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Heather's only previous experience with a living writer (not counting her professors or the guys at work) had occurred the summer after her freshman year. Back home in Topeka, she'd joined a tiny group of literati who had hand-set type for both issues of a new literary quarterly in the garage of the publisher/editor, a recent Princeton graduate with
a small trust fund. One day while she was setting a difficult story, its author, a friend of the publisher/editor, stopped by to make sure there were no errors in his text. A native of the town, he was something of a local celebrity because, though still in his twenties, he had already had several stories published in prestigious magazines. Because of this, she had found herself unable to speak to him, blushing like a child when he addressed her, which only compounded her embarrassment, though he was friendly enough. That encounter probably marked the beginning of her own unspoken ambition to write. From then on, she was awestruck in the presence of writers, her awe tinged with lust. She missed no opportunity to watch them promote their books on talk shows or at book signings in nearby malls, once committing the folly of submitting to a man who had roomed at college with an eventual winner of a Pulitzer Prize. (It seemed that even in the Midwest, every community of a certain size boasted, along with its legendary mass murderer, its native son or daughter who would one day head for a coast and publish.)

Finally Heather opted for an innocent look, hoping to disarm Zoltan. Before the full-length mirror she slipped on a pair of well-cut black pants
that slenderized her hips and her tailored jade green blouse (a favorite), and inserted through her earlobes the intricately cut jade pendants, a gift from Mack, that he said brought out the color in her eyes.

10
       
ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE, THE
leaves flanking the highway were already in high flame. Mack decided to give Zoltan the royal treatment by driving home the long way around the mountain, past the most ravishing stands of maples and oaks. Instead of taking the service road directly to the back entrance, past the hangar and the neighbors' property, he would let the house appear suddenly above, regal, spectacular, and serene, even though it meant they would have to carry the bags up the long stairway from the turnaround.

While Mack walked back to the trunk for the bags, Zoltan stood up, shook out his pant legs and gazed up at the wood-and-glass edifice perched majestically just below the rounded peak. He'd known from the photo that it was more than a
conventional suburban house in a wooded setting, but never had he imagined a place as grand and elegant as this. The grandeur of it, and the way the roof reached toward the sky, reminded him of the cathedral where he'd been an altar boy, only modern. He whistled long and low.

Mack stood triumphant. It was for this he had taken such risks, moved his family to the country, founded his firm, gone for the MBA, struggled through Yale, and apologized through humiliating tears to his sixth-grade teacher Miss Harrington for having scaled the auditorium rafters. For this he had sought out Zoltan, courted him, won him east from California to enrich their lives. Zoltan's whistle filled his head like birdsong, raising new hopes of transformations.

As soon as Heather heard the car trunk slam she removed her smock and ran to the living room to light the fire. Mack had taught her the standard tricks of showing real estate: maximum light, soft music, multitudes of fresh flowers. In her nervousness she scorched her hand as the flames leaped from the kindling, but she ignored the pain to flick on the lights and music. Coltrane. Count on Mack to know how to impress a European. On the way back to the safety of the kitchen, she paused
at the hall window to watch Mack's familiar bulldog frame followed by a tall slim figure in a black cloak—dramatic, operatic—mount the steps from the terrace.

At the top they rested the bags. Mack watched Zoltan's eyes follow the beams of the overhang into the foyer, on into the semivaulted living room, and out the far glass wall to the sky. “Go on in,” he said, holding the door. “Heather! We're home.”

Zoltan stood inside the door hearing the lush sound of jazz, inhaling the rich aromas of cedar logs and roasting lamb. The view was all that Mack claimed. And was that a Hockney on the wall? A genuine Hockney? And the books! An entire wall of them, floor to ceiling, with a ladder for access to the top shelves. “You didn't say you live in a library.”

“Ah yes—the books. I didn't tell you? They're Heather's.”

Heather turned off the cold water tap and gently blotted her burn with a towel.

“Honey,” said Mack as she entered. He pecked her proprietarily on the cheek. “Come. I want you to meet Zoltan Barbu. Zoltan—my wife Heather.” Like a shaman, Mack lightly touched a hand to an elbow of each, then stood back to admire the meeting. His best work, people said, used first-rate
materials in unusual combinations to create surprising new effects. Yet all functional. A room with a view for Zoltan to work in, and for his wife an author, a book in living flesh.

And for himself? For himself? To be the one to make it happen.

Zoltan, adept at entrances, bowed over Heather's hand and lightly brushed her knuckles with his lips, her arm with the glossy lock that had fallen over his right eye. As his fingers came dangerously close to her burn, Heather braced herself but did not wince or pull away.

“Where are the kids?” asked Mack.

“In the playroom. They're staying up tonight to have dinner with us. Want to get them?”

“Not yet. Let's get Zoltan settled first. Why don't you show him his room while I bring the bags.”

She led Zoltan to the study, where the last rays of sunset cast a brick-gold glow on the ivory walls.

“This will be your room—if it suits you.”

Zoltan stopped and slowly turned to take in the grand view, the bouquet of mums and asters on the desk, the laptop, thesaurus, dictionary. “If!” he repeated, as the clenched fist of his life seemed to open into airy opportunity.

Heather began opening drawers and doors, like a hotel porter, displaying the bureau, the closet. “This sofa converts to a bed. I hope it's long enough for you,” she said, taking in his body, immediately embarrassed at her words.

“I'm sure it's perfect. Thank you.”

She led him into the sparkling bathroom with its fresh towels and small bowl of floating mums. “This is your bath.”

“My own?”

“Yes. Mack used to be known for his bathrooms,” she tossed off amiably.

“Splendid, splendid.”

“Downstairs near us there's a guest room larger than this, but you'd have to share a bathroom with the children and our cat. This room may be small but it has the better view.”

At MacDowell too there were trade-offs, Zoltan recalled. One cabin was small but had a porch; another was a long walk from the main house but had a large picture window; one was drafty, another cozy, another had a flagstone fireplace. “Yes, view is splendid.”

Mack puffed in, carrying all three suitcases, and set them heavily on the floor. “Well? Will it do?”

“I hardly know what to say,” said Zoltan.

“Then don't say anything. Come on, babe. Let's let Zoltan wash up. He's probably exhausted from the trip.”

Mack wrapped his arm around Heather's waist to guide her toward the door, but she quickly slipped out of his embrace.

“CAN I SERVE?” ASKED
Chloe when Heather began ladling soup into bowls.

“Can I?” asked Jamie.

“Not the soup,” whispered Heather. “It spills. Later, maybe.”

For several minutes the smooth soup of white beans and cress was ingested in contented silence. “Splendid soup,” said Zoltan finally, inaugurating a slow blur of table talk.

Every time Zoltan spoke, Chloe, seated beside her mother, stared at him with widened eyes. His beard, his accent, and his daring to leave chunks of bread on the table, kept her silent and rapt. “Soup okay?” whispered Heather, to remind her daughter of its existence. But no soup could begin to compete with the absorbing stranger talking to her father, and despite sporadic efforts, Chloe barely ate, failing to respond even to Jamie's rhythmic under-table kicks.

With the main course (roast lamb accompanied by fettuccine with a lemon-flavored sauce copied from a restaurant in Rome, and olive bread, to be followed by a salad of baby greens) came the main topic. Zoltan dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin, European style, and began. “I will try to be as little trouble as possible. You probably won't see me till late afternoon.”

“Nonsense, Zoltan, if you'll pardon me,” interrupted Mack, refilling the wineglasses. “We want you to feel at home here, just like any member of the family. Consider it your house. Right, Heather? When you're ready for breakfast, you've got to go into the kitchen and have it. Or whatever. Otherwise, we'll all be tiptoeing around each other. No, we've got to act like an ordinary family; that's the only way it's going to work. There's plenty of room here so no one has to get in anyone's way. I'm gone every day by eight anyway, sometimes earlier, and the kids are up then too. So don't worry about disturbing anyone. We want it to be completely relaxed. Isn't that right, Heather?”

“I'm sure he doesn't get up at eight o'clock, Mack. Do you, Zoltan?”

“That is somewhat early.”

“We'll be the ones waking him,” said Heather.

“No, no. Nothing will disturb me.”

Chloe watched Zoltan tear his bread into little bits, roll them into balls and pop them into his mouth, leaving a residue of crumbs on the cloth. The way he held his fork upside down in the wrong hand and pushed his food onto it with his knife, then washed it down with swallows of wine—violations for which she and Jamie would be corrected—kept her own jaw slack and her mouth empty.

Unable to attract attention by foot, Jamie decided to see how many noodles he could pile onto his fork before the candle dripped onto the tablecloth.
Ready, get set, go
, he buzzed softly to himself, and at
go
began racing.

“Jamie!” whispered his mother. “Please, honey. Finish up nicely and you can help me serve the salad.”

“We've discussed the whole arrangement,” continued Mack. “One more person in a house this size will hardly make any difference. Heather sees to the meals anyway, with or without you.”

“That's true,” said Heather with a certain pride, starting the fettuccini around again.

“Heather is a remarkable woman,” said Mack.

“Yes, I can see that already,” agreed Zoltan.

“I don't know how she does it all.”

Self-conscious, Heather stood up. “Would anyone like more lamb? Maybe you should carve some more?”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Zoltan, “though very delicious.”

“You see? Didn't I tell you?” beamed Mack.

“Please, Mack. Enough!” said Heather, heading toward the kitchen. She never knew how to respond to Mack's pimpy speeches, which felt demeaning, like being complimented on your makeup, and seemed to reflect more credit on him than on her. Why this was so was not clear; she knew only that when she tried to speak to him about it, he claimed not to know what she was talking about. He would accuse her of being hypersensitive or ungrateful or difficult to please, and she would back down. Nevertheless, in the presence of others he frequently embarrassed her.

“She's just being modest,” said Mack when she was gone. “But you'll see for yourself.” He started to clear the table.

“I see already. I congratulate you, Mack. She is quite a number, your wife,” said Zoltan, affecting to rise.

“No, sit still. We've got a system.”

While Mack carried out the platter, Heather returned from the kitchen with the salad bowl in
time to catch Zoltan's last remark. “Ready to help me with the salad, Jamie?” she asked brightly, pretending not to have heard.

“Why Jamie?” asked outraged Chloe. “What about me?”

“But sweetheart, you still have to eat. Finish either your meat or your noodles and I'll let you help me serve dessert, okay? Want me to help cut it up?”

Chloe shook her head. The guest, she noticed, hadn't finished his food, either. At last she began discreetly crumbing her bread on the tablecloth.

Heather dished assorted leaves onto blue-and-white china plates. “Guest first,” she whispered, handing a plate to Jamie. Jamie noticed for the hundredth time the two birds hovering above a bridge in the china pattern and wondered why they never landed. With two hands he carried the plate slowly around the table. He stopped beside Zoltan and stood waiting to be relieved of his burden, but Zoltan, energetically reducing a second piece of bread to crumbs and speaking in what sounded to Jamie like a foreign tongue, failed to notice him. While he waited, Jamie studied the bearded jaw bobbing up and down, like the jaw of a steam shovel, until, transported, Jamie began to growl softly from deep in his throat, imitating a motor and after a bit adding a soft high screech of
a shovel, loaded, turning on its swivel. Only after Mack silenced Jamie with a poke and scowl did Zoltan notice the plate resting on two small hands near his elbow, awaiting his attention. Finally relieved of his burden, Jamie, thrilled and terrified to have been caught for a second in the gleaming foreign eye, raced back to his mother for another, safer plate. “No running!” admonished Chloe enviously. Heather gave them each a warning look, but fortunately the men had buried themselves in talk and did not notice the small conspiracies at the lower end of the table.

THE CROSS-CONTINENTAL FLIGHT
in the 747, the fast drive, the wooded heights, the splendid house, and the extraordinarily attentive McKays gave Zoltan a heroic hope, as if the degradations of his past were about to be cleansed in the clear mountain air, as if some unimagined American miracle were about to unfold under the eye of this beneficent family. What might not be possible?