The Devil Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the best ever, and to be free to dash off to Paris in April or Morocco at Christmas, to ski in Italy and Switzerland, to look at the black Goyas in Madrid. I’d like to meet men from England, Germany, and France. I want tosip warm beer in Dublin pubs and invite friends to dinner at my hotel suite in Rome.
    “You and I keep thinking we need our independence. You’re trying to free me, and I’m trying to free you. It has dawned on me that I don’t want to waste any more time being miserable over you and our adolescent love affair. Don’t blame it all on me, Jonathan. I’m as rational about it as you are.”
    Prior to her announcement, we had driven around in her car for hours. We’d run out of gas on a hill, and I’d stumbled down into the valley and climbed back up in a chill wind, a can of gasoline in one hand and a peppermint-stick ice-cream cone in the other.
    After she said it, it occurred to me that one day my wealth could make it possible for her to become as free as she desired—free to create her own identity, free to impose order on all the circumstances and events of her life. Yet in accepting it from me, she would no longer be free to treat my presence in her life as the result of her free choice; rather, she would have to accept her new life as the calculated result of a choice that was initially not hers but mine. The cruel paradox of such a gift was that the very accepting of it would automatically diminish her freedom—her freedom in relation to me.
    A while later, as I strolled barefoot around the lake, I saw Karen standing, her hair tumbled about, her pink and white striped blouse half unbuttoned. She walked to her car, the car door slammed, and she drove away. I kept on looking at the lake and wishing I could dissolve in it.
    •   •   •
     
    As a boy, I collected the cork tips of my father’s cigarettes, believing they contained his unspoken thoughtsand feelings. Now I collect my memories, hoping to discover the links between them.
    •   •   •
     
    The summer was ending. In Central Park the leaves had not yet turned yellow, but the air gave off a scent of decay. Layers of gray clouds hung low over the city.
    Whalen drove along the Hudson River, past the docks with the transatlantic ships. He parked his car on a downtown pier and got out, scanning the riverbank until he found the spot he was looking for. He walked to the embankment, stood at the water’s edge, and looked at the apartment buildings over in New Jersey.
    Years ago, during one winter vacation, his parents had come to New York to see the new Broadway plays and attend all the benefit parties. Jonathan came with them, and to keep him company, his parents invited Peter, one of his grade school friends. One evening after his parents left the house, he and Peter decided to test
Never Say Die
, a book they had read about surviving under any circumstances, from being lost in the Sahara to fighting Russians on the steppes. For the test, Jonathan chose a night crossing of the Hudson River. Dressed in layers of sweaters and underwear, the boys took a taxi to an abandoned pier, where, reconnoitering the day before, Jonathan had spotted a crude row-boat left at the dock, perhaps by one of the dock workers.
    The river heaved with chunks of ice. Through folds of fog the boys could see an occasional light flickering on the New Jersey shore.
    Jonathan untied the boat and steadied it as Peter jumped in and sat in the stern. Then Jonathan climbed aboard, and as the current seized the boat and carried themaway from shore, Jonathan braced his legs, dipped the oars awkwardly into the water, and heaving his body back and forth, began to row frantically. In the darkness, jagged pieces of ice banged against the trembling boat as it took them rapidly downstream. When they saw the lights of the Statue of Liberty and heard the horn of the Staten Island ferry, Jonathan realized that they were on their way out to sea.
Never Say