“No, Larry, I never thought about that.”
“Well, thanks very much.”
“It had nothing to do with you.”
“Of course it did. You’re my son.”
“I was his too.”
“I’m surprised you wanted to see him. After everything. Why didn’t you ask me to arrange it if it was so important to you? Do it the right way, not sneak around like this. Like some-” He hesitated. “Spy,” he said, unable to resist.
Nick looked at the man his father had thought would help. Mistaken about everyone to the end, except Nick. “What’s the right way? What would you have said?”
Larry looked away. “I’d have tried to talk you out of it, I suppose. What was the point, Nick? All these years.”
“The point was he wanted to see me. Before he died. I couldn’t say no to that.”
“Before he died?”
“I think he knew.”
Larry looked away, disconcerted. “What did he want, to tell you he was sorry?”
“More or less.”
“Christ. So off you go. Not a word. And the next thing I hear you’re in a Communist jail-”
“I was never in jail.”
“And now I’ve got the FBI all over me. Did you know your son is in Czechoslovakia? Oh, really. Fucking Hoover on the phone. Now I’m supposed to owe him one. God knows what that favor will be. Your son’s been arrested, but we got him out. Well, thanks, Edgar, I appreciate it. Do you have any idea what it’s been like?”
“They didn’t get me out. You don’t owe him anything.”
“Well, they still want to see you. Is there something else I should know before they start calling me again? What’s all this business about him coming back? What did he tell you?”
“He said he wanted to come home, that’s all. Maybe the FBI thought he meant it. I don’t know why. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” Larry paused. “He said that, about coming back? Christ. What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t real, Larry, just some dream he had.” And here, with the sun flashing on the yellow taxis, was it anything more?
“How could he think-? Come home. He must have been out of his mind.”
“Yes, he must have been,” Nick said, an edge. “He killed himself.”
Larry stopped and looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
Nick said nothing, letting the moment hang there, everything awkward. The chicken salad arrived. Larry sipped his iced tea.
“They said you found the body. That must have been-” He switched tack, avoiding it. “How did he do it? They didn’t say.”
“He jumped off the balcony,” Nick said, matter-of-fact.
“Jumped?”
“It’s an old Prague custom. Like Jan Masaryk.”
“Yes,” Larry said, surprised at the reference. “I remember.”
Another awkward pause, a sip of tea.
“That doesn’t always work. Was he still alive when you found him?” Larry asked, his tone almost delicate, talking around it, like asking a cancer patient the details of his medication because you couldn’t ask how it felt to die.
“No. No last words,” Nick said.
“It must have been terrible. Finding him.”
“Stay away from it. That’s why they thought I killed him, at first. It wasn’t jail, you know, just a few questions.”
“Christ, what a mess,” Larry said. “You’d think he’d have waited. Not while you were still there.”
“I don’t think he was thinking about that, Larry,” Nick said.
“No.” A quick step back.
“Maybe it’s because I was there. His seeing me. That’s what the police think.”
Larry grabbed his arm across the table, almost violent. “Don’t you think that. Ever. Don’t you do that to yourself.” Then he pulled his hand back and looked away. “Hell,” he said, general, meaningless, like shaking his fist in the air. He picked at his salad, letting the polite room settle around them. “What was he like?” he said finally, as if they were just making conversation.
“The same. Different. He was sick. I met his wife.”
“What’s she like? A Russian?”
“No, Czech. They met in Moscow, though. She didn’t talk much. He wanted to talk about old times.”
“Old times?”
“When I was a boy,” Nick said. “Not politics. Not what happened.”
“No, I guess he wouldn’t.”
“Jokes we used to have. You know.”
“No, I don’t,” Larry said, irritated, then caught himself. “Never mind. What else?”
“Nothing. We went to the country. We went to a Benny Goodman concert.”
“God.”
“He was just happy to see me. I thought so, anyway. I had no idea he was thinking about-”
“No, he was always good at that. The old Kotlar two-face.”
“Come on, Larry.”
He sighed and nodded, an apology.
What else? How Nick’s heart had turned over that first night at the Wallenstein? Putting him to bed? His face at the gallery, gazing at the fatted calf? The bottomless regret? None of it. “He showed me his Order of Lenin,” Nick said instead.
“Well, he earned it,” Larry said sourly. “I’m sorry, Nick. A couple of jokes and old fishing stories? I remember other things. I remember you. The way you walked around looking like you’d been kicked in the face.”
“I remember it too, Larry,” Nick said quietly.
“He shouldn’t have done it,” Larry said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Making you go there. All these years, and he just crooks his little finger like nothing happened. Jokes. I’ll bet he was charming. He was always charming.” He spoke the word as if it were a kind of smear. “He charmed me. Well, they’re all good at that. All smiles. You ought to sit across a table from them. Day after day. Not an inch. They don’t want us out, they want us to keep groveling. Showing you his medal-was that supposed to make you proud? What do you think he got it for?”
Nick stared at him, amazed at the outburst.
Larry put down his fork and looked out the window, visibly trying to retrieve control. “He shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “You might have got in real trouble. I didn’t know you were there.”
Nick waited a moment. “I’m sorry you were worried, but nothing happened. I’m back. He wasn’t charming. He was a sick old man. Now he’s dead. It’s over.” He paused. “What’s this all about?”
“I don’t know,” Larry said, still looking out the window. Then he turned back to Nick, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe I’m jealous. It’s hard to share someone.” He picked up his fork, then put it down again, as if a prop would distract him. “You were so stubborn. Like an animal. You wouldn’t trust anyone. And I thought, I’m not going to let this happen to him. Okay, at first it was for your mother. I never thought about having a kid, not even my own. You were just part of the package. But there you were. You wouldn’t give an inch either.” He paused, a smile. “Just like old Ho. Maybe you were my special training. But then it changed a little. Then a little more. The funny thing was, I wasn’t winning you over-it was the other way around. I loved being your father. All of it-all those things I didn’t expect. Christ, those hockey games.” He looked up. “I thought you were mine. You remember the way people would say we were like each other and you’d give me that look, our little secret? But I loved it when they said that. We are a little, you know. I see myself in you sometimes. I don’t know how that happens. Of course, I don’t see myself farting around London when you could be making something of yourself here. Well, I had to say it. But I know you
