The sound of water filling the bathtub awoke the man. He sat up in bed and looked at the bathroom door, which was closed. Was his wife inside? Could they now go and get their child and leave this place and go home? For the first time since he had left it, he thought of New York City: it might be snowing there but the snow would turn to rain as soon as the sun rose. The clouds would part and the sun would emerge and the clean wet sidewalks would shine. There would be ten hours of daylight and your face would not freeze the moment you stepped outside. And soon it would be spring and robins would be pecking the tender green lawn in Madison Square Park. And he would be walking through the park with the baby in a stroller, in the soft warm spring sunlight, pointing to and naming the birds, the budding flowers, the leafing trees . . .
The taps were turned off with an angry squeal. He got out of bed and knocked softly on the closed bathroom door.
Oh, are you awake? a voice asked. It’s me.
He tried to make the voice sound like his wife’s but he could not. It was too strong and bright, and he knew it was the voice of Livia Pinheiro-Rima.
Livia?
Yes, it’s me. It’s shocking, I know, commandeering your bathtub. You see, I’ve only got a horrible little sit tub in my room; it’s like bathing in a teacup and getting in and out of the damn thing requires the flexibility of a contortionist. So when I saw your lovely large tub—really, it’s almost the size of a swimming pool—I couldn’t resist. Do you mind awfully? If you do I’ll get out.
No, no. Of course not.
Do you need to use the toilet? If you do, come on in. We can both shut our eyes.
No, I’m fine, said the man, although he did need to use the toilet. But what are you doing here?
I thought I just explained that.
No, I mean here in my room.
Oh! Well, I came up to check on you. It’s almost noon, you know.
Is it? My God, I have got to go and see my wife.
What about the baby? Simon. Aren’t we going to collect him together?
Yes, said the man. But first I need to see my wife.
Yes, yes, I suppose you must. So go, and I’ll enjoy a nice long bath, and when you’ve returned we’ll go and adopt Simon. This bath is delicious. The basic human need for ablution is primal. We all used to be fish you know, I mean not you and me personally, but our ancestors, if you go back far enough, which isn’t very far, there we are, or were, swimming in the briny depths, and now we all long to submerge ourselves, like a pickle, like a coin in a fountain, like a stone tossed into the sea. I’m going to stop talking now and immerse myself.
Darlene opened the door and told the man to wait in the room with the fire. She would tell Brother Emmanuel he was here. The man had barely sat down when Brother Emmanuel entered the room, with an uncharacteristic haste. In fact he was panting, as if he had run from a great distance.
The man stood up. Good morning, he said.
Oh, my friend, Brother Emmanuel said. Sit down.
The man sat and Brother Emmanuel knelt before him and told him that his wife’s soul was free.
What do you mean? the man asked. Is she dead?
Yes, said Brother Emmanuel. If you think in those terms.
I do, said the man. How? he asked. What happened?
Brother Emmanuel told him how, early in the morning, they had found her missing and had followed her footsteps through the snow. They had carried her inside and tried to revive her but could not. She was dead. Her soul had left her body.
The man asked if he could be alone.
Of course you may be alone, said Brother Emmanuel. For as long as you need. But I must tell you one more thing, and then I will leave you alone. I want to say this now so you have it all at once. Your wife told me that she wanted her body to stay here. She did not want it taken away. She wanted to be cremated, and she wanted her ashes to remain here. She wanted them placed in the bowl of narcissi so they might nurture new life.
I don’t care about her body, the man said. Or the narcissi. Please leave me alone.
Yes, said Brother Emmanuel. I am sorry if I have failed you. I was trying to help your wife. I was trying to ease her path.
Yes, said the man. Fuck you.
The man sat on the sofa for a long time after Brother Emmanuel left. He could not comprehend what he had been told and after a while he stopped trying, stopped thinking anything at all, just sat and let the stillness gather around him. And then he heard a voice and looked up to see that Artemis was watching him from within his cage. He repeated the same word several times, but it was in a language the man did not understand.
That afternoon the man and Livia Pinheiro-Rima left the hotel together and took a taxi to the orphanage. The man wore a three-piece suit beneath his parka and carried the little suitcase they had prepared for the baby. Both he and his wife had packed special clothes to wear on the day that they finally received the baby. His wife had bought a simple yet elegant moss-green woolen dress from Brooks Brothers and had had it altered to fit her dwindling body. The man thought of the dress, hanging in its protective plastic sheath, in the closet of their hotel room. It was the only thing that she had hung in the closet; the rest of her clothes were jumbled in her suitcase or thrown over a chair.
His suit was too big for him and in truth made him look a little ridiculous, like a child wearing grown-up clothes. It had belonged to his grandfather, his father’s father, who had died when the man was three in a hunting accident that the man’s father later told him was certainly a suicide. Fortunately he had shot himself with a rifle in a forest, making possible the fictitious hunting trip.
The man had no memory of his grandfather, but he did have a photograph of his grandfather holding him upon his lap, and in this photo his grandfather wore the suit the man was now wearing. It was taken at Christmastime, in Lüchow’s restaurant in New York City, a few days before his grandfather shot himself. An elderly waiter in a white jacket stood just behind his grandfather, looking into the camera as if he were meant to be included in the photograph, but of course he was only passing by the table.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima sat against the door and gazed out the window. She was wearing her Russian black bear coat and the kind of perfectly round dark glasses people in movies who are blind wear. She acted as though she were alone in the taxi. But then she suddenly turned toward him and said, For some reason I’m terribly nervous. Would you mind if I smoke?
It’s fine, said the man.
Not really, she said, but I’ll go ahead. Would you like one?
No, said the man.
She held a velvet bag upon her lap that had two gold bars across the top, which latched together with a little hands-holding clasp. Livia Pinheiro-Rima unsnapped the clasp and withdrew her cigarette case. She pressed a button and it sprung itself open. She fetched a lighter from her bag and lit her cigarette. She closed her eyes and took a few long, deep drags.
For a moment the man watched her smoke.
You have beautiful hands, he said.
Why, thank you, she said. They’re rather large. And one, alas, is larger than the other. Look at this. She gave him her cigarette and held her hands before her, palm pressed to palm, finger to finger, as if she were praying. You see, she said, they don’t match. Most people are symmetrical, but I’m not. It’s why I couldn’t act in films. The camera is so unforgiving; I look like some freakish Picasso damsel on film.
She reclaimed her cigarette and continued smoking. Do you know, when I went to acting school, way back in the dark ages, they taught you how to smoke onstage? We had an entire class on smoking and eating onstage. Drinking too. It was called Acting and Imbibing. For instance, you always keep your hand in profile when you smoke, so the audience can see the cigarette, so if you’re facing downstage you’ve got to smoke out of the corner of your mouth. If you have beautiful hands you use the cigarette to display them. There’s nothing better for a hand than a cigarette. And you never exhale downward; always send the smoke up, above the heads of your fellow actors. Of course, that is, if you have fellow actors. The only nice thing about being alone onstage is that you can send the smoke anywhere you want. Yet I always send it up, out of habit, I suppose.
She paused for a moment and tapped some ash off her cigarette into the pocket of her bearskin coat.
Don’t look at me, she said. Look out the window.
Why? asked the man.
Because I can’t say this next bit if you’re looking at me.
The man turned away and looked out the window. The fields stretched all the way to the horizon, where they blurred into the gray sky.
He heard Livia Pinheiro-Rima say: Acting with someone is very intimate, you know. It isn’t so very different from sleeping with someone. In a way it’s more intimate, because it’s easy to fake intimacy in bed, but if you act well, if you do it right, you’re raw, you’re completely vulnerable, it’s like you’re porous, your body ceases to have boundaries. Your mind too, and your heart. She paused for a moment and then said, I’ve felt that with you, some of these moments.
She paused, but he said nothing, so she continued: When I was young, she said, when I was just beginning—my circus days, I suppose—and even after that, when I was a not very young, for most of my life, in fact, I have wanted to make love with just about everyone I met. I mean, not everyone of course, but with so very many. Men and women. In some way it seemed a crime to me to be alive, to be on this earth, and not make love to everyone. It wasn’t nymphomania. No. It was that I could see too clearly, too devastatingly, the thing, things, about people that were hurt and therefore loveable, the beautiful sacred space in them that needed touching. And once you’ve seen that in someone, it’s difficult not to love him. Or her. At least it was for me.
She paused for a moment, but still he said nothing, and so she continued: You see, I’m afraid of going dead inside. Of course I can’t make love with you, I know that, I mean intellectually I do, but there’s something wrong with me. This should count. This should be valid enough.
What? the man asked.
This, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Just sitting here together in this car. It should matter. It should count.
And it doesn’t? asked the man.
Perhaps it does. That’s the joke of my life: that it all does matter, all these quiet moments, this moment, but we just want to get fucked and applauded, so we think that’s what matters, what counts, and in the end we realize it’s just the opposite.
She was silent for a moment and the man was about to turn away from the window when he heard her speak again.
It’s important for me that you know that, she said. That you know how I feel about you.
He turned then and looked at her. She sat very erect, facing forward, staring through the front windshield. The man saw for the first time her frailty. It seemed to him that it was only her clothes, the girth and weight of her monstrous fur coat, that contained and protected her.
He reached out and touched the arm of her coat, and then leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek. Thank you for doing this, he said. Thank you for coming with me to get the baby.
They entered the lobby of the orphanage to find that it was empty and unattended. We must push this button to summon someone, the man said. Otherwise we may languish here forever.
Then by all means push it, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Push it with all your might!
The man pushed the button and they heard its shrill clang momentarily alarm the entire building.
Well done, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. I’m sure we will be attended to momentarily. Meanwhile, I will sit upon this monstrosity and reacclimate myself. One is perpetually shedding or donning garments in this country. It’s fatiguing.
The man had removed his parka immediately upon entering the anteroom and laid it upon one of the pews that flanked the entryway, for he felt it seriously compromised the effect of his grandfather’s suit. If he had brought a topcoat, he might have left it on, for it was cold in the anteroom, but he had not—he had only brought the parka, in which he always felt slightly ridiculous, as if he were acting as a penguin in some elementary school winter pageant.
Now, listen, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Relax. Just be yourself. Pretend you adopt a baby every day of the week. Can you do that?
I’ll try, said the man.
You’ve got to do more than try. If they sense you’re nervous they’ll throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The man said nothing.
I was making a joke, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. The baby with the bathwater. It didn’t amuse you?
No, said the man.
I was trying to get you relaxed. If you don’t know what to say, say nothing. Just look at me and I’ll take over. You’ve got to relax. I’ll tell you what to do—it’s an old theater trick: jump up and down and flap your arms. Do it. It works wonderfully.
I don’t think that’s a good idea, said the man.
I tell you, if they sense you’re nervous they’ll smell a rat. They’ll smell a rat abandoning a sinking ship.
The man laughed. That one was good, he said.
Jump, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Flap!
The man began to jump up and down and flap his arms. It felt very good. He closed his eyes. And then he felt a hand pressing down upon his shoulder, stilling him. He stopped jumping and opened his eyes. Livia Pinheiro-Rima stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder, pressing him down with a force that was peculiarly strong and adamant. And beside her stood a man. He sported a pince-nez and wore a white lab coat over a three-piece suit that was remarkably like the man’s own suit, and for a moment the man thought it was his suit, or his grandfather’s suit, and he did not know how it had gotten off him and onto this other man. But then he realized he was still wearing his suit. And the other man’s suit was better tailored and fit him very neatly.
It’s all my fault, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. I told him to jump. She kept her hand pressed upon the man’s shoulder as if he might start jumping again if she took it away.
He was terribly nervous about everything, she said to the man in the white coat. I’m sure that by now you are well acquainted with the hysteria of adoptive parents. They must process in a few minutes the most fundamental change known to man. Natural parents have nine months to process the transfiguration of their lives, but the adoptive parent has but minutes. He was beside himself, and so I told him to jump, because nothing restores equanimity like jumping. It is a well-known physiological fact. Those brave beautiful soldiers who stormed the shores of Normandy—they were ordered to jump as they crossed the channel.
Yes, of course, said the man in the white coat. I am Doctor Oswalt Ludjekins. I am the director of St. Barnabas. Allow me to welcome you.
He held out his hand and both Livia Pinheiro-Rima and the man shook it. You are both most welcome here. But tell me, please, Miss Pinheiro-Rima, what brings you to St. Barnabas?
Oh, do you know me?
Of course I do! I am, perhaps, your greatest devotee. Unless there is an emergency here at St. Barnabas, Friday evenings will invariably find me in the lobby of the Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel drinking whiskey, smoking a cigar, and listening to you sing.
Oh, so you’re the gentleman with the cigar!
I’m afraid I am. Does the smoke bother you?
Oh, no. It comes with the territory, as they say.
I’m relieved because I would hate to think I am in any way compromising your artistry.
Well, I shall blame all future gaffes on you.
Please do, said Doctor Ludjekins. Yet none of this explains why I have the great pleasure of welcoming you to St. Barnabas. I believe that this gentleman and his wife are adopting one of our foundlings, but you, my dear Miss Pinheiro-Rima, what brings you to St. Barnabas? Are you also in want of an orphan?
Is there not, my dear Doctor Ludjekins, someplace where we might speak more comfortably? I’m afraid that anterooms like this, being neither here nor there, set my nerves on edge. And I fear I am standing in a draught.
But of course, said Doctor Ludjekins. I’m afraid the excitement of meeting you, Miss Pinheiro-Rima, has caused me to lose my manners. Shall we make a bee’s line for my office?
Perhaps, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima, we may venture upstairs. I know my son is very eager to see his son.
Doctor Ludjekins turned to the man. Your son?
Yes, said the man. Today is the day he becomes mine. We have been here for six days now.
But where is your wife? asked the doctor.
His wife has had a most unfortunate accident, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Last night she slipped on some ice and injured her ankle. We fear it is broken. She wanted so badly to come with us, of course, but the doctor forbade it.
Ah, the ice is treacherous at this time of year! It is a miracle we are not all hobbling about on sticks! But I am sure she will be perfectly well again quite soon. Tomorrow, perhaps. And then you can come and gather your new child together.
Ah, but they are leaving here tomorrow, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. And bringing their child out of this cursed darkness and off to the land of milk and honey.
But we cannot give a little baby to only a man. A baby must have mother and father.
And so shall this baby have, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. He will meet his mother as soon as we return to the hotel. She is waiting there with open arms. Open arms and a broken foot! She opened her arms wide by way of illustration, but Doctor Ludjekins seemed to think she was about to embrace (or attack) him, for he raised his hand and took a step backward.
That is all well and good, he said. But we can only transact a baby to two parents.
I understand, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. But surely you can make an exception in this case? It would be a shame for the little dear to lose his chance at a happy home on account of a broken foot.
Where babies are concerned I am afraid there can be no exceptions, said Doctor Ludjekins. My hands are tied.
Oh goodness, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Tied hands and broken feet! This is a muddle, isn’t it?
You must change your plans of departure, Doctor Ludjekins said to the man. And your woman must regain her feet. And then all shall be happy.
Listen, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. My dear doctor, please listen. I’m going to tell you something about myself I very rarely reveal. It may shock you. I am older than I appear to be. Old enough to be a grandmother, in fact. This man you see before you, this dear sweet man, is my son. And his wife is my daughter-in-law. I know it seems impossible, but it’s true. I am old enough to be a mother once-removed from that poor darling baby above us, I shall be his Nana, his Nona, his Bubbie, his Granny, his Mimi; I shall be his very special and devoted Momsy, and I am here, here right now, here with two working hands and two operating feet, and I think if you do not release that baby into the care of his loving Papa and his doting Momsy, you will rue this day forevermore.
The doctor seemed somewhat overwhelmed by this speech, for he took another step backward, as if Livia Pinheiro-Rima were a fire whose heat was becoming too intense. He turned once again to the man.
She is your mother? he asked.
The man looked at Livia Pinheiro-Rima and was about to declare she was his mother, but then it occurred to him that if he was given this child on the basis of lies, he would never feel that the child was truly his.
No, the man said. She is not my mother. But please, give me my son. What more can I do? Do you want more money? Tell me, just tell me, and I’ll do it. But give me my son!
He stopped talking when Livia Pinheiro-Rima reached out and touched him on the small bare part of his neck that rose above his white shirt collar.
Relax, my darling, she said. My dear, dear boy. Everything will be fine. You are overwhelmed. She gently patted his cheek and then withdrew her hand. She turned to the doctor.
Don’t you see? He is overwhelmed. My poor boy. The impossible journey here, and these days of waiting, and the cold, and then his wife’s accident; can’t you understand it has all been too much for him? Of course, I’m his mother. Do you think he would be here if I wasn’t? Do you think he would come to this godforsaken place to adopt a baby if he weren’t my son? He came here because I begged him to. Because he is a good son. A son who loves his mother, and who will love his son. It is all connected, the love we feel for our parents and children.
I don’t understand you, said Doctor Ludjekins. What has this to do with the baby?
Everything! It has everything to do with the baby! I told you, it’s all connected, the love of parents and children. You can’t be so heartless as to not acknowledge that.
Of course I acknowledge it. Who would not? I simply fail to see what bearing it has on the matter in hand. I think perhaps you decide I am a dunce. I have a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland. Do you know of it?
Of course I do, said the man. It is a very fine school.
So you see I am not some dummkopf.
Oh, my dear doctor! exclaimed Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Of course you are not! My son and I have the utmost respect for you, and for this marvelous institution you direct. I myself plan to leave a large part of my small fortune to St. Bartholomew’s.
It is St. Barnabas, said the doctor.
Of course it is! St. Barnabas. One of the finest institutions of its kind.
We follow all international protocols, said Doctor Ludjekins. We do not sell babies. Procedures may have been like rubber under my predecessor, Mrs. Tarja Uosukainen, but I assure you that St. Barnabas is no longer the hodgepodge it once may have been. Everything is now clean and above the boards.
Of course, doctor—that is exactly why I suggested St. Barnabas to my son. I knew that since you have taken over it is an institution beyond reproach. That is precisely why we are here, and why my son is so eager to claim his son.
We do not contribute our babies to lonesome parents, said Doctor Ludjekins. They must all be here to welcome the baby.
Yes, of course, said the man. And my wife would be here, if it were not for her broken leg. If it’s really so important, I will go back to the hotel and drag her here, limping all the way. She would do it happily. She would crawl here on her hands and knees. He did not realize he was aggressively gesticulating until Livia Pinheiro-Rima reached out, grabbed one of his pinwheeling arms, and lowered it to his side.
Hush, she said. Poor boy. You’re upset. She turned to the doctor. He’s upset, she said. It’s only natural. Excuse us for just a moment, if you would be so kind.
She took the man’s hand and pulled him into a corner of the anteroom and positioned them so that she was facing him with her back to the doctor. She mouthed a word with her lips, which were painted a bright deep red, but the man did not understand what she said and so he shook his head. She winked at him.
You’re upset, my dear, she said in a voice that could easily be overhead by the doctor, who was standing just a few feet away. Why don’t you go outside and smoke a cigarette? It will calm you. And I will have a chat with Doctor Ludjekins.
But I don’t—
Of course you do. Here. Livia Pinheiro-Rima opened her little bag and reached into it and withdrew her cigarette case.
Hold this, she said to the man, and handed him her bag, which he clutched rather awkwardly with both hands, as he did not like the doctor seeing him holding a woman’s handbag. Livia Pinheiro-Rima flicked open the case and pulled one cigarette out from beneath its silver clasp. Give me my lighter, she said. It’s in the bag.
He reached into the bag and found her lighter, which he withdrew.
Take it, Livia Pinheiro-Rima said. She handed him the cigarette she had extracted from the case and took the bag from him. Now go outside and smoke. I know it’s cold but the cold will do you good. I will come and get you when I am finished with the doctor. Do you understand?
Yes, said the man. I understand.
Good, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Go. She pushed him toward to door. Don’t come back until I fetch you.
The man had not smoked in several years. But he felt foolish standing idly on the steps of the orphanage, and so he lit the cigarette and smoked. It was very cold outside and he wished he could fill his entire body with the warm, poisonous smoke. He smoked it down to the filter and then threw it in the snow. It was too cold to stand still and so he descended the steps and walked across the small parking lot to the road. Across from the orphanage was a building that looked as if it might once have been a gas station but was now clearly abandoned. There was no other building in sight, only fields of snow. Even though it was early afternoon the sun was setting in the west. It leached a pale yellowish light along the horizon. Nothing moved or made a sound.
The man felt very capable of making noise, and he wished he had a gun so he could fire it and hear the violent disturbance. Instead he shouted the word cabbage as loud as he could into the cold air. Cabbage had been the name of his childhood dog, a fat dachshund that when curled up was said to resemble a cabbage. The dog often ran away—apparently it did not like living where it lived—and the man, when he was a boy, spent many hours out in the fields surrounding his family’s house shouting the dog’s name. Cabbage! Cabbage!
He had loved the dog but had also hated him, because he was always running away. Usually he would reappear, but once he did not and the man saw him the next day from the window of the school bus, lying by the side of the road, crushed. He had wanted to tell the bus driver to stop but could not, for the school bus was a ruthless place where any sort of emotional behavior was violently ridiculed. When he got home from school that afternoon he rode his bike to the place where the dog lay and brought him home, holding the dog against his chest with one hand and the handlebar with the other. The crushed dog leaked blood and guts onto his school shirt and he was punished by his mother because he had not changed into his play clothes before going to fetch the dog.
Cabbage! Cabbage! Come!
He turned away from the field and walked across the parking lot to the steps of the orphanage. He wished he had another cigarette to smoke. Perhaps he would start smoking again. It was for his wife he had stopped, and now she was dead. But if he had a child he should not smoke. It was one of the many things he would give up for the child. Well, he had already given up smoking, so he could not give that up for the child, but he could at least not start smoking again. He wished he could sit down, but the icy steps were heavily dusted with ashes. Someone had shoveled a narrow path to a bench that stood in the field beside the parking lot but the bench was covered in snow. Odd that someone would shovel the path to the bench but not the bench itself.
His wife was dead. The part of his life that had been his marriage was over. It had been a good part of his life, except for the past year. In the next part of his life he might have a child, be a father. Or he might not. Doctor Ludjekins had seemed adamant, but then Livia Pinheiro-Rima was a formidable opponent. He would miss her when he left this place. Perhaps she would come to visit him and the child, as if she really were his grandmother. Otherwise the boy would have no grandparents, for both his and his wife’s parents were dead. If everything went well, he could be home in three days. With a son. Even if everything did not go well, he could be home in three days.
A sweet wee bairn inside is crying for his Dada.
The man turned to see Livia Pinheiro-Rima standing on the top step.
You’re a father, she said. Now come inside and collect your son.
What happened? the man asked.
Why do you care what happened? Everything’s fine. The wee bairn is yours. They’re inside now putting all the papers in order. You’ve just got to sign on the dotted line.
He’s mine? Really?
I wouldn’t joke about something like this. Now come inside before you freeze to death.
In the taxi on the way back to the hotel the man held the child on his lap. Livia Pinheiro-Rima smoked and looked out the window, even though it was dark and the only thing she could see was her smoking reflection.
The child was sleeping soundly. He wore the puffy silver snowsuit the man’s wife had picked out after an hour of neurotic deliberation in Babies “R” Us. It was designed to resemble a space suit and even had a patch proclaiming JUNIOR SPACE RANGER on its sleeve. Some of the child’s straight blond hair protruded from beneath the hood and his cheeks were flushed. It was as if he, too, had been through an ordeal like the man and was similarly exhausted. He was heavier and more substantial than the man had imagined he would be. And he would only get bigger. Is he too much for me? the man wondered. Am I big enough for him?
Look at him, he said to Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Isn’t he beautiful?
Livia Pinheiro-Rima rolled down the window and threw her cigarette out into the night. Then she turned and looked at the man and at the child.
He will break hearts, she said. Yours among them, I’ve no doubt. Children do that.
Do you have children?
Yes, she said. Two. One I’ve lost touch with—I suppose he might still be alive. But I know the other is dead. And did they break your heart?
Yes.
Both of them?
Each in his own cunning way.
The man looked down at the child he held. I don’t think Simon will break my heart, he said.
Of course you don’t. No parent does. Here—give him to me. Let me hold him. Now, while he’s all rosy-cheeked and sleeping. Before you take him away forever and I never see him again, the thought of which I cannot bear.
The man carefully handed the child to Livia Pinheiro-Rima, who held him against her bear-fur coat. She gently stroked one of his flushed cheeks with the backs of her fingers. The man saw that she was crying.
After a moment of watching her, he said, Will you tell me what you did?
What do you mean? She did not look up at him. She continued to caress the child’s cheek.
I mean back there, at the orphanage. What did you do?
The baby is yours, she said. You don’t want to know what I did. It shouldn’t be a part of his story, or yours.
But you’ve got to tell me!
Have I? She stopped caressing the baby and looked at the man.
Yes. Otherwise I’ll always worry.
Why would you worry?
I just want to feel safe. That he is mine.
You are safe. He is yours. I assure you.
Did you give him money?
Here, she said. Have him back. He’s yours. That should be all that matters.
The man took the baby back from Livia Pinheiro-Rima. She turned away from him and once again lit a cigarette and regarded her face in the dark window.
They rode in silence until the taxi entered the narrow winding streets of the old town. Livia Pinheiro-Rima reached into the pockets of her coat and extracted two black leather gloves that she carefully slid over her large slender hands, pushing down the V between each of her fingers so that they fit her snugly. Then she folded her gloved hands in her lap and looked back out the window.
I’m sorry, said the man. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. For everything you’ve done. For my wife, and for me, and for the baby. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you. What you said before, on our way out, about how you felt. I have felt the same. Feel the same. I’m sorry I didn’t say that then.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima turned away from the window and looked at the man. Well, thank you, she said. It’s nice to know. Although what good it will do either of us, I know not.
The man held the baby and Livia Pinheiro-Rima pushed them all through the revolving door and into the lobby of the Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel.
Come, she said. We must celebrate this occasion with a drink.
The man followed her into the bar. Livia Pinheiro-Rima walked around the bar to her seat in the corner. She unhooked the horn toggles on her coat and shrugged it off, allowing it to fall onto the floor. She was wearing the black sequined evening gown she had worn the night the man had first met her, and the man thought, She must have known we would succeed at the orphanage, otherwise she would not have worn that dress. He followed her around the bar, sat down beside her, and looked around as if there might be someplace to stow the baby but of course there was not so he held the baby on his lap.
It was a bit awkward, he realized, carrying a child around with you.
When they had settled themselves, Lárus detached himself from his wall and came and stood before them. He took no notice of the baby. Schnapps? he asked.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima turned to the man. Schnapps?
No, said the man. Champagne! We’re celebrating. Champagne for us all. Bring us a bottle of your finest champagne.
Our finest champagne is very fine, said Lárus. It is perhaps too fine for you.
I expect it is, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Bring us a bottle of the Billecart-Salmon.
The blanc de blancs or the rosé?
Don’t be a fool. The blanc de blancs. We’ll have a toast. Our dear friend has just become a father. He has a child, you see.
Yes, I see, said Lárus. Children under sixteen years of age are not allowed in the bar.
He’s seventeen, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Go.
Lárus turned about and exited through the upholstered door.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima sighed and placed her bag upon the bar. She opened it and fished out her cigarette case. One supposes one should smoke at a time like this, she said. Or are you afraid it will harm the little one?
I think he’ll be fine, said the man. I’d like one too.
Mais oui, bien sûr. She extracted two cigarettes from her case, put them in her mouth, and lit them both. She handed one to the man and inhaled upon the other.
I realize now, she said, that a glass of Billecart-Salmon is exactly what I have been craving. I’m so sick of that damn schnapps, you’ve no idea.
Do you think I should take his snowsuit off? asked the man. Do you think it’s too warm for him in here?
Oh, I doubt it, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Plus better too warm than too cold. If you start catering to every little whim of his now there’ll be no end to it. It’s good for children to suffer a little. It builds character.
No wonder your children broke your heart, the man said.
I admit I wasn’t the best mother in the world. Or even a particularly good one. I wanted my children to be independent, self-sufficient. To go off on their own and make their own lives as soon as they possibly could. In the old days children were sent out into the fields or down into the mines as soon as they could handle a hoe or a pick. Now they’re all mollycoddled and live at home until they’re middle-aged.
If this is advice you are giving me I shall follow none of it, said the man. I expect I shall be the type of parent you hate.
I’ve no doubt you will be. You’ll ruin this poor lovely child faster than you can say Cornelia Otis Skinner. But don’t abandon your own life. Don’t conflate it with his. Don’t conflate it with anyone’s. That’s my real advice.
Is it really? asked the man. It sounds lonely.
Oh, I don’t mean that you should be lonely. Or necessarily alone. I mean you shouldn’t do anything out of a fear of being alone. That’s when the trouble starts.
Lárus backed through the door. He held a large silver tray upon which sat a bottle of champagne and four flutes. He lowered it carefully onto the bar beside the man. He unbelted and removed the foil wrap that shrouded the head of the bottle and then untwisted the wire cage. He then pulled the cork out of the bottle and held it at arm’s length as it calmed itself. He poured a small amount of champagne into each of the flutes; it raced up the walls of the glasses and stopped just before overflowing. The hissing foam loitered at the rim of the glasses for a moment and then began collapsing back into itself, and as it settled Lárus slowly poured more champagne onto the retreating foam and this time the champagne mounted inside the glass with less drama. He equally filled all four glasses and placed one before Livia Pinheiro-Rima and one before the man. Then he picked up one of the two remaining glasses of champagne.
Who is the fourth glass for? asked Livia Pinheiro-Rima.
Lárus nodded at the child the man was holding in his arms. For the seventeen-year-old, he said.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima laughed. That’s fine, she said. That’s just right. She slunk off the stool and stood, holding her glass of champagne before her, like a lighted sparkler. It was still effervescing.
He must come back when he is seventeen, she said. We must all come back. We must hold this child safely in our dreams until we meet again, in seventeen years. And what a fine and handsome youth he shall be, and what a happy childhood will he have had! We ask for God’s blessing upon this boy, ask that he be healthy and happy and wise and full of art and magic. And love. All this we wish for Simon! Godspeed! Mazel tov! Kippaikija!
After a short while the child began to fret and cry, so the man took him out into the lobby. He laid him down on one of the low round tables and peeled the snowsuit off. Beneath it he wore a pair of red corduroy OshKosh B’gosh overalls and a pink turtleneck shirt patterned with yellow smiley faces. He wore thick black socks on his feet and no shoes. Although the man did not expect the child to be dressed quaintly in some ethnic or national costume, he was a little disappointed by the familiarity of his clothes. The nurse had explained to him that all the clothes the children at the orphanage wore were donated by a Lutheran church in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
He assumed the child needed his diaper changed, but the diaper bag, which contained a dozen eco-friendly diapers and assorted organic emollients and powders and wipes, was up in his room, and the man wanted to attend to his child privately, not in the hotel lobby, as he felt both sentimental about this first intimate interaction with his son and also unsure of his diapering prowess. If it went badly he did not want witnesses.
The child, though freed from his snowsuit, continued to cry, so the man picked him up and held him gently against his chest, one of his hands palming the child’s small head. He gently rocked himself and the child and to his amazement the child stopped crying and burped quite loudly. Instinctively, the man patted and rubbed his child’s back, and he burped again.
The man thought this was a very good start and hoped that it boded well. Perhaps it was all instinctive and he would be a natural parent. He sat down in one of the club chairs and held his child. He began to speak quietly to him. He told him who he was and the circumstances of their both being there, in that place, together. How his wife had wanted to be there so that she could love him too. How he would love him double to compensate for his mother’s absence, as if such an absence could ever be compensated for. He held the child close to him and gently circled his hand upon his back, feeling his warmth and softness beneath the layer of OshKosh. He said all he could think of to say to the child, even though he knew the child did not understand him, but nevertheless he wanted it said; he wanted it to have been there, between them, at the very beginning.
He moved his face close to the child’s head and smelled his scalp and softly pressed his lips against the warm skin covering his fontanel, where he thought he could feel the baby’s brain murmuring. He was glad the child had become his before that portal was irrevocably closed.
The businessman man knocked on the door of the man’s hotel room. Through the hole in the door—the cardboard had been removed—he could see the soft pink glow of one of the bedside lamps. He knocked again, but there was still no response. He tested the doorknob and, finding it was unlocked, opened it and stepped into the room. He stood just inside the battered door and observed the man and the child sleeping on the bed, which had been pushed against the wall. The pillows had been arranged around the bed’s perimeter in a low soft wall. The man lay beside the child; one of his arms was extended and his hand rested upon the child’s stomach, as if the child were buoyant and the man was keeping him from floating away.
After a moment the businessman crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed that was not pushed against the wall. His arrival woke neither the man nor the child, so he reached out his arm and gently shook the man’s shoulder.
The man sat up abruptly, sliding toward the foot of the bed and knocking one of the pillows onto the floor. He stood up and looked toward the door, as if whatever had awakened him might be trying to escape. He did not see the businessman sitting on the bed until he sat back down.
I’m sorry if I startled you, said the businessman. I didn’t mean to.
You scared me, said the man. What are you doing in here? He looked down to see that the child was still sleeping. He reached out to touch the baby but then, thinking perhaps it was best not to disturb him, withdrew his hand.
I assume that’s the kiddie you came here to adopt, said the businessman.
Yes, said the man. That’s my son. Simon.
Sleeping like a baby, said the businessman.
He’s been very good, said the man. He is very good.
Enjoy it while it lasts. My kiddies were sweet enough until they turned about eight. Then, practically overnight, despicable little shits.
I’m surprised, with you as their father, it wasn’t much sooner, said the man. He reached out again, and this time he did touch his child.
Listen to you, said the businessman. Fatherhood is making a man out of you. You picked up a set of balls along with the kiddo.
What are you doing here? asked the man.
Dragon Lady told me you were leaving tomorrow morning. She also told me about your wife. I’m sorry. I’m glad things worked out with the kiddie, but I’m sorry about your wife.
The man said nothing. He had somehow put the death of his wife aside, like a parcel whose delivery had been unsuccessfully attempted and was waiting to be collected with a little pink slip at the post office.
Are you really leaving in the morning?
Yes, said the man. What time is it now?
The businessman pushed back his cuffs and looked at his watch. It’s eleven forty-five, he said. I’m sorry I woke you. But I wanted to say goodbye. And also to say—
What? asked he man.
I’m sorry, said the businessman. I wanted to apologize. For all my violence and rudeness. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m a very fucked-up and miserable man. I know it’s no excuse, but—
Forget it, said the man. Everything was strange and awful here. You were no worse than anything else. In fact, perhaps you were a distraction.
Oh, don’t get all sentimental. I did rape you, after all.
You didn’t rape me, said the man.
Well, I wasn’t very nice to you, was I?
You weren’t so bad.
I did take good care of you after you were mugged. I was tender then, wasn’t I?
Yes, said the man.
Most of the time I was a prick, though. A mean drunken prick.
Forget it, said the man. It doesn’t matter. It’s what happens at night.
The businessman stood up and stared for a moment at the man and the baby on the bed. There’s something calm and soft about you that I like, he said. That you have and I don’t.
The man said nothing.
Well, said the businessman, I’ve said what I came to say. I’ll leave you and your son alone now. He’s a handsome little fellow. I’m sure you’ll be one of those pansy dads that children love.
Fuck you, said the man. Go away.
You need to get a sense of humor, said the businessman. Along with the balls and the kiddo.
The businessman stood still for a moment. What happens at night, he said, I like that. He reached down and patted the man’s shoulder, and then he left the room.