‘Russell, if you waste my time, I’ll tell security to throw you out the window and I’ll make sure personally they’ve done it.’
‘You’re a great man, Wayne.’
‘Your brother was a great man. In his memory I’ll take a look at what you have.’
I never heard from him again until after that night at Joy, the night when everyone’s certainties had been overturned to give way to the vast emptiness of all the things we didn’t know.
As we were waiting for the police to arrive and make their initial investigations, I went looking for a room with a computer and an Internet connection. When I found it, I shut myself away and drafted the first article. I managed to get it all down, as if someone behind me was dictating the words, as if I had always owned that story, as if I’d lived it a thousand times and told it just as often.
Then I emailed and sent it to the paper.
The rest is well known.
Two weeks have gone by since Vivien’s sister’s funeral. Two weeks since the last time I saw her, the last time we talked. Since that moment I’ve been on a merry-go-round that’s been moving so fast. Now it’s time for that merry-go-round to stop, because I still feel an emptiness that the lights of the TV studios and the interviews and my photograph on the front page, this time without any shame, can’t fill. This whole crazy business has taught me that words left unexpressed are sometimes more dangerous and more damaging than those we scream at the top of our voice. It’s taught me that sometimes the only way not to run risks is to take risks. And that the only way not to have debts is not to incur them.
Or to pay them.
And that’s exactly what I’ll do as soon as I get back to New York.
That’s why I’m standing here by my brother’s grave, looking at his face smiling back at me. I return that smile, hoping he can see it. Then I tell him something I’ve been dreaming of telling him for years.
‘I made it, Robert.’
Then I turn and walk away.
Now we’re both free.
The elevator reaches my floor and as soon as the sliding doors open I get a surprise. On the wall facing the elevator, stuck to the wall with transparent adhesive tape, is a photograph.
I go closer to get a proper look at it.
The photograph shows me, in profile, in Bellew’s office, with an absorbed expression, my face slightly shaded by my hair. The shot has caught me in a moment of reflection, and captured to perfection the doubts and the sense of uselessness I was feeling at that moment.
I turn my head and on the wall to my left, just above the bell, is another photograph. I take it in my hand and by the light on the landing look closely.
I’m in this one as well.
In the living room of Lester Johnson’s house in Hornell. My eyes are circled with fatigue but they have a determined expression, as I look at the photograph of Wendell Johnson and Matt Corey in Vietnam. I remember that moment well. It was a moment when everything seemed lost and yet suddenly hope was reborn.
The third photograph is attached to the middle of the door.
Me again, in the apartment in Williamsburg, studying the drawings in the folder for the first time. When I didn’t yet know that they weren’t bad works of art but the ingenious way a man had found to draw a map of his own madness. I remember my mood at that moment. I wasn’t aware of my expression.
At this point I realize my door is ajar. I push the handle and the door opens with a squeak.
On the wall facing the entrance is another photograph.
In the dim light coming from outside and filtering into the darkness of the apartment, I can’t quite make it out. I assume it’s another picture of me.
The light comes on in the corridor. I take a step inside, more curious than worried.
To my right, in the middle of the living room, is Russell. He smiles and makes a comical gesture with his hands. ‘Will I be arrested for breaking and entering?’
I pray to God that he doesn’t make me say something stupid. Instead of which, before God has time to intervene, I manage it all by myself. ‘How did you get in?’
He shows me the palm of his left hand. There’s a bunch of keys in it.
‘With the spare keys. I never gave them back to you. At least I can’t be accused of forcing my way in.’
I go to him and look him in the eyes. I can’t believe it but he’s looking at me as I would have liked him to look at me from the first moment that I saw him. He moves aside and points to the table. I turn my eyes and see that it’s laid for two, with a white linen tablecloth and china plates and silverware and a lighted candle in the middle.
‘I did promise you dinner, remember?’
Maybe he doesn’t know he’s already won. Or else he does know and just wants to drive home his advantage. Either way, I have no intention of running away. I don’t know what kind of expression I have on my face but, confused as I am, I still think it’s a crime not to have a photograph of it.
Russell approaches the table and points to the food. ‘Here it is. Prepared by my father’s favourite chef. We have lobster, oysters, caviar and a whole lot of other things whose names I can’t remember.’ With an elegant gesture he indicates a bottle cooling in an ice bucket. ‘For the fish course, we have the best champagne.’ Then he picks up a bottle of red wine with a colourful label. ‘And for the rest, Il Matto, a magnificent Italian wine.’
I go to him and throw my arms around his neck.
While I kiss him, I feel that everything is passing and everything is arriving at the same moment. That everything exists and nothing exists only because I’m kissing him. And when I feel him return my kiss, I think I would die without him.
I free myself for a moment. Only for a moment because that’s all I can bear. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘What about dinner?’
‘To hell with dinner.’
He smiles. He smiles against my lips. ‘The door’s still open.’
‘To hell with the door.’
We get to the bedroom and for a time that seems infinite I feel foolish and stupid and sluttish and beautiful and loved and adored and I command and implore and obey. At last his body is lying next to mine and there’s a soft light beyond the curtains and his breathing is calm as he sleeps. Then I get out of bed, put on my bathrobe and go to the window. I let my gaze, at last without anxiety and without fear, move beyond the barrier of the glass.
Outside, heedless of the lights, heedless of human beings, a light wind is blowing upriver.
Maybe it’s pursuing something or maybe it’s being pursued by something.
But it’s pleasant to stand here for a few moments and listen to it passing, rustling in the trees. It’s a cool breeze, the kind that dries the tears of men and stops the angels from crying.
And at last I can sleep.