If Thomas had pushed him, Micha might have crumbled into pieces of dust and bone. Instead, he accepted the evasion. “I know. But things will get better.”
“Right.” Micha mustered something of his usual harshness. His eyes narrowed. “What are your dreams, then, Father?”
“Oh.” Thomas gave a nervous laugh. “I suppose I should like to fulfil my duty to my family. And live always with honour and integrity. And serve God to the best of my ability.”
Micha snorted. “Those are your dreams? They sound like a shopping list.”
“Well.” Thomas’s hands waved agitated patterns in the air. “Obviously one’s dreams are constrained by the ... by the expectations of the world in which one moves and the necessity of living a full and useful life, dedicated to higher principles than ... than. Oh dear. You’re quite right. I appear to have absolutely terrible dreams.”
Micha spoke without thinking, forgetting far too easily that he disliked Thomas. “What if you weren’t ... what was it ... constrained by whatever you said you were constrained by? What if you could do anything you wanted?”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“Think now.”
“I am thinking. Um, could I be Richard Burton?”
“No, you can’t. Everyone wants to be Richard Burton. Women want to have him and men want to—” Micha stopped, horrified at what he had been about to say, which wasbe had by him.
Thomas, however, didn’t seem to have noticed. He was either the most oblivious or the most forgiving man Micha had ever met. “If I must be myself,” he said softly, “may I still travel, perhaps?”
“They’re your dreams. I don’t know why you’re asking me for permission.”
Thomas gave one of his sweet, self-deprecating smiles. “Force of habit, I fear. But very well.” He pressed a closed fist decisively into his other palm. “I would travel. How is that?”
“Where would you go?”
“Anywhere, Micha, everywhere. France, Italy, Spain, and far beyond. To the places we cannot even imagine. I would like to see other skies. I would like to see deserts.”
“Deserts?”
“Oh yes, I sometimes dream of deserts. The harsh, searing emptiness of infinity. The silence of eternity. And God in every grain of sand.”
There was a long silence. Thomas blushed.
“I ... I’ve travelled a bit,” offered Micha abruptly. “Nowhere special or exciting. Grand tour stuff, you know.”
“You went on a grand tour?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“My brothers did. I had to study. How wonderful it must be, to know a little of the world beyond our shores. ‘Broadening the horizon,’ I think they call it.”
“My horizon is as narrow as the eye of a fucking needle. Just because you can see through the bars of a cage doesn’t make it any less of a cage.”
“None of the memories bring you pleasure?”
Micha could not bear the hope in Thomas’s eyes. “I liked Venice. It was”—he paused—“very beautiful. It was as though the light itself was made by some magician. Whatever it touched, it made lovely, even the slimy marble steps and faded brocade furnishing of the palazzo we took that overlooked the Grand Canal.” He fell silent for a moment. “The sunlight, there, in the mornings, gleaming on the lagoon, was the brightest I’d ever seen.”
“How much beauty in your world.”
Micha suddenly tasted bile. “Beauty is only a commodity.” And, before Thomas could reply, unravel him, and expose him further, he snapped, “I wish you’d leave me the fuck alone.”
Thomas nodded and climbed to his feet. He was not graceful, but his movements had a carefulness about them that gave him a certain fluidity. “I have imposed upon you more than enough.”
“What does that mean?” asked Micha sharply, convinced he had finally pushed Thomas too far, and that he was going to be thrown out into the street, as he deserved. He hardly knew why he persisted in these childish, self-defeating games. It would have been far better for him to play the perfect, grateful guest. He had taken far more demeaning roles. But Micha, a man who displayed himself for strangers as a matter of course, simply could not bring himself to do it. He was half-consumed by the need to make Thomas hate him before Thomas found his own reasons to do so and, at the same time, terrified to think he might succeed.
“It means”—Thomas smiled—“that I shall leave you to rest.”
