“Mr. Mossman…” There was a knock at my boarding room door.
My tiny room. The few clothes I had filling up the small closet. The handful of books on the night table. The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Dos Passos. A shared bathroom down the hall. “Call for you. Downstairs.”
I rolled off the bed and threw on a shirt. I went downstairs to the one telephone used for the three boarders here. I didn’t receive many calls. My lawyer. A teaching prospect or two that never panned out. My boss at the store. I hadn’t given my number out to too many people. I was hoping it was someone replying to my applications for a teaching job.
“Hello?” I got on with anticipation.
“How could you, Charlie?” Liz’s voice said, with ire in it.
“How could I what?” I said, though in fact I suspected what she was referring to.
“Involve Emma in this insane little game of yours.”
“What game, Liz?” Though I hardly had to ask the question, and waited for her to lay it on me.
She said, “We were across the hall at Willi and Trudi’s earlier tonight. Their hall closet was open. Emma looked in it and you know what she asked them…?”
My stomach plunged like a heavy weight tumbling from the top of a skyscraper.
“She asked them if they had found your hat, Charlie.”
I sucked in a breath and winced as if a bolt of pain shot through me. “Shit.”
“Your daughter, Charlie … You used your six-year-old daughter as what, a prop to break into our neighbors’ apartment? You can’t stop yourself with this irrational suspicion you have of them. And who do you have to bring into it, but Emma.… You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Charlie.”
It stung.
And I barely had an answer.
“That’s not exactly the way it happened, Liz,” I said, stammering to defend myself. “I didn’t break in. At least not like you say. The door was left open. And I didn’t bring Emma in with me. She happened to come in later while I was in there. I swear. And as for the hat, I had to come up with some excuse so as not to get her any deeper involved.”
“In covering up this unfounded vendetta of yours … Then you break into a locked trunk of theirs. Do you know they could call the police on you? Do you know what the consequences would be of that?”
“I do know.” I exhaled and sat down in a chair. I didn’t have much to say in defense of that one.
“Don’t you have some condition of your parole that speaks to the commission of a crime? You could go back to jail, Charlie. And for the record, I just want you to know, the fucking trunk was open when we got there. They showed me what was inside. Nothing. Just some old blankets and sweaters. Unless you think they’re actually hiding something from us now. So my six-year-old doesn’t turn them in.”
“Then they emptied it, Liz, ’cause there definitely was something in there when I looked. A radio transmitter. I saw it with my own eyes. You could even ask Emma. She saw it too. And for the record, I actually already went to the police.”
“You did what?”
“What was I supposed to do, Liz? This isn’t a game, as you call it. It’s real. Just tell me, why don’t you, why anyone would need a radio transmitter except to send or receive messages they don’t want anyone else to read?”
“I don’t know, Charlie. I don’t know why someone would use a transmitter. I don’t know that they actually had one.” Her voice raised in frustration. “That’s what you say. So tell me, what exactly did the police have to say on this?”
What did the police say? I couldn’t tell her what the police said. I didn’t answer.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “Since there was nothing fucking there.”
“Well, they moved it then. They must have gotten suspicious when they found Emma and me on the landing. Which speaks volumes in itself, Liz. Why would they get it out of there? I’m only sorry that Emma had to be in the middle of it.”
“You know what she said, Charlie? She looked around at us, our blank faces, and said, ‘Did I say a wrong word, Mommy?’”
Like Lebensraum.
I’d told her, Let’s keep this between us, darling.
“I feel terrible about that, Liz. I’ll have to talk with her. I promise, from now on—”
“There’s not going to be a ‘from now on,’ Charlie. At least, not on this. I don’t want you here anymore. Not for a while. If you are, I’m going to call the police and tell them exactly what happened from my point of view, and have you taken off the premises. If Trudi and Willi are too nice at heart not to do that themselves, I’ll do it for them. You can’t go around breaking into people’s homes.”
“Liz, don’t. I told you, I didn’t break in.”
“Then snooping. Whatever you want to call it. And using your daughter as a cover to gain entry.”
“I told you, I didn’t use her as a cover.” I knew how I was beginning to sound. “And what’s important isn’t that I did some irregular things, but that these people who you think of as your friends are not who they say they are—”
“I don’t care, Charlie. They are to me. I only know that if I told your parole officer what you did I don’t think he’d be particularly happy with you.”
“Don’t, Liz. Please…” She was right. I could end up back in jail for this.
“Charlie, listen to me. I don’t want you seeing Emma right now. Hear me? I’m going to talk to my lawyer. And I think you should talk to yours. From now on, we play it by the book.”
“Liz, please…”
“Don’t ‘Liz, please,’ me, Charlie. Just don’t come by. If you do, I’ll call the police on you myself. I’m not going to deny you access to Emma. That would hurt her too much. And through it all, you’re a good father. I know that. But I will insist that certain conditions be put on it. And from a personal perspective, Charlie, you’ve got to put this craziness behind you. You’re starting to act like the old Charlie. And it’s scaring me. For the moment, I’ll tell her you had to go on a business trip for a job or something. Until we work something out more permanent. But I’m begging you, Charlie, for the sake of our daughter. Stop. I mean it. Stop.”