The Last of the Stanfields(43)

But aside from those brief moments of action, Robert spent most of his time pacing around the hunting lodge. Every night, he would sit on that same tree stump next to Sam. The art dealer would bum a cigarette and ask about the day’s mission. The fact that Robert had come so far from home to be embroiled in a conflict that was completely foreign to him seemed to make Sam feel indebted to the young American.

A real friendship was forming between the two. The art dealer was a great listener, one Robert could trust completely. Sam listened to him in a way that his own father never did.

“So, my boy, have you got somebody waiting for you back home in Baltimore?” Sam asked one day, and it didn’t take long for Robert to understand what Sam was getting at. “Come on, the ladies must be all over you!”

“I’m no Don Juan, Sam. I never was much of a ladies’ man, and the truth is, I haven’t been with that many women in my life.”

“Well, what about the current one? Have you got a photograph?”

Robert reached for his wallet, and his fake ID fell to the ground in the process. Sam picked it up and had a look.

“Robert Marchand? You’re posing as a Frenchman? With your accent? I sure hope you never actually have to use that name. And if you do, pretend you’re a mute, or deaf, or something.”

“I didn’t think my accent was that bad.”

“However bad you think it is, my friend, it’s worse. So, all right then, where’s this girl?”

Robert took back his ID and slid the photo to Sam.

“Well, well, she’s a knockout! What’s her name?”

“No idea. I found this photograph on the gangway of the ship I took across the pond, so I just slipped it into my wallet. I have no idea why. Maybe it helps somehow, pretending there is somebody waiting for me back home. I’m a walking cliché.”

Sam squinted his eyes at the smiling face on the photo.

“I say . . . Lucy Tolliver. Twenty-two years old, volunteer army nurse, Dad was an electrician, Mom was a housewife, she’s an only child . . .”

“Great. So apparently we’re both walking clichés.”

“Careful not to get attached to this face. It’s not a meaningless thing. There’s no lie without a bit of truth to it, especially when you lie to yourself. When I was a schoolboy, my parents were very strict. So, I invented a best friend, sort of as a way to get back at them. Of course, my friend’s parents were far laxer than mine. He wasn’t forced to keep his mouth shut at the dinner table. His bedtime? Much later than mine. And he only had to do homework when he felt like it. I even made him Catholic in an attempt to annoy my mother, as, of course, his parents didn’t make him keep the Sabbath. Long and the short of it is, Max was allowed to do everything I wasn’t, and as a result, boy oh boy did he thrive on such freedom! I was a child, I couldn’t see any other reason for my own shortcomings and failures than my authoritarian parents.

“Mother wasn’t fooled by the whole thing for very long, but she let me dig myself deeper and deeper into my fantasy. And for an entire school year, my imaginary friend had a whole life of his own. Mother would ask for regular updates on how he was doing. If I dreamt up a sore throat for Max? She would slip a honey candy into my backpack. She would sometimes give me twice as much food for my snack, just so I could share with Max. Then one day, for reasons that still escape me after all these years, I was complaining about something or other, going on and on about how great Max’s parents were, and my mother decided to call my bluff: she invited Max over to our place for lunch! After all this time and how much she’d heard about him, it was only natural she’d want to meet her son’s very best friend in the world, this marvelous boy, this Max . . .”

“What did you do?”

Sam winced. “There was an accident! Poor Max ended up getting tragically crushed beneath a trolleybus.”

Robert whistled. “That’s a pretty drastic move!”

“Granted. But I was in quite a bind, and I couldn’t think of anything else to get me out of it. Want to know the icing on the cake, the most absurd part? I actually felt like I’d lost a friend that day. It took me two months to get over his ‘passing,’ and even longer to fill the void left by losing him. I still think of him from time to time, even now. Point is: you can never really get rid of a lie you’ve convinced yourself is true. Food for thought. Anyway, it’s late. We’d better continue this conversation tomorrow.”

“Sorry to say I won’t be here tomorrow, Sam. I’m heading off on a mission, and this time it seems like it might be something serious.”

“Oh? What’s it all about?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. But I need to ask a favor, in the event I don’t make it back.”

“Get out of here! You’ll make it back just fine. Forget your favor.”

“Sam, please. If anything happens to me, my one wish is to be buried back home.”

“And how in the world do you think that I could make something like that happen?” asked the art dealer.

“When things calm down, when peaceful days come again, I know you’ll find a way.”

“And if I’m not around then? If I don’t live to see these peaceful days?”

“Well, then you can consider yourself released from your promise.”