The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Page B

“Yes,” he was saying, “I understand that it’s a crime scene, but these paintings are very sensitive to changes in air quality and temperature. They may have been damaged by water or chemicals or smoke. They may be deteriorating as we speak. It is of vital importance that conservators and curators be allowed into the crucial areas to assess the damage as soon as possible—”
    All of a sudden the telephone rang—abnormally loud, like an alarm clock waking me from the worst dream of my life. My surge of relief was indescribable. I tripped and nearly fell on my face in my headlong dive to grab it. I was certain it was my mother, but the caller ID stopped me cold: NYDoCFS.
    New York Department of—what? After half a beat of confusion, I snatched up the phone. “Hello?”
    “Hello there,” said a voice of hushed and almost creepy gentleness. “To whom am I speaking?”
    “Theodore Decker,” I said, taken aback. “Who is this?”
    “Hello, Theodore. My name is Marjorie Beth Weinberg and I’m a social worker in the Department of Child and Family Services?”
    “What is it? Are you calling about my mother?”
    “You’re Audrey Decker’s son? Is that correct?”
    “My mother! Where is she? Is she all right?”
    A long pause—a terrible pause.
    “What’s the matter?” I cried. “Where is she?”
    “Is your father there? May I speak to him?”
    “He can’t come to the phone. What’s wrong?”
    “I’m sorry, but it’s an emergency. I’m afraid it’s really very important that I speak to your father right now.”
    “What about my mother?” I said, rising to my feet. “Please! Just tell me where she is! What happened?”
    “You’re not by yourself, are you, Theodore? Is there an adult with you?”
    “No, they’ve gone out for coffee,” I said, looking wildly around the living room. Ballet slippers, askew beneath a chair. Purple hyacinths in a foil-wrapped pot.
    “Your father, too?”
    “No, he’s asleep. Where’s my mother? Is she hurt? What’s happened?”
    “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to wake your dad up, Theodore.”
    “No! I can’t!”
    “I’m afraid it’s very important.”
    “He can’t come to the phone! Why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong?”
    “Well then, if your dad’s not available, maybe it’s best if I just leave my contact information with you.” The voice, while soft and sympathetic, was reminiscent to my ear of Hal the computer in
2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Please tell him to get in touch with me as soon as possible. It’s really very important that he returns the call.”
    After I got off the telephone, I sat very still for a long time. According to the clock on the stove, which I could see from where I sat, it was two-forty-five in the morning. Never had I been alone and awake at such an hour. The living room—normally so airy and open, buoyant with my mother’s presence—had shrunk to a cold, pale discomfort, like a vacation house in winter: fragile fabrics, scratchy sisal rug, paper lamp shades from Chinatown and the chairs too little and light. All the furniture seemed spindly, poised at a tiptoe nervousness. I could feel my heart beating, hear the clicks and ticks and hisses of the large elderly building slumbering around me. Everyone was asleep. Even the distant horn-honks and the occasional rattle of trucks out on Fifty-Seventh Street seemed faint and uncertain, as lonely as a noise from another planet.
    Soon, I knew, the night sky would turn dark blue; the first tender, chilly gleam of April daylight would steal into the room. Garbage trucks would roar and grumble down the street; spring songbirds would start singing in the park; alarm clocks would be going off in bedrooms all overthe city. Guys hanging off the backs of trucks would toss fat whacking bundles of the
Times
and the
Daily News
to the sidewalks outside the newsstand. Mothers and dads all over the city would be shuffling around wild-haired in underwear and bathrobes,