I do not love Angela. I have told her this in an effort to head off future indemnity. She says she’s OK with that. She says love is “just a word.” In my limited experience, this seems sound. I do not love Angela, but as I drive the Mohawk Trail, I do miss her. She is my main squeeze. She is my working thesis. With her, I associate all that I love about Albany, which is that I have absolutely no familial, cultural, or philosophical connection to it. I’m bound to it only by the exercise of my own free will.
The moment I enter the apartment on Savin Hill Road, Dad sits upright and says, in English, “Thank you for coming.” Although he is fully dressed, he seems to have just awoken from a long sleep. As ever, I am not prepared for his civility, how he is calm to the point of frigid, nor am I prepared for how frustrated it makes me that he still sleeps on the couch, instead of in the single bedroom I have long vacated. I feel the need for air, the need to sigh repeatedly, as well as the telltale muscular fatigue I suffer from long after I’ve finished climbing those three flights of stairs. Just moments ago, I barely survived the foyer of the building, against whose plaster I used to rest my secondhand dirt bike. Why does the foyer hurt me? Why does the memory of the dirt bike hurt me? I don’t know. I still don’t know. Sliding my key from the lock, I turn and offer Dad an encouraging smile. He stares up from the couch uncertainly. I realize I am smiling at a blind man.
“Ah,” he says, and pats the surface of the TV table. He picks up something that looks like a welding visor and places it over his glasses. He finds me through magnified eyes.
“Now I see you,” he says.
I walk over and clasp his shoulder, suddenly moved. “Hi, Dad. I’m here.”
“Sorry for how I look,” he says.
“What?” I say. “You look fine.”
“I cannot see.”
“Well, you can see me.”
“I can see you hardly.”
“You’re going to be fine.”
He gives my wrist a squeeze. “My son. You came.”
My throat constricts. That’s right — I remember now — the surgery carries a small risk of permanent blindness. He is afraid. But instead of offering him reassurance, I feel my stomach drop, and a child’s wail begins to climb me from the inside. God no, I think. You cannot cry, you shit. If you start to cry, you will never forgive yourself. You will die of shame. Trottel. Idiot. Weakling. That’s when I make a deal. I say, Dear God: If you help me make it out of Dorchester without crying, I will never set foot in this place again. I will totally disappear.
The wail stops at the top of my throat and sinks back into silence.
The surgery goes well. At the end of the day, I drive Dad back to the apartment. I lead him up the steps by the elbow. The upper half of his face is bandaged by gauze. I disregard the policies of parking in the shared lot and leave the car closest to the entrance, blocking someone in. I prop Dad on the couch with some extra pillows. He asks for a beer. I go to the old half fridge, get a beer, pop off the bottle cap, and guide the misting nozzle to his mouth. We sit together as he sips, and for a moment, I almost enjoy the familiar sensation of his silence.
“Miscommunication,” Dad says, swallowing. “This is the English word.”
“What?” I ask. “What did you say?”
“We were crossed stars.”
“Who are you talking about, Dad?”
“Your Mutter. Your Mutter and I.”
I slap my knee. “You should rest.”
“But it is a simple thing to say. Miscommunication. It was to happen. We had lost the power of speaking. We became as children.” He turns his bandaged face toward mine. “I would like to explain it to you.”
“Dad. You don’t need to explain it to me,” I say. “It’s ancient history.”
“It has long confused me. Love. Opportunity. She said I was unloving. But see where we were. See what we lived with. The society we lived with. A false regime, another country’s puppet. Artificial. Paranoid. Shut. The heart needs inspiration. The heart needs opportunity—”
“Dad, please. Stop.”
“You were too jung to know. So I tell you now.”
“No,” I say. “Nein.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because. That’s why.”
“I don’t understand.”
I laugh, looking for support from the empty room. “By God, you just had surgery. Where in the hospital paperwork does it say that the patient should recount long and painful stories from the distant past? Stories that nobody — that everybody — Besides, you’re on like twelve different sedatives and I don’t trust you.”
“I want to say what happened.”
“No.”
“You don’t want to know what happened to us?”
“No.”
“I felt, in surgery, what if something happened to me? And I leave you alone? But I have made it and I will tell you now.”
“Nein!” I am shaking. “Ich will es nicht wissen, Daddy. Ich will es nicht hören.”
“Let me tell you. It’s all right.”
“Du bist krank. Du bist betrunken.” I clasp my hand over my mouth, glad he cannot see me. I stand and move to the window. The street below is empty. The top corner of the white tenement across the street is sheared by the sun like a dog-eared page. Neither of us speaks.
Then my father says, hollowly, “We were given one hour to get to Friedrichstrasse…”
“Enough,” I say. I return to the couch and take away his beer. His hands grope the air for it. “You shouldn’t be drinking this. You’re not making sense.” My voice falls to a whisper. “You’re not making sense.”
He pushes himself upright. “Son. I see you so seldom.”
“I know.”
A long horn sounds from below. We both turn our heads to look.
“The lot,” Dad says. “You must move your auto.”
Hey! Hey up there! a female voice cries from outside. Hey, asshole!
“She must mean me.” I pick up my car keys. “I’ll be back.”
“No,” Dad says wearily. “You go. Go. Live your life. I’m home now. I only want to sleep. Go, go.”
I wipe my eyes. “I said I’ll be back. Where’s parking?”
“Victoria Strasse,” my father says quietly, pressing the gauze against his eyes. “Monday — Wednesday parking on Victoria Strasse.”
I descend the stairs. Their uneven risers are embedded in my gait. Out the side door. The slap of the storm door. A woman in a dirty minivan eyes me through her side-view mirror, a clove cigarette tilted at an angle between her fingers. I get into Angela’s Firebird and back out.