Ah, says Drozd.
You cannot possibly think these situations are comparable, she says. Even you could not be so deluded.
She shakes her head, attempting to shake him out of it. Go and bother someone else, she thinks.
A breathing space, says Nate. Enjoy it.
Advice he would be wholly incapable of following himself.
He has been nonplussed by her firing, too, although he tries to avoid any sign of it.
Dolce far niente, he says, something he picked up from an Italian cookbook. The sweetness of doing nothing.
Nothing. He thinks she should be revelling in this absence of routine, the lack of any need for getting up, for suiting up. At least for the moment, for a few days, she should be enjoying the idleness of it all, the release from the sheer effort of working. But she is not sure she is able to do this. Dolce far niente. Perhaps she will have to move to Italy as well — this nothingness might come more easily living in some sleepy town with white houses, clay tile roofs, eating bread and figs in the sun. Perhaps she will have to trade this piece of her life for one belonging to someone else.
···
She is watching him, watching his narrow house. This edition of Andrew Jarvis, the first one on the list. Sitting in the café across the street, she has become a lurker, an observer, someone waiting.
Or a stalker, she thinks ruefully.
Of course, she should knock on his door, introduce herself, behave in some suitable way. But this would be a morass of a conversation, one she is still far from sure she wants to have. Why did you leave? Why did you stay away? Who are you? Who am I to you? If anything.
Perhaps these questions are unanswerable, anyway.
Then why is she here? Some fitful, uneasy curiosity? Some impulse to complete an outline of herself? Or is she merely thumbing through a catalogue of possible lives, looking for one with a father in it for the purposes of comparison?
···
Show yourself, she says to him. She has been there for almost an hour and she is restless. It has never occurred to her how extraordinarily patient a shadower, a stalker has to be.
And then suddenly he is there, walking out the front door. Just like that.
He is not the right age, though. This is not him. This is a man in his twenties, blond stubble on his jaw, stocky. A son? A visitor? At least stalkers know who their quarry is.
But this man seems unlikely to be even a relative. The wrong shape to the face, the wrong colouring, all wrong, no trace of the man in the photograph. Not impossible — a son could have inherited other looks — but less likely.
There he goes, setting off down the sidewalk.
She is half-relieved, half-disappointed, spared — or deprived — for the moment.
But there are others, others to find, to watch.
The rest of the list, sitting in her pocket, turns into a handful of gravel.
···
That evening. Gus is working in the garden, a faded green shirt, a bulbous nose, a cigarette behind his ear. His domain, a place where he rules supreme — Rudy and Malcolm have no interest in it. Although he is a negligent ruler, absent-minded, ignoring it for weeks while leaves shrivel, vines begin choking other plants. Then he goes out, trowel in hand, and submerges himself in it for an hour or two, cutting back creepers, tying up monkshood, watering it all with a leaky hose. Surprisingly, flowers emerge from this neglect — tough flowers, like hellebore, stonecrop, phlox.
The evening light is lingering now, spring well on its way. She starts to weed in a desultory way near where Gus is working.
Here, in this place, he is someone else — a seeder, a buncher, a lopper, bringing unlikely beauty into being, at least for a day or two, a week or two. She often helps him like this, has worked beside him from her first week in the house, digging in the loamy soil with a spoon. A refuge for her, a child of the city, or at least its lower levels — urns filled with cigarette butts, newspaper boxes with scrawls on their windows, cats crouching underneath parked cars. As a six-year-old, she filled up teacups with water and dirt, while he spread mulch or dug bone meal into the earth. Once, she caught him looking at her speculatively, as if he were wondering whether she might need an application of bone meal as well.
At the moment, this place is a tangle of bleached grass, the dried skeletons of last year’s plants, patches of yellow trout lilies, windflowers migrating across the ground in untidy blue swaths. One of the vines has overtaken the fence, climbing up a pole to the overhead wires, winding along them, sending out runners hanging down — a towering green curtain.
They work in silence for a few minutes in the amber light, the earth on her hands smelling like iron, like leaf mould. A starling is calling seet, seet from a tree.
A breathing space. A pause in an unbroken line of jobs and school, scarcely a gap in all that time. Could this be a respite of sorts, a temporary truce with her own chronology?
No. She simply feels stranded, adrift. A breathing space, yes, but an unnecessary one. An unwanted one.
Although she must remember — must keep firmly in mind — that her job was not without its problems.
You’re going to have to cobble together something that works.
Did he doubt her ability to do this, was there more than one reason he fired her? But what did he expect? That she would be able to fix all the gaps in the case, produce some new doctrine that would take care of its weaknesses? The doctrine of insufficient evidence. The rule of shaky inferences. The principle of close enough.
This case, she had said to Nate the week before. All these people — teachers, journalists, peasants, the torture, the killings. So many of them Jewish.
Not the ever-popular chosen people, he said.
I really do need a second opinion, another set of eyes.
An hour, he said, relenting. I can give you an hour.
He started in on the box, pulling out documents, skimming rapidly, intense, absorbed. From time to time he passed his hand over his bare head — a habit, as if he were looking for his hair. The hour elongated, then stretched into two, three while she worked on other cases.
Finally, he shoved a document back into the box, grimacing.
Not strong enough? she said.
Not nearly strong enough. If the rest of it is like what I’ve seen. Not nearly strong enough, even on the balance of probabilities.
The balance of probabilities. The legal test in the case, at least at this level, at this stage of the proceedings. A soupy test, not beyond a reasonable doubt, but a lower threshold. Which side, which claim was more likely to be true? Which claim was more probable than not? An attempt to round up disorderly facts, to organize the intuitions of judges.
It reminds her of one of Gus’s schemes, though. The balance of probabilities. She imagines him stacking up a number of probabilities, making a teetering pile of them. Then adding more, one by one, until some point, the precise point, the balance point. Right before the pile falls over.
Now, she thinks: perhaps I’m better off without these cases, without this case.
No, no, say the spiders, aghast. Don’t say that.
Two women are carrying on a conversation in the garden a few houses over, and one of them laughs, a brittle laugh. The light is fading now, dusk is beginning to gather.
One consolation: if she is off this case, she is less likely to be killed by a bomb. This thought not as cheering as it might be, though, since the others are still on the case, still in the building. Nate rubbing his head, Louis and his books, Isabel holding up her hands — her refuge now something of an illusion.
She hears a small rustle and looks up. A tortoiseshell cat, an interloper, is picking its way around the snowdrops. It sniffs disdainfully at a clump of them, keeps on prowling. Then it jumps onto the garden chair and turns its head towards her for a second, and she has a glimpse of bril
liant yellow eyes.
She stands up from where she is weeding, stretches, and begins wandering around, pulling up some twitchgrass, some seed husks turned to paper. A sulphur butterfly lights on a twig and pauses, moving its damp wings.
Has Rudy said anything? says Gus abruptly, his thick fingers hooked in the pruners.
About what?
Nothing, he says quickly. A bit of news, that’s all.
News? Rudy never has news. Malcolm, yes — usually another scam. Listen to this, he says, as he describes his latest plan just this side of the law, or so he hopes, without caring enough to find out. Fireproof, he says. Gus, yes, occasionally he has news, another bankruptcy, reported unwillingly, his face shut down. Rudy, no.
What news? she says, reaching for the trowel.
I’ll let him tell you.
There is no point in pushing him, he is as stubborn as paint.
She yanks a weed out viciously, taking a crocus with it.
A shout — a child in the distance — and in one silky motion the cat leaps onto the fence and disappears on the other side, its ginger-and-brown tail the last to vanish.
She turns to go inside, rubbing her hands together to brush off the coarse dirt.
The sweetness of doing nothing. On the way in, she kicks over a garden chair.
···
They grind the poppy seeds until they are powdery, then add the butter, vanilla, honey, eggs. This is the filling for the dough, a floury lump on the cutting board. The girl is sitting next to it on the counter, kicking her heels, once in a while poking at it tentatively.
Outside, the day is dark and wet, the rain coming down in grey needles, but the kitchen is warm with light, all the brighter against the gloom of the windows.
Purim. The Festival of Lots.
Lots? says the girl, shaking her head of dark curls.
Haman drew lots — sticks — to decide which day to kill the Jews of Persia, says her aunt.
Haman? says the girl.
The vizier to King Ahasuerus. Now whirl your grager to blot out his name.
The girl whirls her noisemaker, delighted by the clamour, by this idea that a name — a person? — could be wiped out by noise.
Her aunt puts her hands over her ears, and then sits down heavily, holding her lower back.
Some advice for free, she says. Don’t get into a fight with your kidneys.
Why? says the six-year-old.
They’re bandits, says her aunt.
She takes a sip of cold coffee and stands up again, pulling a rolling pin out of a drawer. She dusts the cutting board with flour and then scoops up the ball of dough, flattens it onto the board. Now she is rolling it, first one way, then another, the dough spreading out as she gently pulls it and rolls, pinches it and rolls, pats it and rolls.
Here, she says to the girl, handing her a drinking glass. Cut out some circles.
This is harder than it looks, not all the edges separate cleanly enough — press harder — and a few end up stretched and torn as the child tries to pull the scraps around them free. But soon they have twenty-three circles, and they add a spoonful of poppyseed filling to each one, folding the sides up into a triangle shape. Hamantaschen. Into the oven, set the timer.
When they’re done, we’ll take some over to Marvin and Ida.
Now they wash the dishes, the girl standing on a footstool, hands in the soapy water, an apron wrapped several times around her small body. Then the drying with the dishtowel, the wiping of the counter and waiting, as the kitchen slowly fills up with the spicy-brown smell of the baking.
Why did he want to kill the Jews? says the girl. Haman.
Who knows?
Did he kill them? All of them?
Does it look like it? says her aunt, gesturing to the two of them with the dishtowel. We had Esther. She outwitted Haman — whirl your grager. She talked the king into protecting the Jews. She was a real talker.
She opens the oven door to check the edges of the hamantaschen, letting out a cloud of fragrant heat.
That Esther, she says. She was something.
Why did he want to kill the Jews? says the girl again, eating a shred of raw dough. Can he kill us?
She is starting to sound alarmed, her face is screwed up a little.
No, no, you’re safe now. Nobody can kill you now.
Where is Esther? says the girl, thinking that it would be good to know, just in case.
Long gone, says the aunt. But you’re still safe.
The girl looks at her doubtfully.
The timer dings.
···
Apologize, says Nate.
They are sitting up on the bluffs, white sandstone cliffs beside the lake, three hundred feet high. Danger: Bluffs unstable, says the sign, the chalky walls prone to rockslides. But they are sitting back from the edge, they are drinking wine and eating cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto. A necessary precaution, says Nate. If it was up to you, we would be eating soda crackers.
The sun is low in the sky, a sky made soft and smoky by pollution. A horizon full of pink-gold light, towers of clouds reaching towards the atmosphere. Farther down, the sun has laid a watery path across the middle of the lake, a path that seems to lead right into the sun itself. Not Der Blaue Reiter, she thinks idly. Something neoclassical. Maybe August Becker.
He really does seem to feel betrayed, says Nate, so an apology might help. And maybe this has been a cooling off period.
Who would have guessed that someone so self-possessed, so confident, would be so sensitive? she says. Does he seem cooler now?
No, he admits. He seems irritable.
He had another one of those misplaced moments, he adds, almost casually. He looked like he was dropped into the wrong spot without any warning.
They have avoided talking about this much, they want him — they need him — to be intact, undamaged, in good working order. They cannot afford to have him lose his place, cannot afford to think that these are anything more than momentary lapses — the symptoms of a low-grade fever perhaps, or a particularly rough flu. Symptoms that will disappear as quickly as they began. Twice now, though — this is not a good sign, this is difficult to ignore.
Could it be some kind of concussion? she says.
They consider this, ticking through what they know: he doesn’t play sports, he has said nothing about an injury, nothing about a fall, an accident.
Not much of a silent sufferer, either, says Nate — we would have heard about it if he had been hit somehow.
The only thing likely to hit him is a book, she says. For a second, she can see his books falling from their shelves, raining down around him, his arms raised to ward off the blows.
The symptoms: almost none. No sweating, no paralysis, no sagging on one side of the face. Whatever this is, these moments when time seems to abandon him, it must be a quiet condition.
Even now, though, they avoid talking about other possibilities, more lethal problems of the mind. Tumours hiding among white fibres. Aneurisms ballooning out of artery walls. Things that might cause dislocation, confusion, that might turn memory into lace. No, too early to be talking — even thinking — about them. Only two incidents.
Although these are only the ones they know about, the ones that they have seen.
Do you think his wife knows? says Nate.
Carla — effervescent, her red hair a constant surprise, her fingers stained with oil paints. But this is more than high spirits, this effervescence is a strategy; she uses it to shape the atmosphere around her, to keep it at a breezy tone and pitch. Alert to small shifts in Louis’s moods, she would have noticed something like this. Although only if one of these moments had occurred when she was around.
Would he have told her? she says.
No, they both think.
She takes another piece of can
taloupe, the taste of the melon, the salty, fatty ham together in her mouth.
Another possibility, something even more disturbing. The possibility that Louis is not the problem, that some gap in his grey matter has opened up a rare view of things. A view of sudden shifts in existence that are truly occurring, some fluidity normally hidden from sight.
Einstein, she says to Nate. He argued that the distinction between past, present, and future was only a stubborn illusion.
Well, I’m in favour of it, anyway, says Nate.
She swallows some wine.
What about that apology? he says.
She will need to work up to it, or perhaps work her way down to it. Even the idea produces a spurt of uncomfortable pride. Perhaps this was her problem, she had not been deferential enough.
The cloud towers are drifting into mauve and grey ribbons, edges glowing from the sinking sun.
Nate is talking about another one of his cases, a man who tried to rob small stores using unusual weapons — a lamp, a vase, a broom.
They gave him money because he was waving around a lamp? she says. Perhaps I should see what I can do with a toaster.
He was also six foot four and yelling.
Your NKVD case is going forward, too, he adds, giving her a quick glance.
She straightens up.
Owen says the new deputy minister is more interested in the case. They really think there’s more to it. And the same MP is still harassing the Minister. Although they don’t want to pay for another lawyer to get up to speed, so this might be the moment to go in and grovel to Louis.
She realizes that Nate has neglected to tell them that he had been through part of the file as well, and she feels a rush of fondness towards him, unexpected, unwelcome. Without any warning at all, he seems suddenly — startlingly — endearing.
Nate, she says to herself. Remember who this is. Remember that he is missing some of the ingredients of humanship. Remember that his moments of kindness can be quickly extinguished by that ticking ambition.
He is already too many things to her. A foothold — his rubbery sarcasm. A thought process — that nimble mind. A critic, even a stern critic, mostly of others, sometimes of himself or her. Exasperating, disarming.
The Singing Forest Page 10