Robert Hargrove turned seventy-four in November.
Diana called to tell me he had been ill. Not seriously, the way the first Zurich collapse had been serious, but enough to require a week of reduced activity and the particular attention of a man who had been recently reminded that attention was required.
“He’s fine,” she said, in the tone of someone who means it and needed to say it out loud to confirm.
“Should we come?” I said.
“He would say no,” she said.
“Would you say no?” I said.
A pause.
“He would be glad if you came,” she said. “He would not say that either.”
We flew to Zurich on a Thursday. Damien and I and the children, who had been to Zurich enough times that the city had a familiar quality for them, the lake and the old streets and Robert’s townhouse with the window boxes.
