Sandy called Nina at the courthouse at four that afternoon. Nina was out in the hall, trying to set up a visitation schedule for another client, a father of twin toddlers whose estranged wife didn’t want him to see them. “Excuse me,” she told the client, and went into the bathroom.

“We found three Browns so far,” she said. “Plus a B-r-a-u-n and a B-r-e-h-o-n. All teaching math courses. Just with the five places you wanted to start with. Should we keep going, or do you want to make a few calls?”

“It’s already seven on the East Coast,” Nina said. “Try to find a few more before you go home. I’ll make some calls in the morning.”

She went back out into the hall. Her client was sitting on the bench, head between his hands. “Sometimes I feel like killing her,” he said to Nina. So she dealt with that, and didn’t get home until after six.

Dinner, a walk, a bath. Then sweet, sweet bed.

PART TWO

12

IN THE FALL OF HIS JUNIOR year, Elliott tried to steal Silke away from Raj. He calculated his odds at fifty-fifty. He attempted to impose rationality on what was essentially an irrational urge, deciding to go for it and risk losing Silke, losing face, and losing Raj’s friendship.

He had recently undergone a sea change in his thinking. He would be reading a paper from the Moscow Math Institute online and would lose his concentration, remembering how beautiful Silke looked when she sat at the blackjack tables, tossing back watered-down booze and joshing around with naive tourists.

A girl he dated a few times when he was sixteen accused him of never thinking about anything except math. He didn’t correct her, because it would have been rude, but he also thought about sex. Sometimes both things churned around inside him simultaneously, good whiskey mixed with rich food.

And all good things converged in Silke.

Carleen had the flu, but the rest of them had just taken their first junket of the year to Atlantic City. During one enormous night at Harrah’s, Elliott won seventeen thousand dollars. They flew back, drinks all around, euphoric, Silke squashed between Elliott and Raj on the plane.

At Logan Airport all three shared a cab back to Everett Street. Elliott went inside with the others, ostensibly to see how Carleen was doing and to have a drink of the Chivas that Silke always kept in the kitchen, but actually to plot moves.

Raj, unknowingly cooperative, yawned and excused himself. Silke checked on Carleen but found her sound asleep, “Snoring, poor thing,” so she and Elliott hung around downstairs, laughing, carving equations into the pitted pine table. When she yawned for the second time, she looked in on Raj, and returned in her nightgown. “Raj crashed, but I could use one more tiny nightcap. How about you?”

“I should go.” He played true to type to avoid warning her, scaring her off too soon. He didn’t intend to go.

“Why don’t you just stay over?”

Her blue eyes appeared to hold nothing but a friendly welcome. He wished, as always, that he saw more in them. “Your couch is hard.” He had a new apartment across the river on Marlborough Street near the Esplanade, a new Jeep, and a new attitude, thanks to the change in his financial circumstances. It wasn’t just the money, though-being around the others, being part of their group, gave him a confidence he had never had. He saw cracks between Silke and Raj-his family’s dislike of her, her disdain of his extravagance, the arrogant way he had noticed that Raj treated her.

“On the other hand,” he said, “it’s not that late.”

Silke wore her dark hair tamed into a braid tonight except for some shorter strands that brushed against her ears, shining like loose satin threads. Unable to resist the impulse, Elliott reached toward her and undid the braid. “That’s better,” he said, stroking it free. “Your hair’s getting long.”

She ran fingers through her curling hair, stretched, and shook her head, sighing with pleasure. “I forget how good it feels, letting it go,” she said.

He admired how the line of her browbone extended in a curve at her temple beyond the delicate brows. She had no pretensions, no artifice. He loved these things about her. “What are you thinking, Silke?”

“About you, Wakefield.”

“Why? Do I want to know?”

“Of course you do. I would have nothing but the most pleasant thoughts regarding you. In Heddesheim, where I grew up, a farmer lived outside town. He had a little boy named Kristof. This kid was so shy, he had a hard time at our little school. I think he was the unhappiest boy in the world, but he was so smart. I heard he went away to a private high school in Darmstadt and then, in the summer we were sixteen, I ran into him at a street market. He wasn’t the same. He was really happy. Really happy, Wakefield.”

“How come?” On his third whiskey since they had returned to Cambridge, Elliott did not feel intoxicated, just hot. Just a little aggressive.

Silke leaned forward. Her nightgown, basically a long T-shirt of gray cotton, tightened over her breasts. Elliott noted the outline of her nipples, that she was unconscious of her effect, and didn’t mean to make him crazy. She wasn’t coming on to him. She never did. She was so damn proper, loyal to her man, monogamous. As if Raj, with his family’s millions, big houses in India, and condo on Riverside Drive, would ever marry her. One fine day Raj’s parents would introduce him to a nice girl from Madras with the dowry of a maharani’s daughter. Silke would be history. How could this smart woman not realize that?

“Let me guess,” he said. “Uh, your boy had found a girlfriend. She loved and respected him. He adored her. They stayed together, got married, took over the farm. Bought sturdy furniture. They have two kids, a boy and a girl, both excellent students. He’s happy. Ecstatic. Is that what you want for me?”

“What do you want for yourself?”

He set his glass down carefully and thought. What to say? The truth? She already knew how he felt; why not come out with it? No, too aggressive, wait for the right time. He said, cravenly, “Immortality. Nothing else counts.”

“Oh, Elliott.” Her voice scolded him.

“You think there’s something more important?”

“Love, of course.”

“Oops. Forgot about that. Of course you’re right.”

“You’re teasing me, Wakefield,” she laughed. “You need a relationship. You deserve happiness. You’re not unattractive, you know.”

“Oh, don’t push Carleen again,” Elliott said, tracing his finger along the carving they had made, then he lifted his hand to her hair, as if to straighten it over her shoulders, stroking it. “We won’t happen.”

Silke didn’t push his hand away. Two red spots appeared on her cheeks. “Too bad. She cares for you.”

“Listen. I’m not attracted to her. I’d rather sleep with a Gila monster. She’s fine as a friend, but stop pushing her on me.”

Silke looked behind him, her eyebrows up high, so he turned around, sloshing the whiskey in his hand. Of course Carleen had come downstairs just at that instant. Her tartan robe was hanging open and she was wearing just underpants. Elliott’s eyes went to her pale rib cage, her short, skinny legs; he couldn’t help himself.

Carleen made a strangled sound and turned and ran. Rolling her eyes at him, Silke went after her.

Elliott drank down the whiskey. He would sleep on the lumpy couch and leave early. Silke did not come back down. It seemed his chance had fled, and just for a minute there, when he said, “Immortality,” he could have said, “You,” and Silke might still be talking to him. Now Carleen was mad and complications would ensue.