A year earlier, Alma had calculated she was going to live in much the same way until she was ninety, but now she was no longer so sure: she suspected that death was drawing closer. Previously she could sense it in the neighborhood, then hear it whispering in the dark corners of Lark House, but now it was lurking around her apartment. At sixty she had thought of death in abstract terms as something that did not concern her; at seventy it was a distant relative who was easy to forget because it never arose in conversation, but would inevitably come to visit one day. After she turned eighty, however, she began to become acquainted with it, and to talk about it with Irina. She saw death here and there, in a fallen tree in the park, a person bald from cancer, her mother and father crossing the street: she recognized them because they looked just like they did in the Danzig photograph. Sometimes it was her brother, Samuel, who had died a second time, peacefully in his bed. Her uncle Isaac seemed full of life when he appeared to her, as he had been before his heart failure, but when Aunt Lillian came to greet her occasionally in the dreamy moments of dawn she was as she had been in her last days, an old woman dressed all in lilac, blind and deaf, but happy, because she believed her husband was holding her hand.
One day Alma said, “Look at that shadow on the wall, doesn’t it look like a man’s silhouette? It must be Nathaniel. Don’t worry, Irina, I’m not crazy, I know I’m only imagining it.”
She went on speaking about Nathaniel, of how good he was, of his ability to solve problems and confront difficulties, of how he had been and still was her guardian angel.
“It’s only a figure of speech, Irina, personal angels do not exist!”
“Of course they do! If I didn’t have a pair of guardian angels I’d be dead by now, or in jail.”
“What strange ideas you have, Irina! In the Jewish tradition angels are God’s messengers, not bodyguards for humans, but I do have one: Nathaniel. He always looked after me, first like a big brother, then as the ideal husband. I could never repay him for all he did for me.”
“You were married for thirty years, Alma, and had a son and grandchildren. You worked together at the Belasco Foundation, and you nursed him through his final illness. I’m sure he felt just the same way, that he could never pay you back for all you did for him.”
“Nathaniel deserved far more love than I gave him, Irina.”
“Do you mean you loved him more as a brother than as a husband?”
“Friend, cousin, brother, husband . . . I don’t know the difference. When we got married there was gossip because we were cousins, and it was considered incest; I think it still is. I suppose our love always was incestuous.”
AGENT WILKINS
On the second Friday in October, Ron Wilkins appeared at Lark House, looking for Irina Bazili. He was an African--American FBI agent, aged sixty-five, with a big belly, gray hair, and expressive hands. When Irina asked with surprise how he had found her, Wilkins reminded her that being well informed was an essential part of his job. They had not seen each other for three years but were in the habit of talking on the phone. Wilkins would call from time to time to hear how she was. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. The past is behind me, I don’t even remember all that stuff,” was her invariable reply, although they both knew this wasn’t true. When Irina first met him, Wilkins appeared to be about to burst out of his suit from his ripped muscles; eleven years later, those muscles had turned to flab, but he still gave the same impression of solidity and energy as in his earlier days. He told her he was a grandfather and showed her a photo of his grandson, a two-year-old with much lighter skin than his grandfather. “His father is Dutch,” Wilkins explained, although Irina had not asked. He added that he had reached the age of retirement, which was almost compulsory in the Agency, but that he was still tied to his desk. He couldn’t bring himself to hand in his badge; he wanted to pursue the particular crime to which he had dedicated most of his professional life.
Wilkins arrived at Lark House midmorning. The pair of them sat on a wooden bench in the garden to have a cup of the watery coffee that was always available in the library though nobody wanted it. Wisps of mist were rising from the ground, still damp from the night’s dew, and the pale autumn sun was just beginning to warm the air. They were alone and could talk in peace. A few residents were already attending their morning classes, but most of them got up late. Only Victor Vikashev, the head gardener, a Russian with the looks of a Tartar warrior who had worked at Lark House for almost nineteen years, was singing softly to himself in the vegetable garden, and Cathy sped past in her electric wheelchair on her way to the pain clinic.
“I’ve got good news for you, Elisabeta,” Wilkins told Irina.
“No one has called me Elisabeta for years.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
“Remember that I am Irina Bazili now. In fact, you helped me choose that name.”