Howard Norman - Devotion

William looked at Katrine’s face, admired it. He noticed especially her skin, a bit flushed from the steam; the bathrobe was more than evident. Then he looked past her and saw David groaning awake. Katrine said, “David, this man is definitely perhaps not a stranger to you, I think. Should he come in, then?”

David stood up in his rumpled clothes and looked at William. “David,” William said, not moving from the doorway but holding up the box. “I thought you might bring this to Margaret. It’s a small vase with real dragonflies somehow blown into it. I was told the fact it was made in 1890 warranted the price.”

“She’ll like it very much,” David said.

“I’ve suddenly changed my mind. Now I think it’s best I give this vase to my daughter in person. When I get back to Canada.” His voice held a kind of stark conviction, but his face betrayed little. He grasped the doorknob, didn’t offer Katrine the least further acknowledgment, backed out into the hallway and solidly shut the door behind him.

Tightening its belt and holding the robe closed at the neck, Katrine looked at a stunned David, then said, “Oh, I see in your face you certainly yes are married.”

Wrenched by William’s presence, still brain-muddled from all the wine, and with what Katrine felt to be an almost comic franticness, David flew into action. He looked for his shoes, found them in the bathroom, not recalling how they’d got there. He splashed cold water on his face, then took some deep breaths. He pressed his forehead to the mirror above the sink, as if to keep thoughts inside, and said to himself, “We saw a swan in a car together, in the Hebrides.” He pounded the mirror with his fist. It might have shattered, but didn’t.

As Katrine got dressed, what sprung to her mind — she being constantly susceptible to literary references — was the English title of a novel by Louisa May Alcott she’d translated into Czech, A Long Fatal Love Chase. She said the title aloud with world-weary resignation, as if it somehow forecasted what David had now begun as he hurried past her into the hallway. He raced down the stairs and out onto George Street, observed by John Franco and the concierge. He ran toward the intersection where he knew William could catch a bus, or, fueled by whatever William might be fueled by — rage, disappointment, disgust, sadness, the combinations were interminable — could easily begin a crosstown walk. David had chosen correctly: he caught immediate sight of William, of all things just sitting at a café table, like any man out for breakfast. A cup of tea and a muffin were on the table, along with the gift-wrapped box.

“William,” David said, approaching the table.

William looked up, took David in, stood, and without a moment’s hesitation lifted the cup and flung its contents. Tea splashed against David’s chest. He winced in pain but continued forward, grasped William’s shoulders and said, “Please, listen. William, there was nothing—” True and not true. William grabbed hold of David’s shirt and pushed him backward, letting go. David careened against a nearby table but didn’t fall.

“What are my choices?” William said. He stepped forward and took a wild swing, which David easily ducked. One of the two women standing behind the pastry counter shouted, “Stop it, you bloody idiots!” The other had already picked up the wall telephone and dialed the police. “Go on, both of you — get out of here!”

William and David seemed almost calmly to escort each other out of the café, but once on the street, William took another swing, which David deflected downward, grabbing and yanking William’s arm so that his father-in-law fell to the sidewalk. William quickly got to his feet. David held his hands palms-out and said, “William, just listen, will you, please?”

David moved forward. William moved back and stumbled off the curb, severely twisting his left ankle. He crumpled into the street. A cabbie (his name was Derek Moreland, age fifty-six), moments before, had picked up Katrine Novak in front of Durrants Hotel. He’d just glanced at her in the rearview mirror when she shouted, “Watch it!” She had recognized William ahead in the street but hadn’t noticed David. The cabbie turned to the front and said, “Fuck-all!” He leaned on the horn and braked hard but the cab thudded into William, who was trying to lift himself up.

Katrine was thrown against the front seat. The cabbie said, “You all right?” She speechlessly nodded yes, but was obviously shaken. “The fellow possibly ain’t dead, miss.” But he could not know either way. He issued instructions to Katrine: “You stay and give a statement. Not my fault, see. The gentleman stepped right out in front of me.” Which was not exactly the case, as William was already in the street, though only for a split second. And it was an intersection. The cabbie turned off the ignition, pocketed the keys, got out of his taxi and walked to where William lay in the street. David shoved him. The cabbie said, “Hey, what? I was just—” and backed up a few steps. Katrine needed some air; she got out and leaned against the cab. “Ciggie,” she advised herself, reaching into her handbag for a cigarette. She smoked, staring at the people gathered on the sidewalk.

David had in fact thought William was dead; there was blood at his mouth, his eyes stared up vacantly. Yet when David got on his knees and leaned close, William suddenly focused and grotesquely croaked, “Tell Mr. Aston I’ll be late.”

The ambulance arrived in less than ten minutes. Three paramedics spilled out, attended to William. One asked William a question, said to the others, “He can’t get out the words, mates.” The youngest paramedic reported this and more to a doctor on standby over a kind of walkie-talkie, listened, then said, “Got it, got it, got it. Right.” He placed the walkie-talkie in its holster on his belt. The paramedics conferred a moment, then fit a plastic collar around William’s neck.

“Here we go, then,” one said, and all scrupulously lifted William sideways onto a stretcher, carried the stretcher to the ambulance. One paramedic got in behind the wheel, a second sat in front on the passenger’s side, the last climbed in back. David said, “I’m his son-in-law.” The paramedic in back said, “Right, then,” so David boosted himself up and sat next to William. Siren. Faces blurred past. On the sprint to the hospital the paramedic said, “Don’t try to talk, sir,” and hooked up an IV just as William blacked out.

THE FIRST WEEK of October 1986, a letter accepting David’s book proposal, Light and Dark: The Photographs of Josef Sudek, arrived from Harrison Macomb. In fact, it was the second letter Macomb had sent. The first, back in June 1985, was forwarded to the Tate Gallery by David’s landlord. The Tate had no recourse but to send it back to Macomb. David had pretty much cut off all of his old contacts. “I thought perhaps you’d become a bellman at Durrants Hotel and given up writing altogether!” Macomb wrote. “You seemed so at home in their lobby. But I’m told I’ve now found the proper address. At any rate, Mr. Kozol, I trust you still wish to write your book. You must ring me up and we’ll discuss terms. Please know that I can offer a decent advance, but cannot make you a fortune unless the book makes me one. That said, your proposal was quite brilliant. I read closely and admired your other writings on Sudek. My staff thought highly of them as well.”

David telephoned Macomb the next morning at 5 A.M., Nova Scotia time. Full of apologies, he said he’d gotten married and was now living in Canada, and added the lie that in between he’d been doing research. “My wife’s expecting our first child in November,” David said. “But I can certainly begin organizing my notes and get to work on the writing in, say, December.”