Americans understood human nature, much less had a human nature—otherwise, why would I be asking the question? Still, I admired her insight and the forthright aplomb with which she had spoken.
By noon I felt I needed to escape to Café Algiers, my base away from my base at Lowell House. Kalaj was there. I would have been perfectly happy to be by myself: corner table, smoke, read, lift my head up occasionally, order another cup, watch the people come and go. But his presence changed this. I seldom went there at lunchtime and was startled by how different the place looked, especially on a sunny weekday. Even Kalaj’s behavior seemed different at that hour, more relaxed, as though he had dismantled his Kalashnikov and was leisurely oiling and cleaning part after part. He was happy to see me too. Things must have worked out well with Léonie. Yes, they had. He asked me what I was doing that day. I was planning to head back to my office at Lowell House. Then at five I had to go to the Master’s Tea at Lowell House, followed by a cocktail reception at Lowell House. “Je me fou de ton Lowell House, I don’t give a fuck about your Lowell House,” he finally blurted. Lowell House had become my Lowell House. “You and your Lowell House.” He disparaged it and seemed to wince each time I mentioned the word. I learned to avoid speaking of it.
In fact, Kalaj never asked, and I never explained what Master’s Tea was, but it was a weekly reception that I happened to like because there were always people I enjoyed meeting and chatting with. It was, it occurred to me, the exact opposite of Café Algiers, a touch ceremonial, quite Anglo, yet never stuffy.
He said he had a few minutes to kill before picking up his girlfriend and the boy; they were going for a picnic at Walden Pond with a Romanian au pair and the boy she babysat. Did I want to join? I thought about it for a while, wondering all along if it wasn’t going to be a bit cold for swimming. But then, it was an intensely sunny day and I had already removed my jacket and was indeed sweating. Kalaj was wearing a T-shirt only. He too had removed his jacket.
“I’ll come,” I said, “but I have to be back at Lowell House in time for dinner.”
When I explained that as a tutor I was given free meals at Lowell House he almost fell from his seat. “Free food, for an entire year!” he said, amazed at the munificence of American institutions. “What’s the catch?” There was no catch, I said, just sit and talk with students. I told him that I was hoping to be appointed a resident tutor the coming February, which could mean that the same institution would throw in not just food but two free rooms for what amounted to mere talking. “If they’re willing to give you room and board just for yaking with strangers—and, let’s face it, you and casual chitchat aren’t good together—what would they give me, then? Harvard Square? Boston? The world?”
We stopped the cab to pick up Léonie and her boy, and a few blocks farther down stopped by a private house on Highland Avenue where Ekaterina, the Romanian au pair, and her five-year-old ward were waiting for us. The women had brought wine, cheeses, lots of food—French country style. The two boys wanted to sit on the old jump seats, but Kalaj said the seats were unsteady and dangerous. On our way, I asked him to stop at one of the supermarkets and, five minutes later, returned with a huge watermelon that made everyone crack up laughing. “And how do you plan to cut this giant gourd? With karate chops?” he asked. I’d thought of everything, I said, and produced a super-cheap Japanese steak knife that I’d seen advertised time and again on television. Everyone was overjoyed.
Kalaj decided to take the scenic route to Walden Pond. On the way, we couldn’t agree which song to sing together because no one knew the songs the other wanted to sing. The only songs we all knew, including Ekaterina who had learned them from her parents in Romania, were French songs from our parents’ generation. So we started with these, and in the Checker cab headed to Walden Pond, here we all were, like two couples with their children headed for a Sunday picnic