Michael Gruber - The Book of Air and Shadows

“No one,” I lied. “Honestly.”

She stared at me for a long moment, then dropped her eyes to the table and sipped her cooling coffee. “Whatever you say,” she said. She put the cup down and rose and walked out of the room without another word or look. Lourdes came in and started clearing the plates, also ignoring me.

Then the Invisible Man went upstairs to the children’s playroom. Niko was at his computer with headphones on, and Miri and Imogen were watching MTV, sitting closely together on a ratty velvet love seat, made rapt by glitz.

Feeling more of a jerk than usual, I upped the fool ante by asking Imogen if she had done her homework and without taking her eyes off the screen she answered in a tone laden with tedium, “I did it at school.” I thought of asking for it. I also thought of taking the aluminum ball bat in the corner and smashing the television, and the computer, and holding the children hostage until they gave in to my demands. Which is for everything to be different, for me to have the love and admiration of my children and the devotion of my wife, but also the thrill of romance, and to never grow up and forever fly in and out on a wire, dressed in green tights…

Instead I sat down next to Miri and studied for a while the tiny scars of her face-lifts and the peculiar shiny dead areas left by the Botox and I was nearly overcome with compassion and I reached out and grabbed her hand. Miri is, I suppose, the person I feel closest to in the family now. We were a refuge for each other all during childhood, and she turned out even worse than me, so we have a basis of understanding. I was thinking about how she always came and grabbed my hand when Dad was on one of his rampages; I have no idea what she was thinking now, if anything, but she squeezed my hand back, and we stayed that way for a while watching the soft-core porn that our civilization uses to entertain the young. Then a little tune played and Imogen pulled out her cell phone, checked its tiny screen and disappeared for an episode of chat with some acolyte.

Miri muted the set, turned, and gave me an appraising look. “So who’s the new lady?” she asked.

“You too?”

“It’s obvious. You have that fevered look, and you’re less morose than usual. You need to grow up, Jake. You don’t want to end up like one of those old farts chasing little girls.”

“Oh, that’s rich, getting recommendations on continence from you.”

“Don’t be nasty, Jake. We’re a pair of sluts, you and I, but I at least don’t have a family I drag into it. And especially doing it to someone like Amalie.”

This was not a conversation I wished to have at the moment, so I said, “How’s Dad?”

Miri is the only one of we three who retains any contact with the old gangster. She is parsimonious with information about this relationship, however, perhaps at his insistence. That would be like him.

“Dad is fine. I saw him about three weeks ago. He looks good. He had to get a stent put into a coronary artery.”

“I hope they used an especially corrosion-resistant material. Brick would be my suggestion. Where was this meeting, by the way?”

“Europe.”

“Could you be more specific? Cannes? Paris? Odessa?”

She ignored this. “He asked after you and Paul.”

“Oh, that was kind of him. I hope you conveyed to him that he’s always in our thoughts. What’s he up to nowadays?”

“This and that. You know Dad, he always has some kind of hustle going. You should go over and see him. Take Amalie and the kids.”

This made me laugh. “That’s a good idea, Miri. I really can’t think of anything that would be more sheer fun than such an expedition.”

“You know,” said my sister after an offended pause, “have you ever noticed that your wife is never sarcastic? You might take a tip from that. You might try a little forgiveness too. I mean you sure get a lot of it.”

“And religious advice tonight as well. Are you sure you’re not Paul in drag?”

“If you’re going to be shitty, then I’m leaving. I need another drink anyway.”

She tried to pull her hand away from mine, but I held on and she fell back on the love seat.

“What?”

“I just thought of something I needed to ask you. In your dealings with the demimonde have you ever come across a Russian gangster named Osip Shvanov?” I was watching her face closely as I asked this and I saw a little tremor run across its sculpted surfaces. She licked her lips with a pink tongue-tip.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because his goons are after me. He thinks I have something he wants. I think.” I provided a brief explanation of the Bulstrode/Shakespeare affair as background, omitting to identify Miranda by name. “Do you know him?”

“We’ve met.”

“A client?”

“In a way. He entertains a lot. Some of my girls have been at some of his parties.”

“Could you get us together? I mean socially.”

“I don’t think you want to do that, Jake.”

“Because he’s such a bad guy.”

“He’s pretty evil. I mean evil guys think he’s evil.”

“Bad as Dad?”

“The same type of person, the two main differences being Dad never played rough and Shvanov is not our dad. Why do you want to meet him?”

“A frank exchange of views. Anyway, will you?”

“I’ll suggest it to him. Will he want to see you?”

“I believe so. We share an interest in old manuscripts. I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about. You should come too. It’ll be a fun evening. We can plan our trip to Israel to see old Dad.”

She stood up. “I’ll call you,” she said and walked out, leaving me alone except for the strange being tapping away at the keyboard. I stood behind Niko and looked at his screen. It was colored a flat, pale gray, across which field incomprehensible blue letters appeared and vanished like windshield rain. Niko was programming. I should say that for a working lawyer I am computer literate. Most lawyers believe their skin will rot away if they touch a keyboard, but not me. I suppose I am about where Niko was when he was four. I lifted one of his earphones and asked, “What are you doing?”

I had to repeat myself several times. “Search engines,” he said.

“Oh, search engines,” I said knowingly. “What are you searching for?”

“Anything. Let me go.” He shook his head and tried to tug his earphones down, but I lifted them off and spun his swivel chair around so that he faced me.

“I have to talk to you about something important,” I said. His body was starting to stiffen up and his gaze was directed at an upper corner of the room.

“Focus on this, Niko! Gangsters are after me and I think they may want to hurt you and Imogen and Mommy. I need you to help me out.”

This seemed to get through. He asked, bored, “This is pretend, right?”

“No, not pretend. For real.”

“Why are they after you?”

“Because I have some papers they want. A client of mine gave them to me and they killed him. They tortured him, and before he died he gave them my name.”

Yes, pretty strong stuff for a kid, but Niko is hard to reach. It’s not like he was sensitive. I imagine that if someone were torturing me he would watch with fascinated interest.

“Why do they want the papers?”

“I’m not sure. I think they think they could lead to a treasure.” He considered this for a moment, and I imagined the peculiar wheels in his head whirring like a fine clock.

“For real?”

“They think so,” I said.

“We should find the treasure,” he said. “Then they would probably leave us alone.”

I believe this is one of the few times Niko has used the pronoun we to include myself with him. I said, “That’s a very good idea. Now, there are two things I want you to do. The first is I want you to keep careful watch on the street and call me immediately if you see anything suspicious. These guys are Russians and they go around in black SUVs, so call me if you spot them, okay? The next thing is I want you to search for a man named Richard Bracegirdle. He died in 1642 in England.” I wrote this down on a sheet of paper from his printer.