“You’re so alike, you two,” he often said, usually when they were forging truces after arguments. It was an observation neither welcomed. What young woman wants to be the mirror of her mother? What mature woman wants to be considered petulant? But the comparison was inescapable, especially in Celandine’s final months at home, at the beginning of last year. Then, during increasingly merciless and molten rows, their matching chins and mouths leading the assaults, Celandine’s face and voice became alarmingly adult and indistinguishable from her mother’s. They used to call him Cyrus, the Bringer of Peace (though more specifically the bringer of tea), on those occasions, allowing him eventually to broker a ceasefire by putting his arms round both of them and turning them to face each other until they would consent to hug. He suspected they despised him for it. Nevertheless, on occasion Francine would call out theatrically, “Cyrus, Cyrus, can we borrow you for a minute? Come here …” if a quarrel was brewing or if they needed arbitration. It is a pity, everyone agrees, that Cyrus was not on call that weekend when Francine’s and Celandine’s feet and fists took over from their mouths. There might not have been an argument at all, let alone a shocking catfight followed inevitably — given the two women’s stubbornness — by this interminable cold war. He could have stood between the squabbling pair and blocked the blows: Francine’s parental and reproving slap that drew blood (her wedding ring caught her daughter’s cheek), and Celandine’s excessive and intemperate response, followed by her midnight flight and spiteful, shamefaced silence ever since.
Nevertheless, it’s gratifying for Leonard now, as he sits naked in the bed in this half-light watching Francine pull her knee-highs on, to bring to mind again the corresponding figures and smells of the two women in his pacifying embraces. He even attempts to extend his arms, almost involuntarily acting out a reconciliation that now is possible only in a fantasy, though maybe not even then, before being reminded how painful extending his arms can be. His right shoulder is usually at its worst in his waking hours. He can stretch out his good left arm until it’s level with his shoulder, and higher even. But he can hardly lift the damaged one. Cyrus wouldn’t be much good for making peace between Francine and Celandine these days; he could embrace them only one at a time. Leonard reaches out again, tries to make a T. His damaged arm sticks and stutters like the hand on a jammed clock. The best time he can semaphore into the mirrors at the bed’s end, with his straight left arm marking the hour and his crooked right straining for the minutes, is 5:45, 5:55. His hour hand is stuck. The pain’s demanding that he stop.
“You okay?” asks Francine, catching him in a mirror.
“Still killing me.” She must be growing bored with his continual aches and pains. “The sound of one hand clapping,” he adds pointlessly, and then, hoping to make light of his condition, demonstrates how clownishly hard it is for him even to put his fingertips together behind his head. “The one-armed man is king.”
“You need more exercise.”
AT LAST LEONARD HAS THE HOUSE to himself. He has already, from the pillow, made his resolutions for the day. More exercise, indeed. But first, and shamingly, he has to escape from Lucy Emmerson. He has to free himself from her and revoke his promise. He can, of course — he has considered it — not take her call at all, even though he has demanded it himself. He can just sit and watch the set vibrate. Then, when he does not show up at the airport rendezvous either, she’ll be bound to figure out that Leonard isn’t kismet after all. That should be the end of it. But she might persevere. She is the sort and age to persevere. She’ll not be shaken off so easily. He quantifies the risks: she has his cell phone number but not his unlisted home address. She might make a nuisance of herself by phoning constantly, but surely not by knocking at his door. He has a sudden image of her trawling round the streets of his hometown, certain that she’ll find and recognize his “creepy van.” She daubs it thickly with black paint: LEONARD LESSING — SCARED TO DEATH. It is an improbable nightmare but a disconcerting one. No, there is no avoiding it. If Leonard wants to enjoy any peace of mind during the final day of his forties, he must put a stop to Lucy Emmerson at once. Their conversation might be thorny and embarrassing, humiliating even, but hardly as thorny and embarrassing as allowing her mad plot, this not-so-genius idea, to survive a moment more. He’ll take the call. He will be rid of her. Then he can begin to mend his ways. No more bellyaching about his shoulder, he determines. No more frittering the best part of each day. No more wasting his sabbatical. He’ll draw up a plan for the months ahead and for his sixth decade: the walks he’ll take, the meals he’ll cook, the worthy books he’ll read, the music he’ll try to write, the efforts and the sacrifices he’ll make for Francine’s happiness.
It is not yet 9 a.m. Leonard uses the remaining half hour before Lucy’s promised call to shower properly and dress before sitting at the pivoted table in the kitchen with his Times online and breakfast plate. The Rise-Time show is drawing to a close. He listens to but does not watch the weathercast, some joshing, parting repartee among that morning’s commentariat, and finally the rising headlines for the day: the Balkan Federation elects its president; another water crisis in Australia (“It’s H2Oz again!”); new treatment figures suggest that senile dementia has declined by almost 30 percent in the past decade; the death of the last Rolling Stone; Proposition 101. But not a word regarding Maxim Lermontov. Leonard checks the EuroFox channel and one or two of the more serious UK digitals, but discovers nothing. That’s both surprising and suspicious. It has to signify a news blackout under the Home Defenses Act. Such “benign security obstructions” have become more frequent recently, especially with the fast-approaching summit and inevitable disruptions on the streets.
There is, however, a brief, dry summary in the home news columns of the Times, under the misspelled strapline “Seige Enters Third Day.” Their correspondent writes: “The named suspect, an American national, is reported to have a record of criminal convictions including arson and motor vehicle theft as well as political ones, both in the United States and in Canada, where he sought and was granted protected residence in 2012 as a ‘citizen by birth.’” Leonard can predict Maxie’s irritation at such accurate reports, can almost hear him protesting in his stagy High Texan with that distinctive Yiddish edge, “I’m Russian, man! Russian out of U.S.A. So what, I wrecked a car or two? So what, I introduced some hellfire to a church ’n’ cindered it? ’N’ I hate to be picky, but it wasn’t arson, it was firebombing! Y’all hear?” Then, in the closing paragraph, Leonard reads, “The armed group are thought to have been under police surveillance since entering the United Kingdom in early July, and although their purposes are unclear, it is not counted in security and intelligence circles as happenstance that their arrival coincides with the upcoming Reconciliation Summit.”
Leonard would have preferred it if Maxie’s apparent “purposes” had been less commendable: unambiguously criminal, perhaps, with psychopathic tendencies, brutally expressed. That would better befit a man who, in Leonard’s opinion and experience, is “purposeless” and deserves little sympathy from liberals, a man who is more intent on turmoil for the sake of turmoil than on turmoil for the sake of change. But as ever, Maxie’s immoderation of action is validated by latching on to a rational and sympathetic cause. No one vaguely progressive, Leonard included, could wish the Reconciliation Summit well. So long as nobody gets injured, any boisterous and dramatic disruption to the week of meetings — even this armed and desperate hostage-taking in Alderbeech — might almost be welcome, might even be counted proportionate, given what one campaign group has already labeled passionately, if not pithily, “the vile offenses of the summit’s detestable guests.” But with Maxie, as Leonard knows too well, there are always injuries. The day is not complete without a bloody nose.