All the Old Knives (5 page)

When she admitted to having become a fan of rave music while in Dublin, I insisted on taking her around to the local venues. I escorted her to Flex, the Rhiz, and the Pratersauna, and with a steady supply of mixed drinks and Advil I was able to survive the pounding noise and underaged crowds. I eventually grew to enjoy it myself. We danced—when was the last time I'd really
danced
? Celia fit so perfectly into my hands that I believed that not only had I come to a more peaceful place, I had become someone different in Vienna. For the first time in memory, I was learning to enjoy myself.

Yet she and I took time. In a handful of alcoholic slips we made out behind clubs, but she kept me at arm's length. I soon learned that while she was giving me a little of herself, she was also giving much more of herself to other men. I had to learn to set aside jealousy. I learned how not to possess a woman.

I'm still not sure how we moved from friends to lovers—whatever alchemy took place, it happened in her head. She had moved to a desk in the embassy, working under Bill, and our time together was suddenly cut in half. I pined for her, but I'd grown used to that ache. I suspect that absence really did make her heart grow fonder, for in a Turkish restaurant in Wieden she said, “I'm tired, Henry. Take me home.” Only once we reached her apartment did I understand the full meaning of her words.

And there it was, precisely as I had hoped when I met her in Vick's office. We were in love, and for more than a year we made a sort of life together, piecing together hours under the cover of clandestine life in a foreign land. For once I was satisfied, which is really all anyone can ask for.

Then 2006 happened. During the two months leading to the Vienna Airport debacle, the newspapers came alive with reminders of Moscow. Two more members of the Russian investigating team that had looked into the Dubrovka Theater disaster were assassinated. Anna Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. In London, Aleksandr Litvinenko was poisoned by exposure to polonium-210. My anxieties returned: the fear, the shame. I even brought up the subject to my Islamic contacts, and they shook their heads, unmoved. The tragedies that civilization faces come at an alarming rate, and dwelling on something three years old is akin to fretting about Roman history.

Maybe I should have read the signs better. Maybe the reminders of Moscow could have changed what followed. All I know is that those reminders only made me more desperate to make our relationship work. I redoubled my efforts to build a life with Celia, and in the middle of the Flughafen situation I even asked her to move in with me. By then, though, it was too little, too late.

 

9

Our waitress gives us an education. It's not enough to tell us that the veal is succulent; she has to explain how humanely the young cow was raised, what it ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and how its brief life was cut short “in a stress-free environment.” Stress, I infer, makes the veal that much less succulent. The cheese course requires a lesson in pasteurizing techniques. The vegetables give us insight into the horrors of pesticides, while the wine pairings test the limits of our considerable geography skills. The flatbread, we're told, is housemade.

“What?” I ask.

“Housemade,” she repeats.

“Homemade?”

She shakes her head, the ponytail quivering at the end of her height. “No. Housemade.”

Celia orders appetizers for us both and red snapper for herself. I settle on the veal. Once the waitress leaves, Celia whispers, “They think it's European to be so fastidious.”

“Really?”

“It's the only explanation I can come up with,” she says, then laughs aloud, for we both know how childishly simple most European fare is. Boil for six hours, or grill for fifteen minutes, and you're done.

Then, with a smoothness that reminds me of the old Celia, she moves on to the next subject. “Are you following the campaign?”

It takes a full second to realize what campaign she's talking about. The most expensive presidential campaign in history. The first black president against the second Mormon candidate. “I'm trying not to,” I admit.

“I've got no choice. Drew's volunteering. It's all he talks about.”

“For which side?”

“Republican.”

“Jesus.”

She shakes her head. “It's hard times in America. Economy's still a mess, and either you blame Bush for breaking it, or you blame Obama for not fixing it. Everyone has his own answer. But Drew's always been a libertarian at heart, so his course is set.”

“Most rich people are,” I say before noticing the snide slur to my words. So I backtrack. “But don't listen to me. I'm only interested in foreign policy, and as far as I can tell Drew's guy doesn't have one.”

“I'm not disagreeing,” she says, her voice soft, almost coquettish. I get the feeling she's trying to tell me something more. Maybe … maybe nothing.

Then she starts, and I find myself getting more education. Had I known California was so educational I would've come long ago. She tells me about the various political players, both major and minor. She names campaign managers and charts donation paper trails, bemoans super PACs and the inability of the media to climb out of the straitjacket of conventional party politics. “But they're doing it to cater to their audiences. Place a liberal and a conservative in a room and watch them fight. Spectator entertainment—that's what the news has become. And the result? A stunted populace. I mean, not just the throbbing masses, but the elites as well. They've become simple.” Her cheeks are pink.

Celia 2, it turns out, believes in something.

I say, “You've been paying attention.”

She blinks, suddenly self-conscious. “Like I said—it's around the house all day. I don't have much choice.”

Then it's gone. All the political fire, the sociological anxieties, the zealot's earnestness. Like electrons that change when observed, Celia Favreau, realizing that she's being watched, changes back into the woman who, whatever she believes, knows better than to cause waves in a town as pretty as this one. She sips her wine—nearly finished now—and says, “You didn't come here to listen to that, did you?”

“It's nice to see you fired up about something.”

The pink cheeks deepen their hue. I've embarrassed her, which is a kind of victory.

Then she shakes her head. “You had questions, I mean.”

“Sure, I've got questions, but that's not why I came here, Cee. I came to see you. Find out what's going on. The other questions can wait for later.”

“And what's your judgment?”

“I've got no judgment,” I lie, then add a bit of truth. “I'm still collecting intel.”

Another sip, and her glass is empty. A hand moves across the linen tablecloth, and with the pared nail of her index finger she lightly scratches the back of my hand.

I can't help it: For a moment I'm back in time, at the Restaurant Bauer, and even in the midst of the hell that was the Flughafen she looked so good, so put-together. I said,
You want to move in?
And she said,
In?
as a way to stall for time. As a way to maintain control. I had it all mapped out, a new stage in our lives, a way to live a little more like the people you see on the streets. A way to be human.

With her touch, my attention has slipped back down my own anatomy. I have to pee, but I don't want to lose her touch. I'll stay here until I explode.

She says, “A lack of intel never hindered your ability to judge, Henry. Tell me what you're thinking.”

Stay or go? As the pressure in my bladder escalates, this is precisely what I'm thinking. Fight or flight. I turn my hand around, catching hers, and with a smile lift her knuckles to my mouth. One kiss, two. “I'll tell you everything, my dear. Just as soon as I've dealt with more pressing matters.”

Which is the most elegant way I can think of to escape.

 

10

Urinals the world over are part of a fraternity, joined by a masculine insistence on standing while relieving oneself. Is this evolutionary? A way to remain always on guard? Or is it simple laziness? We modern humans are so disconnected from our instincts, and so connected to our leisure, that I suspect the latter as I gaze at the yellow stream noisily leaving me, last seen over Carson City.

In contrast to the spare functionality of most public bathrooms, this one has been decorated with framed photos of Greek villages, white clay structures rambling down to blue water. In one I recognize Santorini, where I vacationed disastrously with Matty, one of our last conjoined excursions. The monologues never quit, not on the shopping avenues, the beach, or the rocks we climbed, not at the table, and sadly enough not even in bed. Relaxing in the aridly beautiful Santorini landscape, touched hard by the Mediterranean sun, I found myself dreaming of Celia—Celia, who knew the limits of words, and was content to set them aside.

The rush of water is quieter than I'm used to, for this is a low-flow urinal, built to accommodate Californian water rationing—another sign of the coming apocalypse. A sign in English and Spanish tells employees precisely how to wash their hands. I read, just to be sure I've got it right, then look at myself in the dim mirror, finally seeing what she sees. It's not encouraging. Not drunk, but tired—heavy lids, bloodshot eyes, and on my chin a smear of … what? Oil? From where? I rub at it with some cream soap until it disappears, leaving a red blossom.

Why didn't she tell me?

When I turn to the hand-blower, something in my pocket knocks against the sink, and that's all it takes for everything to come back.

Why I am here.

Okay, maybe I'm a little buzzed as I dry my hands under the whine of the hot-air fan and then fumble with the Siemens, remembering to turn on the recorder. A red-yellow-green meter shows me the levels. “Hello,” I say to it, watching the meter. “Testing.” I pocket it and, gathering resolve as if I'm collecting stray rice off the floor, step back into the restaurant, nearly bumping into the ponytailed waitress as she passes with a small tray of appetizers.

I shadow her across the restaurant, sometimes stumbling to keep from running into her long, hypnotic legs, before realizing that the appetizers are for us. Her smile as I sit down seems, again, full of pity.

“I do hope you washed your hands,” Celia says as I sit.

“Antibacterial, even.”

“It's a question I ask every hour these days.”

“Drew isn't washing his hands? I've heard that about Republicans.”

She winks, giving me more credit than I deserve. “So you're going to be like that, are you?”

Our waitress has been standing patiently with her tray during the back-and-forth, and now she serves up our plates, identifying each. “For the lady, goat-cheese salad with rucola, bitter greens, and a balsamic emulsion. For the gentleman, fresh mozzarella wrapped in honey-cured, free-range bacon, with a side of rucola.”

At least I'll have an excellent recording of our food.

She notices we've emptied our glasses, and we accept her invitation to drink more. As she heads off, I can't help watching those legs as they navigate around chairs. At one table, a heavy, mostly bald man with a copy of the
San Francisco Chronicle
catches her attention. He's caught mine, because I recognize him from the airport. The angry penny-pincher in the hatchback whom I don't remember from the flight itself.

“Yes, she's very pretty,” says Celia. “But that's youth for you.”

Embarrassed, I shake my head. “I just recognized someone.”

She turns in her chair, and I see how she's pulled up her hair in the back with a tortoiseshell clip to keep those chestnut strands from contaminating her food. “From where?”

“Don't be obvious,” I tell her, and she turns back, embarrassed herself.

“Sorry. A few years away, and all subtlety's gone.”

“Just someone from the airport. Doesn't matter.”

“Maybe it
does
,” she suggests, face serious before breaking into a toothy, condescending grin. “Remember, dear. This is not the real world. You can let down your guard here.”

I may be able to let down my guard, but she shouldn't.

She says, “Your bacon smells divine.”

I spear a log of mozzarella and bacon and hold it out. Surprisingly, she thinks about it, as if it really requires thought. Watching her weight, perhaps. “Live a little,” I tell her. I reach toward her still-so-beautiful mouth, and she gives in. She lives a little, taking it into her mouth, and as soon as her tongue touches the bacon fat her eyes close, lips purse, and she sucks everything off of the fork.

“Mmm,” she says.

Indeed, it's delicious, and we both eat with pleasure, me occasionally glancing at the businessman at the far table, who reads his newspaper between sips of red. The salty pork provokes my thirst, and, just in time, our waitress brings fresh glasses.

“I shouldn't keep drinking,” Celia says as I reach over to her face and, with a finger, wipe off a flake of rucola. Admirably, she doesn't flinch. She just says, “The kids still need to be tucked in.”

“Can't Drew take care of it?”

She nods quickly, almost defensive. “He's amazing with the kids, actually. I sometimes think that if I disappeared, they wouldn't miss a thing. He devotes all his time to them.”

“Except when he's helping the Republicans.”

“Careful.”

The waitress takes away our plates. I raise my glass. “To new ways of living.”

This time, she hesitates. Perhaps she senses irony. Perhaps I'm buzzed enough to let my real feelings slip through the cracks between my words. I don't know. But then she smiles, and we tap glasses and drink. She sets hers down first and stares into my eyes, reading something in there. She says, “Well?”