A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO AN IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEM

The day after the renter and I dug up Dad's grave, I went to Mr. Black's apartment. I felt like he deserved to know what happened, even if he wasn't actually a part of it. But when I knocked, the person who answered wasn't him. "Can I help you?" a woman asked. Her glasses were hanging from a chain around her neck, and she was holding a folder with lots of paper coming out of it. "You're not Mr. Black." "Mr. Black?" "Mr. Black who lives here. Where is he?" "I'm sorry, I don't know." "Is he OK?" "I assume so. I don't know." "Who are you?" "I'm a realtor." "What's that?" "I'm selling the apartment." "Why?" "I suppose the owner wants to sell it. I'm just covering today." "Covering?" "The realtor who represents this property is sick." "Do you know how I can find the owner?" "I'm sorry, I don't." "He was my friend."

She told me, "They're coming by sometime this morning to take everything away." "Who's they?" "They. I don't know. Contractors. Garbage men. They." "Not moving men?" "I don't know." "They're throwing his things away?" "Or selling them." If I'd been incredibly rich, I would have bought everything, even if I just had to put it in storage. I told her, "Well, I left something in the apartment. It's something of mine, so they can't sell it or give it away. I'm going to get it. Excuse me."

I went to the index of biographies. I knew I couldn't save the whole thing, obviously, but there was something I needed. I pulled out the B drawer and flipped through the cards. I found Mr. Black's. I knew it was the right thing to do, so I took it out and put it in the pouch of my overalls.

But then, even though I'd gotten what I wanted, I went to the'S drawer. Antonin Scalia, G. L. Scarborough, Lord Leslie George Scarman, Maurice Scève, Anne Wilson Schaef, Jack Warner Schaefer, Iris Scharmel, Robert Haven Schaufner, Barry Scheck, Johann Schefner, Jean de Schelandre ... And then I saw it: Schell.

At first I was relieved, because I felt like everything I'd done had been worth it, because I'd made Dad into a Great Man who was bio-graphically significant and would be remembered. But then I examined the card, and I saw that it wasn't Dad.

              

 

I wish I had known that I wasn't going to see Mr. Black again when we shook hands that afternoon. I wouldn't have let go. Or I would have forced him to keep searching with me. Or I would have told him about how Dad called when I was home. But I didn't know, just like I didn't know it was the last time Dad would ever tuck me in, because you never know. So when he said, "I'm finished. I hope you understand," I said, "I understand," even though I didn't understand. I never went to find him on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, because I was happier believing he was there than finding out for sure.

I kept looking for the lock after he told me he was finished, but it wasn't the same.

I went to Far Rockaway and Boerum Hill and Long Island City.

I went to Dumbo and Spanish Harlem and the Meatpacking District.

I went to Flatbush and Tudor City and Little Italy.

I went to Bedford-Stuyvesant and Inwood and Red Hook.

I don't know if it was because Mr. Black wasn't with me anymore, or because I'd been spending so much time making plans with the renter to dig up Dad's grave, or just because I'd been looking for so long without finding anything, but I no longer felt like I was moving in the direction of Dad. I'm not even sure I believed in the lock anymore.

The last Black I visited was Peter. He lived in Sugar Hill, which is in Hamilton Heights, which is in Harlem. A man was sitting on the stoop when I walked up to the house. He had a little baby on his knee, who he was talking to, even though babies don't understand language, obviously. "Are you Peter Black?" "Who's asking?" "Oskar Schell." He patted the step, which meant I could sit next to him if I wanted, which I thought was nice, but I wanted to stand. "That's your baby?" "Yes." "Can I pet her?" "Him." "Can I pet him?" "Sure," he said. I couldn't believe how soft his head was, and how little his eyes were, and his fingers. "He's very vulnerable," I said. "He is," Peter said, "but we keep him pretty safe." "Does he eat normal food?" "Not yet. Just milk for now." "Does he cry a lot?" "I'd say so. Definitely feels like a lot." "But babies don't get sad, right? He's just hungry or something." "We'll never know." I liked watching the baby make fists. I wondered if he could have thoughts, or if he was more like a nonhuman animal. "Do you want to hold him?" "I don't think that's a very good idea." "Why not?" "I don't know how to hold a baby." "If you want to, I'll show you. It's easy." "OK." "Why don't you sit down?" he said. "Here you go. Now put one of your hands under here. Like that. Good. Now put the other around his head. That's right. You can kind of hold it against your chest. Right. Like that. You've got it. Just like that. He's as happy as can be." "This is good?" "You're doing great." "What's his name?" "Peter." "I thought that was your name." "We're both Peter." It made me wonder for the first time why I wasn't named after Dad, although I didn't wonder about the renter's name being Thomas. I said, "Hi, Peter. I'll protect you."

When I got home that afternoon, after eight months of searching New York, I was exhausted and frustrated and pessimistic, even though what I wanted to be was happy.

I went up to my laboratory, but I didn't feel like performing any experiments. I didn't feel like playing the tambourine, or spoiling Buck-minster, or arranging my collections, or looking through Stuff That Happened to Me.

Mom and Ron were hanging out in the family room, even though he wasn't part of our family. I went to the kitchen to get some dehydrated ice cream. I looked over at the telephone. The new phone. It looked back at me. Whenever it would ring, I'd scream, "The phone's ringing!" because I didn't want to touch it. I didn't even want to be in the same room with it.

I pressed the Message Play button, which I hadn't done since the worst day, and that was on the old phone.

Message one. Saturday, 11:52 A.M.

Hi, this is a message for Oskar Schell. Oskar, this is Abby Black. You were just over at my apartment asking about the key. I wasn't completely honest with you, and I think I might be able to help. Please give—

And then the message was cut off.

Abby was the second Black I had gone to, eight months before. She lived in the narrowest house in New York. I told her she was pretty. She cracked up. I told her she was pretty. She told me I was sweet. She cried when I told her about elephant E.S.P. I asked if we could kiss. She didn't say she didn't want to. Her message had been waiting for me for eight months.

"Mom?" "Yes?" "I'm going out." "OK." "I'll be back later." "OK." "I don't know when. It could be extremely late." "OK." Why didn't she ask me more? Why didn't she try to stop me, or at least keep me safe?

Because it was starting to get dark, and because the streets were crowded, I bumped into a googolplex people. Who were they? Where were they going? What were they looking for? I wanted to hear their heartbeats, and I wanted them to hear mine.

The subway station was just a few blocks from her house, and when I got there the door was open a little, like she knew I'd be coming, even though she couldn't have, obviously. So why was it open?

"Hello? Is anyone there? It's Oskar Schell."

She came to the door.

I was relieved, because I hadn't invented her. 

 

"Do you remember me?" "Of course I do, Oskar. You've grown." "I have?" "A lot. Inches." "I've been so busy searching that I haven't been measuring myself." "Come in," she said. "I thought you weren't going to call me back. It's been a long time since I left that message." I told her, "I'm afraid of the phone."

She said, "I've thought about you a lot." I said, "Your message." "From months ago?" "How weren't you honest with me?" "I told you I didn't know anything about the key." "But you did?" "Yes. Well, no. I don't. My husband does." "Why didn't you tell me when we met?" "I couldn't." "Why not?" "I just couldn't." "That's not a real answer." "My husband and I had been having a terrible fight." "He was my dad!" "He was my husband." "He was murdered!"

"I wanted to hurt him." "Why?" "Because he had hurt me." "Why?" "Because people hurt each other. That's what people do." "It's not what I do." "I know." "I spent eight months looking for what you could have told me in eight seconds!" "I called you. Right after you left." "You hurt me!" "I'm very sorry."

"So?" I asked. "So what about your husband?" She said, "He's been looking for you." "He's been looking for me?" "Yes." "But I've been looking for him!" "He'll explain everything to you. I think you should call him." "I'm angry at you because you weren't honest with me." "I know." "You almost ruined my life."

We were incredibly close.

I could smell her breathing.

She said, "If you want to kiss me, you can." "What?" "You asked me, that day we met, if we could kiss. I said no then, but I am saying yes now." "I'm embarrassed about that day." "There's no reason to be embarrassed." "You don't have to let me kiss you just because you feel sorry for me." "Kiss me," she said, "and I'll kiss you back." I asked her, "What if we just hugged?"

She held me against her.

I started to cry, and I squeezed her as tightly as I could. Her shoulder was getting wet and I thought, Maybe it's true that you can use up all of your tears. Maybe Grandma's right about that. It was nice to think about, because what I wanted was to be empty.

And then, out of nowhere, I had a revelation, and the floor disappeared from under me, and I was standing on nothing.

I pulled away.

"Why did your message cut off?" "Excuse me?" "The message you left on our phone. It just stops in the middle." "Oh, that must have been when your mother picked up."

"My mom picked up?" "Yes." "And then what?" "What do you mean?" "Did you talk to her?" "For a few minutes." "What did you tell her?" "I don't remember." "But you told her that I'd gone to visit you?" "Yes, of course. Was I wrong to?"

I didn't know if she was wrong to. And I didn't know why Mom hadn't said anything about their conversation, or even about the message.

"The key? You told her about it?" "I assumed she already knew." "And my mission?"

It didn't make any sense.

Why hadn't Mom said anything?

Or done anything?

Or cared at all?

And then, all of a sudden, it made perfect sense.

All of a sudden I understood why, when Mom asked where I was going, and I said "Out," she didn't ask any more questions. She didn't have to, because she knew.

It made sense that Ada knew I lived on the Upper West Side, and that Carol had hot cookies waiting when I knocked on her door, and that doorman215@hotmail.com said "Good luck, Oskar" when I left, even though I was ninety-nine-percent sure I hadn't told him that my name was Oskar.

They knew I was coming.

Mom had talked to all of them before I had.

Even Mr. Black was part of it. He must have known I was going to knock on his door that day, because she must have told him. She probably told him to go around with me, and keep me company, and keep me safe. Did he even really like me? And were all of his amazing stories even true? Were his hearing aids real? The bed that pulled? Were the bullets and roses bullets and roses?

The whole time.

Everyone.

Everything.

Probably Grandma knew.

Probably even the renter.

Was the renter even the renter?

My search was a play that Mom had written, and she knew the ending when I was at the beginning.

I asked Abby, "Was your door open because you knew I was coming?" She didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then she said, "Yes."

"Where's your husband?" "He's not my husband." "I don't. Understand. ANYTHING!" "He's my ex-husband." "Where is he?" "He's at work." "But it's Sunday night." She said, "He does foreign markets." "What?" "It's Monday morning in Japan."

"There's a young man here to see you," the woman behind the desk said into the phone, and it made me feel so weird to think that he was on the other end of the line, even if I knew I was getting confused about who "he" was. "Yes," she said, "a very young man." Then she said, "No." Then she said, "Oskar Schell." Then she said, "Yes. He says to see you."

"May I ask what this concerns?" she asked me. "He says his dad," she said into the phone. Then she said, "That's what he says." Then she said, "OK." Then she said to me, "Go down the hallway. His door is the third on the left."

There was art that was probably famous on the walls. There were incredibly beautiful views out of the windows, which Dad would have loved. But I didn't look at any of it, and I didn't take any pictures. I'd never been so concentrated in my life, because I'd never been closer to the lock. I knocked on the third door on the left, which had a sign on it that said WILLIAM BLACK. A voice from inside the room said, "Come in."

"What can I do for you tonight?" said a man behind a desk. He was about the same age that Dad would have been, or I guess still was, if dead people have ages. He had brownish-grayish hair, a short beard, and round brown glasses. For a second he looked familiar, and I wondered if he was the person I had seen from the Empire State Building through the binocular machine. But then I realized that was impossible, because we were at Fifty-seventh Street, which is north, obviously. There were a bunch of picture frames on his desk. I looked at them quickly to make sure Dad wasn't in any of the pictures.

I asked, "Did you know my dad?" He leaned back in his chair and said, "I'm not sure. Who was your dad?" "Thomas Schell." He thought for a minute. I hated how he had to think. "No," he said. "I don't know any Schells." "Knew." "Excuse me?" "He's dead, so you couldn't know him now." "I'm sorry to hear that." "You must have known him, though." "No. I'm sure I didn't." "But you must have."

I told him, "I found a little envelope that had your name on it, and I thought maybe it was your wife, who I know is now your ex-wife, but she said she didn't know what it was, and your name is William, and I wasn't anywhere near the W's yet—" "My wife?" "I went and talked to her." "Talked to her where?" "The narrowest townhouse in New York." "How was she?" "What do you mean?" "How did she seem?" "Sad." "Sad how?" "Just sad." "What was she doing?" "Nothing, really. She was trying to give me food, even though I told her I wasn't hungry. Someone was in the other room while we talked." "A man?" "Yeah." "You saw him?" "He passed by the door, but mostly he was yelling from another room." "He was yelling?" "Extremely loud." "What was he yelling?" "I couldn't hear the words." "Did he sound intimidating?" "I don't know what that means." "Was he scary?" "What about my dad?" "When was this?" "Eight months ago." "Eight months ago?" "Seven months and twenty-eight days." He smiled. "Why are you smiling?" He put his face in his hands, like he was going to cry, but he didn't. He looked up and said, "That man was me."

"You?" "Eight months ago. Yeah. I thought you were talking about the other day." "But he didn't have a beard." "He grew a beard." "And he didn't wear glasses." He took off his glasses and said, "He changed." I started thinking about the pixels in the image of the falling body, and how the closer you looked, the less you could see. "Why were you yelling?" "Long story." "I have a long time," I said, because anything that could bring me closer to Dad was something I wanted to know about, even if it would hurt me. "It's a long, long story." "Please." He closed a notebook that was open on his desk and said, "It's too long a story."

I said, "Don't you think it's so weird that we were in the apartment together eight months ago and now we're in this office together?"

He nodded.

"It's weird," I said. "We were incredibly close."

He said, "So what's so special about the envelope?" "Nothing, exactly. It's what was in the envelope." "Which was?" "Which was this." I pulled the string around my neck, and made it so the key to our apartment was on my back and Dad's key rested on the pouch of my overalls, over Mr. Black's biography, over the Band-Aid, over my heart. "Can I see that?" he asked. I took it off of my neck and handed it to him. He examined it and asked, "Did it say something on the envelope?" "It said 'Black.'" He looked up at me. "Did you find it in a blue vase?" "Jose!"

He said, "I can't believe it." "You can't believe what?" "This is truly the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me." "What is?" "I've spent two years trying to find this key." "But I've spent eight months trying to find the lock." "Then we've been looking for each other." I was finally able to ask the most important question of my life. "What does it open?"

"It opens a safe-deposit box." "Well, what's it got to do with my dad?" "Your dad?" "The whole point of the key is that I found it in my dad's closet, and since he's dead, I couldn't ask him what it meant, so I had to find out for myself." "You found it in his closet?" "Yes." "In a tall blue vase?" I nodded. "With a label on the bottom?" "I don't know. I didn't see a label. I don't remember." If I'd been alone, I would have given myself the biggest bruise of my life. I would have turned myself into one big bruise.

"My father passed away about two years ago," he said. "He went in for a checkup and the doctor told him he had two months to live. He died two months later." I didn't want to hear about death. It was all anyone talked about, even when no one was actually talking about it. "I needed to figure out what to do with all of his things. Books, furniture, clothes." "Didn't you want to keep them?" "I didn't want any of it." I thought that was weird, because Dad's things were all I wanted. "So to make a long story short—" "You don't have to make a long story short." "I had an estate sale. I shouldn't have been there. I should have hired someone to take care of it. Or I should have given it all away. Instead I was in the position of telling people that the prices for his belongings weren't negotiable. His wedding suit wasn't negotiable. His sunglasses weren't negotiable. It was one of the worst days of my life. Maybe the worst."

"Are you OK?" "I'm fine. It's been a bad couple of years. My father and I weren't exactly close." "Do you need a hug?" "I'll be OK." "Why not?" "Why not what?" "Why weren't you and your dad exactly close?" He said, "Too long a story." "Can you please tell me about my dad now?"