On the trip to town, a few cars passed him in the opposite direction, but none, as far as he could see, that he recognized. In town, few windows were lit up, and he imagined a mother by the bed of a sick child or a father worrying about his business, or an old man who no longer needed his sleep.
All the windows were dark along the main street. He drove down it and didn’t see a single person, no drunk on one of the benches, no lovers in one of the doorways. He drove past the sheriff’s office; it was dark too, and there was a chain across the parking spaces for the two police cars. He switched off his headlights, drove slowly back, and stopped next to the blue sawhorses and police barricades. He waited to see if anything moved, then got out quietly and carefully lifted three sawhorses and two barricades into the flatbed. He got back in quietly, waited for a while again, then drove with his headlights off until he was clear of the town.
He turned on the radio. “We Are the Champions”—he had loved the song when he was a boy, and hadn’t heard it for a long time. He sang along. Again he was filled with a sense of triumph. Once again he’d done it. There was more to him than other people realized. Than Kate realized. Than he himself believed most of the time. Once again he’d set things up so cleverly that nobody would be able to hang anything on him. An error, a prank—who was to know how the barrier had appeared on the road? Who wanted to know?
He drove, working out where to set up the roadblock. The road to his house branched off from the main road at a ninety-degree angle, made a sharp curve, and then ran almost parallel to the main road at first. It would be too noticeable to set up the barrier right where the road forked off, but it would work just as well along the curve.
It went quickly. He stopped after the curve, set up the sawhorses, and set up the barricades on the sawhorses. The road was blocked.
Before he’d reached the top of the rise that led to the house, he switched off the engine and the headlights. The car’s momentum sufficed. Almost noiselessly and dark, the car rolled off the road and into the meadow. It was half past four.
He stayed sitting there and listened. He heard the wind in the trees and the occasional noise of an animal or a breaking twig. No sound came from the house. The first gray of dawn was not far off.
Kate asked, “Where were you?” But she wasn’t fully awake. When she said to him the next morning that she’d thought he’d gone and then come back during the night, he shrugged his shoulders. “I was on the john.”
9
In the days that followed he was happy. The happiness was tinged with anxiety. What if the sheriff found the barrier, what if a neighbor saw it and called it in, what if their friends refused to be blocked from reaching her? But no one came.
Once a day he removed one of the barricades, pushed a sawhorse aside, and drove the car through. He drove to the closed workshop again. He drove to the neighboring town and found a technician, whom, however, he didn’t engage. He didn’t call the phone company. Each time it felt good to remove the barricade and set it back again, push the sawhorse aside and then reposition it. Like being the lord of a castle, opening and closing the big gate.
He came back from his trips as fast as he could. Kate wanted to get to her desk, and he wanted to enjoy his world: the certain knowledge that Kate was upstairs writing, the joy of Rita being around him, the familiarity of their household routines. Because Thanksgiving was coming soon, he told Rita stories about the Pilgrim fathers and the Indians, and they painted a big picture in which everyone was celebrating together, the Pilgrims, the Indians, Kate, Rita, and himself.
“Are they coming to us? The fathers and the Indians?”
“No, Rita, they’ve been dead for a long time.”
“But I want someone to come!”
“Me too.” Kate was standing in the doorway. “I’m almost finished.”
“With the book?”
She nodded. “With the book. And when I’m done, we’ll celebrate. And invite our friends. And my agent and my editor. And the neighbors.”
“Almost finished—what does that mean?”
“By the end of the week. Aren’t you pleased?”
He went to her and took her in his arms. “Of course I’m pleased. It’s a fantastic book. It will get wonderful reviews, it’ll be in great piles at Barnes & Noble on the best-seller tables, and it’ll make an amazing movie.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder, leaned back, and smiled at him. “You’re so sweet. You’ve been so patient. You’ve taken care of me and Rita and the house and the garden, and it was the same thing day in, day out, and you never complained. Life’s going to start up again now, I promise you.”
He looked out the window at the kitchen garden, the woodpile, and the compost heap. The edge of the pond was beginning to ice up; soon they’d be able to go skating. Wasn’t that a life? What was she talking about?
“I’m going to drive into town on Monday—I have to go to the Internet café and also make some calls. Shall we have Thanksgiving here with our friends?”
“We can’t invite them at such short notice. And how would Rita cope with so many grown-ups?”
“Everyone will love being allowed to read to Rita or play with her. She’s every bit as sweet as you are.”
What was she saying? He was as sweet as his daughter?
“I can also ask Peter and Liz if they want to bring their nephews. Probably her parents want to have them at Thanksgiving, but it can’t hurt to ask. And my editor has a son who’s the same age as Rita.”
He was no longer listening to her. She’d betrayed him. She’d promised winter or spring, and instead she wanted to finish up now. In another few months her agent would have handed her the award at home over a glass of champagne, without any extravagance. Now the whole rumpus over the prize would let loose, merely a little late. Could he do anything to stop it? What would he have done until the end of winter or the beginning of spring? Could he have persuaded Kate to wait that long for the connection to be repaired and that he’d collect her e-mails from the Internet café in town? She trusted him with the mail, so why not with the e-mails too? Perhaps it would have begun to snow and never stopped, like in 1876, and they would have written and read and played and cooked and slept their way through the winter without any thought for the world outside.
“I’m going upstairs. The three of us will celebrate on Sunday, okay?”
10
Should he give up? But Kate had never been so much at peace, nor had she ever written so easily as in the last six months. She needed life here. So did Rita. He wasn’t going to expose his little angel to the city traffic and the crime and the drugs. If he succeeded in giving Kate another child, or better, two, he would homeschool them. With just one child he thought it questionable, pedagogically speaking, but with two or three it was okay. And perhaps it was okay with one child too. Wasn’t Rita being raised better by him and without any problems than she would be in some bad school?
On Sunday, Kate got up early; by late afternoon she was finished. “I’ve finished,” she called, ran down the stairs, picked up Rita in one arm and took him in the other, and danced around the wooden pillars with them. Then she put on an apron. “Shall we cook? What have we got in the house? What would you like?”
Kate and Rita overflowed with boisterousness as they cooked and ate, laughing over the least little thing. “It’ll end in tears,” his grandmother had warned when her grandchildren’s laughter became overexcited, and he wanted to warn Kate and Rita too. Then he felt he would be a sourpuss and let it be. But his mood got steadily darker. Their high spirits upset him.
“A story, a story,” Rita begged after supper. Kate and he hadn’t worked one out while they were cooking, but actually it was usually enough for one of them to start and then the other one took over while they listened to each other carefully. Today he hemmed and hawed until he’d spoiled Kate and Rita’s pleasure in the story. While he felt bad about this, he wasn’t able to rescue the mood again. And besides, it was time
for Rita to go to bed.
“I’ll take her,” said Kate. He heard Rita laughing in the bathroom and jumping around in bed. When it quieted down, he waited for her to call him for her good-night kiss. But she didn’t.
“She went straight to sleep,” said Kate when she came to sit down with him. She didn’t waste a word on his black mood. She was still elated, and the thought that she didn’t even notice how he was feeling bad made him feel even worse. She was beaming, in a way she hadn’t for a long time, her cheeks were glowing and her eyes shone. And she was holding herself and moving so self-confidently! She knows how beautiful she is and that she’s too beautiful to be living in the country and belongs in New York, he thought, and his courage failed him.
“I’m driving to town after breakfast tomorrow—is there anything I can get you?”
“That’s not going to work. I promised Jonathan to help repair the roof of the barn, and I need the car. You’d said you’d finish this weekend, and I thought you could stay with Rita tomorrow.”
“But I said I want to go to town tomorrow.”
“What I want doesn’t count?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t want a fight, she wanted a solution. “I’ll drop you off at Jonathan’s and drive on to town.”
“And Rita?”
“I’ll take her with me.”
“You know she gets sick in the car.”
“Then I’ll let her out with you—it’s only twenty minutes to Jonathan’s.”
“Twenty minutes in the car for Rita are twenty minutes too many.”
“Rita has got carsick twice, that’s all. She had no problem in taxis in New York or in the car when we came here from New York. You have this fixed idea that she can’t be in a car. Let’s just try …”
“You want to do an experiment on Rita? Will she get sick or will she manage fine? No, Kate, you’re not going to do an experiment on my daughter.”
“Your daughter, your daughter … Rita is just as much my daughter as yours. Talk about Rita or about our daughter, but don’t play the concerned father who has to protect his daughter against the bad mother.”
“I’m not playing. I take care of Rita more than you do—that’s all. If I say she’s not going in the car, she’s not going in the car.”
“Why don’t we ask her in the morning? She’s pretty clear about what she wants.”
“She’s a little child, Kate. What if she wants to go in the car but can’t cope with it?”
“Then I’ll take her in my arms and carry her home.”
He just shook his head. What she was saying was so idiotic that he felt he must actually go repair the barn roof with Jonathan. He stood up. “How about the half bottle of champagne that’s in the fridge?” He kissed her on the head, brought the bottle and two glasses, and poured. “To you and your book!”
She produced a smile, raised her glass, and drank. “I think I’ll go and take a last look at my book. Don’t wait up for me.”
11
He didn’t wait up, and went to bed without her. But he lay awake until she was lying next to him. It was dark, he didn’t say anything, breathed regularly, and after she’d been lying on her back for a while, as if wondering whether to wake him and talk to him, she turned on her side.
When he woke up the next morning, the bed was empty. He heard Kate and Rita in the kitchen, got dressed, and went downstairs.
“Papa, I’m allowed to go in the car!”
“No, Rita, it makes you ill. We’ll wait for that till you’re bigger and stronger.”
“But Mummy said …”
“Mummy meant later, not now.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean.” Kate’s voice was controlled. But then suddenly her control was used up and she screamed at him. “The shit you talk! You say you want to help Jonathan with the barn, and you sleep in half the morning? You say you want to go skiing with Rita in the winter and you think riding in the car is too dangerous? You want to turn me into Mummy at her stove, waiting for Daddy to be gracious enough to let her have the car? Either the three of us drive to Jonathan’s now and I let you out there, or Rita and I go alone.”
“I want to turn you into Mummy at her stove? What am I, if not Daddy at the stove? Just a failed writer? Who lives on your money? Who takes care of your daughter but isn’t allowed to decide anything? Nanny and cleaning lady?”
Kate had got herself under control again. She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “You know I don’t mean any of that. I’m leaving now—are you coming?”
“You’re not leaving!”
But she put on her jacket and shoes, and Rita’s, and went to the door. When he blocked the two of them from going out the front door, Kate picked up Rita and went out through the veranda. He hesitated, ran after Kate, caught up to her, and grabbed her. Then Rita started to cry and he let go. He followed Kate off the veranda and across the meadow to the car.
“Please don’t do this!”
Kate didn’t answer, got into the driver’s seat with Rita on the passenger seat beside her, pulled the door shut, and switched on the engine.
“But not in the front seat!” He wanted to open the door, but Kate pressed the lock. He banged against the door, seized the handle, and tried to stop the car. It drove off. He ran alongside, and saw that Rita was kneeling up on the front seat, staring at him terrified with a tearstained face. “The seat belt,” he called, “put on Rita’s seat belt!” But Kate didn’t react, the car gathered speed, and he had to let go.
He ran behind the car but couldn’t catch up with it. Kate wasn’t driving fast on the dirt road but was still leaving him behind, and with every yard of road between two curves the distance lengthened. Then the car was gone, and he heard it further and further away.
He ran on. He had to chase after the car, even if he could no longer catch up with it. He had to run to remain in his life, in his wife’s, and in his daughter’s. He had to run, so as not to have to return to the empty house. He had to run, so as not to stand still.
Finally, he couldn’t go on. He bent forward, with his hands on his knees. When he was finally calmer and could hear something aside from his own breathing, he heard the sound of the car in the far distance. He straightened up, but couldn’t see it. The noise hung there, slowly faded, and he waited for it to cease altogether. Instead he heard a far-off crash. Then everything was still.
He started running again. He imagined the car, which had hit the barricades and the sawhorses or a tree because Kate had wrenched the steering wheel to the side, he saw Kate’s and Rita’s bloodied heads against the shattered windshield, Kate tumbling onto the road with Rita in her arms, cars driving past heedlessly, he heard Rita screaming and Kate sobbing. Or were the two of them trapped, unable to get out, and any moment the gas would ignite and the car explode? He ran on, although his legs could barely carry him, and there were daggers in his chest and side.
Then he saw the car. Thank God it wasn’t on fire. It was empty, and Kate and Rita were nowhere to be seen, neither near the car nor on the main road. He waited, waved, but wasn’t picked up. He went back to the car, saw that it had hit the barricades and sawhorse, and that the sawhorse was wedged so tightly between the bumper and the underside of the car that it couldn’t move anymore. The door was open, and he got into the driver’s seat. The windshield wasn’t shattered, but in one spot there was a smear of blood, not in front of the driver but on the passenger’s side.
The ignition worked when he turned the key, but when he put the car into reverse, it dragged the trapped sawhorse with it. He tied the sawhorse firmly to a tree with the rope, backed up, then rolled forward, backward, then forward, again and again. It struck him that this was his punishment for destroying the phone lines, and when the car finally freed itself from the sawhorse he was utterly exhausted, just like before. He loaded the barricades and sawhorses into the cargo area and drove to the hospital. Yes, h
is wife and daughter had been brought in half an hour ago. He had them tell him where to go.
12
The hallways were more pleasant than those he remembered in German hospitals, broad, with leather chairs and flower arrangements. A poster in the elevator announced that the hospital had been made Hospital of the Year again for the fourth time in a row. He was asked to go into a waiting room, the doctor would be with him shortly, he sat down, stood up again, looked at the colorful photographs on the walls, found the ruins of Cambodian and Mexican temples depressing, sat down again. After half an hour the door opened and the doctor introduced himself. He was young, energetic, and cheerful.
“There’s luck in bad luck. Your wife held her right arm in front of your daughter,” he put his right arm out, “and when your daughter was thrown against it with full force, it broke. But it’s a clean break, and it may have saved your daughter’s life. In addition your wife has three broken ribs and a whiplash injury. But they’ll heal. We’ll just keep her here for a few days.” He laughed. “It’s an honor to have the American Book Prize winner as a patient, and it was such a pleasure to be the bearer of good news. I recognized her immediately, I hardly dared speak to her—and she knew nothing about it and was thrilled.”
“How is my daughter?”
“She has a laceration on her forehead that we stitched up, and she’s resting. We’ll observe her tonight, and if there are no problems, you can take her home tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Can I see my wife?”
“I’ll take you there.”
She was in a single room, her neck and right arm encased in some white synthetic material. The doctor left the two of them alone.