repaired chairs and tables for a living. “Look after yourself. And keep this Havistock out of your mother’s house.”
“Well—” her voice so low I could scarcely hear her—“he’s been rather a pest recently. Phones constantly, wanting to drop in, bring flowers, chocolates, poor old thing. Mum won’t see him. Feel a bit guilty about putting him off.”
“Well, don’t. Keep him away. He’s a sharper. Now, bye,” I said loudly, smacking her on the cheek (more clicking of cameras; this was the shot the photographers had been waiting for all evening), and went to tell Hobie (happily inspecting a portrait, leaning forward with his nose inches from the canvas) that I was leaving for a bit.
“Okay,” he said cautiously, turning away. The whole time I’d worked with him I’d scarcely taken a vacation, certainly never to go out of town. “You and—” he nodded at Kitsey.
“No.”
“Everything all right?”
“Sure.”
He looked at me; he looked across the room at Boris. “You know, if you need anything,” he said unexpectedly. “You can always ask.”
“Right, yes,” I said—taken aback, not quite sure what he meant, or how to respond—“thanks.”
He shrugged, in seeming embarrassment, and turned self-consciously back to the portrait. Boris was at the bar drinking a glass of champagne and gobbling leftover blinis with caviar. Seeing me, he drained the rest of his glass and ticked his head at the door: let’s get out of here!
“See you,” I said to Hobie, shaking his hand (which was not something I ordinarily did) and leaving him to stare after me in some perplexity. I wanted to say goodbye to Pippa but she was nowhere in sight. Where was she? The library? The loo? I was determined to catch another glimpse of her—just one more—before I left. “Do you know where she is?” I said to Hobie, after making a quick tour around; but he only shook his head. So I stood anxiously by the coat check for several minutes, waiting for her to return, until finally Boris—mouth full of hors d’oeuvres—grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down the staircase and out the door.
V.
We have art in order not to die from the truth.
—NIETZSCHE
Chapter 11.
The Gentleman’s Canal
i.
THE LINCOLN TOWN CAR was circling the block—but when the driver stopped for us, it was not Gyuri but a guy I’d never seen, with a haircut that looked like someone had administered it to him in the drunk tank and piercing, polar-blue eyes.
Boris introduced us in Russian. “Privet! Myenya zovut Anatoly,” said the guy, extending a hand slurred with indigo crowns and starbursts like the patterns on Ukrainian Easter eggs.
“Anatoly?” I said cautiously. “Ochyen’ priyatno?” A stream of Russian followed, of which I understood not a word, and I turned to Boris in despair.
“Anatoly,” Boris said pleasantly, “does not speak one stitch of English. Do you, Toly?”
In answer Anatoly gazed at us seriously in the rear view mirror and made another speech. His knuckle tattoos, I was pretty sure, had jailhouse significance: inked bands indicating time sentenced, time served, time marked in accretions like rings on a tree.
“He says you are pretty speaker,” said Boris ironically. “Well-schooled in politeness.”
“Where is Gyuri?”
“Oh—he flew over yesterday,” Boris said. Scrabbling in the breast pocket of his jacket.
“Fly? Fly where?”
“Antwerp.”
“My painting’s there?”
“No.” Boris had retrieved two sheets of paper from his pocket, which he scanned in the weak light before passing one to me. “But my flat is in Antwerp, and my car. Gyuri is picking up the car and some things and driving to meet us.”
Holding the paper to the light, I saw that it was a printout of an electronic ticket:
CONFIRMED
DECKER/THEODORE DL2334
NEWARK LIBERTY INTL (EWR) TO AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (AMS)
BOARDING TIME 12:45A
TOTAL TRAVEL TIME 7 HRS 44 MINS
“From Antwerp to Amsterdam is only three hours’ drive,” said Boris. “We will arrive at Schiphol about same time—me, maybe an hour after you—I had Myriam book us on different planes. Mine connects through Frankfurt. Yours is direct.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes—well, as you see, it does not leave us much time—”
“And why am I going?”
“Because I may need some help, and do not want to bring anyone else in on this. Well—Gyuri. But I did not tell even Myriam purpose of our trip. Oh, oh, I could have,” he said, interrupting me. “It’s only—fewer people know of this, the better. Anyway you must run in and get your passport and what cash you can lay hands on. Toly will drive us to Newark. I—” he patted the carry-on, which I had only just noticed in the back