Stardust(23)

“And the others? You seemed surprised.”

She made a half smile. “Maybe I’m like Germany. I didn’t want to know. So I didn’t. And now everyone will know—” She stopped. “But how can I be angry? He didn’t owe me that.” She covered her eyes with her hand, a pretend sunshade. For a moment neither of them said anything, the air so quiet he could hear the drain flaps in the pool. “You know before, when I said I didn’t know he was unhappy? I should have known, because I see it now.”

“Everybody says that after. They should have seen—”

“No, it’s true. Not unhappy—troubled. Maybe this woman. I don’t know.” She looked at him. “I still don’t want to know, do you understand that?”

He walked toward the pool, thinking.

“How long? I mean, when did you notice?”

She got up, gathering her robe, the movement like a reluctant sigh. “Not long. The summer, the end of the summer. So now you can find the girl and ask her, what happened this summer, all right? Then maybe you’ll be satisfied.” She belted the robe. “But it wasn’t us. We were all right. We were just the way we were.”


THE HOSPITAL seemed busier at night—trays being collected, nurses changing shifts. Danny was alone in the room, oblivious.

“He wouldn’t just leave,” Liesl said, looking for her father, then spied him at the end of the corridor in the smoking lounge with another man, not as tall, looking around hesitantly, like someone trying to make small talk. “My uncle Dieter,” she said. “Look how they stand. See how stiff?”

“His brother?”

“My mother’s. The truth is they don’t like each other. When my mother was alive, it was different. Now he only comes when you have to, for appearances. My father’s birthday, things like that.”

“Or like this.”

“Yes,” she said, looking down. “But not only for that. He liked Daniel. Everybody did.” Already in the past.

“He lives here, too?”

“Pasadena. Come, before they quarrel.”

But when they joined the men, the mood seemed polite, not at all contentious, Danny’s situation overriding whatever irritation there might have been. Introductions were made, doctors’ visits discussed— and then they were all back on watch, drifting between Danny’s room and the hall, fidgeting, looking for something to do. Only Ben stayed fixed, holding Danny’s hand again, convinced against all sense that Danny could feel it, use it to climb back. When the two men got up to go to dinner Liesl went out with them to the hall, a family huddle, leaving Ben alone. Talk to me, he thought, tell me why before you go. At least that. The battered face had lost its power to upset him, used to it now, but the waiting itself had become oppressive, making him logy, his mind dense with still air. When the first sound came, he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard anything, just his own wish, but the second was real. He lifted his head sharply, as if someone had snapped fingers in his face.

“Ben.” Still faint, a little croaky, but there. He grasped Danny’s hand, waiting for his eyes to flutter open.

“Yes. I’m here.”

“Ben,” the voice said again, the tone slightly puzzled, working things out.

“Danny, my god.”

The eyes open now but blinking against the light.

“You’re in the hospital. Do you remember anything?”

The blinking stopped, his eyes steadier, wetting his lips, focusing.

“Danny.”

Then his eyes closed, a kind of resignation.

“Danny, let me get the others. They’re just outside. Everyone— Liesl, her father, Dieter. We didn’t know if you’d make it—”

He got up, ready to bolt across the room, but Danny made a hiss, an attention-getter, his mouth so dry it was difficult now to speak. Ben leaned close to his face.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice raspy, urgent.

Ben lifted his head, disconcerted. Did Danny know it was him? All these years, and now suddenly clinging. Maybe what happened at the end, any life raft.

“Don’t,” he said again.

“No, I won’t. It’s going to be all right now.” Elated by the unexpectedness of it. “I’ll just get Liesl,” Ben said, excited, racing across the room and flinging open the door. “He’s awake!”

They all looked at him, stunned. Liesl got to the bed first.

“Daniel?” she said, then, when there was no response, turned to Ben. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Daniel? But he looks the same.”