by Marc Levy
“What on earth have you been staring at over here for the past ten minutes?”
Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. I had forgotten how good it feels to say your name. I’d forgotten your voice, your dimples, and your smile, forgotten everything until I saw this portrait. I wish you had never left to cover that war. If I had known what would happen the day you told me you wanted to become a reporter, if I’d had even the slightest notion of how things would end, I would have begged you to choose a different path.
You would have insisted that telling the truth about the world is the best job there is, even if the photographer’s lens can be a cruel device, even if the truth can haunt one’s dreams, turning them into nightmares. You would have continued with your speech, declaring with a serious tone that our leaders would have knocked down that wall much sooner had the press known the truth about what was happening beyond that concrete barrier. But they did know, Thomas. They knew the details of your lives. They spent their time spying on you. Those who governed in the West simply didn’t have enough courage. You would have said that only someone like me, who had grown up in a place where people are free to say and think whatever they want without any fear of reprisal, would be so adamantly against taking risks. We would have argued through the night and into the next morning. If you only knew how much I miss arguing with you, Thomas.
Unable to find a winning argument, I would have given up eventually, just like I did the day I left. How could I possibly hold you back, you who had always longed for freedom? You were right, Thomas. You had one of the best jobs in the world. I wonder if you ever met Masoud, and if he finally granted you that interview somewhere in the afterlife. Was it worth it, Thomas? He died nearly a decade after I lost you. Thousands of people joined in his funeral procession through the Panjshir Valley, yet no one ever found your remains. What would my life be like now if that mine hadn’t destroyed your convoy? If I hadn’t been a coward? If I hadn’t abandoned you just a short time before?
Anthony placed a soft hand on Julia’s shoulder.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody,” she replied, startled.
“Julia, you’re trembling.”
“Go away. Leave me alone,” she whispered.
There was an awkward moment, or perhaps we can call it a delicate one. I introduced you to Antoine and Mathias, going so overboard emphasizing the word friends that I must have said it six times to be understood. It was ridiculous. You could barely speak English back then. Maybe you did understand. You gave them a smile, and Mathias gave you a congratulatory hug. Antoine was content with a handshake, though he was just as overwhelmed as his friend. The four of us set off into town. You were looking for somebody. I thought it was a woman, but it turned out to be your childhood friend. He had managed to make it over the wall with his family ten years prior, and you hadn’t seen him since. How were we supposed to find your friend among the thousands of people hugging, singing, drinking, and dancing in the streets? You turned to me and said, “The world is big, but friendship is bigger.” I don’t know if it was your accent or the innocence behind the thought, but Antoine made fun of you. Yet I thought the notion was absolutely wonderful.
We decided to help you in your search, and together we combed the streets of West Berlin. You walked with a purpose, as though you were going to meet somebody in a specific place. Along the way, examining every face, you pushed through the milling crowd, but constantly turned to look behind you. The sun had already set when Antoine at last stopped in the middle of a square and shouted, “Could you at least tell us the name of the guy we’ve been hunting for all this time, stumbling around like fools?” You didn’t understand what he was asking. In growing frustration, Antoine shouted even louder, “Prénom! Name! Vorname!” You lost your temper and screamed back your friend’s name. “Knapp!” To show you he wasn’t angry, Antoine shouted the same name back as reassurance. “Knapp! Knapp!”
Laughing hysterically at the scene, Mathias started shouting it, too, and I followed suit. “Knapp! Knapp!” You looked at us like we were crazy, then started to laugh and eventually joined in yourself. “Knapp! Knapp!” We were practically dancing, chanting our heads off with the name of the friend you hadn’t seen for ten years.
Just then, one sole face in the middle of the enormous crowd turned to face us as we shouted. A man your age. When your eyes met, I felt something akin to jealousy.
Like two wolves separated from the pack finding themselves face-to-face in the forest, you stood completely still . . . just staring at one another. Then Knapp spoke your name. “Thomas?” The sight was otherworldly and utterly sublime: two long-lost friends coming together in an embrace, your faces full of pure joy. Antoine started crying, and Mathias tried to console him. Mathias swore that had the two French friends been separated just as long, their reunion would be no different. Antoine replied, between ever-intensifying sobs, that it was unfathomable; they hadn’t known each other nearly as long as the two Germans had. You laid your head on your best friend’s shoulder. You saw that I was watching, and you immediately straightened up. Then, you simply repeated the same words from earlier. “The world is big, but friendship is bigger.” Antoine wept uncontrollably.
We sat at wooden tables outside a bar. The cold nipped at our cheeks, but we didn’t mind. Together, you and Knapp sat off to the side. Catching up on ten years of life called for a lot of words exchanged, yet just as much silence. We all stayed together for the rest of the night and into the following day. The next morning, you told Knapp that you couldn’t stay any longer and had to go back. Your grandmother lived in the East, and you couldn’t leave her alone. You were the only family she had.
She would have turned a hundred years old this winter. I hope, wherever you are now, the two of you are together once more. God, how I adored your grandmother! I remember her knocking on our bedroom door, so pretty with her long white hair in braids. You promised Knapp you’d return soon, as long as things didn’t move backward, as long as freedom continued to reign. Knapp assured you it would, and you replied, “Perhaps, but if I had to wait ten more years to see you again, I’d still think about you every day.”
You rose and thanked us for the gift we had given you, which was nothing at all, but Mathias chimed in that it was his pleasure and he was delighted to have been of service. Antoine suggested we accompany you back to the former checkpoint between East and West.
We set off, following the streams of people. All of them, like you, returned to the East because, revolution or not, their families and homes were still on the other side of the city.
Along the way, you took my hand in yours. I said nothing, and we walked like that for miles.
“Julia, you’re shivering. You’ll catch your death out here. Let’s go. If you like, I’ll buy the damn drawing, and you can look at it as long as you like . . . somewhere warm.”
“No. You can’t buy it. It’s . . . priceless. We have to leave it here. Just a few more minutes, and then we’ll go.”
Here and there around the former checkpoint, people were still hacking away at the wall. We almost said goodbye there. You shook hands with Knapp first. “Call me as soon as you’re able,” he urged, handing you his card. Was it because your best friend was a journalist that you decided to follow the same path? Was it some pact the two of you had made during your younger years? I must have asked you a hundred times, without ever getting a direct answer. Instead, you would give me one of those cryptic little smiles, the ones you reserved for the moments when I annoyed you. You exchanged handshakes with Antoine and Mathias, and then you turned to me.
If you knew, Thomas, how fearful I was at that moment—fearful that I might never know the touch of your lips. You came into my life out of nowhere. You held my face in your hands with pure tenderness, and placed a gentle kiss on each of my eyelids. “Thank you” was all you said, and by the time I opened my eyes, you were already walking away. Knapp had watched the two of us, and when at last you let me go and
I caught Knapp’s eye, the expression on his face surprised me. He looked as though he expected me to say something, to find the words that would forever erase the years the two of you had spent apart. Those long years had shaped each of you so differently; your experiences had been as disparate as your destinations that very night—one to a newspaper, the other to the East.
I cried out, “Take me with you! I want to meet this grandmother of yours.” I didn’t wait for a response. I took your hand in mine once more, and nothing in the world could have broken my grip at that moment. Knapp shrugged, and seeing you at a loss for words, he said, “The roads are open now. Come back whenever you like!” Antoine tried to talk me out of it. He said it was madness, and maybe it was, but I had never felt such an intoxicating feeling before. Mathias elbowed Antoine in the ribs: How was this any of his business? He ran up and hugged me. “Call us when you get back to Paris,” he said, scribbling his phone number on a scrap of paper. In turn, I hugged them both, and the two of us set off.
I never went back to Paris, Thomas. I followed you instead. At dawn on November 11, we took advantage of the general state of chaos and crossed the border. At that moment, I was possibly the first American girl to ever enter East Berlin . . . if not the first, certainly the happiest.
I kept my promise, you know. Do you remember that day in the gloomy café? You made me swear that, if ever we were separated by the cruel hand of fate, I should try to be happy, no matter the cost. I knew you said it because the weight of my love was suffocating you. The long years you spent without freedom made it unbearable to think of someone else’s life being forever bound to yours. Even though I hated the idea of tainting my happiness, I gave you my word.
I’m getting married, Thomas. At least, I was going to. This past Saturday. My wedding was postponed. It’s a long story, and it brought me here right now. Maybe I was supposed to see your face one last time. Give your grandmother up in heaven a kiss from me.
“This is ridiculous, Julia. If you could just see yourself—you’re the one experiencing a glitch now. You’ve been standing there muttering in the same spot for the past fifteen minutes . . .”
Julia wandered away without responding. Anthony quickened his pace to catch up with her.
“Can’t you please just clue me in as to what’s going on?” he asked as he arrived by her side.
Julia remained silent.
“Look,” he continued, holding out his portrait to Julia. “It’s really something, don’t you think? Here, it’s for you,” he added happily.
Julia ignored him and continued making her way back toward the hotel.
“Okay, we’ll save it for later. Clearly, this isn’t a good time.”
And since Julia still said nothing, her father continued. “That drawing you were staring at . . . does remind me of someone. Of course, that can’t have anything to do with your behavior; it’s just a drawing. But for some reason, the face does seem . . . vaguely . . . familiar.”
“That’s because it’s the face you punched when you came looking for me in Berlin. It’s the face of the man I loved when I was eighteen years old. Remember? The one you tore me away from when you dragged me back to New York.”
11.
The restaurant was nearly full. An attentive waiter brought them two flutes of champagne. Anthony didn’t touch his, but Julia downed hers in a single gulp. She chased it with her father’s glass and promptly motioned to the waiter for a refill. By the time the menus arrived, she was already feeling the effects.
“I think you’ve had enough,” advised Anthony as she ordered a fourth glass.
“Why? It’s got bubbles, and it tastes good.”
“You’re drunk, Julia.”
“Getting there,” she said, giggling.
“Try toning it down a notch. You don’t need to make yourself sick just to ruin our first dinner out together. We can go back to the hotel. Just tell me.”
“No way! I’m starving.”
“Then order room service.”
“I think I’m a little too old for you to speak to me in that tone.”
“You’re right, Julia. We’re both too old for this. You’re acting like when you were a little girl and wanted to push all my buttons.”
“When you think about it, it was the first time I ever made a choice for myself . . .”
“What are you talking about?”
“Thomas!”
“True, it was your first independent choice. But far from your last, if my memory serves.”
“You always wanted to control my life.”
“A common condition among fathers. But your accusation doesn’t hold water, not for a father you also accuse of being so absent.”
“Oh, I would have preferred that you be fully absent. In fact, you were far too present, just never in person!”
“Keep it down. You’re drunk, and it’s unbecoming.”
“Unbecoming? You don’t think it was unbecoming when you showed up out of nowhere at our apartment in Berlin? When you scared the daylights out of Thomas’s grandmother so she’d tell you where to find us? When you kicked in the door to find us sleeping, and struck the man I loved? You broke his jaw! I’d say that was all pretty goddamn unbecoming.”
“Perhaps I did go a touch too far. I admit it.”
“Oh, you admit it, do you? Would you admit it was unbecoming when you dragged me by my hair and stuffed me into that car? Or when you pulled me across the airport by my arm, shaking me like a rag doll? Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it—the way you buckled me into my seat on the plane, like you were afraid I was going to jump out midflight. And I’d certainly call it unbecoming, the way you locked me in my room back in New York, like some kind of low-grade criminal!”
“Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t for the best that I died when I did last week . . .”
“Oh, spare me.”
“Don’t get me wrong. That wasn’t in response to your sparkling little monologue. I was thinking of something else entirely.”
“And what might that be?”
“The way you’ve been acting since you saw that drawing.”
Julia’s eyes widened.
“What could that possibly have to do with you dying last week?”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? One could say that, well . . . my death did manage to stop you from getting married on Saturday,” Anthony concluded with a broad smile.
“And you’re happy about this.”
“I wasn’t, not initially. Up until now, I was quite sorry you had to call off the wedding, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts.”
The waiter arrived, nervous after their loud exchange, and delicately asked if they were ready to order. Without hesitation, Julia ordered a steak.
“And how would you like that cooked?” asked the waiter.
“Bloody, I’d imagine,” replied her father.
“And for you, sir?”
“Are there any lithium batteries on the menu this evening?” Julia asked pointedly.
The waiter searched for a response, but none came. Anthony explained that he was fine, and wouldn’t be having anything to eat.
“Getting married is one thing,” he continued to his daughter. “But truly sharing your life with someone is a whole other ball game. It takes a lot of love, a lot of space. It’s something both people have to be comfortable with . . . Neither party should feel boxed in.”
“Who are you to judge my relationship with Adam? You don’t know the first thing about him.”
“I’m not talking about Adam. I’m talking about you. I’m talking about how much of yourself you’re truly ready to give him. If your heart is clouded by the memory of another man, it clearly puts your future happiness in peril.”
“You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you?”
“Your mother is dead, Julia. I can’t do anything about it, even if you keep holding it against me.”
“Thomas is dead, too. And even if you can’t do anything about
that either, I’ll still hold it against you. Adam and I have all the space in the world.”
Anthony coughed. A few beads of perspiration gathered on his brow.
“You’re sweating,” said Julia with surprise.
“Another malfunction. It’ll pass,” he said, dabbing his temples with a napkin. “You were only eighteen, Julia. For God’s sake, you wanted to throw away your life for this communist whom you had only known for a few short weeks!”
“Four months!”
“Fine. Sixteen weeks, what’s the difference?”
“And he was from East Germany. That doesn’t make him a communist.”
“You’re right, that’s something else entirely,” retorted Anthony sarcastically.
“If there’s one thing—one sole thing—I’ll never forget, it’s how much I hated you sometimes!”
“We had an agreement: no past tense. Don’t be afraid to talk to me in the present. Dead or not, I am still your father, or what’s left of him.”
The waiter brought Julia’s food. She asked him to refill her glass, but Anthony covered it with his hand.
“I think we still have a few things to say to one another.”
The waiter nodded and left without a word.
“You were living in East Berlin. I hadn’t heard anything from you in months. What was next? Moscow?”
“How did you track me down?”
“Somebody was kind enough to send along a copy of the interview you gave in that German newspaper.”
“Who?”
“Wallace. It was his way of making up for going behind my back and enabling you to study abroad.”
“You knew about that?”
“Or maybe he was just as worried as I was and decided it was time to put an end to your rebellion, before you actually put yourself in danger.”