“Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.” He poured a mug for me.
I sat across from him. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“It’s all I knew to do.”
I sipped. “What was he like?”
“Henry?”
I nodded. Köhler ran a hand through his hair.
“He baked bread, badly at first. He kept a sourdough starter in our refrigerator in the Berkshires for three years and named it Bertrand. Henry read the King Arthur baking forum the way other men read theWall Street Journal. He once made a loaf so dense I broke a tooth on the crust and didn’t tell him because he was so proud of it.”
I smiled.
“He was terrible at chess. We played on Sundays for four years, and he never beat me. I asked him once if he wanted meto throw a game. He looked at me like I’d insulted him. He said,I want to actually beat you, Dietrich. Don’t take that from me.He died without ever taking a game from me.”
The tone of his voice lowered.
“He kept a photograph of his mother on a desk in a room he locked in the New York apartment. The only other things in the room were a desk and a chair. He went in there sometimes after his family had been on the phone. He let me in once. We sat on the floor and he held my hand for forty minutes.”
He stopped and pressed one palm flat against the marble.
“He was—“
Before he could finish, Dietrich started to cry. His shoulders shook with his mouth closed. He didn’t wipe his face.
I drank my coffee and listened.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
He nodded and pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes for three breaths. Then he dried his face with a napkin.
“Have you eaten anything this morning?”
“I haven’t been able to.”
“You’re going to.”
I cracked four eggs, beat them with a fork, and dropped two slices of sourdough bread into the toaster. I grated cheddar cheese over the eggs at the end. Dividing the eggs, I set one plate in front of him.
“Eat.”
He looked at me and looked at the plate.
“Dietrich, eat.”
He picked up the fork. The first bite was hard. By the third, he’d settled into it. He drained his coffee mug and finished everything on the plate.
“Henry would have liked you,” he said.
I ate my eggs. I didn’t trust what would come out if I spoke.
“What time are they leaving?” he asked.