The Border of Paradise: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

said that David was unlikely to have any serious, permanent neurosis. A phase. Hormones. Adolescence. Boys, especially very bright ones, are so likely to have trouble.” In a louder rush she added, “I also wanted to let you know that my Marianne has taken an interest in your son. I think he made quite an impression on her at the Christmas party. I know she’s been looking for him in church; I guess you could say she has an infatuation. And I know they’re still young, and these matters are so far off, of course, but I’ll let you know right now that I’d be happy to have Marianne marry your son one day. Out of all of the boys in the neighborhood, you have such a sweet, good-looking boy. I don’t think ill of your family in the slightest.”
    I was afraid that my mother would climb the stairs and see me, so I ducked back into my room and sat in my chair, staring at my World’s Fair poster with its painted, abstract sphere. In my room the walls were a patchy white, and there was a single window above my bed for the moonlight and the nightmares to come crawling in. As I’d guessed, I soon heard Matka’s footsteps, and then she was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed.
    “My bug,” she said, though I was too old to be called that childhood nickname. She studied me for a while as if deciding something, and then she left. I hadn’t said a word, but my mind was shouting, Marianne! I even found myself smiling. And then, in the middle of all that happiness while I dazed and dreamed, I heard my mother shriek my name, and as if waking from a deep sleep, I staggered down the hall and into their bedroom.
    My father was lying on the floor, pulling his shirt from his chest and moaning. I’d never heard him make such a sound; it was like a noise that I’d think a moose would make, but it was Ojciec crying out, and it terrified all the happiness right out of me. My mother screamed my name again, and told me to call our doctor.
    As my mother drove us to the hospital behind the paramedics, I thought of things to say and then discarded them. Whenyou’ve got so many things to say, you end up saying none of them; there’s never any way to know what is the right thing to say, and I didn’t want to upset her further. But the truth was that I resented Ojciec for interrupting my tiny moment of triumph—one that even Matka could share in.
    He’d had a heart attack. The stress of reviving the manufactory after the war had done a number on him, and Dr. Herms said it was nothing to sniff at. But my father’s “ticker,” as Dr. Herms called it, could last Ojciec to old age if he took better care of himself. He listed a number of suggestions, which Matka took down in her notebook. God willing, Dr. Herms said, Peter would live to see his great-grandchildren’s christenings. I couldn’t help but daydream that those great-grandchildren would have Orlich blood in them, mixed with mine. What kind of son thinks these things in such calamitous circumstances?

    I thought Matka would burst with joy as we walked to St. Jadwiga. She’d sneak looks at me, making sure I was still there, and then look at Ojciec as if to say, Look, I have done it. I’d been to the Cloisters with my parents on occasion, more for “tourism within New York” reasons than anything, on par with visiting Lady Liberty, but St. Jadwiga was the holiest place that I knew, and entering the double wooden doors was obviously my return as the prodigal son. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know who would treat me as though I had never left, and who would act as though my afflictions—whatever they knew of my afflictions—were contagious. I was afraid that someone would accuse me of heresy, or possibly worse. But I came in flanked by my parents, and immediately we were greeted by the Orlichs, who descended like a flock of friendly gray pigeons, including Marianne, who had on an ashy sweater glittering with beads. “David,