“Is it my imagination,” he mused to Nina as they crossed the Pennsylvania state line, “or did Tony seem a trifle keen to see us on the road today?”
“He’s getting laid,” Nina said, matter-of-fact.
“Bloody hell,” Ian said, thinking of his partner and Jordan McBride.
“You’re shocked?” His wife sounded amused. “You think he should marry her first?”
“No, I’m no pot to go calling kettles black.” He’d spent years in war zones where every day you survived meant a night seeing what you could drink and who you could take to bed, no one giving any thought to propriety or marriage. “But Tony had better not break that girl’s heart,” he added ominously.
“You like her.”
“I like both the McBride girls.” It surprised Ian just how much he’d been enjoying the half hour or so at the antiques shop after Ruth’s lessons, when he made tea and Jordan begged for war stories and Tony told jokes. It had been a way to pass the time, waiting until he and Nina had the money to drive out and investigate the last addresses on their list, but it was more than that.
“I still don’t imagine you teaching children, luchik,” Nina observed, curling her legs under her catlike. She was never there for Ruth’s lessons; evenings were always her shift following Kolb. “Is very—word? Tame? Domestic?”
“Ruth’s a nice child. Children like her make me think about the future.” Nina tilted her head, inquiring. Ian tried to elaborate, steering the Ford through a dilapidated suburb. “She was born during this last war, and thank God she had far better luck than those poor children Lorelei Vogt shot by the lake. She’s alive to play music, grow up whole and healthy. Other children born when Ruth was will grow up to start more wars; that’s the way of the human race, but Ruth won’t be one of them. She’ll bring music into the world instead. She’s at least one thing that’s right, going forward. Building a generation is like building a wall—one good well-made brick at a time, one good well-made child at a time. Enough good bricks, you have a good wall. Enough good children, you have a generation that won’t start a world-enveloping war.”
“A lot to think about a child who can play a few scales.” Nina slanted him a look. “Is something you want? Children?”
“Good God, no. I find most children bloody annoying.” A thought struck him. “You aren’t trying to tell me something, are you?”
“Der’mo, no.” Nina waved a hand, and Ian exhaled. They’d been careful, but accidents happened. “I don’t want babies,” Nina went on, matter-of-fact. “I never did. Is strange? It seemed every sestra in my regiment wanted babies.”
“I think people like us do not make for good fathers and mothers. Always on the hunt—”
“And we prefer hunt to babies.”
His wife had said we. Ian grinned.
A long exhausting drive, no answer at the house where they knocked, several more hours loitering around a Pennsylvania suburb waiting for the occupants to return . . . and then the shake of Nina’s head as a stout balding man and his gray-haired wife returned to the house, hatted and respectable and probably bad customers, but not the bad customer Ian was looking for. They went through their little act anyway, so Nina could get her Kodak shot, but this was officially another useless road trip. Ian didn’t punch the steering wheel this time when they got back into the car, but he did lean back and press his eyes closed in weariness. “Florida next,” he said flatly. “I can’t say it’s ever been on my list of places to see before I die.”
“Tvoyu mat.” Nina sighed.
“Indeed,” Ian said, turning back for Boston. It would be pitch-dark by the time they returned, even with these long summer days. A day to sleep off the drive and then make a decision whether it would be cheaper to drive to Florida, or take the train. “Or we fly,” Nina wheedled. “I borrow a plane from Garrett Byrne’s little field, is easy flight.”
“You can’t just borrow a plane like borrowing a cup of sugar!”
“We lock him in closet,” Nina said reasonably. “So he can’t say no.”
“Fuck your mother,” Ian said, laughing despite himself. “No.”
The trouble didn’t come until they stopped to eat. Twilight was falling in long purple shadows, and as they slid through the outskirts of a derelict mill town several hours outside Boston, Nina insisted on stopping. “I eat something or I eat