Page 25

November 1959, Oxford, England

The quad outside was soaked in the damp aftertaste of November rain, a haze suspended just above the ancient stones and the lawn cropped as closely as an English childhood. From his office, tucked in the eastern wing of St. John’s, Alistair watched the quad from three mullioned windows that never quite managed to keep out the weather. The thin light made everything seem smaller and more precise—each stack of books, each cup and paperweight on the battered oak desk, the blue-edged cracks in the plaster above the door. He preferred it this way. Even now, so many years after the war had ended, he found that clarity was best measured in cold units.

There were three essays left to mark before the next supervisions, and he intended to dispatch them in a single hour’s burst. The essays were a siege of predictable analysis on the metaphysical poets, each one making the same clumsy argument about Donne’s compass. Alistair could have written the comments without reading, but that would have been a surrender, and he had promised himself he was finished with that. He picked up his pen, a Parker with the initials A.H. incised on its side and set about the work of shoring up other people’s arguments.

The left leg, the prosthetic, rested at an angle against the chair’s spindle. He shifted it occasionally, not from pain but to relieve the odd, persistent phantom itch. The new model, aluminum and leather, worked better than the old wooden brute, but after nearly half a century, he had long since come to terms with its peculiarities. The cane, heavier than necessary, hung over the desk edge, its silver cap scored with a hundred micro-scratches. He used it less these days, but he liked having it in reach. As a symbol, it did good service.

The office was airless and close; the scent of old pipe tobacco braided through with the more acid bite of ink and ancient paper. He had never smoked, but the college porter did, and the habit had woven itself into the very walls. It was, Alistair thought, the only form of immortality the man would ever know.

At two forty-six, a knock sounded. It was a brisk, confident tap as opposed to the hesitating flutter of a student unsure of the office protocol. Alistair did not glance up from the essay; he marked the margin, set his pen down precisely parallel to the paper, and let the silence stretch for a deliberate four-count before speaking.

“Yes?”

The door opened. The young man who entered was not familiar—not one of his own, and not from a neighboring tutor’s flock either. He was tall, the kind of tall that seemed awkward when standing still, though the frame suggested he might one day own the space he moved through. His hair, a tangle of copper and auburn, had been combed for the occasion but failed to obey. He wore a dark jacket, a touch formal for the college, and carried a notebook under his arm. His eyes were the first thing Alistair noticed: deep-set, dark, and surprisingly still, as if they had learned the uses of silence early.

“Good afternoon,” the boy said. His English was careful, each word enunciated as if it had been practiced, but the vowels slipped sideways into French on the longer syllables. “I am sorry to intrude.”

“You’re not expected, and I don’t believe we’re scheduled for any appointments,” Alistair replied. His tone was considerate, but it was also final. He had cultivated a habit of courtesy in the years since, as if politeness might atone for other forms of cruelty. “Office hours are posted on the door. If you’re seeking your supervisor, you’ll want to check the senior tutor’s corridor.”

The boy nodded, absorbing the rebuff without any sign of offense. “I am not a student, sir. I’ve come to see you.” He advanced a step, still standing, the notebook pressed tight to his ribs. “It is about the war.”

The word settled between them like a lit match on tissue. Alistair felt a tension ripple through his hands, the old muscle memory of reaching for a service revolver or the sling of a trench periscope, but he did not move. Instead, he watched the boy’s face, the way the expression stayed open, as if ready for whatever answer might come. In the silence, the clock on the windowsill ticked loudly.

“I see,” Alistair said, at last. “I suppose you’d better sit.”

The visitor did not hesitate. He crossed to the armchair that faced the desk, placed his book on his lap, and folded his hands atop it. The light from the window etched shadows under his jaw and cheekbones, lending his face a severity that was belied by the uncertain line of his mouth.

Alistair’s own face stayed composed, but inside, a cold reconnaissance was already underway. The boy was not military, not in bearing or speech; nor did he possess the loose, slouched posture of the usual pacifist lecture-crasher. He looked, in fact, like someone performing the role of a supplicant without knowing the script.

The war, he thought. So, it has come for me again, just when I was feeling safe behind these battlements of Latin verse and undergraduate incompetence.

“Do you take tea?” Alistair asked, and gestured toward the second cup, which had cooled during the hour of its abandonment.

The boy shook his head. “Thank you, but I will not stay long.”

“Your name?” Alistair prompted. His own had circulated in the faculty long enough to require no introduction, but this—this was a formality, a maneuver, and he wanted the boy to be the first to lay a card on the table.

The boy hesitated, then said, “Peter. Peter Nowak.” The surname was crisp, pronounced with the Polish ‘v’ that erased any doubt. “My grandfather was with Haller’s Army. He spoke of you.”

Alistair’s left hand, which had been tracing the rim of his teacup, stopped. The name was a grenade, tossed into the quiet logic of the room, and for a moment he felt the shudder of old shrapnel in his lungs. He allowed himself the smallest of exhalations, then nodded.

“You’ve come a long way,” he said. “But I suspect you already knew that.”

The boy’s eyes were unflinching. “Yes.”

Outside, a group of students crossed the quad, their laughter muffled by the rain and the glass. The college bell began its slow toll for three o’clock. Alistair looked past the boy to the clouded pane and found his own reflection: hair gone to dust, the ruined leg stretched out at an angle, the cane glinting on the desk like a command baton. He wondered if Tomasz had ever looked this old, or if the years had made him softer, or harder, or neither.

He brought his attention back to the visitor. “You have questions, I take it.”

“Yes,” said Peter Nowak. He laid his hands on the desk, fingers interlaced and waited for permission to proceed.

Alistair nodded once, the gesture so slight as to be almost a tic. “Ask them, then.”

He did not smile, and he did not blink. It was a lesson from the war: the best way to survive an interrogation was to act as if you had nothing to hide.

***

FOR A MOMENT, NEITHER man spoke. The light shifted in the window, painting long bars across the rug and desk, so that Peter’s face was bisected by shadow. He seemed to brace himself, then began, “My grandfather remembers the Thirty-Fourth Division. He says you were attached to them, near St. Quentin. Is that correct?”