The Château by Paul Goldberg

Author:Paul Goldberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador

13

FUCK THEIR MOTHER

“Okay, you will walk me through the parking lot, and I will write down the license plate of every car belonging to a BOD member or a former BOD member.”

Bill’s reporter’s notebook is ready.

“I don’t have time.”

“Do you want me to help you?”

“What will you do with this?”

“This is Investigations 101.”

“What is that?”

“Sorry. You didn’t go to college here. It’s how college courses are designated, or were: Economics 101, elementary econ, or English 101, introductory English.”

“I went to better university than that. Moscow University is like Princeton. And I was adjunct professor here. What did your Duke get you except debt?”

“We can have this conversation later.”

“You could have gone to University of Maryland and gone to officers’ program that pays for everything. It’s same degree, there was no war, and they would have paid for law school. You could be lawyer.”

“I could be lawyer, sure, unhappy one at that, but we are past that. I am fifty-two. Is that why you didn’t give me a dime for my college education?”

“You had other possibilities.”

“True, you didn’t have money then. But a few hundred dollars, even symbolically, would have been nice.”

“I brought you to America. You should be full of gratefulness for that.”

“I didn’t start this conversation. I need you to identify the spots where BOD members keep their cars.”

“The cars you want are in spots 394, 302, 249, 173, and 117. I have to go to crapper.”

“Thank you, Father.”

Aside, he whispers: “Fucker.”

Why is it that the Old Bill never called his father Father? He didn’t call him anything but “ty,” “you.” He would have preferred to call Melsor “vy,” the formal version, because the formal address would push the bastard further away.

In Moscow, Bill was proud of his father, the man who stood up to the Bolsheviks, who didn’t fear being in contact with the American press, who appeared at demonstrations in front of the Moscow synagogue, who didn’t give a rip about getting arrested. When his father’s poetry was read by announcers at the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the Voice of Israel, Bill was a proud boy.

In America, he came to fear that his father would one day appear at the private school that gave him a scholarship and provoke a fight with the headmaster.

* * *

In the midafternoon of January 14, the Wronski residence looks as uninhabited as it did two days earlier.

This time, Bill doesn’t ring the doorbell.

Instead, he heads straight to the garage, the spot where he had earlier picked up the box of clothes intended for the Salvation Army.

The garage door is partly open; perhaps off its track.

It’s heavy, but it lifts, and as it reaches Bill’s shoulder, he realizes that he has made a mistake, a bad one.

He sees blinding lights, and with them a camera crew, a rolling camera, and in front of it all, Consuela.

She runs toward him, shouting questions he doesn’t wish to answer:

“Why are you here?”

“Why are you wearing my husband’s clothes?”

“Who sent you?”

“When will you stop

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