The Goldfinch

I said nothing, began to leaf through the Christie’s catalogue again, which was still lying open on my desk.

“You know what they say.” His voice both sad and cajoling. “ ‘Chance makes the thief.’ Who knows that better than you? I went in your locker looking for lunch money and I thought: what? Hello? What’s this? It was easy to slip it out and hide it. And then I took my old workbook to Kotku’s shop class, same size, same thickness—same tape and everything! Kotku helped me do it. I didn’t tell her why I was doing it though. You couldn’t really tell Kotku things like that.”

“I still can’t believe you stole it.”

“Look. Am not going to make excuses. I took it. But—” he smiled wi

“Yes,” I said, after a disbelieving pause. “Yes, you did lie about it.”

“You never asked me straight out! If you did, I would have told you!”

“Boris, that’s bullshit. You lied.”

“Well, am not lying now,” said Boris, looking around resignedly. “I thought you would have found out by now! Years ago! I thought that you knew it was me!”

I wandered away, to the stairs, trailed by Popchik; Hobie had shut the vacuum cleaner off, leaving a glaring silence, and I didn’t want him to hear us.

“I am not too clear—” Boris blew his nose sloppily, inspected the contents of the Kleenex, winced—“but am fairly sure it is in Europe somewhere.” He wadded the Kleenex and stuffed it in his pocket. “Genoa, outside chance. But my best guess is Belgium or Germany. Holland, maybe. They will be able to negotiate with it better because people are more impressed with it over there.”

“That doesn’t really narrow it down a lot.”

“Well, listen! Be glad it is not in South America! Because then, I guarantee, no chance you would see it again.”

“I thought you said it was gone.”

“I am not saying anything except I think I may be able to learn where it is. May. That is very different from knowing how to get it back. I have not dealt with these people before at all.”

“What people?”

Boris, uneasily, remained silent, casting his eyes about on the floor: iron bulldog figurines, stacked books, many little carpets.

“He doesn’t pee on the antiquities?” he inquired, nodding at Popchik. “All this nice furniture?”

“Nope.”

“He used to go all the time in your house. Your whole carpet downstairs smelled like pee. I think maybe because Xandra was not so good about taking him out before we got there.”

“What people?”

“Huh?”

“What people have you not dealt with.”

“It’s complicated. I will explain to you if you want,” he added hastily, “only I think we are both tired and now is not the time. But I am going to make a few calls and tell you what I find, right? And when I do, I will come back and tell you, promise. By the way—” tapping his upper lip with his finger.

“What?” I said, startled.

“Spot there. Under your nose.”

“I cut myself shaving.”

“Oh.” Standing there, he looked uncertain, as if he were on the verge of rushing in with some much more heated apology or outburst, but the silence that hung between us had a decidedly conclusive air, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well.”

“Well.”

“See you later, then.”

“Sure.” But when he walked out the door, and I stood at the window and watched him duck the drips from the awning and saunter away—his gait loosening and lightening as soon as he thought he was out of my view—I felt there was a pretty good chance it was the last I’d see of him.

xiii.

GIVEN HOW I FELT, which was near death basically, suffering from an ugly migrainous headache and engulfed with such misery I could barely see, there was little point keeping the shop open. So though the sun had come out and people were appearing on the street, I turned around the “Closed” sign and—with Popper trundling anxiously behind me—I dragged myself upstairs, half-sick with the pain hammering behind my eyes, to pass out for a few hours before di

Kitsey and I were to meet at her mother’s apartment at 7:45 before heading over to the Longstreets’, but I arrived a little early—partly because I wanted to see her on her own for a few minutes before we went to di

“No, no,” said Etta when I went to the kitchen to ask her to knock on the door for me, “she’s up and about. I took her some tea not fifteen minutes ago.”

What “up and about” meant, for Mrs. Barbour, was pyjamas and puppy-chewed slippers with what looked like an old opera coat thrown over. “Oh, Theo!” she said, her face opening with a touching, unguarded plai

“You don’t have it, I hope?”

“No—” leafing through it delightedly—“how perfect of you! You’ll never, ever believe it but I saw this show in Boston when I was in college.”

“That must have been some show,” I said, settling back into an armchair. I was feeling much happier than, an hour previous, I would have thought possible. Sick over the painting, sick with headache, despairing at the thought of di

Sitting on the side of my bed with eyes closed, a

“You and Kitsey are dining out tonight?” said Mrs. Barbour, who was still happily leafing through the catalogue I’d brought. “Forrest Longstreet?”

“That’s right.”

“He was in your class with Andy, wasn’t he?”

“Yes he was.”

“He wasn’t one of those boys who was so awful?”

“Well—” Euphoria had made me generous. “Not really.” Forrest, oafish and slow on the draw (“Sir, are trees considered plants?”) had never been intelligent enough to persecute Andy and me in any kind of focused or resourceful way. “But, yes, you’re right, he was part of that whole group, you know, Temple and Tharp and Cavanaugh and Scheffernan.”

“Yes. Temple. I certainly remember him. And the Cable boy.”