The idea intoxicated his mind for a while and kept him on edge with the lure of danger and possibility, but gradually fatigue ambushed him. He lowered his head and curled up under the tarpaulin in the confined space. Soon, the drone of the engine and the rocking motion of the plane lulled him, and so the passage that was to have been the most momentous in his life was lost to sleep.
Chapter 10
Jude was pleased when she called the next day to say that she liked his sidebar. Like many journalists, he disparaged his profession outwardly — it wasn't cool to be idealistic about anything, especially at the Mirror, where journalists called themselves "hacks" — but inside was a different story. He believed newspapers tried to do good, and once in a while actually succeeded.
"First of all, you got the facts right, which is a virtue not to be overlooked," she said. "Then there's the matter of your style — I like it. Straightforward, matter-of-fact, no bullshit."
"Well — you like my style and I like your style. We're getting somewhere."
And so they were. Before she could hang up, Jude, summoning up his courage, had blurted out an invitation to dinner. Much to his surprise, after a small hesitation, she had accepted. And it had gone on from there. Now they were strolling along on the boardwalk at Brighton Beach, on one side the waves lapping the long expanse of deserted brown sand, on the other a jumble of knish shops, Tastee-Freez, food emporiums and scores of people, mostly elderly, sunning themselves and gossiping in half a dozen different languages. They had just finished a leisurely meal at the Primorsky, a Russian establishment tucked away in the shadow of the elevated train that was one of Jude's favorites; the moment you walked in, everything said you could be back in Moscow, from the open vodka bottles and sad little beet salads to the bouffant hairdos and color-clashing beaded dresses of the heavyset women. It had not disappointed.
This wasn't a date, exactly, more like a casual Sunday afternoon spent in each other's company. They had met only a week ago. Tizzie had never been to Brighton Beach, and Jude, who knew the neighborhood somewhat from a series the Mirror had done on the Russian Mafia, had offered to show her around.
Tizzie sat on a bench and looked out over the ocean, and Jude sat next to her.
"This puts it all in perspective, doesn't it?" she said, turning her face to the ocean.
"What?"
"Oh, the whole thing. Work, love life, parents, friends, the ozone."
Jude was struck, as he had been several times, by the feeling that she was hard to read.
"Something's bothering you," he ventured.
"No," she said, then," Yes."
"Tell me about it."
"Not much to tell, really. It's my parents. They're old and failing — my father especially. It's difficult when you grow up thinking they'll last forever."
Jude nodded and followed her gaze out to the water. Seagulls circled above, and there was a strong smell of salt in the air.
"That's why I had to leave the other day — when you were interviewing me. I'm trying to arrange medical care. It's hard to do long distance."
"Where are they?"
"Wisconsin. White Fish Bay — that's outside of Milwaukee. Beautiful place, green lawns, white clapboard houses, the works. I loved it growing up there — a daughter of the suburbs. An idyllic American childhood."
"You sound sarcastic."
She laughed. "But this is no fair. You've already interviewed me. You know all about me, but I don't know anything about you."
"There's not much to know."
"I'll be the judge of that," she said firmly, resting her hand on his. Her tone was encouraging.
"Tell me about your name. It's unusual. Where did your parents get it?"
He paused a moment, tried to come up with a joke, but couldn't.
"The strange thing is, I don't know." He paused. "And I can't ask them."
She looked at him questioningly.
"They're dead."
She put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. How did it happen? How old were you?"
And so he took a deep breath and he told her, and he found as he went along that it was surprisingly easy to talk to her about it. He told it straight out — at first in a flat, neutral voice that was self-consciously drained of all affect, lest he be accused of self-pity but then, gradually with color and feeling. He recounted the story of his life, just the way it had happened and the way he had felt at the time. He told her about his idiosyncratic early childhood, his first years in Arizona, where his parents — and this he knew from the vaguest of memories — had belonged to some kind of cult in the desert mountains. It was the 1960s, he said, and people did that sort of thing then.
Tizzie nodded.
He told her how his mother and father had met there. "I was told — although I don't know who told me, and maybe I just imagined it, but I think it's true — that they got married at the direction of the cult leader. He was one of those guys who wanted to build a perfect society away from the world and then ended up running it like a demented dictator, I guess. Anyhow, I came along. Then my mother died, of natural causes, I don't really know what it was."
"How old were you?"
"I must have been about five or so. I can't remember her. I can't even picture her face, and I didn't have a photograph or anything to help me."
Jude looked at her and then out to the ocean. It was easier to talk that way.
"The strange thing is, I used to try to conjure her up, with all my might. I used to lie there and try to think as hard as I could about what she looked like. And when I did this — I haven't done it in years — I couldn't come up with an image, nothing visual. But sometimes I came up with a fragrance. Not a fragrance, really, more of a smell. And I know this sounds weird, but it wasn't a good smell. It was strong, pungent. It was almost antiseptic."
At that, he felt Tizzie's hand touching the inside of his elbow, and he continued.
"Anyway, my father drifted away from the cult. I don't really know what happened, but he was probably devastated by the loss of her — at least, that's what I've always believed. It stands to reason, if he loved her at all. And I guess that happens, even with arranged marriages. We moved to Phoenix. And then he died, too, in a car crash. It was some kind of horrible accident on a crossroads at night. The driver of the other car was drunk."
"And you were how old?" Tizzie sounded deeply moved.
"Six, or maybe seven. I'm not really sure."
"Then what happened?"
"I was taken in by neighbors, people who lived down the block. The Armstrongs. She was some kind of lawyer, and he — I don't know what he did, I think he sold insurance. I hated them. I know it's not fair, they were probably good people — I mean, who else would take in a little kid like that? But still, I hated it in their house. They slept in separate rooms, not just in separate beds. I remember these long dinners with one of them at one end of the table, and the other at the other, and me in the middle, these long silences where all you would hear was his false teeth clicking as he chewed his food. It was an unhappy house — you pick up all kinds of things as a child. I never heard them argue outright, but I knew that they were always at each other, little things. And so when they split up, or I heard they were splitting up, I was actually relieved, I think. I went to a foster home then."
Jude looked at her and anticipated her question. "I was fifteen. Then I won a scholarship to a prep school back East, Phillips Academy, Andover. In Massachusetts. I don't know how I got it. But anyway, I went there, and that place kind of saved me, I guess. I can't say I liked it a lot, though I didn't mind it too much at first. A lot of rich kids, well educated, sons and daughters of Republicans, that kind of thing. Vacations, I'd stay at the school and eat in the cafeteria with the help. Or I'd be invited to some kid's home and I'd sit there around the Thanksgiving table, trying to remember my manners and turning red with embarrassment when the parents would ask these soppy questions about my past. I can't say I fit in, but I got a helluva education."