by Marc Levy
“When did you . . . ?” she asked.
“Yesterday, as we were leaving the wharf. You were walking ahead, not paying me any mind. The artist must have been so pleased with my generous tip, she gave it to me free of charge.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I thought it might make you happy. You spent such a long time gazing at it.”
“No, seriously: tell me why.”
Anthony took a seat on the sofa and at last met his daughter’s eyes.
“We need to talk. I hoped this day would never come, and what I’m about to tell you I truly wish could be left unsaid, especially during our time here together, since it’s bound to ruin everything. I can just imagine your reaction. And yet, all your little ‘signs’ seem to be saying one thing and one thing only: the time has come—”
“Cut the theatrics,” she said abruptly.
“I have reason to believe that Thomas—your Thomas—is not exactly dead after all.”
Adam was livid. He had made a point of traveling without luggage so he could make a quick getaway from the airport, but the passengers exiting a 747 from Japan were causing a bottleneck in customs. He glanced at his watch. The line of people that stretched before him would mean another twenty minutes of waiting before he could jump in a taxi.
Suddenly a word sprang up from the depths of his memory: “Sumimasen!” His work contact at a Japanese publishing house had used the word so often Adam thought apologizing must be a national pastime in Japan. “Sumimasen! Excuse me!” he repeated over and over, weaving and cutting a path through the line of people. Ten sumimasens later, Adam finally reached the front of the line and presented his passport to the Canadian customs officer, who promptly stamped it and gave it back. Ignoring the rule against using cell phones at baggage claim, he took out his phone, turned it on, and dialed Julia’s number.
“Is that your phone ringing? Sounds like it’s coming from your room,” said Anthony, once more avoiding Julia’s eyes.
“Don’t you dare try to change the subject! I’m asking again, what does that mean, ‘not exactly dead’?”
“Well . . . you could even say he’s . . . alive. Yes, I suppose that’s the appropriate choice of words.”
“Thomas is alive?” said Julia, growing visibly unsteadier by the moment.
Anthony nodded.
“How do you know this?”
“From the letter. The one he wrote. Typically speaking, the dearly departed aren’t in the habit of composing letters. Myself being the exception, of course.”
“What letter?” asked Julia, the ground shifting beneath her feet.
“The one that arrived, addressed to you, six months after his accident. The postmark said Berlin. His name was on the envelope.”
“That’s impossible. Because I never received any letter from Thomas!”
“You couldn’t have, because you’d left home and were living on your own, and I couldn’t forward it to you because I didn’t have your address.” Anthony deflated, his shoulders slumping. “There, it’s done. You can add another one to the list.”
“What list?”
“The list of reasons why you hated me.”
Julia stood up and shoved back the entire table, glaring at her father.
“Whatever happened to no past tense? Because I can tell you, that one is very much in the present!” she shouted, storming out of the room.
Her bedroom door slammed behind her. Anthony, alone in the middle of the room, sat down in her place, with the spread of pastries sitting untouched right in front of him.
“What a waste,” he sighed.
It was impossible to cut to the front of the taxi line. A uniformed woman stood guard, directing each person to a cab. Adam was forced to wait for his turn. He dialed Julia’s number again.
“Will you answer the phone already? The ringing is driving me up the wall,” said Anthony as he came into Julia’s bedroom.
“Get out.”
“For God’s sake, Julia, it was almost twenty years ago.”
“Right. Twenty years! And you never found an opportunity to tell me?” she screamed.
“It was twenty years in which opportunities for us to really talk were few and far between,” he replied firmly. “And it may have been for the best at that time anyway. What good would it have done? You were just getting back on your feet, and I didn’t want to see you throw that away for one small letter. You had just landed your first job in New York, living in a studio on Forty-Second Street. You had a new boyfriend, a theater type, if I remember correctly. Or maybe it was the chap with the dreadful paintings at that gallery in Queens, the one you dumped right after you got a new job and a new hairdo. Or was it the other way around?”
“How do you know all this?”
“Just because my life never piqued your interest doesn’t mean I didn’t find ways of keeping up with yours.”
Anthony looked at his daughter for a long moment and then turned to go. She called him back.
“Did you open it? The letter?”
“I would never read your mail,” he said, turning back to her.
“Where is it now?”
“It’s in your old room, right where it’s been since the days when you called that place home. It’s in your desk drawer. I thought that was the best place for it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about it before?”
“As you may recall, you never wanted to see me again. The one time you called was because I had caught sight of you through the window of that shop in SoHo, not because you had actually started to miss your father after all that time. You make it sound like you were my own personal punching bag, but you threw a fair number of jabs yourself.”
“That’s our relationship to you? A boxing match?”
“I should hope not. I’ve seen your uppercut.”
Anthony placed an envelope on her bed.
“I’ll leave this with you,” he added. “I should have said something earlier, but . . . I never had the chance.”
“What is it?”
“Return tickets to New York. I had the concierge book them early this morning while you were sleeping. I had a hunch our father-daughter time would come to an end after this conversation. Get dressed, pack your bag, and meet me in the lobby. I’ll go settle the bill.”
Anthony closed the door gently behind him.
The highway was clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic, so the taxi driver opted for Rue Saint-Patrick, but the gridlock was just as dense there. The driver suggested they get back on the 720 up ahead and cut across Boulevard René Lévesque. Adam didn’t give a damn about the route, as long as it was fast. The driver sighed and insisted there was nothing he could do, and that being impatient wasn’t going to help matters. They’d get there in a half hour, maybe less if the traffic cleared up within the city. After a sarcastic quip about people saying taxi drivers were the crabby ones, the driver turned up the radio and cut off the possibility of further conversation.
The tip of a skyscraper in Montreal’s financial district was already appearing on the horizon, as the car continued onward toward the hotel.
With her bag hanging from her shoulder, Julia crossed the lobby and marched confidently toward the front desk. The concierge left the counter and strode out to meet her.
“Mrs. Walsh!” he exclaimed in an apologetic tone, arms spread wide. “Mr. Walsh is waiting outside. Your car is running late. Traffic is very heavy out there today.”
“Thank you,” Julia replied.
“We’re very sorry to hear that you’re cutting short your stay, Mrs. Walsh. I hope there was nothing about our service that caused the early departure?” he inquired.
“No, best croissants in town!” fired back Julia. “But once and for all: it’s Ms. Walsh, not Mrs.!”
She walked out of the hotel and found Anthony waiting for her on the sidewalk.
“Our car should be along any moment now,” he said. “Ah, there it is.”
A b
lack Lincoln pulled up in front of them. The driver popped the trunk before getting out to welcome them. Julia settled into the backseat, while the bellboy dealt with their luggage. Anthony walked around the back of the car. A taxi honked and missed hitting him by mere inches.
“Why don’t these people watch where they’re going?” Adam’s taxi driver lamented as he double-parked in front of the Hôtel Saint Paul.
Adam shoved a handful of dollars at him. Without waiting for change, he bolted out and made a dash for the revolving door. At the front desk, he introduced himself and asked for Ms. Walsh’s room.
Outside, the black town car was boxed in by the taxi. The cab’s driver was casually counting his money and seemed in no hurry.
“Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Walsh have already checked out,” the woman at reception replied.
“Mr. and Mrs. Walsh?” Adam repeated with shock.
From his desk next to the receptionist, the concierge overheard the exchange. He rolled his eyes, before introducing himself.
“May I be of any help to you, sir?” he asked, twitching slightly.
“Did my fiancée stay at your hotel last night?”
“Fiancée?” the concierge asked, looking over Adam’s shoulder at the street outside.
The town car was still sitting there, blocked in.
“Ms. Walsh?” Adam asked.
“Ms. Walsh did indeed stay with us last night, but I’m afraid she has already left.”
“Okay. She left alone?”
“I really couldn’t say, sir,” replied the concierge, his anxiety growing stronger by the moment.
A chorus of honking horns came from outside, and Adam turned to look toward the source.
“Sir?” the concierge intervened, trying to distract Adam and keep his eyes away from the town car. “Perhaps we could offer you something to eat? Compliments of the—”
“Your receptionist said ‘Mr. and Mrs. Walsh.’ Sure sounds like she meant two people. So was she alone or wasn’t she?” Adam persisted firmly.
“My colleague must have been mistaken,” the concierge replied, shooting daggers out of his eyes at the young woman. “We have many clients. Can I offer you a coffee? Some tea?”
“How long ago did she leave?”
The concierge took a stealthy glance outside. The black car finally pulled away from the curb, and he sighed with relief as it disappeared down the street.
“Quite some time ago, I’d say,” he replied. “Let me show you to the dining room. Our fruit juices are second to none, and breakfast is of course on the house . . .”
13.
Julia kept her nose glued to the airplane window the whole way home. She and her father didn’t exchange one word during the entire flight.
Every time I was on a plane, I’d watch for your face in the clouds, imagining your features among the forms stretching across the sky. I wrote you twice a week, maybe a hundred letters, and got as many in response. We promised we’d be together again, as soon as I’d saved enough money. When I wasn’t studying, I worked every chance I got, so that one day, I could come back to you. I waited tables, ushered at theaters, handed out flyers. I spent every moment on the job imagining the morning when I would finally land in Berlin to find you waiting for me at the airport.
I spent countless nights falling asleep just picturing your face, remembering the laughter that overcame us as we walked the streets of that gray city. When I was alone with your grandmother, she used to tell me not to grow too attached to you. She said our relationship couldn’t last, that there were too many differences between us—a girl from the West and a boy from the East. It would never work. I thought it was sweet how she tried to protect us. But every time you came home and took me in your arms, I looked over your shoulder and smiled at her, just waiting to prove her wrong. When my father forced me into that car waiting out on the street, I screamed your name up at your window, wanting with all my heart for you to hear.
I was working at a restaurant when the evening news spoke of an “incident” in Kabul that had killed four journalists, one of them German. I knew right away that it was you. The TV anchor said your car had hit a land mine left behind by Soviet troops. My blood ran cold, and I fainted behind the wooden counter where I’d been drying glasses. It was as though fate wanted to snuff out your light, to keep you from living with the freedom so lacking in your youth. The newspapers didn’t provide any details, just four deaths. That was enough for their viewers. What did their names matter, let alone their lives and those they left behind? Deep inside, I knew you were the German journalist they were talking about. It took me two days to contact Knapp. During those two days, I couldn’t eat a thing.
When Knapp finally called me back, I knew from his voice that he had lost his best friend and that I had lost the only man I had ever loved. My best friend, he repeated, over and over again. He felt guilty for having helped you become a reporter. I tried to console him, even though my soul had been shredded to pieces. He had offered you a chance to become the person you wanted to be. I told him how frustrated you had been that you were never able to find the right words to thank him. Knapp and I kept talking about you, as though it would make your presence linger a while longer. He said your remains would never be identified. An eyewitness had reported that the truck you were riding in had been blown to pieces when it hit the mine. Chunks of sheet metal were scattered across the ground, stretching out in a hundred-foot perimeter. In the spot where you died, all that remained was a gaping crater and a twisted metal carcass—a testament to the absurdity of men and their cruelty.
Knapp would never forgive himself for having sent you to Afghanistan. Between sobs, he told me about how you had only gone as a last-minute replacement. How different things could have been . . . if you hadn’t been nearby to answer that call. I later realized that Knapp had given you the most beautiful gift imaginable. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” your best friend repeated as he wept. I was incapable of shedding a single tear. Crying would have taken a little more of you away from me. I couldn’t even bring myself to hang up after the call. I set the receiver on the counter and wandered out into the street. I walked without knowing where I was headed. Around me, the hustle and bustle continued, business as usual in the city, as though nothing had happened.
None of the passersby that morning knew that somewhere on the outskirts of Kabul, a thirty-year-old man named Thomas had died. Who would have even suspected? Who would have cared? Who could comprehend that I would never see you again and that my world would never be the same?
I didn’t eat for two days. Did I mention that already? It doesn’t matter. Just remembering what it’s like to talk to you is worth repeating everything twice. Eventually, I collapsed on a street corner.
Thanks to you, I met Stanley. We were friends from the moment we met. He came out of the room next to mine and began walking down the hospital corridor. He looked like he was lost. My door was open, and he stopped, looked down at me lying in my bed, and smiled with sadness. His lips trembled as he struggled to say the words I could not bring myself to utter. “He’s dead,” said the man I would later know as Stanley. And I echoed the words right back at him. “Yes, he’s dead.”
Perhaps I was able to open up to him because I didn’t know him. It’s never the same with someone you know. Somehow, when you confide in a stranger, the truth still seems reversible. He talked to me about his friend, and I talked to him about you. That’s how we met, Stanley and I, on a day when we both lost the one we loved. Edward died from AIDS, and you from another pandemic ravaging the human race. Stanley sat at the foot of my bed and asked if I’d been able to cry yet. I told him the truth, and he admitted he hadn’t either. He extended his hand, and I took it in mine. Together we shed our first tears, the tears that at last carried you far away from me, and Edward from him.
Anthony Walsh refused the drink the flight attendant offered him. He glanced behind him. The cabin was nearly empty, but Julia had preferred to sit ten rows
back, next to the window. Her gaze remained lost in the sky.
When I got out of the hospital, I decided to leave home. I tied a red ribbon around your hundred letters and left them in the desk drawer of my childhood bedroom. I didn’t need to reread them to remember. I packed a suitcase and left without saying goodbye to my father. I was incapable of forgiving him for separating us. I used the money I had saved to start a new life far away from him. A few months later, I began my career as an artist and my new life without you.
Stanley and I spent all of our time together. That’s how our friendship grew. He was working at a Brooklyn flea market at the time. We had a routine of meeting in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, where we would sometimes stay for hours, leaning against the guardrail and watching the boats drift up and down the river. Sometimes we’d walk along the promenade on the Brooklyn side. He’d talk to me about Edward, and I’d tell him about you. When we both went our separate ways, he’d have a little piece of you to take with him.
In the morning, I would search for your shadow among those of the trees extending out across the sidewalk. I looked for the lines of your face in the glimmering reflections on the Hudson. I listened in vain for your voice in the sound of the wind blowing through the city. For two years, I relived every moment we had spent together in Berlin. Sometimes I’d laugh about the way we had been. I never stopped thinking about you.
I never got your letter, Thomas, the letter that would have told me you were still alive. I don’t know what you wrote. That was almost twenty years ago, but I have the strangest sensation—as though you sent it yesterday. Maybe after all those months without hearing from me, you wrote to say you weren’t waiting around anymore. Maybe you wrote to tell me that too much time had passed and I had been gone too long. Or that we had come to a point where your passion for me had started to wither. Love can fade into autumn when feelings grow distant, when emotion is merely a memory . . . Maybe you stopped believing in our love. Maybe I lost you some other way. And now . . . nearly twenty years is a long time to wait for a response to a letter.
