'The Boy in the Field' Chapters 29 & 30

“Maybe Daniel Day Lewis,” said Gordon. “Or Martin Sheen.” Throughout dinner, Lily sat at Gordon’s feet. When he bent to say goodbye, she licked his hand and walked over to the French doors. He thanked everyone, put on his jacket, and picked up the painting, which Duncan had wrapped again.

“I’m going to hang it beside my bed,” he said, “so I can see it first thing every morning.”

Then he was gone and Lily was standing there, staring out into the dark garden. Duncan knelt beside her and read what Gordon had written on the sheet of paper. I, Gordon Enright, do hereby give up all rights to Lily. I will never take her away from Duncan Lang and his family. 

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No accident, Zoe thought, that Lily had chosen first Gordon, then her brother.  

Thirty

Matthew

HIS OXFAM COLLECTING had taken him to parts of the town he had never seen before, but only after several wrong turns, and directions from two strangers, did he find the Lustigs’ house on a street behind the laundry. He knocked twice and was still holding the dolphin knocker when he heard footsteps. A man with beautiful golden eyebrows opened the door. As soon as Matthew said his name, he reached out his hand.

“Thank you for what you did for Karel. Come in. Come in.” In the living room Mr. Lustig offered tea. Or beer.

“Beer, please.”

He found himself sitting on a sofa, presumably the one behind which Karel had taken refuge, ready to throw an ashtray at his brother, and there on the coffee table was a marble ashtray. So Tomas did tell the truth sometimes. The room was surprisingly spare and modern compared to their sitting room at home, with its cozy inherited furniture. Here the armchairs and sofa were off-white, the tables and bookshelves made of light wood. Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of a castle on a hill beside a river.

Mr. Lustig returned carrying a tray with three glasses, three bottles of beer already bright with condensation, and a bowl of crisps. “Karel is coming. He works days now.”

“Where is the castle?”

“In Prague. My wife and I grew up in a town thirty kilometers west of the city. We go back every summer. Our mothers are still alive, and many aunts and uncles and cousins. My aunt Vera painted that. For two weeks we eat big meals and walk by the river. We have a good life here, but there are only the four of us.”

Would his father say that to a stranger? Matthew thought. There are only the five of us. We have a good life. Probably not these days. “Does Tomas go with you?”

“You know my older son.” Mr. Lustig, reaching for another crisp, paused.

“We ran into each other at the pub. He used to deliver our milk.”

“How is he? We do not often see him these days.” Matthew set his glass beside the ashtray. “He seemed”—angry? mad?—“ out of sorts.”

Mr. Lustig nodded. “I would have to agree. Did he give a reason for his out-of-sorts-ness?”

Matthew was still groping for an answer when, through the door, came the boy in the field. The shock of his appearance, both strange and familiar, propelled Matthew to his feet. He stepped forward uncertainly and was embraced warmly.

“Thank you for finding me.” Karel took the other armchair. “You don’t look like your brother.”

“You know Duncan?”

“He came to meet me one day at the hospital. He was very kind.”

Matthew could feel himself staring at Karel as if he were still lying, unconscious, in the field. His dark eyelashes made his eyes look very blue.

“So you know Matthew’s brother, and he knows yours,” said Mr. Lustig.

“I don’t really know Tomas,” Matthew said hastily. “We were both collecting for Oxfam.”

He was wondering how to get Karel alone when Mr. Lustig said he must get back to making supper. In the wake of his father’s departure, Karel seemed to forget about conversation; he gazed pensively at his untouched beer. Hugh Price was right, Matthew thought. The real locked room was another person’s brain. “May I ask you a question?” he said.

Karel raised his eyes. “Of course.”

“That day we found you, where were you going at seven in the morning? It must have been important, after working all night and getting a flat tire.”

Most people received a question not just with their ears but with their bodies. Some slight adjustment of head or shoulders or knees showed that the words had reached them. Karel sat motionless. Could he somehow not have heard? Matthew was about to say sorry, it was none of his business, when he at last began to speak.

“I will tell you,” he said, “but you must not tell Tomas. For three years my brother has been going out with a very nice girl, Sylvie. Last spring, they got engaged and we were all happy. Then in August Sylvie’s mother was admitted to the Cottage Hospital. She has diabetes, ulcers, many problems. Sylvie came to see her most days. When I had time, I brought her a cup of tea. I was being friendly to my brother’s girlfriend. One day, while the three of us were chatting, Yvonne, she is the hospital cook, came to check on Mrs. Fletcher’s diet. Afterward she said, ‘That girl likes you.’ I started to notice how Sylvie kept smiling at me, how she spoke mostly to me, not her mother. I asked Matron if I could go on nights for a month. My second week, Sylvie’s mother gave me a note. Sylvie needed to see me.”

His eyes met Matthew’s. “I didn’t know what to do. Yvonne said I must tell her I wasn’t interested. We arranged to meet one morning after I finished work. We chose the churchyard to avoid my brother on his milk round. She thanked me for taking good care of her mother and began to talk about wanting to see Prague. It started to rain, and we had to leave.”

He let out his breath in a sigh, quite different from the sigh he had given in the field.

“I hoped she’d understood, but her mother gave me another note. This time I practiced what to say with Yvonne. Three days before we were going to meet, something terrible happened. My brother was doing an errand near the hospital, and he visited Mrs. Fletcher. I woke up with his hands around my neck. When he let me speak, I said of course Sylvie and I were friends; she was his fiancée. But I could see he didn’t believe me. As soon as he left, I phoned Sylvie. Her father took a message. I was going to meet her when the man picked me up.”

“And then she broke up with Tomas?”

“She told him she never wanted to see him again. She swears she didn’t mention me, but he suspects more than ever.”

“So when he brought you scones, you were protecting yourself with the ashtray?”

Karel raised his eyebrows. “Tomas told you this?”

Matthew explained about their search. “If he finds the man, he thinks you’ll forgive him, and Sylvie will take him back.” From the kitchen came the clang of a saucepan. “Is there anything else you remember about the man? Any little thing that might help to find him?”

“I can tell you what his left earlobe was like, his left hand. Would that help?”

Footsteps, a radio. Quickly Matthew said, “In the field you said ‘Coward.’”

Karel sighed again. “I probably meant myself. At the hospital I sometimes keep people company as they transition. That’s Matron’s word, not mine. They are on a journey with delays and reversals and a final destination.”

He broke off, staring at the ashtray. Matthew gazed at him wonderingly. This boy had seen people die, had himself nearly died; he was the opposite of a coward. But even to say that seemed like another thing Karel would have to bear. A sizzling sound came from the kitchen.

“Now I try not to go out alone after dark,” Karel continued. “If a strange man speaks to me, I jump. I keep hoping they will catch him and I will feel safe again.”

Matthew had so many questions; one was pressing. “Why is Tomas so different?” he said.

“My parents and I ask that too. When we lived in our village near Prague, he was a nice person. He had friends, he did well at school. But he hated moving here. He didn’t make friends. He got bent out of shape. We were so glad Sylvie liked him.”

Matthew remembered that moment on Rachel’s doorstep: how the person who answered the door had looked like her, dressed like her, yet been completely different.

NEXT: CHAPTERS 31 & 32

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