” Dick asks. Sixteen years old. Long hair, young eyes.
Bruce leans forward to peer at Dick behind the back of the chair. “Play with Alfred,” he says.
Alfred. Seventy years today. Hands not as steady as they used to be. Posture slightly stooped. Shouldn’t lift heavy crates and luggage. Maria Callas nears the end of an aria from the second act of Madame Butterfly. Bruce turns back to the window and watches the changing body language in his son’s reflection, silhouetted in the hallway light. Leave me be, Dick, he thinks, somberly. Leave me be. Better for all of us.
“...you know,” Dick begins, hesitantly, “when Alfred made you promise to stay in, tonight, as his birthday gift… I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to hole yourself away in here instead. That kind of defeats the point of you being home.”
Bruce doesn’t answer. Maria transitions into “La mamma morta” from Andrea Chénier. The character Maddalena in stirring soprano divulges the tale of her mother’s death and her beloved maid’s loyalty during years of hardship. At the center of the aria, a desperate exclamation, Porto sventura a chi bene mi vuole! I bring misfortune to all who love me!
And who taught you that, Bruce? he asks himself, And who taught you Maddalena’s story? Alfred, seventy years old today.
Twenty years in this armchair surrounded by fabric that used to carry his late father’s scent.
“Bruce?” Dick prompts from the doorway, still waiting for a response.
Bruce sighs tightly. “He understands,” he says. Then, clears his mind. Focuses on his breathing. Watches the stars move infinitesimally across the night sky. Floods with relief when Dick’s shadow reluctantly disappears.
Maddalena sings of meeting her lover Chénier, and how it was as if the angel of Love came down to her in her moment of need and said You are not alone! Let your tears fall on my breast! I will walk with you and be your support! Smile and hope; I am love! The high note vibrant and delicate like petals of a flower, and then, Io son l'amore, io son l'amor, l'amor. I am love, love, love.
Maria Callas lets the song end there, a sweet resolution at the end of the angel’s reassurances, Maddalena describing how she found transcendence, divine power in love.
But the song truly goes on: her beloved Chénier is slated to die by guillotine. The angel had arrived touting love as this euphoric resolution to all of Maddalena’s worldly problems, but in truth, the angel approaches me, kisses me, and in that kiss is death! Chénier will die, he only has mere hours, and she knows his death will be like her own. The moribund body is my body. Take it, then! I am dead like it already.
Oh, it occurs to Bruce, irony souring his palette. Pity the young person who knows a loved one will die soon, and can do nothing to prevent it. Pity the young person counting down the years or months or days or hours until impending loss. Grief, an emotion familiar like well-worn fabric. Io son già morta cosa! I am dead like it already.
“I suppose a brooder never takes a holiday,” tuts Alfred from the doorway. He enters the room in just the way Dick hadn’t dared, following the slice of light on the carpet to stand beside Bruce’s chair. Reluctantly, Bruce glances at him, and then studies his form. Back less stooped than Bruce had thought, hand on the chair less wrinkled. Ah, thinks Bruce, so are the illusions caused by fear. He replaces the images in his mind with the unfiltered reality of the situation, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. Maria Callas moves on to La forza del destino but Bruce can’t focus enough to parse the Italian lyrics. Alfred is looking at him.
Bruce stares out the window at the darkness and brushes his thumb again over the soft, smooth patch of leather by the edge of the armrest.
“Master Bruce,” says Alfred, “I believe Master Dick was quite looking forward to spending time together this evening. And for that matter, so was I.”
“I can’t,” Bruce admits.
“And why is that?” Alfred queries. His presence at the side of the armchair is familiar. Bruce remembers childhood evenings spent here discussing opera as Alfred served evening tea to alleviate Bruce’s night terrors. Soft blankets that smelled like his mother’s perfume. And his father’s chair. “Now, Master Bruce, I’ll be seventy-one if you wait much longer to answer me-”
“You think these things,” interjects Bruce in a rush, jolted by the off-color humor, “and once you’ve begun, you can’t stop thinking them, no matter how irrational and, and premature. But it won’t leave you, no matter how much you try to stop thinking about it.” It won’t escape Alfred that Bruce is distancing himself from his words by using the second-person pronoun, but Bruce can barely get the words out in the first place, so he can’t be bothered to care.
Alfred raises an eyebrow, but otherwise remains steady. “What are the thoughts about?”
Bruce’s jaw goes tight, and he can’t look at Alfred. Seventy. Lines around the eyes. Aching joints. Grayed hair. “It’s… impolite to say,” he mumbles.
“Heaven forbid,” Alfred deadpans.
“Mortality,” Bruce cedes, quietly, refusing to look. “It’s about… your mortality.”
Alfred responds, “I believe that’s my job to worry about.”
The care in that immediate response, the desire to take away Bruce’s burden… Bruce’s throat goes tight, and he glances up again at wrinkled fingers laid atop the back of the chair but that makes it worse, so much worse, and he stares resolutely forward and tries to make out the edge of trees at the blurring horizon.
Alfred’s hand moves to Bruce’s shoulder, then. Grip far firmer than Bruce had expected. Voice more intent. “Bruce,” Alfred says.
Unwilling but resigned, Bruce lifts his gaze to meet Alfred’s eyes.
“Oh,” says Alfred when he sees Bruce’s eyes so forlorn and distraught. The elder man’s face is full of concern, and sympathy, and that, that is the sound of a heart breaking, “Oh, my boy…” he whispers, kneels in front of the arm chair and drags Bruce into a tight embrace just as Bruce’s eyes flood with tears. Bruce gasps against Alfred’s shoulder, grimaces and grits his teeth uncontrollably against the elder man’s soft, knit sweater. “Bruce, my poor boy…” Alfred sighs. Fingers cradle Bruce’s head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His breath shakes. “I’m sorry,” Bruce croaks against the warmth, “this is – this is juvenile…”
“Oh, hush, you old baby,” chides Alfred, fingers stroking the nape of Bruce’s neck, “Cry with dignity. You have no idea what seeing you like this does to a poor butler’s heart.”
His heart, Bruce thinks. What if… a massive coronary? The stress…? “I’m sorry,” he breathes. “I’m sorry.” It would be Bruce’s fault, the stress of the existence of Batman. His fault. He tries to pull away. Alfred won’t let go, and that sets Bruce off all over again, because the last time Alfred held him like this must have been years ago. He can’t remember. He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to be left with an aching memory of what it was like to be held by him, should Alfred pass away.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Alfred repeats. He presses a kiss to Bruce’s temple. “Do you hear me? I’m going to be here until you have to push me around in a wheelchair and feed me applesauce. You’ll never get rid of me.”
Bruce chuckles wetly, “Alfred…” His cheeks hurt from frowning or smiling or… he isn’t sure. Maria’s song, whatever it is, is all in major key. The dark of the library feels less oppressive. Alfred finally pulls away slightly, and uses his handkerchief to dab at Bruce’s eyes.
“Hush, now,” he says, and then sighs deeply, wearing a private smile for his eldest charge. “I’m going to leave you here a moment to collect yourself, and then you’ll join us in the sitting room for a rousing game of… whatever Master Dick has chosen in my absence. I imagine he will settle on some form of poker.”
“I can’t,” says Bruce, covering his face and taking a deep breath. He relaxes some. “I shouldn’t let Dick see-”
Alfred laughs, “As if the boy hasn’t been peeking through the hallway already.” He stands, and pulls Bruce up with him, with a kind but insistent “Come along, now.”
So they play. Alfred’s hands are still steady, his attention still sharp. Hardly old, at seventy, just… aging. Steadily. Like a shadow approaching at infinitesimal fractions from a distant horizon.
For a moment, Dick takes Bruce’s hand and squeezes it. He doesn’t need to say anything. Silent acknowledgement and support and affection more attuned to Bruce’s needs than Bruce deserves. Alfred wins the hand, and then serves the tea, saying to his boys over the sounds of Maria’s lovely arias, “How lucky we are.” He smiles, eyes twinkling with the firelight, “How lucky we are.”