“It’s Nike, the goddess of victory,” Raymond explained, appearing suddenly, without warning.
Thomas jumped and turned toward his father, letting out a sigh.
“Did I scare you?”
“What do you think? How do you do that?”
“Simple enough: She’s easily recognizable, and she was considered quite a looker in her time. Remarkable balance too!”
“I meant your sudden appearances!”
“No idea. Do I ask you howyouwalk? Everyone has their own way. I come and go as I please,” Raymond said. “She was erected to commemorate Admiral Dewey’s victory against the Spanish at the Battle of Manila Bay. One of the tines on the trident represents President McKinley, who was assassinated six months after the monument went up. When Roosevelt took office, he dedicated the tine to his predecessor. The irrefutable historical conclusion is that McKinley was considered much sharper after his death than he ever was in life.”
“I didn’t know you were so familiar with San Francisco,” Thomas said, surprised.
“Everything I just told you is explained at the foot of the monument. Humanity has such strange ideas about how to make sure a person is remembered. A statue. So sad.”
“Not everyone has the chance to come back and see their son.”
“You’re right. I’m lucky. Anyway, now that you’re done playing tourist, let’s sit on those steps over there. We need to talk.”
Thomas followed his father and sat down next to a man playing guitar.
“They confiscated my urn!” he told Thomas. “The manager of Dignity Memorial was outraged to learn someone had left a loved one like that. Listening to him go on and on, I felt like a small child who’d been abandoned on the steps of a church. His assistant defended you, suggesting that people of limited means couldn’t afford the kind of resting place their loved ones deserved and were no doubt simply counting on the kindness of Dignity and its employees. The managerreplied that the person in question could hardly have cremated the body in their fireplace! It was so humiliating. In the meantime, he has me under lock and key in his office. A surgeon of my stature hidden away in a cabinet! What did I ever do to deserve this?”
“I suppose you’ll have to take that question up with God.”
“I already told you to leave God out of this, and to not go calling him whenever the mood strikes. I said earlier that this was a disaster, but now it’s a full-on catastrophe.”
“The good news is that we’ve found your ashes. I’ll get them back tomorrow. This isn’t anything we can’t fix.”
“Now it’s my turn to ask what planet you live on! What are you going to tell him? That you came here on vacation with your father’s remains without a single legal document allowing it? And how do you expect to prove the urn is yours? Or, rather, mine. Are you planning to ask them to take your word for it? You know how they treat foreigners here ever since they elected that yellow-haired mafioso, don’t you? If you’re lucky, they’ll just deport you. If not, they’ll link you to the incident with Camille’s urn and throw you in jail.”
“What incident?”
“Apparently, you didn’t close the lid properly after your failed attempt to open it. I didn’t know there was a seal. It was still in place but broken, so they noticed it had been tampered with. I guess we can’t all be Arsène Lupin!”
Thomas’s eyes widened, and his father was surprised to see him blush.
“Does her daughter know?” he asked worriedly.
“Probably. By the way, what color are her eyes?” Raymond asked.
“Topaz blue,” Thomas replied. “Why?”
“Topaz blue, right. And you expect me to believe you’ve forgotten her name!”
“I haven’t forgotten it. I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“I’m your father, but I was your age once, and if you didn’t have a thing for her, you wouldn’t have paid her so much attention. She’sbecome the apple of your eye. Topaz blue! Speaking of apples, they don’t fall far from the tree, son, even when they try to roll as far away as they can.”
“Even dead you’re full of it. I happened to notice the color of her eyes because I spent a couple hours with her while doingyoua favor, if you’ll recall.”
“Really?”
Next to them on the steps, the guitarist started playing Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” Raymond assured his son that he had nothing to do with it.
“All right, I take full responsibility for my mistake, and I promise I’ll fix it. I’ll go back to the Columbarium tonight and find a way into that office. I’ll break into the cabinet and take you back to Paris.”
