The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [89]
Eventually Phoebe replaced the snapshots in their envelope, keeping aside the one of Faith in the Hofgarten. She returned the carved box to its shelf and went to the living room, where she paced, photograph in hand. Still holding it, she finally turned out the lights and lay rigid in her makeshift bed, eyes tightly closed, pulse hammering at her throat. It was impossible to sleep, yet she must have slept, for the sound of keys in the lock made her start awake and lie motionless, searching for her bearings. At the front door Wolf and Carla were quietly removing their jackets, a cigarette smell from their clothes seeping to where Phoebe lay. Soon their murky shapes crept toward the bedroom, Carla first, then Wolf, who shut the door behind him. Phoebe heard the bathroom sink, the flushing toilet. Then the stripe of light vanished from under the door and she thought she heard the sigh of bedsprings as Wolf and Carla lay down together on that soft mattress. Phoebe was filled with sudden dread of what else she might hear. Her mind reeled with the memory of Wolf and Carla kissing hello, lips meeting so easily, bodies that had met perhaps hundreds of times in a way Phoebe couldn’t fathom. She threw off her blanket, sweating now, fixed her eyes on the door. I’ll die if I hear anything, she thought, I will die. But she didn’t. She heard nothing at all.
sixteen
She was back in the Hofgarten by noon the next day. Everywhere Phoebe looked were things her sister might have seen: trees sharp as etchings, pebbles like tiny jewels under her feet, the black dome swollen and tender as a fresh moon.
Wolf and Carla had gone off early that morning to look at apartments. When Phoebe returned at three-fifteen, Wolf was already back. On the table lay a map he’d drawn, directing her to the bar where he and Carla had eaten lunch. “Long walk,” he said.
“I went back to the Hofgarten,” Phoebe said, and peered at Wolf’s face. She saw nothing.
“I brought you a sandwich,” he said.
He sat with Phoebe while she ate, then went back to his room to work, bare feet snapping on the polished floor. Phoebe removed Faith’s picture from her purse and paced the apartment, anxiety and excitement constricting her chest. Finally she knocked at Wolf’s door. He sat at his desk. “What’s up?” he said.
She handed him the picture. Wolf took its edge, studying the image of Faith as though he’d never seen it before. He turned the picture over. “Where did this come from?”
“Your box.”
Wolf shook his head, smiling as if a joke had been made at his own expense. Yet he didn’t seem surprised. His eyes wandered again to the picture.
“So she did come back,” Phoebe said.
“She did,” Wolf said. “She came back.”
Tiredly he rose from his chair, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of both hands. Then he stepped to the window and looked outside. Someone was cutting trees, an electric saw chewing at the silence.
“Faith made me swear I wouldn’t talk about it,” he said. “To anyone, especially her family. But I guess you’ve got a right to know, and anyway, at this rate you’ll find out with or without me.”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said, shamed by the memory of pawing through Wolf’s sparse possessions.
“You do what you do.”
“It was wrong, though,” she said, wanting him to forgive her. “It was.”
“You did it.”
There was a pause. “Why did she make you swear?” Phoebe said.
“She got into a thing in Berlin she wanted off the record.”
Here was a turn Phoebe hadn’t expected. “What kind of thing?” she asked fearfully.
Wolf glanced at his desk, noticed he’d left the cap off his needle pen and carefully swiveled it on. “Let’s get out of this room,” he said. Phoebe sensed his wish to quarantine Faith, away from his work and desk and bed. The thought saddened her.
Phoebe sat on the living room couch. To her surprise,