The Goldfinch

“Ah.” I was hunched in a corner, sipping tea; my headache was ferocious.

“Fu

“Believe me, he was dirty enough back then.”

“Well you know, Dickens doesn’t tell us what happened to the Dodger. Grew up to be a respectable businessman, who knows? And wasn’t Popper out of his mind? I’ve never seen an animal so happy.

“Oh and yes—” half-turning, busy with his coat; he hadn’t noticed me go still at Popper’s name—“before I forget, Kitsey called.”

I didn’t answer; I couldn’t. I hadn’t thought of Popper even once.

“Late-ish—ten. Told her you’d run into Boris, you’d come by, you’d gone out, hope that was all right.”

“Sure,” I said, after an effortful pause, struggling to collect my thoughts which were galloping in several very bad directions at once.

“What must I remind you.” Hobie put his finger to his lips. “I was given a charge. Let me think.

“I can’t remember,” he said after a small start, shaking his head. “You’ll have to phone her. Di

“The Longstreets,” I said, my heart plunging.

“That sounds right. Anyhow, Boris! Great fun—great charmer—how long’s he in town for? How long’s he here for?” he repeated amiably when I didn’t answer—he couldn’t see my face, staring out horrified into the street. “We should have him over for di

xii.

ABOUT TWO HOURS LATER—exhausted, eyes streaming with pain from my headache—I was still frantically wondering how to get Popper back while simultaneously inventing, and rejecting, explanations for his absence. I left him tied in front of a store? Someone had snatched him? An obvious lie: quite apart from the fact that it was pouring rain, Popper was so old and cranky on the leash I could hardly drag him down to the fire hydrant. Groomer? Popper’s groomer, a needy-seeming old lady named Cecelia who worked out of her apartment, always had him back by three. Vet? Quite apart from the fact that Popper wasn’t sick (and why wouldn’t I have mentioned it if he was?) Popper went to the same vet that Hobie had known since the days of Welty and Chessie. Dr. McDermott’s office was right down the street. Why would I have taken him anywhere else?

I groaned, got up, walked to the window. Again and again I ran against the same dead end, Hobie walking in befuddled, as he was bound to do in an hour or two, looking around the store: “Where’s Popper? Have you seen him?” And that was it: infinite loop; no alt-tab out. You could force close, shut down the computer, start all over and run it again, and the game would still lock up and freeze at the same place. “Where’s Popper?” No cheat code. Game over. There was no way past that moment.

The ragged sheets of rain had slowed to a drizzle, shining sidewalks and water dripping from the awnings, and everyone on the street seemed to have seized the moment to throw on a raincoat and dash out to the corner with the dog: dogs everywhere I looked, galumphing sheepdog, black standard poodle, terrier mutts, retriever mutts, an elderly French bulldog and a self-satisfied pair of dachshunds with their chins in the air, prissing in tandem across the street. In agitation I went back to my chair, sat down, picked up the Christie’s house sale catalogue and began to leaf through it in a rattled way: horrible modernist watercolors, two thousand dollars for an ugly Victorian bronze of two buffalos fighting, absurd.

What was I going to tell Hobie? Popper was old and deaf, and sometimes he fell asleep in out-of-the-way places where he didn’t hear right away when we called, but soon enough it would be time for his di

“I started to keep him.”

Popper—damp, but otherwise looking none the worse for his adventure—stiffened his legs rather formally as Boris set him down on the floor and then paddled over to me, holding his head up so that I might scratch him under the chin.

“He did not miss you one bit,” said Boris. “We had a very nice day together.”

“What’d you do?” I said, after a long silence, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Sleeped, mostly. Gyuri dropped us off—” he scrubbed his darkened eyes, and yawned—“and we had a very nice nap together, the two of us. You know—how he used to curl up? Like a fur hat on my head?” Popper had never liked to sleep with his chin on my head like that—only with Boris. “Then—we woke up, and I had a shower and I took him for a walk—not far, he did not want to go far—and I made some phone calls and we ate a bacon sandwich and drove back in. Look, I am sorry!” he said impulsively when I didn’t answer, ru

The silence between us was crushing.

“Did you have fun last night anyway? I had fun. Big night out! Not feeling so hot this morning, though. Please say something,” he blurted when I didn’t reply. “I have been feeling very very bad about this all day.”

Popper had snuffled across the room to his water dish. Peacefully, he began to drink. For a long time there was no sound except his monotonous lapping and slurping.

“Really, Theo—” hand to heart—“I feel terrible. My feelings—my shame—I have no words for,” he said, more gravely, when still I did not answer. “And yes, I’ll admit it, part of me asks myself, ‘why did you wreck everything, Boris, why did you open your big mouth.’ But how could I lie and sneak? You’ll give me that, at least?” he said, rubbing his hands, agitatedly. “I am not cowardly. I told you. I admitted it. I didn’t want you to worry, not knowing what was going on. And I am going to make it up to you, somehow, I promise.”

“Why—” Hobie was busy downstairs with the vacuum but I lowered my voice all the same, the same angry whisper when Xandra was downstairs and we didn’t want her to hear us quarreling—“why—”

“Why what?”

“Why the hell did you take it?”

Boris blinked, a bit self-righteously. “Because you have Jewish Mafiya coming to your house, is why!”

“No, that’s not why.”

Boris sighed. “Well, is partly why—a little. Was it safe at your house? No! And not at school either. Got my old school book, wrapped it in newspaper and taped it same fatness—”

“I asked why did you take it.”

“What can I say. I am thief.”

Popper was still noisily slurping up the water. With exasperation I wondered if Boris had thought to put a bowl down for him in their so-nice day out.

“And—” lightly he shrugged—“I wanted it. Yes. Who would not?”

“Wanted it why? For money?” I said, when he didn’t answer.

Boris made a face. “Of course not. Can’t sell something like that. Although—must admit—one time I was in trouble, four-five years ago, I almost sold it outright, low low price, giveaway almost, just to be rid of it. Glad I did not. I was in a jam and I needed cash. But—” sniffing hard, wiping his nose—“trying to sell piece like that is the quickest way to get caught. You know that yourself. As negotiable instrument—different story! They hold it as collateral—they front you the goods. You sell the goods, whatever, return with the capital, give them their cut, picture is returned to you, game over. Understand?”