“And it worked, more or less. I used to have the odd nightmare about nuclear winters, but that had more to do with my friend Peter Lennon gleefully showing me films about the likely aftermath. But generally the world was a less frightening place. It was still scary, but we didn’t have to be scared by it.”
Webster paused. “He did this for us. But more importantly he did it for countless others who were much more vulnerable than we ever were. We knew what he did at work, a little, because he’d explain it to us, like everything else. Not the details, of course, and in a sense I still don’t know. But I can see the thousands of people he treated and begin to imagine how they were helped and changed and sometimes cured by his work. In thirty years of practicing, that’s thousands and thousands of lives made better, sometimes in small ways, sometimes beyond all expectation. Thousands of people who because of him were less fearful. Became less scared.”
He looked at his sister again. “It’s quite an inheritance, not being scared of the dark. And Rachel, at least, uses her powers for good.” He smiled. “But I don’t think either of us can look at a thing we don’t understand and not want to understand it. Dad showed us how to explore the world.”
Webster stopped, took a sip of wine from one of the glasses in front of him, and looked down at his father, who was gazing at the tablecloth with a peaceful half-smile on his face. The little room was utterly quiet, and shadows thrown by the candles flickered on the walls.
“I’m going to stop, before this turns into a eulogy. I’m not going to go on about what a wonderful father he’s been, or what a wonderful husband I think he’s been—unless I’ve missed something. Or how he now has a new career as a local campaigner for truth and justice.” His father laughed. “I’m very aware that this is not a funeral and that, like Mr. Jarndyce, the man on my right doesn’t much like being praised. With any luck this little speech will have to last for a long, long time. But sixty-five isn’t a bad time to take stock, and, well, there’s a lot of stock to take. An awful lot. He couldn’t have set a better example. That’s why he’s daunting. Just a little.”
Webster took his champagne glass, specially filled, and raised it.
“To a courageous man.”
Repeating the words everyone drank, and Patrick Webster, still smiling, turned to his son and gave a deep, humble nod.
10.
BECAUSE IT WAS SUCH A WARM DAY, Qazai told Webster as he greeted him, lunch would be served on the loggia overlooking the lake, if that sounded agreeable; quite often, even in late May, the breeze coming off the water could carry something of a chill, but today truly felt like the first day of summer, did it not? Timur and his family had arrived the previous evening and Ava was expected any minute.
Qazai motioned to a servant to take the bags from the taxi driver and putting his hand lightly on Webster’s back ushered him into the house, inquiring after his journey and instructing Francesco, a neat man in his fifties standing by the huge double doors, to show their guest to the principal guest suite. Lunch would be at one.
The principal guest of the Villa Foresi, it turned out, received regal treatment. The room was in a corner of the building on the first floor, with Lake Como on one side and on the other a lawned terrace edged with towering cypresses. The walls, a refined light gray, were hung with fragments of textiles in frames, and a fine green silk rug covered half the tiled floor. These were the only touches of Qazai’s taste; everything else, Webster suspected, had been designed fairly recently by a professional of enormous discretion.
French doors opened onto a balcony, and in the half an hour before he was due downstairs Webster sat outside, watching the boats on the lake and the servants making preparations for lunch and smoking what he was sure wouldn’t be the last cigarette of the day.
He missed Elsa. She would have liked it here. The house occupied a small peninsula, heavily wooded with chestnuts and cypresses and jutting grandly into the lake, and looked in fact like three houses progressing in steps down the hill to the water. It must have been two hundred years old, perhaps three, and even though everything was spotlessly kept—the apricot walls and verdigris shutters freshly painted, the terraced gardens neatly clipped, the rhododendrons and azaleas and camellias freshly in bloom—it had the dignity and reserve of age, as if its current occupiers were fleeting tenants and not a matter of great concern. So yes, she would have liked it, and he would have liked her to be here, but at the same time he was relieved beyond measure that she hadn’t come.
At five to one he made his way downstairs and found the Qazais sitting at a table under an open arcade. Only Ava was not yet there. Timur rose and coming to greet him shook his hand stiffly; Raisa was warmer, and remembered him to Farhad and to Parviz, who smiled shyly.
Webster sat opposite Ava’s empty seat next to Qazai, who took the head. A waiter in a white jacket, white shirt and black tie poured him water, switched bottles deftly and before Webster could consider or object had poured him a glass of white wine.
“Your good health, Mr. Webster,” said Qazai, raising his glass, “we are delighted to see you here.”
Webster raised his and gently clinked the other glasses. “Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be invited.” It sounded stiff as he said it. “You have a very beautiful house.” Behind Ava’s empty seat the lake seemed to stretch across his entire vision, still and evenly blue, and from it on the far shore rose green forested mountains, the highest in the range beyond still tipped with snow.
“Thank you,” said Qazai, with a little bow of his head. He wore an open-necked white shirt and seemed relaxed; but despite the casual air Webster thought his eyes looked tired, and the skin under them dry and dark. “This is probably where I am happiest. Right here. With my family.” He raised his glass again, and drank a silent toast to them.
“Ava!” Farhad, Parviz’s brother, had slid off his chair and was running across the lawn with his arms spread wide, clutching Ava’s leg as he reached her. She ruffled his hair, squatting down and kissing him, then picked him up to swing him around in a low arc. Smiling and taking off her sunglasses, she crossed the grass to the table and went straight to Parviz, crouching down by him and giving him an enveloping hug. When she finally pulled away she held his face in her hands and looked at him for several seconds, her eyes full of intensity as if she were about to cry.
At last she let go of Parviz, gave him an earnest smile and went to Qazai, hugging him and Raisa and her brother in turn. Webster stood.
“You remember Mr. Webster,” said Qazai.
“I do. Hello, Mr. Webster.” She held out her hand, smiling, her eyes no longer intense but playful. “What do you make of our lakeside retreat? Not to be confused with the seaside retreat, or the mountain retreat, or all the other retreats.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Ava sat, her eyes on Webster, and waited for her wine to be poured.
Now that everyone was here Qazai unfolded his napkin and placed it carefully in his lap. “I was just telling Mr. Webster, darling, that this is my favorite place. There is something about the lake and the mountains…”
“That reminds you of Iran. Yes, we know.” Ava was smiling but there was a hint of needle in her voice.
Qazai also smiled, a little stiffly. “My daughter knows me too well,” he said, to no one in particular. “But did you know,” he leaned in to the table, pointing at the gardens, “that the cypress was planted in all the ancient gardens of Iran? They do not look quite like this—more bushy, less straight—but they have been in my country since history began.”