The man absorbed this quietly.
Simon clasped Reuben’s right wrist very hard, but Reuben ignored this.
How can I make it clearer, Reuben was thinking.
“And you say he’s gone now,” the man asked.
“Without a trace, as they say,” Reuben answered. “Just gone.” He made a gesture with his two hands to suggest the rising of smoke.
He knew this must be utterly incomprehensible to the two lawyers, but he was slamming it home. He had to.
The man was as placid and seemingly trusting as before.
“I felt under attack, you understand,” said Reuben. “The woman with me was under attack. I love this woman very much. It was unfair for her to have been threatened under my roof. I did what I had to do.”
Again Simon tried to protest. Arthur Hammermill was plainly stunned.
The man was the one who raised his hand for Simon to remain quiet.
“I understand,” he said, looking into Reuben’s eyes. “I am so sorry—so very sorry for this completely unexpected turn of events.”
Suddenly, Reuben took the gold watch out of his pocket, and moved it across the table to the man. “This was left behind,” he said in a small voice.
The man looked at the watch for a long moment before he reached for it and held it reverently in both hands. He looked at the face of it and then at the back. He sighed. His expression was somber for the first time, a marked departure, and perhaps even a little disappointed.
“Ah, poor reckling,” he said under his breath as he looked again at the face of the watch. “Your wandering is at an end.”
“What is a reckling?” asked Arthur Hammermill. He was pale with frustration and annoyance.
“A runt,” said Reuben. “It’s an old English word for ‘runt.’ ”
The man’s eyes flashed with pleasure as he smiled at Reuben, but he remained grieved, grieved as he turned the watch again in his hand.
“Yes, so sorry,” he whispered. He put the watch in his pocket. He took the letter carefully and slipped it inside his jacket. “Forgive me my eccentric vocabulary. I know too many languages, too many ancient books.”
The lawyers were clearly flustered, exchanging glances.
Reuben forged ahead.
“Well, perhaps it’s easy for one in my situation to offend others,” said Reuben. He put his right hand in his lap because it was trembling. “After all, it’s a magnificent house,” he said. “A magnificent property, a magnificent responsibility, some might say a Chrism of sorts …” His face was burning.
There was a tiny shift in the man’s gaze.
They regarded one another for a long moment.
The man looked as though he was about to say something momentous, but he sat silent for a while longer and then said only, “And we do not always ask for a Chrism.”
“A Chrism?” Simon whispered with exasperation, and Arthur Hammermill nodded and mumbled something under his breath.
“No, quite the opposite,” said Reuben. “But a man would be a fool who didn’t cherish a Chrism for what it is.”
The man smiled. It was a sad smile, what the world calls a philosophical smile.
“Then I haven’t offended you?” Reuben asked. His voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“No, not at all,” said the man. His voice grew softer, and eloquent with feeling. “The young are the only hope we have.”
Reuben swallowed. He was now trembling all over. The sweat had broken out on his upper lip. He felt wobbly but exhilarated.
“I’ve never faced such challenges,” said Reuben. “I think you can well imagine that. I want to face these challenges with resolve and strength.”
“Obviously,” said the man. “We call it fortitude, do we not?”
“Now, that’s a good English word I understand,” said Simon with Arthur Hammermill nodding vigorously in support.
“Thank you.” Reuben blushed. “I think I fell in love with the house, I know I fell in love with Marchent. And I became enamored of Felix Nideck, with the idea of him, the explorer, the scholar—the teacher perhaps.” He paused, then: “Those diaries written in that mysterious script. The house is full of treasures, and those tablets, those tiny fragile tablets. Even the name Nideck is a mystery. I found the name in an old short story. So many names in the house seem connected to old stories—Sperver, Gorlagon, even Marrok. There’s a poetry and romance to that, isn’t there—finding names that resonate with mysteries in lore and legend, finding names that promise revelations in a world where the questions multiply every day—.”
“Reuben, please!” said Simon, raising his voice.
“You have a flair for the poetic,” murmured Arthur Hammermill, rolling his eyes. “Your father would be justly proud.”
Simon Oliver visibly bristled.
The man’s smile was easy and again almost doting. He pressed his lips together and gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“I’m enthralled,” said Reuben. “I’ve been overwhelmed. I’m glad to see you’re more sanguine on the matter, because your friend was pessimistic, grim.”
“Well, we can forget about him now, can’t we?” the man whispered. He appeared to be marveling in his own way.
“I imagined Felix Nideck to be a fount of knowledge, maybe secret knowledge,” Reuben said. “You know, someone who would know the answers to so many questions, what my father calls cosmic questions, someone who could shed some light into the darkest corners of this life.”
Simon shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and so did Arthur Hammermill, as if they were signaling one another. Reuben ignored them.
The man was simply staring at him with those large compassionate eyes.
“It must be marvelous for you,” said Reuben, “to read that secret writing. Just last night, I found ledgers filled with that secret writing, very old. Very old indeed.”
“Did you?” asked the man gently.
“Yes, they go way back. Years back. Years before Felix Nideck can have been alive. Your ancestors must have known the secret writing. Unless of course Felix had some great secret of longevity that no one knows. One could almost believe it in that house. That house is a labyrinth. Did you know, it has secret stairways, actually, and a large secret room?”
The lawyers were both clearing their throats at the same time.
The man’s face registered only quiet understanding.
“Seems there were scientists once working in that house, doctors perhaps. It’s impossible to know now of course unless one can read that secret writing. Marchent tried long ago to have it decoded—.”
“Did she?”
“But no one could crack it. You’re in possession of a rather valuable skill.”
Simon again tried to interrupt. Reuben rode over him.
“The house prompts me to imagine things,” said Reuben, “that Felix Nideck is still somehow alive, that he’s going to come and somehow explain things which on my own I can’t grasp, may never grasp.”
“Reuben, please, if you will, I think perhaps—,” said Simon who actually started to rise to his feet.
“Sit down, Simon,” said Reuben.
“It never entered my mind that you knew so much of Felix Nideck,” said the man gently. “I didn’t realize that you knew anything of him at all.”
“Oh, I know many little things about him,” said Reuben. “He was a lover of Hawthorne, Keats, those old European gothic stories, and he even loved theology. He was a lover of Teilhard de Chardin. I found a little book in the house, Teilhard’s How I Believe. I should have brought it to you. I forgot to bring it. I’ve been treating it rather like a sacred relic. It was inscribed to Felix by one of his good friends.”
The man’s face underwent another subtle shift, but the openness, the generosity, remained. “Teilhard,” he said. “Such a brilliant and original thinker.” He dropped his voice just a little. “ ‘Our doubts, like our misfortunes, are the price we have to pay for
the fulfillment of the universe.…’ ”
Reuben nodded. He couldn’t suppress a smile.
“ ‘Evil is inevitable,’ ” Reuben quoted, “ ‘in the course of a creation which develops within time.’ ”
The man was speechless. Then very softly, with a radiant smile, he said, “Amen.”
Arthur Hammermill was staring at Reuben as if Reuben had lost his mind. Reuben went on:
“Marchent painted such a vivid portrait of Felix,” he said. “Everybody who knew him enriches it, deepens it. He’s part of the house. It’s impossible to live there and not know Felix Nideck.”
“I see,” said the man in the softest voice.
The lawyers were about to attempt another intervention. Reuben raised his voice slightly.
“Why did he vanish like that?” Reuben asked. “What became of him? Why would he leave Marchent and his family the way he did?”
Arthur Hammermill immediately interrupted. “Well, all of this has been investigated,” he interjected, “and actually Felix here does not have anything to add that would help us with this—.”
“Of course not,” said Reuben under his breath. “I was asking him to speculate, Mr. Hammermill. I just thought he might have some sterling idea.”
“I don’t mind discussing it,” said the man. He reached over to his left and patted the back of Arthur’s hand.
He looked at Reuben.
“We can’t know the whole truth of it,” he said. “I suspect Felix Nideck was betrayed.”
“ ‘Betrayed’?” Reuben asked. His mind shot at once to that enigmatic inscription in the Teilhard book: We have survived this; we can survive anything. A jumble of fragmentary memories came back to him. “ ‘Betrayed,’ ” he said.
“He would never have abandoned Marchent,” said the man. “He didn’t trust his nephew and his nephew’s wife to raise their children. It wasn’t his intention to drop out of their lives as he did.”
Bits and snatches of conversation were coming back. Abel Nideck had not gotten along with his uncle; something about money. What was it? Abel Nideck had come into some money, right after Felix went away.
In a low rumbling voice Arthur began whispering in the man’s ear, cautioning that these were all serious questions and such, and should be discussed in another place and at another time.
The man nodded absently and dismissively. He looked again at Reuben.
“It was undoubtedly bitter for Marchent; it must have cast a shadow over her life.”
“Oh, without question, it did,” said Reuben. He was powerfully excited. His heart pounded like a drum, setting the pace of the conversation. “She suspected something bad had happened, not only to him but to his friends, all of his close friends.”
Simon tried to interrupt.
“Sometimes it’s better not to know the whole story,” the man said. “Sometimes, people should be spared the whole truth.”
“You think so?” said Reuben. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe in Marchent’s case, and in the case of Felix. How can I know? But right now, I’m a guy who is craving the truth, craving answers, craving some understanding of things, an insight, any insight, a clue—.”
“These are family matters!” said Arthur Hammermill in a deep, crushing voice. “Matters in which you have no right—.”
“Please, Arthur!” said the man. “It is important for me to hear these things. Please, if you will, let us continue?”
But Reuben had come to an impasse. He wanted to leave the room, to confront this person alone somewhere no matter what the danger. Why must they go through this little drama in front of Simon and Hammermill?
“Why did you want this meeting?” he demanded suddenly. He was trembling as badly as ever. His palms were wet.
The man didn’t respond.
Oh, if only Laura were in this room. She’d know what to say, Reuben thought.
“Are you a man of honor?” Reuben asked.
The lawyers were beside themselves in a frenzy of mumbling that made Reuben think of kettledrums. That’s just what it sounded like, kettledrums at the symphony, rumbling under the music.
“Yes,” said the man. He appeared utterly genuine, sincere. “If I were not a man of honor,” the man suggested, “I would not be here.”
“Then will you give me your word of honor you’re not offended by my dealings with your friend? That you mean me no harm on account of what happened to him, that you’ll leave me and my lady friend alone!”
“For the love of heaven!” declared Arthur Hammermill. “Are you accusing my client—?”
“I give it,” the man said. “You undoubtedly did what you had to do.” He reached across the table. But he couldn’t reach Reuben’s hand. “I give it,” he said again, his hand still open, helplessly.
“Yes,” said Reuben, struggling to find the words, “I did what I had to do. I did what I felt driven to do. I did this—with Marrok and in other pressing matters as well.”
“Yes,” said the man softly. “Truly, I understand.”
Reuben drew himself up in the chair. “You want Felix’s possessions?” he asked. “You can have them, of course. I only moved to purchase them because I thought it was what Marchent wanted me to do, to take care of them, to see that they were protected, preserved, donated to a library, to the academy, I don’t know. Come and get them. Take them. They’re yours.”
Both lawyers began speaking at once, Simon vigorously protesting that it was too early to reach such an agreement, that sums of money had changed hands having to do with these possessions, that some sort of new inventory was required, something a lot more detailed than had been done; Arthur Hammermill was averring in low, quasi-hostile tones that no one had ever told him that the artifacts were of museum quality, and that they would have to discuss this in detail.
“You may have the possessions,” said Reuben, politely ignoring both men.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I appreciate this more deeply than I can say.”
Simon started shuffling his papers and making notes, and Arthur Hammermill was texting something on his BlackBerry.
“Would you allow me to visit you?” the man asked Reuben.
“Of course,” said Reuben. “You could have come anytime. You know where we are. You’ve obviously always known. I want you to visit. I want you to come! I would love—.” He was almost stammering.
The man smiled and nodded.
“I wish I could visit with you now. Unfortunately, I have to go. I haven’t much time. I’m expected back in Paris. I’ll call you very soon, just as soon as I can.”
Reuben felt the tears threatening, tears of relief.
Suddenly the man rose to his feet, and so did Reuben.
They met at the end of the table, and the man clasped Reuben’s hand.
“The young reinvent the universe,” he said. “And they give the new universe to us as their gift.”
“But sometimes the young make terrible mistakes. The young need the wisdom of the old.”
The man smiled. “They do and they don’t,” he said. Then he spoke the words that Reuben had quoted from Teilhard only moments ago. “ ‘Evil is inevitable in the course of a creation which develops within time.’ ”
He left with Arthur Hammermill rushing to overtake him.
Simon was in a paroxysm. He attempted to coax Reuben back down into a chair.
“You know your mother wants you to see this doctor and frankly I think that she’s got a point.” He was winding up for a huge lecture and a full interrogation. This had not gone well, they had to talk about this, no, this had not gone well at all. “And you should call your mother right away.”
But Reuben knew it had been a victory.
And he knew as well that there was nothing he could do to clarify things for Simon, or to mollify him, or to reassure him. So he went directly to find Laura, and to leave.
When he came on Laura in the waiting room, the man was with her, holding her right hand in both of his, talking to he
r in a soft intimate voice.
“… you will never be in danger from such an intrusion again.”
Laura murmured her thanks for his assurances. She was slightly dazed.
Flashing a smile at Reuben, and making a small bow, the man withdrew immediately and disappeared down a corridor of dark paneled doors.
As soon as they were alone in the elevator, Reuben asked, “What did he say to you?”
“That it had been an extraordinary pleasure to meet you,” Laura said, “and that he’d been shamed by the actions of his friend, that we’d never be visited by someone like that again, that—.” She broke off. She was a little shaken. “It is Felix, isn’t it? This man is actually truly Felix Nideck himself.”
“Without doubt,” said Reuben. “Laura, I think I won the battle, if there was a battle. I think we’re in the clear.”
On the way to the restaurant for dinner, he recounted the entire conversation as best he could.
“He had to be telling you the truth,” Laura said. “He would never have sought me out, spoken to me, if he weren’t sincere.” A shudder passed through her. “And perhaps he knows all the answers, the answers to everything, and he’ll be willing to tell you all he knows.”
“Let’s hope,” said Reuben. But he could hardly contain his happiness and his relief.
They hit the North Beach café well before the dinner rush, and easily scored a table by the glass doors. The rain had slacked off and a blue sky had broken through, which was wonderfully in keeping with Reuben’s mood. People were sitting at the outdoor tables in spite of the cold. Columbus Avenue was busy as always. The city seemed bright and fresh, not the grim nightscape he had fled.
He was elated; he couldn’t hide it. It was like the break in the rain, the sudden expanding of the blue sky.
When he thought again of Felix standing there, holding Laura’s hand and talking to her, he could have cried. He was quietly proud of how attractive she had been in that moment, in her gray wool pants and sweater, sleek and groomed and shining. She’d worn her white hair tied at the nape of her neck with a ribbon as was her custom, and she’d given a beaming smile to Felix as he’d withdrawn.