“My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Dad repeated the quote and simultaneously refilled my glass. It was Christmas night, the remnants of the lavish meal that Edith had made were still on the table. Earlier that day, Dad and I had spent a half hour with Mom. I held her hand in mine and told her I was going to Paris tomorrow, and surely she had great memories of Paris from when she was an art student there after the war, and I promised her I’d find that little café she always talked about on the Rue Monge, and . . .
She kept on staring blankly at me. I stopped my inane monologue. I stood up and kissed her gently on the head, then turned to Dad and said, “She’ll die while I’m away.”
“And would that be a bad thing?”
I knew the answer to that question, and didn’t want to articulate it.
We went back to the house. We opened our presents. We drank champagne, then claret as we ate Edith’s wonderful food. After that, we moved our chairs by the fireplace and drank brandy while indulging in a game that Dad always won—a game called Quotations, in which each player tried to stump the other by, well, you don’t need to hear the arcane and complex rules that my arcane and complex father had dreamed up for this arcane and complex game.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
“Come on,” Dad said, “give it a shot.”
“It sounds Shakespearean,” I said.
“No, it’s biblical,” Edith said.
“Ten points,” Dad said. “And another ten if you can name the book from which it came.”
“Corinthians,” she said.
“Correct,” he said.
“You’re frightening,” I said to Edith.
“I will take that as a compliment.”
“Your turn, Edith.”
She smiled a small tipsy smile and started reciting:
“Oft fühl ich jetzt . . . und je tiefer ich einsehe, dass Schicksal und Gemüt Namen eines Begriffes sind.”
I laughed loudly and said, “Isn’t there a rule against quotes in the original German?”
“I was naturally going to provide a translation,” she said, her voice martini-dry. “And here it is: I often feel, and ever more deeply realize, that fate and character are the same conception.”
“Novalis,” I said. “Also known as the German poet Friedrich von Hardenberg.”
“Bravo,” Edith said.
“Twenty points for you,” Dad said, “and an additional ten points if you can give us the shortened, Americanized version of the quote.”
“That’s easy,” I said. “Character is destiny.”
The phone rang. As I was closest to it, I reached for it.
“Hello and Merry Christmas,” I said.
“Can I speak with Professor Latham, please?”
My pulse jumped. The receiver shook in my hand.
“Lizzie?” I whispered.
Silence. My father stood up, looking stunned.
“Lizzie?” I repeated.
Silence again. Then, “Mom?”
“Oh my God, Lizzie. It’s you.”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Where . . . where . . . ?”
The words weren’t forming properly.
“Mom . . . ?”
“Where are you, Lizzie?”
“Up in Canada.”
“Where in Canada?”
“Out west. Vancouver. Been here for, well, months, I guess.”
“And you’re okay?”
“Yeah, kind of okay. Got a job here. A waitressing job, nothing much, but it pays the rent. Got a little place. Got a friend or two now. It’s . . . really okay, I guess.”
She didn’t sound really okay, but she also didn’t sound really terrible either. And as much as I wanted to burst into tears now—and scream, “Do you know how often I thought you were dead?”—some small voice within me counseled prudence, and weighing each sentence with care before uttering it.
“So you went to Canada after leaving Boston?” I asked.
“Not exactly. Drifted around out West for a bit, then came up here. ’Course, I shouldn’t be working here—I’m totally illegal—but I managed to land myself some false Canadian ID. And I’m using the name on the ID, so everyone here knows me as Candace Bennett. Been using that name so much now that I even think of myself now as Candace Bennett.”
“It’s a nice name.”
“It’s all right. But hey, the reason I called Granddad’s is because I did phone home and got the message that you were now going to be in Paris . . .”
“That’s right. I’m leaving tomorrow. For around six months.”
“That’s cool. Dad going too?”
“No, your father’s staying behind.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“It’s all a little complicated to explain. But . . . I don’t suppose you were aware of the fact that a lot of people have been trying to find you over the last couple of months?”
“You mean like you and Dad and . . .”
“The police. When you went missing, everybody thought . . . some harm might have come to you. It was in all the papers.”
“I don’t read the papers. Don’t own a TV. Or a computer. Don’t even turn on the radio much. But I’ve got a little stereo in my room now, and I’ve found this place near me where you can buy old CDs for a couple of bucks, so I listen to a lot of music . . . and read. Great used-book shops in Vancouver. Lots of them.”
“It’s so wonderful to hear your voice, Lizzie. It’s so . . .”
I started to sob.
“Hey, no need for the tears, Mom . . .”
“It’s just . . . I am so happy to hear you, Lizzie. And if you like, I could come out to Vancouver tomorrow and . . .”
“No, I don’t want that,” she said, the tone now sharp. “I’m not ready for . . . I don’t—”
She broke off, sounding distressed.
“Lizzie, that’s all right. Really all right. I just thought . . .”
“You thought wrong. I’m still . . . ashamed. And if you tell me there’s no need to be ashamed, I’m going to put down the phone . . .”
“I’m not going to say anything.”
“Good, that’s good,” she said, still sounding agitated. “But when you get back from Paris, well, it all kind of depends on how I am then. My doctor here . . . When they found me sleeping on the streets a few months ago in East Vancouver—that’s where I bought the fake ID, you can get anything in East Vancouver—anyway, when they got me to this halfway house for the homeless, one of the social workers convinced me to see this psychiatrist, who kind of diagnosed me as having this bipolar thing. And he’s got me on these meds. And as long as I take the meds, I get through the day. And since I have been pretty good about keeping the pills popped, things are a lot more stable now. Like I can do the waitressing job, and I’m no longer thinking about throwing myself under the next subway train . . . even though Vancouver doesn’t have a subway. But I am getting through the day.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said, terrified of saying something that might make her end the call.
“It’s not wonderful, Mom. It’s shit. I hate being this way. I hate that I disappeared like that. I hate . . . myself. But . . . I do keep getting through the day. So . . .”
“Is there a phone number I might be able to call you on in the future?”
“I don’t want you to have my number, understand?”
“Whatever you say, Lizzie.”
Her tone downshifted a bit.
“But give me your number in Paris, if you’ve got one. I don’t promise anything, but . . .”
“If you ever feel like calling, anytime, I’ll ring you right back.”
“But that would mean giving you my number. No one gets this number. No one. Not even my friends. They’ve got my cell phone number, but not this number. That’s ’cause my number is my number. Got that? Got—”
She suddenly broke off. And said, “Oh shit, will you listen to me? I’m so fucked
up, I’m so . . .”
“You are not fucked up, Lizzie. And you have a lot of people who still love you.”
“Yeah, well, look, I’ve got to go now. Say hi to everyone, okay?”
“Will you take my Paris number?”
“Guess so.”
I gave it to her. Then asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“Going to work.”
“On Christmas Day?”
“We’re open. And I’ve got to split. So . . . Merry Christmas, Mom. And try not to worry too much.”
Click. The line went dead. I stood motionless for a few minutes, then put down the phone, then looked up at my father. We said nothing for a few moments, the shock setting in. Edith stood up and relieved me of the phone. Then, picking up the receiver, she dialed three numbers, grabbed a pencil and a pad off the side table, and then started taking down a number.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Via the wonders of digital technology,” Edith said, “I have just dialed star-six-nine, which plays back the number of the last person who called here. So here is your daughter’s number.”
She held up the pad.
“It’s a six-oh-four area code, which is definitely Vancouver. And if you’d like me to verify that it is her place . . .”
“She might freak if we ring her right back,” I said.
“If I dial star-six-seven before the number,” Edith said, “it hides the number of the person calling her. And if she answers, she won’t recognize me, because I will put on a very German accent. So . . .”
She dialed the number. I could hear it ringing. And ringing. And . . .
“It’s her voice mail,” Edith said, thrusting the phone in my hand. I listened: “Hi there, you’ve reached Candace Bennett. Leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you.”
I hung up before the telltale beep. I looked at my dad. I nodded affirmation that it was Lizzie’s voice. My father put his face in his hands and started to cry.
We drank most of the bottle of brandy that evening. Before I was too intoxicated to talk, I called Dan and told him the news.
“You are absolutely certain?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
No response as Dan choked back a sob.
“Thank you,” he finally said. “Thank you so much.”
“‘Everything is possible, everything is murky.’”
“What’s that?”
“Just a quote I’ve gotten fond of.”
“I’ll call you in Paris, okay?”
“All right,” I said.
Late that night, after Dad and Edith had gone to bed, I stood on the front porch, watching the snow fall, oblivious to the cold. I was drunk, elated, wrung out, trying not to imagine Lizzie’s months of sleeping in the streets, and full of serious maternal dread about her current state of mind.
I can’t leave, I told myself.
But what good will you accomplish by staying?
That’s not the issue. I just can’t leave.
Leave.
But it’s selfish.
Leave.
I tried to toss up multiple arguments; tried to rationalize myself into staying. But that voice in my head was obstinate, defiant, and unwilling to let me talk myself out of this again.
Leave.
The next morning, I called Detective Leary. He reacted calmly to the news, saying, “It’s nice to have a case that ends well, because they so rarely do.”
He said that he’d have to involve the Vancouver police to get an actual “make” on Lizzie’s identity. But as he was now aware of her fragile mental state, he would make certain they didn’t come near her, that it was all done surreptitiously.
“You know,” he said, “once word leaks out that she’s been found safely, Lizzie could find journalists on her doorstep . . .”
“Is there any way around that?”
“Let me talk to my boss. The fact that she might disappear again if subjected to media intrusion might make him sympathetic to doing something diversionary about informing the press where she’s living right now.”
“Has it been done before?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done now.”
On the drive over to the airport, I told Dad about my conversation with Leary and how I feared that Lizzie might fall into another vortex if she woke up one morning to find television cameras outside her place.
“The detective told you he’d handle it,” Dad said. “He’ll handle it.”
“But . . .”
“No buts. I know what you’re trying to do—and you won’t be allowed to do it. Not this time.”
“But—”
“Lizzie is alive. End of sentence. End of story. The narrative has been out of your control from the start . . . and it will continue to be. You can’t fix other people, Hannah. You can only be there when they need you. And if she needs you, she will find you—as she did last night. So you are going to Paris.”
When we reached the airport, my bags were checked straight through to Charles de Gaulle Airport. The clerk handed me two boarding passes and told me that, once at Logan Airport, the Air France flight would be leaving from . . .
The gate number didn’t register. Nothing did right now.
Dad walked me over to the security barrier. I suddenly felt like I was thirteen years old, about to be sent off somewhere new.
“I’m scared,” I said.
He hugged me. And said, “My strength is made perfect in weakness. Now go get on that damn plane. And call me tomorrow when you’re there.”
Twenty minutes later, I was airborne over Vermont. A quick change in Boston, and I was up in the clouds again.
The flight was empty. I had a row of seats to myself. I stretched out and slept all the way across the Atlantic.
And then, suddenly, it was morning. And the plane was banking steeply. And the hostess shook me gently and asked me to sit up. We were about to land.
I shut my eyes as we touched down. I opened them when the aircraft came to a complete halt. I stood up, removed my carry-on bag and coat from the overhead compartment, and followed the stream of passengers leaving the aircraft.
The customs officer was around my age, and didn’t exactly seem pleased to be sitting in a booth at seven-thirty on a late-December morning.
“Passport,” he said, holding out his hand. I pushed it through to him. “You will stay how long?” he asked in heavily accented English. I spoke without thinking, using the French I had been brushing up on for the past few months.
“Je ne sais pas,” I said. I don’t know.
He stared at me, surprised at the reply in French. He continued in French.
“Quoi, vous n’avez aucune idée de combien de temps vous allez rester en France?” You have no idea how long you’ll be staying in France?
“On verra,” I said. We’ll see.
I could see him looking me over, wondering if it was worth demanding my return ticket home, or to see my traveler’s checks or credit cards or other proof of liquidity. Or maybe he thought I was playing a stupid game with him. Or perhaps he saw me as I saw myself—a middle-aged woman who, at this hour of the morning, was looking groggy and just a little lost. Had he asked, “Why are you really here?” I would have truthfully replied, “You know, that question has been plaguing me for the past fifty-three years. Do you have any answers?”
But he didn’t pose that question. He just said, “Généralement, nous préférons les réponses précises.” Generally, we prefer definitive answers.
I replied, “N’est-ce pas notre cas à tous?” Doesn’t everyone?
He flashed me the smallest of smiles, then reached for his stamp and brought it down on my passport.
“D’accord,” he said, handing it back to me. Agreed.
And picking up my passport, I turned and walked into France.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THERE ARE THOSE writers who never show anything to anyone while they are working on a nove
l, and there are those who drive those closest to them to an advanced state of exasperation by reading out loud every paragraph as it appears on the page. Though I hope that I don’t fall into the latter obsessive-compulsive category, I do know that I couldn’t get through the long solitary haul of novel writing without some input from the world beyond my desk. And in the instance of State of the Union, it was James Macdonald Lockhart who went beyond and above the call of agent-hood and read the first and second drafts of this book, chapter by chapter, as they arrived hot off the proverbial press. His intelligent counsel and support kept me buoyed when I suffered the usual doubts and despairs that are such a predictable by-product of my trade. I am greatly in his debt.
James works with Antony Harwood, who has been my agent and friend for the past twelve years. He remains the best professional ally this novelist could have, not to mention a mensch par excellence. And I am enormously lucky in my tough-as-nails editor, Sue Freestone—who, as I have said on several occasions, is often fierce to my face and fantastic behind my back (which, let’s face it, is the better way around). More tellingly, she possesses the most important weapon in an editor’s artillery: a first-class bullshit detector. My novels have been immeasurably improved under her tough, take-no-prisoners tutelage.
Noeleen Dowling in Dublin and Christy McIntosh in Banff remain my great constant readers—and I am hugely grateful to them for taking the time to peruse earlier versions of this novel. For the past three decades, that dude extraordinaire Fred Haines has remained one of the great constants in an ever-fluctuating world. He also proofed the second draft of this book—and gave me copious useful notes (no surprise there).
Finally, I would like to say a very large thank-you to my partner in domestic crime for the past twenty-two years—the ever-amazing (really!) Grace Carley—and our two equally ever-amazing children, Max and Amelia. On the afternoon some months ago when the first draft of this novel was finished, Max banged on the door of my office at the top of our house and asked, “Is it done yet?”
It is now.
D.K.
London, June 2005
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 166
