These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

Taking Zan’s information, the constable’s manner disavows empathy. “But you say,” he asks, trying to get it straight, “that your wife has gone missing as well.”

“My wife is missing in Africa,” Zan explains as calmly as he can manage, “and now my daughter—”

“You best need to speak with the consulate general of the country where your wife—”

“I’m not here about my wife. I’m explaining how the situation came about. . ”

“Sorry?”

“How the situation came about. My daughter has gone missing with her nanny.”

“I see,” says the officer. Zan may be imagining the tone of accusation, but given his own sense of guilt and accountability it doesn’t matter: If I just had talked Viv out of. . out of. . what? Going to Ethiopia? Hiring someone to find Sheba’s mother? and he’s swept by nausea, certain he’s going to be ill in the middle of the station. He looks at Parker in the chair next to him, slumping as though to disappear down whatever hole might open up underneath and deliver him from this situation. “It happened yesterday,” says Zan.

“And you chose not to report it before now?” the officer says.

“I keep thinking she’ll come back.”

“Perhaps she will.”

“I just made a report yesterday to the Ethiopian embassy concerning my wife—”

“Mind, Mr. Nordhoc, we’re not the Ethiopian embassy.”

“I know that,” Zan says, breathing as deeply as possible, “I’m trying to explain why. . what my. . state of mind. . ”

“State of mind?”

“What my thinking was. . that she might come back—”

“What’s your business in London, if I may ask?”

“I gave a lecture at the university.”

“Can you describe the girl?”