Episodul 96 · An Offer at the Gate

He walked them to the gate. In the doorway, Tesa turned once toward the courtyard, the chair by the water and the mug on the stone. Varren followed her gaze.

— I’ll move it, he said. There’s no point anymore.

In the street, Krista slipped a hand into her coat pocket. Key number fourteen struck the key to Soles’s house, iron against iron, with a small, clear chime only she heard.

No. Tesa heard it too.

They walked to the corner without speaking. There Tesa stopped and pulled up her hood though it was not raining.

— I made him a promise, she said. So I’ll know if he keeps his word.

— And if he doesn’t?

— Then I’ll know that too.

Krista clenched the keys until her palm hurt. On the way home she realized that, for the first time since she had known Soles, she had something she could not tell him. And that of everyone in that city, he was the one person who would never think to ask.

Soles saw her coming from the kitchen window, a shopping bag in each hand. Earlier, while the kettle warmed, he had found Leonatus waiting by the narrow leaves. This time the soldier had moved aside and left a place level with his own feet.

Soles had stood there. He remembered the railing, Tesa caught against the man’s chest, his own fist wanting to strike.

Beside me.

No praise. Leonatus had looked at him as though he might hold that place. Then the kettle clicked off, and Soles returned to the window.

The car had been there half an hour. A clean, dark car with the engine off, parked across the street beneath the neighbors’ walnut tree. The man inside was not reading, talking on the phone, or sleeping. He waited with his hands on the wheel, as at a traffic light.

When Krista reached the gate, the car door opened.

Soles set his mug on the windowsill and went out. On the second step, his rib told him what it thought of that. He did not answer it.

The man was already beside Krista. He was about fifty, in a good overcoat and shoes that had never touched the gravel of a courtyard. He smiled. The smile was proper, well measured, and went nowhere.

— Ms. Krista. Forgive me for calling on you here. I tried the office, but, well. You know. I’m from the foundation.

Krista did not put down her bags.

— I know who you are.

— Then I’ll be brief so I don’t keep you in the cold. He turned his gaze to Soles, weighed him for a fraction of a second, and decided he did not matter. — The foundation wants the exhibition to continue. We’ve wanted that from the start, believe me. The room could reopen tomorrow. The committee is willing. There’s one small condition. The copies you gave the investigator belong to the archive, not to you. Let the archive answer for them. Withdraw your signature. No one is asking you to lie. We’re only asking that you no longer be the face of this story.

Soles leaned against the gatepost and watched him.

How does this man want me to see him?

As a friend. As someone who had come of his own accord, in his good coat, to save something beautiful from an ugly scandal, despite others who could not be bothered. He kept his hands visible and open, his palms turned slightly up, like a man who had nothing to hide and wanted everyone to see it.

Soles knew the pattern from the docks. Anyone who came to save you uninvited usually needed saving himself. And this man did not look at Krista when he spoke about the room. He glanced at the car every few sentences, briefly, the way someone looks at the door of an office where a more important man is waiting.

Krista was silent. Soles saw her hands tighten around the bag handles.

— The people in the photographs, she said at last. Do you know what the labels under them say? Staff. Thirty years of it. The exhibition was the only place they appeared by name.

— And they still can, the foundation man said gently. That’s what I’m offering you.

— No. That’s what you’re offering so I’ll leave them under staff once again. Only this time with my signature.

His smile remained, but something behind it left.

— Please think about it.

— I have, Krista said. On the walk here, with the bags. I’m withdrawing nothing. Tell them I’m sorry about the room.

The foundation man stayed another moment. Then he nodded politely to her, less politely to Soles, and crossed the street. The car started on the second try.

Krista remained in the gate with the bags in her hands, watching it go.

— I’ve just killed the exhibition, she said.

— You didn’t, Soles said. That wasn’t his idea. He’s afraid of someone. Not you. He kept checking the car to see if anyone was watching.

— Is that supposed to make me feel better?

— No. But it means someone sent a man to ask you. People send someone else to ask only when they’re afraid to ask themselves.

Krista watched him for a long moment, and Soles felt for an instant as though he were the one being read, rib and all, including what he was not saying. Then she held out one of the bags.

— Hold this. You have bad ribs, but your hands are good.

— Tesa said the same thing.

— Tesa’s usually right.

Inside, Lucky greeted them as though a soldier had come home from war, while Mina merely touched Krista’s knee with her white muzzle and returned to her blanket. Krista took soup, bread, two jars of pickles from the kiosk on the corner, and a bag of apples out of the shopping bags. Soles looked at them.

— Thanks so much, he said.

For the second time that day. Krista stopped with a jar in her hand, looked at him, and set it down on the table very slowly.

They ate in the kitchen. Soles asked what she had done all day, and she said, “Logbooks.” He nodded and asked nothing more. He never asked for more than he was told.

By the time they finished the soup, it was fully dark outside. Soles stood to wash the dishes. Krista took the plate from his hand without a word. He sat back down. His rib allowed it.

— Stay tonight, he said, looking at the table. Maxim’s on the night run until morning. The sofa’s better than it looks. It’s just… I don’t like the thought of you being out after a man like that comes to the gate.

Krista looked at her wet hands in the sink.

— I’ll stay.