The Goldfinch

It was past time for the doormen to change shifts. When I phoned downstairs, I was hoping for Carlos (the most senior and dignified of the doormen) or even better Jose: a big happy Dominican guy, my favorite. But nobody answered at all, for ages, until finally a thin, halting, foreign-sounding voice said: “Hello?”

“Is Jose there?”

“No,” said the voice. “No. You cah back.”

It was, I realized, the frightened-looking Asian guy in safety goggles and rubber gloves who ran the floor waxer and managed the trash and did other odd jobs around the building. The doormen (who didn’t appear to know his name any more than I did) called him “the new guy,” and griped about management bringing in a houseman who spoke neither English nor Spanish. Everything that went wrong in the building, they blamed on him: the new guy didn’t shovel the walks right, the new guy didn’t put the mail where it was supposed to go or keep the courtyard clean like he should.

“You cah back later,” the new guy was saying, hopefully.

“No, wait!” I said, as he was about to hang up. “I need to talk to somebody.”

Confused pause.

“Please, is anybody else there?” I said. “It’s an emergency.”

“Okay,” said the voice warily, in an open-ended tone that gave me hope. I could hear him breathing hard in the silence.

“This is Theo Decker,” I said. “In 7C? I see you downstairs a lot? My mother hasn’t come home and I don’t know what to do.”

Long, bewildered pause. “Seven,” he repeated, as if it were the only part of the sentence he understood.

“My mother,” I repeated. “Where’s Carlos? Isn’t anybody there?”

“Sorry, thank you,” he said, in a panicky tone, and hung up.

I hung up the phone myself, in a state of high agitation, and after a few moments standing frozen in the middle of the living room went and switched on the television. The city was a mess; the bridges to the outer boroughs were closed, which explained why Carlos and Jose hadn’t been able to get in to work, but I saw nothing at all that made me understand what might be holding my mother up. There was a number to call, I saw, if someone was missing. I copied it down on a scrap of newspaper and made a deal with myself that if she wasn’t home in exactly one half hour, I would call.

Writing the number down made me feel better. For some reason I felt sure that the act of writing it down was going to magically make her walk through the door. But after forty-five minutes passed, and then an hour, and still she hadn’t turned up, I finally broke down and called it (pacing back and forth, keeping a nervous eye on the television the whole time I was waiting for somebody to pick up, the whole time I was on hold, commercials for mattresses, commercials for stereos, fast free delivery and no credit required). Finally a brisk woman came on, all business. She took my mother’s name, took my phone number, said my mother wasn’t “on her list” but I would get a call back if her name turned up. Not until after I hung up the phone did it occur to me to ask what sort of list she was talking about; and after an indefinite period of misgiving, walking in a tormented circuit through all four rooms, opening drawers, picking up books and putting them down, turning on my mother’s computer and seeing what I could figure out from a Google search (nothing), I called back again to ask.

“She’s not listed among the dead,” said the second woman I spoke to, sounding oddly casual. “Or the injured.”

My heart lifted. “She’s okay, then?”

“I’m saying we’ve got no information at all. Did you leave your number earlier so we can give you a call back?”

Yes, I said, they had told me I would get a call back.

“Free delivery and set up,” the television was saying. “Be sure and ask about our six months’ free financing.”

“Good luck then,” said the woman, and hung up.

The stillness in the apartment was u

As much as I wanted to go out on the street and look for her, I knew I was supposed to stay put. We were supposed to meet at the apartment; that was the deal, the ironclad agreement ever since elementary school, when I’d been sent home from school with a Disaster Preparedness Activity Book, featuring cartoon ants in dust masks gathering supplies and preparing for some u

“Yes,” said the woman who answered, in an infuriatingly calm voice, “I see here that you’ve phoned in already, we’ve got her down on our list.”

“But—maybe she’s in the hospital or something?”

“She might be. I’m afraid I can’t confirm that, though. What did you say your name was? Would you like to speak to one of our counselors?”

“What hospital are they taking people to?”

“I’m sorry, I really can’t—”

“Beth Israel? Lenox Hill?”

“Look, it depends on the type of injury. People have got eye trauma, burns, all sorts of stuff. There are people undergoing surgery all over the city—”

“What about those people that were reported dead a few minutes ago?”

“Look, I understand, I’d like to help you, but I’m afraid there’s no Audrey Decker on my list.”

My eyes darted nervously around the living room. My mother’s book (Jane and Prudence, Barbara Pym) face-down on the back of the sofa; one of her thin cashmere cardigans over the arm of a chair. She had them in all colors; this one was pale blue.

“Maybe you should come down to the Armory. They’ve set up something for families there—there’s food, and lots of hot coffee, and people to talk to.”

“But what I’m asking you, are there any dead people that you don’t have names for? Or injured people?”

“Listen, I understand your concern. I really, really wish I could help you with this but I just can’t. You’ll get a call back as soon as we have some specific information.”

“I need to find my mother! Please! She’s probably in a hospital somewhere. Can’t you give me some idea where to look for her?”

“How old are you?” said the woman suspiciously.

After a shocked silence, I hung up. For a few dazed moments I stared at the telephone, feeling relieved but also guilty, as if I’d knocked something over and broken it. When I looked down at my hands and saw them shaking, it struck me in a wholly impersonal way, like noticing the battery was drained on my iPod, that I hadn’t eaten in a while. Never in my life except when I had a stomach virus had I gone so long without food. So I went to the fridge and found my carton of leftover lo mein from the night before and wolfed it at the counter, standing vulnerable and exposed in the glare from the overhead bulb. Though there was also egg foo yung, and rice, I left it for her in case she was hungry when she came in. It was nearly midnight: soon it would be too late for her to order in from the deli. After I was finished, I washed my fork and the coffee things from that morning and wiped down the counter so she wouldn’t have anything to do when she got home: she would be pleased, I told myself firmly, when she saw I had cleaned the kitchen for her. She would be pleased too (at least I thought so) when she saw I’d saved her painting. She might be mad. But I could explain.