The man in front of him was motionless, inured to his grief. He was looking down at his trouser leg. What was he staring at? Maybe he had suffered a stroke. “Is it true,” the Actor said to Vinod, “that you were the one that had told Karen to fix me? That you were the one who made her do it?”
“Oh, shut up,” Karen said. “Don’t pass the blame.”
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Vinod said. He continued to stare at the fly on his leg, wondering if it had died in the interim. He brought his hand to it, and nudged its surprisingly soft shape. The wings lifted. Vinod smiled. “You told me once you wanted to play haughty Serebrakoff,” he said to the Actor. “But instead you played Vanya.”
“I lost my sense of self-entitlement,” the Actor said. “I felt I was ready for the challenge. I learned it by watching you. By understanding your humility. How was I?”
“You are Serebrakoff,” Vinod said. “You are not ruined or helpless. You are good at what you do.”
“But what do I do?”
“Maybe it’s best that you don’t find out,” Vinod said.
The Actor looked up at him. Looked back to make sure the cameras were not filming. He got up, forgetting to wipe the nonexistent dust off his knee. “You should go,” Karen said to him. “Leave here for good. Summer’s almost over. Resort’s closing down.” And now the Actor wanted to slug her back, to deliver a backhand if not a left hook. Because it had all started with her, hadn’t it? One tiny snap of a phone’s camera lens. Instead he walked off the porch, the camera and microphone once again borne aloft and pointed in his direction.
On the cedar steps, he ran into Dee and Ed, still in their Russian garb, their arms linked. “Joel,” Dee said to him. “Do you want to come down to the city?”
He looked at her, mystified, as if she had never spoken his given name aloud before. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. That would be great. My car broke down.”
“You can catch a ride with us,” Ed said. “We have space for you and maybe one piece of luggage.”
“Okay,” he said. He looked at the two lovers, examining them afresh, wondering, without malice, if they would survive as a couple in the difficult years to come, in the city, in their masks. “If you’ll have me,” he said.
* * *
—
“Could you leave, too?” Vinod said to Karen. “I want to speak to Masha.”
Masha sat on the white rocking chair, adult sized but bought specifically to entertain Nat, its wild motions meant to make up for her lack of horsing-around siblings or friends. “How are you feeling?” Masha asked. “Was that too strenuous?”
“It was fine,” Vinod said. “But it won’t end well.”
“I’m sorry I can’t hear you,” Masha said, adjusting her face shield and mask. She had taken off her gray wig, but still wore her kaftan, and her posture was bent as if she could not slough off her role as the old nurse.
“It won’t end well for me,” he said, louder now. Down on the front lawn, Senderovsky had taken on the role of traffic warden and was maneuvering a line of Subarus off the grass and onto the gravel driveway. The black pickup was long gone. “You have to stand up to them when the time comes,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Sasha and Karen.”
“I can’t stand up to them,” she said. “When have I ever been able to stand up to them? And you have your MOLST.”
“Karen will find a way. And Sasha will back her.” He took a deep breath. “There was a man, they amputated both legs, his right arm, the finger of his left—”
“That won’t happen to you. The odds of that—”
“He died anyway. Two months on the ventilator.”
“Karen wants to fly in the best specialists.”
“They’ll have me in the hospital in no time.”
“There are days when you show signs of improvement.”
“It’s not going anywhere. It’s lingering.” He took a deep breath, his intake meager. “My oxygen levels can plummet any second. My heart rhythms can go nuts.”
“All good reasons to get the best care.”
“Mashen’ka. Listen to me. You were in a dream of mine. You helped me up the stairs.”
“You’re getting overexcited. You need to go home and rest. This whole thing was ridiculous. I can’t believe I was forced to act.”