His father smiled. “Well, you used to be smaller. And now. You still bite your nails.” Involuntarily Nick moved his hands on the wheel, turning in his fingers. “Always something going on inside.”
You were going on inside, Nick wanted to shout. Instead, he said, “Do you have children? You and Anna.”
“No, there’s only you. We’re not so young.” He paused. “She’s nervous, you know, about you.”
“Why?”
His father shrugged. “She thinks you’ll change things.” He took out another cigarette. “But what is there to change?”
“Are you supposed to smoke those things? With your heart?”
“No, of course not. I’m not supposed to do anything. No excitement. If you listened to them, you’d be so careful you’d go without knowing the difference.”
“Is it bad for you? My being here?” A new thought.
“Very bad,” he said, teasing gently. “It’s the best thing in the world.”
The houses-smaller now, with patches of garden-were thinning out, and they could see the country ahead.
“Is this right?” Nick said.
“Yes, keep going. I want to show you something.”
“Are you going to tell me what?”
“It’s not a mystery,” he said, making it one. “Everything in its time.”
Nick glanced at him. There was an agenda, everything planned. And what was at the end? The Wallenstein, the switch of cars, the country. Step by step. Even their conversation now seemed to him a kind of testing, his father leading him further into his life, where nothing was open. Secrecy became a habit. He saw now that his father wanted to be sure of him somehow, and he felt unexpectedly wounded. Wasn’t it enough that he had come?
In the woods there were still blossoms on the trees, not the lush flowering of Virginia but a thin sprinkling of white, a Bohemian lace.
“Remember the dogwood,” his father said, seeing them too. “On 2nd Street? I wonder, is it still there?”
“Magnolia. I don’t know. The neighborhood’s changed.”
“But not the trees,” his father said, not hearing the shift in Nick’s tone.
“I’ve never been back. We sold it. Right after.”
“Ah. What became of Nora? Do you see her?”
“Just Christmas cards. She’s still there somewhere. Arlington, I think.”
“I always wondered, was she working for the FBI?” his father said easily. “Old Edgar had a real fondness for housekeepers.”
The words, like a trigger, exploded something in Nick. This was crazy, yet another descent through the rabbit hole. Even Nora. Who cares? It’s not important. He felt things fall away until there was nothing but the gulf of all the years between them. Why were they talking about this? The realtor view from Holeckova. Two bathrooms. Moscow in the snow. Surreal, all of it. They gave me a medal. Talk to me.
“I loved that house,” his father said dreamily.
It snapped again. Everything in its time. Now. He felt his breath shortening and gripped the wheel, bringing the car to a stop on the side of the road, his foot on the brake. He heard the motor, his own breathing, sensed his father turning in alarm.
“Why did you do it?” he said, his voice wavering, staring straight ahead, pulling the words out of himself, not enough breath for a wail. “Why did you leave me?”
Then there was no sound at all, a suspension even of air.
“I didn’t leave you,” his father said finally, in a whisper. “I left myself.” A distress real enough to touch. Nick knew it was true and knew that if he reached out for it they would lose the moment, put everything aside in some evasive forgetting.
“No,” he said, still looking at the wheel. “Me. You left me. Why did you?”
His father said nothing. Nick kept his eyes ahead, afraid to look. What could there be on his face but loss?
“I want to explain-” his father said weakly, then stopped.
“Why did you ask me here? What do you want from me?”
At this his father stirred, flustered. “If we could wait,” he said hoarsely. “The right time. So I can explain.”
“Now,” Nick said angrily, finally turning to him. “Tell me now. What do you want?”
His father met his eyes, the nervous fluttering gone, giving in. “I want to go home.”
Nick started driving, too stunned to do anything else. “Please, let me explain in my own way,” his father had said, and then, when he didn’t, Nick didn’t know how to press. The outburst had unnerved them both-they were afraid of each other now-so that driving seemed a form of apology. Don’t worry, I won’t do that again. It was safer to concentrate on the road.
“You know that’s impossible,” Nick said. But it had been impossible for him to come, and he had driven right in. A two-lane road, through the wire.
His father said nothing, determined to follow his own timetable, and Nick went back to the road, the ragged asphalt and lacy trees. Had he actually worked out the logistics? Nick’s imagination couldn’t take it in. Passports and border crossings and newsmen at the end, like the men in hats. No. Not that. It was a kind of metaphor, a way of talking, one of his father’s riddles.
“Turn up here.”
Nick saw the sign. “Terezin?”
“In German, Theresienstadt.”
“The model camp. Where they took the Red Cross.”
