Great House by Nicole Krauss Page A

lifeless again. And for a moment I thought I had lost you, that you would turn away from me again, as you have always turned away. But you didn’t. You continued to stand there, looking past me at the living room, as if you were seeing something there, a memory, maybe, the ghost of the child you once were.
    Mine, you said simply.
    I scanned your face, trying to understand.
    What about work? Don’t you have to get back? I asked, because that was your excuse all these years when you hardly ever came, always work that you couldn’t leave, that kept you away.
    You winced. The lines between your eyes deepened, and with one hand you reached up and touched your temple, just above the little blue vein that used to stand out and pulse when you were angry as a child.
    I resigned, you said.
    I thought I’d misheard. You for whom there was nothing but your work. So I asked you again: Surely they need you back again? But I saw that you weren’t really with me, standing there in the hall. Youwere with whatever memory it was that you saw behind me, crossing the living room floor.
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    A STRANGE BOY , who grew inward from the beginning. When we asked you a question, we would sometimes have to wait half a day for an answer. God forbid you should respond without thinking, without making absolutely sure of the truth. By the time the answer came no one remembered what you were talking about. When you were four you began to have fits. You would throw yourself on the floor, pound your fists and bang your head, and hurl everything around your room. Often it was when you didn’t get your way, but other times something tiny and completely unexpected would set you off, a magic marker no one could find the cap for, the halves of your sandwich cut straight across instead of on a diagonal. Your kindergarten teacher called to express her concern. You stubbornly refused to participate in class activities. You sat to the side, holding yourself away from the others as if they were lepers, and pretended not to understand what they said when they spoke to you. You never laughed, she said, and when you cried it wasn’t a short jag and a little whimpering like the other kids, a crying that could be appealed to, soothed away. You were inconsolable. With you, it was something existential. That was her word. Your mother had to pick you up early, had to come rescue you and bring you home so often that soon she began to hide it from me, so that I wouldn’t become angry. An appointment was scheduled with the school psychologist. He invited himself to our home. He was a balding, pigeon-toed man who used a handkerchief to mop up his profuse sweat. I had to specially schedule a time when I could leave the office. Your mother served him coffee and cookies, gave you a glass of milk, and then we left you alone in the living room. For an hour the psychologist, Mr. Shatzner, pulled things out of his bag, and got you to make up stories about the little toys and action figures. We could see you through the French doors if we tiptoed past in thehallway. Afterwards, you were excused and went off to play in the garden while he interviewed us about our “home life.” Before leaving, he took a tour of the house. He seemed surprised to find the place so sunny and warm, full of plants, wooden toys, and plenty of your crayon drawings taped to the walls. Looks can be deceiving, I saw him thinking, working hard to scratch the surface to uncover the neglect and brutality beneath. His gaze rested on the woolen blanket on your bed. Your mother looked concerned, and I saw her biting her lip and kicking herself that, what? It wasn’t soft enough? She should have bought one with cars and trucks on it like Yoni had next door? It took all the control I had not to take him by the ear and throw him out on the street. You were playing outside. I could see your red shirt flashing behind the quince bush, where you’d found an ant colony two days