Mistress

Chapter 113

Professor Andrei Bogomolov doesn’t answer the door when I ring the bell. Instead, a nurse leads me back into his den, where Andrei is lying on a hospital bed positioned against a wall.

Andrei looks twenty times worse than the last time I saw him, only a week ago. The hideous disease that ails him is rapidly winning the fight. Wisps of hair atop his head stand in various directions. His eyes are black and vacant.

The hospital bed wasn’t here the last time I came. Or at least he didn’t let me see it. It tells me that the end is near for him, and that he wants to die at home, not in a hospital.

He tries to smile, but even that small feat seems to cause pain. I take his hand in mine and squeeze it gently.

“Hello, old friend,” I say.

“You are…a hero,” he manages. You’ve done well, Grasshopper.

“All in a week’s work.” I’m trying to lighten the mood, but it falls flat.

I look out the window to the garden, recalling that barbecue only weeks after Mother died. If you ever feel that you’re in danger, Andrei had said to me, you can call me, Benjamin. I will help you.

“You have come here…for a reason,” he whispers.

“I came to see my good friend.” I smile at him.

Andrei winces, and then a coughing attack ensues. I pick up a washcloth at his bedside and wipe his mouth when it’s over.

“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say,” I tell him.

“Yes, I…do,” he manages. “It is…long past…time. A subject…I’ve debated…many times. Many…”

His eyes close. He drifts off to sleep. The pain medication from the IV drip, probably, or maybe just general weakness. After a few minutes, he snaps awake, his eyes unfocused, and he takes a moment to orient himself before he looks at me again.

“Why did my father kill my mother?” I ask.

The question and, probably, the memories it invokes cause him pain, and his mouth contorts briefly. “This is not…something…that we could confirm…at the time. But now…now we believe…we know…the answer.”

“Why did my father kill my mother, Andrei?”

Andrei takes a deep breath.

“He didn’t,” he says.

I draw back, as if zapped by electricity.

“His…employer did,” says Andrei. “Your father…tried to…prevent it.”

His employer. Father’s employer? He doesn’t mean American University.

“So there was a reason the CIA put you at American U,” I say. “You were spying on my father.”

Andrei closes his eyes and nods. “It is…true.”

“Who did Father spy for?” I ask. “The Russians?”

Andrei’s eyes open again. “China,” he says. “We believe…that your mother…discovered this…and they…the Chinese-”

“The Chinese killed my mother because they thought she was going to blow Father’s cover,” I say, everything crystallizing now.

“Just so,” he whispers. “Just so.”

I release his hand and back away from his bed. “And…why…why…why the hell…did Father frame me for-”

Out of nowhere, my throat closes up and I completely lose my composure. The tears almost jump from my eyes down my cheeks, and my chest starts to heave. I stay that way for God knows how long, whimpering like a child and crying like I don’t remember ever crying, struggling for oxygen and seizing up, trembling and screaming in choked wails, everything buried deep within me now pouring out-

Father was a spy? And that’s why Mother was so despondent all that time? She found out that her husband was a traitor. She didn’t know what to do.

When it’s over, when I’ve wiped my face and my nose and caught my breath again, I look over at Andrei. He opens a hand to me. I return to his bedside and hold it.

“My good…Benjamin,” he whispers. “If the…truth…came out…they said…they would kill…they would kill you next.”

“Father was protecting me?” I say the words as though they’re poison on my tongue.

“Your father came home…and found her dead. The Chinese told him…they could not…be implicated…nor could…he. You were…the only choice. Benjamin…your father…took every…step…to ensure your acquittal.”

No matter how my mind is spinning right now, no matter what avalanche of memories besieges me right now, even I would concede that point. I had the best lawyers and I did, after all, beat the charges.

“Is this why I never went to school? Is this why I had private tutors and hardly ever left home until college?”

Andrei nods. “He feared…for your…safety.”

Everything is upside down. Every belief I held about him-wrong.

“Years later,” says Andrei, “we finally…caught your father. It was…too embarrassing to publicly…reveal. He cooperated and…was placed…”

“Under house arrest,” I say. He was placed under house arrest at his cabin. That’s why he stayed there and never let me come, all those years, until he died. He didn’t want me to know.

“A traitor, yes,” says Andrei. “But a traitor who…loved his son.”

No. No. This is too much. Overload. System failure.

I hear myself speak but I don’t know what I said, and then I’m pacing around his den, and then the air outside is somehow cold, stinging my skin, up is down, down is up, someone else is inhabiting this body, it’s not me, I’m not Ben, and car horns are honking and tires are skidding and someone is cursing me, and then I’m running, I’m running as fast as I can and it feels good, it feels right, and I’m laughing and I’m crying, and it feels liberating, it feels normal-

Jimmy Carter is credited as the first president to routinely jog. He did it mostly for stress release. But since then almost every president has jogged except Reagan, who was probably too old to do it regularly, and George W. Bush, who had to give it up after knee pain. Reagan was a former lifeguard who preferred swimming, as did Kennedy to relieve back pain, and John Quincy Adams regularly started his days by swimming nude in the Potomac, funny story about that…