Far Afield

X

71 X Later in recalling my first meeting with Stanley, it surprised me that I didn’t stop then to fully consider all the implications of he and Trevor being brothers (especially since I’d been with the other only hours earlier), and that in the end, they were likely to possess more, and more complicated, inward similarities than outward differences .Idon’tknowwhetherthelattercourseofthingswouldhave been easier or substantially different, but certainly my thoughts on matters would have changed, and given that one’s thoughts provide the only real source of solace, that is of no small concern. As I remember it, I rushed to leave Stanley’s house (“bolted” is the more apt word), pausing only to stutter a curt good-bye to Stanley’s wife and nearly turn an ankle stepping into an upturned child’s bicycle helmet. I did have enough presence of mind to look for Sono but she was nowhere in sight. When I got outside, Wilkie also was nowhere to be seen and for a moment I thought he had misunderstood me and that I’d have to wait for him to return (thinking also that I would rather linger on the street than re-enter that deluded, torn-apart household ). But then I saw his Renault parked down the block under a cluster of kapok trees and heard the sounds of opera blaring from his car speakers. When he saw me approaching, he partially turned down the music and swung open the back door. 72 Far Afield “Did you get what you wanted?” he asked. He was even more cheerful than when I’d left him. The distressing music had put him in a good mood. “Sort of,” I muttered, awash in the scalding bath of self-ridicule. When Wilkie saw me last, I was stepping forward with, if not determination and expectancy, at least a modicum of purpose. Now even that had been drained from me and replaced with an abject humiliation. I took off my coat and got heavily into the car. “What is that?” I asked. “Ponchielli, La Gioconda,” he said with pleasure. “Beautiful and grand.” So that he didn’t get the notion to turn it up again (normally I am fine with such matters, but not now), I quickly unhatched my briefcase, took out some papers, and pretended to study them. As Wilkie waited, I saw his eyes become half-lidded and his knuckles begin to keep allegretto on the steering wheel. One should never attempt to question the source of another man’s passion, I thought. It can only underestimate the both of you. I let a few moments of purposeless shuffling go by, feeling more dispirited with every aria and recitative. Looking though my materials , I suddenly was struck by how much information I now was responsible for . . . and how little of it made sense. I also saw that one of my cheap new markers had leaked and ruined the file Trevor had prepared for me on “FAVORITE DOMESTIC ANIMALS.” I shut my briefcase and laid it on the seat, not wishing to acknowledge any of its contents. “So what’s your impression of Stanley?” I asked Wilkie for the lack of anything better to say. “You mean, what kind of person do I think he is?” he answered, his eyes opening with a draggy reluctance. I nodded. “Nothing special,” said Wilkie, thinking. “Just an unhappy man with a wife and kids, isn’t that usually it? Like I said, he’s never spoken to me. More than ten years, too.” “What about Nao?” “If that’s his wife now, I never met her.” Scott Brown 73 “He was married before?” “Once, a long time ago. I never met her either, but I saw pictures.” “Do you remember anything about her?” Wilkie considered. “She had a face kind of like a ferret’s, only not so many whiskers.” I sighed. “What about the grandmother? Do you remember what she used to say about him?” “Some.” His eyes were open now. “She didn’t talk too much about the family. She would only say something at the start of the month when she was writing the checks.” He stopped with the employee’s instinct not to talk too freely about his employer. “It’s all right,” I said, “I know how they live. What did she say?” He hesitated. “It was usually something about Trevor. How he...