I point at the window. “That’s my father.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am. It’s him.”
We stand in the gauzy Berlin drizzle and watch my father talk into a microphone with the earnest controlled enthusiasm so typical of TV journalists, his royal-blue shirt thrown into beautiful relief by the sun-blasted landscape behind him. With his free hand he gestures to lend emphasis to the point he’s making. Once or twice he half-turns to incorporate a heap of rubble, a burnt-out car. Reading his lips, I decipher the words chemical weapons.
“You don’t look anything like him.” Cheadle sounds disgruntled.
Ordinary everyday reality isn’t good enough for my father. He has to appear to me in HD. I turn from the window and walk over to the gutter. Trees line the curb. Are they maples? Limes? I ought to know.
“He doesn’t even know you’re here,” Cheadle says.
A dark van races past, its tinted windows closed. From inside comes the thud of hip-hop, as if the van is an animal. As if it has a heart.
Cheadle swivels on the pavement, jaw tilted, truculent. “I’d be a better father.”
Now the TVs are showing golf.
My collar up, my hands in my coat pockets, I peer down the road. Two sets of traffic lights glow red.
“Where’s this U-Bahn station?” I say.
/
Waiting on a damp platform, I replay the scene outside the TV shop. Not one image of my father. Dozens. So perfect, that. The duplication questions — or even mocks — the idea of an intimate relationship, and then there’s the fact that I watched him from outside, on the street, that we were separated by at least two sheets of glass.
I didn’t notice if his report was live or not but I feel he must be on his way to Rome by now. Those shock waves round my heart again. I suppose I have been waiting for this moment the way a bullet waits in its chamber, cold and snug, for someone’s finger to squeeze the trigger. That sudden burst of speed, a lightning transition from cool oiled darkness to a world that is brilliant and odorless. It won’t be long before he notices my absence — if he hasn’t already. After all, it’s his job to sense when something’s not quite right. Who will he call first? Adefemi?
“I haven’t seen her, Mr. Carlyle, not for months.”
“Really?”
“We broke up.”
“Oh.” My father pauses. “I’m sorry to hear that.” And he is sorry. He likes Adefemi.
“We broke up in May.” Now it’s Adefemi’s turn to pause. “She didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
An awkward conversation, which only lasts a minute or two.
A cul-de-sac.
My father will contact my friends and it will rapidly become apparent that none of them knows where I am. They will be disconcerted, bewildered; they might even feel betrayed. Massimo is the only one who might be able to help. Intuitive and oddly transparent, he’s always spilling people’s secrets, things he doesn’t even know he knows. My father might pick up on this tendency in him. If Massimo is still in Rome my father will arrange a meeting — probably at his favorite café, in Campo di Fiore.
Late September. The sunlight a tarnished gold that turns the shadows purple. Cut flowers in buckets. My father sits outside with a black coffee and a paper. He thinks Massimo is lazy and spoiled. What do you see in him? he always says. I don’t know what you see in him.
Massimo is half an hour late.
“Mr. Carlyle.” He drops into a chair next to my father and runs a hand through his unruly dark-brown hair. “It’s good to see you.”
My father, who has been growing impatient, is surprised to find himself disarmed by Massimo’s smile.
Massimo orders a cappuccino. Someone is playing scales on a piano, the notes spilling from an upstairs window.
“Have you seen Kit?” my father says.
“Not for a while,” Massimo says. “She hasn’t returned any of my calls. I thought she might be in England.”
“She doesn’t seem to have been in our apartment — at least, not recently — and she’s not in Oxford either.” My father hesitates. “You don’t know anything?”
Massimo toys with a sachet of sugar. He wants to do right by my father — he probably wants to impress him — but he doesn’t respond well to questioning or pressure. He might be wondering if I’ve gone off with someone. He knows I’m capable of that. Little jagged shafts of jealousy might be going through him. It’s you I want.
“When did you last see her?” my father asks.
Massimo starts talking about the night we went to the club in Testaccio.
My father interrupts. “What date was this?”
“What date?” Massimo frowns. “It was a Wednesday. About three weeks ago.”
“What happened?”
“The usual things. We talked — and danced. There were a few of us. Then she came back to my place. I don’t remember too much after that. I was a bit wasted.”
“What about Kit? Was she ‘wasted’ too?” My father’s tone is acidic but Massimo doesn’t notice.
“No,” he says, “not really.”
“How do you know?”
“She rode home.” Massimo thinks back, then remembers. “I offered her some coke. She didn’t want it.”
My father gives him a look.
Massimo gazes off into the distance. Once again it’s possible that he doesn’t register my father’s disapproval — or if he does, he might murmur, Yes, I know. I really should stop.
He has no intention of stopping, of course.
“I had a feeling that night,” he goes on.
My father leans forwards. “Tell me.”
“She seemed — I don’t know — different …”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Not really. It was just a feeling.” Massimo smiles complacently.
My father sits back. Though inwardly infuriated by how calmly Massimo is taking the news that I’ve gone missing, he senses that Massimo knows something. What he needs to do is tease that knowledge out of him. It shouldn’t be a problem. He has done it hundreds of times, all over the world.
Then Massimo jerks upright in his chair. “I just remembered.”
“What?”
“She talked about going away, and I said, ‘You mean, to Oxford?’ And she said, ‘No.’ ” Massimo looks at my father. Massimo’s eyes have filled with tears. “You don’t think she’s —” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He can’t.
/
Back at the apartment on Walter-Benjamin-Platz, Klaus is perched on a high stool at the breakfast bar, working his way through a plate of profiteroles. His two mobiles and his reading glasses lie nearby. I watch him from the kitchen doorway, my arms folded, the TV muttering behind me.
“Is that supper?” I ask.
“It’s just something I found in the fridge,” he says. “How was your evening?”
“Good. How about you?”
“I stayed in. I was tired.” He rests his spoon on his plate. “Are you hungry?”
“No, I’ve eaten.”
Ever since our attempt at sleeping together, he’s had a guilty, embarrassed look. It’s not easy being on the end of it. And there’s another thing. My time with him was always going to be limited — I told him so at the beginning — but he has consistently refused to acknowledge the fact. There’s a stubborn wounded weight to much of his behavior, an insistence that won’t go away. He’s like someone who hammers at a door and goes on hammering, even though he knows it’s locked and nobody’s inside.
I stifle a yawn. “I’m tired too. I think I’ll go to bed.”
He looks at me for a moment longer and I feel I ought to give him another chance but I just can’t face it.