“How did you get in here? What on earth did you say to Faraz?”
“Do you give a thought to them now? Do you remember the house of your birth at all?”
“Of course I do. What, have you come all this way to accuse me of that?” Anton squeezes out a laugh. “I remember everything. Our morning coffee, Mother’s sweetbreads, you in your woodshop, throwing hammers at the rat. It is you. Why don’t you come around to the door?”
The other says nothing. His white breath withdraws a bit.
“I remember the wooden blocks you carved, for me and for Julita.”
A faint snort.
“You never could stand to be wrong, Dad. But you are, you see. I’ll remember as much as you want.” Anton is crowing, no longer bending to the slot. “I remember Julita at her sixteenth birthday, the calico dress, the necklace we chose. She was the kindest, loveliest, gentlest—I remember her dancing with me, and with Enri and Zoltan from next door, while you jigged those songs on your fiddle, the only three you know. Posies and poppies. I remember her chattering about France, wanting everything French, dreaming of a trip to Provence, a ferry down the Rh?ne.”
“It is you who dream.”
“I remember my sister—”
“You read it.”
“No, no. I lived it.”
“You imagined living it. You read something similar.”
Anton checks himself. The old man was in the foulest of moods. There was no contradicting his claims, no matter how ridiculous, when such waves of despair and contempt took hold. One could only wait, or leave.
Another cough. “You are pathetic, my son. If indeed I should call you that today. You ran from us.”
“I went to school.”
“You fled. Your mother had been ill. I had not sold a table in a month, a piano in five.”
“It was a clammy place. My chest hurt and my nose ran.”
“We had nothing to eat.”
“The cows gave milk that spoiled in an hour.”
“You had work. A debt to your family. You think you have a gift—what about the gifts we gave you?”
“Well I’m back—isn’t that enough? I’m in the stinking army, I send you my pay.”
“Late remorse. Ten months late. We had to consent to Julita—”
“Dad! Listen to me!” Anton hisses through the window. “It’s not my fault you’re a woodsmith, and I’m an artist. But just because I brought you here once, let you shake hands with the porter in his uniform, took you around in secret to gawk like a serf, doesn’t mean that you can simply show up and visit me. I’m on duty! Can you imagine what could happen to us if Faraz’s tongue is loose? Now I won’t send you out in the storm, but you must come round here, and be quiet, and touch nothing, and in the morning be gone at once!”
Silence. His father is holding his breath.
“It’s warmer in here, too,” adds Anton gently.
“I’m sorry,” his father murmurs.
“It’s all right, Dad.”
“I didn’t understand.”
“Forget it. Come around, let me kiss you.”
“You’re ill. Your mother was right.”
“What?”
The door opens. It is his father, in his work clothes. Wood shavings in his beard, face lined with worry. The cold wind follows him in.
Anton is mute, still holding his viola. His father wordlessly shuts the door, comes forward, takes his son’s hand. Examines it. Then he bends, and cold lips press Anton’s cheek.
“Sit down, my boy.”
He presses Anton down on the couch, sets the viola aside. Draws up a chair.
“Dad?”
“She said your mind was going. I didn’t believe her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re barely with me. You’re somewhere else.”
“No! What the hell do you mean?”
“Shhh. You say you showed me round the palace—the palace of the Magar?”
“When he opened it to the families of the troops. Some time ago.”
The old man’s lips trembled. “Ah, child, it has been. Eighteen, nineteen years back. I’d forgotten. I took you there by the hand, and carried you when you tired. The Magar was in exile, in France. And the mayor, just once, let his friends have a look at Tchavodari Palace.”
Anton could weep for his addled father.
“You nearly tore the skin from my arm, you were so afraid. But later you were proud and could not stop talking about the palace, the grand dark palace, not for years. You remembered every detail, you drew pictures. Oh, how you pestered me to take you back!”
His father is rubbing his nose. Anton glances about, vaguely agitated.
“What’s the matter with everyone tonight, Dad?”
The old man merely looks at him, eyes wet. Anton gives a shrill yell.
“Why did you come here if you refuse to talk to me?”
“Yes, hush! But lie down first—that’s it. What shall we talk about, child?”
Around his father the room swims a bit. Anton pulls his feet up on the couch.
“I hardly know. Such a mad night. Faraz is taunting me. Colonel Lupescu’s raving. I almost suffocated in the tower. And then you tell me I’m not a good son.”
“You are a good son.”
“But I left you for music school.”