The Last of the Wise Lovers (11 page)

   I was afraid to destroy it, or do
anything else to it that would be final and irreversible.  I still wasn't
sure it wasn't important to one of the people involved, and that I wouldn't be
sorry if it wasn't in my possession at some undetermined time in the future.

"Could you hold onto it?"

   He hesitated, thoughtful a moment.
 Then he nodded, took the slide from me, put it back in the envelope, and
placed it in his desk drawer.

   I felt a need to minimize the worth
of his gesture, to balance the overwhelming gratitude that welled up in me and
was likely to overflow into some stupid outpouring of emotion.  "It's
less dangerous if they find it on you, than if they find it on us...”

   "I think it's more dangerous for
me than you understand," he noted judiciously.  "From this
moment on I'm aware of the fact that someone is
spying in this country, and while in your case there may be extenuating
circumstances, and while the others may have their own motives, I, as a loyal
citizen, am expected to immediately inform the police or proper authorities...”

   "If so, why are you doing
this?" I couldn't help asking.

   "Perhaps... perhaps because I
remember myself at your age," he coughed spasmodically and spit into a
tissue.  "No," he shook his grey face, "that's not the
reason."

   "What is the reason?"

   "Why do you want to know?"

   "It will make me feel more
secure."

   He wiped the corners of his mouth
with the tissue. "I don't know if you should feel so secure.  Perhaps
it's better if you stay alert." Nevertheless, for a minute he looked like
he was going to start to tell me, but immediately he glanced at his watch and
said, "In any case, we haven't any more time."

   But I had all the time in the world
and all the desire in the world to get to know him.

"We could meet later," I suggested.

   He shook his head so vigorously that
he began to cough again.

 "No. Not now...” he took off his
glasses and, turning to me with his soft gaze, he seemed more than ever like
that drawing of Lord Byron.  "Actually, that's why you can trust me.
 Under normal circumstances I might weigh how to act.  Today, I see
no reason to torture myself with questions of moral obligation."

   I didn't understand any of it, at
least not then, but there was no point in asking any further.  He didn't
intend to say anything more.

   "Thanks," I said, just
because I had nothing better to say.  I lingered a moment by the door,
hoping something would happen.  But he just put the glasses back on his
nose and went back to concentrating on his papers.

   "Thanks," I said again,
closing the door behind me.

*

   After all that had happened between
me and Mr. K. I was left with the feeling that at least one person cared about
what I was going through.  At that point, that was enough.  That
evening, when I got off the bus, I was almost in a good mood.  I walked
along in the dark, whistling.  I could already see from the end of the
street that the house was dark, the garage open and empty.  Mom and Dad
had gone, each in his or her car.  I went into the garage and from there
into the house.  At the top of the stairs I pressed the light switch.
 The light in the kitchen flickered for a moment, then went out.

   I turned on the light switch next to
it.  The light above the door also flickered and went out.  There was
something rustling in the living room.

"Auntie Ida," I called.
 "Auntie Ida?"

   There was no answer.  I was
afraid to go in.  I waited by the door, pressed against the wall.
 There was someone inside, poking around soundlessly except for a low,
choked cough, as if he were clearing his throat of the remains of a meal.
 I stretched myself out along the length of the corridor and reached for
another light switch.  The bulb flickered and went out.  Another
cough, this time close by, then something small and agile passing me quickly.
 Instinctively I reached out to grab him, but he ducked under my arm,
skipped down the steps to the door in two wide strides, opened it, and vanished
outside.

   After a few moments of standing still
in the dark, completely confused, I went over and peered into the living room.
 In the dim light that came from outside I could see that the buffet
drawers had been pulled out of place, the TV was unplugged, and Aunt Ida wasn't
on her usual perch.  I turned on the light.  But here, too, it went
out.  I went into the kitchen.  The pantry cupboard was open, but
nothing was missing.  I found the box of light bulbs, went back to the
living room and unscrewed the burned-out
bulb
from the lamp.  Something small and round fell out.  I got down on
all fours and crawled on the rug.  All I found was a dime.  I went
back to the light above the door.  There, too, I unscrewed the light bulb.
 This time I cupped my hand under the socket. Another dime fell into it.
 I went through the same procedure in the kitchen, and then with all the
lamps in the immediate vicinity until I had almost a dollar's worth of small,
hot coins.

   I checked the other lights in the
house.  Then I went down to the basement and flipped the fuses back on.
 More than the intrusion by that little man, there was something frightening
about the systematic way he had prepared his escape route - right past me - by
interrupting all of the electrical circuits.  It only reinforced what I
already suspected: whoever had been there was no thief.  He had been
looking for something, and had searched all the buffet drawers, behind the
pillows on the couch, in the silverware drawers, the pantry, the bread box, the
night table in the bedroom, even Aunt Ida's suitcase.

   Aunt Ida!  I remembered with a
start.  I looked for her in the living room, in Mom and Dad's bedroom, in
the bathroom, even in my room.  Finally, when I had almost given up, I
went out on the kitchen porch to look in the yard and found her there,
crouching her old Indian crouch among the geraniums, snoring away.

   I shook her by the shoulder.
 "Auntie Ida, are you all right?"

   She opened one eye and puckered a
wrinkled cheek.

   "Did you see him?  Did you
talk to him?"

   "The Bar Mitzvah," she
said. "I was thinking about your Bar Mitzvah, it's about time we arranged
your Bar Mitzvah.  Marvin will take some pictures of you at the
Indianapolis Zoo, perhaps we'll take a trip to Chicago...”

   I led her inside and got her set up
on the couch.  She studied the drawers arrayed on the floor and the
pillows skewed on the couch. "Are you moving away?"

   I plugged in the TV and looked
around, trying to take in the damage.  Other than the buffet drawers piled
on the rug and a few signs of disorder nothing seemed amiss.  It was clear
that this quick little guy was no burglar; he had been after something very
specific - but what?

   After I had put the drawers back
where they belonged, the telephone rang.  I ran to the kitchen and picked
up the receiver.

"Hello," I answered.  No response.
 "Hello," I said again, but still there was no response.
 The other party didn't hang up, and he didn't do any of that heavy
breathing those perverts do.  He waited.  I could tell by his
hallmark: the little dry cough that sounded like faint background noise, or
like some disturbance on the line.  A moment later I realized that I had
heard that cough not only here, in this house, a few minutes before, but
somewhere else altogether: in the Lincoln Tunnel, when the guy who had broken
into the car had leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

   After a long while he said, "You
know the date and you also know who to warn."

   I was silent.

   "... and it's getting close.
 Another six days."

   He coughed again, and suddenly I
could picture him reaching out to press the cradle, disconnecting the call.

"Wait," I said.

   He hung up.

   It
was almost 10:00 p.m.  I was all alone and had no idea what to do with
myself and with the mix of anxiety, anger, and fear that I felt.  I
thought that it must be moments like these that drove people to start smoking
or drinking or going crazy, but I was not yet used to any of these, so I just
went to the refrigerator and got some ice cream.  When I opened the
freezer I found what that guy might have been looking for, and what he
undoubtedly would have found had I not interrupted him: Mom's yellow notebook.

   It practically wasn't even hidden,
just tossed under some packages of frozen beef and frozen bread, wrapped in
several plastic bags encircled by a rubber band.  Before opening it, I
looked outside. Everything was dark and quiet.  Aunt Ida was staring at an
ancient horror flick in the next room.  I went into the garage and closed
the electric door.  If anyone came home I
would hear the car and the thud of the door hitting the ceiling.
 Then I removed the plastic bags one by one, careful to remember what
order they had been in.  In the middle, the telephone rang.  I
grabbed the receiver with frozen hands.  It fell and bashed against the
wall.  

When I picked
it up again I heard Debbie whisper, "Hey, Ronny. What's that noise?
 Are you all right?"

   "My fingers are frozen," I
explained.  "I'm cleaning the freezer."

   "Didja miss me?"

   "Yeah."

   "Well, we'll be together soon.
 My parents are taking off again, to Maine, to take my brother back to
prep school.  Your mom suggested I come stay with you guys.  We
talked a bit...  she's really a super woman, you know, she's really cool,
and yet she's so... so polished and refined.  She said she's got a couple
of shirts she thinks I'll really like, and she promised to show me how to wear
makeup better... boy," she sighed, "I wish my mom was so feminine and
sociable."

   Her mother was overweight and had a
fabulous sense of humor, but I wasn't in the right mood for giving out
compliments.

   "Do you promise to pay some
attention to me?"

   I promised.

   "And not to be so heavy and
serious and down and caught up in yourself?"

   "No," I said flatly.
 Mom's notebook was burning in my hand.

   "Why did you answer me like
that?"

   "How?"

   Now there was a note of despair in
her voice.  "What's happening to you, Ronny?  What's happening
to
us
?"

   "Nothing, everything's
fine," I said, thinking that that was just how Mom had been answering me
these last few days.

   "So, two days from now?"
she asked, trying to sound optimistic.

   "Two days from now," I
said, wondering what I was going to do with her over the next few days, and how
it had happened that just a few days earlier a visit from Debbie - with all
those chances to sneak into the room where she'd be sleeping at night - would have
been the best thing that could have happened to me, and now it seemed like just
a big bother.

   "You don't sound happy."

   "I'm happy."

   "Bye," she said dejectedly,
replacing the receiver.  I didn't have time to be sorry.  I went back
to the notebook.  This time there was no need for facial powder.
 Some of the pages were filled with numbers and letters that I didn't
understand, perhaps technical details related to the slides that had been
taken.  Half of the first page was taken up with the rough draft of a
letter.  It was not quite as poetic as the previous one, but I copied it
anyway:

         
“... alone with Yermi.  Everything was as usual: the effort to keep things
pleasant no matter what, the silence, the tension in the air and the good will,
which always comes too little and too late.  But none of this would have
been so difficult had I not been thinking of you and of what's been happening
between us lately.

         
You didn't ask this time, but I did what I was supposed to anyway.  Then I
called the usual number.  They answered immediately. Even the indirect
contact through people connected to you meant a great deal at that moment.
 I sat by the windowsill and watched the car. There's no point in denying
it.  I waited for you to come.  I hoped, and I ... I prayed.

         
I think I'll send you this letter today.  How simple it was when we could
talk on the phone and meet without limitation.  Could we just…”

   Here it broke off, as if she had
forgotten what she'd wanted to say or had been interrupted in the middle.
 But it didn't make much difference, since the little there was contained
an important new detail: The man Mom was in love with was also the man for whom
she stole documents from Dad, and photographed them.

   I read the letter again.  Then I
went to my room and read the copy of the previous letter.  I tried to put
together everything I knew about the man she loved.  It wasn't much -
actually, it wasn't anything, except for the wisdom she ascribed him and the
fact that they were teetering on the brink of separation.  As I wandered
back to the kitchen I wondered what my chances were of being able to convince
her to be cautious, not to get involved, to think of Dad and me - but
immediately I realized I hadn't a chance.  The two letters - especially
the sentence, `You didn't ask this time, but I did what I was supposed to
anyway,'  made me see just how deep in it she was.

   The letters expressed such a clear
preference for this one man above all others that I felt sorry for Dad, and
felt very angry at her. Then I remembered how she had waited by the window, and
I felt sorry for her, too.  Finally I tried to imagine how he must feel,
getting these letters, and I hated him for loving her less than she loved him.
 Only after contemplating this for a few minutes did I realize that what I
felt for him wasn't hatred, but intense envy.