The Last of the Wise Lovers (14 page)

   What made me suddenly begin to
suspect him, just then?  Maybe it was what he'd said about our relations
with the Americans: `Alliance does not necessarily mean love'; or maybe it was
something else.  In any case, things began to fall into place: if Dad had
discovered that Mom was in love with someone else and was passing classified
slides to him, what would be more natural than for him to try and get them away
from one another?  After all, that's what happens in all those love-spy
triangles I see on TV or read about in books.

   And that thought led to another
thought.  Does he really intend to carry out his threat, or is he just
trying to scare her?  For instance, that cough I'd heard at Kennedy.
 Had it been
that
guy?  And if so, had he just happened to be
there, or had he set the whole thing up with Dad ahead of time, so that they
could plan their next scare tactic - except that then he'd seen me and had had
enough sense to keep his distance?

   I don't remember much about that
subway ride, just an awful headache and a burning in my ears.  When I got
to the library, I spent a couple of extra minutes in the first floor washroom
drinking some water from the fountain and washing my face.

   There was good news and bad news waiting
for me in the Catalog Room.  The good news was that Ms. Yardley hadn't
come to work because some pipe had burst in her apartment.  The bad news
was that Mr. K., the man I wanted to talk to more than anyone else in the world
that day, hadn't come either.  He was sick.

   There was a new atmosphere in the
Catalog Room.  The regular customers moved around, talked, even breathed
freer.  For the first time in her life, Mrs. Kahn went out to lunch; she
came back all enthusiastic about some salad bar near Penn Station.  The
guard permitted himself to puff out his cheeks and whistle
Summertime
.
 He even greeted Miss Doherty with a cheery, "Hello."

   But Miss Doherty was not in a very
cheery mood.  She looked back at the guard dismally, shot a quick glance
over at my station, and continued on to the Reading Room.

   Nothing else happened except for a
long stretch of boredom, which again proved that intelligent readers know how
to find books all by themselves.  My mind wandered.  Was there
somebody snooping around our house at this very moment?  What stupid
mistake was Mom going to make next?  Where was Dad?  Was there
something else I could have done, but hadn't?  I wandered around the
Catalog Room lost in thought, starting whenever somebody coughed or cleared his
throat.  None of these noises sounded like
that
cough, but they
made me jumpy, anyway.  Mr. K.'s absence also bothered me.  In
retrospect, I was sorry I hadn't taken the slide back from him and destroyed
it.  I felt I wouldn't be calm until it was back in my possession.  I
went upstairs. Mr. K.'s office was closed.  Hesitantly, I turned the
handle. The door was locked.  The square of window opposite gleamed dully
through the frosted glass.  I hoped that my slide wouldn't be blown out
the window by the wind.  My heart heavy, I went back to the Catalog Room
and helped two kids find a book of Spanish poetry.  Then I went to the
bathroom.  Purposely I went to the third floor bathroom - the one the
administrators used - in order to pass Mr. K.'s office again. Again I tried the
door, which was still locked.  After spending five minutes in the
bathroom, I went by Mr. K.'s office a third time.  This time, there was
something amiss.

   You remember the square of window
that sort of shone through the frosted glass in the door?  Well, it was
still there, still the same pale grey, still the same square shape, but with
dull waves that could only mean one thing: someone was inside.

   Naturally I thought of Mr. K., who
must have come in in the meantime - what cause would I have had to think
otherwise?  I tapped lightly on the door.  There was no response.
 That wasn't particularly unusual, either.  I assumed he was busy
with something, or else taking a cat nap to fight the pain.  I knocked
again.  The dull waves became a shadow, which moved quickly from one side
to the other.  The lock made a soft, well-oiled click.

   "Mr. K.?" I said. "Mr.
K."

  
There was no longer any movement in front of the glass.  I tried the door
knob.  The door didn't open.  I assumed he hadn't recognized my
voice.  Again I knocked on the door.  "Mr. K., it's Ronny.
 I've got to talk to you."

   He didn't answer.

   It was a little insulting, if you
consider how open I'd been with him during our previous conversation.  I
was willing to try something else.  "If you can't open the door, it's
all right.  I'd just like my envelope back.  You can slide it under
the door."

   When I think back on it now, it seems
I just couldn't accept the possibility that he might ignore me; at the time,
though, I thought up a variety of excuses: what if he had fainted - or worse.
 "Mr. K.," I called out, "are you all right?"

   He didn't answer.

   "Do you need help?  Should
I call for someone?"

   There still was no answer, but
something moved inside.  The lock clicked again, and the door knob turned.
 The door opened a crack.

   I pushed it open.  Whoever was
on the other side was pushed to the corner of the room, so that I had to go inside,
close the door behind me, turn all the way around, and adjust my eyes to the
dim light before I could see who was standing opposite me.  Miss Doherty.

   She didn't look as sheepish as I
would have expected of someone caught in an office not his own.

"Hi," she said drily.

   "Hi," I answered.

  
She
pointed at the table.  "You said that something here belongs to
you."

   Next to the globe-light and the books
lay a pile of documents, receipts, bills, pictures, and envelopes.  I took
one step in the direction of the desk, but then I remembered that the slide
spelled trouble, lots of trouble, and that I therefore couldn't admit any
connection to it.  I stopped.

   "Go right ahead," she said.

   I could have asked her what exactly
she was doing there, but she exuded such confidence that it didn't even occur
to me.  I thought back to the day I'd seen her in the stacks.  I
wondered what she was intending to take with her this time, and whether she
would stash it, too, in her underwear.  I looked at the bottom half of her
body, which was encased in a rather tight pair of white jeans.  Instantly
my mouth went dry, and my heart started pounding.  I think I probably
blushed, too.

   She interpreted my reaction
differently.  "If you're thinking of making a stink about this, you
ought to know that I have the full right to be doing what I'm doing."

   I didn't respond.

   She waited a moment.  Then she
strode confidently back to the desk and took up where she had left off:
dividing the large pile of papers into two smaller piles.  The light from
the window made her hair shine, and emphasized her cheekbones.  I wondered
whether older women really were more attractive than seventeen-year-old girls,
or whether I was warped.  After a minute or two she stopped what she was
doing and looked up at me quizzically.  All I could manage to say was,
 "He'll sense that someone was snooping around here."

   She looked at the wad of
prescriptions in her hand and said, "You said that you knew him."

   I nodded.

   "And you really think he'll
sense something?"

   "He looks absent-minded, but
he's sensitive and intelligent."

   She put the papers down and sank into
Mr. K.'s chair.  I also sat down, in a chair opposite.  The desk
between us wasn't very large, and we were so close I could see the flecks in
her irises.  But what really impressed me was her face, which spoke
without saying a word in a play of muscular twitches and changing expressions.
 A million thoughts raced through my head all at once: what did she want
to say, to what extent was she one of the "bad guys", and how come it
didn't matter to her that there were crows' feet in the corners of her eyes,
while Mom went into a frenzy of despair every time she noticed the barest
wrinkle.

   "Exactly how close are
you?" she asked quietly.

   I was afraid I'd gotten both Mr. K.
and myself in trouble.  I nodded my head vaguely.

   She didn't give up.  "For
example, did you ever go out with him?"

   I recalled the night he'd run away
from me, on 42nd Street.

"No," I answered, and I thought: I wish
we
had
had a chance to go out...

   "What
exactly
do you know
about him?"

   I could have explained that I really
didn't know very much at all, perhaps less than she did, but I preferred to
say, "I won't help you get him in trouble."

   "What makes you think I want to
get him into trouble?"

   "You can't have broken in here
in order to help him."

   "Actually, that's precisely what
I've done."

   She sounded like she actually meant
it.

"Aw, come on," I said.  "I saw
you get your computer stuck on purpose that day you asked me for help, and now
this...” I pointed at the stacks of papers.

   She didn't bat an eye.
 "Somehow, I get the impression that not everything's on the up and
up with you, either, Ronny."

   "How do you know my name?"

   "You know my name, too."

   "I filled out your forms for
you."

   "And I asked."

   "Why?"

   She was taken aback for a second, but
regained her composure immediately.  "Because I thought you might be
able to help me understand a few things...”

   "Why should I help you when I
can't even figure out who you are, when I've caught you poking around in his
office?"

   "What I'm doing is not meant to
do him any harm.  Quite the contrary: it's for his own good."

   "How?"

   "I can't explain that to you.
 Not now."

   "What
can
you explain to
me?"

   She hesitated momentarily, then
impatiently exhaled a gust of breath.  Her eyes hardened.

"Forget the business about helping him,
ok?"  She stood up.  "I'm going to stay here another two or
three minutes.  If you want - go call whoever you want.  And if not,
just forget you ever saw me here."

   I got up, too.  It was all such
a weight on me.  She was just one link in a chain of things I didn't
understand, and, as usual, there was nothing I could do, because
anything
I did would bring harm to at least one of the people I cared about.

"I won't tell anyone."  I looked
for the last time at the piles of papers and wondered whether she had put the
envelope with the slide in it into the pile she intended to take with her.
 I felt defeated.  On the way to the door I caught her glance.
 It was surprisingly warm and sympathetic. That made me feel a bit better.

She said: "Ronny."  I turned
around.  "Thanks," she smiled, and suddenly, without warning,
shook my hand and closed the door.

   On the way to the Catalog Room I
started to hate myself.  I sensed that my attraction to her had interfered
with my sense of judgment, that it was the real reason I hadn't grabbed the
slide from her and gotten her away from Mr. K.'s papers.  It wouldn't have
hurt so much if I hadn't have realized that the romantic circumstances for my
failing the test of loyalty to Mr. K. and my family were so like the
circumstances of a similar failure of someone I knew: Mom.

*

   When I got home, I again found an
empty house.  That is: Aunt Ida was home, but she had already become part
of the living room furniture.  And Mom had left one of her usual notes.
 ("Ronny my love, I'll be back late, there's some dinner on the stove
and fruit on the table. I picked up a gorgeous shirt for you at a surprise sale
at Conway's, maybe that'll improve your mood.")

   The `dinner on the stove' was some
dried up stuff from a can.  Only after poking around in the garbage to
find the empty tin could I discern what it was: Heinz's bean and rice mixture.
 I sat down to eat.  All of a sudden, Aunt Ida showed up.  I
offered her some.  She twisted her face in disgust.

"He's a spy, Ronny," she said without
warning, "I'm telling you."

   "Who?" I asked, wiping the
sides of the pot with some bread.

   "You know who."  She
winked.  "That good-for-nothing.  Do you think if he weren't a
spy he'd have a job?"

   It was clear she was talking about
Dad, who, at the moment, was the most problematic element of my life: plotting
and threatening on one hand, but still worthy of a lot of love and esteem for
all the difficult days he spent working, and for all that Mom put him through.

"You don't know what you're saying, Aunt
Ida," I said and went off to my room.  Once there I plopped down on
the bed, slid one shoe off, and immediately fell fast asleep.

   I woke up in the middle of the night.
 The house was quiet.  I glanced at the clock: 3:00.
 Nevertheless, I had the sensation that something had happened just a
minute before I'd awakened: noise, maybe some movement.  I got up to
check.  The hall was dark.  So was Mom's room.  In the living
room - as usual - the blue light of the television danced before Aunt Ida's
closed eyes.  I turned it off.  The only light left was that coming
from below, from the garage.

   Then I remembered the sound that had
woken me: the slamming of the garage door into the ceiling.  The sound of
steps echoed on the other side of the wall.  I waited in the hall, pressed
against the wall beside our huge Warhol poster.  It was Mom.  She
stopped at the head of the stairs and sighed in fatigue, then shook off her
high heels and went toward the kitchen.