All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes, reading something in there. She says, “Well?”
    â€œWell, what?”
    â€œIf you’re going to ask me about Vienna, then you might as well do it before I pass out.”
    Involuntarily, my right hand drops to my pocket, touching the Siemens. On the other side of the room, the short-tempered businessman is digging into a plate of antipasti. Celia is waiting to be interrogated.

 
    11
    Yet as I open my mouth, running through the script, some impromptu variation on the one that brought Bill to tears, she holds up a long finger. “Don’t expect a lot.”
    I close my mouth, look curious.
    The finger moves to her skull and taps. “I don’t know how much I’ll remember.”
    â€œThe Xanax?”
    She shakes her head, still holding on to a smile. “There are collectors,” she says, “and there are the other people. Jettisoners? I don’t know. But I’m one of them. Remember my apartment on Salmgasse?”
    â€œSpare.”
    â€œMore than that, Henry. Empty. Every time I moved, I trimmed my life back to the basics. People do this when they’re young, but unlike them I didn’t have a parents’ attic to slowly fill up. I didn’t rent some storage facility in Queens. I just let it go, and each time I dumped old letters or photos, I felt a tingle of pleasure. There: One part of my history is gone. That gaggle of friends has disappeared. This collection of embarrassing memories can no longer be discovered by someone going through my stuff.” She reaches for her wine, sips, thinks. “It was always about the future. What’s that they say about the past?”
    â€œThat it’s another country?”
    She accepts my half-remembered quote. “I’m forty-five now. My kids are starting to ask questions about that other country. Their friends’ parents pull out home movies and photo albums and invite aging relatives over to tell stories. What do I do? I divert their attention. Their friends are handed a long history. My kids are given nothing.”
    I’m not sure how to answer this. Is she talking about child rearing or the mistakes of her past? And in either case, does she expect some kind of constructive reply, or is she only showing off her anxieties so that I can admire the difficulties of parenthood? Matty was that way, her hour-long speeches uninterruptable—for if I did break in with a possible solution to her problems, I’d receive a suspicious look, followed by a fresh lecture on my inability to really know her.
    But this is not Matty—quite the contrary. I say, “Children are resilient. I didn’t get much of a history when I was growing up. You know the story.” She does—abusive, alcoholic grandpa, who when he did appear at family functions was mute with eternal guilt, and whose violent history had primed the extended clan for silence. “It’ll make sense when they’re older. They’ll be happy not to be saddled by all those connections.”
    â€œUntil they have kids.”
    â€œIf they have kids.”
    â€œThey better,” she says with the old sharpness—grandchildren are something she’s already settled on. “And I better last long enough to bounce them on my knee.”
    I don’t bother promising her anything.
    She drinks more of her wine, fully now, the flesh of her throat contracting and expanding, then sets down the glass. “I’m thinking about writing a book.”
    I wait.
    With a finger wave around her temple, she says, “Memory. This is a problem. You throw away all the evidence of your past, and you start to forget it. And it may not be pretty, but it’s all I’ve got. So I’ve been taking notes. Something to leave to the kids.”
    â€œYou better get that cleared.”
    â€œI’m not thinking of publishing, Henry. Maybe put a couple of copies in a safe deposit box, for when they come of age. Or