Harpo crept through the forest that was creaky and dripping with a recent rain, carpeted with a mist that rose up from the mud. He heard a strange sound, and froze. Seconds later, a deer loped out of the trees, shining sparkling white in the moonlight, like something out of a dream. It turned so Harpo could see it in profile. He stumbled toward it, held out a hand, but the deer turned again and disappeared. He stumbled onward. Suddenly a branch like a crooked finger poked him in the top of the head. He gasped. Blima was a dutiful girl, if she’d run out in a dark forest in the night. There were things out here. There were noises.
He heard a crunch, unmistakably a footstep. Footsteps. More of them, and a guttural muttering in the dark. Harpo froze. Those were angry sounds. Then he saw a beam of light swing toward him. He turned and ran.
And then he saw it, the lodgehouse lit up from the inside, the very air around it seeming to glow. There was the silhouette dark against it, William peeking into the window, crouching where the greenish-blue forest light met the bright orange mist that surrounded all the windows. He wasn’t just listening inside. Harpo had been right, before. He had a bucket beside him, and a sponge. And beside that, something else. A hammer. Harpo ran to him.
“There you are,” said William, pulling him into an awkward embrace. “I didn’t see you in the party room. I was so worried.”
Harpo turned back to the woods, in the direction of those voices. Maybe he’d prefer not to know, to feel safer than he really was. “Why do you just look in the window?” he asked. “Why can’t you just knock on the door?”
“I’m not Jewish,” said William.
“They don’t care about that.”
“They dress for dinner.”
“I’ll lend you a jacket.”
“Sam wears suits with things in the pockets. Ayala wears gowns and pearls, even in the attic sometimes. She tells the little girls about their family in Russia. They come from royalty, you know.”
“And I’m related to Karl Marx,” said Harpo. “Hey, do they ever argue about the littlest girl?”
William turned. His eyes shone a twinkling white. “They love both their daughters.”
Harpo nodded. Sam was too good a man to wonder about Sonja. Your kid was your kid, and that was the end of it. Anyway, Sam probably just assumed Simon was a good guy, helping them get away. He probably thought Simon was being a good neighbour. He believed in miracles, after all.
“What do Sam and Ayala fight about?” whispered Harpo.
“Oh, the usual things.” William edged closer to the window. “Russia. The move. The family they left behind, who might have died just after they left, they think, fighting the order to move, to stop worshipping, whatever it was that happened.”
“Their family is all dead.” Harpo exhaled, and watched the white mist of his breath rise and disperse. He couldn’t imagine anything so terrible. “Do they argue about letters?”
“Sam says it’s useless to send things to Russia,” said William. “He says the mail is searched.”
Harpo stood on his toes, and saw a glowing hearth, in the middle of all the fancy people. He crept closer still and saw little Blima sitting in front of it.
“The older girl tends to the fire.” William had noticed Harpo’s interest, and was pointing. “Isn’t she a helper? She’s a good girl that one. She has a good heart.”
Blima was a good girl. And she was practical. And self-sufficient. She probably didn’t even ask her parents for kindling. She probably made do with what she had around, like old newspapers and love letters written to other families.
Finally, the guests started standing one by one. They filed out, toward a party in another room. Blima left last, a stumbling little sleepwalker. Minutes later, Ayala drifted into the room. She was wearing the nightgown, the one he loved. His heart ballooned. He could have floated away, circled the world like a second moon. Ayala folded herself neatly on the side of the couch. Harpo bit his lip, hard. He was not that kind of man.
“They’re talking about you now,” William whispered.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” All Harpo could hear now were the forest drips, the pops of frightening things in the dark behind him.
“Ayala is saying that you’re going to Russia. She said that you’re going to set everything right.”
Now Harpo felt worn out, like old twine, like he was a bale of hay. He sat down in the mud.
“Now she’s talking about prophets. I don’t understand. It usually makes more sense than this.”