All Those Things We Never Said

by Marc Levy

  “Perhaps we’re a bit high up for jumping into that big puddle down there, legend or no legend.”

  “You know, I did invite you to my wedding.”

  “You sent me an invitation, the same as you sent to two hundred other people. Not exactly what I’d call inviting your father. I’m the one who was supposed to walk you down the aisle. We might have needed to talk about it in person beforehand.”

  “What have you and I talked about during the past twenty years? Not much. If you want to know, I was waiting for you to call me. I thought you might want to meet my future husband.”

  “But I did meet him.”

  “A chance encounter on an escalator at Bloomingdale’s is not what I’d call an official introduction. It was barely enough to show that you had even the slightest interest in him, or in my life at all, to be honest.”

  “The three of us went and had tea together, did we not?”

  “Because I suggested it, and because he wanted to get to know you. It lasted all of twenty minutes, and neither of us could get a word in edgewise.”

  “He wasn’t the most talkative chap. Seemed borderline autistic. I thought he might have been mute.”

  “Well, if you had bothered asking him a single question . . .”

  “And you, Julia, since when do you ask loads of questions? God forbid you ask anything, least of all for my advice.”

  “What good would that do? All you’d do is tell me what you did at my age, and what I should be doing with myself. I would take a vow of eternal silence if it helped you get the message through your head: I never wanted to be like you.”

  “Maybe you should try to get some sleep,” Anthony said. “Long day ahead tomorrow. As soon as we touch ground in Paris, we’ll have to hop on another flight to Berlin.”

  He tucked Julia’s blanket around her shoulders and returned to his newspaper.

  Moments after they landed on the runway at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Anthony set his watch to Paris time and got down to business.

  “We have two hours to catch our connecting flight. That should be plenty.”

  Anthony was not aware that their plane, which was supposed to arrive in Terminal E, had been redirected to a gate in Terminal F, which did not have a jetway compatible with their particular jet. For that reason, the flight attendant explained, a bus would be coming to pick them up to take them to Terminal B.

  Anthony raised his hand and motioned to the chief of the cabin crew to come see him.

  “Terminal E,” he corrected.

  “Excuse me?” the flight attendant replied.

  “In the announcement, you just said we’d be taken by bus to Terminal B, but from what I understood, we were supposed to end up at Terminal E.”

  “It’s entirely possible,” he responded. “We get lost ourselves sometimes.”

  “Well, I hope at a minimum, you did bring us to de Gaulle.”

  “Three different gates, no jetway, and the bus still hasn’t arrived—where else could we be?”

  Forty-five minutes after touching down, they finally left the airplane. They still had to pass through immigration and find the gate for their flight to Berlin.

  A total of two immigration officers were responsible for checking passports for a whole horde of passengers arriving on three different flights. Anthony looked at the time on the display board.

  “With two hundred people shuffling around like cattle ahead of us, we’re never going to make it.”

  “Then we’ll take the next flight,” replied Julia.

  With the passport check behind them, they ran through an interminable series of hallways and onto a long moving walkway.

  “We could have made it by foot from New York by now,” groaned Anthony.

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than Anthony collapsed.

  Julia tried to catch him, but the fall was too sudden and the space too narrow. The moving walkway continued onward, dragging her father along with it.

  “Daddy, Daddy! Wake up!” she screamed with sheer fright as she tried to shake her father awake.

  Another traveler hurried over to help. Together, the two were able to lift up Anthony’s body, carry him off the walkway, and set him down a small distance away. The man took off his coat and slid it under Anthony’s head. He still wasn’t moving. The man suggested they call a doctor.

  “No! There’s no need,” insisted Julia. “It’s nothing. He just got dizzy. It happens. I’m used to it.”

  “Lady, are you sure? Your husband doesn’t look so hot.”

  “He’s not my—he’s my father! He’s diabetic,” Julia lied. “Daddy, wake up,” she said, shaking him again.

  “Here, let me take his pulse and—”

  “Don’t! Don’t you touch him!” shouted Julia in a panic.

  Anthony opened his eyes.

  “Where are we?” he asked, trying to sit up.

  The man who had come to their rescue helped him to his feet. Anthony propped himself up against the wall, struggling to regain his balance.

  “What time is it?”

  “Are you sure he’s okay? The guy seems really out of it . . .”

  “I beg your pardon!” retorted Anthony, suddenly regaining his strength.

  The Good Samaritan picked up his coat and left.

  “You could have at least thanked him,” Julia scolded him.

  “For what? Dragging me a few miserable feet?”

  “You’re impossible, you know that? You scared me half to death.”

  “Oh, come now, it was nothing. What’s the worst that could happen? I’m already dead!” Anthony chided.

  “Do you have any idea what went wrong?”

  “Blew a fuse in one of my switchboards, I’d say, or some sort of interference. I’ll have to pass that along to the manufacturer. It’s going to get very old very fast if my system starts crashing every time somebody tinkers with their iPhone.”

  “I’ll never be able to explain this. Not to anyone, ever.”

  “Maybe my ears are malfunctioning, too. Because I could have sworn I heard you call me Daddy back there.”

  “It’s your ears,” she replied, leading him toward their gate.

  A glance at the time confirmed they only had fifteen minutes to get through security.

  “Damn it!” said Anthony, after glancing inside his passport.

  “What? What now?”

  “The letter proving I have a pacemaker is gone. I can’t find it anymore.”

  “It must be in one of your pockets.”

  “I’ve checked them all! It’s not there.”

  He glanced warily at the metal detectors looming ahead.

  “If I walk through those, the officers will swoop down on me like flies on—”

  “So keep looking for that letter,” Julia said impatiently.

  “I told you: it’s lost. It must have fallen out in the plane when I gave my suit jacket to the flight attendant. I’m sorry to say it, dear, but we’re out of options here.”

  “We did not come all this way just to turn around and go back to New York. Which we couldn’t do even if we wanted to.”

  Anthony suggested they get a hotel room for the night. “We’ll rent a car and drive straight into Paris. I’ll have it figured out in no time, before we even get there. Two hours from now, New York will be awake. You can call my doctor, have him fax a copy.”

  “He might find that weird, you being dead and all.”

  “Oh, how utterly foolish! I forgot to tell him!”

  “Can’t we grab a taxi?” she asked.

  “A taxi? In Paris? You really don’t know this town, do you?”

  “And you have to have an opinion on every last little thing . . .”

  “Now’s not the time for squabbling. I can see the rental counters from here. A little car will be fine. Perhaps we could bump up to a sedan. It’s a question of comfort, after all.”

  Julia gave in and accepted her father’s plan. Just past noon, she found herself speeding
down a ramp onto the A1, headed into Paris. Anthony leaned forward, reading street signs.

  “Take a right up here,” he ordered.

  “Paris is to the left. See, there? In all capital letters?”

  “I see it, I can still read. Just do as I tell you!” railed Anthony, reaching over and forcing her to turn the steering wheel.

  “Are you out of your mind? What the hell are you doing?” she screamed as their car swerved dangerously.

  It was now too late for them to change lanes—Julia was forced to merge with traffic on the right, away from Paris. With a cacophony of angry honking hitting them from all sides, Julia found herself driving north.

  “Great. Now we’re headed to Brussels. Paris is back that way.”

  “I am well aware of that. And 470 miles past Brussels is Berlin. If you’re not too exhausted to drive straight through, it’ll take us nine hours, all told, assuming my calculations are correct. At worst, we can take a break along the way so you can rest up. There aren’t any metal detectors to get through on the highway, so that particular problem is solved. But we don’t have a lot of time left. Only four days before we return—that is, assuming I make it that far.”

  “You had all this planned before we even rented the car! That’s why you insisted on the sedan. Admit it.”

  “Do you want to see Thomas again, or not? In that case, focus on the damn road. I’d offer to navigate, but I assume you know the way!”

  Julia cranked the volume on the radio all the way up and floored it down the highway.

  After twenty years, the highway route had undergone many changes, as had the scenery along the way. They reached Brussels in less than three hours. Anthony wasn’t especially talkative. From time to time, he would grumble under his breath while gazing out at the landscape passing by. Julia took advantage of his distracted state to tilt the rearview mirror toward him so she could watch him unnoticed. Anthony abruptly turned down the radio.

  “Were you happy in art school?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “I didn’t stay very long, but I loved the place where I was living. The view from my bedroom window was incredible. My office looked out on the roof of the observatory.”

  “I love Paris myself. Some of my most cherished memories are there. I’d daresay it’s the place where I would choose to die.”

  Julia cleared her throat.

  “Yes?” asked Anthony. “What’s behind that strange look? Have I said something I shouldn’t have again?”

  “No, no. It’s nothing.”

  “Out with it, girl. I can see you’re perturbed.”

  “It’s just that . . . It’s kind of hard to say. Just feels wrong . . .”

  “Come now. Don’t make an old man beg.”

  “Well . . . you did die in Paris, Daddy.”

  “Did I?” exclaimed Anthony in surprise. “I had no idea.”

  “You don’t remember any of that?”

  “The program that uploaded my memory cuts short at my departure for Europe. After that, it’s all blank. I suppose it’s better that way. It’s probably not especially fun to remember one’s own death. I’m beginning to realize the limited lifespan of this machine might be best for all parties involved, not just the mourners.”

  “I can imagine,” replied Julia uncomfortably.

  “Oh, I highly doubt that. However strange the situation is for you, it’s utterly out-of-body for me. More unnerving by the moment. What day did you say it was today?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Three days . . . Do you know how loud the ticking can get, when the second hand is literally turning inside your head? And to think I was bad before . . .”

  “It was a heart attack at a stoplight.”

  “Dead at a red light. Fitting. At least I didn’t cause an accident.”

  “Well—actually, it was green.”

  “Shit. I suppose that’s even more fitting.”

  “You didn’t cause an accident, if that’s any comfort.”

  “To be completely frank, it doesn’t comfort me in the least. Did they say if I suffered?”

  “Not one bit. They said you died instantly.”

  “Well, that’s just something they tell the family either way. Not that any of it really matters all that much in the end. It’s over and done with. The details of a death are seldom worth remembering. Best to be remembered for how you lived.”

  “Can we maybe change the subject?” Julia asked, a touch of pleading in her voice.

  “As you like. I’d be lying if I said I don’t get a bit of a kick out of talking with somebody about my own demise.”

  “The ‘somebody’ in question here is your daughter. And you can joke all you want, but I can see it bothers you, too.”

  “It’s no time for you to suddenly start being right about things, my dear.”

  An hour later, the car crossed over into the Netherlands. Germany was only forty-five miles away.

  “It’s amazing how it works between the countries here now,” Anthony continued. “No more borders . . . You’d almost think you were free to go anywhere you please. If you were so happy in Paris, why did you decide to up and leave?”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, in the middle of the night. I thought I’d only be gone a couple of days. In the beginning, it was just a road trip with some friends.”

  “Close friends?”

  “I met them ten minutes before.”

  “I might have known. And what did these old friends of yours do when they weren’t running off to Germany?”

  “They were students like me. At the Sorbonne.”

  “Okay. And what made you decide to go to Germany? I imagine Spain or Italy would have been a little more . . . fun.”

  “We wanted to see the revolution. Antoine and Mathias had this hunch that the wall was going to come down. We knew something important was taking place, though maybe not the full extent of it, and we wanted to be there when it happened.”

  “Good lord. Go find me a time machine so I can fix whatever error I made in your upbringing that could have given you an idea like that,” Anthony grumbled, tapping his knee.

  “Go back and change the one thing you did right?”

  “Ha! That’s one way of looking at it,” muttered Anthony, turning back to look out his window.

  “Why are you asking me all this now?”

  “Somebody’s got to ask questions! You haven’t asked me a single one. For example, I love Paris so much because that was where I had my first kiss with your mother. Which was no small feat, let me tell you.”

  “Spare me the details. I’m all set on—”

  “If you only knew how pretty she was back then. We were just twenty-three years old.”

  “How did you manage to get to Paris? I thought you were completely broke when you were young.”

  “It was 1965. I was drafted, and served on a military base in Europe.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Actually, Berlin. You’re not the only one with mixed emotions about that place.”

  Anthony turned his gaze back to the passing landscape.

  “You don’t have to keep watching me in the reflection. I’m right here, you know,” said Julia.

  “Well, then you can also put your rearview mirror back where it belongs. Perhaps so the next time you change lanes you can actually see what’s behind you.”

  “You met Mom when you were in Berlin?”

  “No. It wasn’t until I got to France. As soon as I finished serving overseas, I hopped on a train to Paris. It was still cheap back in those days.”

  “And it was love at first sight?”

  “It wasn’t bad . . . the food, the wine, the Eiffel Tower . . . though it’s not as tall as the Empire State Building.”

  “I was talking about Mom.”

  “She was a dancer at a nightclub—one of those big burlesque-style cabarets.”

  “Hold up. Mom was a dancer?”

  “Yes, indeed, one of the
Bluebell Girls. The Lido was hosting her troupe’s show for a one-month stint.”

  “She never said a word of that to me.”

  “Well, our family isn’t known for being the biggest talkers. A trait you seem to have inherited.”

  “So. How did you two meet?”

  “I thought you didn’t want to hear the details. If you slow down a bit, I’ll tell you the whole saga.”

  “I’m not driving that fast,” Julia replied, with the needle on the speedometer flirting ever closer to eighty-five miles per hour.

  “That’s a matter of opinion. I’m more accustomed to American highways, with ample time to watch the scenery. You keep driving that fast, you’ll need a monkey wrench to pry my fingers off the door handle.”

  Julia eased up a bit and Anthony breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I had a table right next to the stage. The show played ten nights in a row, and I didn’t miss a single one, the extra Sunday matinee included. I managed to bribe an usher with a generous tip so I’d always have the exact same spot.”

  Julia turned off the radio entirely.

  “For the last time, straighten out that mirror and watch the highway!” commanded Anthony.

  Julia did so without protesting.

  “By the sixth day, your mother had figured out what was happening, though in later years she’d insist it was the fourth. Anyway, I caught her eye several times during the show. I don’t mean to brag, but I nearly made her miss a step. Of course, to hear your mother tell it, the near stumble had nothing to do with me; it was some other distraction. Your mother’s version of the truth was just one more way of flirting with me and making me crazy. So, I had flowers sent to her dressing room, where she’d find them after the show. Every evening, the same little bouquet of old-fashioned roses, but never a note or a card.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I was just getting to that, if you would let me finish. After the last performance, I went to wait for her at the stage door. I wore a boutonniere—a simple rose, the same kind as the ones I’d sent her.”

  “No, you didn’t!” Julia blurted out, seized with an uncontrollable giggling fit.

  Anthony turned away and abruptly fell silent.

  “And then?” Julia insisted.

  “That’s it. End of story.”