by John Boyne
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out and putting my hand under the tarpaulin to take his in mine. His skin felt paper-thin and I feared that if I squeezed too hard I would hear his fingers break beneath the pressure. “The universe is a fucked-up place.”
“Will you tell Mom I’m sorry when you see her?” he asked. “Tell her that if I could go back I’d never have done it?”
“I’m not James,” I said quietly, squeezing his hand. “I’m Cyril.”
“Do you promise you’ll tell her?”
“I promise.”
“Good.”
I took my hand back and he shifted a little in the bed. “Are you tired?” I asked.
“I am,” he said. “I think I’ll get some sleep. Will you come back and see me again?”
“I will,” I told him. “I can come in tomorrow if you like?”
“I have classes in the morning,” he said, his eyes starting to close now. “Let’s catch up on Saturday.”
“I’ll come back to see you tomorrow,” I said, standing up and watching over him for a few minutes as he drifted off to sleep.
Emily
The noises emerging from Ignac’s room told me that he and Emily were at home and my heart sank deeper than the Titanic on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. I made sure to close the front door with as much force as I could and coughed a few times to give them notice that I was back, and my reward was a series of giggles followed by a hushed silence as I made my way into the kitchen.
Five minutes later, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and flicking through a copy of Rolling Stone that Bastiaan had left there, I glanced up as Emily came in, barefoot and wearing one of Ignac’s shirts open halfway down her chest, revealing a little more of her breasts than I really needed to see. Her denim shorts were cut off high up the thigh and the top button was noticeably open while her hair, which she normally wore up on her head in a messy bird’s nest, was hanging loose around her shoulders.
“Hey, Mr. Avery,” she said in a sing-song voice, wandering over to open the fridge.
“Please, call me Cyril,” I told her.
“I can’t say that name,” she said, waving her hand in the air and pulling a face as if I’d made some perverted request of her. “It’s a weird name. Every time I hear it I think Cyril the Squirrel.”
I turned around with a jolt, recalling how Bridget Simpson had insisted on calling me by that very name some twenty-eight years earlier in the Palace Bar on Westmoreland Street. Bridget, Mary-Margaret and Behan were all dead now, of course, and Julian? Well, I had no idea where Julian was.
“What?” she asked, turning around. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You’re not having some type of stroke, are you? It’s not uncommon in men your age.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Just stop calling me Mr. Avery, all right? It makes me feel like your father. Which would be very strange considering I’m only ten years older than you.”
“Well, that is quite a big difference, you know,” she said. “And I don’t want to be disrespectful by being too familiar.”
“It’s exactly the same age difference as the one between you and Ignac,” I pointed out. “And he doesn’t call you Miss Mitchell, does he?”
She took a carton of yogurt from the fridge, peeled the lid off and looked at me with barely concealed amusement as she ran her tongue across the inside, some of the strawberry sticking to her lips. “He does when I tell him to,” she said. “And anyway, I’m not ten years older than Ignac, Mr. Avery. I’m only nine years older than him. And how old was Ignac again when you took him in?”
Before I could say another word, Ignac himself appeared and I had no choice but to let it go. He wasn’t ignorant as to how I felt about Emily and I knew that he didn’t like it when we sniped at each other. She had timed her remark perfectly.
“Hey, Cyril,” he said, turning the kettle on. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Yes, you did,” I muttered.
“You were otherwise engaged, hon,” said Emily without looking up.
“How was school today?” I asked, turning around and wishing that Emily would either go into the other room and get dressed or leave. Or perhaps go to the fridge again, trip over on a piece of loose linoleum and fall out the window into the middle of 55th Street.
“Pretty good. I got an A on my Lewis Carroll paper. And another for my Yeats essay.”
“Good for you!” I liked the fact that Ignac had taken an interest in Irish literature, much more than he ever had in Dutch or Slovene. He was working his way through most of the big Irish novels, although for some reason he’d chosen to avoid Maude’s work for now. I’d thought about buying him some copies from the Strand Bookstore—they had some first editions in there that were quite reasonably priced—but I didn’t want him to feel obliged to read her and was uncertain how I’d feel if he didn’t happen to like them. “Good for you,” I repeated. “I’d love to take a look at the Yeats piece.”
“It’s very analytical,” said Emily, as if I was a complete illiterate. “It’s not really for the layman.”
“I’m pretty good with big words,” I told her. “And if I get stuck, I can always look them up in the dictionary.”
“That’s not really what analytical means,” she said. “But hey, knock yourself out.”
“What is it you teach again?” I asked her. “Remind me. Women’s Studies, is it?”
“No, Russian History. Although there’s a module on Russian women, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”
“Interesting place, Russia,” I said. “The Tsars, the Bolsheviks, the Winter Palace and what have you. You’ve been there many times, I presume?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I’ve never been. Not yet anyway.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Why would I lie?”
“No, I’m surprised, that’s all. I would have thought that if you were so interested in a country and its past, then you’d actually want to go there and experience it in person. I find that very odd.”
“Well, what can I tell you? I’m an enigma.”
“But you speak the language, of course?”
“No. Why, do you?”
“No, of course not. But then I don’t teach Russian at university level.”
“Neither do I. I teach Russian History.”
“Still, that’s very strange.”
“It’s not that unusual when you think about it. Ignac is interested in Irish literature,” she pointed out. “And he’s never been to Ireland. Nor does he speak Irish.”
“Well, of course, most Irish literature is written in English,” I pointed out.
“Does your country suppress its native writers?”
“No,” I said.
“So no one writes in the Irish language?”
“Well, I’m sure they do,” I said, growing flustered now. “But those books are not very well known.”
“You mean they don’t sell well,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were such a populist. Actually, I read one of your mother’s books last year. They sell very well, don’t they?”
“My adoptive mother,” I said.
“Same thing.”
“It’s not, really. Particularly if she wasn’t exactly a maternal presence.”
“Have you read Like to the Lark?”
“Of course I have.”
“It’s quite good, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s a little better than quite good.”
“The child in the book is such a monster, though. One of the greatest liars and sneaks in literature. It’s no wonder the mother wants to kill him. Was it autobiographical at all?”
“Do you know there’s a poster of Maude in the Literature department at CCNY?” asked Ignac, interrupting us, and I turned to him in surprise.
“Is there?” I said.
“Yes, it’s one of four posters hanging outside the administration office. Virginia Woolf, Henry James, F. Scott
Fitzgerald and Maude Avery. They’re all looking away from the camera, except for your mother—”
“My adoptive mother.”
“Who’s looking directly into the lens. She looks absolutely furious.”
“That sounds like her,” I said.
“She’s sitting by a desk in front of a lattice window with a cigarette in her hand. There’s an ashtray on the table behind her and it’s overflowing with butt ends.”
“That was her study,” I said. “In Dartmouth Square. A smoky place at the best of times. She didn’t like to open the windows. Of course, that’s the house that I grew up in. She’d be horrified if she knew that her picture was hanging up in your university, though, even if it is next to writers of that caliber. She wasn’t even published in the States during her lifetime, you know.”
“Some people only achieve success after they’re dead,” said Emily. “And their lives on earth are utter failures. Are you bartending tonight, Mr. Avery?”
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Not until the weekend.”
“I only ask because Ignac and I were thinking of staying in.”
“Well, you could always go to a movie, I suppose. Ignac can get into the over-eighteen shows now so you’ll have some company. You could try Fatal Attraction.”
“Come on, Cyril,” said Ignac quietly.
“I’m kidding,” I said, disappointed by how quickly he defended her honor over mine.
“We should go sometime,” he said after a moment.
“What, to Fatal Attraction?”
“No, to Dublin. I’d like to see where you grew up. And maybe we could go to that house and I could take a picture of you in that same study.”
“The house isn’t in the family anymore,” I said, looking away.
“What happened to it?”
“My adoptive father sold it. He had to when he was put in jail for tax evasion. His solicitor bought it from him afterward. At a knock-down price.”
“That’s ironic,” said Emily.
“It’s not ironic at all, actually,” I said. “That’s not really what ironic means.”
“That’s a pity,” said Ignac. “But maybe whoever lives there now would let you back in to see it? It’d be pretty cool to see your childhood home again, wouldn’t it? There must be so many memories there.”
“It would be if any of them were good,” I told him. “But so few of them actually were. Anyway, I don’t think I’d be particularly welcome in Dartmouth Square now.” Other than the basic facts of my brief marriage, I had never gotten around to telling Ignac the complete stories of Julian, Alice and I. The things that had taken place between us were all so long ago, after all, and they seemed quite irrelevant to my life now. Still, for the first time in years I wondered about that house and whether Alice, perhaps, might still live there with whoever she had married after me. I hoped that she had a houseful of children populating the rooms and a husband who lusted after her still. Or maybe Julian had taken it over. It was always possible, if unlikely, that Julian had settled down and started a family himself.
“How long has it been since you were in Dublin, Mr. Avery?” asked Emily.
“Fourteen years, Miss Mitchell. And I don’t have any plans to go back.”
“But why not? Don’t you miss it?”
“He never talks about it,” said Ignac. “I think he likes to keep it a secret. It’s all his old boyfriends, I guess. He doesn’t want them coming after him. He probably left a trail of broken hearts behind him when he moved to Amsterdam.”
“I was in a lot of places between Dublin and Amsterdam,” I pointed out. “And I don’t have any old boyfriends in Ireland anyway. Bastiaan is the only boyfriend I’ve ever had. You know that.”
“Yeah, so you say. But I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you like,” I said.
“Well, perhaps when we’re over there we can go take a look at that house,” said Emily, turning to Ignac and reaching for his hand, playing with his fingers as if he was a child. “And then you can always send a picture to Mr. Avery to remind him of it.”
It took a few moments for her words to sink in. “When who is over where?” I asked. She stood up now and strode over to the counter to take an apple from a bowl and then stood with one foot against the wall behind her, chomping into it.
“When Ignac and I are in Dublin,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“And why would you and Ignac be in Dublin?” I asked.
“Emily,” said Ignac quietly, and I turned to look at him, catching the expression on his face which was telling her that this was not the time to raise the subject.
“Ignac?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
He sighed and his face flushed a little as he looked at me.
“Oh I’m sorry,” said Emily, putting the half-eaten apple on the table and sitting down again. “Was I not supposed to say anything?”
“It’s nothing really,” said Ignac. “It might not even happen.”
“What might not happen?”
“There’s a Master’s degree at Trinity College,” he said, looking down and scratching at a mark on the table. “In Irish Literature. I’m thinking about applying for it for next year. I haven’t fully decided yet. I’d need a scholarship for one thing. It’s just something I’m thinking about, that’s all.”
“All right,” I said quietly, trying to process this unexpected piece of information. “Well, I suppose that would be an interesting thing to do. But you’re not thinking of going too, are you, Emily? What has Russian History got to do with Ireland?”
“They do have a History department,” she said with a sigh, as if she was trying to explain the theory of relativity to an imbecile. “I could apply for a job there.”
“I think they’d take a much dimmer view of faculty dating students back in Ireland,” I said. “You’d be fired for taking advantage of your position. Or arrested on suspicion of having an unhealthy interest in children.”
“I’m not worried about any of that. I can look after myself. Anyway, I’d be closer to Russia too if I was in Dublin, so perhaps I could finally visit. After all, as you pointed out, I really should go there.”
I said nothing. I didn’t particularly want Emily going anywhere with Ignac but for the moment I was more concerned with the idea of him leaving New York. On one hand it seemed like an idea that had come out of nowhere, but on the other it made a certain amount of sense. We were close, the two of us. The three of us, in fact, for it had been Bastiaan who had been the prime mover in instigating our unusual family seven years before in Amsterdam, but since then Ignac had shown a lot more interest in my heritage than in Bastiaan’s or even his own. Coupled with his passion for writing, it made some sense that Irish Literature should be a specialty to which he might be drawn.
“Have you talked to Bastiaan about this?” I asked Ignac, and he nodded.
“A little,” he said. “Not too much. It’s still a year away, after all.”
I frowned, feeling hurt that no one had thought to mention it to me before now and especially irritated that Emily knew before I did. It was obvious that she was happy to get one over on me.
“Well, we’ll talk about it again,” I said. “Another evening, when Bastiaan’s at home.”
“We’re pretty sure,” said Emily. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. I’ve done a little research into the university and—”
“I think it’s really something for Bastiaan, Ignac and I to talk about together,” I said, turning around and glaring at her. “As a family.”
“As a family?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, as a family. Which is what we are.”
“Of course,” she said with a half-smile. “Hey, it’s 1987, right? No judgments.” She stood up and made her way out of the kitchen, walking back in the direction of the bedroom but making sure to ruffle Ignac’s hair with her hand as she passed. She might as well have pissed on him to mark her territory.
“Jesus,” I said under my breath when she was gone.
“What?” asked Ignac.
“No judgments,” I repeated. “What do you think she meant by that?”
“She didn’t mean anything, Cyril,” he said.
“Of course she did,” I said. “You just don’t want to see it.”
“Why don’t you like her?” he asked, his eyes filled with unhappiness, for he couldn’t bear confrontation or negativity. He was a relentlessly kind person.
“Because she’s old enough to be your mother, that’s why.”
“She’s nowhere near old enough to be my mother.”
“Well, a much older sister then. Or a youthful aunt. Not to mention the fact that she’s your teacher.”
“She’s not my teacher! She works in a completely different department.”
“I don’t care. It’s unprofessional.”
“She makes me happy.”
“She mothers you.”
“So do you.”
“Well, I have a right to,” I said. “I’m in loco parentis.”
He smiled and shook his head. “There’s a side to her that you don’t see.”
“The side that doesn’t go around seducing her students?”
“I told you, I’m not one of her students,” he protested. “How many times?”
I dismissed this with a wave of my hand. That was all semantics as far as I was concerned. I knew what I wanted to say but was unsure whether I could express it correctly. I didn’t want him to get angry with me.
“You haven’t noticed the way that she looks at me and Bastiaan?” I said. “The way she speaks to us?”
“Not particularly,” he replied. “Why, what has she said?”
“It’s not something specific,” I began.
“So she hasn’t said anything then? You’re just imagining things?”