Exiles in the Garden (24 page)

They'd be gone two, three years, he said. Often they didn't come home. That's why it's called a widow's walk.

But the sea isn't anywhere near Washington, Lucia said.

It's a decoration, he said. Either that or the merchant prince had it built for his wife, expecting her to wait there each evening for his return from the countinghouse downtown. A round of applause when he drove up in the Pierce-Arrow.

Please. What is a Pierce-Arrow?

Expensive car, Alec said.

Two giant oaks stood left and right of the sidewalk leading up to the porch steps and the front door. The covered porch ran around the front and sides of the house, a glider positioned to the right of the front door. Wisteria clung to the porch railing. No one was about. It took Alec a moment to notice the small sign on the front lawn. Grass had grown up around it. The sign read, in Gothic script,
Goya House.

They walked slowly up the sidewalk and the steps leading to the porch. There was no bell to push or knocker to rap. He told Lucia to wait and he walked from one window to another, looking inside at a large room filled with chairs and a sofa and tables piled high with newspapers and magazines, many of them from abroad. When Alec turned the corner he stopped short and signaled Lucia to join him.

Alec said, I think that's your father.

He was dressed in dark slacks and a white tunic, leather sandals on his bare feet, smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder, the ivory stained brown by nicotine. He was seated in a rocking chair, gently moving back and forth while he smoked and watched a squirrel collect acorns on the lawn. Andre Duran—for it was indisputably him, his features a rough cut of Lucia's, his tight smile identical to his daughter's when she was in repose—did not acknowledge their presence. The resemblance ended there. He was built like a wrestler and looked like one, with his crew-cut iron-gray hair, gnarled forehead, and heavy hands and arms. For all that he presented an air of authority, some combination of civil and military rank, accustomed to issuing orders and having them obeyed. He looked younger than ninety years old, but that did not imply that his life had been easy. Alec noticed that the hand that held the cigarette holder was missing its little finger. Andre Duran had not heard them approach and Alec thought that odd until he saw the hearing aid in his ear. Behind him, Alec heard Lucia's quick intake of breath.

She stood in front of him and said, Hello, Papa.

He looked up sharply, annoyed at being disturbed. But his face softened at once and he said, Oh, Lucia. You've come to see me.

He took her hands, smiling broadly, and began what seemed to be a speech. He spoke in a deep voice that rose and fell with emotion. He was moving his hands up and down, her fingers disappearing into his fists. He talked on and on, all of it in Czech. His expressions went from high delight to despair and back again. Andre Duran was evidently telling a story, some version of his life, how he had lived his days, where all the years had gone, the places he had lived and how he had thought all this time of his daughter but was unable to communicate with her. The incomprehensible words flew by. Lucia moved once to interrupt him but he was having none of it, shaking his huge head and speaking in a kind of growl, struggling to condense and intensify his life's journey. All this time he was looking at Lucia as if she were some miraculous incarnation of a fairy princess, come to rescue him from his own memory. She opened her mouth to interrupt him again but he paid no attention. His eyes were far away, back somewhere in his youth or early middle age. He went on and on until at last he rapped his knuckles on the window, releasing her hands as he did so.

Papa, I don't speak Czech.

That can't be true, he said.

I did speak it. But I lost it after Mama died.

You speak no Czech?

Only a few words, she said.

I was saying how happy I am to see you.

I understood that, she said.

I have wanted to say those words for a very long time.

I understood that, too. We can speak German if you wish. Or French.

No German, he said dismissively. No French. His eyes moved sideways to make a quick glance at Alec, ignored these many minutes. Alec was not certain he had been noticed at all, so rapt was Andre Duran in his daughter.

This is Alec, Lucia said.

They shook hands, calluses on soft flesh.

Alec is Mathilde's father.

Who is Mathilde?

Your granddaughter, Papa.

He looked around him. Where is she? Is she here?

She had an appointment, Lucia said. She works for the State Department—

The American State Department?—

And she is there now for a meeting.

What meeting?

I don't know. A meeting of the sort diplomats have.

Is she talking about me?

You? No, not you. I think it has to do with the Iranians.

Andre considered that a moment and turned to rap once more on the window.

Please, he said. Sit.

There were wicker chairs at the far end of the porch. Alec fetched them and he and Lucia sat. Lucia began to speak of Mathilde, where she had gone to school and university and what she did for the State Department. Lucia spoke slowly so her father could fully understand. Mathilde had had postings in Europe and Africa and was now in the political section of the London embassy. She was hoping to be nominated ambassador next year. She wanted a central European country, Czech Republic or Hungary. But if not central Europe then farther east, one of the breakaway republics of the former Soviet Union.

And what is the attraction of these countries?

Mathilde calls them serious countries, Lucia said. They are countries struggling with their identity and national purpose and how they organize themselves, and in these circumstances America has a role to play, advising. How to write a constitution. How to organize a judiciary. Formulate a foreign policy. Control the military. She looked to Alec for help but Alec said nothing. This was the first he had heard of the breakaway republics of the former Soviet Union.

Andre grunted a mirthless laugh.

Mathilde was unmarried, Lucia said, taking the conversation in another, theoretically safer, direction. She was a wonderful student as a child and now she was married to her work, an excellent diplomat, gifted with languages, wonderful at negotiation. People speak so highly of her, Papa. We are very proud that she works for the government. Alec's father was a senator—here, Andre turned to look quizzically at Alec—so it is a family affair. Alec watched Lucia as she spoke, leaning forward, moving her hands like an orchestra conductor. She and her father had the same gestures, though neither of them seemed to notice; the effect was of a nervous companionability, two friends striving to catch up and not knowing where to begin. Lucia was talking rapidly, her words tumbling one after another. She had stared intently at her father when they met, and Alec knew she was remembering her mother's photograph of the young man at the café table in Prague wearing a Borsalino and smoking a cigarette, the best-looking man in the room. She was trying to fit the portrait to the aged man in the rocking chair, the one listening hard to each word she said. Alec wondered where he found the ivory cigarette holder, an accessory as well worn as a billfold or a pair of slippers.

Andre turned to Alec. Do you think she will be ambassador to Czech Republic?

No, Alec said. That's a post for a senior diplomat.

Hungary?

I would say the same.

But we're hoping, Lucia said brightly.

Be careful what you hope for, Andre said. And now we will have coffee.

A sullen teenage boy arrived carrying a brass platter of tiny cups and saucers and a pot of Turkish coffee. Andre rapped on the window and said something to the boy, who shrugged and put the tray on the floor and departed. He returned in a moment with a wooden table, placed the tray on it, and went away, this time for good. Andre's eyes were on him the whole while, as if he expected the boy to pilfer a spoon. At last Andre sighed and poured Turkish coffee, the consistency of mud but aromatic. Alec took a cup but Lucia declined. Andre nodded and with great concentration lit another cigarette, screwing it into his ivory holder. He carefully balanced the tiny cup of coffee on the arm of his rocking chair and sat back watching the squirrel forage for acorns on the lawn. Alec had the idea that this was an afternoon ritual, no hurry because Andre had no place to go. Conversation was suspended while Andre watched the squirrel, the picture of bourgeois contentment. A wire of cigarette smoke rose in the heavy air.

Are you comfortable here, Papa?

Oh, yes. Quite comfortable.

But—can you tell me. Why are you here?

It was arranged for me.

This place?

Yes, it's run by people I knew at one time. It's a boarding house for refugees, stateless people or people who consider themselves stateless. People who have no place else to go. Goya House is a kind of way station, a port of call, quite comfortable and agreeable except for that lad who brought the coffee. He wants a good whipping, insolent little beggar. They have no manners, the young. But he makes good coffee.

And have you been here a long time?

At least two years, he said. More than that, I think. It's easy to lose track of time in America.

Alec smiled at that, suddenly enjoying himself, listening to Andre dole out his precious bits of information. Alec liked listening to his antique English,
insolent liddle beggah,
inflected with Czech and God knows what other languages from middle Europe and beyond. Andre had begun to rock again, the cigarette holder clamped between his teeth and his fingers securing the coffee cup, an untroubled ship's captain in full command of his vessel.

It's a very large house, Lucia said.

Yes, well. Andre smiled. The money came from an industrialist who made a fortune in the war. Dry goods, I believe. He died a very pleasant sinner's death in the south of France. He and his son were estranged but he left the boy his fortune nevertheless, and the boy gave it away to these people I knew at one time. They wanted to name the place after their benefactor but the son would have none of it. He insisted they call it Goya House, having in mind
The Disasters of War.

Goodness, Lucia said.

The young man hated his father but he did have a sense of humor. Goya has another meaning, popular in the American army. Get Off Your Ass.

The industrialist was American? Alec asked.

German, Andre said. Through and through.

Lucia said, You certainly look well.

I am in good health, Andre said. Against all odds.

But Papa. Where were you before? Where have you been living? All this time we thought you were dead.

No, I wasn't dead. Where did you get that idea?

That's what Mama said.

Your mother was a romantic. I imagine she was repeating something she had been told.

She believed it. And so did I.

Loose talk, Andre said. People talk too much.

And we heard nothing to the contrary, Lucia said.

Conditions were not ideal, Andre said after a long pause. Those were terrible times. Hard to make sense of them even now. They are hard to describe. There was confusion, a mare's nest of half-truth and innuendo. Andre raised his head and made a tick-tick-tick sound, looking at the squirrel, which froze, an acorn between its busy teeth. Neither Andre nor the squirrel moved for a heartbeat or two. Andre took a sip of his coffee, a motion that seemed to break the spell, if that was what it was. Andre blew a series of smoke rings and the squirrel returned to its acorn.

We had no reason not to believe it, Lucia said. In the absence of other news, Mama believed it.

Communication was difficult, that's true.

I met a man years ago at a party in Washington, Lucia said. His name was Kryg, an ambassador—

Kryg! Andre said, and began to laugh, this time with sincerity.

He told me he had seen you in Trieste.

It was not Trieste. I have forgotten where it was but it wasn't Trieste.

Kryg was also vague about the date. He was vague about everything, and I believe he regretted saying he had seen you. But he said you were in business. I told him he didn't know what he was talking about, you alive and in business in Trieste. He was quite taken aback. He apologized. He said he had to speak to me because we, you and I, looked so much alike. He knew I was your daughter before he knew my name.

Kryg was always unreliable, Andre said.

So you did meet him.

Kryg and I met on and off for years, Andre said. I'd see him here and there. Andre paused a moment, lost in thought. And strictly speaking he was no more unreliable than many ambassadors. He was a shrimp. Came up to my shoulder. But he was not a fool. By no means a fool. The time was difficult, as I said. Difficult for me and for everyone else. So we had a conversation. I needed money and he gave me the money I asked for. It wasn't much.

Why didn't you let us know?

Know what? Andre seemed genuinely puzzled by the question.

That you were alive, Papa.

The time was not convenient, dear Lucia.

I don't understand, she said.

Andre smiled sympathetically. He said, Now I would like it if you would tell me what happened after you left Prague, all the details. I know you and your mother lived in Zurich and she taught at the university. Tell me of your life there.

Alec rose then and asked directions to the men's room. Without taking his eyes off Lucia, Andre said it was on the first floor, second door right. Knock first. Alec wandered off as Lucia began her Zurich saga, events familiar to him. He found the men's room unoccupied and pissed for what seemed a minute or more. In the living room once again he glanced at the foreign newspapers and magazines and the framed posters on the wall, posters of Budapest and Sarajevo, Kraków, Sofia, and New York. They were ordinary travel posters of the sort found in airport waiting rooms, cheerful scenes of picturesque squares and cathedrals, cafés in bright sunlight, the Statue of Liberty. Alec looked through the window at Andre listening to Lucia. From the few phrases he could hear, he knew she was telling him of her mother's salon, who was there and what was discussed, the arguments, her mother a kind of impresario of intellectuals. She was so beautiful, my mother, Lucia said. Everyone admired her. She believed in socialism until the very end. I think everyone loved her and when she died Zurich was a poorer place. Of course she always considered herself Czech.