Worlds Apart (8 page)
“What now? What now?”
Kurt had answered the ring at the front door expecting to be annoyed with yet another dessert or casserole. What exactly was he supposed to do with all of them, an entire
kitchen
full of them? He didn’t have the slightest desire to eat at all, and now he was the only resident of his house, with more food in the larder than there had been with
four
of them living together years ago!
“Mr. Kurt Smith?” the taller of the two policemen asked.
“Yes. That’s me.” Kurt’s teeth were clenched, and he was angry with himself for his petulant reaction, as well as at the officers for disturbing him.
“I apologize, sir, but we have some bad news.”
Bad news.
Kurt’s stomach
constricted,
and he wondered what the hell he’d have to deal with now. And then as he weighed the possibilities he relaxed; they’d probably caught the burglar – finally! –
and
hadn’t been able to recover Kurt’s things. It couldn’t be something worse than that; what could happen that was worse than the past few weeks?
“There was an auto accident, sir.
On the highway.”
Oh, good. The jerk bought it. A fitting end, Kurt thought.
“There were two occupants in one of the vehicles.
A Jonathan Smith and an Amy Reinhardt.
Both were killed.”
And as Kurt’s eyes widened and once again he found himself staring at the frozen world behind the policemen, the world outside his front door that appeared to have stayed exactly the same throughout all of the heartbreaking events that seemed to be the only events occurring anywhere on earth, a knife-like pain lanced through his head, beginning above his right ear and heading diagonally south before fracturing to puncture every sane concept Kurt had ever held true.
Not possible, not possible!
“Not possible,” Kurt said aloud, his voice groggy and thick.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’ve verified everything. Jonathan is your son, we believe.”
“Not possible,” Kurt repeated, and as he did so he shut the front door in the officers’ faces. He slumped to the floor, leaning his back against the door as if to ward off any further intrusions from outside.
“Sir?”
A hearty pair of knocks.
“Sir?
We need to talk with you for just a couple more minutes.
If you could open the door just for a minute, sir.”
“WHAT?” Kurt yelled hoarsely. He sounded like an animal.
There was silence, and then a muted discussion from behind the door, and then a throat was cleared.
“We
are
sorry, sir. We do need someone – you, or perhaps another relation – to fill out some paperwork. And we also need help with an official
– ”
Kurt shook his head in disgust and anger. The officer’s voice had trailed off in volume, but he knew what the next word was:
identification
. Yet again, they needed Kurt to
identify
a body so they could officially tag it, close it,
end
it. Wrap it up in a neat little box with a ribbon and a bow so the paperwork could be efficiently disposed of along with the remains.
Kurt stood, shakily, and made his way to Johnnie’s former room, which after Johnnie moved out was the guest room, and now was the room in which Kurt slept since he couldn’t stomach the thought of lying where his wife’s body had so recently bloodied the sheets.
What now, what now?
The echo of his testy query to the policemen kept repeating itself in Kurt’s head.
What now, indeed?
*
*
*
*~
Kurt had been lying in the dark for hours.
A delirious state of being half awake, half asleep, half dead, half a human being.
Over the course of the afternoon, he had heard more rings at the front door, more knocks,
more
entreaties. It was the same pair of officers, he knew; the polite ‘sirs’ and ‘apologies’ kept knocking, too.
It was dark outside. And Kurt knew he had to rise at some point.
How could so many of those close to him be dead?
First the baby, then Reginald killing himself, then Elyse and Johnnie and Amy.
It was unreal, it was impossible.
It was abominable.
Kurt dreaded getting up. How could he face yet another funeral? How could he even face getting through a single day? What exactly
were
his retirement years and his hobbies to him now? Thin shavings of what could have
been,
the fine remnants of a dream.
Kurt pulled his knees toward his chest, and made
himself
into as tight of a ball as he could manage. The tears began again, and he could hear them dropping onto the sodden pillow beneath his head.
He had taught for so many years, always using optimistic texts for translation, constantly infusing his students with positive messages about what they could do with their lives, how their influence could change others, change society, change everything that was disreputable and impure about the world.
Where was Kurt going to find that optimism now? It was
his
world that had changed, all patently for the worse. And after all the deaths, it was only he and Sonya who were left out of six Smith family members – and one, Amy, who was about to join them.
Sonya!
Kurt unfurled himself and sat up. His head began to spin. He needed water, liquid, something to eat.
He had to tell her about her brother and Amy! Or had she already been informed by the police?
No, she wouldn’t have been. Kurt had been the contact they’d sought.
A parent, not a sister.
He rose, and stumbled to the kitchen.
A glass, the sink, drink
. The water downed in a single gulp, he filled the glass again and opened a cupboard. Crackers, perfect.
But if Kurt didn’t respond, if he was unable to perform his duties, the officers would search the
records,
find the
next
next-of-kin.
Kurt stuffed more crackers into his mouth, mashing them with his teeth and tongue, swallowing them hastily like an animal. He walked into the living room. It was so dark in the silent house that the police car parked by the curb appeared to be lit with spots. One officer was smoking; the other was making notes of some sort on a clipboard.
Kurt pulled himself together as best he could: shoes tied, shirt tucked in properly, hair pushed as neatly into place as he could manage.
He opened the front door. Cold air brushed past him, nipping at his ears, face, hands.
The officers had noticed. The cigarette was stubbed
out,
they strode toward the house with precise steps, caps tucked formally under their arms.
*
*
*
*~
And now Kurt had to call Sonya. The policemen had discussed with him the identification process; he was well familiar with it by this point, but had allowed them to detail everything without interruption.
They had tossed in more condolences, more stiff ‘sirs’ and such, but Kurt had let it all wash by. They were merely doing their job; no reason to make it more difficult for them as he had earlier in the day.
He held the telephone in his lap as he sat, exhausted, in his armchair. He’d asked the officers to give him fifteen minutes, and after he called his daughter, he’d allow them to drive him wherever it was they needed him to be.
Should he have just gone to Sonya’s apartment? Kurt didn’t know if he could face her with this in person. Was calling her the cowardly approach? Kurt had no idea, but the thought of dragging his hangdog self up three flights of stairs to darken Sonya’s doorway and tell her that yet
another
death, another
pair
of deaths had occurred
,
was the last thing he felt either of them could handle.
If either of them could truly handle this latest blow, anyway.
Kurt lifted the receiver and began to dial.
As Kurt had dreaded might happen, lunch was turning out to be a sad, sorry affair. Even his idea of bringing Sonya to one of her favorite restaurants near the center of town had backfired; her bleak gaze kept sweeping the establishment, a mournful despondency coloring her features as she no doubt remembered better meals, better times in the familiar locale.
Kurt had carefully driven his
Maybach
Cabriolet through the slushy streets, thinking that maybe a ride in his pride and joy would set a brighter tone for the day. It hadn’t. He’d felt ridiculous driving the big red car by himself, picking Sonya up so that then it was just the two of them sitting silently side by side in a vehicle that could easily seat six.
“Tell me again about you and Mama,” Sonya said while looking down at the tablecloth, her untouched main course cooling in front of her.
“What would you like to hear?” Kurt asked. He’d eaten a few bites of his beef filet, but it was tasteless, like everything else that had been set before them today.
“How you met. How you courted her.” Sonya hadn’t shifted her gaze at all. “You used to tell us stories all the time about your younger days. I want to hear them again.”
Kurt didn’t want to talk about the past. It could only create frightful comparisons with the present.
“You know how we met, right?” he asked gently.
Sonya nodded.
“A tennis court.
You were someone’s guest at a club, and you saw her playing.”
Kurt sensed a bittersweet smile making its way onto his face. “Yes. She was playing.
And laughing.
More laughing than playing, actually.”
“You stopped to watch her.”
“I did. I couldn’t help myself. My friend, Phillip, he kept tugging at me, trying to pull me along to the court he’d reserved. He had a pair of sisters with whom he’d arranged for us to play doubles.”
“Were they as beautiful as Mama?”
Kurt shook his head. “No. No one was. I’d never seen anyone so full of life, so incandescent. She stole the sun out of the sky, she was so radiant.”
“But you didn’t talk to her then, did you?”
“No! Oh, no! I couldn’t, I could only stare. Phillip whispered in my ear – I think he was embarrassed by my gawking – that I hadn’t a chance with her, that’s
Elyse
, hadn’t he
told
me about her? And could I please just walk the forty feet with him to where the sisters were waiting for us?”
A half smile appeared, but Sonya still didn’t look up. “But you met her anyway. You hit a ball into her court.”
“I did. I hit it so hard that neither Phillip nor the sisters would believe it was an accident. I was so afraid that your Mama’s game was going to end, that she’d leave the courts and I’d never see her again. I
had
to talk to
her,
I wanted to make her laugh like that myself, if I could.”
“Did you make her laugh that day?” Sonya asked.
“No. Well, yes, but she laughed
at
me. She called me Tarzan, or ape man, and she made a joke about was I aiming for the moon?”
“
Which was out that day.
”
“Yes. It was visible, and I looked up when she said that, and then I looked right at her and said that I
was
aiming for the moon, but that my bad shot had brought me to the sun instead.”
“And did she laugh at that?”
“No! But her tennis partner did, and Phillip and the sisters, who by then were standing by the fence that separated the courts. But Elyse, your Mama, she just looked directly at me and said, ‘That’s sweet. Complete bunk, but sweet.’ And I probably would have stood in that exact spot the entire day, but her partner tossed my ball at me and it actually bounced off my forehead, and then everyone was laughing, including me. And as I ran to chase it, she asked Phillip if he was planning on bringing ‘his mad poet’ to lunch at the clubhouse.”
“And Phillip said yes.”
“He said no! But he was kidding, and Elyse knew it, and she promised him she would help train both my tongue and my aim if we sat at her table. And I think even Phillip was amazed, for he told me later that she’d never spoken to him before, and here she knew his name, his family, and she was even courteous enough to ask the sisters to join us as well.”
Sonya looked up at her father. “You must have loved her so much.”
Kurt took a deep breath. “I did. I do. From that day forth, there was no one else for me. I only wanted her.”
“Did you plan to go to the same university? Or was it a coincidence?”
Kurt smiled. “It was an incredible coincidence. When we met, it was early summer. I’d already made my plans, she’d made hers. We had different majors – you know mine was languages – but I probably would have transferred if I’d found we were headed to different cities. Once we began seeing each other, that is.”
“When did you sit at the wishing well?” Sonya asked. She wasn’t looking her father in the eye anymore, but was staring at his chest, his arms,
his
chair.
“That was our third year. We took a short trip. We even pretended to be a married couple at the inn where we stayed.”
Sonya’s half-smile returned. “I remember that.”
“It was a tiny village, and it was near the end of term and both of us had just wanted to get away from the pressure of studying for exams. Mastering English and French as well as German
was
tedious work, and I was exhausted, both Mama and I were.”
Sonya closed her eyes. “I remember exams, too. Not the best time of life,” she said.
“No. We’d brought all of our study materials, but we never once cracked them open. We took walks, we read novels,
we
sat by the fireplace and held hands. And we found the wishing well, too.”
“Down the small street with the bakery.”
“Yes, tucked away in a little courtyard that we found after buying some bread and treats. It was out of a fairytale, an old wooden bucket cinched up with a rope, a seat large enough for two built into the stones. Mama was so excited, she wanted to plan our whole future right there, coin after coin dropped into the well.”
Sonya’s eyes opened and she looked at her father. “You wished for me.”
Kurt nodded. “We did. It was there that we wished for you.
And Johnnie.
And a home we could love.
And for our own parents to live long, healthy lives.
And for good food, good wine, good everything to be in our future.”
Sonya looked off to the side, toward the entrance to the restaurant. A lone tear emerged, ran alongside her nose, and came to rest on her upper lip. “The wishing well, Papa,” she said. “You should get your money back.”
But neither of them could smile at Sonya’s small attempt at a joke.
Kurt pushed his plate forward and caught the waiter’s attention. The waiter took one glance at Sonya and began to prepare the bill, signaling the busboy to clear the table.
The remainder of the meal was fraught with silence. The dishes cleared, Kurt pulled some bills out of his wallet, laid them atop the check, and then helped Sonya out of her chair.
They held hands as they walked slowly to the coatroom. A uniformed man then opened the door to the street for them, and they halted unsteadily before the valet. It was a busy avenue; trucks and buses rumbled by, pedestrians stepped briskly through the cold day with a sense of
purpose,
a streetcar clanged its way down the center of the street.
Kurt experienced his usual fretting over the idea of an unskilled valet driving his gorgeous
Maybach
, but handed over the ticket anyway.
Sonya suddenly pulled him close, burrowing her rich blond hair into the curve of Kurt’s neck. She nuzzled him in the same endearing manner with which Elyse had for so many years.
“I love you, Papa,” she said softly.
And then she released her father and turned to walk four steps toward the street.
But Sonya continued walking, without even glancing to her left as a truck bore down on her, as the driver smashed his brake pedal into the floorboard even though he already knew it was too late, as the truck’s metal grille first impaled, then crushed, then flung Sonya’s body into the air and fifty feet down the avenue.
