

The Imbecile

A NOVEL

S.A. Traina

For Loron,

for always

You're all I am... can't you see?

Declivity

"She said to remember how much she loved Don and me, and all the trips we took together. To be there for you. To watch over you. Sal . . . ," Carol's voice gives out, nothing left but a whispering cry, " . . . I'm really afraid." I thank her in a strangled fury, trying not to sound panicked, then put down my work phone to disconnect and dial 911.

I leave everything behind but my cell, remembering to lock the door as I race out of my office and down the hall, then down the stairs and out the main entrance, nearly knocking one of the enormous sliding glass doors off its suspended track as I barrel ahead, quietly cursing the slow-moving transparency long after banging into it, already up and out of the switchback wheelchair ramp that leads to the parking lot, my hiking boots making their way to the car as if storming down the dozens of mountainsides ingrained in their leathery souls.

I dial my wife's number for the hundredth time as I approach my car, getting nothing but the same damn recording.

"How did I not see this coming?" I say to the jury in my skull, the defense already prosecuting its own witness, the car executing its own egress, memory lining up the last several months front and center, innocence receding as fast as reality is intruding.

This morning she'd left for work before the sun came up, something she'd never, ever done, but I'd long been banished to the daybed, so by the time I'd groggily realized she was out of the house, I didn't stop myself from falling back to sleep. We'd gone from man and wife of thirty years, the most intimate of roommates, to the strangest of cellmates, each somehow unable, unwilling to talk to the other, so I'd still been trying to figure out what the new rules were.

No excuse.

Li Qin's doctor recently added an anti-depressant to her burgeoning daily drug cocktail, yet another pill with my name on it, as our failing marriage was rejuvenating me and disintegrating her. Failing? Failure is what it felt like, the longest coming asunder of any matrimony under the sun.

Am I supposed to run these red lights I wonder as I alternate between slamming the brakes and the accelerator, agonizing my way through the town standing between me and the parkway, knowing paramedics are on the way to our tenth floor apartment, and that they'll get there long before I can negotiate the sixteen miles from my job to my wife.

My hands twist and torque the steering wheel, equally opposing force simultaneously applied, manually straining manfully to physically focus my fear as best I can in this confined space at its restrained pace. Seconds count down on the crosswalk at the next light, designed for pedestrians but utilized by drivers seeking to sneak in under the wire and the web and the camera and the radar and the all-seeing eyes of village cops with little to do but dunking donuts and writing tickets that on this night would make me lose time I do not have, and so I check that I'm not getting tailgated, push the pedal to snatch that extra second and then immediately slow down, nerve-wrackingly making my way through block after block until at long last I get to the entrance to the parkway.

Two days ago she'd said don't be surprised if one day I decide to swallow this bottle of pills, and I'd tried to embrace her and she shoved me with such force I nearly lost my balance. _Get out of_ my _bedroom!_ she'd shouted in the most terrifying hiss, and while I was still regaining my equilibrium she struck me flush on the side of my head with her hand, blasting my eardrum and bringing on pain I'd've thought impossible except from a gunshot.

Rather than some sort of ringing it seemed as if broken glass was swirling around in my ear canal and I remember thinking for a moment that my eardrum had been punctured, but the moment passed because she hadn't finished.

_I read the emails that whore sent you, you bastard_ , she'd said robotically, already sitting on the bed, just staring straight ahead, looking so lost I knew there was nothing I could say, nothing I could do, that could possibly reach her. So I said nothing, did nothing, just went to my room and shut the door.

However platonic the friendship may have been, certainly the emails with Natalie had crossed a line, but before I even had a chance to reflect on what Li Qin was going through, it struck me that she had been going through my correspondence, and so on that night I'm ashamed to admit I was more unsettled about that small betrayal than any betrayal she'd imagined me guilty of.

The commute is a blur as my exit appears and I'm on the off ramp and hurtling through the service road, knowing that if I catch that first light I can make the next three, and then it's a hard right and another series of semaphores sequenced to sequester speeding cars and save lives but I get through them all precisely because there is a life to be saved that I've thrown in harm's way, and then it's a hard left and a few more blocks and as I make for the garage an ambulance and a police car are double-parked outside and my heart isn't sure whether to take a break or skip a beat, but as it pumps an ocean of plasma I nosedive into my space, catapult out of the car, run up eight flights of stairs and stagger up the last two before finally getting to Li Qin.

The door is open and four strangers surround my wife. Two paramedics, one male, one female, and two police officers, also one male, one female. She is standing but looking ready to fall, wearing her favorite silk robe, her flashing eyes looking through me in a way they never have.

Just then I see the blanket on the floor, the bottle of pills and her cell phone next to it, and maybe for the first time in our lives I truly am one soul with her as I feel my insides freeze and the floor drop out from under me. I will find out later that she'd been trying to reach Isabella before swallowing the pills but our daughter hasn't spoken to either of us in years. She may not even have recognized the number when she saw it on her screen.

"Why are all of you here?!" she softly screams to the quartet of first responders, and I can no longer hold the tears back as my wife's pain storms and swarms with nothing I can do to make it stop. How could I not have known what is obvious to all present?

"Can you make him love me?" she asks, and now I can no longer keep it together, and the male officer takes my arm and directs me out to the hallway. "Then why are you here?" she sobs, somewhere over the brink, past suicidal, to this godforsaken place I've landed her.

For months I drifted further away from her than ever before, spending more time at work, more time with dying patients and their families, more time with my singing teacher, more time hiking, more time with anyone and anything but her, secretly and not so secretly blaming her for everything - our long estrangement from our daughter, her alternating bouts of depression and delusion, my own failures as a father, as a husband, as a man. Everything I ascribed to her, even if I never said it out loud. Nothing but regret and recrimination, when what she needed was love.

"This is all my fault."

The officer now puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me to the elevator. "She's in good hands, Mr. Chisciotte. They're taking care of her. Let's get you some fresh air."

We ride down to the first floor and walk out to the courtyard, and I see the ambulance has driven around to the main entrance of the complex, which is where he's cautiously but deliberately guiding me. I don't even know what I'm saying to him as I confess aloud, talking more to myself than anything else as we walk along the path through the meticulously manicured gardens, artificial arrangements mocking the mangled and tangled chaos as she and I privately and publicly unravel.

"I can't speak to what came before, Mr. Chisciotte, but tonight you did exactly the right thing," he reassures, but I'm listening less to what he says and more to how he's listening, and I give a silent thanks for his compassion.

"They'll be taking her in for an evaluation," he says, letting the words sink in, knowing not only that I'm not thinking clearly right now but that I'm capable of doing little right, right now.

We're near the ambulance and the driver is leaning on the side of the van filling out paperwork that is likely Li Qin's. I approach him and ask where they'll be taking her though I already know.

I ask if I can ride with her but I know the answer to that as well. "That's not a good idea, sir. After we leave, you should go right back to your apartment. Take an hour or two, clear your head, make some calls, and then get yourself over to the ward. It's right by the emergency room entrance, and when you give them your wife's name they'll tell you what to do next."

Of course I know the protocol as well as he does, having maybe helped more people through it indirectly than he has. He can't be even half my age. But his eyes tell me he's already seen more than any person should have to.

"You're disappointed, aren't you, you bastard," she taunts, and I'm jolted because she'd said not a word until she was almost right behind me. I thought she was still upstairs. The medics on either side of her have no need to react for she's not struggling. Her lifeless words fill me with terror.

As they bring her into the compartment and have her sit on the gurney, the officer again takes me by the arm but I don't move. "Where are you taking me?" she says to everyone and no one. "Why are you letting them do this?" she says just as the doors close, and I have no answer to that.

After I watch them drive away I ask the officer if there's anything else he needs from me and he says no, just that I need to be strong now for both our sakes, and I nod, thinking that what I need is to forget myself and be everything Li Qin needs me to be for as long as she needs me to be it, and then I turn away from him and head back to my building.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The waiting area is squirrelled away at the end of a maze where a guard lets you in through one otherwise impenetrable door to a dingy and dank room filled with immovable chairs and blinding fluorescent lights with another impenetrable door that obviously opens only when someone on the other side opens it.

An ancient intercom looks scotch taped to the wall, but as I debate using it the door is buzzed open and a tiny woman introducing herself as Doctor Rahman asks for a "Mister KISS-chai-AH-tee" and I'm nearly tempted to smile at the monumental mispronunciation of my name.

"That's me," I say, though I'm the only one here, and I start to stand, but she pats me on the shoulder and sits beside me.

"I've spoken with your wife, and I am most inclined to keep her here for a few days. Is there anything you believe I need to know about what has happened, or anything, anything at all you may wish to tell me?"

I tell everything I can think to tell her but over and above and behind and beneath every word I say is the subtle subliminal subservient pleading that Li Qin need not spend a single night alone in this dungeon, that she be released to my care, so that I can take her in my arms, from this place, through that door, to our home, to our bed, where I will hold her and love her and cherish her till every last doubt and demon I cast in is cast out, and while every wave of words is drowned out by the monsoon in my mind, something I've said somehow convinces Rahman that my wife is better off with me than with her, and so after two more hours each in our respective cage, the impenetrable door opens once more, and I reunite with the other half of my troubled soul, and we walk in silence to where I've parked our car.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Three days go by without incident until a call comes in that this time is from a stranger. And this time there will be no mad dash, no intervention, no reprieve. This time she took a different bottle of pills, checked into a hotel, wrote her farewell letter, and left this world without interruption.

Alone. Adrift. Afraid. Without hope. Without me. And this time without even trying to call our only child.

I

Pastor Chisciotte stands in the hollow of the loading dock, in front of wooden pallets stacked up against the wall, surrounded by empty milk crates and grease barrels and a bent-up corrugated garbage can, staring out at the dark clouds, and his voice fills the concrete stage, waves of resonating notes pouring out into the parking lot, a dank and dingy corner of the world suddenly an amphitheater of acoustic grace, his song riding higher and more powerfully with each verse as he transforms his instructor's dictums into twirling threads of inspired intonation.

Be ruthless about finding places to take a breath. Quick breaths. Deep breaths. Steal every last one you can. Then find one more. Air is the fuel of the voice. Round out the vowels. Clip the consonants. Stay within your range. If you must stray for a note or two, take it soft, go falsetto, whatever works, but keep the pitch. And never too loud. The song will let you know when to open up and where to bring it down to a whisper.

His arms are up and his hands trace the sky as he launches the next to last line with a flourish, but before he can close out the song a nurse walking back to her car bursts into applause and he nearly falls off the edge of the dock. Too engrossed to notice her approach, so now he whips around while muttering an apology, and before she can say another word he disappears back into the building to the booming sound of a seriously slamming door.

He walks quickly through the hospital's kitchen, taking his usual shortcut to the cafeteria, diligently staying out of everyone's way, snaking through a maze of metal carts and pan racks and workers rushing back and forth, nodding his head and smiling each time someone recognizes him, and before he makes his way out to the left the executive chef shouts "Pastor Sal!" and takes his hand in both of his and pushguides him to the right towards the pastry cook slicing up some new creation just out of the oven.

"Joe," he says while grabbing a styrofoam plate and a napkin, "give Pastor Sal a slice of heaven to go with his coffee," and Joe does it with a smile, doling out a thick slab of pizza rustica, then going right back to his routine before the smile has a chance to leave his face.

He thanks them both but chef's already elsewhere and Joe's disappeared in plain sight, his ever-sharp flashing knife leading his hands and his ever-present iPod kneading his brain, so Sal heads off to his original destination, his appreciation depreciated and deleted almost prior to its arrival.

The cafeteria hasn't actually opened its doors yet for lunch, which he well knows, and after half-filling a cup with coffee, he fills the rest with cream and sugar and takes his usual place way in the back in the solarium section minus any sunlight on this day but surrounded by gigantic plants and a rainbow of flowers, the section gifted to the hospital by a grateful patient turned patron long dead, meticulously maintained, cultivated, and marked by a bronze plaque commemorating the donation and the donor.

_Martin Hendrickson._ Sal had performed last rites for him. It was early in his career and he wasn't working for the hospital and he hadn't left the priesthood yet. Martin was a parishioner, and Sal had gotten a call from his wife. She'd said to please come to his room here at St. Rosalie's. Quickly.

Martin's heart surgeries had been performed before he developed diabetes, but his heart hadn't done him the courtesy of staying fixed once his new condition made any additional surgery all but impossible.

The complications that followed as he grew worse brought his mind and body to a near standstill and he'd lapsed into a coma soon after being admitted. For days it looked like any moment might be his last.

Then one morning he awoke and pulled off all the tubes attached to his face in one sudden sweeping lurching motion and was instantly and inexplicably as lucid as he'd ever been, and Helen hugged him and kissed him and then called everyone she could think of starting with Father Salvius, and after everyone including Helen had finally left, Sal stayed behind, ready to stand vigil.

He knew these moments of lucidity were not uncommon, and that death invariably followed such moments, and followed them fast. Still, there was another reason Sal was anxious, aside from the time factor or the matter of last rites or the prospect of a final confession, and the reason could not possibly be a more selfish one.

There'd been several frightening episodes _during_ his coma, the worst of which ended with his physician declaring Martin brain dead with Helen right by his bedside. Nearly three minutes passed without either person saying a word, the wife alone with her tears, the doctor off by the window pretending to read Martin's file, when all at once the flatlines became lifelines again, as if death had been just a passing fancy.

The young priest would have been mortified to admit it, but he desperately wanted to know what if anything Martin had experienced in those precious otherworldly minutes spent somewhere between this life and the next, yet there was no way he could ask directly, so he prayed to keep from making a sacrilege of sacred duty and to find the words that might yield bedrock for his sometimes shifting faith.

He needn't have worried, because after the penitent confessed a litany of trifling transgressions all related one way or another to his lifetime of real estate dealings, it was clear that what troubled him most was precisely what Salvius wanted most to know.

"Father, I saw nothing."

The big bald man with the twinkling puffy eyes and the loving heart and the laugh you could hear a block away and friends who came from all over to visit him as he lay dying had tears streaming down his face, and the priest had taken his hand in both of his and said "So because of this now you believe there is only this life?" and really he had also been posing the question to himself. Martin was devout, and would easily have convinced himself he'd seen evidence of the hereafter if there had been anything at all to suggest it.

"Father Sal, it's not a matter of belief. There was _nothing_. I was switched off and then I was switched back on, and there was nothing in between. Life left my body and nothing took its place until somehow I woke up again." The tears were now a torrent and Salvius saw there was nothing he could say to a man whose faith had been vaporized.

He had stayed for a time and recited the Ave Maria, first in English, then Italian, finally in Latin, kissed the still sobbing man on his brow, and left the room. The consoled had lost his consolation, and the consoler had lost his conviction.

One

"Why exactly, and I mean _exactly_ , are you convinced that your father's death was anything other than - and excuse me for saying this – a rather foreseeable accident?" Dr. Harris deliberately looks away as she makes a motion as if to wave off a pesky fly, "Moreover, why ask me to look into this nearly a _year_ after the fact?"

Isabella sits across from the not quite famous forensic psychologist saying not a word, her arms folded, unblinking, her momentary optimism about coming to the right person quickly fading, her dad's frequent invocation of Marcus Aurelius's admonition now looming large: _Begin each day by telling yourself you shall be met with interference, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good or evil._ So she takes a long moment.

"Why exactly, and I _mean_ exactly, did you become a forensic psychologist?" she taunts, but immediately waves off the good doctor's reply as she answers her own question: "It was _exactly_ because a case like this might come along." Isabella reaches into her bag and takes out a small dark blue leather journal with unlined periwinkle pages and hands it to Harris. "Just take a minute – please – and read this passage," she says ever so softly. "I spent months going through his writings and dozens of notebooks and notepads and diaries and journals just like this one, trying to get to know him." She stops talking and looks directly into Dr. Harris's eyes, the cold, calculating eyes of a master clinician, and she drops her guard, her gauntlet, her sword, everything.

"Because I never did. Ever. And I wasn't looking for _this_ ," she says as she hands it to her, "I was just looking to get close to a father who was always far away." Harris takes the journal as if it were radioactive, and sternly scans the indicated last page, just the single paragraph of a poem, reads it twice, and with the journal still in hand, looks puzzled and pissed at the same time.

"So what makes this your Holy Grail? Some context, please," she demands, partly probing to see if this is really worth her time, partly to prick a preconception to see if it will burst.

Her glacial demeanor isn't just 'do no harm,' nor is it a quest for quasi-digital objectivity, but nevertheless she has to apply the scientific scalpel, even if it means sacrificing the sensibilities of a client, a client far more in need of her than vice versa. Still, she takes too gleefully to the bloodletting.

"My father," Isabella practically whispers, "was married for over thirty years to a woman he had exactly one thing in common with – me. This poem was _not_ written to her, and look at the date... it was the _day_ he died!"

No longer whispering.

Harris, mildly startled, sees the gist but concedes nothing. "You said he was an avid climber; I assume this journal was found on his person?" Isabella nods yes. "There's nothing here to indicate any intentions or thoughts of suicide. So what are you seeing here that I don't?"

"He may have found someone, after what I'm suggesting is nearly a lifetime of being alone." She is struggling not to strangle this automaton. "Does that sound like someone who'd scale a five hundred-foot vertical fucking wall without a goddamn rope?"

She takes a breath. "My mother killed herself. I now believe my father killed _him_ self. I hadn't spoken to either one of them for years, because of _her_. I did not attend her funeral, and the next time I saw my father was at his, two years later. Are you going to help me try to make sense of his death, or are you not?"

Harris stares at the trembling woman now that her little storm has passed and all that's left of her short-lived fury are quivering lips and glistening eyes, and then she abruptly looks away and announces:

"Put all those papers and journals back in the bag you brought. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do."

She gets up, the interview clearly concluded, and asks Isabella for her contact information, then she turns to her computer, a singularly dismissive farewell, but before a baffled Isabella leaves, she asks for the doctor's card and Harris absently obliges.

As she flips the card over she observes, "You don't have a number or email on here."

"I know that. When I have something to discuss, _I'll_ call or email _you_."

Isabella Chisciotte – painter, pianist, kempo player – possessed of hands that can fresco, fugue, or fusillade, has never in her adult life allowed herself to be spoken to like this by anyone without either walking away or reciprocating with requisite ferocity, but this is different.

Lara said Rachel Harris, if she accepted, would find out everything she could want to know, and likely more. And Lara read people as if their inner selves were tattooed on their faces, a talent Isabella was smart enough to see and wise enough to know she'd never have, so she gets up without a word, briefly pictures throwing the woman out through that nice fifth-story window, and then soundlessly exits the witch doctor's office.

Descent

"I'd recommend at least five original death certificates. There's always some unexpected need for one as you take care of all the accounts and affairs of the deceased," he says to me in a loud car salesman voice as my father and I sit there in the funeral home making arrangements that gratefully sadly neither Li Qin's parents nor my mother lived to see.

In the last years of her life, my mother had finally gotten close to Li, something I thought might never happen, but as Li Qin and I drifted apart the two women began spending more time together, as a common interest finally served to unite where it had once divided them. The interest was sartorial.

A few years before our marriage Li Qin had been a fashion model in Hong Kong, a career that carried over when her family moved to the United States just as Li turned eighteen, and at the time of our wedding mom was an assistant designer in Manhattan, having sewn her first dress at age six and hardly ever putting down a needle ever since.

So when my betrothed saw what she wanted in a magazine, all my mother needed was the photo and within a week the work was done and all was well, except that on the morning of our wedding as the bride-to-be got into her gown it was clear that either the gown had grown or she had shrunk. Amidst all the pre-wedding chaos and confusion Li Qin had not realized she'd lost seven pounds. An entire dress size.

Though my mother managed to alter it with time to spare, the tirade my volcanically volatile fiancée unleashed on her catatonically calm about-to-be mother-in-law was enough to keep the two ladies from speaking to one another for over a year.

"You said Li Qin's wish was to be cremated," the funeral director continues, after I nodded my assent to the five copies he's suggested, and his voice just seems to be getting louder. "Shall we go downstairs to view our selection of urns?" he says as he gets up from his chair.

His thousand-dollar suit and the Porsche parked outside that can only be his have not combined to make me lose my composure thus far, but his unrelenting stentorian sales pitch is pushing me ever nearer to my inflection point.

"You know, Mister," my father suddenly says, "I may be nearly blind but my hearing is very good. AND YOU'RE TALKING VERY LOUD TO A MAN THAT HAS JUST LOST HIS WIFE!"

Red-faced apologies and a flurry of whispers ensue, but I wave the man off and tell him I've already ordered a simple urn and that I'll bring it over to him as soon as it's shipped to me, and that if there's nothing more he needs then I need to be leaving, and I take my father's arm and help him as he's just helped me.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We walk slowly back to my dad's house a few blocks away. I gave his live-in aide the afternoon off, which likely means he'll spend it downstairs monomaniacally cleaning the free apartment that's part of the compensation he gets for doing absolutely everything necessary to keep my progenitor from having to ever see the inside of a nursing home. Jude is a fastidious ox of a man who emigrated here from Haiti and had rented first the apartment then the basement and finally the garage from my parents, having lived here long before they bought the house and seemingly determined to live here long after both have gone, which is altogether fitting.

He's a carpenter who never runs out of projects both practical and experimental, and he's succeeded over the years in transforming the inside of the ramshackle two-story building bought for twelve thousand dollars a lifetime ago into something Michelangelo might have crafted if he'd worked in wood rather than marble. In contrast, the outside still looks ready to be condemned, but it's actually more structurally sound than it appears, though as we approach it and I scan the rusted gate and the sloppy siding and the uncut grass and the battered gutters filled with leaves and the cracking concrete here and there could it really be _less_ structurally sound than it appears?

My father's put it in his will that the deed gets transferred to Jude when the time comes and that seems right – it's certainly more his house than it ever was ours, and no doubt when it's in his name he'll take to making the outside look as good as the inside already does.

"Voi chi fazzo un po di pasta chi zucchini, papa?" I ask after we're upstairs and I've had a chance to look inside the refrigerator and the pantry. It won't take long to put some water on the boil and then slice and salt and sauté some zucchini. It's our favorite dish.

"No, no. Riscalda un po di latte e mettici u caffe. Cé un pani di tri ghiurni fa na tavula." He's right. The loaf of semolina on the table is at least three days old, so I'll warm up some milk and add espresso to it, and we'll break some stale bread and have Sicilian Oatmeal for a change.

That's how he introduced me to coffee as a boy. I was four or five and always asking if I could have an espresso like the one he drank, and then one day he said okay, but not like the one he made in the Moka pot. That was for grownups. I'll make you the _intermediate_ version. That was the exact word he used. Always looking for a new one to stump me with.

As we sit at the kitchen table overlooking a backyard he spent thousands of hours mowing and trimming and pruning and planting and seeding and raking, a backyard that to his failing eyes is now just a misty haze of green, we eat our gruel in silence, the two of us where there were four, and I think about all the ways he failed his wife and I failed mine, and as he struggles to locate the tiny boulders of bread with his spoon and then find his mouth, I'm glad he can't see the tears in his son's not yet failing eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Before you go, maybe a song? Are you working on a new one?" Lately he's been asking me to sing for him. Not every time I'm here, but every once in a while, and it's funny, because I can remember singing in the Coney Island apartment, I think – we moved so many times – and he said to me in the middle of some rock song I'd been belting out, "Saluccio?" which was his nickname for me. "Si, papa?" thinking for a split second a compliment was coming. "You know the city has new regulations when it comes to... noise pollution? So be careful. I hear it's a very big fine."

I smile at the memory and sing him "Danny Boy" as softly and mournfully as I can, closing my eyes and not needing to imagine my mother and Li Qin as every note stings my soul, and when I'm done both father and son are crying just a little, and I give him a quick hug and head downstairs to let Jude know I'm leaving.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The day of the funeral wouldn't be complete without PorscheMan stupidly asking me what I wanted if anything to do with the remaining cremated remains left over upon filling my

presumably inadequate urn to the brim with the ashes of my wife. Apparently this was a consideration that had to be considered on the day of the funeral. Apparently it couldn't be considered on the day we first spoke. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Or any of the five days after that. Because apparently, PorscheMan has no way to text, email, or call. Maybe he has no computer and maybe he has no phone either. It's sure as hell he has no common sense or courtesy. But he sure as shit has time to blow dry every strand of hair on his dumbass head.

"Do with them as you see fit," I reply evenly. "Is there anything else?" but I don't wait for an answer as I walk out and take the urn to the car.

I drive to the church with my father and get him settled in the first pew, and then I set up the urn and the photographs and the mass cards and the directions to the restaurant as best I can in the area Father Tommaso designated for me, then I seek out the organist, and when I find her I tell her I'll be singing the Ave Maria in Italian, and she shows me the sign to look for after the opening notes, which I'll need because any sound system other than a cappella sounds bad enough in a cathedral so at least we ought to be synchronized.

Dozens of co-workers and a handful of her friends show up, and halfway through the service I go to the podium to sing, and because I brought along the lyrics I manage not to mangle Maria, but when it comes time for the eulogy I break down as I try to do justice to a woman that was a mentor to so many but a mystery to herself. And of course to me.

I get through it, sit back down, embrace each and every loving person that comes to console me and my father, and then I gather the urn and everything I brought in, drive to the restaurant for forced conversation and this traditional and utterly unnecessary interminable dinner, but before, during, and after this awful day, the most terrible thing and the only one on my mind throughout it is that even in this her mother's final absence, Isabella did not show up even as a matter of spite.

_Give her strength_ , I pray silently as I drive my father back home _. She needs even more than she has._

II

"You seem a million miles away, Pastor Sal." Chisciotte looks up, unfazed, to see Miguel standing there, and he motions for him to sit down.

"A consequence of senescence, Miguel. The mind begins to get tempted by thoughts of oblivion." He sees the startled look in the young unit clerk's eyes and quickly changes the subject. "What have you made of Powell's book so far?" Miguel was still living with his parents despite being in college and working full-time, and a few months ago they went on a trip together to the Grand Canyon and he came back a bit disappointed, under the impression, it would seem, that adventure was something outside of a person rather than a way of approaching things.

So he'd asked the most adventurous man he'd ever known to suggest an exciting book for him to read, to help himself see things a little more like Pastor Sal did, though Sal had not the slightest idea that was what Miguel was really thinking. He did bring a book from his collection the very next day and not in the least coincidentally it was John Wesley Powell's _Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons,_ published in 1875, and told Miguel that when he sat down to read it he needed to shut off every last electronic device and let the story take him back to the Grand Canyon as it was over a century ago.

"I finished it," he says proudly. "And I can't wait to go back there on my own next time. It was unbelievable. Did you know how _high_ the Colorado river was back then, compared to now when it's just a trickle because of the dam?" he gushes, before answering his own question, "Of course you do. My bad." And he goes on for a full five minutes, and Salvius just listens, marvelling once again at how the right book at the right time for the right person can prove so electrifying, especially when the book is requested rather than required.

Miguel had told him more than once that if ever Pastor Sal decided to teach a course he didn't care what the course was or what it cost, he wanted to be in that class, but the older man just took that as one nice gesture leading to another, when in fact it was idol worship, pure and unabashed.

After his acolyte finally heads back to work, he takes his last sip of coffee and stops to Saran wrap the untouched pizza rustica before leaving the cafeteria and then walks briskly to his office to see what is on the day's agenda. "Priscilla, buon giorno, bella," he says as he politely presents the pastry along with a plastic fork and a paper napkin to his assistant. "A gift from an admirer at the Café."

She smiles and tells him to be sure and lavishly thank her secret admirer next time you look in the mirror, Pastor, but he ignores the remark and asks who's the first person he needs to see today.

"The Code H from yesterday I'm sorry to say. She made it but the baby didn't." Code H was a maternal hemorrhage, the worst of the Codes because even a Code Pink, which stood for an infant abduction, was with rare tragic exception always a false alarm. A Code H never was.

"What room is she in?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He goes first to the nurse and asks her to tell him everything she knows about the young mother, where she's from, how long she's been married, what she does for a living, what magazines or books has she read while at the hospital, and anything at all that comes to her mind about the patient, and then he seeks out the surgeon and it's clear that he's devastated, and Salvius stays with him for over an hour, letting the very young doctor talk, allowing him to go over everything that happened in the operating room and

afterwards when he had to give the dreadful news to the young couple, and only after it's clear he's all talked out, Pastor Chisciotte takes him in his arms in an embrace, and while at first the doctor recoils – he hasn't been embraced by a man in years – he then relents, and before long he's sobbing uncontrollably, and after what seems like forever to the clinician and a moment for the parson, the tears subside, and the men part without speaking another word as they go back about their business.

He knocks on the slightly open door and introduces himself. "Come in." The lights are off and the shades are drawn but trickles of sun stream in from around the edges so the room is not completely dark. The husband is sitting by the window and asks the wife if she wants him to leave.

"It doesn't matter." The young woman is actually not so young, she's thirty-two, and this is her fifth pregnancy, the first three ending in miscarriages, the one before this ending in a stillbirth. The complications from yesterday's surgery prevent her from ever being able to get pregnant again. Her name is Susan, and she's a tax attorney.

He sits beside her bed and wraps his arms around himself and looks into her vacant wandering eyes until she meets his gaze and holds it, seeing nothing but a middle-aged man in a shabby suit seeking to provide pretend solace to a stranger.

"So comfort me," she taunts, "make me feel better about that baby-faced butcher murdering my last chance at motherhood. Let's see what you've got."

He turns away, closing his eyes and breathing deep, willing the dissolution of his mind, creating a forbidding silence, and then just as she opens her mouth to speak, he asks "What were you going to name your daughter?" and she's caught off-guard, not having expected that he would have thought to ask anyone the sex of her dead child.

"You did your due diligence," she responds, without answering his question.

"This is not work for me, Mrs. Stivers. I report to no one. I _want_ to be here, and I want to listen to whatever you wish to say. Unless your wish is for me to leave." He looks down at his prayer journal, a log he's kept for years, filled with prayers in dozens of different languages from more religions than he had thought existed, with translations and his own makeshift phonetic renderings.

"We were going to name her Lydia. After her grandmother."

"Gott segne und wachen über Lydia," Pastor Sal prays in German to Susan Stivers née Strauss, asking God to bless and watch over Lydia in her mother's native language, and Susan tears up a little and doesn't object when Salvius tentatively takes her hand.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He starts plating their dinner when he hears the door as Li Qin arrives home a bit early, so either she or the train ran ahead of schedule for a change. It's seven-forty-five.

"I'm home!" she shouts as she takes off her commuting sneakers, drops her bags, and goes straight to the kitchen. "Did you close all the doors?" "Of course." "My wine?" "Right on the dining table, principessa. As always." "Love you," she says as she pecks him on the cheek and then turns on her heel to get out of her clothes so she can scrub the subway off her hands and face and neck and everywhere else its filthy self has contaminated her.

"I can't stand it!" she says as she sits across from him. "The scarpariello?" he teases, just as she cuts a thick slice of thigh and skewers a trio of rosmaried chicken, sausage and potato and eats it piping hot, a talent he neither envies nor comprehends.

"Oh my God it's so good!" she exclaims, though how she distinguishes flavor from fire he'll never know. "Unless the fire _is_ the flavor," he says under his breath, and then responds _Nothing, nothing_ when she asks him to repeat what he's just said.

"So what can't you stand?" he asks, as if asking night after night after night might one night lead to a new answer.

"Oh please, the damn subway is getting just like before Giuliani. Tonight the car was half-empty which was good but there were these wanna-be acrobats flipping and singing and hanging upside down begging for money, and one of them slipped and banged into some guy right next to me. And you're starting to see the homeless again and it's not even wintertime. It just makes me ill!"

He refills her wine glass and without thinking says "Why don't you use the express bus? It stops right by your building."

"Because I don't put in _sixty_ hours a week to then pay triple the fare because the MTA can't keep my train from being a freak show! I _work_ for my money so we can spend it on the things we want." Her expression morphs from anger to contempt and then to scorn as she adds "And remember that if we were relying on _your_ salary I'd be _walking_ to work."

Salvius says nothing as he spreads the garlic butter he prepared on a slice of toasted ciabatta bread and places it on Li Qin's plate. "Thank you, honey," she says. "Everything is _so_ good! So let me tell you what happened today with that idiot they put in charge of the muni desk last month."

Tell me, tell me, he silently implores, tell me all about it.

Two

Isabella takes the stairs, not willing to wait for the elevator that won't get here fast enough to get her away from Harris and out of this building. The entrance opens onto Washington Square Park near the massive arch she last saw eighteen years ago at age fifteen, when she'd spent the day walking from bookstore to bookstore with her father all over Manhattan until they'd gotten to Strand's, and from there he'd walked her right to the spot she was walking to now, a fair distance from the arch, where marble sculptures of General Washington and Peacemaker Washington still seem to stare right at her each from his respective pier as she stares right back, remembering the missing monoliths that at her present angle were once gloriously framed by a vault now void of its former twin stars but home to the one belatedly born from their ashes.

It seemed to her back then that they'd covered every square inch of this island borough, and though this was just one stop among dozens on that long and beautiful day, the coincidence of Harris's office being right next to the coordinates of one of her fondest memories of her father was enough to erase any misgivings she had of bringing that bitch into her already screwed up life.

She looks at her watch. A little after one and three hours before her ship sets sail, so she decides to walk the way back to her mid-town hotel, see if that restaurant is still there and if she can find it, and then go check out before it's time to check back in.

The arch is where Fifth Avenue begins, so she bids farewell to the park and heads north, and within minutes she's gotten to The New School of Social Research, which sounds familiar, but it takes a few blocks to recall the name Robert Heilbroner.

Her father had taken a single economics class called The Spirit of Capitalism at NYU before entering seminary, and he'd told her the name what was made him choose the course. There'd been a half dozen slim texts he'd had to purchase and his favorite was _The Nature and Logic of Capitalism_ by Professor Heilbroner, in which he'd been captivated by the economist's assertion that relentlessly extracting profits, liberating acquisitiveness from the stigma of moral reprehensibility, separating peasants and artisans from the tools of their trade and the fruits of their labor - all this served to demoralize and desacralize life until a blanket moral exception was granted to whatever created a profit and trying to justify the deranged logic of capitalism ceased to be a moral crusade.

Isabella remembered little of these and other details her father thought nothing of sharing with a young daughter who hardly knew even the definition of economics at the time, but what she did remember was his animated delight at having found the professor's phone number in the white pages, calling him expecting to speak to his assistant but having the great man himself answer the phone, and, rather than addressing the young scholar's questions over the wire, invite him to his office where the two spoke at length about the sociological and existential and spiritual implications of this thing called capitalism that Heilbroner knew so well and that Chisciotte knew not at all, and she remembers how incredulous he'd been at how this academic superstar had condescended to spend time tutoring a stranger not just to him but to his entire field of study.

"You never thought _any_ one owed you _any_ thing," she whispers as she keeps strolling down the avenue. " _Why_ did you think that? Why?"

The puzzle will remain one because a shuttered Barnes and Noble is in view, and this shocks her right out of her reverie, though there's nothing shocking about bricks and mortar housing books and journals shoving out paper past in favor of future fast because one thing about the present is that it doesn't last.

The Mansion of a Million Minds.

He'd said that's what her own mind could be if she thought of this store as a temple and a book as a miracle and every reading as a sacrament. _Each rite will_ _follow the last and at first they won't make much sense and they won't seem connected, just like when you and I go hiking and at first each step doesn't make much sense and doesn't seem connected, until... what, Bella?_

"Until we reach the summit, daddy," she says out loud as she keeps walking, finally thinking to use her phone to find the pizzeria that turns out not simply to still be open but to have become quite the Zagatville attraction.

Before long there's the Empire State Building and then the New York Public Library, and a couple of blocks later she turns left to head towards the theater district, and though Times Square has changed a bit since 1997, because she didn't live through the reverse transmogrification from pornopimpofreakshow to

Disneylaserlightshow not much seems really different to her as she sifts and sidles her way through the mid-town madness of the crushing crowd that evaporates the moment she crosses the invisible rubicon that takes her off the raging river of tourists and onto the little stream of 44th street, but just as she sees the red canopy she's come all this way to find, the Majestic Theater directly opposite is still showing The Phantom of the Opera!

She's in disbelief as she approaches the entrance, the portico deserted, blocked off at the end by a makeshift wall with perpetual construction on the other side, and she can't believe she'd forgotten the most amazing part of that day, and so now she tries to remember exactly where she was standing when she asked her father to name the most beautiful song he'd ever heard.

Then as now there was no one around because the next performance was hours away, and so he'd said there's no need to name the song when I can sing it for you, bella.

And he began the song and at first it was a whisper, so faint she almost couldn't make out the words, and so hypnotically, dreamily slow...

_Io son sicuro che, per ogni goccia, per ogni goccia che cadra, un nuovo fiore nascera, e su quel fiore una farfalla volera..._ _I am sure that for every raindrop, for every drop of rain that falls a new flower is born, and upon that flower a butterfly alights._

The pianissimo is then replaced with a commanding mezza voce...

Io son sicuro che, in questa grande immensita, qualcuno pensa un po di me... I am sure that in this vast infinity, there is someone that has a thought for me.

And then her father soared into a ravishing fortissimo that seemed to her then and now as a wave after wave of glorious sound inspired by God and God knows what else...

NON MI SCODERA! Si io lo so, tutta la vita sempre solo non saro, un giorno trovero, un po'd'amore, anche per me, per me che sono nullita... Nell'immensita! DO NOT FORGET ME! Yes, I know, that I will not be alone for my entire existence, one day I will find, a bit of love, even for me, I that am nothing...in this infinity!

Unseen by either of them, an older woman had walker closer and closer as her father's serenade had turned to a symphony, and when he had finished she'd startled them both by suddenly embracing him and thanking him for his song, and Isabella can recall the look in his eyes that he never knew she caught, not the look of one thankful for unexpected praise, but the look of a man who believed he'd just been caught doing something terribly terribly wrong.

Isabella snaps out of it and crosses the street to the unassuming pizzeria with the little red awning, opens the door and heads down the ramp to the host's podium. No one else in line, but why would there be? It's two o'clock on a Monday. She takes a seat at the bar and orders a Mojito.

The bartender is a woman, so maybe at least for this one drink she won't have to shovel the endless flirtatious bullshit that comes her bi-racial way seemingly every minute of every damn day she's not on the ship. "Where are you from?" "You look so exotic!" "Are you Asian?" "They say the Chinese are taking over. You can take _me_ over anytime."

For a very short while it was nice. She felt appreciative, even grateful. After all, how many women got all that attention? But it didn't end. And there was no way out. Makeup. No makeup. Long hair. Short hair. Long skirts. Slacks. Fake glasses. Sunglasses. Whatever the hell she did men just kept coming on to her. Even at her father's funeral some sick bastard had tried to hand her his business card while pretending to console her, saying he'd really admired Pastor Sal and all his fine work.

The card said he was a medical devices sales rep. She'd taken the card from his left hand with her left hand while immediately grasping his left index finger with her right thumb, clamping it with her right index finger, and raising her arm until his was hyperextended and he'd been forced to go on his tiptoes.

Before anyone had a chance to notice their exchange she'd leaned in close and whispered in his right ear that you don't proposition women in front of their dead fathers, and then she'd let him go, after which he'd quickly left the parlor, thus having obviated the need for anyone to break out another casket.

She sips the last of her drink, puts a twenty on the counter, and tells the bartendress she'd like a table way up on the balcony. The hostess leads her into the cavernous interior of the circular restaurant, maybe fifty yards in diameter and at least five stories high. It is a desanctified cathedral with an enormous stained glass dome capping it, a spiral of staircases leading to a spiral of balconies filled with tables, a half-dozen brick ovens strategically situated, and a huge mural of chalk on canvas depicting an imagined Manhattan of the distant past curving and serving as a gorgeous backdrop to an already stunning room, and as the hostess offers her a table Isabella points to one a little farther down, and as she's seated she asks for a small margherita pizza and another Mojito.

This could be the same table, she thinks to herself as she recalls what he said as she looked around the vast room, recalling how she'd felt like she was inside a gigantic snow globe without the snow, but with a bird's eye view.

The outside gave no clue of what was inside, did it, Bella? Of course that's true of everything, but it's even more true of a great book, because between its covers a soul can slip inside and find a world within freed from time unbound by space.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

After lunch she went to her hotel to check out in person. There was nothing in her room because everything was on the ship, but she needed to doublecheck her bill because the Queen Mary's next voyage was a month long and there'd be no good way to debate a bad charge once she was at sea.

Once she'd assured herself, she left the lobby and headed towards the West Side Highway, stopping at a futuristically illuminated illy espresso café, paying three dollars for a centimeter of ristretto creamy as could be served on a mirrored tray with a shot glass of sparkling water and a sliver of dark chocolate, and then she was once again on her way to the pier, now with less than thirty minutes before last call.

"You're cutting it close, Izzy," she said as she picked up her pace, crossing the highway and in no time she's in the boarding area striding along the perimeter past the crowd and around security, flashing her employee ID until she gets to the gangway and then across the threshold where her face is her ID, and then it's straight to her room where a split of champagne courtesy of Najid awaits along with one white chocolate-covered strawberry.

She gets out of her clothes and into the shower, then puts on her robe, pours herself a fizzy flute, mock seductively wraps her lips around the oversized strawberry and devours it slow motion sexy as she thinks of Najid, heaves open the insanely heavy balcony door, and then gently collapses onto her lounge chair.

"Home at last," she says as she looks at the shifting skyline, the ship already pulling out just as she's settling in. She stares at the city he always said he hated, but he hated no thing and no one and no place.

"And look where all that love got you," she whispers, her eyes misty, tears ready to mingle with the bubbles in her glass.

"You were wrong, you know," she says as she imagines him scaling one of those skyscrapers, probably the only things he never tried to climb. Probably, since given all the places he took _his own daughter_ climbing, God only knows what insane shit he must have done when he was a kid.

" _You_ were the same inside as you were outside. You had no dark side, wrong side, down side, or flip side. Love. 24/7. Always on. Never off. A goddamn bonafide saint!"

Now she's crying and trying to drink at the same time but it's no use, so she sets her glass on the little steel table next to her.

"A fucking imbecile!"

A fucking imbecile I'd trade places with in a second if I could just talk to you one last time. Embrace you. One last time. Apologize to you. One last time. Say I love you. Just one last fucking time.

Dedication

Between having to spend time with every last mourner, dropping off my father in Canarsie, and then contending with the inevitable traffic on both the Belt and the Van Wyck on my way back to Queens, it's past nine when I'm finally outside my empty apartment, though getting inside is a struggle because while I refuse to place this crate with my wife's urn in it on the floor I'm also unwilling to just push through and let the two-hundred pound spring-loaded door slam like a battering ram behind me the way my neighbors do at any hour of any day, so I ease in and stretch one leg towards the dining table as I use the other leg to hold the door open while extending my arms as far as they'll go to gently place the crate on the table but because it's a bit too far away my right leg has to lift off the ground and so as I release the container my foot sweeps up along the door's edge and keeps it open just long enough so I can swing around and catch it with my fingers and softly close it shut.

"A split second slower and you'd've been digitally guillotined," I say to the digits of my right hand, though the sinistral southpaw in me never seems to worry what happens on the other hand. My shoes are already off, not that I will ever walk in here without them; it took years for her to insert this particular ritual into my routine, and as hard as I fought her on it in the beginning, it now bothers me that I put up a fight at all. So many big arguments about so many small things over so many years, and now, what?

I need to decide where this will go. Where it will not go is to a mausoleum. I take the books and magazines off the intricately carved rosewood end table her uncle gave us and go get some paper towels to dust off and then spray clean the plate glass that overlays it. The miniature circular carpet she bought in Istanbul, with a gold kaleidoscopic sunburst design against a background of the darkest blue and beautifully fringed, will now serve to adorn the altar and caress the chalice.

But before I place the urn I have to disturb it for good cause. I go to my scriptorium and get on my hands and knees to reach under the electronic keyboard that straddles my ancient Soloflex and drag out my backpack from way in the corner and search through it until I find the chalk pouch, then I get the big chalk bag from under the futon and carefully open it without unleashing a cloud of dust, and next I meticulously empty the contents of the pouch into the bag, re-tie the latter and put it back where I found it, and take the pouch with me over to the dining table.

The cover of the rough-edged stone vessel is unexpectedly tough to turn but after a more determined twist it spins right off and I set it aside. PorscheMan did in fact fill the ossuary to the very brim, but he did do me the courtesy of only filling it with fine granules, and I skim off two handfuls of Li Qin's ashes and pour them into the pouch, dust off my hands as respectfully as I can, tighten first the lace on the pouch and then the cover on the urn, and after putting the chalk pouch back in the backpack, I gingerly carry the urn to its sacred space and set the circle of its base at the center of the whorl of woven wool, and then I kneel, and at long last and blessedly alone and in peace, I can begin to pray.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I shower before getting into bed, a habit begun on the day we were legally married, having gone first thing in the morning to a justice of the peace, perhaps the last place even a former Catholic priest ought to have been, the experience stranger still what with my vaguely Buddhist betrothed by my side, but we said our I do's and then we went to pick up the U-Haul we'd rented, a little trailer we hitched to the back of my car, because all my belongings were in one big suitcase along with a few boxes of books, and aside from lots of shoes and dresses, Li Qin's worldly possessions were almost as meager as mine.

We'd brought our things to the tiny attic apartment we'd rented, took back the trailer, had a mildly extravagant late lunch at a restaurant owned by an opera singer, and I remember Li's delight when a decorated cassata cake with candles was brought to us after our meal and the owner sang _When I Have Sung My Songs To You_ , two small surprises I'd arranged beforehand.

Later we'd gone back to the apartment to start tidying up and also to wait for the furniture we'd ordered to be delivered, and of course everything came a little later and took a little longer to put together than we'd planned, and so by midnight, thoroughly exhausted, we decided that rather than trying to assemble the bed frame we'd just lay the mattress on the floor and call it a day.

But when I stripped off my clothes and was about to lay down, Li Qin glared and said _What do you think you're doing?_ and naturally I'd replied that going to sleep was what I'd had in mind, and she'd responded _Not without a shower you're not,_ and I must confess I was confused. Hygiene is hardly any young's man top priority, and I'd only ever taken my showers, infrequent as they were, in the mornings.

Yet I relented, the chivalrous groom heeding the not so blushing bride, and ever after showers were taken before taking to the bedroom, and once again a ritual that at the time seemed frivolous and feminine became not second nature but first and a rite I no longer wish to wrong.

A lesson did emerge, however, one I shared with Isabella many years later, when I advised her that if she should ever marry, not to let that first decisive moment get away from her as it did from me, and that when her husband makes that very first loving demand with which she vehemently disagrees, to tell him ever so graciously that she doesn't give a flying falcon what he thinks, and that if he should ask a second time, to cinch a chokehold so tight no word but 'Sorry' could slip through.

I lay in our bed clutching my wife's pillow, and there is nothing about her, _nothing_ , that I do not see, that I do not remember, nothing in the past, present, or future, nothing that will separate my body, my spirit, my dreams, my nightmares, all that I am, ever was, or will be, from the immortal soul of Li Qin and the life we had and shall ever share.

_Ti amo molto, cara. Prima, ora, e sempre._ Sleep arrives, and prevails.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5:58 am. Two minutes before my alarm is set to sound. I won't be returning to work till next week, but I have at least an eight-hour drive ahead of me, and if I get started now I'll likely avoid maybe some of the rush hour traffic.

First things first, then a bowl of oatmeal, my vitamin, and a luscious espresso courtesy of the machine born from the mind of Giovanni Achille Gaggia, essentially unchanged since his final version of it in 1947, an invention matched but not surpassed by Johannes Gensfleisch Gutenberg's 1450 inception of movable type, for reading minus coffee equals sleeping, does it not?

When I'm done I wash the dishes and then untwist the handle from the machine, scrape the grounds from the small metal filter into the sink, separate the filter from the handle, and proceed to rinse each part and then lay them down on a cloth on the counter, and then use a wet cloth to methodically wipe up and inside every niche and nook in the undercarriage of my Gaggia where the high pressure water pushes through and inevitably creates tiny gushers of java juice that have nowhere to go but up, a tedious process I thoroughly enjoy that takes almost as much time as preparing the coffee in the first place.

She used to call this _the production_ , but even as she mocked it I know she enjoyed the espresso I brought to her each morning while she was still in bed, a tiny almond biscotto nestled on the saucer, a packet of Splenda already mixed in, the former model determined to keep her figure so I assisted in the effort, though every so often I would sneak sugar instead of sucralose, and almost every time I did that she would say _The coffee is sooo good today!_ ' and I would respond with the same two magic words.

_Yes, dear._ The worst kept secret for a lasting marriage. I take out my canvas gym bag and put a change of clothes in there I likely won't use, my toiletry kit, a ziplock bag with a few

vitamins and aspirins, and the Pirandello stories my cousin just brought me back from Sicily. That takes care of the incidentals.

What I really need goes into the backpack, and I've got my checklist for that. A few bottles of water, a Gatorade, a can of Doubleshot, a sleeve of Fig Newtons, compass, clip-on/flip-up sunglasses, strap-on headlamp, cheap grip gloves and a back-up pair, extra socks and boot laces, the crampons of course, towel, poncho, duct tape, first aid kit, a few plastic bags, but not my dagger because I'm bringing both the climbing cane and the ice axe. It's October now, so who knows how much snow will be up there.

I know I haven't forgotten anything, so I drop my bags by the door, go from one room to the other and make sure lights are out, windows shut, Gaggia's switched off, and the phone – no, the phone stays here. There's no reception where I'm headed, Li's the only one not from work who ever called, and I already told my father I'll be gone for a few days. Not that he ever calls, even when he could still see the numbers on the dial. Besides, Jude's there.

Why don't you carry your damn phone...

I'd gotten home past eleven that night I was rear-ended, and that was what Li Qin had kept telling me over and over again, her worry mixed in with anger and frustration at my absolute refusal to accept marching orders from technology gone wild. And in plain fact, it was technology itself that had kicked my car in the ass.

It had been much later than usual when I had left work, a little after eight, and I'd actually left her a message earlier that day that she should warm up some leftovers if she got home before me. Moments before heading home, I'd been asked to visit someone in F-Wing, where all the cancer patients are sent, and was told it was very likely the young man would not make it to the next day, and, in fact, he did not.

It was dark by the time I'd been waiting at that red light when suddenly but as if in slow motion my rearview mirror grew impossibly bright and somehow all in one moment I'd not only realized the car behind me was about to slam into mine but I'd managed to have the presence of mind to breathe out and let my body go completely slack like that drunken monkey exercise Sifu Jack had me practice numerous times in kempo class.

The Lexus had struck the right edge of the bumper as if maybe at the last moment he'd tried to swerve out of the way, but it was too late. He'd likely been going forty miles an hour when he hit me. My car was propelled forward at least twenty feet and incredibly I was able to veer left and not hit the car directly in front of mine, though my side mirror was sheared off. Interestingly, my seat belt might as well have not been fastened because I was not thrown completely forward, and as for the air bag, who knows if it would have deployed even if it had been activated by the crash.

Everyone was alive and well, so that was good, and to his credit, the driver of the Lexus came running out of his totaled vehicle with the phone he was undoubtedly texting on when he was so rudely interrupted by reality, apologizing like crazy, saying he was sorry over and over again even when the police arrived, which certainly simplified the insurance equation.

Meanwhile, the entire fiberglass bumper façade on my Toyota had come off and the tailpipe had dropped to the ground though it had not fully detached. All in all, not too bad, considering. After we all exchanged information, I opened the back door, folded up the bumper as best I could and put it on the back seat, then I picked up the side mirror and tossed it in the front seat, and I was about to drive away when the officer came up to my window and asked if I wanted him to call me a tow truck.

I thanked him and told him I wasn't far from work, and that I was pretty sure I could drive there and effect temporary repairs. He shot me a whatever the hell you say, buddy look and then I was on my way, the tailpipe dragging so I took it slow, but it really was only a few blocks, and I drove into the side entrance by the loading dock to figure out what I needed to do to get home.

I duct-taped the mirror to the car door, and that would certainly last till I got home, but the tailpipe would be a more complicated affair. I found some thin rope but the pipe was still hot, and heavy as hell, and so no way that would hold, and, more importantly, I needed for the pipe to cool off before trying something else. The pallets on the dock had metal strapping, so I got my vise grip from the trunk, which miraculously was intact, and after a bit of trial and error, and figuring out how to hoist and hold the pipe while tying it to the now exposed bumper as tightly as I could, I got the job done.

The hospital kitchen was closed so I went around to the side entrance and swiped in with my badge so I could clean up, and then at long last I finally headed home. Li was relieved to see me but relief turned to disbelief when I explained all the particulars, and besides the phone lecture she was furious that I hadn't called AAA, which, in hindsight and in fairness, was something no one including Sifu Jack could comprehend when I'd told them about my little adventure.

_What the hell do you think AAA is for?!_ was the consensus query, to which I'd replied each time it was asked that I thought it was for emergencies, and that I'd hardly categorize the circumstances of that evening's incident as an emergency.

No one seemed to agree with that assessment.

I open the trunk, which is sticking a little bit, and put in the bags and the boots and the staffs, and it doesn't seem possible this car is fifteen years old and closing in on a hundred and fifty thousand miles. "Well, you'll be covering a thousand more over the next three days – continued success!" As the garage door opens, it occurs to me that for the first time as I set out on one of my climbs, she won't be there when I get back.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Except for fuel for me and my ride I don't stop till I get to Portland, which is not quite deserted but almost, and I park the car near the visitor center, because right across the street I can get a middling espresso if the place is still in business.

It's three o'clock, which might leave me time for something to eat and to get to Millinocket before dark. This coffee bar is cavernous and filled with what I imagine is local artwork, paintings and sculptures ominous in both scale and theme, black and bronze and red all over, an autumnal aura seducing the viewer with a confederacy of cushy couches into a conspiracy of cake and caffeine.

The owner is smart enough to offer lobster rolls here so I won't need to go down the main drag to one of the lobster shacks, and after that and a cream soda, I take a double espresso to go and I'm back on the road.

It's just after six when I get into town, but before checking into the lodge I drive to the supermarket to pick up a slab of swiss and a stick of sopressata, feeling more tired than I should, probably because I haven't kept up my regimen, which means tomorrow's trek might be tougher than usual.

Once in my room I put down my bags, squeeze everything I can into the little fridge, take a shower, set the alarm for four a.m., and go right to bed. Tomorrow's going to be a daunting and frigid affair, and I need all the sleep I can get.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4:00 a.m. This time I wake with the alarm, and I can't believe it's been nine hours. Fifty-five years and gratefully still sleeping like a baby anywhere anytime anyhow. A most fortunate gift. I get up, do a final check to make sure everything's in the backpack that should be and whatever shouldn't be isn't, put on my socks, lace up my boots, grab my keys, and go to the car.

The windshield's frosted over, and even though I seem to be the only guest, I start the car and drive it to the edge of the lot, thinking the clerk must still be around and, if so, undoubtedly sleeping, so better to scrape the ice here where he can't hear it.

As I drive out of the lot and onto the main road, I look down at the outside temperature gauge and it reads 24˚ fahrenheit. I didn't even think to check the weather this time around, but what difference would that have made? I was going no matter what the weather was. Still, not smart.

The entrance to the state park is miles away from town and easy to miss even with the sun, but I've been here so many times I really can find it in the dark, except once you're in, the forest blocks moonlight, starlight, everything but headlights, and right now just like every time before I feel like a firefly in the emptiness of space, trying to make my way through oblivion.

When I reach the entrance to the trailheads, there's no one in the ranger's porch, so I take eight dollars and write a note so they'll have a record of my name, drive around the wooden barricade that's more decoration than fortification, and head to the tiny parking lot maybe another half a mile away.

Not one other car here, which makes me wonder but not worry if there's even a single ranger stationed today. The height of the hiking season ended weeks ago, college is back in session, everyone's back to work, so probably they're not seeing any but the occasional oddball looking to coldly go where discretion says rightly no.

I get out of the car, and it is brutally cold, so I take out the soft blue scarf Li Qin knitted for me while she was pregnant with Isabella, and wrap it around my neck, put on my wool cap and my grip gloves, clumsily slip on the backpack and secure both the waist and chest straps, and grab both the wooden cane and the aluminum ice axe and slam the trunk shut.

Off we go.

Light is beginning to trickle in but the sky is a menacing fog of grey and black, and the dungeon dankness already threatens to thwart the knight in fading denim. Isabella used to call my climbing outfit the _Canadian Uniform_ , what with jeans, a jean shirt, and a jean jacket, worn time after climb after time until the blue had gone from navy to baby to memory, so though I appreciated the comparison I always felt she was needlessly slighting our northern neighbors who actually aren't that far north of here.

I'm already warming up, and the scarf is definitely helping with my breathing, though I'm wearing it less out of fear of damaging my lungs and more out of not wanting to damage my vocal cords. Ah, the conceit that comes with fancying oneself as a singer. Except I've followed few of the rules to protect one's voice set forth by Caruso and Tetrazzini in their _Art of Singing._ Fortunately, I'm neither tenor nor soprano nor all that good, so I've had less to lose by ignoring their advice.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6:45 a.m. My Timex has indeed taken a licking but keeps on ticking. Let's see. Two hours since I hit the trail, which means the pond and the ranger's cabin not far from it should be coming up soon. I can see the tops of trees now against the sky and the barest outline of the mountain, but it's still seriously overcast, and wherever the sun is back there I don't think it's taken the temperature five degrees from where it was when I started. But it's early yet, and for all the hardships of climbing in bitter cold, it's better than climbing in scorching heat.

I see a fallen tree and sit for a while, a Doubleshot and some Fig Newtons making for a fine breakfast. Don't feel like any water, the lack of warmth making me think maybe I'm lugging around more than I'll need, but needless to say, you never know how much you'll need. That time Isabella and I took the landslide trail, which was totally exposed and fully lived up to its nickname, with boulders that looked solid until you grabbed the wrong one and it came right off the rockface and plunged a hundred yards and you with it if you'd made the mistake of using both hands.

It had taken hours just to get up that one stretch, and we'd drunk so much water we almost ran out later on. The photo she'd taken of me as I emerged from that immense crater made it look like I was coming up out of a volcano. It was one of our best climbs.

And there's the cabin. I sign in, but as I suspected, there's no one here, so I walk to the pond to rest for a while, because I'm at the base of the mountain, and the trail I'm taking to get to the fabled notch between the fraternal twin peaks may be the most direct but it's also absurdly steep. I'll take the easier trail on the way down, but there's no alternative if I'm to have any chance of getting back before dusk, which at this time of year follows dawn fast as a photon.

I take off my scarf and my cap and tuck them back into the pack, and sheath the axe in the gear loops because it'll only get in the way until I need it. The pond is partly frozen and there's a hanging mist that obscures all but the base of the mountain and creates the illusion of having stumbled upon a lake way up in the heavens.

I head onto the trail and within moments I'm stopped by four big, beautiful eyes attached to a mother moose and her calf. They're partly hidden in a stand of trees and are standing side by side, the calf nearly as tall but nowhere near as big as its mother, and I remember not to stare for too long, for I've been told a mother moose can be not just protective but murderously so if she deems you a threat, so I whisper my goodbyes and move on, saving my wonder for such wonders for a time when time is not so scarce.

Before long I'm at least a thousand feet up and the pond is a tiny triangle that fits inside the makeshift monocle formed by my thumb and forefinger. The sun breaks through now and again and the mist is dissipating. I push forward and soon the pond is out of sight as I enter the recesses of this monolith, eventually confronting a formidable staircase of enormous boulders made all the more forbidding by the morning mist, as their frosty contours slick and slippery threaten to tear me to pieces if I should happen to slip and slide somewhere along the way.

I avoid that fate, and am greeted and rewarded at the top of the stairs with a stunning halo of a white sun rising in a grey sky seeming to be kissed by a rock formation shaped like two lips

geologically osculating the hypnotizing orb unapologetically as if to christen the newborn day. Holy _shit_ is that cool!

I press on, knowing I'm making good time but knowing also that only at day's end do you know for sure your time was good. 8:33 a.m. It's still cold, and my breathing's okay, but my legs are getting rubbery, the pack is feeling heavy, and I'm a little dizzy. Time to find a place to rest, re-fuel, and then re-engage.

I have some of the swiss cheese and sopressata, and then take the vitamin I forgot to take earlier along with a couple of baby aspirin as I start and finish off one of the Gatorades in one much-needed ingurgitation. It's hard to imagine a more uncomfortable place to dine, but more uncomfortable still is the pain right in my inguinal region, way up on my inner right thigh, a truly unfortunate spot, and at the moment there isn't a square yard of smooth let alone horizontal real estate in sight where I might have a chance to lay flat or at least sit up and give whatever muscle or tendon in distress the possibility of some relief.

As it is, I'm nestled precariously at about a sixty-degree angle on soggy, craggy rocks mottled with lichen, and while moving on in this condition will be quite unpleasant and damn dangerous, staying planted here much longer will be far worse, so I seal up the pack and carefully put it back on, every movement and motion a self-inflicted torture, and then I take the smallest most precisely calibrated steps I can, except the cane is now a profound impediment, and so I have to make a decision.

Leaving the axe behind is not an option because if there's ice up there I'll have to turn back. Which I'm not doing. So, I'm sorry, Citizen Cane, you've been a loyal side-arm for a long time, but the point of keeping you close is to help keep me in one piece, and with that in mind I swing him by the handle and toss him as far down as I can so there'll be no temptation to go back for it.

Then I claw my way up one excruciating move after another, using my arms as much as possible, until I find a sliver of a nook where if I can just maneuver myself backwards in there, I can lay on my back with my legs elevated a bit. Ahhhh. Who'd've thought I could be so happy to exchange one pain for another?

It's like a charley horse in my groin, and as bad as a charley horse is, I don't think having a spike driven into your pelvis could feel any worse than this does, yet it does eventually subside, and I allow ten long minutes to pass before I risk getting up, but when I do, not five minutes go by before the same stabbing pain hits, this time in the left leg in the symmetrically identical spot, except this time there is a place to lie down and I don't hesitate, allowing the agony to arrive in waves, this time knowing where the tide is headed and how long it's likely to last, and naturally that makes it a bit easier to endure, and after it too is gone I give myself another ten long minutes before getting up, and when half hour goes by without a recurrence, confidence is restored; however, it is now eleven o'clock, and there's still a way to go to get to the summit, and, after that, the most difficult part of the job still has to get done.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12:08 p.m. There's plenty of snow as I get closer to the top, but I won't need to clamp on the crampons. The approach is more rounded than angular, and though it's always farther away than you think, and despite having taken this particular trail only a few times, I know I'm almost there.

It's maybe forty degrees now with the wind not too wicked, and the massive cloud cover lifts and lowers, ebbing and flowing, sometimes obscuring and sometimes revealing the mile-long ridge that zigzags through the sky from this peak above me to the one way over there, a treacherous, nerve-wracking tightrope of a trek that tightens at one invincibly thrilling point to less than three feet wide, dead drops on either side of five thousand feet, the icy granite under your hands tough to cling to, the clouds above tickling you potentially to death, the sudden wave of wind that races up the cirque and will blast you right off the ridge if you're not ready for it, and sometimes even if you are. I'm not sure how many climbers have been lost on this ridge, but enough that I never dared cross it with Isabella. I wonder if she ever came back here to cross it on her own.

I hope so.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12:31 in the post-meridian, and the eagle has landed. And a falcon, as well. Though not quite yet. As I find a place to collapse and luxuriate after my exertions, there is a hawk trying to land, but the wind keeps sweeping him and his six-foot wingspan up and back into the air, a stubborn celestial air traffic controller intent on preventing Horus here from reaching his final destination.

After a few approaches he finally makes his landing, hopping happily but unsteadily around with his snub-nosed curved beak sticking out of his fuzzy chestnut head, a bouncing tan bowling pin flecked with brown spots looking me over then turning around and flying away, not even staying long enough for me to toss him a newton. Guess the snow was cramping his style.

I finish off the swiss and the sopressata, drink the other bottle of Gatorade, and then take two more aspirins with a bottle of water. None the worse for wear, I nonetheless rest a little longer than I should, girding myself for what comes next.

There's absolutely no one here, but I'm reluctant to leave my pack and my axe behind, because if I should get stranded for whatever reason, how long can I stay down there without water or anything else? On the other hand, taking anything with me complicates an insidiously nasty descent.

The hell with it. Everything stays here. I take the chalk bag out and tuck it snugly inside my pocket, put on my gloves, get up and walk to cliff's edge to see if I should strap on the crampons. No point. There's snow but no ice so they'll only get in my way. I hate those damn things anyway.

This peak and the one right over there are so close they form a _V,_ and right in the throat of that _V_ is where I'm going, a twenty-foot square terrace in the sky bracketed by infinity, with a view of the sprawling valley way down below if you look one way, and a view of the entire jagged rugged snaking sneering ridge if you look the other way. Worlds without end at heaven's gate.

It's about two hundred feet straight down, with immense granite slabs giving you lots of holds though not always close together, but there has to be a first step and I take it, heading to my favorite place on earth with Li Qin's ashes close at hand, taking her somewhere she'd never ever go but that I'd always wished she could have seen.

My gloves are wet but not drenched, and it's easier than I expected, partly because I'm not heavy laden, but mostly because I didn't have to cross the ridge to get here. That cut out three hours of unimaginably strenuous climbing. I'm moving so quickly I almost slide down the last few yards, and with one last leap I've made it, my heart, my lungs, and all the rest of me rejoicing in our arrival, and I stand for a while and take in the incomparable scenery, wondering if somehow some way in some unknown time she's experiencing what I feel right now right here.

"Stardust, bella. We all are, you know. And that's close enough to eternity for me." I take out the chalk bag and release her ashes into my cupped hands, say a prayer, and let the whirling wind take Li Qin and thereby consecrate this holy ground, so that we might at last share a moment in paradise found.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Once back on the summit, it really is all downhill from here with ample time to spare, and I even manage to find an open diner for a much-appreciated meal after a noble day's work. Except as usual, I'm not famished, just hungry, so I eat most of my dinner and leave the rest, and then it's back to the lodge for sleep that devours me almost before I close my eyes. _Ti amo, cara. Sempre._

III

Salvius drops Li Qin off inches from the curb behind a bus by the train station as he does each and every work morning, and watches her in her clingy silk dress as she strides in her sneakers until she disappears down the stairwell, and then patiently waits as car after car speeds up seemingly just to make sure he can't get back into the traffic lane, a procession of drones damned if they'll let good manners intrude upon their day.

He won't be going in till noon today, which gives him time for a singing lesson and to take his mother shopping, so he takes the Jackie Robinson Parkway shortcut to Brooklyn, bypassing the Belt, and then makes his way local past Kings Plaza at Flatbush until he's at Coney Island Avenue, and after a few left turns, he's not only gotten to his instructor's house in twenty minutes at the height of rush hour, but he's even found a parking space on the same block.

As he gets out of the car he remembers one day in the New York of thirty-four years ago, where he drove his first car - a nineteen-foot, two-and-a-half ton 1973 Buick Electra 225 gold coupe \- from one side of Manhattan to the other, starting in the morning parked near NYU while he went to class, then over to Bleecker Street for John's Pizza, Barnes & Noble on eighteenth after lunch, up to the Cloisters museum much later on, and then back down to the Peacock Alley Lounge at the Waldorf, where a professor had told him about a classical pianist performing there that evening who had to be heard to be believed.

It turned out to be a consequential evening for Salvius for many reasons, but right now he's remembering that he'd easily found a parking space at every one of his stops for a vehicle as big as a pontoon boat in Manhattan on a Friday, and that only one of those spaces had required feeding a meter.

"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, I guess they've come and towed your car away, hey, hey, hey!" Sal sings as he strolls, looking for the key his instructor gave him years ago so he could let himself in to the four-story, eight-family building.

Vadaszo Kovacs, his wife, his baby Baldwin grand, and his walnut wood 1918 Starck upright piano live on the third floor, and as he approaches his ninetieth year he's still ambulatory, but he can perform Massenet's Meditation from Thais in the time it would take him to go down and back up the stairs to let each student in, so he long ago chose more time for practice over standing and stressing on ceremony.

He performed it on Cole Porter's piano the night Salvius came to hear him, a piece he later referred to as his _theme song_. He played a few other classical snippets that evening, as well as the music for several arias. He'd been accompanied by one of his more illustrious students, a barrel-chested tenor who magically alternated silky soaring high notes with resonating roaring lows, and though operatic singing was a bridge too far for the young seminarian, Sal knew he had found the virtuoso who could truly teach him how to sing. But how to convince the maestro to take on the misfit?

It would take years of asking until a yes was bestowed upon the beseecher.

"Buon mattina, Luisa!" he says to Vazo's wife as she rises to greet him. Their door, as always, is left slightly open so he can walk right in, and Vazo has been playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto on this morning to welcome his long-time student, a thundering tune he could hear long before he entered the building.

Luisa asks him how he's been, how his parents are, how good it is to see him, squires him into Vazo's chamber, and then closes the door behind her as she retreats to their living room, a warm glass of water for Salvius already on a doily on the lamp table, Vazo a cyclone of concentration as he follows the sheet music, page after page taped edge to edge running the length of the eighty-eight keys, for he's never understood pianists who allow themselves to keep being interrupted by constantly having to turn pages, or worse yet, having a page-turner do it for them, when scotch tape liberally applied can free the hands to stay legato instead of getting all staccato.

Sal soundlessly opens a folding chair and takes his usual place a few feet away from Vazo, and sits in his perennially stunned silence as he watches the nonagenarian attack the closing clanging chords of the masterpiece like a chef gone wild, a cleaver in each hand chopping everything in sight, but when the concerto ends and the smoke clears, not a single note is off key and not a single mise en place is missing.

"Can you imagine how a man could create such genius?" Vazo asks, and he could justifiably be referring to his rendition and not to Pyotr Ilyich's renowned composition. "So how are things?" he redirects, meaning is Salvius practicing diligently and daily and what songs does he wish to work on today.

At ninety, Vazo is a stationary vortex of activity, his body formed into the shape of the pillowed wicker chair that ever faces the music, his mind ever focused on the next sonata, song, student, aria or duet, his calendar reminding him of the next symphony, opera, performance or rehearsal, and this smaller piano a gift from Salvius, crafted the same year Vazo was born, restored by a carpenter at the hospital to its original brilliance, the least a grateful pupil of modest ability could do for the Hungarian wizard who willed his

ward from triller to troubadour, dragging a clueless tenor into the baritone range where he belonged on the very first day of his instruction.

_What are you doing!?_ he'd asked him that day, right after directing him to sing a few verses of _Amazing Grace_ so he could assess the strengths and weaknesses of his new student's instrument, and Salvius naturally responded that _I'm trying to sing. Yes,_ Vazo had replied, _but you are singing_ tenor _, and you are a_ baritone _, a bass-baritone_ _actually._

Sal had been singing tenor in chorus and in choir, had sung tenor in school and in church and wherever he'd been asked to sing, and of all the singing teachers he'd ever come across, not one had suggested he sing baritone. So as intimidated as he was by Vadaszo Kovacs, he'd still had the temerity to ask _Are you sure?_

_Am_ I _sure?!?!?!?_ came the thundering response, and Salvius was lucky the man who had graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, won the exit competition, immigrated to the States and was immediately conferred a master's degree in music without being asked to attend a single class, had trained world-famous pianists, opera singers, violinists, composers and conductors, well, he was lucky Vazo was in a good mood that first day, or he would have been thrown out before he'd even had a chance to sit down.

So after one class, Sal was now singing in the right range for the first time in his adult life. Clearly the token thirty dollars Vazo charged per session had been money well spent.

He performs a few songs, and then they discuss politics and philosophy for a while, their sessions having long ago turned more personal than professional, both men rarely finding others they could speak to about the great questions, one man seeing the father he wished had been his, the other seeing a son he would have been proud to call his own.

By now Vazo no longer critiques, praise is all Salvius hears, and on some level that pleases, because however friendly Vazo has become the music is always paramount, so if there were the slightest flaws in the facets, the master lapidary would point each one out, grind it down, and seek to burnish it to brilliance, but on another level it leaves Sal with less reason to return, first because the sessions no longer serve their original purpose, but more importantly because he mistakenly believes his aging and ailing parents need him more than Vazo does.

And so before an hour has gone by, Sal gathers his sheet music, thanks Vazo and says good-bye to Luisa, singing his way down the stairs and back to his car so he can head over to Canarsie and fulfill his filial functions.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Two very different ways of approaching senescence, he thinks as he steers his car into his parents' driveway, the piano man back there playing dawn till dusk, Marlboro Man upstairs walking dead inside an empty husk, both bodies mostly immobile and wracked with pain, but Vazo's spent and bent by embracing life, his father's worn and torn by inhaling death.

Two packs a day since he was twelve means a million Camelsticks give or take; his father hates filters, taking his tar and nicotine straight and undiluted, his vice in no danger of compromise, a halfway vice in his mind as pointless as a halfway virtue, and yet cigarettes are not his deadliest vice. They're not even the cause of his most serious health problems, coming in a distant second to his diabetes.

What he's sucked in more greedily than his Camels is the poison of indolence; convinced that life ends at thirty-five, he's spent the last fifty years proving it, giving up on marriage and fatherhood soon after he took them on, giving up on work except for the occasional token effort, and giving up on the business of living in all its manifestations, until everyone and everything finally gave up on him. Except for his long-suffering, hard-working, God-fearing, unappreciated, unimpeachable, unrequited wife.

"Buon mattina, mamma," he says as she opens the door before he does, having watched him from the window, pocketbook and shopping list in hand, four stops to make, knowing he has to head to work by eleven, upset that he couldn't get here earlier but not one to say it directly, anxious to exit the suffocating noxious unrelenting smoke that permeates the halls and the walls and the ceiling and the floor and every fiber and fabric and filament and fragment of her house and of her spouse.

"Cera traffico cuano lassasti l'istrutore?" she asks, wondering if he hit traffic but hinting that if he hadn't lingered at Vazo's for lessons no grown man should be taking in the first place, they'd have no need to rush around now, giving her less time at each store and reduced reprieve from her life sentence, hints and implications that hardly register with Salvius, for his immersion in the unseen and the unsaid occasionally opens him to the sublime but usually blinds him to the obvious.

"No, non cinnera, ma ritornavo di strati, so forsi gi vosi chiu tempo," he replies, as if telling her he came back to Canarsie locally won't make her think he wasted another half hour in getting there.

"Tu'mangini. Cento semafari per evitare un traffico che mancu vidisti. Bu." _Imagine. Hitting a hundred lights to avoid traffic that might not even exist. Incomprehensible._

She's not pleased.

They stop first at Key Food because the light olive oil she needs for cooking is only $10.99 per gallon that day, which she knows because she has the coupon right there in her hand, and yes, of course, she has another two gallons in the pantry, but she's not about to wait until she runs out to go buy it because then you know they'll charge as much as twenty dollars for the same oil and it's criminal to pay that, and naturally Salvius doesn't disagree, nor does he say a word when his mother scans the receipt by the register as if it was a newly discovered Gospel, searching for any sign of forgery or mispricing, and then it's off to the Golden Mango because they're the only ones who sell broccoli rapi that aren't wilted, and besides she likes how they continually spray their fruits and vegetables with water to keep them fresh, but before they get there she wants to know if Isabella is still not talking to Salvius or Li Qin and if this nonsense will ever stop, and why is that girl always on a ship around the world and is she ever going to see her only granddaughter before she dies, and why is it you can't bring mother and daughter together when you're a _priest_ , for God's sake, or used to be a priest, now you're a _pastor,_ well, you weren't _thrown_ out of the priesthood so it isn't as if you've stopped being one in the eyes of God, but in any event, you don't have to come in with me I'm only getting the broccoli but park the car and pick up a gallon of wine next door at the liquor store, the chablis, nothing else because the others are too strong and give me a headache, and then we need to get to the Pathmark to get the scrodfish, which is the only one your father will eat, even though I don't think the poor man can even taste the

difference anymore, he just keeps eating less and less, and he almost never lets me test him for his sugar, which is why it's like a rollercoaster, the other morning it was five! and he was basically in a coma when I came back from the hospital with our prescriptions because I had left early while he was sleeping but when I came back I couldn't get him to wake up, until finally he came around and I was able to make him eat a biscotto, and no, there was no reason to call you because what were you going to do? besides I know to call the ambulance if I absolutely have to, which you remember I did last year, and then once he was at the hospital he was fine, because over there he can't argue with the nurses and the doctors and so they can control how he takes his insulin, but then he comes back home, and well, anyway, your Uncle Benedetto called...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When they get back from shopping they go upstairs and put everything away, and then Salvius enters their bedroom to kiss his father, who opens his eyes and smiles for a moment, but then goes right back to a fitful sleep, pain swarming in from all directions, as the rampaging diabetes, the aftereffects of his prostate cancer, his disintegrating lungs, skin lesions, a scalp rash that never goes away, his refusal to almost ever leave the house, and a diminishing appetite for so many reasons, all these serve to make him shun the light of day, yet never does he complain of these things; he just disappears into himself, relying on his wife to martyr herself in every waking moment, and leaving his son to puzzle over a patriarch who's spent half a century in purgatory, a matriarch who's gone right along with him, and both of them now wintering in hell.

At the foot of the stairs as he's about to leave, his mother goes on tiptoe as he kisses her goodbye, and then tells him "U giovedi cuano si areri libero, mi dispiaci ma facivo l'appuntamenti cu duturi, pichi mi sta nescenno areri u sangu. I novi. Non ti procupari. E no chiu tardo di novi!"

Next Thursday when you're off again, I'm sorry but I had to make an appointment with the doctor because I'm bleeding again. For nine o'clock. Don't worry. And don't be late!

An afterthought. As if she were asking him to take out the trash. This is how Maria Chisciotte lets Salvius know her cancer's come back.

Three

Rachel Harris smirks disdainfully as Isabella leaves her office, and then she fishes around in her desk drawer for two inserts, prints _SALVIUS_ on one and _CHISCIOTTE_ on the other, sticks them into the tabs of two new file folders, makes some room in one of her lower cabinets, slides in the two folders and spreads them apart, then takes the bag Isabella gave her, crams it in there, and kicks closed the sliding drawer.

"Desperately seeking closure," she says aloud, and smiles at her own triple entendre, but she's genuinely glad to have taken on a case that should provide needed distraction from courtrooms and classrooms, her work life a revolving door of explaining to juries why even the most despicable defendants are not

truly responsible for their actions and lecturing students on the complete fiction of free will and all that that implies.

The alarm on her cell rings, a reminder of her two o'clock with Bill on Elizabeth Street. She grabs her bag and heads to the office admin's desk. "Jim, have a car meet me downstairs!" she half shouts, and is already walking towards the foyer as she hears him call back "I'm on it, Doctor Harris!" "You damn well better be," she mutters as she steps inside the elevator, realizing with a bit of perverse pride that she can't recall just how many admins she's gone through this past year.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The driver drops her off at the tiny sliver of a shop run by mother, father, and son Bill, providing Chinese medicine up front, and a combination of acupuncture, massage, and _push hands_ acupressure out back, the latter a technique Rachel first scoffed at when a colleague raved about it and now swears by whenever her body is in need of realignment, which is frequently, given that she has largely replaced what little exercise she had previously engaged in with

Bill's shortcut to bodily bliss.

_He's basically exercising my body for me_ is how she thinks of it, and at only fifty dollars a session with her needing to do nothing but lie down and get alternately massaged and manhandled, masseused and maneuvered, if there's an easier, less expensive, less time-consuming way to keep herself fit and pain-free, she certainly hasn't been able to think of one, which is the only reason she's never given hunky Bill here the green light to go for the gold right on this table with nothing but that flimsy curtain separating parents from progeny.

"But I wonder if that would make him worse at his job, or _better_?" she whispers as she strips off every stitch of clothing and lies face down on Bill's table, a habit she began on day one without complaint one from Bill the body man.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She floats out of the little shop not even feeling her heels as she clickety-clacks down the street, heading towards the best Peking Duck outside of China, and as she turns her phone back on she sees a missed call from her sister which can wait and a flashing reminder that she's due in court over on Centre Street in exactly sixty-six minutes.

"Plenty of time," she says though she picks up her pace and speed dials The Duck House to place her order so it's ready when she gets there, the restaurant a gem uncovered that first day with Bill on the same way to court, and suddenly she makes the connection that maybe she unconsciously took on Isabella's case

because of her Asian features.

_Ultimately, it's all unconsciousness anyway, right Doc?_ she wonders as she wanders, the paradoxes and the contradictions of her philosophy legion and legitimate but immaterial nonetheless, logic too recent and inadequate a means of making sense of human actions and emotions, especially when chance conquers all and choice is a delusion.

Lunch is lusciously succulent slices of duck with the crispiest tastiest skin mingled with julienned celery and ladled with sweet hosin sauce nestled within warm pancakes that she devours by hand, flash-fried string beans sautéed with minced garlic, and a glass of prosecco. When she's finished she asks for the check, and the waiter brings it together with a Japanese-style hot towel so she can wash up, and then she's out the door and off to testify.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Doctor Harris, please explain once again to the jury and for the court your credentials in this case, and the conclusions you have drawn about the defendant's actions on the day in question and in light of his subsequent confession."

She's been brought in by this defense attorney many times, and while he's pissed to have been ordered by the judge to take this especially nasty and public case, which wouldn't have happened if he in turn hadn't pissed off the judge by showboating one too many times, Rachel is delighted – it represents and features the poster child for the absence of free will if ever there was one – and she's eager to exploit it for herself, her students, and her profession.

"My name is Rachel Harris and I am a forensic psychologist. I have a doctorate in neurobiology from Columbia, teach forensic psychology at Cooper Union, and operate a private practice," she says softly, deliberately looking down as she speaks, and pauses for a moment. "But none of that should impress any of you sitting here, because each of us go as far as our genes and our good luck will take us," she continues, this time in a louder voice and now looking directly at the assembled group, whose collective attention she has entirely captured.

"Each of us begins life cooped up in a bubble we call the placenta, and while we emerge from that amniotic sac after nine months, we _never_ escape from the bubble that is our genetic, biological, social, and cerebral theater of operation. Every one of us ruthlessly seeks his or her own advantage and satisfaction as best they possibly can for as long as they possibly can and when they don't it's because they _can't_. Something's gone wrong. The so-called _selfish gene_ I spoke of is malfunctioning, or the worst possible memes have taken over, or both, and the individual can't figure out how to effectively manipulate others to get what he wants and needs without getting himself all mangled in the process.

"To any normal person that has followed the course and the details of this trial, Mister Kurzmalsen is a monster who should be shot like a dog and dumped in a ditch, and I not only sympathize with that opinion, I concur with it."

As both attorneys and jury and judge and Kurzmalsen himself do doubletakes at her words, she then adds emphatically: "To a point."

"Mister Kurzmalsen is twenty-seven years old. He never finished school, hasn't been able to hold down a job or keep an apartment for more than six months, and has had five children with four different women. As many crimes as he's committed over the past fifteen years, from vandalism to burglary to assault and now to this heartless, horrific murder, it seems he got caught for every single one of them. And as for the murder itself, he made so many mistakes it would be comical if it were not so tragic, performing online searches pointing to his intent that anyone could and easily did look up afterwards, forgetting about security cameras a blind man would have known were there, and not even asking for a lawyer before ultimately making a confession that as everyone here saw on the police video, as remorseless and damning as it was, was utterly incoherent and all but unintelligible.

"My bottom line is that in this life some people are playing chess while others are playing checkers, but Mister Kurzmalsen here is playing Russian roulette and he doesn't even know it. Through no fault of his own, those are the cards he's been dealt. That is the bubble life put him in. Sentence him accordingly. Anything else is not justice but vengeance, and makes no more moral sense than he does."

The prosecutor tried to rattle and redirect Rachel, but she had already swung the jury and he knew it, so he quit while he was behind and moved on to his own expert witness.

She made sure not to even glance at Carl as she walked out of the courtroom, but they both knew that in terms of the best possible outcome, the case was likely won, and then she texted her admin to send a driver to Centre Street, checked the time, and sent him another text telling him not to leave until she got there.

On the ride back she remembers to call back her sister. "Rebecca, it's me." _"It's been two fucking hours, Rachel! What is_ wrong _with you?"_ Of course this has to do with their mother. "What's happened?" _"This time she's shattered her elbow. On her RIGHT arm! We're at the hospital."_

_Is there a question in there?_ she thinks but does not ask aloud, instead taking out a folder from her bag with her notes for tonight's lecture. "Is there anything I can do?" _"Is there anything you can DO? We're in Danbury, not Dubai! Of course there's something you can DO – drive up here and come see her!"_

It's like goddamned Groundhog Day with Rebecca. "Becca, listen – " Her sister cuts her off. _"You know what, just forget I called. I'll tell her what I always tell her, and she'll just keep_ _adoring you despite the self-centered piece of shit that you are."_ And hangs up.

They've arrived. "I probably _would_ go see her if she were in Dubai," she says as she puts away her phone and makes sure everything's in her bag. Then she takes out a pen and carefully writes Chisciotte's name on two separate pieces of paper and heads upstairs and right to Jim's desk.

"Everything you can find on this man's life and death that's in the public domain I want printed out and in my mailbox before I get in tomorrow morning. Understood?" Before Jim can even nod she asks if Amy's still there. "I think I saw her in the copy room – " but she's already turned around and halfway down the hall.

The intern whose last name she still can't get straight is texting. "Is that work-related?" Rachel bellows as the hapless young girl who spent three months searching for this unpaid gig almost drops her five hundred dollar phone but before she can say a word she's handed the second piece of paper.

"Every last thing you can Google, Bing or Yahoo on this man's life and death printed out and in my mailbox before I get in tomorrow morning, and if it's no different than what Jim gets me consider this your last day. Got it?" She walks away before Amy can exhale.

She goes into her office, shuts the door, sets her alarm for twenty minutes from now, and lays down on her leather couch. "I think I've earned a nap," she says as a tranquil sleep quickly takes hold.

Desolation

I head straight home from Millinocket after settling up and picking up a muffin and what turns out to be a decent cup of coffee, stopping along the way only when I have to, and thinking that I'll call Buckley and tell her I've decided to take an extended leave. What can she say? Except for vacations and my climbs I don't think I've called out sick twice in thirty-one years, even that time my left arm nearly got ripped out of its socket. And as I start to sort things out, there's no reason to return. Financially it's not even a question. As for the hospital, they have a rabbi, an imam, and another chaplain on staff, and there's no shortage of people out there to replace me if I go.

It's just after two as I walk into the apartment, having covered five hundred miles in less than eight hours by hitting the road at dawn. I'll need a nap before I'm good for anything else, but I should check the phone. It has been three days, after all.

Exactly one missed call. From Sifu Jack. No message, needless to say. He must have hit my name by mistake. And the number is from his cell phone. I'm surprised they let him keep it. I need to go visit him. Today. Before I put it off yet again. Let me just get a half hour of sleep.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I cross the Whitestone Bridge into the Bronx, remembering how many times I drove him from the Waldorf to his basement apartment in Westchester Square, his only adult residence until he had to be moved to the nursing home just seven blocks away.

When Li Qin spoke of fate - and she always spoke of fate - something in me was strangely put off by the idea, and yet what else would one call that evening, where I met my future trio of singing teacher, best friend, and wife, all in the same place on the same night, a trinity of souls that would form the constellation of my life?

Friends and colleagues of Niels Bohr would react in scientific outrage at the lucky horseshoe he hung above the front entrance to his home, and whenever he was asked about it he was said to reply, _Well, it works whether you believe in it or not._ And while I may not have been destined to meet Li Qin, Vazo, and Jack, I certainly believe the meeting was a small miracle.

Of course, if not for Isaac Asimov, I wouldn't've met Jack Elder or Li Qin at all. While Vazo was taking a break basking in the attention of suddenly devoted admirers, I spotted Asimov not ten feet away at the nearest table, with his unmistakable white fluffy sideburns running down nearly to his chin, listening intently to a slim, bespectacled waiter sporting an afro, who gestured with his hands like a mime as he spoke, hands that clearly belonged to a martial artist, calloused, muscular, the fingers moving in slow motion like twin tarantulas, and as they cut through the air you sensed the power they held, but everything else about this man spoke to mind and not menace. Here was a scholar of the highest order, instructing a man who had taught millions.

I didn't catch what was going on at first, because although Elder and Asimov were discussing the Old Testament, little they said was familiar to me, and neither man was speaking in terms of reverence or revelation; the debate centered on authorship – was the bible a historical document tenuously pieced together and written by Jewish scribes, or an intricately interlocking text partly plagiarized from ancient Egyptian moral teachings?

The battering ram Jack kept slamming against Isaac's castle walls were passages from a book called _The Dawn of Conscience_ , which he seemed to have memorized (it was obvious he had something close to perfect recall), passages that juxtaposed lines from Proverbs and lines from papyri written two thousand years earlier, and yet essentially identical, the comparison made possible courtesy of a slab of granite etched with three versions of a pharaoh's decree, one in hieroglyphics, one in demotic, one in ancient Greek. The Rosetta Stone.

Certainly this was potentially ruinous and stunningly provocative to an aspiring Roman Catholic priest, so naturally I interrupted the two titans, introduced myself, and boldly asked if I could join them to just sit there and listen. They both barely acknowledged me but motioned for me to take a seat. Three hours would go by with only one interruption, when I found myself singing along to a piece Vazo was playing – _E lucevan le stelle_ from _Tosca,_ in which the painter in love with Tosca sings while awaiting his execution.

The tenor that had accompanied the pianist had left, and in mid-lyric Vazo angrily said to me "Stand and sing or sit in silence!" and while I was mortified and unaware of my volume, I shot straight up and continued without missing a note, finding courage I didn't know I had, determined to do justice to an aria Vadaszo Kovacs was performing maybe better than Puccini himself could have, in the end thankfully eclipsed by the virtuoso's genius and having avoided public embarrassment in the presence of Isaac Asimov, my future best friend, and the young woman who years later would be my wife.

After the song, this tall yet obviously Oriental woman with long, lightly permed hair flowing down past her shoulders, full lips a circle of purple, a shimmering gold satin gown seemingly poured like paint over her voluptuous form and slit on the side straight to the hip revealing heaven now and again, put down her drink, got up from her table and sashayed and swayed, slow and deliberate, a walking wave, and came right to me and not so discreetly tucked a note with her number into my hand while whispering _That was beautiful!_ and then turned and walked right out of the room.

"Your first groupie," Asimov remarked, and then the spell was broken and the two men dove back into their biblical battle, the young priest-in-waiting taking the brunt of the punishment, my mind spinning from arguments quite compelling, my body reeling from temptations overwhelming, and my untested faith already faltering and foundering as the foundations beneath me tectonically shifted and shook, explosions here, implosions there, signs of things to come as I made my way to the road undone.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was months before I could contrive a possible reason to call Li Qin, but I headed to the lounge at the Waldorf every Friday evening from that day on without fail, nursing my four-dollar Coke and talking to Jack, each week getting there a little later, closer and closer to closing time, until we began taking our talks out of that luxurious hotel and into a broken-down jazz bar a few blocks away, though for the longest time it was him mostly talking and me mostly listening, for he was polyglot, polymath, and polytechnic all rolled into one, his polyrhythms a polyphony of counterpoising, counterpointing, and countervailing concepts that seemed to tear everything I ever knew or heard to pieces and then put them all back together in the most bewildering and yet utterly elegant way possible, making my professors at university seem slight and childlike, making me privy to a superstructure of thought that made me see I'd been working with toy blocks by comparison, and rousing a furious envy in my soul, murderously coveting another man's knowledge and wanting to make it my own. So after eighteen years of embodying every sort of chastity, I had gluttonously succumbed to envy, pride, and lust in rapid succession – three of the deadly sins with lots of time to consider the rest.

Months after that first Friday, Jack told me there was an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that we should go see, and we were on the crowded subway platform, about to board the train whose doors had just opened, when a massively muscular black man well over six feet tall nearly knocked Jack to the ground as he pushed past him to get inside to a spot in front of the opposite door which was vacant. He was so big he either didn't know or didn't care what he had just done, and since Jack seemed okay, I didn't think it was advisable to think much more about it, except once we were inside and the train began moving he walked right up to the monolith and calmly said _You owe me an apology, brother_ , but before the giant could stick his hand in Jack's face and finish saying _Get the fu –_ Jack had taken the man's hand, swung it and him around and slammed him up against the door, and then just as calmly and quietly as before told the man _I said you owe me an apology, brother_ , and once the monolith realized he was truly immobilized he let out _I'm f***ing sorry!_ and only then did Jack Elder release him.

Days later I became his one and only Shaolin Kempo student, adding a martial component to my burgeoning extracurricular curriculum, this rigorous course every bit as strenuous and taxing physically as his philosophical instruction was intellectually, and even as our friendship deepened, I remained his willing student for decades, discovering instruction that could never run its course. But despite the thousands of hours I spent with him, and my proximity to the labyrinth of books and training equipment in his basement apartment, the genesis of his genius and the outer limits of its configurations are almost as much a mystery to me now as they were at that first meeting.

Except that now they are a mystery forever.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I park my car and enter the drab, nondescript building, showing my driver's license at the door and sign in before taking the elevator up to the third floor, and as I head down the hall to see the only true friend I have ever had, I feel very much like a man making his way to the electric chair.

"Sifu?" I ask as I knock, the door wide open, the now dangerously thin man by the ever locked heavily reinforced indestructible window, standing in his papery gown, not turning around, just staring out into the street. "Jack?" I try instead, and this time he turns slightly but then turns right back, and I know he's likely responding to the sound of my voice and not the sound of his name.

There's a chair by his bed, and I sit down, but I'm the only visitor he ever has, which I know because I've asked. He was adopted by a wealthy and elderly couple who both died while he was in his twenties, but they gave him a good life and I think a fair amount of money, none of which he ever seemed to use except to buy thousands of books. They also gave him a surname he said they hoped would prepare him for their absence, a name that might encourage him to grow up a little faster than he otherwise might.

They needn't have worried.

His dementia came down on him like a curtain, an unusual thing, as if God himself had decided darkness should descend upon him all at once, maybe because if that mind of his could see it coming he'd've kicked the shit out of it with forty-three billion neurons tied behind his back.

Sifu had told me about a study he believed was accurate that showed the average human brain actually had eighty-six billion and not the hundred billion neurons invariably ascribed to it. Years later I saw an article confirming that the previously unheralded study now ought to be heralded.

He finally turns around but doesn't look my way. I walk over slowly and deliberately, trying to make eye contact, and then gingerly wrap my arms around him and give him a hug, which he allows me to do, but there is no recognition, and he makes no effort to embrace me back. But I just hold on, reminding myself of what I sometimes forget, that one's anima, one's vital spark, that animating spirit, that thing we call the soul, is no more in the mind than it is in the body, no more in the memory than it is in the muscles, and I mustn't ever forget that, mustn't ever forget that our two souls stared into the sun as one, that the light of a friendship never goes out because it is ever born – the same force that feeds the stars fuels our souls and fires our lives, and the fire goes out only at the end of time... and we're not there yet, Sifu.

_I need to believe that_ I reflect as I finally let him go, knowing he knows neither me nor himself, that he'll never know I was here, and that he won't know me if I should return once again, and knowing above all that I don't give a damn. He's my best friend. That's all I need to know.

IV

Salvius is sure to pick up his mother at seven o'clock sharp, leaving Li Qin to take the bus to the train station this one time, and they ride in silence for a while along the Belt Parkway on the way to Coney Island Hospital until she tells him just how bad the previous evening had been for her.

"Chisto Citroma chi minsigno u dutturi ci lavora a tutti chi u usano, ma a mia mi fa una riazioni esplosiva chi manco ce tempo a faricilla u cabinetto, ma chisto cazzo di dutturi non vole chi uso nentaltro, so suffrivo da bella assira – non dormivo piu di du uri. A priparazione e peggio di l'operazione."

This Citroma that the doctor prescribed works for everybody, but on me it provokes such an explosive reaction there's no time to even get to the bathroom, but this idiot doctor doesn't want me to use anything else, so I truly suffered last night – I didn't get more than two hours of sleep. Preparing for the surgery is worse than the surgery.

And she knows because this will be surgery number five within the past three years, as the merciless and mortifying tumors keep coming back, granting false reprieve for a time, and then putting the increasingly frail octogenarian through trials that would trounce a twentysomething triathlete.

He looks over at her for a brief moment as she stares ahead, her wavy white hair still thick, but the age in her hands and face and especially in her eyes never fails to surprise him, for he sees her as he always has, the young mother who shoved her brothers and sisters out of the way and snatched him up after he'd stuck his finger in a fan to see if he could make it stop, and raced him to the kitchen counter and plunged his little four year-old bloody hand into a glass bowl filled with sugar until the bowl went from white to red, then took it out and sat him screaming down and grabbed a lemon from the refrigerator and cut it in half squeezing every last bit of juice over his nearly severed left index finger, and then bandaged him up, all before anyone else had hardly had time to react. That's the mother he remembers, young and strong and beautiful, twenty years younger, in fact, than he is right now.

A week later when she finally took the bandage off, what was left was a fully healed half-inch scar neatly indented on the side of his finger, and Salvius glances down at that same scar and smiles, mirroring the smile the scar traces upon his skin, and brings the finger to his lips and gives it a kiss and whispers _Grazie mamma_ , but as he exits the parkway and approaches the hospital, he's reminded of why they're here, and snaps out of his reverie.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The waiting room is on the top floor, with a high ceiling and white walls and wide windows overlooking the cars going up and down Ocean Parkway, and there are chairs all along its perimeter, six of them occupied, and in contrast to most of the other waiting rooms in and out of the hospital, there are no TVs, just a quiet place where an old woman about to undergo a frightening operation can collect her thoughts alongside her exceedingly worried son in peace.

Except that minutes after they sit down, a Russian couple come in, banging the door open as they do, the man speaking loudly on his iPhone in his native tongue, the woman getting a word in here and there, the two of them overweight and outlandishly dressed, him in a light blue suit, pointy leather shoes and his hair slicked back, her with so much makeup on she looks ready not for surgery but for the circus.

The man leaves a chair between Salvius and himself, keeps right on talking after he and his very significant other sit down, and it quickly becomes clear that there is no chance he's going to put down that phone unless it were to suddenly burst into flames, and that places Chisciotte in a difficult position.

Asking the man to turn off the phone will obviously not work. _Telling_ an extremely vulgar man to turn off his phone also will not work. Taking the phone and smashing it into the man's face or putting him in a headlock and dragging him out of the room is what Salvius not only prefers but is also quite capable of doing, except then security will get involved and how would that decrease his mother's distress?

So he reflects for a moment to consider his options, and when inspiration hits, he leans over to get Stalinbrain's attention.

"You're not going to stop talking, are you?" he asks pointedly but not too loudly, and Stalin does stops talking for a fraction of a second to turn and glare at him, and then goes right back to his conversation, maybe a little louder this time, his lady friend joining in but now looking a bit uncomfortable.

"You're going to want to stop, my friend, I assure you," Salvius continues, and Stalin stops talking, this time for a few seconds, before starting once again, his words flowing like a Russian auctioneer gone wild, and then –

"Well, in that case, I'm very sorry, because now we're going to do it _my way_ ," Salvius says sternly, staring directly at Stalinbrain and Natasha. "TEN... NINE... EIGHT... SEVEN... " Stalin's still talking, but this time doesn't take his eyes off Chisciotte, and Natasha is very clearly rattled.

"SIX... FIVE... FOUR... So you're not going to stop?" The Brain keeps babbling. "Fine. THREE... TWO... **ONE**!" And then Salvius Chisciotte begins singing _O Sole Mio_ at full volume, verse after verse, chorus after chorus, minute after minute, until Natasha breaks down and petulantly blurts out "Well, I like the way you sing!"

Salvius pulls out his leather pocket folder and shows her the dozens of tiny pages of handwritten lyrics to his favorite songs that are stuffed in there, and says, "That's good, because unless he puts away that damn phone, I am NEVER... GOING... TO STOP!"

And then there is once again silence in a room where there should be little else.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When her name is called he walks with her to the hallway and gives her a kiss, but she's distracted by a fear she'll never voice, having less to do with her own fate than with that of her husband, who in recent years has gone from being a burden to being the heavens Atlas held hoist upon his shoulders, and he knows she is terrified of what will happen to him if she's gone, an unfounded fear, for Salvius will pick up wherever she leaves off, but the problem is he's sure of this, but because of the kind of father her husband was to their son, she can never be.

Three hours go by, and then he's told she's awake and that he can go see her. In the recovery room she's lying as vulnerable as can be, looking somehow older still, the circles under her eyes deeper, darker, and she barely knows where she is, the aftereffects of the anesthesia more overwhelming each time it's administered to her.

"Si tu?" she wheezes as she sees him approach, her glasses on the table. _Is it you?_

"Si, si, io sugno. Como ti senti?" _Yes, it's me. How do you feel?"_

"Como mi pighio di petto un camioni," she says in anguish, each word an event. _Like a truck hit me._ So he says nothing more, and just holds her hand as he sits by her bedside.

The surgeon walks in a few minutes later and tells the receptionist to have Mr. Chisciotte join him in the hallway, and out there Salvius confronts Dr. Pandit and two colleagues, all with their heads down and their hands by their sides.

How many times has he seen this before? Except this time it does not involve a stranger.

"Mr. Chisciotte, I am so sorry, but the tumors are everywhere," Dr. Pandit begins, and Salvius listens politely for a while as the surgeon explains that they will admit her and do what they can to control the pain, but then he excuses himself to go back to his mother and give in to the gathering storm, as thunder and lightning and a swirling boiling sky descends upon him, tidal waves of despair crashing all around, another lost soul doomed to oblivion, this one never truly knowing love, never having really lived, a life only of endless toil and obligation, hardly having known joy or jubilation, and Salvius Chisciotte closes his eyes and prays, trying to find somewhere in the distant past a fleeting memory of his mother in a moment of pure bliss, but hard as he tries he can't conjure up what

never was, and so he clears his mind and sits by her side, his face pressed against her hand, a torrent of tears held back, her crown of thorns now pressed upon his heart, but big boys don't cry, and real men don't despair, so he does both, without apology and without restraint.

Four

The phone rings and she's almost forgotten she's on the ship. Though she left the drapes and the sliding doors wide open, the room is dark except for the glimmer of moonlight and quiet but for the ominous whispering roar of the waves. She picks up on the fourth ring as her adjusting eyes gauzily make out the glowing blue numbers. 8:52 pm.

"Hey," she purrs, "why didn't you call earlier?" _"I thought you might be sleeping,"_ Najid tells her. _"So I waited. Meet me in the ballroom?"_ "Of course. Fifteen minutes."

She stretches and swivels and coils and curls naked and half-awake underneath the lusciously heavy cottony comforter as the shape-shifting mattress beneath counters and caresses her every move, a love-making bed not so willing to release her.

"Don't be mad," she pillow talks to her horizontal heaven as she extricates herself from its embrace, "you know I always come back to you."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thirty minutes later Isabella emerges from her cabin head to toe in China blue, striding and gliding within the ship, noticing as she occasionally does, the hundreds of elegant and elderly men and women shuffling and shambling and swaying and struggling, their disintegrating bodies cracking and creaking and crumbling under their tuxedos and evening gowns, the men's ashen faces frequently frozen in some catatonic expression, their gaping mouths resembling some collective sense of surprise at the oncoming train of impending demise, the women's faces crinkled and wrinkled, crosshatchings around their eyes caked and glazed, capped with teased, starched wisps or weaves or wigs of stranded strands plastered in place, and as she watches them, sometimes a glance, sometimes a stolen stare, she wonders with a mix of unapologetic envy and a shudder of distant future dread, what must it be like to be utterly, unrelentingly, unalterably invisible to absolutely everyone that isn't in your will.

What, she wonders, does that do to the mind?

She hears him before she sees him, standing where else but by the piano in the Grand Ballroom at the centrum of the ocean liner, making love to the microphone as he gives _Amapola_ an erotic and exotic Egyptian edge, his angelic tenor voice Janus-like in contrast to his susurrant baritone speaking voice, and she rushes over to sit down and play for him so he can finish his impromptu a cappella accompanied by the lover he damn well better be singing for.

They finish the song and quickly walk away together before the delayed smattering of sophisticated applause gets a chance to build to its deserved crescendo, and the moment the pair are out on deck they seek and find a private space and tangle themselves into a beguiling belated embrace.

"It's only been two weeks," he serves, as if she's the one who's suffered most from the separation.

"And maybe it'll be two weeks _more_ till you see the inside of my suite," she returns, neither one letting go of the other as they volley back and forth, but they are aboard the Queen Mary, and while it may be their home it is much more than that, so discretion must prove the better part of ardor, and they reluctantly begrudgingly disentangle and resume their tango by the railing as they gaze at the moon and the stars.

"The first show's tomorrow night at eight?" she asks tells, just to make sure, and he nods, looking out at the inky night, where you all see is your mind unbound as the blueblack sky reflects your inner eye and the outer reaches of thoughts unwound.

"You got what you wanted done?" he asks knowing to ask so much and no more, so that she can nod and move on and she does.

They step back as one and begin to prowl forward aft the tigress and her tamer in the direction of the prow, the cool night the warmest for many to come as the liner heads north.

"Any conquests in my absence?" she queries, thinking even as she asks how many he and she could capture in an hour let alone three hundred and thirty-six, and how little either would care, and how impossible – so far! – it would be for him or her to entertain the thought let alone act upon it.

"How many people have that after _eleven_ years?" she says so soft he doesn't hear, and smiles as she remembers how they met. She was a music major at Cornell and he was an adjunct teaching music history, and their paths hadn't crossed because her world was classical and his was ballads old and new, but one day she's playing _A Certain Smile_ just for fun on an off-key broken-down upright in an empty classroom at the end of August just before the beginning of the fall semester, and in walks this hotter than hell Sultan of Egypt who starts singing right on the note she's playing in his silky tenor, glissandos galore, gliding his way to the last line where his smile most certainly did haunt her heart again and again, and that same night when they made love he softly sang that bittersweet refrain to her again and again as he took her and gave her and

brought her again and again, and that was it for Cornell or classical piano or anything else.

"Shall we?" he asks as they circumnavigate the liner for the third time and are now port side not far from her suite. "Yes, please," she teases, tugging him a bit as they make their way like newlyweds back inside and towards her cabin.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hours later he leaves, part of the secret of their relationship's staying power owing to her insistence on maintaining strictly separate residences, a decision that costs her far more than it does him, given that his family is filthy stinking _We don't even know what we're worth!_ stupid rich, while she's paid her own way every step of the way since she split from her parents.

"But I won't have to worry about money from here on out," she muses, her father having left everything to her, which turned out to be far more even than she'd suspected they had, though really she's never had to worry about money at all since Najid came along, first because it was understood he'd give her whatever she needed if she would ever deign to ask, and second because they were well compensated at the Queen Mary, theirs being among the most frequented and raved about act onboard, and Najid refusing to take a single dime of what they got paid _. Spend it on you, spend it on me, give it away – I don't care. You don't ever let me spoil you, so this is the very least I can do. And that is always my goal: to do the least._

Funny. Talented. Gorgeous. Humble. Wealthy. And ridiculously good in bed. She'd found true love but lost her father. Given the chance, knowing what the future would hold, knowing how wonderful her life would be, would she do it again? "No, Najid, I'm sorry, but I would not," she confides to her pillow.

A month after they'd met, they discussed performing together, and Najid made a call to his parents, and they were able to arrange a private audition with the operators of the QM2 for him and Isabella, and were hired on the spot, so she then called her parents to see if they could all get together to share the news, but she was careful not to get into specifics.

Li Qin told her it would easier if the two of them came down to the city, and so reservations were made at _Farfalla's_ on Madison Avenue, and as soon as her mother and father met them at their table there was trouble.

Before Isabella could even kiss her parents hello, Li Qin asked _Exactly how old are you, Mr. Naseer?_

_Thirty-two, Mrs. Chisciotte,_ he'd replied without hesitation, and Salvius had just stood there, knowing full well where this was going because he'd been on this train so many, many times before.

_So you are TEN years older than my daughter?_ she continued, unblinking, having already found out something Isabella hadn't even thought to ask, the waiter wanting to encourage the group to sit down but walking away instead, sensing it was more likely this party would soon be leaving rather than dining and wisely deciding not to interfere.

_Is that really so unusual?_ he'd responded ever so innocently, _I mean, not to pry, but isn't Mr. Chisciotte at least that much older than you are?_ correctly sensing that Salvius wouldn't mind in the slightest as being thought more senior than he was and that Li Qin might overlook his disingenuousness and accept the compliment.

So they'd managed to sit themselves down and order a bottle of wine, but by the time the appetizers arrived, small talk had been redirected by Li Qin into big talk and it came out not only that Isabella was giving up Cornell and classical piano but that she'd be living and touring on an ocean liner with an older man she'd met exactly twenty-four days earlier.

Seventeen years of lessons and over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of tuition and books and room and board down the drain so that you can take up with a crooner on a cruise ship and play show tunes for senior citizens? Is that it? Is that your plan?

Li Qin's voice had risen but she'd kept it in check, the worst scenes always kept behind closed doors, the public square a space she strove to keep at least a semblance of dignity and grace.

Yes, MOTHER, that is precisely my plan. And since you've made it quite clear that it's a shitty stupid little plan, I guess there's nothing more to talk about, is there?

Isabella was the one screaming now, a lifetime of being screamed at suddenly turned on its head, the 'emotional bank account' dipped into so many times by a mother determined to determine every move, every decision, every thought, every action, day in, day out, year in, year out, her only reprieves her outings with the father that showed strength everywhere but with his wife; well, the account that every mother earned by virtue of bringing her child into the world had, big as it was, finally been closed due to lack of funds.

Bella, listen to me...

_No daddy,_ she'd replied while pushing back her chair and standing up, _I've listened for twenty-two years. Now it's your turn. THIS is the fork in the road. This is it. You've chosen her way the whole way here. You know I'm doing the right thing. That's why you haven't said a word. I love this man. You know that, too._

You TELL THAT WOMAN THAT, or you say goodbye to me. THAT'S your choice. Because as much as I love you, if you take her side ON THIS, I will never, EVER, speak to you again.

Salvius and Li Qin had remained seated while she spoke, with Najid reluctantly but resolutely rising alongside Isabella, both women's eyes zeroed in on Chisciotte, his own eyes closed as they had been for so long, now forced to open wide for the first time and choose between one love and another, the man of compassion compelled at long last to a singular act of betrayal.

_Bella,_ he'd begun. But his daughter had already known what he'd do. He'd protect the one that needed more protecting.

You know what? You are a COWARD when it comes to her! A spineless, fucking imbecile of a man! And I'm sorry it took me this long to say it to your face!

Those were the last words she had spoken to her father, the bravest, wisest, kindest, most loving man she or anyone that met him would ever know. The man who had given her a childhood dreams were made of. And that's why if she had a second chance of course she would not do the same thing all over again.

She would sit back down and say _Okay daddy, I'll listen. Just tell me what to do. And I'll do it._

Deliberation

I'm back in my apartment by four-thirty and I've made up my mind, so I dial Buckley's office, and as soon as her assistant recognizes me her condolences are so sincere and take so long I almost forget why I've called. "Yes, Claudia, I'm all right. But how about you? Are you feeling better?" _"Me? Oh, much better. It was nothing. God bless you for even remembering."_ "Is she still there?" _"She is. I'll put you right through, Pastor."_

" _Salvius?"_ "Yes, Joyce. How are you? How are Richard and the girls?" _"How are WE? How are YOU? I still can't believe she's gone. I'm so very, very sorry."_

"Thank you, Joyce. I don't think I'm ever going to come to terms with what's happened. And actually, that's why I'm calling. I... will not be coming back to the hospital, and I need to impose

on you just a bit, to take care of whatever paperwork is necessary and send it along to me."

" _Salvius, I don't know what to say. But of course. Of course we'll take of everything. What else..."_

"Well, one more thing, Joyce. Please thank anyone that should ask about me and offer them my deepest gratitude. Under the circumstances, I need you to help me just fade into the sunset." The greater truth, of course, is that having failed to save my own wife, I cannot possibly speak to each and every person that will wish to console me. I would be reliving her death with each explanation and every consolation. Even a pastor ought to be allowed to mourn in peace.

She's silent for a moment, and then _"You know I'll do anything you ask. If there is ever something you need..."_

"I know. Be well, Joyce. It's been a pleasure working with you."

" _And it has been our privilege to have had you at St. Rosalie's, Pastor. Godspeed."_

"Ciao, bella." I shut my phone and end a career.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I skipped lunch, so I put a pot of water on the stove and when it boils I add some oil before I pour in the penne, get some butter out of the fridge, grab a small can of peeled tomatoes from the pantry, unsheath a boning knife from its slotted scabbard, take a cipollina from the hanging wire baskets by the counter, strip its thick yellow skin right off and chop it up, open the can, take one out to make some room, then swirl my blade around in there and slice the plums to pieces. I put a bit of olive oil in my saute′ pan and when it heats I toss in the onions, and when they're caramelized I add the tomatoes and some sea salt, and when they're bubbling I turn off the flame and drop in a quarter stick of butter and take out a wooden spoon and stir. The penne are already draining in the colander, so I take them and add them to the sauce, then I grind black pepper over the pasta, pour everything into a bowl, get the parmigiano reggiano from the fridge, and grate a generous amount over what can now be properly called dinner.

After doing the dishes I play a few songs on the keyboard and check the time. 6:30 pm. Traffic shouldn't be too bad by now, not that it matters, and I take the elevator down to the garage and

drive to my father's house, the last thing I need to take care of before heading upstate, which I'll do first thing tomorrow morning, using tonight to pack what few things I'll need.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I ring the bell and wait for Jude to come to the door.

"Mister Chisciotte! Is something wrong?" Over twenty years I've known this man and I haven't been able to get him to call me Sal.

"No, Jude, nothing's wrong. Am I interrupting dinner?"

"No, I was getting ready the insulin for papa. You know he goes to sleep always earlier and earlier." I take a seat on one of the rusty iron chairs on the little patio and motion for him to do

the same.

"Jude, I'm going away for a while, and it might be for a few months, maybe longer, so I just want to go over some things with you before I leave," and as I see the troubled look in his eyes that tells me he's about to stand up I quickly add, "Nothing major. Please, sit, sit. You don't have to write any of this down.

"Here's a bag of the espresso he likes," and I hand it to him, "even though I don't think he can really tell the difference anymore, but please make it for him once in a while," and he nods as he places it on the table next to his chair.

"And every so often when you to go to the bakery on eighteenth avenue to pick up bread, get him one of those pastries he loves, but cut it in half, and make sure he has half for lunch half for

dinner, never all at one meal, but you know that already?" and he nods and asks, "The iris, yes?"

"That's exactly right... okay, one last thing. You need to start working on the outside of the house." And as I say this he looks confused, because he knows my father has never asked him to touch the outside of the house.

"DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT tell my father I told you this, but when he dies he is leaving the house to you. It will be yours." "Oh no, Mister Chisciotte, the house belongs to your family – "

"You ARE family, Jude," I reply. "You have been family, friend, caretaker, and protector of my late mother and my father for many, many years. _He_ wants you to have the house, and _I_ want you to have the house, and that's all there is to it. And don't you dare try to argue with me."

He struggles to remain silent.

"All right. You have my cell number and the numbers of all his doctors. I don't need to tell you what to do in an emergency. Your salary is direct-deposited weekly to your bank, I know, but if anything unexpected should come up, and you need more money – "

"Absolutely not!" he roars back with pride and almost a touch of anger, and we both get up and I give him a warm embrace. "God bless you, Jude – for everything. I'll be in touch."

"Aren't you going upstairs?" he asks as I head towards the car.

"No, not this time. I'll let him rest. Good night, Jude."

"Good night, Mister Chisciotte."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8:20 a.m. After an early breakfast, I drain the water from the tank of the espresso machine and give it some time to cool down before pulling out one of the folded cardboard boxes Li Qin stored behind the curved part of the couch and then pack it in there, crumpling up some pages of the Sunday Times which reminds me I have to call and tell them to stop sending it and stick them in everywhere I can, making sure my Gaggia survives the three hundred miles I'll be driving intact.

The nearest place to get a decent coffee is an hour away from our cottage, so leaving it here is unthinkable.

Besides my climbing gear there's not much I have to bring along. We have clothes and blankets and towels and most everything we'd need for the occasional long weekend, and certainly anything I can get down here I can get up there, _except_ the Miscela D'Oro, so I grab a plastic bag from under the sink and fill it with, let's see... six, seven, eight bags altogether of Sicily's finest blend. That's three or four months worth at least. If I mix in some illy and Lavazza I'll be good for a year.

I think that's it. I walk around the apartment, checking the windows, making sure I haven't forgotten anything, take a long moment to say a prayer at Li Qin's shrine, staring at the photo I

know she loved that I chose for the urn, then I step into the hall and knock on our neighbor's door, telling her I'll be gone for a long while and to call me if there's something I need to know,

and to ask her to have the mailman bring whatever mail comes here back to the post office, and after I thank her, I make two trips to the garage and put everything in the trunk of the car. The post office will be open, and I make a stop there to get my mail sent to the Cayuga address, and then I'm on my way to the house that ought to have been our home and not just our getaway, but now it will be my home, at least for a while, and that's something.

I gas up and don't stop till I get to the visitor center up near Binghamton, set on a hill overlooking the countryside, as scenic as can be, and I wander around inside until I get to the enormous raised relief map of New York on the wall, with Mount Marcy vividly pronouncing itself the highest point of them all, and I remember not only that Vice President Teddy Roosevelt had to be dragged off of it and taken back to the White House to assume the Presidency when his boss was shot, but how I regaled Isabella with maybe too many details of that event as she and I were making our way up to the very same summit, then taking a wrong turn on our way down, and having to run like hell for two miles across roots and rocks in the onrushing dusk so we could get back to the lodge by the parking lot before the sun ducked behind the mountain and left us utterly in the dark where we'd be unable to see our own hands in front of our faces. We made it with minutes to spare, and I'll never forget the two of us on the wooden bench each gulping a gallon of water stunned as we saw a tree not ten yards away suddenly disappear as everything went lights out, meaning we could have been a stone's throw from the car and would likely never have found it till dawn's early light.

I'd like to imagine that if we'd been forced to spend the night in the forest that I'd've been able to defend her from some lynx or mountain lion, but without an axe or even a flashlight on that night, I'm quite glad to have not had to put that quixotic notion to the test.

I get a hot chocolate from the rather sophisticated vending machine and pick up a Finger Lakes brochure before I leave, one with the very best map of the surrounding region, knowing that with my directional deficits it'll come in handy maybe even before I get out the door.

I take 81 to 79 and in less than an hour I'm in downtown Ithaca, skipping The Commons for now, taking Aurora till it gets to Lincoln then making that right, and then a left onto Lake Street, and park the car in the little lot you'll find only by accident or if a local points it out to you.

It's right next to the massive hidden waterfall that Isabella heard from a distance as we wandered around back in 1998 when she first started thinking about college, with Cornell making her list

not because of its music program but because of what she'd heard of the city it was in.

Just she and I had come up the first time, with Li Qin off on a business trip, and so we made a long weekend of it, exploring the sprawling campus for a while, ending up at the museum situated

dramatically at the top of a cliff, visible for miles around, which she said resembled a piano and I said looked like a sewing machine, viewing the Asian exhibit on the top floor, and after separating for most of the time to see what we could see, we both wound up staring at an actual samurai's full suit of armor worn not just by time but by battle, and we were lost there for quite a while, each in our own reverie and yet closer to each other, as I had read somewhere, than our own jugular vein.

Shortly after that, we went to the car and drove down the winding road without any idea where we were going, and as soon as we were on level ground I found a place to park and said _We should walk,_ and how could I forget her laugh when she replied _We should_ always _walk!_

We hadn't gone very far when she'd whispered conspiratorially, _Daddy, do you hear that?_ and though I hadn't, I followed her as she broke into a light run until I certainly did hear the sound of

rushing water, which got louder and louder as we rounded a primrose path shouldered by a wall of crumbling shale and shrouded in trees and never-ending vegetation, following the tightly drawn labyrinth until it opened up into an amazing amphitheater of rolling rock and falling water, a miniature Niagara you could walk right up to and kiss, but we just sat on a fallen tree in silence and in awe, two pilgrims in the greatest church of all, hanging on every sound of a sermon a billion

years in the making, every one of our senses blasted and blessed into being, demons and doubts demolished and cast out by mother nature's siren song sung in every key, every note a clarion call that the blind could hear and the deaf could see.

We saw and did some more things that weekend, but Isabella's mind had been made up by that waterfall, and there are worse ways for a young woman to decide which university to go to.

The falls are not thundering today. It's early October and it was a dry summer up here too, I imagine, and except for a lone fisherman in the stream over near the bridge, I'm the only one here, even though it's not that cold yet. Of course it is mid-afternoon on a Monday.

When Cornell accepted her, the three of us came up here and started looking for an apartment for her, finding a very cozy one up on South Hill overlooking Cayuga Lake, and it was Li Qin who began thinking about buying a lake house not long after that, the bargain hunter in her having shifted from dreams of an oceanfront home to something more practical, eventually settling on a cottage on the northeastern end of Cayuga forty miles from here that's now worth at least twice what she paid for it, and I wish I could have persuaded her to join me up there more often when I would go to visit Isabella, which was every possible chance I got.

I look around, and then close my eyes, seeing this place as a series of snapshots I never took, each picture stuck between the spokes of a spinning wheel of seasons, flying by but if you glimpse real quick you'll catch frozen falls and ice slick walls and whiteness brightness on a shot right there, and if you can slow it down as it's spinning round you'll see the flaming golds and the crimson reds and the rusty bronze of the autumn leaves, then there's the cascading crush of the winter melt and the bone dry dust at summer's end, but if you squint too hard and you look too much, it all disappears because you've lost your touch.

I head to the car and drive to gimme! coffee on State for an espresso and a sandwich, a very late lunch that'll serve as dinner as well. Having done nothing but drive, I'm as hungry as a sloth, and I just need to stay awake for the last meandering, twisting, rollercoaster hilly part of the journey that'll take me to Aurelius, the town that circumscribes my cottage and bears the name of one of my childhood heroes, yet another intriguing fortuity that brings to mind Einstein's belief that coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.

"Mister Keyshotty?!" Close enough. But who is this?

A young woman, maybe in her late twenties. "Yes?"

"You don't remember me, do you?" In fact I don't. "I think I do. A friend of Isabella's?" A reasonable surmise.

"Sort of. We took a couple of classes together. Marleny! Marleny Alonso from Costa Rica! I was studying plant biology?" I nod, vaguely remembering now, but still at a loss. "What are you doing in Ithaca?" She's both quite tan and certainly underdressed for this time of year but obviously vibrantly healthy.

I take my last sip of coffee, searching my mind for some recollection. "Out for a drive," I say with a smile. "A little getaway."

"May I?" she asks but sits before I respond.

"I'm so glad to run into you! I tried to contact you a few times, but I never knew how to spell your name. You don't even know you changed my whole life!?" She furiously rifles through her purse and finds her business card, which she immediately gives me. _SOLARIUM SPA – Your Place in the Sun._

"That's very nice," I manage, feeling more uncomfortable with every passing moment.

"We were in the bookstore," she finally says, realizing at long last I have no idea who she is, "the three of us, and I was telling you that as much as I loved violin, I needed a degree that would make me a living – "

"Yes!" I exclaim with total recall, "I walked you right over to the science section and found a copy of Wilson's _Consilience,_ and suggested you read it. I'm so sorry. Now I remember."

"Oh please! It was five minutes of your life, and I was just a dumb kid," and I shake my head to protest but she ignores me. "I read that book probably five times, and after I took my degree I said why _shouldn't_ I combine everything I love to make my living? Anyway, I started with a small greenhouse, and now I have six spas all around the Finger Lakes with a combination of year-round solariums and herb gardens and spa treatments and jacuzzis, with live classical music and totally organic salads and smoothies, and _you're_ the one who inspired me to come up with the concept, and I finally get to say thank you! Thank you!" and then she gets up and hugs me anaconda-tight.

"All right, that'll do," I say one-quarter joking, three-quarters serious. " _You're_ the one who did all the work, and _Wilson's_ the one who wrote the book. I just thought it might be an idea you'd find useful. And I'm glad it was," getting up as I say this, feeling it long past time for me to get going.

"My god! It's like Izzy used to say. You really _can't_ just take a compliment." She sees I'm looking to leave, and gives me one more hug for the road before telling me "I know you won't take me up on this, but _please, please, please_ come to my spa here in Ithaca and let me treat you one day. This is my cell number," and she quickly scribbles it down on another card and gives it to me.

I slip it into my shirt pocket and tell her good-bye, and it pains me a bit to see she's disappointed, because somehow she knows I'll neither call nor visit, but I am happy to have run into her, and she clearly is as well.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's four-thirty by the time I turn off 90 and down my declivitously steep driveway, which I almost couldn't locate in broad daylight, so it's a good thing I didn't get here past dark. There hasn't been any snow yet, and Danny's kept the place looking lived in, the grass as short as Wimbledon, every inch of the sloping entrance as neat and trim as the level lawn. I need to call him and let him know I'm here.

I should take a look around, but I bring my things in and put them aside, take a moment to wash my hands, and go right upstairs to the bedroom, realizing how tired I am from the long drive, and lay down on the futon, telling myself as I slowly fade that it'll just be for a half hour or so, wondering why I didn't ask Marleny if she'd stayed in touch with Isabella, though knowing she likely hadn't, and also knowing I didn't come up here in search of the woman my daughter has become, I've come up here to remember the good father I once was to my little girl before she grew up to leave me.

V

It's less than a month after his mother's funeral that Luisa calls.

" _Salvius?"_ They've never spoken by phone, always Sal either calling his instructor or Vazo calling his student.

"Luisa?" he answers, already comprehending.

" _He's gone,"_ she sobs, then tries to clear her throat.

"When?" is all he can say, and they talk for a while, consoling one another, apologizing for their respective loved one's inconvenient departure, somehow thinking that maybe spreading out the sadness might have made it smaller, or that such poor timing will smear their patterns of grief, as if a double death is a breach of good manners from beyond that must be accounted for in the here and now by the ones left behind.

She manages to tell him the time and date of the service, and there's no need to tell him the place. Vazo played the pipe organ at the church every Sunday every wedding every funeral for the last half century since the day he walked in when he heard they were looking for a music director and they snatched him up faster than a grizzly on a salmon, but despite the duration of his tenure and all the churchgoers he must have known, his enormous roster of students, and the variety and the sheer number of performances he was involved with, nothing can prepare Chisciotte for the biblical flood of people inside and outside and all around the grounds that have swept in to pay respects to Vadaszo the Virtuoso, King Kovacs hailing from Budapest now sailing from Brooklyn to parts unknown, amidst a mass of mourners that had better in unison and perfect tempo collectively moan.

_NOTHING BUT MUSIC!_ is what Vazo told his priest, his bishop, his queen, and all his pawns whenever the matter of his own Requiem arose, and as Salvius laboriously makes his way to the entrance, it is symphoniously clear that his command has been heeded, as the clipped closing chords of Mozart's Sonata in A Minor compromise the solemnity of the occasion and of the vast interior, and encourage Chisciotte and everyone else to move a bit more quickly, and as he makes his way into the central nave programs are being distributed, and he tucks his in the inside pocket of his jacket, looking ahead to the choir and the apse, where the seating and standing arrangements are suddenly clear to him, Vazo's disciples with instruments in hand and voices at the ready commandeering the transept and the choir, spilling over into the ambulatory, sharing the many music stands propped up all around the altar, as Beethoven's Für Elise begins, and now Salvius notices that naturally a grand piano occupies the chancel directly in front of the altar, with a blown-up photo of Vazo hanging from the lid, in his prime in a white tuxedo playing at Lincoln Center to a packed house, and as he tentatively finds a place to stand by a column, he looks through the program, which has four sections – classical pieces, Hungarian folk music, numerous arias, and a few pop standards – and he has to re-read it when he sees his own name next to the final song, and of course that means he's going to have to weave his way to the very center of the action and take his place near the maestro's raised casket, acolytes all together now with their chords and their keys and their strings and their strains left without their leading light as they jubilantly serenade his memory and with enthusiastic exaltation perform their sacred rite.

Chopin's Ballade in G Minor ends and Debussy's Voiles begins, serving as a haunting transition, and Salvius can almost see the pall rising like veils and then forming like sails from the coffin and lifting Kovacs off into the heavens, and there he is farewelling those who came to say farewell, rising through the dome and disappearing through the oculus, on his journey through the cosmos to critique and create anew the music of the spheres.

The young pianist that led or accompanied all the music thus far gets up and a frail-looking woman nearly as ancient as Vazo carefully sits down, and after a brief interlude starts playing music that likely has never been written down, but that nourished a young musical prodigy in Budapest and that paid the bills once in America as he went from club to club in the traveling Hungarian theater in the New York City of the forties and fifties, sharing what he called his gypsy music with some to whom it was familiar, with most to whom it was unknown, but with most of all a virtuosity and a vengeance that rendered folk songs into something only Vazo could verbalize and radically musically realize.

When the tribute to Vazo's tribe comes to a close, the young lady returns to help her super senior up and takes back her place, launching right into Verdi, as a trio of singers attack Brindisi, La donna è mobile, and Celesta Aida in short order, transforming the church once again, this time into an opera house, with Rossini and Bizet and Donizetti each making an appearance, but of course Puccini must monopolize, and with the inevitable finale it is Vazo's most illustrious tenor that takes Turandot somewhere she's never been, his Nessun Dorma melting not just the murderously icy princess but every glacier not yet deliquesced, his velvet voice indeed unraveling the silence as he whispers his way to the climax and then thunders at the stars to vanish from the sky before sotto

voce singing "Vincero!" _I will win!_ summoning his inner windstorm "VINCERO!" _I WILL WIN!_ and shaking every stone and every soul in the building when he hits his high

G and holds the high F of the last **"VIN... CE... ROOOOOOO!"** _I WILL WIIIIIIIN!_ and Salvius wonders if maybe the operatic storm is enough to rouse Puccini from the dead and bring him back to tell us how the story really ends.

Decorum dictates no applause yet Chisciotte is stunned that all remain silent, and despite the nature of the occasion, he is ashamed of the trepidation he feels knowing that soon he

must perform the very last song in the wake of one of the most beautiful renditions of one of the most magnificent arias ever squeezed within the confines of the staff, only four low Bs at the beginning tearing themselves free from the parallel lines, the rest of the music content to play and swing upon the five monkey bars measure after measure, leaning on ledger lines for leisure, time signatures a constraint and flats a restraint, yet these scant six score notes kept in a cage contain for a tenor limitless lines of lyrical treasure.

_The Quest_ is what Vazo has chosen for Chisciotte, a song he asked Salvius to sing so many times in these last years when the two met mostly to talk philosophy and play chess, a song that captures so completely the magnum opus of Cervantes and the charmed, chaotic, and oh so frequently almost catastrophic life of the piano man from the Danube, whisked out of the twin clutches of the Nazis and the Stalinists and onto a ship nearly sunk by a hurricane on its way to freedom, a song Salvius loves for a man he adores, and when it is time for his solo he attacks with a rumble and a roar, and after the first stanza he motions for the other singers assembled to join him, and now the quixotic quest has gone from the impossible dream to an incomparable surge of sound, as every voice and violin, every singer and every string, every musician and every mourner, ride a rising, rousing, cresting wave of crescendoing triumph culminating in a velleity of a final verse that has become a verity... _TO REACH THE UNREACHABLE STAAAAAAAR!_

Somewhere, out there, somehow, right now, Vazo has risen to his feet, and after a long life of drawing endless applause, in his afterlife he finally has cause to return the favor.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

After the service, the burial, and a subdued gathering at Vazo's favorite restaurant for the memoriam dinner, Salvius walks over to Luisa and drops to one knee to embrace her and to remind the shy and gentle woman that lived in the shadow of her husband how much joy she brought to the world, "because you know how devoted and how he depended on you," he says. "You were his inspiration, you gave him strength, and you were the love of his life. God bless you, bella. Good night." A smile forms beneath her tears as she kisses him goodbye.

Before he leaves, he finds a waiter to bring him the linguine vongole he ordered for his wife a half hour earlier. Traffic is light and he's home just before six, finding Li Qin on the recliner but hardly reclining, laptop on her lap and research materials spread out all over the sofa, the coffee table, and the end table, and her face lights up when the door opens. "Hi honey!" she smiles, and he thinks about the words he spoke to Luisa and about how how triply true they apply to his investment advisor wife, sifting and sieving the shifting sands of stocks and bonds and currencies and derivatives searching for gold and often finding it, attracting client after client and creating enough wealth for her and her husband to traipse and travel like tramps on a train wherever they want whenever they please, money troubles nullified, owing to Li Qin getting the intangible identified, a conductor of capital turning a cacophony of conflicting and confusing signals into something coherent, catching chaos, even for a moment, long enough to bottle and sell it before the bottle bursts and the lightning leaves, debt and darkness the normal case, but

not for those like her who love the chase.

"Guess what I brought you?" he teases, remembering as if it were yesterday the nightly runs he'd made to La Gioconda for her linguine with white clam sauce when she was pregnant with Isabella and her cravings took on an Italian aspect, and her smile broadens when he brings over his bounty along with a glass of riesling.

"You never forget, do you?" she says as she spins a forkful and takes a needed break from the pursuit of their daily bread, and asks him about the sad events of the day.

"It was beautiful," he says simply, "but let me make myself an espresso, and then I want to hear what _you_ did all day – sleeping, I'll bet."

"Very funny, Pastor Man," he half hears as he enters the kitchen and begins his production, ruminating about the curious symbiosis of two souls so different in most every way. He laughs aloud as he suddenly recalls the moment he found out Li Qin was ticklish only in one unbelievably strange part of her body – inside her navel! – the exact same and _only_ spot where Salvius was _not_ ticklish, condemned as he was to having his entire body as a target for Li Qin's revenge on the rare occasions he sought to tickle her fancy. Yin and Yang indeed, symbols with an alpinistic seed, he muses, thinking back to his wife's explanation that one ideograph represented the shady side of a mountain and the other the sunny side, the quintessential metaphor for a mountain man and his mate.

Lao Tzu's first poem materializes in his mind as he reflects on the mystery of their asymmetries. _Existence is beyond the power of words to define. Terms may be used, but none are absolute. In the beginning there were no words; words came out of the womb of matter. And whether a man dispassionately sees to the core of life or passionately sees the surface, the core and the surface are essentially the same, words only making them appear different. If a name is needed, then wonder names them both, and from wonder into wonder, existence opens._

"That is the wonder of a union," he says as he sips his delectable brew, nodding his head to the wonder of wonders and to existences opening and closing, past present, future past, from the beginning and unto the last.

Five

Nothing. Neither Jim nor Amy found a damn thing she can really use, which means she'll have to start making calls and conducting interviews. On the other hand, it also means the late Salvius Chisciotte managed to live a life essentially off the grid and in the shadows, and that already makes him more interesting than she expected.

"Jim, find Amy – I want you both in my office ASAP." Doctor Harris starts the stopwatch on her phone; it reads 00:00:92:36 when her dynamic dunces almost fall over themselves rushing through her door.

"When did a minute and a half become the new ASAP?" she snaps, waving off their replies and her own rhetorical question. "Here's what I need the two of you to do. Jim, you're going to contact Ms. Priscilla Nichols at Saint Rosalie's. She's your counterpart at that hospital, administering to the ministers there as you do for the headshrinkers here. I need you to empathize and sympathize with that lovely woman, let her know how much you and I admire her and her late boss, and tell her that his surviving daughter is looking into the last years of her saintly father's life, and that she needs all the help and cooperation possible so that Doctor Rachel Harris can provide Miss Isabella Chisciotte with the best possible portrait of her dad. After you've successfully explained and gotten across to Ms. Nichols the nature of your inquiry and the importance of its deliberate execution, you will ask permission to send Amy to see her, preferably today but certainly as soon as possible, so that she may sit with Ms. Nichols and

take down the names, numbers, and emails of every last person that might provide any and all insight into the persona of Pastor Chisciotte. Amy, when Jim has secured that appointment, get yourself to Saint Rosalie's – Jim will give you an expense report to fill out – and _after_ you've gotten every last bit and byte and scrap and shred of information, you will ask Ms. Nichols this list of questions," and she hands Amy a single sheet of paper, "and you will rehearse these questions on the train on the way there until you are _absolutely sure_ you can look that woman straight in the eye when you're asking them and won't need to look down at the damn paper like a third grader giving a classroom speech."

Harris looks at the pair for a long moment. "Any questions?" They shake their heads in unison. "Then we're done. Off you go." And once again they tear through the door as if it were a starting gate.

Rachel smiles as she remembers getting the lab rats in her college days to perform any number of tasks and repeat any series of steps as she sent them scurrying and hurrying here and there inside the mazes and the cages, and she smiles an ever nastier smile as she tries to recall if any of the rodents were named Jim or Amy.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There were only four questions on psychobitch's damned list, Amy thinks to herself as she enters the contact information for the very last name Ms. Nichols has given her onto her phone, emailing it to the office and to one of her own email addresses as back-ups, just to be sure. Jim said Harris might be hell to work for, but do a job perfectly and she'll hand out crisp hundred-dollar bills as if they were business cards. Carrots and sticks, she concludes, seeing the cliché but grudgingly recognizing that it works, especially now, when there are so many more workers than there is work.

"Ms. Nichols, you've been sooo helpful, and I know you must be sooo busy," she says way too sweetly, "but there are just a few questions I wanted to ask you personally about Pastor Chisciotte before I head back to Manhattan – do you mind? Can you spare just a few more minutes?"

Pastor Sal's former Gal Friday looks for a long while into the big earnest eyes of the pencil-thin Indian-American Princess with the lustrously long black hair and the lovely hands with the henna tattoos on both wrists, seeing the family that likely worked like the devil to get out of Delhi and get to the States so that first-generation Amy here could escape the caste and be free at last. So she smiles back and says "Fire away."

"Thank you, Ms. Nichols." "Priscilla," she insists, though her insistence might be less insistent if she knew that in fact Amy's family was wealthier than God and had residences in three different countries.

"Priscilla. Thank you. Well, let me start with the least delicate question first, and let me also say that Doctor Harris is just trying to be thorough, and that none of these questions are meant to upset you, or to insult Pastor Chisciotte's memory. These are simply things she truly needs to know, I mean, to the extent they _can_ be known. So first, are you aware of any medications that the Pastor took?"

Priscilla laughs, pointing to the espresso machine on the credenza. "He brought that in here maybe ten years ago. Best cup of coffee you'll ever have. Oh, would you like one?" Amy blurts out "No, but thank you!" even though she'd love one, and Priscilla continues, "That's the _only_ medicine I ever saw that man take."

"Okay," Amy says, trying not to sound studied, "did, well... what was the most... out of character thing you ever saw Pastor Chisciotte do? What I mean is, do you remember anything, anything at all, especially just before he retired, that just seemed strange to you? That made you wonder about his state of mind?" and she bites her lip and wraps her arms around herself after she asks this, making it look as much as possible that her defenses are completely down and

that Priscilla can feel free to say absolutely anything that comes to mind for as long as she likes without fear of judgment or consequence.

She needn't have gone to the trouble.

"You've got that question backwards," she responds with a grin, but before Amy can figure out what she means, she adds, "Salvius's state of mind was a state of grace. Strangest thing he could do was to act like a normal person. Which he never did. At least not that I ever saw. And I saw a lot."

Amy is now off balance a bit, but she goes on to her next question. "Ms. Nichols... I mean, Priscilla. Again, I apologize for what I'm about to ask, but I really do have to ask it. To your knowledge, again, especially towards the end, did you ever have reason to believe or to suspect that maybe, possibly, Pastor Chisciotte might be seeing a woman other than his wife, or – "

"An affair?!" Priscilla interrupts, and now she breaks out in almost uncontrollable laughter. "Yes, he was having an affair. A love affair. With every last man, woman, and child that he met. Young lady," and now she stops laughing, and looks with dead seriousness at Amy, and says coldly, "that man had a lifelong love affair with every lost and found soul he ever came across, but he would have sooner set himself on fire than even _think_ a carnal thought about anyone but his wife." She fights to control her temper before growling out "Any more questions?"

Amy is thankful that she's down to her last query, and is careful to look down and wait a few moments before quietly asking it. "Just one more. It's about Isabella," and right as she speaks the daughter's name Priscilla softens. "What about her?"

"Did you ever ask, I mean, do you know why Pastor Chisciotte never tried to call her? To reconnect with her? I'm sorry. I hate to even ask." She actually winces as she speaks. Amy's repeated attempts at sincerity have finally turned into genuine sincerity. Redundancies aside, Aristotle would have been pleased.

"In all our years together, I only had to ask him that question once. He said it was not _his_ heart that had to heal, but hers, that his words would never be enough, and that it might take the birth of her own child before she could learn to truly forgive." Priscilla's eyes are glistening now, as are Amy's. "If that's all – "she says by way of bringing the interview to a close, and Amy quickly interjects "Yes, yes, that's everything. Thank you again, Ms. Nichols, you've been so generous with your time. Be well." And with that, the chastened and now slightly more enlightened intern takes her things and takes her leave.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's five-thirty by the time Amy is able to get back to the complex, Harris having told her not to worry if it was late, that she'd still be there, and that she wanted to go over in person Amy's impressions of her interview while they were fresh in her mind, but as she comes out of the elevator her mind gets shaken up a bit by a clearly winded bodybuilder in a tank top brushing past her to catch the elevator, just as clearly having come from Harris's office, whose door is open, and at first Amy runs, thinking something awful has just happened, but when she gets inside, she's mortified yet grateful to see Doctor Harris buttoning up her blouse, looking spent but none the worse for wear.

Rachel laughs as she tells her speechless young employee, "You should see the look on your face! Yes, Ms. Punjabi, I _do indeed_ have sex. Every chance I get."

Then she motions for Amy to sit down so they can talk. "It's _Pujari_ , Doctor Harris. My family's name is _Pujari._ "

"Well of course it is, Amy," she replies, glad to see a little fire in the girl's invariably vacant eyes. "Now, please, sit, sit. And tell me about your day."

Devotion

May. It's been nineteen months since I came up here and it feels like nineteen minutes. Funny. They say you feel so anonymous in a big city that you do everything you can to stand out, and that

you stand out so much in a small town that you do everything you can to stay anonymous, but the only thing I feel there is that I'm on stage and here that I'm in the background. Where I belong.

The snow ended late this year and it was cold all last week, but these few days have really warmed up, so I'm going to see if I can kayak all the way down to Taughannock before dark. I haven't been there once since I got here. If Shirley's bed and breakfast is still there, she'll likely have a room, because I'm not going to sleep in the woods after a day of rowing. Let's see if I can find her number and then I'll figure out the bare minimum of things I need to bring along.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's been nine hours and we're closing in on four o'clock, and still no sign of the park. The last time didn't take quite this long, though to be fair, the last time I was ten years younger and I was

with my little girl, so of course it seemed like no time at all.

I'm down to my last apple but there are still a couple of Milky Way bars, so there's no cause for alarm. That last wake woke me up, though, that's for sure. I always forget that the cottage is on the shallow tip of the lake, so you hardly ever see a big motorboat, but down here there are plenty, and the waves from that last one nearly made my skiff spin a cartwheel.

The willow trees that dot the coast are lulling and lovely but they are threatening to put me into a trance, so I pick up the pace though I can no longer really lift my arms, and I swipe at the water as evenly and as lightly and as quickly as I can, speeding things up while using the least possible amount of energy because I really do want to get there while there's still some daylight and before my arms fall right off.

Finally the park is in view, and I make my way towards the inlet, feeling as if I'm dragging the kayak across a gravel pit, the end in sight but quicksand all around, the more I move the farther away I seem to get, until at long last I really am dragging it onto dry land, only half-exhausted, because after all, my legs have done nothing but lie there all this time looking pretty.

I find a bush to tuck my ride under, not so much because I'm looking forward to paddling my way back home tomorrow rather than renting a car, but because of the mileage and the memories in this dinky dingy plastic dinghy which I'd just as soon not lose out of sheer carelessness.

I make my way through the park and cross route 89 when I get to it, two little lanes of highway slowed down and hemmed in by crosswalks and bracketed by parking lots, a big one on this side

by the water and a small one serving as trailhead to a waterfall higher than Niagara, more picturesque than Yosemite, and hardly known outside these Finger Lakes.

Isabella's roommate had told her about this place, and so we made a day of it the next time I came to visit. It was later in the year then, everything lush and the water clear and calm, whereas at the moment the water is brown and barrelling down from the winter melt. We couldn't hear the falls from this spot back then, but right now it sounds like it's just around the bend instead of a

quarter-mile away. This stream flowing from Taughannock to the lake that's a torrent today was maybe two feet deep on that day, and we could see through it like glass to the smooth bed below,

which really is smooth as silk, and I know that because when she threw off her shoes and rolled up her jeans and waded from one side to the other back and forth how could I not have joined her?

Later, though, as we kept walking, the falls still not in view, there was a beautiful section of gorge wall whose steep slope was laced with roots and rocks and capped with a shelf of a mini-plateau maybe two hundred feet up if you stared and squinted from a certain point with the light just right, and Isabella needed nothing more than a nudge to tear right up that wall with me matching her move for move, thinking I'd catch her if she slipped, but not realizing till we reached the top and then scrambled and clawed our way back down just how dangerous it had been, and that if she or I really had made a wrong move it might well have been our last.

But climbing is a game of life or death or it is nothing, and you shouldn't play if you don't understand that. And in many ways Isabella was bolder than I was, which is why my only regret is

having spent even a moment during that adventure worrying rather than scurrying.

I had learned that lesson as a teenager on the Shawangunk cliffs, on a rock climb that turned out to be by far the most perilous ascent I've ever done, prompted by the owner of a sporting goods store near my house who told me how to get there, and executed with my bare hands and steel-toed boots - no carabiners or pitons, no helmet or harness, no quickdraws, and no rope.

My father had bought a broken-down two-story structure arguably habitable for nine thousand dollars down the street from where they were renting in Coney Island before they made the big

move to Canarsie to buy what would become their very own first and last home, and after stripping and cleaning and painting the first floor of the not quite condemned building they decorated the front of it and filled it with sewing machines and a counter so that my mother could set up shop near her home to make dresses and do alterations, and cut back on the hours she spent in Manhattan. I suppose it was my dad's notion of a retirement plan for his spouse.

Regardless, now he needed me to watch over a house that would otherwise remain empty every night and several days of the week, the only tradeoff being that until the water heater was installed, which never did happen, I could take cold showers in my new abode or take hot showers in theirs. Naturally I jumped at the chance to be mostly on my own, and learned to shower like a polar bear, happy as a clam and free as a bird at the age of seventeen.

So that day when I drove up the Taconic to New Paltz, I left at dawn and got to the cliffs early, hiking up the trail until I reached a monolith stretching up hundreds of feet above me, the morning mist obscuring the top of the ridge, purple trilliums each with tiny pistils in a clover on a triangle everywhere I looked, the bracing air that had already made me winded became a blast of exhilaration when I saw a crack in the rock fifty feet from where I stood, a fracture of a fissure that was like a beanstalk to the sky, and suddenly I was Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, and just like that, Jack jumped over the candlestick.

Within minutes I had wedged myself into the crevasse and had gotten myself a hundred feet up that serpentine shaft until I found a little ledge two feet square where I could take something of a rest and plot my next move. My back was to the corner and my palms kept me in place, and as I looked down below, a young woman that was part of a climbing team assembling to attack the

bluff in a more conventional way screamed at me and the group "Look! He's free soloing!"

At the time I had no idea what she meant, and still don't. You free climb or you engage in an engineering expedition. There is no in-between. Anyway, an older guy that was obviously in charge of the others called up to me "Relax! And don't look down! You want to just keep looking up! Okay!?"

Frankly, I hadn't really been looking down. I was catching my breath and considering what was ahead of me. I remember thinking that for his part _he_ shouldn't be looking up, inasmuch as I might thank him for his unsolicited advice by throwing a rock at his head.

The next step was a difficult one, for several reasons. The ledge was level, but the surrounding walls at that spot were fairly smooth and slick. It was spring, and it obviously had been raining

recently. There was a solid-looking rock jutting out maybe four feet above my outstretched arms and another ledge a few feet beyond that, but to get to the ledge I'd have to spiderscramble my way up to the rock on those smooth walls, grab it and simultaneously catapult myself up to that next ledge without making a mistake, because the odds of slipping and landing back on this dinner plate of a ledge and not sliding right off and down to my doom were not odds-on. In fact, the odds were that odds and ends are all that would be left of me if I slipped up.

More interesting was that because of the mist I didn't even know if the fissure ran all the way to the top of the crag or if it narrowed at some point too much for me to worm my way through, which meant that because there was no way in hell I could come back down the way I'd gone up if it did, I'd be facing the prospect of pasting my face to naked rockface and trying to scale a vertical wall in combat boots.

Suffice to say I had reason to reflect before continuing on.

Eventually I took the leap of faith and made it onto the ledge, and got to the plateau in maybe twenty minutes, the reward for my daring a stunning view of the valley, the tops of a million trees a blanket of broccoli as far as the eye could see, as the mist was burning off and the sun was burning bright. I walked around feeling like Columbus falling upon new land and Armstrong landing on an old falling moon, but after I took in the panorama and got some needed rest, it was time to find a way down, knowing that the crevasse was out of the question and that a downwards frontal assault was insane.

So I strolled across a plateau a football field wide and several long, walled in on the back side by a slope leading up to yet another shelf in the sky, making my way to the only side left to me, the northern edge of the bluff, which seemed to narrow down to maybe fifty yards across, but before I got there I met two climbers in full gear who had gotten up there ahead of me, and I said hello, but one of them did a pronounced triple-take, looking first at me and then swiveling his head left and right, then doing it again, and then one last time before asking me "How the f*** did you get up here?!" in response to which I showed him my arms, covered with scratches and caked with dirt, and he just shook his head and turned away in apparent disdain, his buddy doing the same, and so I soldiered on, unaware then but misanthropically and philosophically delighted now that I had inadvertently ruined their outing, walking until I got to the edge of the cliff, and it was there I realized there might be a bit of a problem.

I suppose I had hoped that maybe the slope of the plateau dipped down some to the north, or that perhaps the trail at its base rose up a bit, but no such luck. As I peered down at the little path from cliff's edge, it was like staring at the sidewalk from the top of a twenty-story building. So I paced along the precipice for a while, back and forth, seeing there were no easy holds to start from, and also seeing that despite the sun, the walls were glistening, still damp, the only line even the craziest climber does not casually cross. If nothing else, the walls need to be dry.

But I registered the fact, and tucked it somewhere safe where I couldn't easily find it, and turned my attention to a massive dead tree bleached white, its root structure insinuated half on the plateau and half on the rockface, firmly rooted and hanging over the cliff like an outstretched hand begging for alms.

An anchor in the sky, and a perch from where I could get a better view of the vertical landscape, so without too much hesitation I got onto it and held on tight, dangling in mid-air while searching

for possible holds and testing the wall with my boots to see if they were able to get some traction, and after a very long minute I got myself back on solid ground before I got too tired.

The walls were not as bad as they looked, and there was a notch right where my feet had just been, and a window sill of a lip a few feet below that, so that if I dropped from the tree and caught both just right and was able to hang on, I'd have at least the beginning of a way down.

I paced for a while longer, looking along the edge for a better alternative, but there was none. Every other approach was free of any obvious holds. Besides, the hand was beckoning me. So I got

back into position and let go, landing on the ledge and grabbing it with my boots, tearing at the notch with my right hand and grasping uselessly with my left at cracks and clefts that did not exist, my whole body shaking and quaking as it clung on, my situation not quite as desperate as my booming heart and bellowing lungs might have suggested, but certainly not ideal, and it seemed like an eternity before I was able to calm body and soul and get on with whatever the next step might be, not having planned that far ahead, but confident something workable would present itself.

It took maybe a half hour to make my way up from the inferno and down to paradise, for there wasn't a decent inside corner, outside corner, finger crack, hand crack, or even a damn crackerjack on the entire climb down to the lousy last ten feet. Of course it wouldn't have seemed that way if I'd've had my climbing shoes on or a less wet wall to work with. Every move, every hold, every moment, every decision was life and death, hit or miss, under and in or over and out, and the lesson was that years later I realized that at no time throughout this adventure had I been afraid.

I'd been puzzled. As to what to do or not do. I'd been concerned. As to how good one move versus another might be. And I'd been surprised. At just how physically exhausted I'd gotten. Again and again. But fear had never arisen. The overriding emotion, the never-ending feeling, the prevailing sentiment, and the overwhelming sensation... was joy. _Not_ adrenaline. Just. Pure. Joy.

Philippe Petit, the high-wire artist who strung a cable between the Twin Towers in 1974 and walked across it was asked if he had a death wish. He'd responded no, what he had was a _life_ wish.

But you can't explain to people terrified of death what it means not to lead a petrified life.

And so after Isabella and I joyously made our way down the slope, it wasn't long before the falls came into view, a cascading curtain of water dead center in an amphitheater of slate marbled white and gray fringed top and bottom with flora, mother nature's cup running over, the bottom of that glorious chalice a pool of holy water ever filling, ever flowing, ever lasting.

A _curtain of water_ is what she called it when she saw it, and as we both walked into the heart of the falls I said we have to get there and see what lies behind the curtain, and so we waded and

waddled through waves beneath which lay a carpet of small smooth stones, tickling and torturing our feet as we made our way across and onto the rocks, slipping and tripping a little as we used our bare hands and feet to grab terra not so firma, finally getting ourselves ambulatory and upright, the magnificent spray and sonic boom of crashing water all around us, and the thrill of discovering a natural walkway with just enough space to tuck ourselves in and set our souls free as the heavens fell and the torrent crashed, and the thunder shaking our bodies no match for the lightning storm firing our minds, a shimmering, glittering, streaming, gleaming summer shower of maddening, gladdening, shuddering power.

And as I stare at those same falls all these years later, too violent to even consider approaching now, I think of the baptism by fire and water and heaven and earth that father and daughter had

conferred upon them, and despite our separation how can I not feel fully and truly blessed?

But memories of climbs and times gone by will have to wait because I have to get going over to Shirley's before it gets too dark to find my way out of here.

VI

Less than three months. It seemed too soon to Salvius to be jetting off to Peru after burying the woman who gave him life and the man who gave him song, but plans had been made and the trip had been paid for, and Li Qin and Don and Carol had coordinated their busy schedules almost a year in advance to set aside three weeks to take in the land of Lima and llama and Incas and Andes, and since grief was not a matter of geography and Jude was there to watch over dad, Chisciotte assured his wife and friends that there was no need to postpone, and that the time away would likely do him good.

Seven hours into the flight having not slept for a single moment, having hardly read or said a single word, Salvius sits staring out the window in a state of irrational terror, his fear of flying as crushing as it is humiliating, as uncontrollable as it is unrelenting, and he has to endure it every single trip every single time, an exquisite sort of torture inasmuch as Li Qin's single-minded work ethic is singularly focused on generating enough income to travel to every corner of the earth, her frequent peregrinations the peregrine that feasts upon his liver, a reluctant Prometheus who has brought fire to no one, trying to explain to Zeus that he is an innocent bystander here in the sky and not a conspirator seeking to bring illumination to mortals.

And still the fear persists.

He stares out at an endless layer of seemingly sudsy, fluffy clouds, a thousand miles of whipped cream, only to be revealed as an astonishingly thin layer of frosted fog, as blue-black gaps emerge here and there, and then the plane begins its descent into those clouds, and soon the ghostly outlines of mountains shrouded in mist materialize, peaking near and far, and Salvius is suddenly calm, though he's oblivious to the obvious reason why.

"Almost there, buddy," Don says reassuringly, the former army helicopter pilot both sincere with his empathy but forever baffled at the friend who is fearless where he shouldn't be and fearful where there's no cause to be. He'd once explained to Salvius how a plane's wings can bend in the wind to the point they can nearly touch, and that turbulence was nothing but potholes in the sky, and that commercial crafts no different than these were often used to fly into hurricanes for research, but Chisciotte always

thanked him and then changed the subject, unwilling to debate the futility of fighting fear with facts, and quite willing to contend with it on his own terms.

"Maybe it would be better if I was one the flying the plane," he jokes, both men well aware that that sure as hell wasn't true. The four had met at Don and Carol's flight school, when Li Qin and Sal had celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary by learning how to fly a helicopter. Li Qin was a natural, tilting the seesaw T-Bar and taking command of her cyclic with Don co-piloting and Sal in the back seat, soaring through the sky for fifteen minutes as if she were an eagle, not a false move or a sudden lurch or any hesitation of any kind as Don talked her through, but when it was Sal's turn he gave control back to Don within thirty seconds upon realizing the delicacy of the touch

required to keep the not so humming bird straight and steady, and though Don gently tried to convince him otherwise, Sal had turned to him and in his best Clint Eastwood voice growled... _A man's got to know his limitations._

The four had gone to lunch afterwards, becoming fast friends and eventually frequent traveling companions, as Li Qin's insatiable love of travel coupled with her unquenchable need to manage every last aspect of any excursion was a perfect match for a couple who rarely traveled outside their own air field and loved the idea of delegating the details of overseas trips to a vivacious triple-A personality.

Once at the airport and after a needed nap at the hotel in Miraflores, the foursome took to the streets and strolled towards the ocean, Li Qin and Don leading the way, Carol and Sal lolling and lagging behind.

When they emerged from between the buildings and crossed the boulevard over to the park that led to the architectural masterpiece of shops and open-air cafés hugging the dramatic cliffs and overlooking the beaches and the towering waves that crashed upon them, they were greeted by a rainbow of paragliders crisscrossing in the sky as they made their way from yet higher cliffs a bit north round and round down and down in sometimes wildly spiraling arcs that ought to but clearly do not always end upon the sandy shore, as the four watch one wayward fellow sailing and flailing and finally flipping and flopping right into the ocean, not so far in to cause concern but far enough that a bunch of surfers rush in to disentangle the outlier and get him onto dry land.

"I think they've got a couple of gliders with our names on them – what do you think?" Don says to Li Qin, Carol and Sal nodding both in assent and in dissent, agreeing that their partner should go right ahead while they stay right where they are.

"Carol and I will go window-shopping and meet you over there," Salvius says as he points to brightly colored tables by a railing at cliff's edge, at what looks like a lovely place for drinks and post-orbital celebration. Li Qin looks questioningly at Salvius and he reassures her that it's fine. "Have fun, bella. Carol and I will deal with the hidden dangers of malls without walls here on the ground," he says with a smile as she and Don go off to find their adventure.

"So who's watching the cats?" he asks Carol, wondering about Amelia, Charles, and Orville, who feel to him almost as if they were his own, all three but Amelia especially taking to him the way they took to no one else whenever he and Li Qin visited, the creatures seeming to know instinctively when someone cherished them.

"Molly is staying over, which is always great for her because it puts her right next to the restaurant and gets her away from her sister for a while," Carol replies, referring to the waitress/manager who shares an apartment with her OCD sibling who's never worked but who never stops cleaning and dusting and waxing and vacuuming and arranging and rearranging every square inch and every last thing in their modest mutual dwelling.

"And how is Charles doing?" he remembers, knowing the tawny Persian with the scrunched up face has not been doing well for months.

"His balance just seems to be getting worse and worse, but he's okay. Just old age. I'm already missing him," she says, quickly adding "But what about you? And your dad? How is he handling your mother's passing?"

_Much better than he should be,_ Salvius thought to himself, but "He never lets you know what's going on inside his head," is what he says. "They were engaged for eight years, so they were together for over sixty years. A lifetime. It can't be easy for him."

"And you?" she asks again as she takes his hand as they walk.

He takes out his turned-off flip phone from its little pouch attached to his belt. "You know, I only ever really make two calls a day from this thing – to my wife and to my mother. And every single day since she died, I still open it and scroll down to her name before I stop and remember she's not there. But she's right here," drawing Carol's hand and his own to his heart, "so it's fine."

They go into a bookshop and Salvius asks the clerk in Spanish if they have anything by Mario Vargas Llosa in English and she shows him where but not before inquiring why he doesn't buy one of his novels in its original language. "Eso es todo tipo de ustedes, bella, pero me llevaria una eternidad en leerlo." _That's very kind of you, but it would take me forever to read it._ Which elicits a most illicit smile from the salesgirl, which Carol catches, but from which he's already moved on.

_The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto_ is wrapped in plastic and features a painting by Gervex on the cover of a naked young woman lounging in a luxurious bed in the disheveled and obvious aftermath of amorous activity, but Salvius reads the enthusiastic reviews on the back cover and decides to give Llosa another chance, having been forced to give up on _Conversations in the Cathedral_ after a hundred of the most turgid pages he'd ever had the

displeasure of plowing through, determined to discover what the Nobel Committee could possibly see in the Peruvian novelist that he could not.

Much later as they're sipping margaritas at a cliffside table after two hours of browsing and meandering, they see their other halves laughing arm-in-arm as they make their approach, back from outer space with tales to tell and energy to spare.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

That evening a dinner show at La Dama Tuana featured ceviche and tamales and Pisco sours and bread pudding followed by charming dances depicting Incan warriors courting their maidens and matadors squaring off with their women and caballeros and their chicas, but what captivated the group was that aside from the colorful and vibrant costumes and the athleticism and the imaginative sequences was the passion and the romance of the young performers, the way they looked into each other's eyes and immersed themselves in the mood and the music, technique and complicated moves, for once, taking a back seat to the sheer enjoyment of being young and beautiful and strong.

The next day they had a few hours before the coach came to pick them up for the flight to Iquitos, so after breakfast they walked until Salvius found an espresso bar where he

learned that _corto_ was the Spanish word for _stretto_ which was the Italian word for which there was no English word to describe pulling an espresso tight and short so that the resulting extraction might lead to java satisfaction, but the South American beans were uniformly weak, so while what he got was caramel-colored creamy and rich-looking, it was still in the end an espresso gone wrong.

"Does it make the grade?" Don asks as he declines a cup. "It does," Sal answers. _A gentleman's C._

Two quick sips and he's through, leaving five soles on the counter, enough to cover the brew and the benefaction, and then the four leave the bar and cross the street to the lovely little park resplendent with flowers, and as they cross Don asks Sal why he never takes his time to drink what is, after all, an expensive and elegant beverage, which draws a sly smile from Chisciotte, who responds "It takes time to create a fine espresso, but drinking it slowly doesn't make it any finer."

When they return to the hotel, they gather their luggage and meet back in the lobby, get driven to the airport, and in less than two hours they fly from Lima to Iquitos, and as they're escorted from the plane to the tour bus, the nature guide who will take them through the Amazon is already on board.

Diego is a New Age Naturalist, a rebel with an earthly cause, intent on converting all who enter the jungle into jihadists of the most pacific kind, ferocious warriors who will battle those who wage war against Gaia, his mission one of preservation, striving to keep the sacred rainforest within his Indian nation from the prospect of becoming just one more damned reservation.

"All of us are part of a single animating spirit," Diego says in his introduction. "Every single creature. A trillion faces with one soul. Those of us in the jungle take this for granted. My hope is that after our short time together, some of you, perhaps all of you, will begin to feel the same way. We shall see."

The cruise ship he leads the eighteen people that comprise their tour group onto looks like it might be the same one that shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe. Shockingly small, faded and appearing frail, for better or worse, this will be their home for the next eleven days.

There's a crew member for every two passengers, nine in all including the captain, and in the days that follow it becomes clear that they are the special forces of the Amazon, manning the ship, catching and culling then preparing and serving the food, tending the bar, making the music and singing the songs, scrubbing the deck, cleaning the rooms, and leaving a cottony towel hanging from the ceiling or on the bed in the shape of a different jungle creature every single day.

The tour group consists of professors, polymaths, and scientists, a Nepal frequent trekker, portfolio manager Li Qin, pilot Don, entrepreneur and Catwoman Carol, and Pastor Sal, an eclectic assortment of souls that nonetheless seem to combine and coalesce on just this sort of trip, forced familiarity and drive-by intimacy eventually turning into something else, and Chisciotte has long noticed that the something else appears endemic, and a type emerges, as each member imagines himself and herself as worldly and world-weary, forever talking about all the _other_ places they've been, making sure their world traveler bona fides are established, delineated, demarcated, elucidated, secured, fortified, magnified, amplified, until the unwitting sacrificial listener is crucified by a speaker making quite clear that he or she is interested and has simultaneously but for very different reasons made his audience of one

interested in absolutely anywhere but here.

But that doesn't change the grandeur and the delight of Diego guiding the jerry-rigged speedboat with the outboard motor into an inlet and directing the skipper to run the boat in faster and faster and tighter and tighter circles until half a dozen pink dolphins pop in and out of the water looking like they're having as much fun as the suddenly childlike tourists watching them, or of Li Qin squealing like a little girl when she's the first to catch a batch of piranha that later that night the crew will fry up for all to sample, or of

the inevitable gasps that ensue when Diego stops the boat to greet a little village boy he knows who happens to have his pet python wrapped around his neck, or of the eyes opening as far as they can go when water lilies come into view that are six feet in diameter, and as the days pass and the adventures multiply, something coalesces in Salvius, and as the speedboat is racing back to the cruise ship, wind and waves and blinding sun are no distraction as he struggles to jot down in his journal thoughts that arrive faster than he can get them down, but he's done just as they're ready to disembark, and later on that evening as they're all on the top deck just before dinner, lounging on wicker chairs and sofas with plush cushions or standing by the railing staring at the flora and the fauna or sitting at the bar talking politics and philosophy, Connie wife of Gary

professor of something sits down next to Sal and asks if he would read to her what he wrote, confessing that she couldn't help noticing how furiously he was scribbling on their way back from that day's journey into the heart of darkness.

He's flattered, and of course he obliges. "Shimmering glimmering, vibrating undulating, dappled rippled mirrors of water gently waving waking upward pinging pebbles sending crystal geysers up and down, monkeys swinging, vultures lurking, falcons soaring, parrots squawking, butterflies and flutterflies, blushing dolphins arcing, cresting, plunging, delving, playing, bluebirds wildly skimming, river rent in two as our speeding skiff sails amidst the endless green, forests of flowers, tropical showers, magical powers, coming together, conversing, contesting, converging in thunderous silence from sources unknown for reasons no reason can know, blessing of blessings, gifts beyond measure, and all I need do for my part, is to treasure this treasure."

Connie stares at him, stunned, until Li Qin walks over, eyes on fire, waking the woman from her trance and reminding Chisciotte with one withering glance that dinner is ready and only she has this dance.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On their return trip to Lima from Iquitos on the next to the last leg of their expedition, Salvius is once again in his window seat, heart thumping, blood racing, lungs convulsing, sitting in dread silence staring out at the jagged Andes icy white, when the perverse thought flits through his brittle brain of how dramatic death would be if their plane were to veer off and slam into the Sabretooth jaws of those razorsharp mountains, and just like that, his heart calms, his blood slows, and his lungs relax, and an epiphany is revealed, as Chisciotte at long last grasps that his fear of flying is not so much fear of dying but of

dying an ignoble death, and so if nothing else this trip in the wake of twin wakes has woken him up to the true nature of his nemesis, a silver lining if ever there was one.

Six

They'll be in Newport soon, but Isabella is in her favorite nook, ensconced in a leather chair in the Golden Lion bar, looking out at the ocean, listening to classical music, enjoying an Irish coffee, and reading a selection of dailies and books she's laid out on the table, wondering if life could get any better, pondering a line from Mishima Baudrillard is highlighting to emphasize the thesis of the tome in her hands when her little corner of paradise is blitzkrieged by a trivia contest she was unaware of announced by the blaring overhead speakers and the sudden streaming in of nattily-dressed know-it-alls, and as she hastily grabs her things and heads out she giggles as she hears the first question addressed to the gathering swarm – "What is the collective noun for an assembly of locusts?" – and she muffles a howl as she reconsiders Mishima's line in light of the circumstances: _The special quality of hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail._

"Can't get more oh so apropos than that!" she thinks aloud as she flees the crowd to find some other sanctuary, checking her watch for how much longer till they reach their first port.

She's on deck by the railing when she's approached by a woman in a Roger Federer T-shirt with his initials thisclose minus the vertical lines, and Isabella is taken aback, the woman's eyes as blue as the Aegean waters that hypnotized her and Najid last year, her long black hair falling free, sparkling strands, whispering waves of calming chords, her smile easing from ruby lips and perfect pearls, her

beauty beyond the boundaries of gender, freezing Isabella in time and place for a few moments before she finally picks up on what this woman is saying to her.

"Anyway, my name is Brynn, and the two of you performed like one person last night. It was positively brilliant!"

Okay, Isabella says to herself, it's just a fan. But maybe a fan I'm willing to spend a little time with.

"Well, that's very kind. Thank you. So... Roger, huh? Does that mean you'll be taking the tender to Newport and visiting the tennis museum?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

"Oh, absolutely! Would you care to join me? I mean, assuming you haven't seen it a thousand times already," Brynn responds, trying to sound casual.

"I'd like that," she just as casually replies, nervously wondering where she herself is going with this, but knowing she wants very much to get there.

They end up spending the day together, taking some pictures at the Tennis Hall of Fame, the slightly smaller than regulation grass court a backdrop to their surprisingly intense debate whether Federer or Nadal is the greatest of them all, echoes of her father holding forth on Sampras versus Agassi a tennis generation earlier, daddy then and daughter now siding with the underdog, the difference being that today's underdog has beaten the alleged overdog every which way but loose, giving Isabella the last word before both agree to disagree and change the subject: "Roger is definitely the winningest and the most talented to ever play the game, but Rafa the bull has ravaged and savaged body and soul to conquer and gore and take out the 'mata' from Fed's matador."

They stroll past Saint Mary's parish on the corner of Spring and Memorial but stop to read the plaque that tells of how Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were married here on September 12th, 1953, then they lunch at the White Horse Tavern, founded in 1673, and when they take the tender back and are getting closer and closer to the Queen Mary, Brynn remarks how the vessel somehow actually makes the ocean seem small.

"It does, doesn't it?" Isabella says. "You see? We found something we agree on."

She finds out Brynn is traveling alone and agrees to join her for dinner, calling Najid to let him know, telling him she'll join him in time for tonight's show. The meal is roast rack of pork, fondant of guinea fowl with berry chutney, Grand Marnier soufflé and weak espresso strengthened with a shot of cream. The conversation turns to Isabella's passion for painting, and her real reason for obsessing over Brynn, though she's careful about how she broaches the subject.

"When we get to New Brunswick later this week, we're going to have a lot of time. All day, actually. Did you book any excursions?"

"No, I was just going to take the tour they scheduled for us. Why?" Brynn is clearly interested in whatever alternative Isabella is about to propose.

"Well, I don't want to monopolize that day for you, but... I want very much to do a painting with you in it," and as she says it she tries not to be affected by Brynn's obvious delight at the idea or her brightly blushing face. "And I know just the spot, but getting there, and working there, and getting back – it's going to take at least three or four hours."

"Oh, that's fine – " Brynn begins to say, only to be quickly cut off by Isabella interjecting "And as cold as it's starting to get, it'll be colder still where I have in mind, _and_ you'll need to be completely naked for at least ten to fifteen minutes."

"I won't have a problem with that at all," Brynn replies, looking directly at her as she says it, her infatuation a bit more explicit, and Isabella is now the one blushing, slightly off balance, starting to ask herself if what she's feeling really is just about a painting.

"Last thing. Make sure you have a good breakfast before we leave the ship," Isabella reminds her, and then says a hasty goodbye as she heads to her cabin to get changed for her show.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"You ever been on a jet boat?" she asks Brynn who shakes her head no as they walk briskly down the gangway and step ashore onto Saint John, collecting their welcome pins, Isabella weighed down but not slowed down by her enormous painter's backpack, actually picking up her pace as she searches and finds and then wildly waves hello to Lauren, who's by her black Jeep Cherokee opening the trunk.

"How have you been?" Lauren asks as she opens up the back door for Brynn without waiting or looking for an introduction, and before either passenger shuts their door the jeep is tearing out of the parking lot on its way to its off-terrain counterpart.

In ten minutes they come to a sliding halt twenty yards from the Bay of Fundy off a cove of circular rocks that serves as a marina for Lauren's boat, and as they get aboard the tiny vessel she buckles them up, shouts "Hold on for your lives!" and then she glides between the boulders and storms off to where Isabella told her she wanted to go.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As fast as the jet boat has been moving, over an hour has passed before they arrive at the designated location, Isabella pressing some money into Lauren's hand after the two women have gotten themselves off the craft and on shore, and tells her one o'clock right at this spot will be perfect for the return trip.

As the boat roars off, Brynn looks around skeptically, wondering what's so special about this particular spot in an otherwise spectacularly beautiful bay. It's dark because of the towering cliffs that hug the coast, there's little vegetation, and the beach is a rough, rocky, shelly mess of a seashore. Hardly a place that should inspire an artist or that's worth the trouble it took to get to.

"This way," Isabella commands, and Brynn obeys, walking along the coast, the shells crunching beneath their feet, as they soon arrive at a gap between the cliffs, and Brynn gasps "Oh, my God!" as she almost drops to her knees upon seeing it.

"That's the look!" Isabella shouts as she smiles at Brynn's discovery, recalling her own sense of unabashed awe at the sight of the monolith thrusting up in the distance cleaving the sky in two, the ocean in the background, the deep gash in the cliff dominating the foreground, the patch of beach a welcome mat to a door opening up to an astonishing world, this spot now being revealed as a portal of concentrated vastness, a point of splendor upon an extraordinary peninsula.

" _What's_ the look?" Brynn says weakly, as she gives in to gravity and to the moment, and sinks to her knees, taking in the beauty of this place, as Isabella sets her canvas upon the easel and hastily prepares her palette.

"You're already in the right spot. Now strip, and stare in the direction of that mammoth stone phallus, mouth open, head turned towards it but not all the way, staring at it in wonder, trying to decide if it is a thing of creation or of destruction, unsure if this is the end of the world or the beginning. _That's_ the look! On your right hand and knees, your left hand held back, palm up, your breasts thrust forward. Not _that_ much forward! Okay. Perfect! Just hold it for a minute or so while I do a sketch first. Won't take long." And so she begins.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

By one o'clock her work is done and everything's been packed away, and Isabella and Brynn are sitting by the water waiting for Lauren, both women lost in their thoughts amid the wicked waves slashing back and forth, the pounding sounding water booming off the looming crags, an explosion of echoes symphonic and soothing, spiritually grooving artist and muse, their bodies unmoving, their minds so relaxed who knows whose is whose.

Once they're back aboard the Queen Mary, Isabella tells Brynn she'll finish the painting and create at least two versions before the end of their voyage, and will give her whichever one she likes most. Brynn doesn't even pretend to protest as she thanks her, and giddily accepts as Isabella asks her to come see her show later and to maybe join her and Najid afterwards for a drink.

Isabella hopes she's not misleading Brynn, but she still isn't so sure just who's leading on whom. And she's beginning not to care.

Delimitation

After a breakfast of poached eggs and homemade pecan pancakes and some reminiscing, I take Shirley up on her offer of collecting my kayak and driving me back home. I'm even more tired than I thought I'd be, and there's no point in jeopardizing an arm that's only hanging on by a thread.

Still can't forget the look on my doctor's face when I took off my shirt and bent my left arm at a right angle with the elbow sticking out so she could see what I'd done to what turned out to be my pectoralis major, namely ripping it right off its stranglehold on the humerus and and leaving my corpus that much more tenuous.

She'd stayed surprised just for a moment, knowing me better than her own four children, having cared for me way before they'd ever come into the world, and also knowing that I was bound to do something like that sooner or later. The ironic thing was kempo or climbing had nothing to do with it.

I'd taken to doing diagonal pull-ups on the stairwell leading to the top of the building, and one morning after dropping off Li Qin I got off the elevator at the fifth floor on an impulse, tore up the stairs to our floor and used my momentum to leap into the air and try to catch the railing parallel to the floor way up on the landing where the door opened out to the roof, and I'd caught

it, but only with my left arm, which made a sickeningly awful sound as it hyperextended way beyond its limits, but I didn't let go right away because I'd have to land some ten feet below on the uneven steps, and that was probably a mistake but the damage had already been done, so I dropped and landed okay, and then made my way back into the apartment to see just how bad it was.

The ensuing rainbow of red and purple bruises all over my bicep and down to the elbow would not emerge till the following day, and as bad as the pain was I went to work and deliberately did

not even take an aspirin, reasoning that whatever I'd damaged it was better to find out where the pain was than to cover it up and maybe make it worse, reasoning flawed if for no other reason than how could the injury have been any worse?

For days I couldn't lift a book with the arm, and for weeks I couldn't even manage doing a standing push-up against a wall, but it was months before I finally went to visit Doctor Fleischer when it came time for my annual physical, and after a brief look she referred me to a colleague specializing in orthopedics over at Union Square, telling me "This goes above my paygrade, Salvius. Let Paul take a look. Sports injuries are all they do there. He can help." And so I went.

He'd brought in some other physicians to examine an injury only power lifters usually suffer, apparently no other sport grueling or stupid enough to inflict such a thing on their practitioners, and he'd diagnosed it and told me I could live with it or consider the surgical option, which involved cannibalizing the muscles of a fresh cadaver, but I immediately stopped listening and asked him now that my injury had healed if it would likely get any worse, and he said, no, that although it had undoubtedly healed wrong, it _had_ healed, so given my age, as long as I took it easy I'd just have to learn to do strenuous things a little differently, so I thanked him and got ready to leave, but he got agitated and said, no, I still need to perform an MRI to confirm what I've told you, and I said fine, let's do it, but he said, oh no, not today, and so I said well, it's today that I'm here, so thanks very much, ciao, and went over to the nearby Barnes & Noble to browse around.

He called later and insisted we schedule that MRI, and I relented, spending two hours inside the isolation chamber a week or so afterwards, listening to what sounded like gunshots going off in there as the machine went about its business, and I still laugh when I remember him calling me maybe a month after that, saying, you know, Mister Chisciotte, I've never had a patient suffer a catastrophic injury, go right back to work, let the thing heal on its own, wait months before seeing a doctor, get an MRI, and then _not call back_ to find out the results of the MRI. I mean, that's a first for me.

And I'd said to him, well, _you_ were the one who insisted on the MRI, and I assumed you'd call back if there was something I needed to know. So _is_ there something I need to know? There was a long silence on the other end of the line until he finally said that, no, the MRI confirmed what he'd originally diagnosed, so any surgery was up to me, and that there was actually more risk from having it than not so long as I did no more climbing or anything similarly crazy.

I'd told him that was an honest answer, and that though I wasn't interested in being operated on, if I ever changed my mind he's the guy I would have work on me.

I wave goodbye to Shirley and drag the kayak back into the garage, grabbing a few bars of wood from the corner, because it'll take a couple of hours to get the oven hot enough to do some

cooking. Isabella and I built a primitive brick oven her second year at Cornell here at the cottage when we realized we went out for bad pizza so often why shouldn't we cook good pizza right here whenever we wanted it?

After the fire takes hold, I go inside and lie down for a few minutes that turn into a few hours, and when I wake up startled at the time, I get up and start mixing the dough, remembering the

maple syrup this time. I don't always remember the secret ingredient, which makes it a better secret than most. Then I soak the proofing towel in oil and cover the balls of dough after placing them in the wooden desk drawer I use both as my proofing pan and to stick in the refrigerator later.

When the dough has doubled in size I take one and take its breath away by punching and slapping it silly, forming a circle-like pancake while stretching it and flouring both it and the pizza paddle, then I take out the raw peeled tomatoes I blenderized and splash a few spoonfuls on, put them back and take out a mozzarella that's still in its own water, thinly slice some pieces and scatter them about, then drizzle some olive oil, wash my hands, and take the paddle out to the oven and don't even bother to check the temperature inside the dome by making sure the soot has burned off because how could it not have by now? and so I slide the pizza right in, and within minutes lunch is ready, which could have been shared with Shirley except she had guests to attend to, so it's just me.

Li Qin loved it when I made her five-cheese pizza with lobster – mozzarella, parmigiano, brie, provolone, and enough gorgonzola for her to go nuts but not enough for her to know it was in there. She hated blue cheese, but I knew how to cook with it so she could enjoy what it had to offer. Isabella always wanted the same thing – figs, prosciutto, goat cheese, and basil leaves – but after experimenting once with fresh figs I made sure it was only dried figs from then on. Fresh figs are meant to be eaten, not cooked.

I get a Coke and go outside to the gazebo and pick up a lawn chair, carrying it to the very end of the dock and put it down, sticking the bottle in the cupholder with the netting built onto it, and I sit down, staring at the calm waters and the trees way over on the other side, no one but me in or around the lake anywhere in sight, and I try not to give in despair, the very worst of the deadly sins, but I'm in a weakened state today, having taken myself to the limit yesterday, and having done every last thing I could think to do for the cottage these last couple of years.

There's no one left to cook for or to care for or to watch for or to live for. Only dad. Who hasn't called me back once since I came up here. Besides, he's got Jude. So to quote Dr. Paul, that's a first for me. Which means there's nothing holding me back from the mountain in my dreams. The one that's supposed to be just a guiding light, a way to motivate yourself, an impossible dream you reserve for the someday that never comes.

Except someday has arrived. But the mountain won't be ready till at least September. Which gives me some more time to get my flesh as willing as my spirit.

VII

Salvius has lost track of how quickly the months are passing, and it doesn't seem possible to him that it's already time for Saint Rosalie's Christmas party, the goings-on of which he notices only as he approaches the employee café, thinking he'll enjoy a light lunch in comparative peace, instead hearing the holiday music blasting from speakers fit for a stadium and walking into a wall of people swarming in a room expanded to its full capacity, the collapsible walls usually separating a row of conference rooms all swept open such that seemingly every last hospital employee has been accommodated.

Pastor Sal gravitates as if by magnetic attraction to the pasta station, asking for a half dish of rigatoni bolognese from Tomas the cook, diplomatically seeking him out though he's not the nearest server, for he is by far the one with the best touch. He finds an unoccupied nook and eats standing up, and after he's done he discards his styrofoam plate and takes out his little leather portfolio of song lyrics, unsure whether _O Holy Night_ is tucked in there until he finds it, then he goes to the beverage station and pours himself a quarter cup of boiling water and adds a quarter cup of cold, sipping the lukewarm liquid as he walks to the other side of the room where the DJ is, and asks him, as he does every year, if he might, after the song playing right now ends, have the microphone and perform a single

song, to which the DJ says "Of course! How do you want to be introduced?" as he asks him every year, to which Pastor Sal responds, "Thank you, but I don't wish to be introduced. I'll just start a few moments after the song ends, if that's okay?"

The DJ shrugs, and as the song is ending he hands over the mic, whispering to him that it's good to go, and Salvius waits until silence has prevailed, almost prompting the DJ to prompt him, but then he begins, and in a matter of seconds, the music in the cavernous room has transitioned from boisterous and electronic to sacred and a cappella, and the legion of lunchers go from distracted and rushed to attracted and hushed, as they do each and every year, hundreds of souls suddenly silent and still, as Chisciotte casts his spell and works his will, and after the climactic crescendo of _Noel Noel!_ and his otherworldly final eight notes of _O Night Divine_ whispered and the very last one delicately but deliberately held aloft defying gravity in outer space reaching out from within his inner grace, until spontaneous and continuous applause drowns out everything but its own sincerity, except Pastor Sal has already nodded his appreciation and abandoned his audience, heading back to his office from whence he came.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Grateful that his nerves rattle after a performance and never before or during, he hardly has a chance to settle down and see about the day's visitations before Priscilla returns from lunch and gives him her disapproving look, as she does each year, which he ignores, as he does each year, but before he can ask her about his next patient, she congratulates while she castigates as she does each and every time he does this, "That was sublime! But WHY do you always leave while everyone's in the middle of applauding?"

He can't manage a simple thank you so he frowns, which seems to Priscilla somewhere between dismissing her compliment and disagreeing with it, but she's given up coaxing gratitude out of a man unconvinced any praise sent his way is deserved, though he does manage to respond "In my defense, I always try to leave BEFORE anyone applauds. But enough on that, bella – what can you tell me about Natalie?"

Priscilla realizes he probably hasn't checked the last name of his next patient. "It's Natalie _Savrasov_ , the unit clerk from pediatrics. Remember?" she says gently, irrationally

guilty over lingering jealousy of the exceptionally lovely young lady's undisguised infatuation with Salvius, a jealousy that however misplaced before, is now, in light of the tragic circumstances of Natalie's brutally disfiguring illness, a sentiment she is horrified to harbor even a lingering trace of.

"Yes, I remember," he mouths soundlessly, as he reexamines her file, his natural empathy for a stranger now scorched by their friendship, and so he must steel himself not only for what the cancer has done to Natalie's face and to her mind, but for what her anguish is already doing to him.

She had quickly become the second daughter he might have had and would not have lost, for her devotion to him was and unknown to him remains so strong, though Salvius was and is oblivious to a devotion that has neither filial piety nor societal propriety.

Natalie was enamored with the idea of someone like him long before they ever met, and when she began working at the hospital and discovered that who and what he appeared to be was exactly who and what he actually was, she fell in love, and there was no way out for her. She never told him, never said a word he could misconstrue, but she conspired to spend every moment with him that she could find or finesse, and it seemed like the only person at Saint Rosalie's who didn't know of her obsession was Pastor Sal.

For his part, certainly her crimson hair and cobalt eyes held his attention, but beauty is all he ever saw and all he ever sees, and so if hers was indeed a shining star, it only shone a little brighter than the lesser lights nearby, and so desperate as she was to make him lost and found, her looks alone would never shift him from his holy ground.

Eventually she saw that, and recognized that, after all, if she _had_ been able to seduce him and have him betray his wife, then he would not have been the man she so passionately admired. But that recognition couldn't change the way she felt.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He knocks softly on her door as he prays yet again, and she answers in a high-pitched voice that sounds both like a shriek and a whisper "I'm awake, come in," and he does, and when he walks in and sees her sitting up in her bed in the brilliantly bright room with the bottom half of her face missing, his viscera tremble and freeze but he smiles and

moves close, and with both hands takes gentle hold of her crown, his fingers lost in her hair, and he exhales and inhales deeply as he kisses her forehead before stepping back and sitting down in the chair by her bed, and not for a moment does he look away.

"It's been at least a year you've been gone," he says carefully, weighing and watching every word while speaking each one as casually as he can.

"The longest one of my life," she quietly screeches, so much of her jaw missing Salvius wonders how many months after her initial surgeries and radiation treatments it took for her to relearn how to speak even this well, and then he realizes she'll have to learn all over again as she struggles through the reconstructive surgeries yet to come.

"Are all those things yours?" he chides, noticing the overflowing unclosed closet and the open bag of luggage at the foot of it that obviously can't fit inside.

She turns her entire torso around without moving a muscle in her head to glance at it, a practiced move she's clearly gotten used to making, and Salvius wonders whether she does it because of phantom or lingering pain, but he will not ask. Not today.

"Oh. My best friend sleeps over most nights. Denise. She's in class right now." Her _only_ friend. But she won't tell Pastor Sal that. No one from her family in St. Petersburg has yet to make the flight to see her. Money they'll send. Phone calls they'll make. But moving their asses from the motherland to comfort their daughter, their sister, their niece – that's too f***ing much for them.

Just as it was too much for her boyfriend. _Three years!_ The whole time she'd been in the States. She didn't blame him. But she did wish him dead, buried, and pissed on by every

damn dog that walked over his grave.

"Is Denise in the same nursing program as you?" He remembers she was close to her certification, but he's not about to deliberately or accidently turn this into an interrogation on the status of her studies.

"Yes. We started together, and we both got certified. She's just finishing up the last few credits for her Bachelor of Science. Our sponsor insists she get it out of the way. Says it'll give her that much more of an advantage in the field. As if an RN who speaks Russian, French, Spanish and English, _and_ looks like she does, needs another advantage.

He just wants to supervise her a little longer to see if he can get in her pants." She blanches after saying that.

"I'm sorry, Pastor Sal," she whispers, an impossible smile trying to form. "But I'm sure it's true."

"I'm sure you're right," he says, a smile of his own only in his mind as he reflects on how he seems to make everyone in his orbit apologize for any trace of profanity or vulgarity that might happen to spill from their lips, and he's glad he has that effect on people, and only wishes he could convert that condition into a contagion.

If nothing else, the power of profanity issues from its infrequent use, so when it becomes ubiquitous, it can no longer perform its primary function. What's a person to do when they really want to get your attention – shout _Doublef***!_? As he thinks this, Salvius can sense himself getting less nervous about saying the wrong thing or striking the wrong chord. The fact his mind is straying a bit is a good sign.

"Are you still doing translation work for that Russian publishing company you told me about?" he asks, unsure exactly what it was she'd told him.

"Yes," she giggles, "You remembered!" But even the smallest inadvertent smile is too much for her, and she winces in pain, her spastic movements briefly beyond her control as she quickly recomposes herself, whispering "Okay, lesson learned," which Salvius pretends not to have heard, though he's glad he did.

_She's fighting_ , he thinks to himself, _and thank god for that,_ suddenly visualizing Maria Sharapova screaming like a howler monkey and looking like a giraffe as she tears around a tennis court, but what counts is that she beats player after player better on paper than she is because she's got what they haven't – the will of a warrior. The Russians make their women tough.

"It's easy work," she adds. "They email me a list every few months of things they want translated – children's books, romance novels, cookbooks, whatever – and I just email them back whichever one I'll do first, and most of the time they ship me the books or shoot them to my Kindle if there's an e-book. It keeps me busy," she says as she lowers her gaze, failing just for a moment to appear braver than she is, but recovers.

"So what are _you_ up to, mountain man? Conquered any new peaks lately?" she asks with eyes a mile deep, her flirtatiousness a game she's playing from memory, her here and now something she still can't process. Years of men who would have walked through fire to get to her, and now they run from her as if from a burning building. How does a woman get used to that?

"Too many to keep track of, Natalie," immediately cursing himself for overthinking things and not calling her _Bella_. He _never_ called her by her name. He takes her hand in

his and caresses it, noticing sadly that the nicotine stains on her fingers haven't completely faded away.

She had quoted Ayn Rand word for word on the philosophical and aesthetic aspects of a cigarette – _I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips._ He forgets the rest.

She'd quoted _Atlas Shrugged_ to him all the time, so excited as she told him all about Alisa Rosenbaum, born in St. Petersburg just like her, then changing her name and moving to America, just like Natalie did, and of course he never told her how familiar he was with Rand's work. He let her teach him all about the Russian woman Natalie said understood freedom better than anyone in America, than anyone anywhere.

_And ninety percent of the country doesn't even know who she is!_ That drove her crazy, and he remembers her telling him that at the airport in Moscow on her way over here, she had noticed an enormous room encased in glass reserved for smokers. Which of course she had used. _Can you believe it? In the former Soviet Union there is freedom and respect for smokers, but here in the land of the free and the home of the brave you have to hide like a thief to smoke in peace! Absurd!_

He wished he'd done something other than agree with her, especially as he came to see how she looked up to him, but it seemed at the time hypocritical to disagree with how someone chose to put herself at risk, and he said as much. Degrees of freedom in his mind was a contradiction in terms. And still is.

He writes down his work and his personal email addresses on one of his cards and places it in her hand, forcing himself to keep this first meeting as brief and informal as possible. Because now she is no longer simply a co-worker. Now she is in his care. _Cura animarum._ That is what he is charged with. Caring for souls. And he's as overwhelmed and underprepared for what that entails as he was on the first day of his calling. "Day or night, I'd love to hear from you. Godspeed, bella," and he kisses her one more time as he prepares to leave.

"Spăsēbō," she says, testing him.

"You're welcome, bella. Spasebo you too. I'll be looking for your email," he says.

"It'll be there before you get back to your office," she replies.

"Ciao," he manages, as he walks out of her room, finally able to let the tears rush down.

"Ciao, you beautiful man," she hisses, her own tears falling free, wondering if today is the day her last teardrop falls.

Seven

Harris pokes at the ossobuco with her fork, watching as the flesh seems to just slide off the little leaning tower of Pisa shaft of a shank bone and fall into a pool of gremolata fragrant with thyme and silky smooth, and feels herself melt as she takes an indecently large section and rolls it in the sauce and then pops it into her mouth, exaggerating its juicy goodness to the delight of her now moderately turned-on colleague.

"A little too Harris meets Sally for you, Stew?" she teases, taking her tiny marrow spoon and sipping the fatty liquid with just as much gusto as the rest of her entrée, oblivious to the irony of a delicacy that decades earlier was just a peasant's way of making a meal of something the well-to-do wouldn't even think of eating.

"So what's cooking at work, Rachel?" he redirects. "Anything new?" Stewart Lightmore is her go-to lunch companion. A professor of evolutionary biology at NYU and a minor celebrity on the lecture circuit and Book TV, he's intimidated neither by her brain nor by her boobs, which makes him both great company and a tempting sexual target, all the more because he's proven quite elusive. So far.

"There is, actually. A middle-aged rock-climbing chaplain who either jumped off or fell off a cliff a year ago, whose only daughter and only surviving family member period is paying me to figure out if suicide or plain old gravity was to blame." She says this seeming far more interested in her meal than in the case but Lightmore sees through her flippancy. This one's got her hooked.

"Doesn't sound like something worth your time. What made you take it on?" he asks matter-of-factly.

"Funny you should say that," she replies. "This woman was referred to me by someone I half-remember, and you're right, nothing about the case screamed out to me, so I told Ms. Chisc – _Client X_ ," she corrects if only to pretend Stewart would betray her confidence, "I told her at the outset that because of the open-ended nature of this sort of inquiry my fee was quite high, and then I quoted her twice what I'd normally charge, and she took out her checkbook and wrote out a check for half the amount, slammed it on my desk, and then like something out of an old private eye movie she says I'd get the rest when the job was done."

"Did you laugh in her face and tell her to get the hell out of your office?" he asks, knowing Rachel only does what Rachel wants. Ever.

"Uncharacteristically... no. I did not. But she was so sincere. So... desperate. And then she hands me her father's journals, and there's this poem he wrote just before he died that she points out to me, and Stewart, you know I'm not the sentimental type – " and as she says it he guffaws so loud a nearby patron turns to stare at him. "You _damn_ well are not," he agrees so emphatically she almost experiences distress.

"Anyway, the poem is so sweet and his daughter is so intense, and the idea of a pastor who writes poetry and climbs mountains, and let us not forget the money, well, I said what the hell, how tough could this be? So I took it." And then it's back to her ossobuco, except Lightmore is still intrigued.

"So... are you making any progress?" He's already finished his grilled octopus, which was only slightly inferior to what he'd swooned over when he was in Lisbon a couple of years back.

"No, not at all. Looks like I'm going to have to break a sweat on this one. No one but a gas station attendant saw him in the days leading up to his death, and he'd been somewhere in Chile for a week just before that, which I'm going to have to look into, and for almost two years before _that_ , he'd been alone in his lake house way upstate in New York, so I'll be working on that. But first, I have to start interviewing in depth every last person who really knew him, to put together the best psychological profile of the guy that I can, otherwise there's no real context for what I find out about his actions towards the end." She takes her last bite of veal and puts down her utensils. "But what about you? How many children are you sleeping with this semester?" she jabs, unwilling to end their lunch date without some provocation.

"You mustn't underestimate your competition, Rachel," he parries, "and besides, you know my rule – always over eighteen and never concurrent with my class. If they wish to share my bed, they have to wait until I've submitted their grade. Takes out the conflict of interest. Makes everything that much more... dignified."

"You're like the Marquess of Queensbury," she retorts.

"More like the Marquis de Sade," he counters.

"De Sade went to prison," she reminds him.

"And to an asylum," he rejoins, "but I see your point. I'll be careful."

"Seriously, Stewart, when was the last time you had sex with someone, say, my age?" she says, deciding to up the ante, while she waves down her waiter to ask for the check. "Split a crème brûlèe before we go?" she asks, but he declines, so she pantomimes a tallied check.

"Seriously, Rachel, do you _really_ want to have this conversation?" he warns, preferring not to threaten their relationship if he can help it, but perfectly willing to clarify his position even if it hurts her. _Especially_ if it hurts her. Just to find out if anything can.

"Don't misunderstand, Stewie. Just like you, I have no shortage of young lovers looking to ring my bell, but haven't you once even _thought_ about the two of us having something other than lunch together?" She stares at him as he maintains his silence, but when he's silent just a bit too long, she adds, "Or, _unlike_ me, are you worried about the inevitable comparisons I'll be making?"

That makes up his mind.

"You know, Rachel, for a psychologist you're not much of a chess player. I'm flattered by your attention, I truly am. Despite your darker elements, your intelligence alone is intoxicating, and sexy as hell, and you don't need me to tell you what a fine specimen of a female you are. But there's no upside for me, no conceivable evolutionary advantage, shall we say.

"I'm a forty year-old rock star at NYU, in an age where the young men have so many options and such arrested development, that what should be _their_ young women not only come running to my door eager to please and determined to prevail, they are so intent on competing with one another for my affections that they're glad to do so in _tandem_ , vigorously vying to outdo their rival as I suffer the quite bearable consequences," smiling broadly as he unabashedly brags.

"So, my dear Professor Harris," Lightmore concludes as he readies for the final thrust of his sword, the estocada to this mismatched bullfight, "as I see it, the two of us sleeping together is the ultimate 'no win' situation. In the first place, lovely as you are, you are no match for never-ending duos of nubiles seeking to outdo the other. Sorry. In the second place, I'm just as likely to disappoint _you_ , so why would we want to cast a shadow on these delightful lunches we frequently share? And, even if it did go against all expectations and proved to be the Second Coming, outshining the Northern Lights, et cetera, et cetera, so what? Or more precisely, _then_ what?

"Neither one of us wants a relationship that leads anywhere, so why even start?"

She sits there with her chin in her hands as she listens to him, his status up a notch in her eyes as he gives her an out even as he takes her down, and then she grabs the check as the waiter delivers it, waving Stewart off, "This one's mine. My sales pitch, my check." She smiles, and both are glad their friendship's still intact, and both are aware they'll be revisiting this topic many more times.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"So, Mrs. Dalton," Harris begins, each woman sitting comfortably and perpendicularly to one another on the massive L-shaped couch in the lounge of the flight school, a couple of hours having been set aside by husband and wife to speak with the good doctor about their close friend, Don reluctantly agreeing to be elsewhere while Rachel interviews Carol, just as she'll be when it's his turn to get questioned about his deceased buddy.

"Call me Carol," she says, trying to look at ease but not succeeding.

"Carol," Rachel whispers, in the most hypnotizing voice she can manage, "I'm not here today to cause you or your husband grief, nor have I any motives whatsoever other than trying to give Isabella Chisciotte the most informed answer I can about the last years of her father's life, and a possible window into what happened on his last day. This is not an inquisition. I am the only person who will ever know what was discussed today. With that in mind, are you

willing to answer _whatever_ I ask as fully and as candidly as you possibly can?"

Carol is reassured, but even if she weren't, she would still answer the doctor's questions. Certainly not for Isabella. Whatever Li Qin or Sal could possibly have done wrong in her upbringing, there's no excuse on earth for that heartless bitch to walk out on them and not look back. None. But for Sal she and Don would

move the very mountains he so loved to climb. And she is Sal's daughter.

"Of course."

"When was the last time you spoke with Salvius?" Rachel asks, the answer to which determines whether she'll even need to ask a second question, but a question she has to ask face to face.

"Oh gosh, more than a year before he died. We would call again and again, but every time it just seemed like we were talking to him about all the great trips and the good times the four of us had shared, and he would never say it, of course, but I believe it pained him terribly to be reminded of all that," Carol stutters a bit, already tearing up, "and so, finally, we just stopped calling."

That answers that, Rachel says to herself, but that leaves precisely two things she still wants to know. "What do _you_ think happened that day on that cliff?" she asks, still whispering, straining in her voice for the scarcest resource in her arsenal – empathy.

"I don't know. I think it was just an accident, like they said. He was getting older. And with no one left to worry about," she says with some difficulty, "he maybe got just a little more reckless. I mean, my God, we were terrified for him every time he went climbing as it was. He was insane." She sobs a bit more openly, and Harris hands her a tissue from her purse.

"Last thing, Carol, and the most important," she lies, wanting to wind this up so she can move on to the husband.

"I'm a stranger trying to get to know Pastor Chisciotte as well as I possibly can. Tell me the one thing I absolutely should know about him if I could find out absolutely nothing else."

Carol does not pause for even a moment.

"I have never even when I got married been inside a church or a cathedral or a temple or a mosque other than as a tourist, but I will be damned if Salvius Chisciotte was not the closest thing to a saint in this world that I have ever seen."

"Thank you, Carol. I appreciate you making time for me. I'll wait here for Mr. Dalton, if that's all right?" she prompts, and Carol gets up and shakes her hand, leaving the office and leaving Harris to her Orwellian reflections.

What was it Orwell used to say, she thinks to herself, and then remembers. _Every saint should be judged guilty until proven innocent._ "Exactly right," she says aloud, reacting with a touch of surprise as the back door opens and Dalton walks in.

She crosses her legs as he sits down, and is grateful she dressed conservatively today. She'd almost worn one of her low-cut blouses, which might have pleased Don but would undoubtedly not have gone over well with his wife. It troubles her that she had not even stopped to think about that. Looks like Lightmore's continuing rejections are having a lingering effect. She'll pay her bodybuilder boytoy a visit later and have him rattle her cage. That'll clear her mind.

"So what is it you want to know about Sal?" Don demands, looking right away to take charge of things.

"How long have you been married?" Harris responds, ignoring his question and showing the

pilot here just who's flying this plane.

"Forty-two years. Why?" he replies, not backing off.

"Longer than Sal and Li Qin," she says with a touch of feigned admiration. "I'm impressed."

"Is that what you came to ask me?" he almost snarls, able to sniff out a snake a mile away.

"Why do you think Li Qin committed suicide? That's one thing I came here to ask you. And was Salvius cheating on her? That's the other thing I came here to

ask you. If you can give an honest answer to both questions, I can work on giving his undeserving spoiled brat of a daughter an honest answer to why her dad is no longer with us." She folds her arms to emphasize that she doesn't need him or his answers to move forward with her inquiry, that he's nothing but a checkmark on a really long to-do list. None of which is true.

His seething turns to a simmer and then he stops stewing and breaks his silence. "Li Qin was manic-depressive her entire life. As for Sal, there wasn't a woman young or old deaf or blind hot or cold that didn't want to get as close to him as she could get, all he had to do was ask – but he'd _never_ ask. Because that's not who he was. Is there _any_ _thing_ _else_ – or are we done?"

"No, we're done," Harris says as she takes her purse and gets up, not bothering to offer a hand Don will likely leave hanging in the air. "I'll see myself out," she says, turning without thanking him, smiling just a bit as she hears him mutter "Yes, you will," knowing instinctively that the only way to get an honest answer out of his sort of man was to piss him off just so much and no more, and she definitely did exactly that.

Determination

September 5th

6:02 a.m.

My flight's the day after tomorrow, but tomorrow I am not moving a muscle. Three months of this routine has been enough. I'll need one full day of rest not counting the travel day. If I'm not ready by now, well, I'll never be.

Let's see what the scale says. "A hundred and seventy-nine." Down thirteen pounds since I started. That's probably more important than any other part of the regimen. Up in the clouds you feel every last nonessential ounce, and even though it's not Everest, at my age I'll need every last edge I can get. And if the picture's any indication, who knows how much easier than Everest it'll be.

I've kept that Polaroid in my wallet for over forty years, a gift from one of my high school English teachers – Mr. Brand, who used to act out Shakespeare in class and climb cliffs all over the earth when class was out, sharing photos and stories with spellbound students, making us want to study harder than hell for him without his ever having to even ask.

He'd told me to hang on a minute before I left his class for the last time, and he'd asked me, _You know what your last name means, don't you, Salvius?_ and I'd said, of course, it's _Quixote_ in

Italian. And then he told me that once the legendary Spanish knight was compelled to give up his dream there was no course left for him but death. At which point he handed me this snapshot of the most wildly dramatic mountain I would ever come across, telling me it hadn't gone unnoticed how frequently I'd work my own obsession with climbing into my assignments, but I looked at it and truly thought it was a fake, or something someone had painted trying to out-Dali Dali, but he'd said to me, _No, Salvius, it's quite real, and until I saw it with my own two eyes, it had been the mountain even my dreams could not have conceived. Each of us needs to have a vision of something so impossibly beautiful we can spend a lifetime contemplating it, striving towards it, or, if fate allows, conquering it. Take this until you find something to replace it with._ So I took it, and it's never needed replacing.

I start with my joint rotations, gently swiveling my skull clockwise on its axis and atlas round and round, letting its own weight take it where it will, now counterclockwise a few times, then I raise my arms and scratch the air in front of me to roll my shoulders one way then reverse the motion to roll them the other, dropping my arms when I'm done and unleashing my hands as they madly screw in a hundred make-believe light bulbs and then unscrew them as my wrists go carpal tunnel crazy turning muscles and tendons from bundles of nerves to waves of singular motion as I stop and slap my forearms and massage all around my elbows to smooth out every last trace of resistance, and next are my hips as I ski in place, my arms swinging in alternating slashes forming X's across my chest as the balls of my feet do a little Elvis and get my pelvis to where my haunch is ready to launch right off my spine, so I slow it down to a rest and take my right foot with my left hand and give that a whirl, turning the ankle one way and the other, massaging the Achilles tendon and then switching sides, smacking my calves and hamstrings and every square inch of my legs as I finish up my rotations and move on to my stretches.

Dynamic stretches come first, though I always wonder if I remember my Kurz correctly, and I execute ten front kicks, side kicks, back kicks, inside crescent, outside crescent, extending my hands and using them as targets and markers, going full throttle, then doing my trunk rotations, side bends, forward bends, back bends, taking a needed rest, putting my feet together and my hands at my sides, and breathing slow and deep as I prepare for my trio of sun salutations though there's no sun in sight here in the sun room, but these big beautiful windows at the lake end of the house are a nature channel, ever changing and never fail to inspire.

Static active stretches come after the flowing and feline salutations, and relaxed stretches come after those, but the forearm stands and the handstands I used to include before my injury are out of the question, which takes me now to the heart of my workout.

Sit-ups come first, as I lay down and raise my legs a foot off the floor, pressing them together and writing the letter O with my toes one way and then the other, twenty times in all, then keeping the legs lifted and scissor-kicking another twenty times, then keeping them parallel and axe-kicking straight up and down one leg sweeping way up just as the other sweeps down, after yet another twenty of those I put my feet flat on the floor and my arms at my side as a brace and push off my soles to form a triangle that lifts me up and creates a fulcrum that gives instant reverse pressure to my lower back, strengthening it before it even has a chance to complain, and I hold the position as long as I can, and then conclude with twenty crunches and twenty bicycle motion moves, sit-ups with the back flat and the legs raised, left elbow reaching to touch a reciprocating right knee then vice versa, ending with another lingering fulcrum to offset my offsets.

Next come push-ups, chin-ups, weights, and hand strengthening. Can't do the push-ups and the chin-ups like I used to because of the shoulder, but trial and error has yielded a stationary position with my arms shoulder-width apart with tight fists palm up, so that if I do them anywhere but on a hard surface and simply hold the position, I get all the benefits of the push-up with minimum stress on the shoulder, and similarly, so long as I keep a stepstool under the chin-up bar, keep my hands close together, and start from where my arms are at a ninety-degree angle instead of the typical one-eighty, I get most of the benefit with little of the cost. And that'll have to do.

The weights are light, but I incorporate them into the kempo eight-point blocking-striking system, ten extra pounds in each hand as I maintain a deep horse stance and execute downward, upward, inward, and outward blocks, along with punches, hammer strikes, and rising strikes, twenty separate blocks and strikes in all, a minute of madness I repeat as many times as my arms will let me, until finally I can no longer move, so I stop and put down the weights, and take a break.

"Okay, that's enough!" And now I perform the eight-point _without_ the weights, and it's as if I've gone from fighting underwater in a suit of armor to naked on dry land, and my fists are flying, performing the moves so fast and so furious and so much from memory I barely see what I'm doing, but after a few go-rounds I realize enough is enough and I take another break before heading over to the kitchen, where I'll use the counter to do a hundred squats, protecting my knees by lightly bracing myself with my hands on the counter. Reckless as I may be, it really is important to come out of the regimen stronger than you go into it, otherwise what's the point?

The rubber donuts and the eagle catcher are tremendous for getting a grip, so to speak, but I still think plunging my hands into these two buckets of sand – the oldest of the old-fashioned methods – is not only the very best way of developing and strengthening my hands but certainly the least destructive _to_ the hands. People forget that boxers wrap their hands not for the sake of the opponent's skull – that's what the gloves are for – but to protect their own delicate metacarpals and phalanges, the bones of the human hand ostensibly evolved for finer things than smashing and punching.

Next is the form I created years ago, having forgotten most of the forms Jack taught me, memorizing the only one I laboriously crafted myself, wanting a signature combat simulation technique that hadn't just been handed down but that I had hand made. As Bruce Lee often said: _Absorb what is useful, ignore what is useless, add what is uniquely your own._

_Form to the Finish_ is what I call it, and I walk out to the garage where I keep both the punching bag and the full-length mirror, because performing such a thing in the air, despite the fact I will never, would never, could never actually attack someone with this, defeats the purpose of a form and succeeds only in developing the wrong kind of muscle memory.

_You will fight the way you train_ is what Jack said as he began every class, _so you must train as if your life depends upon it,_ which, given that my martial arts regimen really only serves my

mountain climbing, could not possibly be closer to the truth.

"Okay, don't think. Just move." Right backfist to the adversary's philtrum left iron fortress to block, right ridge kick to the medial femoral epicondyle, right ridge hand to the groin, left perpendicular palm punch to the sternum, right cupped hand to the left ear, left finger strike to the eye, right ridge hand with left palm to the throat, right then a left phoenix to the left then the right floating rib, right then a left phoenix to the left then the right temple, ending with a right then a left hammer fist crashing down on the sternocleidomastoid, and now... take a second, and do it all over again, right foot forward this time, every move reversed.

Three repetitions from each side is plenty. Time for some leg work. Back inside, I get on the treadmill and set the maximum angle, going for a full thirty minutes but not too fast, and the

exertion my legs are now enduring is actually a nice distraction from how exhausted my upper body feels, but we're almost there, and as I hop off, the only things left are a bit more static active and a nice round of isometric stretching, the latter a good minute each of a dozen or so stationary positions where the muscles themselves are keeping me in place, and after those, I... am... done.

I look at my watch – 8:28. Time for a shower.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I'm pleased with this final workout, not because it'll serve any real practical purpose once I find myself in the thick of things, but because I hardly broke a real sweat after nearly three hours, which

means I'm ready. If I don't reach the summit it won't be because of poor condition, but because of either bad execution or bad luck. Now let me go see if I can find that mountaineering book I

wanted to take with me to Patagonia. I'm not even sure if it's here or back in Queens.

VIII

From: Savrasov, Natalie [nsavvy@opton.net]

Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 10:42 PM

To: Chisciotte, Salvius

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Dear Pastor Sal,

Please don't be upset. I've attached the most exotic photo I could find of my former self to send you (not the sexiest – I didn't dare do that!) because I never want you to see the new me until I say so. I do want to talk to you, and confide in you, and be with you, as much as I possibly can and as often as your busy schedule permits, but right now this is the place where I want us to meet, and to correspond, and to get to know each other better, because here I can make my past my ever-present, and take consolation in the

darkness and in your company, and I don't want you to try to persuade me otherwise or to try to take this away from me. I'm functioning by day, and believe it or not, I'm fine. Translating pays my bills, and when all this stupid surgery is finished with, I've already got a cushy nursing job lined up (not that my grades were bad – they weren't – but what happened to me got me to the head of everybody's hire list, so it turned out I didn't even have to look for a job). Compassion trumped competition, as usual, but I'm not

complaining. I think I've earned a little compassion, so long as I don't wallow in it. Otherwise, who knows, Ayn Rand might start haunting me in my dreams. I was going to

wait a few days before contacting you, but why pretend? I love talking to you, just get back to me when you can.

Yours,

Natalie

P.S. Just finished reading Les particules élémentaires by Michel Houellebecq – for the third time! (It's "The Elementary Particles" in English.) Have you heard of him?

From: Chisciotte, Salvius [SChisciotte@qmail.com]

Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 9:14 AM

To: Savrasov, Natalie

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Bella,

I'm very happy to hear about your new assignment. As you know, it's not as easy as people think it is to secure a good nursing position. The photograph you sent is extraordinary. I can't believe the colors in that grotto, and the way you were captured in the combination of the soft blue reflecting light of the water and the small burst of white light shining from the entrance to the cave is remarkable. I've never seen a picture like that in my life. Thank you for sharing it with me.

_I'll be stopping at Barnes & Noble later today to pick up the book so I can discuss with it you. And no, I've never heard of him. What can you tell me about his_ joie de vivre _, as your idol would say; that is, if she spoke French? Did she? Till next time._

Faithfully,

Salvius

From: Savrasov, Natalie [nsavvy@opton.net]

Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 8:56 PM

To: Chisciotte, Salvius

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Pastor Sal,

_Yes, wise guy, she spoke French. AND Russian AND German AND English. However, and not to upset you, but_ joie de vivre _isn't quite the same thing as Rand's 'sense of life.' It's more about one's sense of joy rather than one's essential view of the world. And Houellebecq's sense of life is like Camus on steroids. His existentialism runs so deep and his determination to show the reader the terrifying truth of who and what we are made me so disgusted when I first discovered him, and yet it made me want to read him all the more. And now after what I've gone through, his truth is so obvious that it's liberating, and I almost worship him for his honesty._

Gotta go, but, by the way, don't say I didn't warn you about Houellebecq. I don't want you to be upset with me for what you find between the covers of his book. It's not the pretty picture I sent you (and I love how you didn't mention or maybe you didn't notice? that I was topless! in that picture), but his brutal reality is my here and now in black and white.

Yours,

Natalie

From: Chisciotte, Salvius [SChisciotte@qmail.com]

Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 9:41 AM

To: Savrasov, Natalie

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Bella,

Sorry it took a while to get back to you. It had nothing to do with the holidays or anything else interfering. I got the book the same day I emailed you and I finished it in three days, but I've spent the last couple of weeks thinking about it and collecting my thoughts.

I can see why this writer captivates you. His grotesqueries, if I may use a term I'm sure does not exist, his vulgarities, his perversities, are of such a grand scale that they seem to capture every naked ambition, every violent impulse, every degenerate thought, of all mankind. It seems like there's nothing Houellebecq fails to see. And set against the profane is a boundless intelligence as he presents a future so easily recognizable and yet so startling.

His story makes me imagine the work of Salvador Dali if it were made into a fiction, and here's where I want to take issue with you as to where I think he's going with his vision. Inside this novel of both ideas and carnality is one of the saddest love stories I've ever come across, and so I want you to look up Dali's Raphaelesque Head, Exploded, by far my favorite of all his paintings, in which he portrays spirit as matter and matter as spirit in the most ethereal and definitive manner possible, demonstrating a hopefulness that belies most of his oeuvre (if you'll once again pardon my French), and I mention this because I see the same thing in Houellebecq.

That is, you're absolutely right that his is not a pretty picture, and as he has Walcott say about his alter ego Djerzinski character, he most certainly likely is in real life the saddest man any of us will ever meet, but I believe he is screaming at mankind that there is always hope, that his vision cannot be all there is, that surprises beyond all reason and experience still persist, and that he wants each of us to prove him wrong.

Thank you for introducing me to this writer, bella – this gives us one more thing in common. Till next time.

Faithfully,

Salvius

From: Savrasov, Natalie [nsavvy@opton.net]

Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 7:54 PM

To: Chisciotte, Salvius

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Pastor Sal,

You're most welcome. And the truth is we have so many things in common, except for your inability to speak French, of course, or your unwillingness to say what you really thought about the photo I sent you. I mean, I hope you don't think anyone but you and that jerk of a boyfriend I had at the time has ever seen it. As for your thoughts on

Houellebecq, as he himself would say – whatever. I'm glad I turned you on to him.

Later,

Natalie

From: Chisciotte, Salvius [SChisciotte@qmail.com]

Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 4:45 PM

To: Savrasov, Natalie

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Bella,

Unlike both Ayn Rand and Michel Houellebecq, I do believe there are many things that ought to be left unsaid. But I will say this. You know as well as I do that the photo you sent me is a work of art. That it is every bit as seductive as you intended it to be. And that if you were looking to paint your picture in my mind, you succeeded. Must I say more?

Faithfully,

Salvius

From: Savrasov, Natalie [nsavvy@opton.net]

Sent: Friday, January 14. 2011 7:09 PM

To: Chisciotte, Salvius

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Dear Pastor Sal,

No, that'll do. Oh, and I get what you said about Dali's exploding head. That was cool.

Yours,

Natalie

_P.S. Do you have a book you want_ me _to read?_

From: Chisciotte, Salvius [SChisciotte@qmail.com]

Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 10:55 PM

To: Savrasov, Natalie

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Bella,

I do. "Narcissus and Goldmund" by Hesse. But I ask one thing. Just as I allowed myself to disappear into the book you recommended I want you to disappear into this one, because just like "The Elementary Particles" was antithetical to my sense of life, this book's sense of life takes on rationalism and atheism and leaves them for dead, so before you take it on, you have to be willing to give it a chance. Of course I'm assuming you haven't already read it or anything else by Hesse. Let me know.

Faithfully,

Salvius

From: Savrasov, Natalie [nsavvy@opton.net]

Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 10:39 PM

To: Chisciotte, Salvius

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Pastor Sal,

I'm not going to lie. I'd read "Siddartha" in high school and found it a silly little book except for the very last page, which nevertheless was wishful thinking bullshit (oops!) and made the story no less stupid. But I did what you said, and I just finished "Narcissus" like five minutes ago, and I'm so sad right now, as much for him living as I am for Goldmund dying, and, honestly, I don't even know why. Which doesn't matter, because it was a great read. So what made you choose it for me?

Yours,

Natalie

From: Chisciotte, Salvius [SChisciotte@qmail.com]

Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 11:52 PM

To: Savrasov, Natalie

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Bella,

I chose it because, to me, a book like "The Fountainhead" only shows part of the human equation. Despite all their apparent differences, aren't Narcissus and Howard Roark basically the same person, the same archetype? Whereas Goldmund, well, now he has no place in Ayn Rand's world, does he? He has, as she might say, no intrinsic value. He has worldly desires, but he pursues them recklessly, emotionally.

Yet look at the interplay of these two souls, and see the conflict between their two worldviews, and feel the struggle as each tries to prevail, and then share the pain of Narcissus as he loses not just his friend but his sense of self as he questions whether Goldmund was right all along to give in to sensuality and irrationality.

This is masculine versus feminine, Apollo versus Dionysus, cool versus crazy, and I believe it paints a more complete picture of man as he truly is. Simple as that.

Faithfully,

Salvius

From: Savrasov, Natalie [nsavvy@opton.net]

Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 12:08 AM

To: Chisciotte, Salvius

Subject: The Consolations of Darkness

Pastor Sal,

Maybe you're right. But you know what? I think YOU are a more complete picture of a man than anything Rand or Hesse ever came up with. Good night.

Yours (for the asking),

Natalie

Li Qin is shaking as she senselessly staples together the emails she's just printed out from their desktop computer, her first sick day in months yielding poisonous fruit she never could have imagined lay hidden in there, her certitude of a faithful husband shattered by his own words, every suppressed suspicion, every sneaking intimation, every lingering fear revealed to be totally true just as he is revealed as utterly false.

Her perfect marriage a sham, her grand life a fraud, but she can no longer summon either anger or rage. She fought his lack of ambition and drive throughout their marriage. She

fought for money and security throughout her career. She fought for dignity throughout her youth against sadistic parents and she fought for sanity against a frenzied mind that drove her to two failed suicide attempts while still a child. And she fought to save her marriage when her own child almost succeeded in tearing it to pieces.

She has no more fight left in her. What she has left are pills. Lots and lots of pills.

Eight

Najid is starting to feel uncomfortable as the two ladies act progressively less and less like ladies and more and more like schoolgirls, whispering and laughing while caressing each other a bit too freely and playing with each other's hair a bit too often, alcohol hardly a factor since neither has had more than a glass of the champagne. But he holds his tongue.

"So have you planned anything for the two days we'll have in London before the ship heads back?" Brynn purrs, neglecting to even factor Najid into the equation as she flirts so openly Isabella is finally snapped out of the three-way fantasy she herself was flirting with, a three-way neither Najid nor Brynn appears the slightest bit interested in, each one hot as hell at the moment, but for very different reasons.

"No, actually I won't be going to London. I'll be getting off at Edinburgh and come back aboard on the way back to New York. There are some things I need to wrap up for my father. He was born there. He died last year," Isabella says, while trying to think of a way to cool down what she's not so accidentally brought to a boil.

"My condolences, I am so sorry," Brynn says. "Had he been ill?" she continues, but Isabella ignores her and immediately changes the subject. "Najid, I totally forgot. How's your migraine? Still bad?" she asks, lying so as to give the two of them an exit strategy for something she should never have entered them into.

He looks at her quizzically, then responds, "It is. I probably should have taken something. I think I should call it a night," he says as he gets up. "But you two stay. Finish your champagne."

"No, no. Isabella, you go with him. It's getting late. I should be getting back myself. Good night, guys. I hope you feel better, Najid," Brynn says as she takes her purse and heads out.

"I feel guilty about doing that to her," Isabella reflects as she watches her walk away, realizing the dual nature of her duplicity and now feeling doubly bad about it.

"It's okay," Najid assures her. "You did the right thing in the end, and when we get to my suite, I'll do the right thing for you, and we'll forget this whole thing ever happened."

"Okay," she teases, "but do you mind if I don't forget about Brynn until _after_ you're finished with me?"

"Oh, that's fine," he rejoins, "I'm not planning on forgetting about her for at least two or three hours myself, so you can thank her in advance."

"Thank you, Brynn," Isabella says. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She walks along Rose Street, a block over from Princes, riffling through the copies she made of her father's writings, knowing she'd need them once she was in the city of his birth and unwilling to hand them over in their entirety to a stranger without duplicating them first, in hindsight a wise move given just who that stranger turned out to be.

Which reminds her it's about damn time they talk. "What time is it there?" she considers, figures out it's just after nine in the morning, and with a few taps on her phone calls the office of the doctor who wouldn't deign to part with her direct number.

"Good morning, Hubbell, Harris, and Cohen. How may I direct your call?"

"Good morning, Hubbell, Harris, and Cohen! With whom I am speaking, please?" she replies, and can hear a muffled laugh.

"My name is Jim. What can I do for you, Ms....?"

"Isabella. Isabella Chisciotte. Listen, Jim. I need your help. I'd like to speak to Dr. Harris. I'm in Edinburgh, and I don't know the next time my phone will have decent reception. Is she available?" She hopes this will win him over.

It does. "Sure, Ms.... Isabella," he says, not even attempting to pronounce her name. "Please hold a moment."

Amazingly, not twenty seconds go by before the bitch picks up. "Yes, Ms. Chisciotte from _overseas_ , what seems to be the problem?" Harris demands, clearly

not pleased to have given in to Jim's behind the scenes cajoling to take this call.

The problem? Isabella takes a breath. "I'm standing outside the apartment my father lived in where he was born. It made me wonder if you've begun work on his case. That's all." She struggles not to crush her phone to pieces.

"I have," she concedes, her tone seeming to soften some, from steel to maybe marble. "When are you due back in New York?"

"A couple of weeks," Isabella responds.

"Call me then," Harris commands. "We'll set up a lunch. Go over some things. Anything else?"

"Two weeks then. Excellent." And hangs up while the hanging's good.

Uneven bricks and mortar stained by soot. Three stories high including the fashionable seafood restaurant on the ground floor, four stories if you count the weird little add-on room on the roof, sort of like a porch, and it's filled with plants, so maybe a greenhouse refuge amidst the concrete jungle, and it looks like it's been here almost as long as the rest of the building, so maybe nonna kept a rocking chair up there for her and daddy, because he'd told her they'd lived on the top floor, and now she's hypnotized by a myriad of musings as to what went on _right there_ for four years, because that's how long they lived here until his father, who maître'deed his way from the hotel school in Sicily he finagled his way into, onto the cruise ships that took him throughout Europe at a time when no one but the obscenely wealthy could travel, over to the U.K. after he got married, and finally to America so his wife could be with her family once they'd all managed to immigrate there from Palermo, but as she tries to tie together all the disconnected strands of this story recounted to her by her father and his parents she appears to passersby to be looking something other than pensive, so naturally...

"Can a gie ye a haund?" a rugged man with piercing eyes and an animated manner asks, jolting her out of her daydreams, and though he might as well be speaking Yiddish, she sees he wants to help, and says "I'm fine, thank you," placing a hand on his shoulder in appreciation, and he smiles broadly and walks briskly on, responding so she can hear "Fine ye ar, wifie," and she has no trouble understanding that as she blushes, spell broken, going back again to her notes to see if she can locate the George Hotel, where her grandfather worked, then realizing she can use her phone to do that, and in just a few minutes there she is, peering inside through the glass, seeing what a regal establishment it actually is, unable to reconcile the elegant interior with the walking death exterior that was her father's father long before he became ill, but this is just a curiosity for her, and isn't what she came to see, so she heads this time to Princes Street, to find a place where she can sit down and look at her father's notes without distraction, and maybe figure out what he himself wasn't sure he saw, his vague recollections as a four year-old written down decades later, in handwriting not all that easy to decipher.

Once on David Street, she turns right and walks until she gets to Princes, and then crosses the thoroughfare over to the lovely park with Edinburgh Castle way out in the distance, making her way around a seriously sooty enormous monument to a bench on the other side of it away from the traffic, putting down her shoulder bag, surprised at just how tired she is. "I guess I've been walking for hours," she says out loud, realizing at the same time she'll need to get a room for the night, a not inconsiderable task if everyone around here speaks the way that Scotty hottie does.

"I surrrpose I'll crrross that brrridge when I get to et," she burrs, already trying to find the key to the Scottish accent, the combination of the rolling r's, speaking from the front of the mouth and below the tongue, and clenching the teeth but keeping them maybe a quarter inch apart seemingly good candidates to unlock the sporran pouch and drop the kilt, so to speak, and see what makes these sons of William Wallace growl.

She shoves her prurient thoughts aside, last evening's escapades so intense she's still reliving them, Najid's jealousy so out of control she'll have to make certain to rouse it more often, willing to risk the possible unintended consequences if sessions only Giacomo Casanova could rival are the reward.

_Now what did daddy say he saw?_ she thinks as she finally manages to set aside her animal instincts and compartmentalize, taking out her notes along with the envelope stuffed with some of her father's old photos, one in particular that he pointed out to her when speaking to her about... "The Book Man!" she remembers without needing the notes, just as she finds the Polaroid of him as a five year-old sitting on a kitchen counter, smiling as he looks away while the picture's taken, his legs dangling and his right foot fuzzy because it was in motion, and there in his hands is a tan book, at least a hundred pages long – not a comic book or a children's book, but a real book, and she covers her mouth to keep from getting emotional but it's too late for that, and she remembers how happy he was to have found this particular picture, because it proved just how young he really was when he dove into the alternative universe of reading, but it also reminded him of a particular memory of Edinburgh he had, the only one he could be sure of, or so he said, and this photo he showed her a few times he told her to take with her if she ever made it there, to see if she could find "The Book Man" he remembered seeing as he walked with his mother _here,_ where Isabella is right now, and she puts everything back into her bag and gets up determined not to leave this city until she finds what her father was looking for, but her determination is unnecessary, because she's hardly walked thirty feet when she turns around to see where she just was, and there, in the heart of the sooty structure, which resembles a gothic abbey but is clearly a monument to the marble figure at its center, underneath and framed by the four arches in each direction at the base, is a sculpture depicting Sir Walter Scott, and Isabella cries uncontrollably when she gets closer and sees that carved by his side is his dog and in his hands is one of the many books he wrote.

The Book Man.

Her mind goes back to all the times her father would show her a way to look through a window, a portal, an arch, a gateway, a painting, and to look so long and so deeply until she saw what lay on the other side, and almost never would he tell her what to see, but almost always he would wait, no matter how long it took, until she saw for herself what was there, and never was he so happy than when she would find things he himself hadn't seen, and now she'd done just that, filling in a blank for a father who filled her pages with the book of love, seeing in full a first vision he could only partly make out, fulfilling his wish on her way to her own, the first step now taken, on a road still unknown.

De-escalation

_I believe that the ascent of mountains forms an essential chapter in the complete duty of man. Leslie Stephen_. As true as it gets, I think as I make my way through this book and the plane snakes its way down Chile, away from Santiago and closer to Punta Arenas with each passing page.

In contrast to the packed flight to the capital, this little plane is half empty, no surprise given the time of year, and the men and women onboard are truly my brethren, stardust finely sifted,

strenuous souls fired by dragons, sinuous frames powered by mist, a collection of minds over matters whose truth is... Persist.

Locked inside each of their lanky frames and relaxed exteriors is a molten core awaiting release, wishing to run up a mountain of their own making, but willing to settle for summits there for the taking. I'd watched them as we all assembled at the terminal for our connecting flight, and of course what first struck me was the glaring similarities, something I'd never experienced at the airport. On occasion when I'd catch sight of a sports team heading somewhere together, the identical uniforms and the common purpose could never combine to distract from the individual personalities of the players. To the contrary. It often seemed like each person was trying that much harder to stand out.

Not with these folks. With each one of them, with each one of _us_ , there's just one voice in the choir, the song is singing the singer, and the three words are _higher and higher._ We're all dressed lighter than we should be, our luggage less than we need, our backpacks and our boots worn from overuse, and no one's talking much, moving much, eating much, every one sitting here drawn as much by the wilderness within as the wilderness without, and as a half-century of experience has shown me, the more a person has going on inside their soul and their skull, the less cause they have to prove on their outside that they're something other than dull.

The plane is making its approach, and now I find myself double-checking things I never needed to check the first time when Li Qin was in charge, so forward-thinking was she in her planning the only thing I ever needed to do was stay the hell out of her way. But let's see: I've got my climbing permit, copies of the bus ticket and the reservation for the lodging cabin, and my passport, all of which I'll keep in this around-the-neck wallet she got us years ago to keep our documents safe and close to the chest \- another damn good and exceedingly practical idea of hers – and I've got more cash and pesos than I'll likely use, but you never know.

No one applauds as the plane lands but that's nothing new. We've come a long way from _Night Flight,_ that Clark Gable film about pilots flying blind in primitive planes trying to deliver

desperately needed serum, the fearless few who were the first to fly by night, and because the radical is now routine, and the effect has long since forgotten the cause, what's lost along with wonder is any need for some applause.

As the captain tells us the local time, I adjust my watch and see there are a few hours before the bus that takes us through Puerto Natales to the lodge I hope is located somewhere near the

trailhead picks us up from the airport, which means I could get to the museum to see that replica of Magellen's ship, but without her here it's not the same. I'll have even more time next week before the flight back, so maybe then. And lest I forget what that tour guide in Portugal told us, it turns out Magellen was _not_ the first man to circumnavigate the globe, having gotten himself

killed in the Phillipines before the job was done, thus leaving it to Juan Sebastián Elcano to commandeer the Victoria back to its beginning of the end of the beginning point.

It was smart to bring along the old suitcase and check it in, something I haven't done in decades, as Li Qin got us packing ever lighter with each new trip to obviate the dreaded check-in, a great idea that saved us so much hassle, but I've filled this bag full of mèlange montagne along with gear so I wouldn't have to rely on finding any of that stuff here, and as I pick it up and get through customs without incident, I survey the airport and begin to wonder what it looked like fifty years ago, or maybe sixty, because who knows when Mr. Brand was down here, or if he even came by plane. He might have driven all the way here by automobile, it's not inconceivable, the only thing I know for sure is this faded black and white photograph he gave me, a massif of multiple peaks misty and menacingly angular when held horizontally, but when you turn the photo vertically, a visage appears, with a massive brow and deeply hollowed eyes, a gaping hole where the nose should be, jaws open and ready to snap – a god-like creature lifting from the earth ferocious face first, a mighty granite Gulliver daring the apish dwarfs to mount him, staring them down, willing them weak, ready to gorge us, and all that we seek.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's almost four hours before we get to the lodge, and even though I got some sleep, I'm glad I've brought so many books, not just for the ride back, but because even though I booked the cabin for

a week, I'll likely be spending a lot of that time indoors. The weather down here's crazy enough in their summer, which is months away, but now, in September, I'll be lucky if I get one full day out of the six to try to trek to the tempting top summit at the tip of Gulliver's chinny chin chin.

It is pitch black as we arrive, and after the three of us struggle to get out of a van that can seat fifteen, even mountaineers finding ourselves nearly immobilized after so many hours sitting on the bus and at the terminal and on however many planes we each flew in on, I tip the driver and bring my bags to my home for the next six days, managing to make it to the counter that serves as front desk, snack bar, coffee house, alpine gift shop, and all around knick-knack cubby, present my identification, and am delighted to hear the lodge manager tell me my rustic four-bunk room is all mine for the duration as he hands me my key, the off-season offering solitude where normally what they have here, as he says, is standing room only.

As I at long last crawl into bed, sleep hits like an Ali jab, and it's lights out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I wake up without my alarm, today being a recovery day, but the sun's only just started rising, and I still can't get used to finding myself without her, even in a setting she wouldn't have been in, and this narrow bed isn't helping, because it reminds me of the first one we shared in my hovel of a refuge in Coney Island, the cot she spent a half hour dusting off, flabbergasted that my mattress could be covered with sand, the explanation of my early morning walks through the beach to the rocks where I'd watch the sunrise nowhere near convincing enough to shake the shock from her face as she strove to strike every last grain from its groove.

I stagger to the bathroom to brush my teeth and throw cold water on my face, and get dressed to go downstairs to make myself some coffee, taking the canister I filled with my Lavazza illy blend, having run out of my beloved Miscela D'oro over a year ago, unwilling to do without my liquid gold without good cause, and I walk into what now resembles the hull of a ship with a pointed prow of checkerboard windows looking out to flora not yet painted by dawn, and what's revealed is a far less humble dwelling than what was suggested by last evening's shadowy first impression.

There's a bag of filters by the coffeemaker, and with some difficulty I separate a single one out and grab a nearby mug, locate a bowl of sugar and find cream in the fridge, and then I cover my mug with the filter, spooning in half as much of the powdery mix as I would of ground anything else, and then I position the mug under the hot water spigot on the coffee machine as I slowly brew my not quite premium blend.

"I see you've brought your own coffee into my establishment – I wonder if I should charge extra for that?" What's an Australian accent doing here? Or, not to be cruel, _any_ where? But the one I'm hearing is musical and muted. An accent in a slow process of evaporation.

A woman some years my junior, with a warm voice, not too deep, and lovely, welcoming eyes.

"I will pay any price and withstand all privation, if at the end of the road my reward's this libation," I say as I sip from the fruit of my labor.

"A poet!" she says brightly. "And does the poet have a name?"

"Salvius Chisciotte," I reply, "and does the aspiring extortionist have a name?" which elicits a smile, adding, "and does the proprietress of this lodge have sustenance that might accompany my forbidden brew?" Might as well find out how skilled my fellow jouster is; the vagaries of the weather might make for a fair amount of jousting.

"She does," says the Aussie lass. "It's Marion. Marion Navarro. And I'm going to fry you up a Barros Luco," and while I try and fail to tell her that isn't necessary, she picks up what looks like a fig newton and tosses it to me. "Have that in the meantime – it's made with local berries."

I dunk it in my coffee, and it's excellent, tasting very much like raspberries. "Did you make this?" I ask, confident she did, "it's not the very worst thing I've ever tried."

"Well, blame that on Javier – he's the baker in the family. My son," she adds, "he checked you in." "It's good," I needlessly confess, "what kind of – " "Murta berries," she answers, her interjection no doubt prompted by the thousandth time she's been asked the question. "They're everywhere."

"Can I make you one," I ask, referring to the coffee, "and maybe we'll split that grilled cheese you're making there?" hoping she agrees, because that's a sandwich fit for a Goliath she's frying up.

"Yes, please, but as you can see, there's smoked meat in here as well. Cecino and cheese. Wild boar, to be precise. Ever have it?" She caramelized the thick bread in butter like a pro before tucking in the slices of meat and cheese, and now she's keeping the flame low to keep from burning it as she warms up its contents, then she shuts off the gas, slips the sizzling square onto a waiting cutting board, slices it in two with a baby cleaver, and slides one half to my dish the other half to hers, and points to the table right in the corner at shelter's edge, and we each bring our winnings to the windows on a wondrous world, fading to be sure but brilliant still, a slow-motion implosion of a different kind, as the jaws of man devour earth through and through, and the race to find the last morsels of nature becomes a most brutal fight to the finish.

"I have," I say, "but not quite as wild as this, and nowhere near as delicious," lying so blatantly I feel the sudden need to confess, her sandwich just fine, as memories from Madrid of jamòn so

superior my lie is more whale than white, but I hold my tongue as we enjoy our meal.

There was a high-end hi-tech Spanish salumeria next door to whatever hotel Li Qin and I found ourselves in one day during a whirlwind guided tour of Spain, and one evening as we headed back from a restaurant we'd found while wandering about, I see three little spotlights shining in the darkness of the alcove leading to the entrance of the closed deli, and at first I thought they were three identical and dainty women's boots, but as we approached, it became clear they were the forelegs of wild boar, skinned but for the hooves, mounted so the toes if you will pointed down and the calves got presented to the viewer, said calves sliced so that striations of blood red flesh and bright white fat almost glowed from the illumination, the effect a violent and unmistakably sexual one of the most twisted and uniquely carnal kind, and I remember more than anything else how it seemed to exemplify an aspect past and present of the Spaniards, one of whom wrote referring to the palaces and plazas built in the aftermath of their conquests that 'the blood of the Incas is the cement that holds these magnificent structures together,' an observation so universal with its calm acceptance of glorious creations arising from the ashes of murderous rage and ruin.

"So where is home?" she asks after a longer silence than I'd realized, my daydream dilating there for a bit, my distractions more and more heading toward dissipation, disintegration the eventual destination, but for the moment this lassie's lassoed me back to the here and now.

I stare at her for a while without saying anything, to decide the answer she deserves, and when she doesn't look away, I say "There's a mountain I climb a few times every year. It's five hundred miles from where I live. Each and every time I drive there I know I'm heading home, and each and every time I leave, I know I'm heading somewhere else. Is that too sentimental an answer for you?"

She waits a moment before getting up to greet the second guest to tumble down the stairs, and says "No, Salvius, that's just sentimental enough" as she leaves me to my musings.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It turns out the lodge is nearly at the very feet of Gulliver Granite, but three days of unrelenting fog leave me with little to do but wander in the mist for a few hours and come back to read my

books in my bunk, until I've run out of books and gotten all wandered out, the monotony broken by Maid Marion who knocks at my door and pops in my room, asking if I'd like some lunch or dinner, but seeming really to just want to talk, and we have, finding out as much about each other as each will allow, she seeming willing to leave no detail unrevealed, me trying but ultimately unwilling to match the map to the territory, and so we keep tracing circles that close they might come don't quite come together.

Day four, however, proves the day that will not try my soul, as the sky clears not enough to see the sun but enough to see the smoking gun, in this case an enormous gray-white cloud seeming to puff right out of Gulliver's mouth as if he's enjoying a fine cigar, the dark spire of his chin a wispy oasis free of snow, the near vertical band of granite just below dusted white, and it's under that where the accumulations run deep but not too wide, and from there to the base it's rock I've seen before, no harder for me to handle than a kid up an escalator. Weather permitting. Which means move.

I dash back to my room and grab my gear, and it's not even noon when I've reached the snowy depths which prove not so deep, but I clamp on my crampons and switch my new cane for my old ice axe, genuinely surprised at the speed of the progress I'm making, stunned at the sights all around me, forcing myself to slow down to get acclimated to the increasing cold and the decreasing oxygen, but it's clear the only real concern is planning my assault on the granite wall not so far away, and I'm already calculating just where my crampons will come off and my rock climbing shoes will come on.

The winds, typically fierce but subdued at least for now, have made the snow absurdly easy to trudge through, and so I take the crampons off, but don't switch to the shoes yet, because I'll need the boots to get me to that ledge, which if I'm judging it right, tells me I only have to climb two or three hundred feet to get to the rockier, and as I can now clearly see, shrubby, scrubby spire, meaning so long as I've got some decent holds along the granite, the summit itself will actually prove the easiest part of the ascent.

The ledge is at the apex of two ridges, one of which got me here, the other leading to the col, a monumental saddle between two peaks of this massif that runs all the way down to the valley like a stream, and it's more of a sofa than a ledge, which will afford me plenty of time and space to switch footwear and fuel up for this final push.

"Help."

The echo of a man's voice. Not loud, and not a scream, as if he needs help but believes no one is nearby. I move around the corner of the ledge to the north face, and way down below at the edge of the col, is the body in need of help. I brought along my fold-up binoculars, and as I peer through them I see a hell of a lot of blood in the snow by his leg.

"I'M ON MY WAY!" I scream down, and when I see him react, I put the binoculars away and start working my way towards him, making an easier go of it than that last stretch because there's

no snow on the slope leading up here. Ironically, he was taking the scenic route, and would still have had time to summit if not for whatever happened down there along the slope.

It takes almost a half hour before I finally get to him, emergencies not making the mountain take anything other than its own sweet time. As I reach him, I see he's managed to remove his left boot and cut away the bottom half of the left pant leg of his jeans, giving me a head start on helping him as I examine the nasty wound along his shin.

Before either of us even exchange a word, I've staunched the bleeding, tied a tourniquet, treated and bandaged the wound, set the splint, and put his boot back on. Now I've got to see if he can stand.

"No way!" he protests. "I've already called the ranger. He said he'll be here in an hour. Two, tops! So go get yourself to the top of this f**ker!" He smiles his thank you.

The climber's creed. I get it. And I appreciate it. But it's past one o'clock. Even if the ranger gets here by two, my friend here will have lost an hour. And can he even walk? It'll be pitch black and freezing before he's even halfway to base camp.

"It's all right, guy," I say softly, "I've seen a thousand summits. Let's see if we can get you standing and go make sure that ranger doesn't get himself lost looking for you. Come on, get up." He does as he's told, looking reluctant but obviously grateful, and after we get all his gear together and he's standing on his own, I have him walk around a little to test the leg, and as he puts his arm around my shoulder, I take a quick look above and behind me at Gulliver's grinning chin, knowing how close I got to scratching it, yet happy in a proud sort of way that this long-awaited summit might remain just beyond my grasp, but that the mountain of my dreams was not truly beyond my reach.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My last night in Patagonia. It snowed pretty hard these last couple of days, but I still got to do some exploring. The bus back to the airport won't be here until nine in the morning, so I don't have to turn in early. I'll go downstairs and see if Marion's preparing something special for dinner.

Except she's already here. "May I come in?" she says as she knocks, dinner, once again, coming to find _me_. "Of course," I reply.

She's wearing a very lovely dress.

"Something wrong?" I say.

"Not at all," she responds, a puzzled look on her face that quickly disappears. "I'm making some swordfish later on for everyone, just wanted to know if you wanted... something else?" and moves closer as she says this, prompting me to stand up, and then she moves closer still.

She takes my hand in hers, and says "I'm sorry if I'm not sure quite how to go about this, but –" but before she says another word I lift her hand to my lips and kiss it ever so lightly, saying "You are a lively lovely woman, and I am a lonely man best left alone." And I sit back down.

"I was actually coming downstairs to tell you I wouldn't be having any dinner tonight, but thank you, Marion. I'll see you in the morning," and with that admittedly brusque brush-off, her eyes briefly blaze, but then she looks away, and exits my room without speaking another word.

Perhaps there was a better way to handle that, but as I open my wallet and stare at a picture of my wife in her modeling days smiling back, it occurs to me that maybe there were times women were responding to me in ways I didn't catch but that Li Qin likely did. "I'm sorry for that, bella. I never really was very good at figuring out a person's motives or intentions. I just judge everybody innocent by reason of insanity."

Much later, after quiet contemplation and as midnight approaches, I ready myself for bed, thinking of the billions of people searching for completion, for compatibility, for compassion, and how desperately most will fail to even find compromise, as attachments detach, and connections disconnect, over and over, again and again.

My eyes struggle to stay open as I see Hubert Robert's The Bathing Pool in my mind, the temple of Jupiter falling to ruin as the onslaught of nature's flora intrudes and insinuates, slowly resuming its preeminence, while bathers splash and play in the waters at its base, oblivious to the forces of time as they rudely triumph over the transient conceits of man.

"How small a fraction of all the measureless infinity of time is allotted to each one of us; an instant," I recite from memory, remembering my Aurelius, "and it vanishes into eternity..."

and likewise I vanish... into sleep.

Nine

"Ms. Nichols, please... come in! Let me take your coat. Did my driver hit much traffic on the way here?" Rachel Harris helps Priscilla off with her windbreaker and hangs it in the closet, then asks as she directs her to the couch they'll both be sharing, "May I get you something to drink – we have everything," but the not much older woman shakes her head no to both questions, looking and feeling like a gladiator awaiting release of the lion.

Rachel leans back comfortably on her armrest, clearly settling in, sending a signal to Priscilla to try to relax, that this won't hurt a bit. "You're in charge of this discussion," she assures her as she begins to assess and assay. "I absolutely intend to ask questions that will provoke you and piss you off, but that's because it's my job to figure out who Pastor Salvius was and who he wasn't, and if he simply fell off that cliff on his last day, or if something or someone might have led him to throw himself off. We'll likely never know for sure, and a definitive answer is not what I'm trying to find out for his daughter. What I'm looking for is to piece together a sense of his frame of mind towards the end, to see if his actions in the last weeks and months of his life tell us something. So what I have to do is to talk - _and to listen_ \- to the people who knew him best."

She pauses to look directly into Priscilla's eyes. "You're at the top of that list. I need your help."

Priscilla doesn't look away, searching but not finding what she wants either in the woman's eyes or in her voice or in her demeanor or in anything else, but that doesn't mean she isn't going to do anything but cooperate in every way she can. Isabella is Pastor Sal's only child. She'd help Inspector Javert if that was who she'd hired.

"What would you like to know?" she says after nearly half a minute has passed, as she too settles in and leans back and over on her armrest, comfortable yet braced for impact.

"Well, how did the two of you first meet? Tell me about it," Harris asks, tightly clasping her fingers together and pressing her hands deeply into her lap, a behavioral tic she's turned into a physical reminder to keep her mouth shut and her ears open, though rarely is the effort worth the reward. She discovered early in her studies that listening to patients could never be the mainstay of her career, their modest irrationalities and petty concerns no match for the grotesque

criminality and the sheer lunacy that prevailed in the world of forensic psychology. Together with the complexities of the judicial system and the range of courses she could both teach and create, it was a world worthy of her talents, but for now she would listen to Ms. Nichols, so she clasps her fingers tighter still.

"I was nineteen," Priscilla recalls, "my second year at college, and I was working at the hospital as a utility aide, a gopher, basically, running around helping whatever department I was assigned to on a particular day. Anyway, I'm having lunch in the cafeteria, and Harvey – this guy that worked in the kitchen – for the umpteenth time, takes a seat a couple of tables away, and just sits there staring at me while he's drinking his soda, until finally I get up and walk right out of there without even finishing my lunch because I was so upset, and I got to the hallway feeling pathetic, and I remember I was _starving_ , so I felt so stupid leaving food I could barely afford to buy right on the table, and I guess I must have just been standing there for a while, because suddenly there's a hand on my shoulder, and I turn around with a jolt – but it's Salvius, and he says _Walk with me_ , with that amazing voice of his, and I follow him to the atrium, and we sit way in the back, and he asks me my name and I tell him, and then he asks me what happened back there with Harvey – who he knows, by name, anyway – and I tell him that, too, and then he asks if it'll be okay if he goes and grabs ahold of old Harvey to have a little chat with him with me sitting right here, just the three of us, and that's just how he phrased it," Priscilla emphasizes to Harris to underscore the point, as she continues, "and I told him that was okay – "

"Why?" Harris interrupts, "Why would you trust a man you didn't know to help you with a man who you felt was threatening you?"

"I never said I didn't know Pastor Sal. Everybody in the hospital knew him. This was just the first time he had spoken to me personally," she replies a bit testily.

"Still seems odd to me that you'd let him help you with something like this. Why do you suppose you said yes?" Harris prods.

"There's no supposing about it," Priscilla responds, "he made you feel safe. Besides," she says with a smile, "he was _The Ninja_."

Harris says nothing, but shoots Nichols a questioning look that promptly yields an answer.

"That was his nickname around the hospital. They said a psych patient got out of D-4, made it to the lobby, ran right past security, and out of nowhere Salvius swooped in, tackled him to the ground, and held him till the police came. If you listen to the rumors, because this happened maybe _twenty years_ ago, the guy was the size of Godzilla. When I asked Sal about it, he said the man _might have been_ a little taller than him. Which means he was definitely Godzilla."

"You're saying his default was always self-effacement. I get that," Harris says more to herself than to Nichols. "But why do _you_ think it was so easy for him to be humble?" Because there's _always_ a motive behind the manner, and she'll be damned if she can't figure out his.

Priscilla smiles knowingly. "You know how many times I asked him over the years, 'Why do you do that, Salvius? Why can't you take the credit? Take the compliment? Just say thank you like everybody else?' And most of the time he'd pretend like he didn't hear me, but you know what he told me once?" Harris gets momentarily undistracted at the chance to maybe hear something worth hearing.

"He said 'When you're strong, the only way to be stronger still is to not look it.'"

"See, now that's – " Harris begins to say. "That's bullshit is what it was," Priscilla interjects, correctly finishing the thought for her. "That's Salvius giving you a reason he thinks you can deal with. Truth is I don't believe he knew himself why he did the things he did. I suppose it's like asking fire why it burns."

Harris ignores that and circles back. "Okay, so he brings Harvey to the table. Then what happened?"

"Right," Priscilla says, as she seesaws from one memory to another. "He sits Harvey down with us and says nothing for a really long time until Harvey finally says 'Is something wrong?' And Salvius stares at him and repeats what I'd told him, and then asks, 'Is it true that you're doing that, and that you've done it several times? Or is she lying about that?' And I was furious when he said that, but I kept quiet, and some time passed, but then Harvey says, 'She isn't lying. It's just that I like her, that's all.'

And Salvius turns to me and asks 'How do you feel when Harvey stares at you?' And I said 'Afraid.' So he turns to Harvey and said 'You understand? What the young woman you say you like feels when you stare at her... is fear. Now, I'm going to ask you a question, Harvey. Do you live around here?' And he tells him he lives right down the street. 'Do you know who the police chief is?' Harvey says he doesn't. 'Do you know who the mayor is?' Again Harvey says he doesn't. 'The police chief's name is Pete. The mayor's name is JOANNE. I know them well. And they know me. Now if the chaplain of Saint Rosalie's should approach the police chief or the mayor, or both, and tell them he's having a problem with a young man who is _stalking_ a young woman, do you have _any_ idea what damage that could do to that young man's life?' Harvey looked like he'd been put in front of a firing squad, but before he could say very much, Salvius told him to just apologize to me, which he did ten times, and then he said, 'Harvey, if you want a girl's attention, compliment her, say something sweet, but keep it short. Don't just stand there. And don't _stare._ Now get back to work.' And I'd thought that was that."

Priscilla smiles, and then laughs as she remembers what Pastor Sal did next. "'Now it's your turn,' he says, and I'm thinking what do you mean _my_ turn? 'You dress this way most every day, do you not?' and I must have blushed myself silly because until that day I'd made sure I was always spilling out of my dress so that every man in sight would go blind staring at my chest, and I was so embarrassed because I didn't even have anything to cover myself up with right then, but he said, 'Bella, that's fine. There are no laws about how a lady dresses, but if you set out to attract attention, remember that those you attract might not always be as harmless as Harvey. All right. Lecture's over. Back to work we go.' And that's how we met."

Harris tries to be discreet as she glances over at Nichols and imagines what the still youthful and outrageously voluptuous fortysomething looked like back then, pausing to reflect on what she's heard and trying not to take too many notes, but reluctant to rely only on her memory and her recordings.

"So how long after that did you wind up working for him?" she asks casually.

"Well, I wound up stalking _him_ , finding excuses to talk, asking him why he didn't have an assistant, meanwhile the hospital expanded, and eventually brought in a rabbi, and then another chaplain, and about two years after we met, they made room in the budget for a secretary, which I interviewed for, of course, and I got it. Probably because he put in a good word for me."

"You say _of course_ you interviewed for the job," Harris gently probes, "and I already know from what my assistant told me that discussing Pastor Chisciotte's fidelity is something I ought to avoid... however, let me turn it around. What about you? I mean, what you're saying is that you found him... what? More than a... protector? Or am I off base?"

"Lady," Priscilla says with an edge that quickly softens, "woman to woman, the way he handled Harvey for me? I might have let him take me right there in the atrium if he'd asked me. So, _no_ , you're not off base, but I wanted to work for him because I looked _up_ to him. _Admired_ him... and still do." Rachel is taken back both by Priscilla's obvious sincerity and her sudden flood of tears.

"Let's take a little break, and, please, let me get you something to drink. What would you like? Maybe some chamomile tea?" she suggests.

"Do you have espresso?" she asks, startling Rachel a bit. "As a matter of fact, we do. You take sugar?" "Just one, thanks." "Coming right up," she says as she leaves the room to actually go make it herself, surprised to find out she needs a breather as much as Nichols does.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Each woman finishes her espresso in silence, and Harris waits till Priscilla looks her way before resuming her questioning, but before she says anything she takes out copies of the emails exchanged between Natalie and Salvius that Isabella found as she went through her father's papers, emails Harris briefly told Priscilla about when they spoke over the phone while arranging today's interview, and hands them to her, waiting patiently as she reads them start to finish.

When she's done, she takes out Natalie's case file which she's brought along with her and hands it to Harris, who is unable to hide first a lascivious expression of vindication at the before photo, and then a visible shudder of horror at the sight of the after photo, saying as she clumsily tries to recover from her lapse, "Maybe if the wife had seen the woman Salvius was counseling, things might have

turned out differently."

"I don't think so, _Doctor_ Harris," Nichols says, poorly concealing a blossoming contempt for this woman. "Mrs. Chisciotte knew Natalie had connected with her husband, and although she was wrong to think he could be unfaithful, she knew him well enough to know _every_ woman was a threat, because he loved them all."

She gets up in response to Rachel's unease, having decided this interview is over, but as she prepares to leave, she makes sure to give the good doctor something that will maybe help her do a better job than she's been doing.

"That list of names I gave your assistant?" she says to Harris.

"Yes?" Rachel replies, the edge not yet back in her voice.

"Miguel is the one you should really talk to," Priscilla instructs as she retrieves her windbreaker.

"And why is that?" Rachel asks, her composure slowly returning.

"Ask to see his tattoo," she responds as she ignores the question and exits the arena, the gladiator having unexpectedly tamed the savage beast, but with not a single scar to show for it.

After Priscilla leaves, Rachel unmutes her phone and sees a text. _Want me to come by? When's a good time? Boy Next Door._ She texts him back, _Today's no good,_ as she reflects out loud, "This fucking saint is starting to get on my nerves."

Departure

As my final flight taxis to its terminal in Syracuse, I remember the first flight Li Qin and I made together, taking five year-old Isabella to Disney World, staying at that little motel in Kissimmee, asking my daughter if she wanted to know the name of the city we were in, saying I'd tell her if she kissed me, and so she did, and then she waited, and I'd said 'Kiss me, bella,' and she did, and then she'd said 'What name is it, daddy?' and I said 'Kiss me, bella!' and she did, and then she'd raised her voice a bit and said 'What _name_ is it, daddy?!' and round and round it went, until at last I told her Kissimmee _was_ the name, bella, and showed her the name of the city on one of the signs as we walked to a rib place not far from the motel, and then she'd shouted 'That's CHEATING!" and then she'd said in a shy, quiet voice, 'Kiss me again, daddy, kiss me again,' and I'll be damned if there's anything else I remember from my young family's first vacation together.

I forget where I left my car, but the parking's lot not that big, and it doesn't take long before I spot old reliable there next to that Chrysler with the bumper sticker speaking directly to me and my

Toyota: _Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign!_

After I put my bags in the trunk and start the car, it strikes me that the same people in the very smallest towns most removed from the forces and the policies that often turn the country upside down are the ones most able to deal with the consequences. The guy who installed a backup sump pump for me after I'd gotten a bit uneasy about the height of the standing water in the basement had been with Gladson's Pumps for years before he got laid off, and so he took what he knew and started his own business.

He and his family live off Route 89 on a nice stretch of land which they started farming when he lost his job. They built an antique-looking log cabin shop in front of the house, and his wife began selling preserves and pies and homemade fudge and later on wine and vinegar, though at first it was hard to tell which was wine and which was vinegar. When deer season starts he and his sons bring back their catch, which they skin, dress, and butcher for sale. I bought some venison sausage from there flavored with port and cranberries that was one of the best things I've ever eaten. So Hank Williams Jr. was right. A country boy _can_ survive.

It's late afternoon, and I take 81 south to 20, enjoying the scenery as I drive first past Skaneateles and then Auburn before turning into 90 and before I know it right into my driveway, not even an hour's drive made all the more brief by its requiescence, the very antithesis of the arduousness that sucks out every last bit of satisfaction one might derive from circulating one's carriage through the clogged capillaries of the city.

I take my bags from the car and go inside, then come right out again, crossing the road to pick up my mail, methodically separating the wheat from the chaff as I head back in and toss the thicker stack in the trash and lay the remaining pieces on the counter, as I look around this room filled with so much light, illuminating and transfiguring the paintings that cover the walls, throwaway pieces, some with frames, some without, works Isabella crafted so quickly while she was learning her craft I doubt she'd recognize them now, and yet even at the very beginning, when she was just figuring out how to mix colors, her instincts were good, and a vision seemed to be forming.

This one, that greets you as soon as you walk in, a foot high and four feet long, hanging on the wall parallel to the dining table and resembling a giant bookmark, is a landscape not quite real not

quite fantastical, realist and impressionist all at once, the foreground vivid with yellow splashes of flowers and purple and red trees pointy and fluffy everywhere, a strange gray structure not exactly a building partly obscured, a range of mountains way in the distance forming the dividing line in the work, as brilliant blue and white skies above trail off into gold and purple streaks at the edge of the painting, the overall effect forcing you to linger, knowing you'll never see such a place while wishing you could.

And wherever she got this idea, there's not a wayward brushstroke, though I'm pretty sure I never told her that. The closest I likely ever came to giving her a compliment was to remind her of Aristotle's dictum that you call no man excellent or brave or noble or anything else until his last day, for excellence and bravery and nobility and every other virtue are habits, not intrinsic qualities, and must be practiced every day, in every action, and only at the end of one's life can it then rightly be said 'Ah, yes, Isabella was indeed an excellent painter.'

Praise is a reward best left withheld, leaving the striver with something forever to strive for.

"I need to unpack everything," I say, also knowing I'll need to rest afterwards just for a few hours before leaving, if only to stay awake for the long drive ahead. I set the alarm for ten p.m. in case jet lag has thrown off my internal clock.

When I'm finished, I put two bottles of water and a small bag of dried apricots in my backpack and drop it on the floor as I stare out at the lake before collapsing onto the sofa, having not gotten

a moment of sleep on either flight, my mind preoccupied with these last few grains as they tumble through the hourglass, the unrelenting trickle of soundless sand now a booming cannonade as boulder after boulder shudders and and rumbles and falls, explosion after explosion blasting in my brain, the tolling bell of one last countdown clanging in my skull, the shifting sea of time battering my breaching hull, the arc of a life I cherished as it winds its rightful way to null.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I dislike driving at night, but the roads are clear and there is no rain, so I can think in peace without having to pay too much attention to the necessary nuisances of navigation, a lifelong habit

that right from the beginning of our courtship most certainly did not endear me to Li Qin, herself a fearless and impatient driver, never satisfied she was efficient enough in traveling, lane-changing, or route-finding, forever focused on finding the absolute shortest distance between two points whenever she found herself behind the wheel, a spot I mostly managed to keep her clear of, though having her ride shotgun was a Faustian bargain at best, often leading me to pray I'd go deaf, as I was repeatedly read my wrongs as I strove to get us from one place to another.

"Do you have _any_ idea how much I miss you lecturing me on my driving, bella?" I ask, the silence in the car like that _Gravity_ movie, where we see and hear the emptiness the astronauts experience out in the infinity of space, tethered to the space station and to their lives by their spacesuits and a single thread, the conceit shared by the audience a melancholy one, the delusion that our own situation is any different, any less precarious.

It's a little before nine as I arrive at the entrance, having really taken my time across these last five hundred miles, and as I hand over the eight dollars, the woman tells me to remember to sign in when I get to the trailhead or to the ranger's cabin at the foot of the mountain, and I tell her I will, and then I drive down the road to the lot, which has all of six cars in it, and park my Toyota in the last space that was cleared, right at the edge of the forest, and after I take out my backpack and shut the door I caress the sideview mirror and whisper "You've been a good companion. I hope you make it to two hundred thousand miles."

The sun and the cold feel good, and I laugh as I recall the bit of stunt driving I had to do when I remembered at the very last minute when I happened to be in the left lane of the Van Wyck that a most inconsequential rubicon to anybody but me was about to be crossed, so I eyed every mirror, then slowed the car down to let one car fly by, and then rapidly swerved from left to center to right lane before climbing onto the shoulder and abruptly braking to a complete stop, just in time to take a picture with my flip phone of the odometer reading of _123456_ literally yards before the _6_ changed to a _7,_ and would have left my long-awaited landmark unobserved and unrecorded.

Which raises the question of whether a digital reading that goes unseen makes an image? I'll leave that to future philosophers to ponder as I take one last look at my little banged-up sedan with the missing hubcaps and make my way into the woods.

Light shines through the canopy, and a gauzy emerald glow brightens the primitive path beneath my feet, a trail barely blazed, for razed is not the road a true traveler seeks. These first steps make me think of our approach down into the Grand Canyon on that mule ride I convinced Li Qin to join me on when we took our one and only trip to Las Vegas.

As our wranglers led us down the red clay road around the first turn that opened out into the infinity of the canyon, I nearly let out a scream when I realized not only how narrow the trail was, but how close to its edge the mules that carried us intended to stick. Yet it was Li Qin who stayed stoic throughout, her fearlessness identical to what she displayed during the worst sort of turbulence we encountered when in flight, her fierce belief in destiny rendering her immune to the ferocious doubts that drove me quietly mad whenever I was not the one at the controls.

_If it's meant to be_ were words she lived by, and if I had possessed her unshakable faith and ambition, well, I would have never left the priesthood and I would have climbed every mountain on earth.

We stayed at the Golden Nugget and got the chance to see Wayne Newton perform at the Stardust before they bulldozed it, just as we got to see Don Ho in Waikiki right before he died.

Li Qin was relentlessly outward bound, determined to see everything on earth there was to see, just as I was endlessly inward bound, content to return to this same mountain so many times, until every rock and every tree seemed familiar, my centripetal yin once again the counterpart to Li Qin's centrifugal yang.

The silver slash of the mile-long ridge connecting the two main peaks is already visible in the distance, my frequent trips here turning the old climber's saying upside down, so that the summit is always nearer than you think and getting there is easier than it looks. It's not long before I get to the pond near the ranger station, and I head towards the trail I took with Isabella, as memories from that day come marching in.

I stop for a sip of water and a couple of apricots as a touch of fatigue sets in, my mild untreated asthma making me wheeze a bit as it always does in the beginning, my albuterol unopened and safe in my medicine cabinet in Queens, a concession to the concerns of Dr. Fleischer when she prescribed it for me, who knew I'd never take it but was pleased when I said I might.

It had been rough for her as we struggled up that endless cascade of bleached rocks in the enormous hollow left from long ago, as if a vast section of the mountain had simply fallen away, leaving behind a stairway to the plateau way above scorchingly steep and unstable, a slow-motion landslide indifferent to the fragile pilgrims determined to climb their way to salvation.

After we'd emerged from the depths I'd kept walking until I realized she hadn't moved, so I took a photo of her near the edge, with her hands on her knees, looking as completely spent as she must have felt, a tiny figure set against the crater, the scene looking like some strange lunar landscape, and I remember Li Qin's combination of pride and shock as she stared at the photograph and said 'You guys came up out of _that_ ?'

The sun is directly overhead by the time I once again emerge from the crater, the summit still hours away, but the freedom of not carrying thirty extra pounds on my back makes most of my previous ascents seem like I did them underwater.

"Or like running through sand, right?" I remind myself, that impromptu climb in Jordan maybe the most unadulterated fun I'd had since I was a kid. Our tour group had gotten driven through

the Wadi Rum valley in jeeps until we reached a tented sanctuary, where trinkets and tea awaited us, a few camels nearby for anyone wanting to play Lawrence of Arabia, but the only thing I was

interested in was the sand mountain a hundred yards away, a mysterious mound seemingly so out of place in the desert it struck me as an oasis of dehydration for a man in need of elevation.

I leapt out of the jeep and asked our guide how long we'd be staying and the answer was forty-five minutes, so I told Li Qin to get her camera if she wanted a picture and that I'd be back in time for tea, and then ran off to my playground and was a hundred feet up and sitting on a shelf beneath an overhang looking out over the valley before she'd wandered over way down below. When she saw me she shouted for me to wave which I did, and then I shouted back 'See you later!' and I crouched and crawled out from my perch the same way I'd gotten in, and then I scrambled up to see if I could get to the top of this semi-mirage.

It was a _semi_ -mirage because sometimes the thing was there but often it wasn't, the butte a metaphorical mass somewhere twixt a rock and a soft place, as my hands and feet would find here some solid crust and there some crumbling dust, the friable pliable stone often shifting to sand just beneath my shoes and right within my hand, and so it took a while to probe for erosion so as not to splitspace my way to a mini-implosion. In no time I made my way to the top of the beast to find that its backside was a ski slope running all the way to sandy bottom, and I took it like a surfer, sliding down down down on the soles of my laceless boat shoes, leaning and lifting on the palms of my hands now and then as I sank and slipped here and there, faster and faster,

tumbling like a tumbleweed but coming to a standing stop as I got to the end of the ride, feeling rather proud as I dusted myself off and walked around the towering sand castle to rejoin the group.

That pride got punctured when I recounted the tale of my adventure to our tour guide, who gently remarked that every so often a person would make a misstep and sink to their death drowning in sand, and afterwards I felt selfish about potentially putting a damper on other people's vacations by placing myself in harm's way. But I'm glad his admonishment arrived _after_ and not before my big adventure.

This painfully rocky plateau goes on for quite a stretch before narrowing out as it rises towards the summit way out on the horizon, the summit itself not a destination but a threshold, where most everyone says 'I don't.' When Isabella and I were approaching the peak all those years ago, a woman who was clearly an elite athlete was heading back down, and we spoke for a while, and I asked her if this was her first time here.

She said, no, that she lived nearby, and she hiked here all the time as part of her training, and that she'd climbed in the Himalayas and was getting ready to return. My daughter assumed she'd

crossed the ridge from the other side and asked her what it was like, and the woman had responded 'Oh, I never go out on the ridge. That's crazy.'

As we parted ways I saw a gleam in Isabella's eyes, but I reluctantly told her 'No way. I can't protect you out there, and you're nowhere near ready. You can hardly breathe, and look at how your legs are shaking.' She was disappointed, but when we'd summited and she'd stared out at the twisting tightrope of rock that seemed to hang in the sky she'd blurted out 'Holy sh*t!' and then 'Sorry, dad!' and I'd smiled and said 'It's okay, bella. Still interested in heading out there?' to which she'd simply said 'Not today,' and I'd answered back, 'Maybe someday. But not with me.' And then we'd had ourselves a bite to eat and I took a few pictures while she sketched a pretty detailed outline of the entire horseshoe-shaped mountain, and after we'd gotten ourselves reinvigorated we'd made our way back down and to the car before dusk.

As I drink the last of my water, I look out at the same panorama she'd traced out, and I wonder if she ever turned her drawing into a painting. My Timex reads three-twenty, which is partly the

reason I'm the only one on the peak right now and completely the reason there's no one so far as I can see out on the ridge. It takes a minimum of three hours to get from one side to the other, and then another three hours at least to get back down the mountain, so by this time you need to be concluding your high-wire act, not starting it.

I make my way towards the ridge, the relatively flat peak quickly giving way to huge, jagged, interlaced fingers of granite forming a zig-zagging line in the sky, having forgotten the concentration it takes and the exertion that's needed just to crawl slow as a sloth along the spiky spine of this razor's edge.

Fifty-seven years, and I feel them all as the minutes tick by, twilight on its way and exhaustion setting in. Several peaks between the twins, but before I reach the next to last, there is that slab of rock a hundred feet long and three feet wide that must be bridged, dead drops a mile down on either side.

It sits at perhaps a thirty-degree angle and the wind is strong but not ferocious, and so I stand and dash across it without a second thought, my previous record of fifteen minutes slashed by fourteen minutes fifty-five seconds as I replace a crawling straddle with a carefree sprint, my heart not racing due to the method of the madness of my pacing.

The wall of rock ahead is hundreds of feet high and fully exposed to the valley down below, and on its other side is where the ashes of my wife still wind and whirl, but before I scale it there is a

recess here where I can rest, to sit for a while and look out at the world, the clouds kissing my lips, the sun warming my face, the wind waving my hair, and the memories of Li Qin and Isabella

billowing and breaking my heart.

I struggle to extract my notepad from the pocket of my jeans, but I move as quickly as I can, for the light that's fading from the sky is shining in my mind, and I scribble the lines of a poem I'm

composing from somewhere out there as I watch a raven soaring just above, and when I'm done I tuck the notepad back behind my wallet, and I get up on wobbly legs, ready for my final assault.

It's difficult, because with so little oxygen and without food and water, this last mile truly has been the longest. Holds are easy to find but far apart, and the sun is setting by the time I'm near the top of the cliff, my right hand grasping an outside corner, my left halfway inside a narrow fracture of a fissure a yard away, each foot lodged in notches just a few inches deep, my position precarious, but only if I stop.

I stop, and relax into this spot, legs starting to tremble, hands beginning to tire, the darkness deepening, and I remember Li Qin that first moment I saw her, the most beautiful creature in all

God's creation, and she chose _me_. To love. To honor. To cherish. "And I do, bella. I always will." Tears fill my eyes, and now it's almost impossible to see, but that's okay.

I think of Isabella, and my left hand drops, the pain from my old shoulder injury winning out, so now I'm just holding on lightly with my right hand, as I turn my face away from the mountain and stare off into the horizon, seeing an infinity of images from my little girl's life surround me like a sphere from the very moment she was born, but the slipstream of images coalesce and converge into just one, that wonderful day around the waterfall, when we raced and chased and cornered and caught a glance and a glimpse of eternity.

"Ah, yes, Salvius Chisciotte was indeed a good man and a good father, wasn't he, bella?" And I can see you nodding yes, my child, right there, just beyond my rapture, as my body falls free, and my soul your dreams may capture.

Ten

The Queen Mary had worked its way north to Iceland, but at Reykjavik Isabella stayed onboard. However, as the liner now approached Bar Harbor, the last port of call before docking in New York, she was first in line to march into Maine, and when she set foot on the oceanside town, she walked right to the bus that would shuttle her straight to Thunder Hole just a few miles south in Acadia Park.

She'd finished the two paintings and given one to Brynn the day before yesterday, doing her best not to appear abrupt while giving the woman little reason to call on her again, and so now she would spend a little time alone in one of her favorite places before heading downtown to the gallery to see Gabriel.

She gets off the bus with some effort, her backpack lightly packed but awkward to carry, filled with a folding travel chair and the other painting secured inside a Fedex box and wrapped within her portfolio, and walks towards the inlet, not so easy on this really windy day, the skies overcast and the waves crashing, the booming sounds of Thunder Hole apocalyptically audible as she approaches.

"This is as close as I get," she decides, her willingness to get soaked by Mother Nature not extending to the artwork she's brought along. Tucked behind a protective shoulder of rock at the back end of the dramatic cliff and away from the vortex of fury, she puts down her pack, pulls out the chair and opens it, a makeshift throne in a kingdom of one.

Not a single soul in sight, which suits her fine, and she surveys the sea as she sinks in her sling, the pounding of the water and the sounding of the surf a rhythmic raging dance between the tide against the turf.

This coastal anomaly is for her a tiny replica and reminder of the cavernous inlet in Sorrento her father took her into from the Piazza Tasso, the dark staircase slinking down hundreds of yards to the valley below, the towering cliffs tightly bracketing the mile-long walkway roadway that led to the marina.

As they had emerged from the shadows, he'd pointed up at a hotel perched at the very edge of the cliff way up above, and told her that Enrico Caruso used to keep a room there, and that sometimes he would open the windows and sing an aria that could be heard right here where they were walking.

Salvius had played Pavarotti's version of Lucio Dalla's _Caruso_ for Isabella numerous times, and he had sung it for her whenever she asked, and she asked often. And of course she'd asked again when they were right there near the Gulf of Naples staring up trying to imagine from which terrace the great tenor had serenaded his countrymen, and as wave after wave storms into Thunder Hole and sends up erupting gushers of water surging into the sky and concussive detonations shaking and shivering her bones, she closes her eyes and gives herself over to the exquisite violence of this time and place, taking her and bringing her back to that other time and place with her father as he filled those walls with his music and charmed his child with his song, and Isabella loses herself in this moment as memories and melodies come together while she comes slowly apart, giving in to that touch of madness that brings a trace of bliss.

She remembers asking him after he'd stopping singing and they were walking back to the stairs to meet up again with her mother at that luxury souvenir shop if it was his daughter Caruso was pouring his heart out to in the song. _Un uomo_

_abbraccia una ragazza dopo che aveva pianto... A man hugs a young girl after she'd been crying..._ And he'd told her it could have referred either to his daughter or to his second wife, who was half his age when they'd met. He'd died early into the marriage, and Gloria, his little girl, was perhaps two years old at the time.

'That's so sad,' she'd said to him, but he insisted it wasn't, explaining how triumphant a life the man had led, how he came from nothing and spent his days doing what he loved all around the world, inspiring people while he was living and long after he'd died. 'What that is, bella, is a _good_ life, and so you shouldn't feel sad.'

She opens her eyes and gets up from her chair, and walks out to cliff's edge, looking out at the roiling waters as the crashing waves smash against the rocks again and again behind her, echoes from the past resounding amidst the echoes all around her, and she smiles at the vibrancy of his memory and his voice and his love, and then she walks back and gathers her gear so she can go see Gabriel.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"This is a stunning piece!" the gallery owner says convincingly, as he hands Isabella her commission check for the paintings he's sold since he last saw her. "Will you make more copies?" he asks, knowing how easily it will sell and already toying with buying this one himself.

"Yes, but I can't say when," she replies as she searches the walls for _World's Edge_ until she finds it, the price tag five hundred dollars higher than what she recalled.

"This one you _must_ make more of, Isabella. I have just two left, and one sells every few months."

Her daddy's mountain. Where he lived and where he died.

"Next time I come by, Gabriel. I promise. I'll have a few more copies for you." She doesn't look at him as she speaks, hypnotized instead by her own creation, an otherworldly depiction of that razor's edge she only ever saw from a distance.

"Some day," she whispers to the framed apparition. "Some day."

"What's that?" Gabriel asks as he gracefully takes her arm in his.

"Nothing, handsome," she says as she kisses him goodbye on his cheek. "Just the mountain in my dreams," he hears as she slips out of his embrace and glides out from his studio.

Much later on and back onboard, Najid calls ahead with a strange request, and then meets her for dinner along with an unexpected guest – a very old man from a very special place.

"Alessio Camilleri, this is Isabella Chisciotte," Najid says as he makes the introductions and motions for everyone to sit down. "I asked the concierge that if she should encounter someone from Sicily who spoke the language, to please inquire as to whether that individual might be willing to perform a bit of translation on behalf of the Queen Mary's beautiful and talented pianist," he explains to Isabella, totally surprising her as she enthusiastically thanks Mr.

Camilleri while nearly tearing her handbag to pieces as she quickly locates her father's slim Moleskine journal, the only one she has not yet read, her Italian lessons insufficient to the task of translating the only bit of writing he'd done in his native Sicilian tongue.

"Oh, it's my pleasure! Please... let me see," he says as she hands him the little notebook and then takes out a paper and pen.

The elderly Sicilian man has only wisps of white hair on his head but bushy white eyebrows, and his hands are thick and they struggle as he leafs through the pages of the diary.

"This is a man in love," he says joyously, his ancient milky eyes misty now, just as Isabella's vague suspicions begin to clarify. She _knew_ there was another woman. And here at last was the proof.

"I love the way she makes everything she wears look so stylish," he begins. "I love the way the only place she perspires is on the tip of her nose. I love that the only place where she's ticklish is INSIDE her navel." Isabella feels momentarily uncomfortable, but she certainly isn't going to ask the man to stop. She knew her father well enough to know, she hopes, that even in a secret language there were things he would simply never write down.

"I adore the sound of her speaking voice. I love that she's thoroughly tone-deaf, but still tries to sing. I love that she thinks she needs make-up. I love how tough she thinks she is. I love how tough she actually is. I love how far into the future she can see. I love that she holds everyone to such high standards, but that she holds herself to an even higher one. I love how it pains her to look at Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart. I love how completely in another world she is when she first wakes up. I love how she giggles and gets so mellow when she's had too much to drink. I love how she thinks I resemble so many good-looking actors even though I know I don't. I love how she understands technology so I don't have to. I love cooking for her. I love how much she loves her stuffed panda bear collection."

It _isn't_ another woman, Isabella slowly realizes.

"I love her passion to see every last corner of the earth. I love how proud she is of my singing. I love how she turns the kitchen into a danger zone every time she tries to cook. I love the iron discipline she taught Isabella."

After a few minutes Camilleri stops translating and she stops writing. "Your father was obviously very much in love with your mother," he says, stating the now bewilderingly obvious.

"Yes," she manages, choking back the tears. "He very clearly was," she whispers, and thanks both men while excusing herself so she can escape to her cabin to try to take in what she's learned.

Eleven

_He's not a bodybuilder like my boy next door,_ Harris thinks to herself as the intern receptionist leads him into her office. _He's a weightlifter or maybe a powerlifter,_ she was never sure which was which, and one time Ethan sought to explain the distinction _during_ one of their brief encounters. _Even dumber than he looks,_ she's

forced to silently confess. Anyway, whichever he is, the young man is huge.

"Mister Miguel Gutiérrez, this is Doctor Harris," Amy announces, altogether shocked to hear a 'Thank you, Miss _Pujari_ ' as she turns to walk away.

"Please sit down, Mister Gutiérrez – may I call you Miguel?" she asks, but the ' _Yes, of course_ ' she gets out of him is blatantly contradicted by the stern and downright menacing expression on his face, an expression that perhaps has gotten chiseled in by the millions of pounds he's picked up night and day over the years, but she doubts it. Where Priscilla was protective of her precious pastor, this boy looks like he'd kill for him.

_So let's tread lightly, girl._ "Thank you. And please call me Rachel," she offers. "Will do," he offers back, his voice deep as a cavern, and just as unsettling.

"Now I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you know why I wish to speak with you, and as it turns out, you will be the very last person I interview as I prepare my psychological profile of Pastor Chisciotte for his daughter," she begins, trying but failing to get a read on a face that seems to have affected a permanent scowl.

"All that means is that along with your impressions, it would be helpful to me if during our interview I refer to something you believe needs correction or clarification, that you please won't hesitate to let me know," she continues, getting nothing back but a nearly imperceptible nod.

"Let me start by asking how it was that you first met him?" she asks.

"Arm-wrestling," he replies. "He beat me in arm-wrestling in the hospital cafeteria. I think it was four or five years ago."

Rachel looks at her notes and photos. Chisciotte was five-eleven, maybe a hundred and ninety pounds. Miguel is over six feet and at least two hundred and forty pounds of solid muscle.

She gives him a puzzled look. "Were you... lifting weights back then?"

He smiles. "Since I was fifteen. I weigh about the same right now as that day. It's not about strength. He taught me that."

She doesn't respond, seeing he very much wants to tell his story.

"So there were a bunch of us having lunch, the ones that go to the gym, we hang out together, and we're arguing about who's got better technique on squats or who's got the highest dead lift, or whatever. We weren't too rowdy at the beginning, you know, but then one of them challenged me to an arm-wrestle, and next thing you know, I beat the guy, and then Phil, I think, wants to challenge me, and we maybe start getting loud, and then Pastor Sal walks over

and just stands there for a while, not saying anything, just like a spectator, you know?

"And we all get a little quiet, because we sort of know who he is, and now we feel embarrassed, because we think he's going to tell us to quiet down or something, but he doesn't." Harris watches as he gets more and more animated, rapidly transforming from a brooding hulk to an engaging young man.

" _So which of you here is the champ?_ he says to us," Miguel recalls, clearly remembering what was said word for word, "and I tell him 'I am. Why?' And he says _Well, I haven't arm-wrestled since, well, since I was your age. So how about it?_ So I said 'Don't think I'll take it easy on you, Sir,' and he goes _It doesn't matter what you do or don't do. There's no chance of you winning. I'm just asking if you want to arm-wrestle._

"So I'm saying to myself hell no he did _not_ just say that, and meanwhile the guy across from me stands right up and gives Pastor Sal his chair yelling 'Let's get it on!' like the octagon fights, you know, and so he sits down, and asks if I'm right-handed, and I say of course, and he acts all casual and says, _That's okay. It won't make a difference._ But now I'm thinking, damn, not only he's old but he's left-handed, and I'm feeling bad, because, like, what the hell chance is he gonna have now, but I ignore it, because after all, _he_ challenged _me._

"So he lays his left arm flat on the table and I do the same, and we lock grips, because that's how the pros do it when they don't have the handle, and then we get set, and he says to one of the guys to count down three, two, one, go, but as soon as we grip our right hands I know I'm in trouble because he's clamping my hand like a bolt cutter, and the match is over the second the guy says go. I never had a chance."

Harris is intrigued that Miguel seems delighted with his loss, so she presses.

"How did you react?"

"I mean, I was in shock, and the guys were all like 'He kicked your ass, bro,' but I wasn't paying attention, because Pastor Sal is telling me _Thanks for letting me play_ and then he walks off, but I get up and walk with him and ask him how the hell he did that, and he says _We'll talk about that some other time, but let me ask you something more important,_ and I'm so f*cking – excuse me – I'm so freaking impressed with how he just did what he did I say sure, what is it?

" _Do you know why I sat down to arm-wrestle with you?_ and I say no, not really, because he didn't strike me as a show-off, you know? And then he explains to me how all of us there at the table were so loud you could hear us from all the way across the room, and that did I realize that other people might have wanted to say something, but that they were intimidated, that even though they might be doctors and nurses and so forth, it was still a table filled with very young and very strong men who might just send you to your own emergency room if you said something that rubbed them the wrong way, which was why no one said anything to them. To _us._ "

Miguel's face softens, and he looks chastened, just the way he probably did when Pastor Sal said this to him, Harris realizes, as her apprehension towards this increasingly gentle giant turns to something like affection as he opens up to her.

"So I said no, I hadn't thought about that, and I told him I was sorry, but then he says _You have nothing to apologize for to me, and you should never apologize for being strong. The stronger you are – in every way – the more you can do for those around you. But nothing is stronger than being a gentleman._ And that was that."

Miguel is quiet as he plays back the episode in his mind, and Rachel sees that for him it's obviously as if it happened only moments ago. "So when was the next time he tried to speak with you?" she asks, suspecting Chisciotte had more lectures in mind for the young man, and of course one couldn't rule out less noble motives.

"Never," he says flatly.

"What do you mean never?" she demands, thrown off a bit by his reply.

"I mean never," he responds. "Didn't have to. After he threw me down like that, I talked to him every chance I got, because I wanted to learn the secret, you know? But I found out that was the least of the things he could teach me, but it was funny, because as much as he knew, he kept it to himself, which is the opposite of everybody I know. Everybody else, they know one little thing, they try to tell the whole world what they know, and definitely they try to make money off it. But Pastor Sal? Just thinking about it makes me laugh," he says as he chuckles to himself.

"What's that?" she prods, finding herself now too impatient to wait for him to tell her.

"See," he whispers conspiratorially, "he would always say to everybody, _Anything you want, any help you need, all you have to do is ask. But you shouldn't ASK!_ Which was true, you did have to ask. But really he meant it for himself. I think he'd sooner cut his arm off than ask anybody for anything. Meanwhile,

he helped absolutely everybody with absolutely everything."

"As long as they asked," Harris adds, and Miguel nods in agreement.

"But that day in the cafeteria nobody asked him for help," she points out.

"Nah, see, you're not getting him," he explains, as if to an uncomprehending child. "Nobody asked because they were afraid. Afraid doesn't count. Afraid means now he's gonna come down like hellfire on whatever's making you afraid." And now Miguel's eyes light up because he remembers a perfect example of that hellfire.

"Yeah, so one day a transporter puts one of his co-workers in a headlock for some reason, horseplay, you know – now I wasn't there, I heard this from somebody else, just in case you're wondering – so Pastor Sal happens to be walking by, must've seen what was going on, and he says to the guy doing the headlock, 'Why don't you try putting _me_ in a headlock? Might be more interesting.' And the guy, instead of apologizing and so forth, he lets the co-

worker go, and he _does_ put Pastor Sal in a headlock, and Pastor Sal – get this! – says to him, 'Sure you don't want to cinch it a little tighter?' which the guy does! I mean, that's what I heard. And then when it looks like there's no freaking way he's gonna get out of this lock, Pastor Sal completely relaxes, lets his body drop like a stone, making the guy bend over now from the weight, and then he just explodes out of the lock, slams the guy backwards into a wall, throws him down to the floor like a WWF wrestler would, and pins him to the ground with his arm pressed deep into the guy's neck, until he finally lets him get back up. Then he turns to the guy who'd gotten headlocked and says to him 'So that's one way you can use to get out of a chokehold. You find me if you want to learn a few more.' I could tell you a hundred stories like that."

The ninja. The singer. The mountain climber. The knight in shining armor. The consoler. The arm wrestler. The loving husband. The Saint, Salvius. Sans sins. No warts. Closets without skeletons. I get it, I get it, she silently screams in her head. Rachel Harris had gotten the memo, solved the riddle, seen the light. But she has not yet seen the artwork. So let me get to that before I send Miguel here on his way and try to wrap this case up, she thinks to herself, restlessly shifting ever so slightly in her chair.

"I was told to ask you about your tattoo," she says, "and, naturally, depending on... where it's located, I want very much to see it." She checks herself to make sure not more than a trace of flirtatiousness colors her words, adding "But first, if you don't mind sharing this with me, I'd like to know what made you do it."

Miguel smiles broadly because she's asking him about the greatest day of his life.

"Sixty years to the day," he proudly proclaims, and Rachel must admit she loves the sound of his voice and the way he's promising an intriguing ending to a story he hasn't even told yet.

"I'd been asking him over and over again to take me with him to Katahdin, you _do_ know that's the name of the mountain where he took his life?" he asks as an aside, and she nods an uncertain yes, because in fact she did _not_ know its name but only its location. "Pastor Sal always said never to assume the antecedent question's been answered before you start a line of inquiry, because it's that _first_ question that has to be answered before you move on to the next one, but the trick is _identifying_ which one is the first one.

"Anyway," he goes on, as Rachel grows steadily impressed with the intriguing mind hidden behind hundreds of pounds of muscle, "he kept putting me off because of the risk and because of my weight."

"Your _weight_?" she interrupts.

"Sure," he replies. "Down here gravity's my friend. But up there, well, how many heavyweight mountain climbers have you heard of?" She nods stupidly as he continues.

"Finally I convince him, but only if I let him come to my house to speak with my parents about what we'll be facing up there," he recalls with a frown. "And I had no problem with that, because I do what I want. I mean, this was three years ago, and even though I was living with them at the time, I was twenty-two years old. I love my mother and father to death, but if I make my mind up to do something, nobody's gonna tell me different.

"But it mattered to him, and besides he wasn't going to take me with him otherwise." All at once, Miguel's face takes on a solemn and serious expression. "Doctor Harris, you should have seen him there with my mom and dad, telling them that of course he would watch out for me up there, but that there would be so many times and places where I would be on my own, where he couldn't possibly protect me, that I'd be completely exhausted but would still have to climb through the most treacherous crossings under the most difficult conditions, and that the rocks would be slippery and the wind would be brutal, and then he told them how many climbers slide off, fall off, or just plain get blown off that ridge year in and year out, and that there'd be no way he could live with himself if they didn't completely understand what the risks were and what was truly involved with this expedition, and I'll tell you, after all that, _I_ was the one who started to wonder if I was really ready to do this thing."

_Took_ his life?

Rachel is suddenly jolted by what she just realized he'd said. "Miguel, excuse me. I'm sorry for interrupting. Did you say just a minute ago that Katahdin was where Pastor Sal _lost_ his life or where he _took_ his life?"

"Where he _took_ his own life, of course. He sure as hell didn't fall off," Miguel admonishes as he reiterates. But then he recalculates. "I apologize for that, Doctor Harris. Of course you think it's an open question." And she looks at him hard, indeed thinking, yes, my hulking friend, it damn well still is an open question.

"That's understandable," he condescendingly concedes. "You never saw him climb."

He ignores the possibility of a follow-up question, and goes on with his story. "So my parents thanked him for his concerns and for taking the time to come see them, but then told him just I like told you that once I decide to do something, that's pretty much it, so just make sure you're both careful, et cetera and so on.

"And Pastor Sal was okay with that, and I think he respected how they stayed out of my business even though my life used to be their business, if you see what I mean? Anyway, let me just get to the important part.

"May twenty-ninth, two thousand thirteen. Sixty years to the day that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made it to the top of Everest – that's the day Pastor Sal and I went from one side of Katahdin to the other. And of _course_ that's why he chose that day. Nine point two miles in fifteen hours. Towards the end it was nearly nine o'clock at night and I'd started hallucinating that I was seeing flaming red toucans on the trail as we got to the end," Miguel says as he laughs himself silly at the memory.

"Best day of my life," he declares matter-of-factly. "And hence the tattoo," he haughtily but playfully adds, standing up and taking off first his pullover and then his tee-shirt, which has a bigger-than-lifesize tiger's head with its white whiskers and golden eyes painted on it, revealing a torso so deeply rippled and thickly muscled it makes Ethan seem weak and anorexic by comparison. He turns to show Rachel his back, and what she sees is the image of a samurai

battling a dragon within a chaos of cloud and fire, but it's the amazing intensity and contrast of the colors that makes a canvas of his back and not just a cartoon, and she tells him so.

"And what does this represent for you, Miguel? And why on your back?" she asks with far more sincerity than she would have thought possible prior to speaking with him.

"You know, all through that climb, right from the very beginning, when we hadn't even gotten to the mountain, and I was already exhausted just in the three miles that it took to get to where the trails split up, and then as we were fighting our way up Cathedral, which was like scaling a skyscraper, and then when we got to the ridge and I almost sh*t my pants – sorry! – when I saw where we'd have to go, and then a hundred times along that ridge where I cramped up three different times at the worst possible moments, Pastor Sal would be putting his arm around my shoulder, calming me down, talking me through it, telling me to breathe, to take my time – even when I _knew for a fact_ we were running out of

time, because if the sun sets before we get down to the bottom, we're sleeping in the forest, and if the sun sets while we're on the ridge, forget it, we would have been dead – and then one thing I'll never forget he said at the most frightening time, when after ten hours of climbing we get to that vertical wall staring up at us at Pamola Peak, which we _have_ to climb to get out, and it's _raining_ , which means we have to climb it wet, and it's been ten _hours_ of insane climbing, which means we have to climb it dead tired, he turns to me and says _You know what a metaphor is, right Miguel?_ And I'm thinking what the f*ck are you asking me right now when I'm about to die, but I say, yeah, I know what it is, it's where you say one thing which you're comparing to something else. And he says _That's exactly right. A metaphor is a way of getting to the truth of something. But climbing a mountain_ _IS the truth. And getting to the top of this wall, right here, right now, well, that's going to get you to the truth... of you. But you won't do it with strength. And you won't do it with speed. And you won't do it with guts. You're too tired. And the wall's too slick. You'll do it with humility. Be humble as you head up there, and with a little luck, the_

_mountain will let you live to climb another day._ "

Doctor Rachel Harris has never in her entire life listened to anyone so intently, hanging on this young man's every word as if he were telling her the secret of life itself, and she waits, wanting to smash him in the face for daring to pause in the telling of his tale.

"Well, obviously I did it, or we wouldn't be here talking," he says with a devilish grin, well aware that he's captivated the one who's supposed to be the expert on the mind.

"So what I learned that day from him, is that if I could do _that_ , I could do anything. So whenever any obstacle big or small is in front of me, I remember what's right behind me, which is why it's on my back, by the way, and I remember what I did that day, and I say to myself, _Of course_ I can do this."

She decides to test this assertion of positive thinking, but does it politely, truly not wishing to diminish the lesson he believes he's taken from his experience. "So, since that day, have there been any obstacles you feel you've overcome as a result of your climb?"

"Does getting accepted to medical school count?" he beams, knowing she sure as hell did not expect that answer from a musclehead. "I was struggling just trying to become a radiographer, you know, an X-Ray tech, but not long after the climb, Pastor Sal says to me, _Don't you know the name of every last muscle and tendon in the body from your weightlifting books?_ I said of course I did. And he said _So what makes you think you can't learn the name and function of every other part? You should be in medical school, Miguel. It's just another mountain, and it's got your name on it._ In passing, you know? That's how he'd said it. I wish he were here to have seen me get that letter in the mail."

He's more here in this room than I am, Rachel muses, adding yet another new experience to her quiver.

She gets up, unnerved both by Pastor Sal's out of body echoes and Mister Gutiérrez's upper body contours, but she thanks him for taking the time to see her and wishes him success in his studies, sincere for reasons good and bad when she hands him her card with her cell pencilled in and tells him to call if he ever needs some advice.

After he's gone, she sits there in silence, reflecting that not one of her protégés adored or admired her the way Miguel does Chisciotte, and not one worked as hard as this guy must have worked to get from where he was to where he is.

"And I bet he inspired a hundred other people in just the same way," she says to the degrees on her wall, her life's work suddenly not so inspiring in the harsh light of a man whose blinding illumination makes her feel, at least at the moment, very much like a flashlight.

Desideratum

"When's your flight to Cairo?" she asks him, the Queen Mary visible from their thirty-third floor hotel room blocks away from but nonetheless overlooking the Hudson, the two of them staring out the window at the mobile home they'll be away from for a month, Najid not having seen family and old friends in over a year, and Isabella needing to be at her father's lake house, to stay there for a while and straighten it out, clean things up, and start turning it into what it was

maybe meant to be... no, what it _should_ be. _Their_ home away from home.

"A few hours. Two o'clock," he says. "What about you? When are you supposed to meet with Harris?"

"One. But I'm going to walk there. Clear my head. Which means this is arrivederci... for quite a long time," she says sadly as she holds him close.

"Bella," he whispers, and she clings to him ever closer as he invokes her father's memory with that single word, his voice the lullaby she so desperately needs.

"Yes?" she whispers back, hearing nothing but the past.

"Listen to me," he says. "I think he was much happier than you ever imagined. Do you believe me?"

And it doesn't matter to her how important it is for him to know how she feels, because she now _does_ believe it, and so she has no reason to lie.

"I do," she replies, gazing into his beautiful, dark, loving eyes. "Thank you, my love. Now let go of me. I'm not a fan of long good-byes," she says as she reluctantly breaks from his embrace and reaches for her bag.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Please tell her to wait there, Amy. I'll be right out," Harris says to her decidedly baffled intern, who has within just the last couple of weeks not only heard the psychobitch use the words _please_ and _thank you_ , but she's even gotten her goddamned last name right.

Isabella's face assumes the same expression as Ms. Pujari's when Dr. Harris emerges from her office, walks over to the reception desk and shakes her hand with both of hers, causing Chisciotte's daughter to almost recoil in response, though she quickly recovers.

"Isabella, welcome back," she says, guiding her towards the elevator. "It's such a lovely day, I thought we'd find ourselves a place to sit and have our conversation outside in the park – if that's all right with you?" she asks, Isabella wordlessly consenting as she accompanies the possibly bi-polar shrink to their al fresco confab.

They sit quietly for a few moments, and then Harris proceeds.

"Your father has proven to be... by far... the most interesting man I've never met," she says, looking straight ahead as she speaks, choosing her words far less carefully than she usually does, and moving immediately to what her client hired her to find out. "I do not believe he died by accident, and I certainly do not believe there was _ever_ any other woman in his life than your mother."

Isabella nods her head, already sure about the one, and convinced by Camilleri's translation about the other. "So... why do you think he did it?"

"I said I don't believe it was an _accident_. But I don't believe it was a suicide, either. Certainly not in the sense of the _taking_ of one's life."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Isabella snaps, thinking she knows where this is headed, and that it leads to her. As if she wasn't overwhelmed with enough guilt, this woman was about to paint her father's death as an eternal condemnation. Of her. The ultimate rebuke to a daughter who deserved to lose _both_ of the parents she discarded like yesterday's trash. But those are her _own_ thoughts, and not at all those of Dr. Harris.

"I mean that, I believe, in his mind, his work in this life was done," Rachel says as she talks to Isabella without taking her eyes off her. "There are so many things I found out about your father, some of which of course you know, but many, many of which you absolutely do not. And I hope to tell you about all of them in due course. But for right now what I need to tell you is that if I ever doubted that there was such a thing as the purely altruistic love of everything and everyone in sight, well, Salvius Chisciotte is proof that I was... mistaken.

"He gave all he could to all he met for seemingly all his life, until he lost his wife, his mother, his best friend, his voice instructor, and when there was no one left to care for, and nothing left for him to give, he went to the place he loved, where he'd gone perhaps a hundred times, and gave himself over to the mountain. To me, that is _not_ a suicide. That is a man ending his life as he'd led it. With love. With passion. Without fear. And without regret."

"What about _me_?!" Isabella asks, knowing how selfish it sounds, but unable to help herself, and not giving a damn how it might sound to Harris. " _I_ was still here for him to care for. Why would he leave _me_? Despite what I'd done? And _not_ give me the chance to... " she can't finish her thought as she chokes up, and just sits there in silence.

Rachel takes Isabella's hands in hers once again, and says softly, "I have an idea about that, but I'm not there yet. I'll need your help. I need you to think back, and tell me about the happiest, most intimate moment you ever shared with him. What was it? _Where_ was it? And take your ti – " she starts to say, but Isabella has already reached inside her bag and retrieved the answer to the doctor's query.

It's a photograph of Taughannock Falls as seen from above, this one taken at the start of winter, a long ribbon of water surrounded by rock and framed by frosted trees, a snapshot she took when the two of them walked along the path opposite the falls, way over on the other side of the gorge, and she'd found a small clearing in the brush that created a shot that made it seem as if the scene were being seen for the first time, a private viewing of a true motion picture.

As Harris admires the photo, Isabella tells her about the amazing day at the waterfall, and then mentions she's headed there, well, not far from there, right after the two of them conclude their meeting.

"Taughannock? Isn't that near Ithaca?" Harris asks with an edge of agitation.

"It is," Isabella replies, "Just a few miles away."

"How are you getting there?" she demands, sensing something that's coming together for her but that's still refusing to materialize.

"I was going to rent a car – " Isabella begins to say.

"Forget that. Do you mind flying up there? With me along, I mean? And drive right to Taughannock?" But she's already dialing her admin.

"Well, sure, but what on earth... " Isabella stops talking as she realizes Harris very much wants to figure this out, and so she sees no reason to get in her way.

"Jim? I need two tickets on JetBlue for the next flight to Ithaca out of Newark. And tell the driver I'll meet him in front of the building in five minutes. Call me the minute it's booked. Oh, and call Leslie, and tell her to cover tonight's class for me. No way I'll be back in time. Thanks."

"I'll need to make a stop at my hotel to pick up my bags," Isabella reminds herself as well as Harris.

"Then let's get going. It's a forty-five minute flight. We'll still have plenty of daylight," Harris says, mostly to herself.

Isabella is curious about exactly what's going on in this determined woman's head, but there's a time to ask questions and there's a time for following orders. So she quickens her pace.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It wasn't even four o'clock by the time the two of them found themselves walking across the small bridge not far from the foot of the falls, the roar of the water not like after the snow melt, but still deafening, the yellow and red of the autumn leaves starting to crowd out the green as the fall foliage worked its way to fruition. _It's October first_ , Isabella thought to herself, remembering that nonno's birthday was sometime this month. _My God, how long since I've called my father's father?_ she wondered, suddenly deeply ashamed. "I've got his number somewhere," she says to herself as she walks along the stone path until it ends, then leaning on the little barrier overlooking the pool down below that the two of them waded through seemingly a lifetime ago to get to the shoals on the inner banks of this tiny swirling sea. "I'll call him tonight," she says with resolve, but at the moment her resolution is fixed firmly in the past, as her present dissolves into daydreams as joyous as the man who invariably made them real.

Harris is standing midway on the bridge, paying mind neither to Isabella nor to the beauty all around, but to the small journal in her hand, open to the last page on which Salvius wrote in the final hours of his life, at the lovely poem he composed, which she reads again and again, until she looks up above the mouth of the falls and sees a hawk emerging as if launching into outer space, and that's when she screams "ISABELLA!" so loud Isabella turns to look at her as she's startled out of her own introspections, and promptly begins walking back to find out what has unhinged Harris.

She meets up with her on the bridge to find her crying, a woman she'd thought a bloodless bitch now as uncontrollably flowing with tears as the two-hundred foot waterfall pouring down before them.

Rachel stands there gripping the wooden plank of the railing to support a body that for once is not so steady, and holds open the journal as she presses it into Isabella's hand.

"He wrote this poem to _you_ , Bella," deliberately calling her by the name Chisciotte called every woman he ever met. "This was... his farewell," she sobs, having a hard enough time speaking through her tears without the added complication of never having had the experience of doing so.

Isabella quietly reads the lines she had been so sure he'd written to some new love that had come into his life...

Wild birds racing in the sky,

soaring toward angelic grace,

cascades rush down jagged slate,

seeking out that sacred space,

lonely sculptors tapping marble,

searching for a perfect face,

but well beyond their dreams,

there lives a vision so unreal,

that one can scarce believe,

and now that I have seen her,

my soul is flame without reprieve.

"His last day... up on that mountain, maybe he'd seen a hawk or an eagle sailing by, just like I did a moment ago, and he thought of _this_ place, and _that_ day with you, beneath _these_ falls, that meant every bit as much to him as it does to you... and _this_ is what he wrote. _These_ were his last words. And they were for _you._ " For the first time she's telling someone what they _want_ to hear instead of what they need to hear, because this time they are the same thing, and even if she's wrong, there's no question that this man loved Isabella beyond time, beyond space... beyond _death_? Rachel smiles at the ludicrous idea Pastor Salvius

Chisciotte has somehow managed to – posthumously, no less – surreptitiously sneak into her assiduously atheist mind, while next to her Isabella stops reading as she too has been swept off within her own vale of tears.

They walk back to the car and drive in silence to the tiny airport on the outskirts of Ithaca so Harris can get back to Manhattan, but when Isabella stops the car to let her off, the doctor does not open the door.

"Something wrong?" Isabella says, then realizes she still owes Dr. Harris the remainder of her fee. "Oh, I almost forgot. Let me write you a check."

"No. Don't you dare. I overcharged you to begin with. That's not what this is."

Isabella says nothing, aware that this is definitely not the same woman she first met, and that whatever Harris is going through right now, she's as confused about it as Isabella is.

"I've never done this before, and given what you probably think of me, I'm not expecting very much." Harris has her arms folded, embracing herself as tightly as possible, looking straight ahead as she says "I don't have a single actual friend. Not one," she declares, an admission that, while hardly surprising to her, does surprise Isabella both with its naked declaration and its effect, eliciting sympathy for someone that, until today, inspired only the coldest contempt. "What I'm asking... what I want... is to try to become _your_ friend. If I can."

Isabella sits there staring at her, not truly shocked, as she realizes, that, after all, this human glacier has had a total immersion in her dad's holy water these last few weeks, and no one could win that battle.

"He really got to you, didn't he?" she says, breaking the ice a little more.

Rachel turns to look at her, the tears once again beyond her control. "I really do want a chance to get to know your father's daughter. If she'll let me."

Isabella smiles and takes Rachel's hand. "Oh, I know he would have liked that," she says. "Why don't we start with dinner? Do you like brick oven pizza?"

"Very much."

"Good, because I know a place. Right by the lake. But it's old school. And we won't get served for hours. I'll explain why on the drive up."

Harris nods absently, her guard down and out, maybe for good, maybe not. But she's still new at this, and these things take time. Especially if you're an imbecile.

Isabella closes her eyes for a moment so she can see her father, and then she puts the car in drive and pulls out from the curb, as she exits the airport and finally begins to make her way back, at long last, towards home.

∞

A Sicilian born in Scotland raised in America,

this is Salvatore A. Traina's fourth novel. He is a trained singer, a kempo practitioner, an avid mountain climber, and has been married for over thirty years to a force of nature named Loron. He has written a father-and-son memoir, an investing handbook gleaned from his decade as a stockbroker, and numerous short stories, travel journals, articles, and essays. He may be contacted at...

gutenbergho@gmail.com.

