“Yes. I mean, not here in this room, obviously. In another one.”
“But you live very close to here. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.” He remained standing, looking like an absurd scarecrow in his sweater and towel. Close up, I could see that he looked fatigued, but there was nothing in his face of the shock or terror I had expected to find.
“Yeah, I do,” I said. “My grandmother’s just having guests, so I decided to clear out for a while.”
“Clear out?”
“Leave.” I watched his movements. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, yes. Let me bring your suitcase in.” He stepped to the doorway and reached down, touching the brittle sides of the case, its rusted handle. “Oh, my. This is an old one.”
“Yeah. It was my grandfather’s.”
“It reminds me of the one my father had when he was young and traveled from Moscow to Tashkent. He still has it somewhere, but I never even thought of trying to use it.” He placed the suitcase carefully by the desk and closed the door.
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or alarmed by his seeming serenity. “You’re a lot calmer than I expected.”
“You mean about the police?”
“Of course I mean about the police.”
“Well,” he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking away as he gently smoothed the covers with his hand. His thin legs dangled from the towel. “When they first came, it was—of course, I was upset. But it’s a bit like a fire, being frightened in that way. It burns very terribly all at once, and then it’s gone and you’re only rather tired.”
Water trickled from his hair onto his neck. He looked exposed, vulnerable, like a man dropped into a hostile wilderness.
Yes, I thought. I knew that kind of fear, the one so sharp it left only exhaustion in its wake, a kind of indifference to fate. It was dangerous, that feeling. It led to a certain kind of decision-making, like a sleepwalker choosing to leave the doors unlocked when she goes to bed.
“I don’t mean to sound like a broken record,” I told him, picking at a streak of mud on my thigh, “but I’d think the obvious thing to do would be—”
He raised his hands and then dropped them. “Martin says they will not be back right away. In the meantime, I’ll think about what would be best.”
For a moment, I felt a shadow of what I suddenly understood Beth must feel whenever she tried to make me see reason. Exasperation mixed with pity.
“All right,” I said finally. “I’m going to dinner. But I’ll knock when I come back—if you’re still awake, maybe we can talk then.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“What?” I did a double take. “No. No, no, no. That’s not happening.”
“Why not? I would like to.”
“No,” I said again, shaking my head. “Absolutely not. I’ve watched you spend all this time trying to make yourself disappear up here. I may not think that was the world’s best idea, but I’m not going to help you fling it away on an impulse. No.”
He laughed self-consciously. “You’re a good friend. And I’m grateful for your concern. But…well, it seems to me that it makes no difference. If I stay here, I’m a sitting duck, as they say. Besides…” He glanced around the small, square room with the bare floor and gray furniture. “If I sit in here, you know, I just…”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. I could picture him sitting there, gazing at the blank white walls, thinking the same thoughts over and over. Jumping at every sound.
“I understand that,” I said. “I do. But it can’t be a good idea.”
“I’m not certain anything I do is truly a good idea.”
“Yeah, well, that may be, but—”
“Please,” he said softly.
The word hung in the air, delicate and suspended, like a moth that had flown into a web.
I let my head fall back and looked up at the ceiling. “All right,” I said at last, trying and failing to quiet my better judgment.
“Thank you. Just—if you could—maybe somewhere—”
I understood. “Yeah, I could take us to the twenty-four-hour diner up on the interstate. They get a lot of travelers. They’d probably be less likely to notice us.”
It had begun to rain, and the drive was a slow one. The stranger sat in the passenger’s seat in silence, watching the road as it unfurled in front of us, turning his face every time we passed a house or a barn even though it was impossible to see anything more than shadows. He smelled like soap.
As we pulled onto the highway, he looked at me. “You seem troubled,” he said.
“I’m driving around with a crazy person. How should I seem?”
“No, I mean it looks like it’s something more than that.”
“Oh.” I glanced at the headlights in my mirror. “No, it’s nothing.”
I slipped into the traffic, not that there was much. This stretch of the highway was usually empty at night except for the trucks, eighteen-wheelers that barreled down the interstate on their anonymous way to Allentown, Scranton, New York. Elsewhere.
“These guests at your house,” the stranger went on cautiously. “You don’t like them?”
“I can’t believe that’s what you’re worried about right now.”
“Well, I’m not worried, exactly. You just look a bit—”
“No.” I gave in. “It’s not that I don’t like them. They’re my family. We’re just different people.”
“How are they different?”
“It’s not important—they’ve just done some things I wouldn’t have done. Or that I hope I wouldn’t have done.” I flicked my turn signal to pass a slow pickup.
“Yes, families can be like that. Believe me, my father—well, that’s another story for another time. And of course it isn’t good to disrespect one’s parents. Not that I’m blaming you,” he added quickly.
I smiled briefly at his politeness. “It’s fine,” I said.
“What did they do, if I may ask?”
“It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.” We passed a rest stop, its entrance lined with parked trucks, the drivers probably sleeping in their cabs. Several of the rigs had shapes on their grills done in what looked like Christmas lights, mostly crosses. The stranger turned in his seat to look at them, but within moments the trees that lined the highway had cut off the floating apparitions, and we were left in darkness.
The diner’s neon sign shone down on the parking lot. A strip of bells clanged when we pushed open the door, and the stranger jumped, stumbling into me. I felt him go tense. “Careful,” I murmured, and asked the hostess—a pert, sharp-looking woman with a pen in her mouth—for a table in the smoking section. She nodded and plucked two menus from a pile, pen remaining pressed between her lips.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” the stranger said as we slid into a booth. He curled forward, his hands in his pockets, looking around him.
“I don’t. Well, not usually. But apparently nobody else does tonight, either.” I lifted my chin at the empty booths and tables around us. “We can talk without worrying about who’s listening.”
“I see.” He opened the menu, glancing at it doubtfully. “I’m actually not very hungry, I’m afraid.”
“Pick something anyway,” I advised. “Otherwise they’re more likely to remember you.”
I watched him think about this. “All right.” He stared at the menu again as if it were written in hieroglyphics. “What should I choose?”
“Well, none of it’s exactly fine cuisine, but the roast beef’s not bad. In my opinion.”
“Okay. I’ll get that.” He closed the menu and leaned back against the booth. Whatever it was that had been buoying him up seemed to be draining away now that we were here; I watched him cast his eyes over our surroundings, doing a very poor impression of someone who wasn’t nervous.