“He read the Aristotle in Greek,” Donna said, looking out the window to Cavanaugh Street. “I don’t think Tommy understood a word of it. He just liked sitting on Father Tibor’s lap.”
“Aristotle he may have read in Greek, but the big art book he read in English and also the story about King Arthur and the knights.” Old George shook his head. “He is a very bright child. Tommy. You can’t blame him. Tibor used the words and Tommy learned the words and that was that.”
“I don’t think that’s something Tommy ought to be blamed for,” Gregor said seriously. “All you hear about these days is children who can’t read and teenagers who don’t know how to say anything but ‘like’ and ‘man’ and ‘huh’ and ‘duh.’ I think it’s a good thing Tommy is getting a good vocabulary.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t a good thing in the long run,” old George said.
“I think it’s a good thing even in the short run,” Gregor said.
Donna was still looking out old George’s front window. She didn’t seem to be listening to them.
“Donna?” Gregor asked.
Donna started. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Excuse me. I must have been daydreaming.”
“You do a lot of daydreaming lately,” old George said, sounding sharp.
“I did a lot of daydreaming as a child too,” Donna told him. “Well. I’d better get upstairs. I’ve got work to do before I go to pick up Tommy. We’ll come in right after lunch if it’s all right with you, George.”
“You come in for lunch,” George said. “I have still got very much food.”
“Yes. Well. Maybe we will. I’ll see you two later, okay?”
Donna gave them both a little tight smile and retreated into George’s foyer. Gregor watched her extract her parka from under his coat and head for the door. She must have stopped in to see George after dropping Tommy at play group. Was she really desperately unhappy, or was Gregor imagining things? It was at times like this that he missed his wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth would have known how to read Donna Moradanyan. She had even known how to read J. Edgar Hoover. Gregor had relied on her for everything, and then she had died.
There was a crock of tutumov rechel next to George’s white plastic box. Gregor stuck a finger in it, came up with a little blob of jelly, and stuck it in his mouth. Linda Melajian’s tutumov rechel was always so sweet.
“All right,” Gregor said. “So something is wrong with Donna Moradanyan, and nobody wants to tell me what. That’s par for the course. Nobody tells me anything.”
“It is not a question of nobody wants to tell you, Krekor. It is a question of you have not asked.”
“I’m asking now,” Gregor pointed out.
Old George nodded. “I know that, Krekor. I am thinking of how to go about it so that you understand. You see, Tommy is going to play group now, every day for two hours in the morning.”
“So? Don’t tell me Donna is feeling old and wishing he’d always be a baby? She’s got more sense than that.”
“Donna is not wishing he would always be a baby, Krekor. It is Tommy we are concerned with here, not Donna. When Tommy goes to play group, he meets all kinds of children, more than he knew before.”
“So?” Gregor asked again.
“So,” old George said, “he is an intelligent child. He takes after, I think, his mother. He goes to play group and he notices that almost all the other children there, they have fathers. Most of them, they have fathers to come home to. Some of them, they have fathers who are divorced, they have to go somewhere to visit. But almost all of them, Krekor, have fathers.”
“Ah,” Gregor said. “I take it this is upsetting him?”
“You could put it that way,” old George said.
“Well, what about Peter? I know he’s not very responsible, but he is the boy’s father and he doesn’t live that far away. Hadn’t he got a job in New York last time we heard?”
Peter Desarian was the young man who had gotten Donna Moradanyan pregnant and disappeared—except not quite, because Gregor had gone off to find him. To say that Peter Desarian was “irresponsible” was a little like saying that Adolf Hitler had had something against the Jews. Old George Tekemanian had gone very stiff at the mere mention of the young man’s name.
“If we have heard that Peter is having a job in New York,” he said, “it is on jungle drums, Krekor. Peter does not write.”
“Does Donna want him to?”
“No, Donna does not want him to. But this does not solve our problem now. There was an incident, you see. With Tommy.”