Paul Auster - Invisible

Rebecca was the one who told me these things, the same Rebecca Adam had talked about in the second letter I received from him, his thirty-five-year-old stepdaughter, a tall, broad-shouldered woman with light brown skin, penetrating eyes, and an attractive if not conventionally pretty face, who referred to her mother’s white husband not as her stepfather but as her father. I was glad to hear her use that word, glad to know that Walker had been capable of inspiring that degree of love and loyalty in a child who had not been born to him. That one word seemed to tell me everything about the sort of life he had built for himself in this small house in Oakland with Sandra Williams and her daughter, who eventually became his daughter, and who, even after her mother’s death, had stayed by him until the end.

Rebecca broke the news to me just seconds after she opened the door and let me into the house. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. In spite of the weakness and fear I had detected in his voice when we talked on the phone, in spite of my certainty that he was coming to the end, I hadn’t thought it would happen just yet, I had assumed there was still some time left-enough time for us to have our dinner, at any rate, perhaps even enough time for him to finish his book. When Rebecca spoke the words My father passed six days ago , I felt so rattled, so unwilling to accept the finality of her statement that a sudden wave of dizziness rushed through my head, and I had to ask her if I could sit down. She walked me over to a chair in the living room, then went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. When she returned, she apologized for her stupidity, even though no apologies were necessary, and even though she was anything but stupid.

I didn’t find out that you and my father were planning to have dinner tonight until less than an hour ago, she said. Ever since the funeral, I’ve been coming to the house and sorting through his things, and it didn’t enter my fat little head until six o’clock this evening to open his date book and see if there were any appointments I had to cancel. When I saw the thing for seven o’clock, I immediately called your house in Brooklyn. Your wife gave me the number of your hotel in San Francisco, but when I called them, they said you weren’t in your room. I figured you were already on your way here, so I called my husband, told him to feed the kids, and stuck around here waiting for you to show up. You might not be aware of it, but you rang the bell exactly on the dot of seven.

That was the deal, I said. I promised to be here at the stroke of seven. I thought your father would be amused by my punctuality.

I’m sure he would have been, she replied, with a touch of sadness in her voice.

Before I could say anything, she changed the subject and again apologized for something that needed no apology. I was planning to call you within the next few days, she said. Your name is on the list, and I’m sorry I didn’t get around to it sooner. Dad had a lot of friends, a ton of friends. So many people to contact, and then there was the funeral to arrange, and a million other things to take care of, and I suppose you could say I’ve been a bit swamped. Not that I’m complaining. It’s better to keep yourself busy at a time like this than to sit around and mope, don’t you think? But I’m really sorry I didn’t get in touch with you earlier. Dad was so happy when you wrote back to him last month. He’s been talking about you ever since I can remember, I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. His friend from college, the one who went on to make a name for himself out in the big world. It’s an honor to meet you at last. Not the best of circumstances, I know, but I’m glad you’re here.

Me too, I said, feeling somewhat calmed by the patter of her resonant, soothing voice. Your father was writing something, I continued. Did you know about that?

He mentioned it to me. A book called 1967 .

Have you read it?

No.

Not a word?

Not a single letter. A couple of months ago, he told me that if he died before he finished it, he wanted me to delete the text from his computer. Just wipe it out and forget it, he said, it’s of no importance.

So you erased it?

Of course I did. It’s a sin to disobey a person’s dying wish.

Good, I thought to myself. Good that this woman won’t have to set eyes on Walker’s manuscript. Good that she won’t have to learn about her father’s secret, which surely would have hurt her deeply, confused her, devastated her. I could take it in my stride, but that was only because I didn’t belong to Walker’s family. But imagine his child having to read those fifty pages. Unthinkable.

We were sitting face to face in the living room, each one of us planted in a soft, tattered armchair. Minimal furnishings, a couple of framed posters on the wall (Braque, Miró), another wall lined with books from top to bottom, a cotton throw rug in the center of the room, and a warm California dusk hovering outside the windows, yellowish and dim: the comfortable but modest life Walker had referred to in his letter. I drank down the last of the water Rebecca had given me and put the glass on the round short-legged table that stood between us. Then I said: What about Adam’s sister? I used to know her a little bit back in the sixties, and I’ve often wondered what happened to her.

Aunt Gwyn. She lives back east, so I never got to know her very well. But I’ve always liked her. A generous, funny woman, and she and my mom hit it off, they were solid together. She came out for the funeral, of course, stayed right here in the house, and went home just this morning. My dad’s death really shook her up. We all knew he was sick, we all knew he wasn’t going to last long, but she wasn’t around at the end, she didn’t see how he was slipping away from us, and so she wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon. She cried her heart out at the funeral, I mean really broke down and sobbed, and all I could do was hold her and try not to break down myself. My little Adam, she kept saying. My poor little Adam.

Poor little Gwyn.

Poor little everyone, Rebecca said, as her own eyes suddenly began to glisten. A few seconds later, a single tear fell from her left eye and slid down her cheek, but she didn’t bother to wipe it away.

Is she married?

To an architect named Philip Tedesco.

I’ve heard of him.

Yes, he’s very well known. They’ve been married for a long time and have two grown-up daughters. One of them is exactly my age.

The last time I saw Gwyn, she was a graduate student in English literature. Did she ever get her PhD?

I’m not sure. What I do know is that she works in publishing. She’s director of a university press in the Boston area. A big one, a prominent one, but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of it just now. Dammit. Maybe it will come to me later.

Don’t worry about it. It’s not important.

Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tin of Schimmelpennincks, the tiny Dutch cigars I have smoked since my early twenties. I was about to open the lid, saw Rebecca looking at me, and hesitated. Before I could ask her if it was all right to smoke in the house, she sprang out of her chair and said: I’ll get you an ashtray. Matter-of-fact, sympathetic, one of the last Americans who had not joined the ranks of the Tobacco Police. Then she added: I think there’s one in my father’s study-at which point she smacked the heel of her hand against her forehead and muttered angrily: Good God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.

Is there a problem? I asked, bewildered by how upset she had become.

I have something for you, she said. It’s sitting on my father’s desk, and I forgot all about it until this minute. I was going to mail it to you, but then, when I looked in the date book and saw you were coming here tonight, I told myself I could give it to you in person. But I swear, if I hadn’t mentioned my father’s study, I would have let you walk out of this house empty-handed. I think I must be going senile.