Second Thoughts: Second Chances

By D. C. Moses

Having met at Ithaca University as graduate students, the millennial year of 2000 soon approaching, Sydney Steinberg and Corinna Kipnis consider each other their exclusive significant other. While after graduation, Corinna takes up a position as reference librarian in her hometown library of Thompsonville, Syd hastens to finish his graduate degree in engineering. But after some irrepressible soul-searching, he decides on a radical change of coursehe will, instead, attempt that more challenging career in the New York financial world he has always aspired to, which, in his estimate, will not only demand his highest level of intellectual mastery but, simultaneously, will also position him at the very cutting edge of significant decision making. This choice and the lifestyle it engenders set Corinna and Syd on deeply discordant life tracks and toward life goals that prove incompatible.
In the meantime, Viktor, Corinnas father and now professor emeritus, has been summoned to California for a hospital visit with his cousin and boyhood hero, Mitchell Kipnis. Despite Mitchells palatial Malibu home, Viktor perceives Mitchells loneliness as a widower and retiree and convinces him that a prolonged vacation in his old hometownThompsonvilleis just what the doctor would have ordered. Additionally, Viktor reminds Mitchell, that his son Paul, has just taken a position at Ely College in Thompsonville and would be an added companion. Mitchell consents to this transition and eventually becomes a thoroughly vibrant part of the whole Thompsonville scene.
Inevitably, Corinna and Syd separate; and through this painful process, Corinna actually begins to fall in love with another personhaving herself attained a depth and confidence she had never before realized.
In this generational and career mix of interesting, well-realized characters, there are more than enough opportunities for dynamic clashes of values and prioritiessmall-town community or big-city glitz? Wealth and power or a dedication to personal development? Parents and their children retaining familial ties between generations or opting to go it alone?
Plenty of opportunity for second thoughts. And hopefully discovering second chances along the way, the reader might be drawn into some thoughtful reevaluation of his own basic assumptions. And that is, of course, the best of all outcomes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503534735

D. C. Moses

In this third novel by D. C. Moses, Second thoughts: Second Chances, the author has once again drawn upon a cornucopia of impressions and personalities gathered after decades of living in a dozen states from coast-to-coast across the nation. Most recently, D. C. Moses spent several years producing and helping direct investor communications for a well-known LA real estate investment firm. She came to this position from a sharply contrasting background of high school and college teaching of English and creative writing, twice heading up departments. Previous to her academic career, she managed an advertising copy department at a Fairbanks, Alaska, TV station. She is a holder of an MA in creative writing from the University of Iowa and a former graduate of Antioch College. She presently makes her home in the Midwest.

Book preview

Second Thoughts:

Second Chances

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D. C. MOSES

Copyright © 2015 by D. C. MOSES.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015903392

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-3471-1

                Softcover         978-1-5035-3472-8

                eBook              978-1-5035-3473-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/06/2015

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Reprise One: Mitchell And Viktor

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Reprise Two: Rachel And Her Families

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Remembering Lester

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Chapter One

H ow had it all come to be?

His eyes swept over the sturdy brick walls of his garret studio apartment. Well, maybe not a garret exactly. More precisely a reconverted brewery loft. A defunct storehouse, actually. Less affected that. More honest by half. And maybe not even his. Not yet. Not entirely.

Opposite, patches of brick wall glinted in dusky radiance under the skylight, glowing darkly under the long-fingered probe of the afternoon sun. Barely outlined—the few pieces he had managed to acquire and place in his newly acquired anonymous space.

A padded oriental bedroll hugged its windowless corner. Half-concealed by a Japanese screen all over twig-legged scarlet flamingos feeding, diverting attention from the diminutive stall shower and lavatory abutting. On the nearer right wall, a scarred plank farm kitchen table varnished to iridescence was tucked under a large lead-mullioned window. Along the remainder of the wall, a six-yard run of assorted wooden cupboards included a double-door wardrobe, suitable for closeting clothing, and tiers of varied-depth drawers that now stored a miscellany of art materials and cookware. In the adjacent recessed corner mantled by open shelves, two deep, darkly lustrous zinc utility sinks mirrored light from the clerestory and shone upon an easel, a high stool, and a folding camp chair.

In front and in the center, separated from the work area, was a trim, buff two-seater banked by a brace of chocolate bark-cloth easy chairs and an oversize granny rocker, all confronting a massive low circular oak claw-foot captain’s table.

A smile invaded his face. Not bad, he admitted. Not bad at all.

He forced himself out of this comfortable attack of complacency and faced the remaining task of the evening. Shrugging the straps of his backpack loaded with books over his shoulders, he scooped up two cardboard boxes filled with slides and miscellaneous art materials from the kitchen table. Once through the heavy splinter-inflicting oak door of his studio, its sole entrance and exit, he was forced to set the boxes down again. He needed both hands to engage hasp over staple and press to the padlock that secured his digs. Smiling once more, he pumped his way down the double flight of rough-hewn stairs, emerging finally into deepening twilight.

He confronted the semicircular road that led past the freshly green-painted double barn doors of the lower ex-brewery. The front yard presented a deep half circle of crushed granite. A neat stage setting for the grove-sized stand of century-old oaks, beech, and maple that had been planted here and now rose proprietarily into the night sky.

Taking his usual left-hand turn at the end of the driveway, he maneuvered his Volkswagen minibus onto Riverside Drive. Once again, he concurred in his habitual opinion that this nearest Thompsonville section of Drive had always been the working end of the distinguished old boulevard. Still a generous three lanes a side, island-divided and landscaped in a pleasing array of trees and low-lying evergreen bushes, most of its run to Vernon could still be relied upon to exhibit the best Old Thompsonville’s Gilded Age had to offer.

But who would have conceived, even as recently as three years ago, that he, Paul Kipnis, LA born and bred, University of Chicago educated, lately ranking art illustrator for Bodely in Chester (one of America’s most commercially successful aeronautics firms), frequent continent hopper and intrepid bachelor ironist, could wax so exhilarated over this little-more-than-middling backwoods town? Nadaville, really. Not only the opinion of his former self, but also virtually that of all his old LA friends.

Not that he had been especially proud, having already arrived at his third decade, a generally acknowledged bachelor, if not a decidedly quirky maverick, to all but a few of his closest friends in the graphics department that that particular dreary, dim afternoon of undifferentiated melancholy, tangled in memory, regret, and sore incomprehension, back in LA, temporarily, casa familiar, attendant at his mother’s memorial service, this burg of all others should loom significant in his future. He had grasped the hand of someone Father had introduced as Cousin Viktor. Barely had he taken the man in. All his effort had been concentrated on himself, his own face, his expression. To register himself suitably serious, appropriately responsive, but inscrutable. He would never have guessed that Viktor would have become his passport to a radical shift in career and entry to his newly adopted hometown of Thompsonville.

His Chester colleagues had been wrong all along. But how could they have known? For him, by then, there had been more than a few serious approaches to intimacy, even to marriage. Even now he could revive that cold February wind against his face and restore Erica’s warm crushed fingers against his own enveloping mittened palm. They had trooped down Michigan Avenue, replete with Mario’s Italian soul food, making their way toward the latest Bergmann revival film at The World. Living together as they had those last two years of his PhD marathon and her equally mind-numbing internship at Children’s, they’d nevertheless managed to remain friends, close friends, with even occasional bursts of clutching initial passion. After all, they did care about each other. They respected each other’s career hopes and goals. They wished each other well.

Following months of voluminous and finally desperate applications for college instructorships and/or docent positions, he had ultimately succumbed to an offer in Bodely’s graphics arts department in Chester, Pennsylvania. Concurrently, Erica sensibly weighed a promising invitation to take over an ob-gyn practice from a respected retiring physician in a fair-sized town less than ten miles from her Minnesota natal home. Presciently, he listened to her lengthy rhetorical arguments against such a move. Stalwartly, he helped her build their mutual pretense. They constructed intricate plans for next years’ vacation together. They spun scenarios of eventual ultimate reunion. Stalemated at the crux of imminent breakup, he and she continued to assure each other that the best was yet to come.

After Erica, it had all been pretty much downhill. Altogether, not one of his subsequent steadies, his gamesome live-ins had ultimately been prepared to take him seriously. He had been ready to come halfway. Instead, most of the women he could have wished to consider him more than a sometime lover, maybe even to have loved him, had shown themselves, primarily and terminally, tireless self-promoters. Often with a wounding talent for winning, whatever the cost. At critical junctures in these sundry liaisons, more than a few found genuine reciprocity inconvenient, frankly insupportable. Panty hose suavity invariably capitulated to hiking-boot toughness. No more nice girl! Thereafter, his near half decade of simian-grinning, cynical, smart-ass razzmatazz. His shrugging, quipping insolence. A protracted season of pulling up his armor. Until mercifully, maturity had finally seeped through, and technique replaced terror. Now in the main, he was generally conceded a circumspect, soft-spoken bachelor. Neither supercilious nor deferential. A not particularly interesting or memorable single, certainly, but safe, never patently on the make—gracious and conveniently, unembarrassingly expendable.

Some half mile from the Vernon suburb was another left turn off the drive. The Volkswagen swept into a Belgian block circle bounding a spacious gentle rise. More than a dozen buildings of variegated age and lineage clustered in a wide arc around and behind a rambling brick edifice of somewhat indeterminate height set at its center. This dominating presence (no more than three stories, surely, judging from the placement of its highest half-sized windows), embellished at either end with a six-story gabled tower, stared back at the onlooker with honest-to-goodness, endearing pride in its unabashed ugliness. Recalling his maiden grounds tour under Viktor’s prideful, deprecating tutelage, he recollected that this Mother House of today’s Ely College—now more suitably referred to as the Main Building—had once been sole repository and home of the locally ambitious Ely Academy for Young Women. With a twinkle, Viktor had appended that, if not exactly Chautauquan in its original scope and aims, it had still been liberal enough to ruffle the feathers of half the gentry of Riverside Drive. The half that continued to send their daughters to Ms. Pinkerton’s School for Young Ladies on Westerly.

This semester, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in the second floor front of the creaking, ramshackle structure, Paul instructed three sections of mixed freshmen and sophomores in the History of Western Art. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, his studio courses in design and print making met in the recently built, ultramodern Cole Art Center. The decorous placement of burgeoning campus structures over more than a century had always been intended to enhance rather than compete with the signal importance of Mother Main. Thus, the Cole Art Center had been appropriately tucked well toward the rear of Ely Hill, nowhere to be seen by the casual visitor. And since its first construction, the building had been enlarged and now included several auditoriums with stages, some suitable for dramatic presentations, others, more modest, for musical and choral presentations. Its name had thus recently been altered to the Cole Arts Center. It took over an hour to arrange and set up the slide presentation to his satisfaction. Another half hour to run off the xeroxed chronologies detailing pre-Renaissance Italian schools and their most significant artists for distribution after tomorrow’s lecture.

On his return drive, once again approaching Vernon Circle, he reminded himself that instead of his usual southeastern route toward the business district, he must turn off at the Cayuga Park exit and head in the direction of the old First Ward. Cousin Viktor had phoned early that afternoon to ask that he stop over this evening. He enjoyed visiting with Viktor, but he had tried to beg off, pleading his late errand at the college. Viktor had uncharacteristically insisted. He had even been strangely enigmatic. Finally, Paul had agreed to a brief stopover.

Why would Viktor, Ely College history professor emeritus—Paul reflected, positioning his minibus into the rightmost lane and moderating his speed, so fastidious in his intellectual judgments, so circumspectly accepting of all diversity, so determinedly one-world and one-human-race-oriented—continue to choose to live in the old First Ward? Only a stone’s throw away from his father’s old grocery and butcher shop. The question lay at the back of his mind like a neglected bundle of damp laundry on a rainy afternoon, waiting for the benediction of sun and air.

Twilight deepened into dark, and increasing traffic forced full concentration on the road ahead.

At last, he had reached the reprieve of the Prospect Street get-off. Automatically, his purely animal awareness registered the clean, unassuming thoroughfare bordered by circa l910 to 1920 frame houses. The narrow cross streets of like humble dwellings were interspersed only seldom by a small grocery store or cleaning establishment. Along the way were the most impressive sites—a fairly well-tended cemetery, two or three comparatively sumptuous funeral homes looking vaguely uncomfortable in their straitened circumstances and, at significant intersections, the shadowed imposing facades of now near-century-old Catholic churches, abashed in their present abandonment. Together was the bastion of what Viktor lovingly called Old Polish Heaven.

Old Polish Heaven—no longer tempting with the fragrance of fresh-baked bread floating from Bohemian bakeries nor the pungent hopsy bouquet of local beer gardens. Nowhere down-the-street restaurants were serving homemade kielbasa and pierogi in an ambience of rowdy, warmhearted cordiality that Viktor now chose to remember.

Instead, non-descript. Borderline drab. Barely surviving.

So the question remained. Why would Viktor, so assiduous to free everyone else from an undeserved or ill-fitting background, wrap himself cocoonlike into his own moribund past?

He pulled into tiny Francis Street and parked the Volkswagen in front of Viktor’s house. As he stepped out on the curb, he could not help noticing the postage stamp front lawn meticulously tended. The slender triad of birches were circled with a stand of irises, blue-purple in season. The front porch floor was shellacked to a high gloss; the hanging porch swing was inviting with its fresh-flowered chintz cushioning matching the seat cushions on the freshly painted three wooden rockers. Spick-spock. Comfortable and appealing.

He heard the burr of the bell deep inside the darkened house followed by the tripping of a light, swift gait. He was facing a young woman. Slender, of more than medium height, somewhere in her twenties, shoulder-length dark blonde hair, and aqua blue-green eyes widening, though surely anticipated, of someone’s actual physical presence confronting her. A reciprocal startled pause between host and guest before intervening giggles. A strand of hair nervously hitched behind an ear, and the screen door was pushed to its widest aperture.

You don’t know me, Cousin. I’m Corinna, Viktor’s daughter, a memorable contralto sounded, followed by a disquieting accompaniment of yet another spatter of exculpatory giggles. She propped the door open with her back as Paul ventured in.

Paul could now barely discern Viktor’s tall bespectacled frame, hardly corporeal, loping toward them down the long dark hallway, his arm already extended in welcome. I’m sorry, Paul. I’m so sorry. This is Corinna, of course. My daughter. You’ve never met. He looked down at the couple and smiled. Let’s just go into the back sunporch. We can all be more comfortable there.

They filed into the relative brightness of the back parlor sunporch, a room Paul had never seen before, pleasantly enclosed by windows, furnished in white wicker, and as abundant with plants as a conservatory. A lanky youth with heavily marked but darkly handsome features lounged in one of the chairs at the farther end of the porch.

This is Sydney, Paul. My fiancé, Corinna introduced from just behind Paul. Paul nodded and Sydney smiled back, his hand raising a can of beer a microinch above the wicker armrest.

Paul seated himself to the sound of Viktor’s pothering at the dry sink behind the sofa. Can I offer you a drink, Paul? his cousin inquired, somewhat halfheartedly.

Nothing, Viktor. I’ve got to drive home yet.

Yes, yes, surely, Paul. Viktor left the sink and seated himself in one of the wicker armchairs next to the sofa.

Paul, I’ve got some news. His hand reached out and settled on Paul’s nearer shoulder. I’m afraid not very good news. Your sister just called … oh, maybe half an hour ago. About your father. You must have been up at the college, he added inconsequentially, completing his own train of thought and stalling for time. She said she had been trying to get you at your apartment, but there was no answer. She was a little upset that there wasn’t any answering device.

It’s temporarily on the fritz, Paul responded, annoyed. What’s the matter, Viktor?

Viktor shook his head. Well, that’s just it, Paul. They don’t know. Your father had chest pains, and they suspect some kind of heart episode. Maria was still there, fortunately. She hadn’t gone home for the day yet. She called 911, and they took your father to UCLA Emergency Medical Center. That’s where he is now, presumably. They’re putting him through a battery of tests. Viktor paused. I’m so sorry to have hit you with this out of the blue like this.

Is Rachel still in San Francisco? Paul asked, rising to his feet.

"I don’t know, Paul. I think probably so. She did say she was going to try to get an evening flight to Los Angeles, but she didn’t know if, or when, she could manage it. She had to arrange for the children too."

Of course.

Would you like to call from here? Viktor offered. If she’s not there, you can try again once you’re home. Assuming an affirmative, Viktor made his way to the door, Paul following. This time, he snapped on the hall light, heading for the study where he and Paul habitually met to talk.

I’ll use my credit card, Paul murmured, lifting the receiver.

Nonsense. Just dial.

Rachel answered on the third ring.

Paul?

Where were you? her familiar valley-cum-jaded woman of the world alto vibrated across the line. And why the hell don’t you have an answering machine? Haven’t you heard of the twentieth century?

I do and I have. It’s temporarily out of service. What’s happened? he continued more circumspectly.

Well, what do you expect might happen to a man of eighty-four? Anything. Anything can happen. Viktor must have told you he’s at UCLA, and they’re putting him through a battery of tests. God only knows! In the meantime, I’m knocking myself out trying to get a reservation on a late evening flight. Maybe I can swing it, maybe not. But I still have to take care of last-minute arrangements for the kids. Serafina will have to stay over. She’s my housekeeper. She went to get Pepe, her little one, to bring over here because that’s the only way she can do it, Rachel sighed. I’m telling you, it’s … it’s too much … too hard … too much pressure.

"What would you like me to do?"

Take my place in LA, she quipped sharply. After all, you’ve always been his fair-haired boy. He never had much use for me. Paul forced himself to remain quiet. Of course, I’m the logical one to go. Being in San Fran … worse luck! I’ll just have to let you know what’s best when I know where we stand—another pause—but you’d better be ready to come out on short notice and be prepared to stay a week or so.

Rachel, this is my first semester. In a new job. I’m an untried quantity. I don’t know if … he trailed off, hearing the guilty anxiety in his voice.

Yeah, we all have problems, she countered, dismissing. Angrier she said, "Well, you surely don’t expect me to put my life on hold … with four kids … and I don’t mind telling you a position of greater, more urgent job responsibility than your teaching, for god’s sake …" She came to a breathless halt.

Of course, Rachel. I’ll do what I can. It just hits me at such a vulnerable time …

Yeah. The voice was flat. Yeah. Well, listen. There was a scarce softening. You just stay put until we find out what’s what. Where shall I call you? Do you have an office number at that college?

He repeated the college phone number and his extension.

And you’ll be there or at home?

Yeah. One or the other. And there’s always Viktor in an emergency.

"Yeah, his answering machine works!"

Paul did not answer.

OK, Paul. I’ll be in touch.

Yeah. Let’s hope for the best, he said in a brotherly attempt at an upbeat finale.

He heard the click on her end of the line.

Paul sat at the desk looking at nothing. He supposed Viktor was somewhere in one of the several leather wing chairs about the room. He could not see him. Blessedly, his relative did not emerge into the halo of desk light until he had recovered from the first effects of car-crash shock his sister’s calls left him in. Viktor emerged now hesitatingly from the shadows.

Come into the sunporch, he said softly as Paul passed. For just a minute. He moved toward the study room door. Come on, Paul. Come, he said, moving out of the room.

They had both seated themselves on the sunporch for a few minutes. No one was speaking. Paul’s had bad news, Viktor said in a barely audible voice to the room in general. Corinna said nothing, looking up at Paul and then down at her hands. Sydney focused on a point just over his right shoulder.

Paul rose to leave. Viktor rose. He walked over to Paul and grasped his hand and then flung his other arm around his shoulder.

He walked Paul to the front door.

Try not to worry, Paul. We’ll do … whatever’s necessary, Viktor said. We’ll sort it out.

Paul gave his cousin an uncertain, faltering smile and left.

The phone on the coffee table was ringing. Scrambling out of the bedroll, automatically scooping up his wrist watch from the floor, he registered 2:12 AM before lifting the receiver.

I’m here. At the hospital. I came straight from the airport. I guess I’ve been here a couple of hours. It was Rachel’s voice.

Yes.

The doctors figure it’s a gallbladder attack. Apparently, he’s got a number of stones … but they don’t see any obstruction in the bile duct. They think they can get at it with high-frequency sound waves and subsequent removal of the stones. They estimate he can be released in a couple of days. That is, if the attack of arrhythmia he sustained when he first came into emergency is just that. And not some other more serious heart involvement. They’re still checking him for that … doing a few more tests.

So … it’s not serious? Paul corrected. I mean, of course, not as serious as it might be? Not life-threatening?

"At eighty-four, everything is potentially serious, potentially life-threatening. You still need to come out here. We’ve got to do something about … about this whole situation. He can’t just be allowed to roam around that big Malibu casa by himself. With only Maria coming in during the day. Not even with one of those monitor things on."

I guess not. For a prescient moment, Paul could see the superstructure of his life tremble. Déjà vu. Earthquake at dawn. The spasm of nausea passed. He felt limp, confused, and utterly without foresight of an acceptable alternative solution to this unanticipated problem.

He’s an old man, Paulie. Old. Neither of them spoke. I guess I was as asleep at the switch as you were, she momentarily conceded. "No! That’s not quite accurate. At least I was dimly aware. Somewhere. I know you’ve never even thought about it at all!"

Paul was silent, stomaching the rough truth she served up.

I’ve got to go now. At least get a few hours’ sleep before coming back to the hospital. Leave a message on Dad’s machine at the hospital as soon as you know when you’ll be getting in. I’ll be in and out, and you’re all over the place. But I’ll check in with Father’s machine regularly. I’m bound to get your message sooner or later. She stopped. OK?

OK.

You’re going to get at it right away? The plane reservations?

As soon as I can.

I’ll be waiting for your news, then.

There was a pause, and then the receiver hummed in his ear.

He got through his nine, ten, and eleven o’clock sessions in the History of Western Art, listening to himself, disembodied, somewhere out there. He was scarcely aware that his anxieties did not revolve about his father’s immediate medical predicament. That his overriding preoccupation was that he, Paul, should remain related to his own existence as he knew it now, recognizable and intact.

Mechanically, efficiently, he refiled the slides he had removed for special in-class attention into their proper slots, put today’s extra Xerox chronologies away into the wall cabinet, robotlike set the room to rights. Before his morning classes, he had stopped in at the office of Dr. Roggenkamp, this year’s acting head of the history department and one of the two persons to whom Paul was immediately responsible, had spoken to Millie, Roggie’s career-long secretary, and tentatively arranged for a brief prelunch conference with her boss. If this meeting didn’t materialize, he didn’t know what he would do.

Roggie was there, thank God. And though noncommittal in his granting of time away—he kept referencing a week’s emergency leave only—the professor was also nonconfrontational and even tepidly sympathetic. Classes would simply be called for Paul’s period of absence. They’d work something out. So at least provisionally, it seemed OK with Roggie. Paul had yet to catch up with Kruger, provisional director of the art department. Droll, monosyllabic Kruger was harder to figure. He might be casual and flip, or …

Back again after the conference with Roggie. Entering his upstairs classroom and passing through to his tiny attached office, he saw that Viktor was already seated in one of the two bruised captain’s chairs in front of the desk.

Paul, I’ve used the Thompsonville World Travel Agency downtown for … well, for as long as I can remember. They’ve sent me to Europe more than half a dozen times. Brought me back from South America safe and sound! Could I recommend them to handle your reservations?

I haven’t been able to get to that yet, Viktor. I’ve got to speak to Kruger in the art department before …

I understand. And that’s why I’m suggesting, while you’re doing that and covering other bases, you allow me to go down to the travel agency and make suitable reservations for you … preferably for this evening? But tomorrow morning, if this evening can’t be managed.

I suppose so, Viktor. Paul covered his ambivalence. Of course. As soon as possible.

Obliviously, Viktor lifted a paperweight on Paul’s desk. Seconds later, without looking up at his cousin, he slid his hand across the desk until it covered Paul’s. "Your father and I used to be very close. He cleared his throat. We are still very … mindful … of each other. He and I, we’re a dying breed. The Last of the Mohicans, so to speak." He let out a startled sound, something between a guffaw and a snort.

Anyway, I needn’t tell you, I’ve been living in that big house on Francis all alone. For years now. Even after Corinna moved in this summer, there’s still plenty of extra room. Plenty of space should Mitchell … your father … want to make a prolonged visit. While we straighten things out. Make an assessment of the situation. A kind of homecoming vacation, you might say.

Viktor peered up at Paul. What I am trying to say, Paul, is that I wonder if you would let me come along with you to Malibu? Viktor lifted his hand, palm up. I know your sister Rachel has pressing responsibilities … I know you need, or wish, not to jeopardize your new position here at the college. Viktor sighed, shaking his head. I believe I could be of some use. After all, I’m not totally helpless. I could spend some time with Mitchell in Malibu, if that seemed necessary. Then I could accompany him back here, if he would consent to it. Viktor sat up straighter, looking a trifle defensive.

The pair exchanged a long level stare. Paul was unequal to dealing with so much—possibly misplaced—compassion. He held himself stiff under objective control.

I’ve got to go see Kruger, Viktor. Paul lifted his jacket off the clothes tree. He stood at his desk for another long minute before walking toward the door.

I would appreciate your making the arrangements, Viktor, Paul heard himself say, and I would appreciate having your company … you … your help. I would, he added, self-conscious, rambling. It’s just all been so sudden.

Just outside the door, he turned. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve talked to Kruger. Will you be at home?

Not right away, Paul. I’ll be stopping at the travel agency. But keep calling … Meantime, maybe you’d best go home and pack.

Paul waved and vaulted down the hall and Main Building stairs, hoping to catch Kruger at his usual bag lunch in his back office.

When he stopped for his cousin at 4:15 AM Tuesday morning, Viktor was already in belted raincoat, matching buff rain hat, his bulky single suitcase next to the door, a trim briefcase aside it. Nodding, with barely a perfunctory murmured greeting, Paul descended the front steps with Viktor’s larger bag. He stowed it in the rear of the minibus, while Viktor put himself into the front passenger seat.

They were scheduled for a SAAB SF 340 flight to Detroit and then again to Chicago, where they would board one of the more comfortable wide-bodies into LA—the best they could do out of Thompsonville. Silently, Paul steered through the cool, still dark, careful to slow down through the many treacherous pockets of fog along the road to the airport. He forced his senses to stay territory alert, his mind to drift. Self-prescribed directive for the unchartered.

Chapter Two

S hortly after 5:00 PM, having landed at Los Angeles Airport and claimed their bags, Viktor waited close to an exit with their collective luggage, while Paul left to negotiate a car rental. Paul had said nothing about driving directly to the hospital from the airport, and unable to foresee how their schedule would finally be strategized, Viktor was satisfied to let his young relative take the lead. As it was, they drove up the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu in almost-total silence.

Viktor was somewhat startled to see Rachel bustle into the Kipnis’ driveway to greet them. Had he known her better and longer, he would have appreciated her more than ordinary restraint and poised matter-of-fact deportment under the circumstances. She led them to their individual rooms, each with its own bath, in the sprawling Casa Kipnis, as Paul so often referred to his Malibu home, always with an ambiguous blend of deference and deprecation, with barely a murmured phrase or two. Rachel had had Maria prepare a cold salad supper, and after allowing the men a brief settling-in respite, Paul’s sister summoned them to the patio for a quick impromptu meal.

Directly afterward, Rachel insisted she drive to UCLA Medical Center, as she knew her way around campus and would not lose valuable time getting confused or making novice errors finding authorized parking areas.

Mitchell was sitting up in a chair when they entered his hospital room. He was facing the door, and for the few seconds it took for his expression to register recognition, Viktor could see that, though neatly groomed and combed, Mitchell’s jowls drooped in unmistakable dewlaps, and, always hirsute, tiny sparkles of unshaven gray whiskers glistened on cheeks and chin. But his cousin had already fixed Viktor in a merry, accusing ogle.

So what is all this, Viktor? Mitchell bellowed heartily. The gathering of the clan, I take it. Must be pretty close to time for the funeral!

Instinctively, Viktor gathered Mitchell’s hand in his own and, before he could stop himself, bent over to press his cousin’s shoulders in a bear hug. Paul squeezed his father’s upper arm and then turned quickly, ostensibly to gather a few straight-back visitor chairs closer to the patient.

Rachel peered into the water jug and let the top snap shut. Don’t talk nonsense, Father. The doctor says you’re scheduled to go home tomorrow. She marched out of the room with the jug.

You see that, Viktor. Now what’ll you do? Come all the way to California for nothing, Mitchell said, blinking away the glassiness in his eyes, his voice furry.

Viktor played the game. Yes, you could say I’ve visited California … but in and out. Not a real visit! I mean to pay you a respectable visit this time.

For once, as they traversed the minutiae of the health of their remaining living relatives, the exigencies and arrangements of Viktor’s trip to LA, and finally, the fascinating symptom-otology of Mitchell’s recent gallbladder attack and troubling but dismissible heart incident, all in the reassumed cadence of their boyhood Thompsonville speech and restored Thompsonville attitudes, Rachel directed changes of water, adjustments of bed tray and bed position, fresh requests, and starchy complaints to the nurses. And thus, mercifully, the visiting hour was soon over.

In Viktor’s estimate, this was no time for serious matters. And there had been none. They had been entirely circumvented.

Viktor accepted the snifter of cognac that Rachel offered upon their return to Casa Kipnis but begged off staying to socialize in the sala, bearing himself and the liqueur back to the privacy of his room. Carefully, he placed the glass on a small Mexican tray on a bureau and forced himself to unpack his case, lay out clothes for the next day, and, at last, to bathe and shave before allowing himself the leisure of a sit-down read and a sampling of the cognac.

In a quarter of an hour, he shut the book.

But once settled in bed, he felt both fatigued and agitated. Sleep would not come.

Reprise One:

Mitchell And Viktor

F or the first quarter of my life, Mitchell had always been my one true big brother. I had arrived on the scene in bleak and despairing times in the early thirties to the mixed delight and consternation of my near-menopausal mother. My elder sister, Elena, was already a grown woman, the first college graduate in the Kipnis family, as my parents never failed to declare solemnly upon most significant and even insignificant family occasions. She had apparently earned her degree summa cum laude and had subsequently accepted a college librarian’s post at a small women’s liberal arts college in upstate New York. But to me, she was ever to remain a shadowy presence, her infrequent premarital visits fading finally into oblivion as I prepared to go off to Corinth College and take up my own life as I would come to know it. Since then, I can recall seeing Elena’s grown son and daughter only once—at my father’s funeral, and then Elena alone, at Mother’s.

In those early years of life in Thompsonville, I also frequently heard stories of my elder brother, Alfonsas, next in line to Elena. Barely months after his high school graduation, it seems he had been lucky enough to garner a job with a statewide meat wholesaler. Father allowed as how, because of his own long-standing connection with Wilcox Meat Purveyors and Distributors, truckloads of sides of beef and quarters of pork delivered regularly from the company at our rear loading dock, their people had seen fit to take care of the boy, thank the Lord. Trusting that some job security was now within his reach, if not altogether assured, Alfonsas was engaged to his high school sweetheart and married her soon after. About him, I can remember nothing more than weeks of drawn shades and Mother’s long catatonic depression after Alfonsas’s wife had received the fatal telegram from the war department toward the end of the war. By then, Alfonsas had fathered two sons; but shortly after the announcement of his death, Alfonsas’s wife chose to rejoin her parents in their move back to Cortland, their original home, and I have since lost touch with anyone who might still be alive in my brother Alfonsas’s branch of our family.

So despite my mother’s frequently voiced distaste for those other Kipnis, hardly suppressing a never-to-be-assuaged ethnic and social indignation at Uncle Feliksas’s having wed some Polack illiterate, my paternal uncle Feliksas and his wife, Gertruda, were the only family that had remained geographically reliable and consistently close. Thus, it was that Mother was constrained to acquiesce without unduly prolonged argument to Father’s pronounced intention of taking Mitchell, Uncle Feliksas’s youngest boy, under his wing upon the lad’s graduation from high school. In the month after my cousin’s June ’34 commencement, Mitchell showed up promptly at 7:00 AM for his first day of clerking at Kipnis Grocery and Meats.

Glimpsed from behind cookie bins or from around the corner of Father’s immaculate meat counter, if at the age of four or five I could have articulated the essence of Mitchell’s impression on me, it would have been that of artiste (or its childhood equivalent). Observed deftly slicing meat on the meat slicer or manipulating a long-poled pincer in one smooth integrated movement to bring to hand a box of Rice Krispies, moments before having sat on a shelf six feet above eye level, or watched admiringly as with a single snap of his wrist, he invariably caused to open a capacious brown paper sack into which he neatly disposed of a housewife’s half week of groceries, Mitchell was to me the quintessential virtuoso. Almost en passant, without missing a beat in his forward motion, he would record the price of each grocery item on the side of the grocery bag, using the ever-present pencil