The Expats: A Novel

by Chris Pavone

  “No,” Kate had to admit. “He’s not particularly useful. I do the household stuff.”

  “You build the Ikea rubbish?” Claire asked. Kate had once built a chest of drawers composed of 388 individual pieces. “Yes,” she admitted. That chest had taken four hours.

  “Sebastian will try,” Claire said. “But only if I beg him.”

  “Is same with Paolo,” Sophia agreed.

  “With Henrik,” Cristina said, leaning in, lowering her voice, “I have to blow him to get him to change a lightbulb.”

  Kate knew Cristina was kidding about the fellatio. But maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, because Dexter didn’t ever—

  He did, Kate realized, attend to a mundane household repair, unbidden. Just once.

  SHE DUMPED THE socks and underwear on the bed, stacked the shirts and pants, dropped the sweatshirts and sweaters, impossible to keep folded.

  She attacked with the cordless screwdriver, bzzz-bzzz, opening this screw and that, removing this panel, turning over this strip of particleboard, that length of fiberboard, that piece of ABS plastic. Deconstructing the bureau in the boys’ room, the one piece of Ikea furniture that Dexter had tended to, well after the fact of assembling it, the so-called repair that he’d made—when? One month ago? Two?—that she hadn’t noticed was necessary.

  She flipped over the bureau’s frame, upside down, and she leaned over the upended bottom, the rectangle of one-by-fours that gave the thing its shape, and she unscrewed them, detached them from one another, pulling them apart.

  Nothing. She couldn’t believe it. She was sure—she was positive—that this was it.

  She examined the cut ends of the one-by-fours, looked in the holes vacated by the bolts that held them together, the first one, and the second.

  She sighed.

  At the bottom of the leg, there was … was there? … a slit in the wood that she hadn’t noticed when the bureau was upright, and she tried to slip her forefinger inside, but it didn’t fit, neither did her pinky, and she grabbed the screwdriver, and shoved it in there … angling it … pressing down and pulling out at the same time … sliding …

  It fell to the rug. A slip of paper, folded over into a tight little rectangular packet.

  Lying there.

  She picked it up, this small piece of paper, and unfolded it to the size of a chewing-gum wrapper, and stared at the meaningless-looking handwritten numbers and letters.

  23

  Her watch, the expensive Christmas present, read 3:51. Kate looked around at the wreckage of the boys’ room, the clothes everywhere, the bureau disassembled, parts strewn, tools scattered on the floor.

  Dexter would be home in forty minutes—thirty-nine—ready to start on the long drive to Holland.

  Kate picked up the small slip of paper. Laid it flat on the floor. Removed her phone from her pocket, snapped a photo, checked to ensure everything was legible in the image. Then she reinserted the slip of paper neatly into its slit of a hiding spot.

  She retrieved the screwdriver, working from the memory of other Ikea assemblies, joining pieces, banging dowels, twisting bolts, turning screws.

  At 4:02, Jake appeared in the doorway.

  “Mommy? What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, sweetie.”

  “Mommy? Bob l’Eponge is finished.”

  Bzzz-bzzz. “Is there something new on now?”

  “Yes, but I don’t like it.”

  Bzzz-bzzz. “There’s nothing I can do about that, sweetie.”

  “You can change the channel.”

  “Goddammit, Jake!” she yelled, no warning. The kid stumbled on his terror. “I have to do this! Let me do what I need to do!”

  He started to cry, and skulked away. She felt awful, but also panicked.

  At 4:13, the frame was completely reconstructed.

  Kate sighed, halfway relieved. How long could the drawers take? She set to work on the first, timing herself. It turned out to be more confusing than she’d expected, and took her four minutes. There were six drawers.

  She rushed. The second was easier—no more confusion—but there were still a lot of screws to turn. It took under three minutes. But she wasn’t going to make it.

  “Mommy?” It was Ben now.

  “Yes?” Without turning around to look at him.

  “That’s Daddy’s furniture.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s true, he fixed it the last time.”

  “But he did a bad job? So you need to do it again?”

  Oh. How can she explain this? “No,” she said. “It just broke again.”

  This was a problem; this was a totally unexpected problem. She stood up, and walked over to the kid. “But don’t tell Daddy about this, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’d be sad.”

  “Because he did a bad job?”

  Yes, she thought to herself. He did do a bad job. “That’s right.”

  “Oh.”

  “So let’s keep it a secret. Okay?” Asking her child to lie, to his father. This was fucking dreadful.

  “Okay.” Ben smiled; he liked secrets. He left.

  The third drawer took two minutes, but so had the discussion with Ben. It was 4:27.

  Kate looked around desperately. Dexter would be late, of course; he was always late. Never home when he said he’d be.

  Except when they were leaving town.

  There was no way she could finish. She picked up a drawer front and jammed it onto a bottom and sides, no screws, no back, no glides. It held together. She picked it up gently and slid it into the frame, slowly, slowly … the front fell off, clattering to the floor.

  “Daddy!” downstairs.

  She picked up the front piece. She jammed it again, banged with the heel of her hand, and it stayed in place.

  “Hi!” he yelled up to her in the stairwell, still downstairs.

  “Hi!” she yelled back. Kate repeated the jam-bang with another drawer. She heard them talking downstairs, husband and sons, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Sort of like the grown-ups in Peanuts.

  Jam-banged another drawer.

  She heard his leather soles clicking on the stone stairs.

  There was still one more drawer. She wouldn’t make it, she didn’t even have time to gather the pieces together. She picked up the final drawer front, the bottom one, with her right hand. With the left hand she dragged a large plastic bin filled with Lego. She placed the drawer front where it should be, and shoved the bin against it, pinning it in place.

  “We all set?” Dexter asked from the top of the stairs, rounding the corner.

  She surveyed the extant mess, the clothes, the—shit!—toolbox. She grabbed the orange blanket from Jake’s bed and tossed it over the toolbox just as Dexter arrived in the doorway.

  “Are we ready?” He glanced around. “What’s going on here?”

  Kate brushed hair from her forehead, pinned it behind her ear. “I was sorting through their clothes. They have a lot that’s too small. Gotta get rid of it.”

  His eyes settled on the bureau, not quite flush against the wall. “Huh.”

  “Sorry, I got derailed.”

  She walked across the room, away from the bureau, away from her attempted concealment of the thing. She picked up the overnight bag she’d brought into their room this morning—why hadn’t she packed this morning?—and carried it to the bed.

  “This’ll just take a minute,” she said. “Are you packed for yourself?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I did it this morning. You?”

  She shook her head.

  “Here,” he said, picking up the bag. “I’ll pack for the boys.”

  She was speechless.

  “Which are the piles of too-small stuff?” he asked.

  “I, um … I got rid of them already.”

  “Oh?” Eyebrows raised. “What did you do with them?” Suspicious. Or just curious?

  “I put them in the, um … the … in the textile recycling bin. I
n the basement.”

  “Is that for clothing? I thought that was for old towels. Sheets. Things like that.”

  “Clothing too,” she said. “They sort it at the center.” No idea if this was true.

  “Huh. Okay, then.” His hand was on her shoulder. “Go pack.”

  Could she deflect this? Could she send him down to keep his children company? Could she tell him any lie that would prevent him from being alone in this room? No.

  Did he want to be alone in this room? Did he realize exactly what was going on?

  “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t pack earlier.” She left, turned into the hall, and stood there, ears straining to hear what he was doing. The sounds were too faint, a rustle, breathing. Nothing like a plastic bin moving; no dresser parts clattering to the floor.

  She chose her things as quickly as possible. This would be one of those forty-eight-hour trips. Like Strasbourg, Bruges, Cologne. They’d done it enough that she knew not to overthink or overpack. This trip didn’t need to be very different from leaving the house for the day, twice.

  She carried her pile back to the boys’ room, rushing down the hall, anxious—

  Dexter was standing in the middle of the room. Folding Jake’s orange blanket.

  The toolbox, uncovered, open. Cordless screwdriver lying on the rug, next to the orange-and-black heavy-duty plastic box.

  Dexter was staring at her as he folded. He didn’t say anything.

  She walked across the room, to Ben’s bed, where the weekend bag sat, open, half-filled with the boys’ clothes. She placed her things inside, zipped it shut.

  Kate watched Dexter lay the folded blanket on the bed, then walk out, still silent. She threw a glance at the bureau. The bottom drawer panel, completely unattached to the frame, had slipped open a few degrees. It was still leaning against the plastic bin, not lying on the floor. But it was obvious, to anyone who looked, that it was not attached. That it had fallen off or been removed. That something was wrong.

  Had Dexter looked?

  THE CANALS OF Amsterdam shimmered in the cold night, the water forming a rippling blanket of pinpoints of light, reflections from the streetlamps, restaurants, bars, houses. All the houses’ blinds were undrawn, curtains open, people sitting in their living and dining rooms, reading the newspaper or drinking a glass of wine, family gathered around the dinner table, children watching television, all of it on display to neighbors, to strangers, to the world.

  Dexter found a parking spot near the hotel, on the canal, inching the car forward, slowly, carefully, no barrier between the cobblestoned street and the ten-foot drop to the water. He bought a parking permit from a vending machine for forty-five euros, stuck the ticket in the window, good for twenty-four hours. A few months ago, Dexter wouldn’t have known how to do this. But now it was second nature, muddling through instructions in languages he didn’t speak, pressing buttons and swiping credit cards, sturdy tickets stowed in wallets to be validated and reinserted in machines upon exit, or flimsy slips displayed on dashboards, fluttering to the floor when the door opened on a windy day.

  Dexter was a lot more competent than he used to be. He knew how to park.

  They crossed a bridge, the canal lined with grand brick houses, tremendous expanses of lit-up glass, glossy doors all painted in the same shade of dark green, almost black. She ran through her imaginary conversation, again. Dexter, she’d say, Julia and Bill are FBI working for Interpol. They think you stole fifty million euros. I know you have a secret bank account, and I’m inclined to think you did it. But the important thing, now, is to figure out how you don’t get caught.

  Dexter would ask, How do you know about the account?

  Kate would tell him about dismantling the dresser, discovering the slip of paper.

  So this snooping came out of nowhere?

  It’s at this point in the conversation when her imagination fails. It’s this question she can’t imagine answering; it’s this subject she can’t fathom explaining. Not exactly, she’d say. Then what would the next words be? How would she start telling the story that leads inexorably to I was in the CIA for fifteen years?

  She pushed away that subject again—the hundredth time, the thousandth, who could count?—on this Amsterdam street, cold and tired and hungry.

  “How about here?” Dexter was standing at the door to a brown café, wood-paneled walls, un-tableclothed tables, big smoky mirrors, rows of bottles on thick shelves, all the wood unadorned and brown, hence the name.

  They were shown a table in the main room, the last available, the others occupied by cheerful couples and crowds, Friday night. Everything on the menu looked good; all the specials described by the waitress sounded delicious. They were starving. They should have eaten on the road, but didn’t make that decision until it was too late, and the rest areas had fallen away on the outskirts of the city.

  They’d given the kids snack bars. The glove box was filled with snack bars.

  The waitress brought beers and sodas, brown and orange in heavy glasses, satisfying clunks on dark tabletops. The boys were coloring in activity books, as usual. The adults knew how to park in foreign cities; the children knew how to amuse themselves in restaurants, away from home. Home itself far away from home.

  “What were you doing with the toolbox?”

  Out of nowhere. A sneak attack, five hours after the fact.

  Kate didn’t answer, mind racing.

  Dexter didn’t expand or clarify or repeat himself, giving no excuse for extra delay.

  She couldn’t remember the lie that she’d prepared, earlier, for an earlier conversation. “I, um … the window …”

  She saw that Ben was paying close attention. It wasn’t clear if he thought this was funny, or serious; if he was going to rat her out, or not. A smile crept up his lips.

  “I had to fix the window shade.” Quickly deciding: “Boys? Let’s go wash up.”

  “I’ll take them,” Dexter said. “C’mon, Ben. Jake.”

  Dexter stood, taking the boys by their little hands, leading them away. Halfway across the room, Ben turned back, and smiled at his mother, mischievously.

  BECAUSE AMSTERDAM WAS his trip to meet his friend—his idea, all the way—it was Dexter who’d chosen the hotel, made the reservation. This hotel seemed more expensive than their normal. Four stars, but definitely edging up toward five, not down toward three.

  While Dexter checked in, Kate and the boys waited in the hall, on a velvet-tufted love seat with a carved wood frame, surrounded by ornate flocked wallpaper, thick plaster moldings intersecting with the fifteen-foot ceilings.

  “Ben,” she whispered, “did you tell Daddy what I was doing?”

  “When?”

  “Upstairs? In your room?”

  “I mean, when did I tell him?”

  “In the bathroom, at the restaurant? Or, I don’t know, ever? Did you ever tell him?”

  Ben glanced at his older brother, as if for explanation, or support. But Jake was cuddled against his teddy bear, sucking his thumb, nearly asleep. No help.

  “About the bad work that he did?” Ben asked.

  “That’s right,” Kate said. “Did you tell him?”

  Dexter glanced around, smiled at Ben, turned back to the clerk.

  “No,” Ben said. He too was smiling.

  “Ben? Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Yes, Mommy.” Still smiling.

  “Then why the big smile, sweetie?”

  “I dunno.”

  THE CHILDREN FELL asleep immediately in the fold-out sofa, leaning toward each other, separated by the cheerful-looking teddy bear, ragged and thin, losing weight and dingy.

  Kate understood that it had been absurd of her to refuse to be suspicious of Dexter. But at least she was aware of why she’d been absurd: a liar doesn’t want to think that other people are liars, because then the other people should suspect her of lying too, because she is, and she’ll get caught.

  Dexter emerged from the bathr
oom, white boxers and a white tee, springy tufts of hair curling out of the pale skin along his legs and arms, extra-pasty. A pale man in the depths of a sunless winter.

  He lay down in bed, hands folded in lap. He didn’t pick up anything to read, didn’t say anything.

  Jake snorted, a rutting animal, then began to snore. Dexter lay unmoving, inactive. Kate didn’t want to glance over, didn’t want to see what expression he was wearing, what he was thinking. She didn’t want to start any discussion, didn’t want to get into it.

  But she also did. Desperately. She needed this—needed something—to come out in the open. She needed to stop adding secrets, needed to stop generating questions.

  She closed the guidebook in her lap, a flurry of resolve, the sound of her thoughts deafening, turning to him, opening her mouth, her pulse pounding in her brain, starting to speak, ready to get it all off her chest, or get some of it into the open, or something, she wasn’t sure, but she spoke. “Dexter,” she began, turning to him, “I—”

  She froze, midsentence, midthought, mideverything. He was sound asleep.

  THEY WENT TO the Van Gogh Museum and the flower market, not much to see in the dead of winter. Bulbs for sale, trowels, seed packets. They agreed that the Anne Frank Museum would raise too many unpleasant topics and unanswerable questions, so they skipped it.

  When it was time for a bribe for the children, they entered a toy store. Gave the boys carte blanche for any box of Lego. Any small box. “I’ll take care of this,” Dexter said, only vaguely aware of the discussions, considerations, and negotiations that were about to ensue.

  So Kate stepped back out into Hartenstraat, Saturday-afternoon crowded, everyone bundled and behatted, smoking and laughing, on bicycles and foot. She saw a familiar figure, out of the corner of her eye, at the end of the intimate block. It was a posture and a bearing Kate recognized, a height and weight, under a big dark hat, a wool cloak. This woman was facing a shop window, a large reflective expanse of immaculate glass.

  This woman didn’t expect Kate to emerge from the store so quickly, after just ten seconds. The woman hadn’t counted on that. So she’d let herself relax, marginally unhidden, relatively unguarded. And she’d been caught.