Part 7
Elias stood beneath a streetlamp with the instrument tucked beneath his jaw. The old case lay open near his feet. Lena sat on a bench twenty yards away, eating the last pieces of melon from the plastic cup.
Elias played without flourish.
The violin was scratched along one edge. His bow hand trembled slightly on sustained notes, but the melody remained recognizable. It was not the kind of performance that transformed a street into a concert hall. Cars continued passing. People continued talking. A cyclist rang a bell at someone blocking the path.
Daniel stood near the railing.
Elias saw him and kept playing.
After a minute, Lena approached Daniel.
“You shouldn’t stand too close to the case,” she said.
“Why?”
“People think you’re with him. They give less.”
Daniel moved several feet away.
“Thank you.”
She sat on the low wall overlooking the beach.
Daniel stayed where he was.
After the song ended, Elias lowered the violin.
“Made six dollars,” he said.
“There was four in the case before you started,” Lena replied.
“Then I made two.”
“A triumph.”
He looked at Daniel.
“Your wife apologize?”
“She tried.”
“That bad?”
“Yes.”
Elias placed the violin carefully in the case.
Daniel noticed a small blister along the man’s collarbone where soup had soaked beneath the shirt.
“That’s a burn.”
“It’s skin.”
“It needs cleaning.”
Lena held up one hand.
“I have antiseptic.”
From her cardigan pocket, she produced two small packets and a folded adhesive bandage. The supplies looked as if they had come from a first-aid station.
Elias frowned.
“You stole those.”
“I was given them.”
“By whom?”
She looked toward the Cypress House.
Elias understood.
He unbuttoned the top of his shirt without further argument. Lena tore open the packet.
Daniel turned slightly to give them privacy, though there was little to protect on a public promenade beneath a streetlamp.
“Why did you go to the terrace?” he asked.
Elias hissed as antiseptic touched the burn.
“I’d been playing outside since noon.”
“That wasn’t the question,” Lena said.
“I was hungry.”
“You had money.”
“I had bus fare.”
“You walked here.”
“I need bus fare tomorrow.”
Lena applied the bandage.
Elias looked at Daniel.
“The server carried a basket of bread toward an empty table. I asked if there was anything being thrown away. Your wife heard me. That’s the whole tragic history.”
Daniel nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“You say that a lot.”
“I’ve had practice today.”
Elias buttoned his shirt.
“You going back to her?”
“No.”
“That answer came fast.”
“It wasn’t a fast decision.”
“It looked fast from where I stood.”
Daniel leaned against the railing.
The ocean below was nearly black. Beach fires glowed in the distance.
“I’ve been slow for years,” he said.
Elias considered this.
“That’ll make a person mistake motion for courage.”
Daniel looked at him.
Elias shrugged.
“I’ve been divorced twice. It qualifies me to say almost nothing.”
Lena handed him the remaining antiseptic packet.
“Keep that.”
“You might need it.”
“I know where the hotel keeps them.”
The joke was dry enough that Daniel did not know whether to laugh. Lena smiled faintly, then looked away.
Elias closed his case.
“Where are you sleeping?” he asked her.
“I have somewhere.”
“That means no.”
“It means somewhere.”
“Is it safe?”
“It has a door.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Lena stood.
“I’m not discussing this with two men I met beside a garbage bin.”
“You know me,” Elias said.
“I met you beside a garbage bin.”
“Fair.”
She started walking inland.
Elias picked up the case.
“Lena.”
She stopped without turning.
“I’m at the church steps on Anacapa,” he said. “The side entrance stays dry unless the wind changes.”
“I have a place.”
“All right.”
She continued.
Daniel watched until she disappeared behind a row of parked cars.
“Is there really a church?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you sleep there?”
“Sometimes.”
Daniel looked toward the Cypress House, its upper windows glowing above the trees.
“I can get you a room.”
Elias shook his head before the sentence finished.
“One night.”
“No.”
“You’re burned.”
“I have slept burned before.”
“That doesn’t make it sensible.”
“It makes it mine.”
Daniel felt irritation rise.
“I’m not trying to insult you.”
“I know.”
“Then why refuse?”
Elias lifted the violin case.
“Because tonight you need me to be a good man who was wronged by a bad woman. You saw me give away a sandwich, and now you think I’m carrying some answer you can use. I don’t.”
Daniel stared at him.
Elias’s expression softened slightly.
“I’m grateful for the food,” he said. “Truly. But don’t rent me a room so you can sleep in yours.”
Daniel looked toward the dark ocean.
The accuracy hurt.
“I’m at a motel,” he said.
“Then we both have somewhere.”
Elias began walking.
Daniel followed at a distance.
At the intersection, Elias stopped.
“You don’t need to escort me.”
“I’m parked this way.”
“You’re parked the other way.”
Daniel glanced behind him.
Elias smiled for the first time.
It altered his entire face.
“All right,” Daniel said. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Daniel returned to the motel.
He wrote his statement at the small desk beneath a lamp that buzzed whenever the air conditioner started. He described the terrace, Elias’s distance from the table, the request for leftover bread, Maren’s words, the movement of the bowl, and the soup striking the man’s chest.
He removed every adjective.
Cruel. Deliberate. Shocking. Humiliating.
The facts did not need his help.
When he reached the part where he had left his ring on the table, he deleted it. The hotel did not need that. Neither did Elias. Daniel’s marriage was a consequence, not evidence.
He emailed the statement to Noah and copied the Cypress House general manager’s address from the hotel website.
Then he turned off the lamp.
May you like
He slept for twenty minutes at a time.
At four in the morning, he woke convinced he had left the front door of their Los Angeles house unlocked, though he had not been home in two days. At five, he remembered Maren’s face when he closed the hotel-room door. At six, he dreamed of the wedding ring rolling beneath a restaurant table while both of them searched on hands and knees.
