I watched him walk down the hill, past the stand of oaks and the line of maples all the way out of the park. I willed myself to be calm, but I had no will left, not for that. I made it a point to draw few lines in my life. Drawing them rarely made sense. People who drew lines became trapped on the wrong side. Things changed, reality shifted, shapes became shadows and shadows faded into night. You can't see your principles in the dark. But where I did draw a line, I had no intention of erasing it.
At my grandfather's funeral, a day of bright sunshine, people I had never met before bowed their heads and murmured as they passed by that I should be true to his name. On the day he died, the radio called him the Beating Heart of the Revolution, and all at once, when I heard that, I knew what he had been trying to tell me for all the years I had been in his house. I never saw him bend.
When we were young, not long after the war, my brother came home a few times a year. Whenever he did, my grandfather would become silent. It was a great honor, my brother would say. He was attending the revolutionary school for the children of heroes killed in the war. The students were all orphans, but they had not lost their family, he told us. The fatherland was our family, the party was our future, the Great Leader was the center of our hope. No one could rest on what he had done in the past; it was to the future we owed our lives. To me, it was stirring stuff. My grandfather sat with his hands on his knees and was silent.
Once, after my brother had returned to school, the old man went out to his workroom and didn't come back, even though night had fallen. I found him sitting by the light of a single candle, holding a beautiful piece of wood he had been working on for weeks. As I stepped inside the room, he broke the wood across his knee. "Which piece should we burn first?" he asked me. I had no idea what to reply.
After my brother had disappeared outside the wall that surrounded the park, I set off for the lake. I walked, not noticing where I was or what I saw. I must have gone across one of the bridges, because the next thing I knew, I was all the way around on the western side of the lake, sitting on a bench that shared a patch of grass with a small linden tree. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a man jogging down the path. Barely a meter away, he stopped to tie his shoe. I knew what was going to happen next. He sat down beside me. "Nice day," he said. "You jog? Good way to get exercise and see the sights."
These people had no shame. I started to get up.
"Whoa, I didn't mean any offense," he said. "Just trying to make conversation. You look a little lonely, sitting here."
I sat back down. "Let's save ourselves a lot of time. I'll give you my answer first. No. I'll throw in an extra one for emphasis. No. And I have plenty in reserve. I brought a suitcase full of them and put several in my pocket this morning. No. Now, go ahead and ask your question."
"What question? I told you, I was jogging. I'm here on a vacation."
"Good for you. Myself, I'm here to dedicate a memorial to the Heroes of the Revolution."
"Funny man. Look, you may not know it, but there are a lot of people about to crawl up your ass. Here's my phone number." He put a piece of paper on the bench next to me. "If you get nervous or decide you want a change of scenery, just call and ask for Mr. Walbenhurst."
"Some name. I don't think I can remember it. Is it real?"
"Everything is real, Inspector. And everything is possible." He leaned over and checked his laces again. "Well, write if you get work," he smiled. "That's what my mama used to tell me."
The woman sitting three benches away waited until he jogged past before she stood up. Nothing left to chance, I said to myself. Which is why nothing was possible.