the mirror for flashing lights and glancing sideways at his daughter and fraught with directionless guilt, trying to drive away quickly and take care of her and let her be all at once. Hours out of Cincinnati he said something and she didn’t answer, and in the passing lights of automobiles he saw that she’d fallen asleep. He tuned the radio to a classical music station, Chopin and then Mendelssohn with the volume low, night lullabies, and he hummed softly to the music and drove all through the night.
9.
At the end of November, Eli received a postcard from Montreal. There was no return address. The front depicted a pretty line of grey stone houses with flowerboxes and iron staircases that spiraled from the second floors down to the street, with Montréal in drop-shadowed italics across the bottom. The back held a peculiar message, scrawled in what very clearly wasn’t Lilia’s handwriting: She’s here. Come to Club Electrolite on Rue Ste.-Catherine, and raise a white flag on the dance floor. I’ll see you. Come here soon. Michaela.
If the whole business of life on earth had ever made sense to him, it ceased to at that moment. She unmoored him, her departure made him want to disappear, et cetera—but if the world was askew in the time after he met her, in the time after she left, the postcard spun it entirely from its axis. The day at the gallery passed like a dream. He took the postcard and the continental map to the usual café, where Thomas had been camped out for two weeks trying to pick up a new waitress. Thomas stared at the postcard, whistled softly and shook his head.
“What would you do?” Eli felt fairly unhinged.
“I’d tear up the postcard and go find another girl. Or if you can’t do that, at least forget about this one.”
“What if she needs help?”
“What if she doesn’t? This isn’t a ransom note, it’s just a weird message on the back of an ugly postcard. What if this is some kind of sick joke she’s pulling, some ploy to get you back?”
“I have to go to her.”
“No, you have to move on. What kind of a person disappears like that? Look, things happen. Life continues. So you had a girlfriend who disappeared.”
“Easy for you to—”
“Do you think no one’s ever left me? You can’t chase after them,” Thomas said. “When they leave like that, they’re screwed up, and when they’re screwed up, you can’t save them. You can’t save them. You just have to let them go.” He made an airplane-like letting-go motion with one hand, jetting off to the left. Eli followed it with his eyes and then looked at the postcard again. “You just have to put your life back together and move on and pretend you never knew them, you just have to let them do whatever it is that they can’t do with you around. It’s the way it is.”
“Thomas, this isn’t her handwriting. Leave aside the fact that she left me, I have a postcard that someone’s written about her from a foreign city.”
“She left you, and you want to go find her?”
“I just want to make sure she’s okay. I know she left me, it’s just, I don’t think she has anyone else.”
“She might be with someone else, have you considered that? Some other guy could just . . . Eli, I’m sorry, wait . . .”
Eli stood up and pulled his coat from the back of his chair, the map in his other hand. Thomas made a grasping motion at his arm, which he evaded. Out through the warmth of the café with the map crumpled in his fist, Thomas calling after him, and outside night was falling and it was far too cold. He had a frantic desire to get out of Williamsburg, out of Brooklyn altogether, and found himself walking quickly toward the L-train stairs. There was a girl playing a guitar on the subway platform, sitting on a folding stool. She was singing soft songs about love and pay phones, almost to herself, until the sound of the oncoming train canceled everything. In the crowd that spilled out through the train doors there was
9.
At the end of November, Eli received a postcard from Montreal. There was no return address. The front depicted a pretty line of grey stone houses with flowerboxes and iron staircases that spiraled from the second floors down to the street, with Montréal in drop-shadowed italics across the bottom. The back held a peculiar message, scrawled in what very clearly wasn’t Lilia’s handwriting: She’s here. Come to Club Electrolite on Rue Ste.-Catherine, and raise a white flag on the dance floor. I’ll see you. Come here soon. Michaela.
If the whole business of life on earth had ever made sense to him, it ceased to at that moment. She unmoored him, her departure made him want to disappear, et cetera—but if the world was askew in the time after he met her, in the time after she left, the postcard spun it entirely from its axis. The day at the gallery passed like a dream. He took the postcard and the continental map to the usual café, where Thomas had been camped out for two weeks trying to pick up a new waitress. Thomas stared at the postcard, whistled softly and shook his head.
“What would you do?” Eli felt fairly unhinged.
“I’d tear up the postcard and go find another girl. Or if you can’t do that, at least forget about this one.”
“What if she needs help?”
“What if she doesn’t? This isn’t a ransom note, it’s just a weird message on the back of an ugly postcard. What if this is some kind of sick joke she’s pulling, some ploy to get you back?”
“I have to go to her.”
“No, you have to move on. What kind of a person disappears like that? Look, things happen. Life continues. So you had a girlfriend who disappeared.”
“Easy for you to—”
“Do you think no one’s ever left me? You can’t chase after them,” Thomas said. “When they leave like that, they’re screwed up, and when they’re screwed up, you can’t save them. You can’t save them. You just have to let them go.” He made an airplane-like letting-go motion with one hand, jetting off to the left. Eli followed it with his eyes and then looked at the postcard again. “You just have to put your life back together and move on and pretend you never knew them, you just have to let them do whatever it is that they can’t do with you around. It’s the way it is.”
“Thomas, this isn’t her handwriting. Leave aside the fact that she left me, I have a postcard that someone’s written about her from a foreign city.”
“She left you, and you want to go find her?”
“I just want to make sure she’s okay. I know she left me, it’s just, I don’t think she has anyone else.”
“She might be with someone else, have you considered that? Some other guy could just . . . Eli, I’m sorry, wait . . .”
Eli stood up and pulled his coat from the back of his chair, the map in his other hand. Thomas made a grasping motion at his arm, which he evaded. Out through the warmth of the café with the map crumpled in his fist, Thomas calling after him, and outside night was falling and it was far too cold. He had a frantic desire to get out of Williamsburg, out of Brooklyn altogether, and found himself walking quickly toward the L-train stairs. There was a girl playing a guitar on the subway platform, sitting on a folding stool. She was singing soft songs about love and pay phones, almost to herself, until the sound of the oncoming train canceled everything. In the crowd that spilled out through the train doors there was
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