They had completed their deal after that. Zhmuhin was merely to watch from a distance, not to intercede unless he found Anna Sergeyevna to be in some danger. Evgeniy in turn paid for Zhmuhin’s transportation, his lodging and meals, and a remuneration of 100 rubles for the six weeks’ work — more than half again his salary at the hotel for the same period, but the extra would ensure his attention and discretion.
During the first fortnight that his wife was away, Evgeniy began to receive short letters from her. She wrote of her walks in Verney’s pavilion and in the public gardens, of the roughness of the seas in the days and the strange light upon it in the evenings, of how everyone gathered in the harbor for the arrival of the steamer. Evgeniy smiled over her letters, envying such simple pleasures, the easy amusements that he had never been the type to enjoy. He was grateful for a wife who could appreciate them so.
Then one morning, a messenger delivered a telegram to his office. The message itself was unsigned, but in some manner the block type itself bore a familiar insolence, and despite his incomprehension of the telegram’s meaning, the words at once sent the blood rushing to Evgeniy’s face.
“Baby bird has found her wings.”
Two nights later, Philip sat in a rented Buick half a block from his own home, staring at the Land Rover that had just pulled to a stop at the curb, watching his wife escorted by another man across the lawn and into their front door. As he had throughout the evening, he struggled with the word stalker and its connotations. But he hadn’t been stalking. He had no intention to do anything. He had merely been surveying. He was simply watching the story unfold.
He should have been in Charlottesville at this point — the lie he’d told Catherine, the one he’d had to tell her. Research for his story, a quick trip to the Center for Russian Studies at UVA, dinner with a friend from college who lived there, someone he hadn’t seen in a couple of years. “So I’ll have a place to stay for free,” he had explained, plausibly enough. “And it’ll give the two of us a chance to catch up.” He’d used the last phrase deliberately — the same that he’d used when talking to Catherine about Buddy — but she hadn’t seemed to notice, and he alone had been left with a sour taste in his mouth.
So far, he’d put only a dozen miles on the rental, only a few miles between each stop: Buddy’s neighborhood first, a series of squat bungalows half a century old, freshly painted, freshly landscaped, oversized SUVs out front. A pot of begonias had already bloomed on Buddy’s own stoop; his porch swing slowly swayed nearby. Then to the restaurant, following the Land Rover across town to Glenwood Avenue and to the parking lot at 518 — a couple of extra miles crisscrossing the streets near the restaurant, Jones to West, Lane to Boylan, the parking lots adjacent to 42nd Street Oyster Bar, Southend, and Ri Ra, couples leaning toward one another, groups talking and laughing, until he found Catherine’s beige Camry on Harrington.
It was still back there now, he knew, abandoned for the evening, and he wondered once more what had been running through her head as she made that decision — him watching from just down the street as the two of them exited the restaurant together, the rest of the evening determined, she must have known, by whatever happened in that moment. She’d held her head low, looking down at the sidewalk; Buddy had leaned his face down to meet her eyes better, gestured for her to stay there, walked around into the parking lot. Catherine alone in front of the restaurant. Her head held low with regrets? with shame? lost in her thoughts? lost in anticipation? Philip imagined for a moment that she had been drinking, that she was drunk, that Buddy was taking advantage of her condition. Didn’t it seem she was struggling to maintain her equilibrium? But no, her balance had been complete, her stance never swayed. He could almost smell the scent of her new perfume behind her ears, along her neck. She had looked up the moment he thought that. In the direction of Philip and the rented car? No, toward the tip of the Land Rover, waiting to turn out of the parking lot.
And now they had entered the house together, the story unfolding not as Philip would have chosen but, unfortunately, as he expected. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, its surface sticky with the sweat of someone else’s hands.
A song ended on the radio and the announcer came on. Bob Rogers. WSHA. “The blues is the blues is the blues,” Rogers said, his tone folksy, soothing. Philip thought of evening deejays in empty studios, alone with their passions. He thought of the people who listened to those deejays and about the shape of such a shared solitude. He had always felt apart from people — shy and self-aware — but Catherine had been patient with him, indulged his eccentricities. And what had he given her in return? What had he failed to give her that had sent her away?
He picked up the cell phone and dialed their home number.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said when Catherine answered, careful to keep his tone light, determined not to betray his emotions.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you almost to Charlottesville?”
“Almost,” he said, pulling up the car a few feet, watching which lights went on in which rooms. “I’m driving into the city limits now. What have you been up to this evening?”
“I’ve been out, just got back in,” she said. “I got a call soon after you left and ended up meeting some people down at 518. But about halfway through the meal, I felt sick to my stomach and ended up just coming home.”
An internal complaint, Philip thought. How ironic. How fitting.
“Well, I hate that I’m so far away,” he said. He searched for the shadows of movement between the half-closed blinds. “I hate for you to be sick and all alone like that.”
“Yeah, I really do feel awful,” she said. “But I’ll be all right. Buddy ended up driving me back here, and Miriam said she’d come over and stay the night if I wanted her to.”
“Buddy’s there?”
“Yeah, he said he’d stay with me for a few minutes to make sure I’m okay.” A light went on in the room where Philip worked. “And he hadn’t seen the house yet, so this gives him a chance to see our place.” The light went off again.
“Do you want me to come back?”
“You’re hours away, hon,” she said, her silhouette appearing at the living room window. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, do you want me to call you back in a little while?”
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, and he watched as she shut the blinds tightly. “Don’t worry. It was just something I ate. You’re almost there and I know you want to catch up with Mike. I’m just going to turn down the ringer and go to bed in a few minutes, just as soon as Buddy leaves.”
Turn down the ringer. Go to bed. Catch up. Half-truths easier to tell than lies.
“So.” His mind scrambled in vain for a new strategy. “I guess I’ll just talk to you tomorrow, then.”
“All right, hon. I’ll give you a call on the cell when I get up, okay?”
“Okay,” he said. And he saw the light in their bedroom come on. “Well, good night.”
“Hey!” she said then. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” he asked.
“How about ‘I love you’?”
“I love you too,” he replied, relieved that she had said this in front of Buddy. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Feel better. Good night.”
But his hopes gradually faded as the minutes stretched on. And it was more than an hour before the other man left the house. When the Land Rover pulled away from the street, Philip followed, dutifully.