fluent and guttural, surrounded them, making him feel isolated, not even free to eavesdrop.
When they sat down again, he knew his father wasn’t coming. Something had happened, or maybe he had balked, unable to go through with it after all. Nick stared at the Baroque walls, not hearing the music, and realized that he felt a kind of relief. It was better in so many ways to keep things as they were. His body began to sag a little, coming down to earth. The past wasn’t meant to come back. Except there it was again, the walking away. In the pretty courtyard, listening now to Brahms, he was at the back door again, being left.
“I’ll be right back,” he whispered to Molly, and when she looked alarmed he smiled and said, “Bathroom,” and slid out of his seat, crouching as he slipped farther back into the dark garden, trying not to crunch pebbles.
A long arcade led back to an ornamental pool, and he stopped for a cigarette near one of the pillars, away from the crowd. Phones were tapped. Maybe he had had to change plans at the last minute, to keep the secret. Who knew what his life was like now? Maybe he would be idling on Letenska Street when they came out, a chance meeting. And maybe not.
Nick went into the bathroom. Damn him, anyway. He wasn’t going to do it twice. Molly said he lived here; she’d spoken to him. What did it matter if Nick called? Who cared who listened? He was still taking precautions, and in America nobody even remembered his name. Old politics, all forgotten, as dated as a hemline. But his son was here. How could he not want to see him?
Nick came out into the soft light of the arcade and stopped. The man near the other end was walking carefully, as if he had forgotten his cane in his rush to get to the bathroom. No, not that old. The waves were gone, thinned to a dusting of hair across his scalp, and his body had thinned too, so that the suit hung loosely, the sleeves too wide for his wrists. He kept coming. Nick couldn’t move. There hadn’t been years to watch the change, just this one minute. An awful mirror. He was looking at himself old. This is what he would be like, bony, almost bald, shoulders slightly drooped. And the face. It was coming into the light now, as inevitable as a ghost. Paler than before, the skin still tight over the cheekbones, then a little slack, a gravity pull. His own face. But the eyes. The shine of liquid full to brimming over, catching all the light, so full Nick thought he might drown in them.
“Nicku.”
The voice seemed to touch the back of his neck like a shiver, drawing him nearer. Voices didn’t change. The same sound, wrapping around him, his earliest memory.
“Nicku. My God.”
And now the eyes did spill over, a wetness at the corners, as he raised his hands, putting them on Nick’s arms. Nick thought of the day they had left Washington, when his heart had literally hurt in his chest, a kind of practice death. He felt it now. Take a breath. He had wondered what it would feel like, this moment, and now he saw that it was like falling. His stomach was light; the ground had slid away. But his father had taken him in his arms. He could feel his cheek, the head leaning into his shoulder, the arms circling his back, holding on to him for dear life.
They sat by the ornamental pool in the dark, his father clutching Nick’s hand, holding down a balloon that threatened to get away. Without the light of the arcade there was only his voice, so that Nick slipped back into it, not distracted by having to see him.
“So tall,” his father said, his voice shaky, “so tall.” And then, patting his leg, he said simply, “You came.”
“I got your message.”
“So you knew. I wanted you to be sure it was me. I thought maybe that’s why you didn’t answer before. You couldn’t be sure.”
“Answer?” Nick said, lightheaded again.
“My letters.” His father paused. “I see. You never got them.”
“You wrote to me?”
“Of course. In the beginning. I should have known they would stop them,” he said, his voice suddenly older. “But I thought-never mind. You’re here. Look at you.” Touching him again.
Nick wondered if he could see in the dark; maybe just the shape of him was enough.
“Who stopped them?” Nick said. “Mother-”
“No, no. My friends.” An edge of sarcasm. “How is your mother?”
The question itself seemed absurd, as if everything that had happened to them could be reduced to a polite inquiry.
“She’s fine,” Nick said, at a loss. “She’s married.”
“Yes. To Larry. You took his name.”
Nick glanced up at him, trying to read his face in the faint light. “She thought it would be easier, I guess. You were — famous.”
“Famous,” he said, almost pouncing on the word. Then he edged away, conversational again. “But you didn’t have to be. Yes. I suppose I should be grateful to him. He’s been a good father to you?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, then looked away, to his own thought. “Is she happy?” he said, but when Nick didn’t answer, he brought himself back and sighed. “Well, what a question. How do we talk? There’s so much-” He put his hand on Nick’s knee. “You came. You don’t know what it means. I thought, what if he never wants to see me again?”
“No,” Nick said.
“But I had to try. It was a chance.”
“Why now?”
“And not before?” He stood up, looking toward the music. “I’m not sure. I suppose I thought you were better off. Maybe I was afraid you wouldn’t answer, like with the letters. But then, when I heard you were working with Wiseman-oh yes,” he said, answering Nick’s expression. “I keep up. I have your graduation picture.”
“What?”
His father smiled. “So much information from America. They still work overtime at it, my friends. Like addicts. I thought, why not a little for me? Don’t they owe me that much? Of course, the newspapers I could see for myself at the institute. But the rest-” He paused. “I didn’t want to miss everything in your life.”
“Wait a minute.” A sudden anger. “You had people spy on me?”
His father shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. Just what anyone would know. The public record.” He stopped. “Well, once. In the beginning. I was so desperate — I couldn’t bear it. So I asked someone at the institute. You know, it’s so easy. To arrange that. He brought me pictures. Hockey in Central Park. You were still a boy. Then I saw how crazy it was. How could I do that to you? It was my fault, all of it. I had to let go. So I made them stop.” He turned to him. “It was just that once.”
Nick stared up at him, not knowing what to say. In all the years, he had not once imagined what his father had felt. Now he saw, as in the science experiment, that if you just took a few steps to the side, the angle of the world was different.
“What else?” he said, curious.
His father shrugged. “It wasn’t much, Nick. A picture. A few clippings. I couldn’t watch you grow. Remember the height marks?”
Nick nodded. The notches on the side of the cabin door, measuring him every six months.
“It was like that. Just the marks. So I’d know how you were doing.”
His father was quiet for a minute, and Nick could hear the music rising in the background, almost at an end.
“So college and then the army and-” His father stopped, took a breath. “All the time, I thought, he doesn’t even know me anymore. Leave it-it’s over and done with. But then you went to London to work with Wiseman. Un- American activities. And I thought, it’s not over for him either. It’s time.”
“For what?” Nick said, standing up. “Why now?”
His father looked around, disconcerted, as if the question had come too soon, then turned to face him.
“Because I’m dying, Nick,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
Nick stared at him, seeing now that what he had taken for age was really illness.
“No, don’t look like that,” his father said quickly, concerned. “It’s all right. I don’t say it to upset you. It’s just-a fact.” He paused. “So it has to be now.” He looked away from Nick’s gaze. “Please don’t. I know I’m a stranger to you. I didn’t ask you to come to-”
“Why did you, then?” Nick asked, unexpectedly bitter, his voice unsteady. “To say goodbye?”
