Within the family, however, it was said that he took after his father, who slept badly but a great deal, with a kind of greediness. When he was home for several days in a row after being out on the road, he spent almost all his time in bed. After school, Nicolas would do his homework or play with his little brother, taking care not to make any noise. In the hall, they would walk on tiptoe; their mother was constantly putting her finger to her lips. At dusk, their father would emerge from his room in pajamas, unshaven, his face grumpy and puffy with sleep, his pockets stuffed with crumpled handkerchiefs and empty medicine wrappers. He looked surprised, and disagreeably so, to awaken there, to find these walls pressing in on him, to discover – pushing open the first door he came upon – a child’s bedroom where two small boys, on all fours on the carpet, interrupted their game or their reading to look up at him anxiously. He’d manage an uneasy smile, mumbling disjointedly about fatigue, lousy schedules, drugs that wiped you out. Sometimes he would sit for a moment on the edge of Nicolas’s bed, staring vacantly, rubbing a hand over his raspy beard or through tousled hair still creased from the pillow. He would sigh, ask strange questions, like what grade Nicolas was in. Nicolas would answer obediently, and his father would nod, saying that Nicolas was getting into serious schoolwork and should study hard to avoid having to repeat a grade. He seemed to have forgotten that Nicolas had already repeated a grade, the year they moved. One day, he asked Nicolas to come closer, to sit next to him on the bed. He put his hand on the back of his son’s neck, squeezing gently. It was to show his affection, but it hurt, and Nicolas twisted his neck cautiously to break free. In a low, hollow voice, his father said, ‘I love you, Nicolas,’ which upset the boy, not because he doubted it but because this seemed such a strange way to say it. As though it were the last time before a long – perhaps a final – separation, as though his father wanted him to remember it his whole life long. A few moments later, though, his father didn’t seem to remember it anymore himself. There was a blank look in his eyes; his hands were shaking. Wheezing, he stood up, his burgundy pajamas hanging loosely, all rumpled, and he fumbled his way out, as though he had no idea which door to open to get back to the hall, back to his room, back to bed.