The taxi driver offers William a few tissues and a bottle of water to rinse out his mouth, both of which he reluctantly takes. Catherine helps William clean up, wiping his face. “Feeling better?” she asks him. He nods, but the color hasn’t yet returned. Unsteadily, his mother and the driver help him back into the cab. This leaves Peter standing alone in the street, except for the dog, which Catherine has already forgotten, and which, to Peter’s further displeasure, has begun to sniff at all that William emptied up onto the curb.
* * *
Catherine and William fall asleep, his head rests on her shoulder and her cheek rests on his head, they have collapsed one onto the other. Traffic is at a standstill. Had they been awake, Peter would have recommended they all walk. But they need to rest, so he says nothing. “Maybe twenty minutes more,” the taxi driver whispers to Peter, who checks his watch and examines the road ahead of them, which leads toward his apartment.
“How old is your son?” asks the driver.
“He’s not my son,” answers Peter. There is a dip in the conversation. It is unclear who’s supposed to speak next. The driver allows Peter this space, which he soon fills. “His mother is my girlfriend.” Peter has never referred to Catherine in those terms. He feels an impulse to offer more, as if he is confessing himself. The driver continues to drive, saying nothing, which is in effect his invitation for Peter to say more, if he chooses. “His father is a problem,” Peter adds. “So they’re staying with me.”
The driver glances in his rearview mirror, his reflection only a pair of watching eyes. He makes a quick examination of Catherine and William. Perhaps in their sleeping faces, a clue exists as to the problem Peter has referenced, but if a deeper examination might reveal some concealed history, the driver seems to quickly lose interest. Within an instant his stare has returned to the road.
Like a burden being shifted uncomfortably back onto his shoulders, Peter resumes his silence. He is alone next to the driver. Searching for something to do he rolls down his window. The driver shoots over an irritated look.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Peter asks.
* * *
Catherine jolts awake the moment they take the final turn toward Peter’s apartment. While she straightens her clothes and hair, William continues to doze with his head propped against her shoulder. His color hasn’t completely returned. Nevertheless, he appears refreshed, for he is still young enough that his face bears few signs of last night’s and this morning’s ordeals. His mother, however, wears the evidence of that strain in her puffy eyes, and the faint wrinkles etched around both her mouth and forehead like fine handwriting, and in her silence.
Catherine continues to adjust herself—retucking her shirt, straightening her jacket—taking care not to dislodge William’s cheek, which remains on her shoulder as he sleeps. She glances outside. A heavy lid of clouds continues to hover at the tops of the tallest buildings. The sun has yet to burn through the morning overcast and by the early afternoon it seems as if it never will. Rows of apartments crowd the narrow street. They reach skyward, like inadequate columns built to support a vast ceiling. Without color, shading or halftones, a gloom of simple light follows their return.
“Almost home,” says Peter, hooking his arm behind his headrest so that he faces Catherine in the backseat. He offers an easy smile as he turns toward her, but now that smile vanishes and in its wake a blank stare forms—confusion turning to fear—when his eyes focus out of the rear window.
A black Mercedes has taken a right turn, following behind them.
“Keep straight,” Peter snaps at their driver, and then faces forward.
Murat’s silhouette appears in the rearview mirror. Like when a shark appears in a wave with its unmistakable outline shooting darkly through the aquamarine, Murat’s menacing silhouette proves unmistakable. Then, just like the shark in the wave, and just as quickly, Murat disappears. His Mercedes breaks right, looping the block in the opposite direction as Catherine and Peter’s taxi, which continues straight on.
Peter slinks down in his seat. The slackening in his body is equal parts relief and disappointment, for he feels a reluctant draw toward Murat, as if he wants to park the taxi so that he can step onto the curb, flag down his rival and, perhaps, clear the air between them.
Catherine has seen the Mercedes too. “Wake up,” she says, shaking William by the shoulders.
The boy whimpers, pleading for his mother to leave him in peace.
“Where do you want me to drop you?” asks the taxi driver.
Peter glances at Catherine through the rearview mirror. Her uncertain gaze matches his own. He resents her silence, her lack of a plan. She has imposed herself on him, first by bringing William to his exhibit the night before, and now by luring Murat to his apartment. Peter can’t return home. She has placed him in the exact same position she is in, upending his life. She could redeem herself somewhat by offering an idea of what they should do now. But he knows that she has none. The entire contour of their affair—that first night on the bridge, sharing cigarettes on the terrace at dinner, the afternoons at his apartment—none of it has been thought out. It has been a series of ill-considered impulses. None of it deliberate. None of it with meaning.
“Stop the cab,” he says.
The driver presses hastily on the brakes.
“Where are you going?” asks Catherine.
“I’m going to talk with him.”
“You can’t do that.”
“He’s your husband,” says Peter. The door is open and his foot is planted on the pavement, though he has yet to transfer his weight onto it. “Come with me. We’ll do it together.” Her eyes shift toward the street in a flash of consideration, but then her gaze freezes. She stares straight ahead, at the road.
He steps from the taxi.
Catherine reacts to his departure by placing her arm around her son, who glances from the backseat upward at Peter. William has listened to their exchange, but if he feels any concern that he might not see Peter again he doesn’t show it. With both hands William clutches the camera Peter lent him, which he wears around his neck. Peter can’t bring himself to ask for his camera back. He also can’t bring himself to abandon Catherine entirely. Had theirs been a normal, casual romance, he would have left. But it hasn’t been. They have become entangled within one another’s lives. From her son, to his work, to her volatile husband, she has encumbered him. And Peter can feel the weight of those tethers holding him in place as he attempts to leave her.
Then a thought comes to him very clearly: Perhaps she has been deliberate. Perhaps she had known all along what she was doing with me, how she has held me in place.
Before he shuts the door behind him, Peter dips his head into the taxi’s open front window. “Drop her at Bebek Park,” he tells the driver, pressing a few bills into his hand. He turns to Catherine. “I’ll meet you there within the hour.”