Free The Empire of the Dead by Tracy Daugherty Page A

building.
    Each day after class, he walked Kate to an unpretentious Italian place, Puccini’s, for dinner. Only a dozen or so tables; an old brick wall along the back. It was early March: evening mist shrouded the streets. The fresh scent of invisible blooming things softened the chill in the air. The restaurant was BYOB. Bern would settle Kate at a candlelit table and walk up the block to a liquor store for a bottle of Chianti. By the time he returned, their salads had arrived.
    He and Kate recovered their mutual ease, their
friendship
—though Bern was afraid to touch her. And though he basked in her company, longed for her when she wasn’t with him, he wasn’t sure what he wanted from this arrangement.
    One night after dinner they strolled past a Middle Eastern restaurant. Loud Israeli men lingered by the door. Each spoke into a cell phone, authoritative in some obscure capacity. Around thecorner, Bern and Kate spotted half a dozen black limos displaying government plates, and three or four taxis parked on the street, the drivers smoking cigarettes next to their cars. “What is
this
?” Kate whispered. “A call-girl neighborhood for the fucking high and mighty?”
    â€œOr maybe a bunch of foreign dignitaries, holding a hush-hush meeting,” Bern said.
    The intrigue (even if Bern and Kate only imagined it), the hint of secrecy and money, titillated them. Kate grabbed his arm and giggled, pressing her breasts to his side. Bern’s face flushed. Then, as they stood there, a fire truck stopped silently at the corner. For the first time, Bern noticed a crumpled figure on the sidewalk. An ambulance arrived, then two police cars. “Some billionaire who had a heart attack in a hooker’s bed?” Kate wondered, squeezing Bern’s arm. “A Russian mob hit?” he countered and they walked, laughing, up the street, prickled by deepening mist and the warmth of each other’s bodies.
    Kate asked him to stay the night.
    â€œYou’re sure?” he said.
    â€œIt’ll be the most innocent night of your life, believe me. I’m sure.”
    She made a pot of chamomile. “That’s nice,” she said. He’d been stroking the back of her hand. “You know, so far, the worst thing about pregnancy …” She squeezed her thighs. “It’s what it does to your conception of yourself. As a woman, I mean. I watch others in the dance class. I look in the mirror and think, any day now, what a bloated, ugly …”
    â€œNo,” Bern said.
    â€œI didn’t think he’d really leave.”
    â€œI know.”
    She turned to him. “Do you think I’m—”
    He placed a palm on her belly. “I think you’re exquisite, Kate.”
    Tears came. She tried to laugh. “I’m being vain.”
    â€œShhh.”
    They watched part of a Tracy-Hepburn movie on TV. Affectionate repartee, romantic wit. Kate wanted him in her bed. Chastely. He stripped to underwear and a T-shirt. They spooned beneath the sheet. Bern asked himself what he was doing. Kate needed care. And him? Maybe he was needier than he’d dreamed. A baby? A little girl or boy? Kate slept. Delicately, he rose and stood by her bedroom window.
    In the street, a young couple jogged past a pizza place. Bern watched them in the neon bath of a Pepsi sign. I’d like a small deep-dish, extra cheese, with pepperoni and X-Y chromosomes, please.
    He lay back down, wondering what good, if any, remained in him. Here he was, clinging to a woman for ease and assurance, when
she
was the one needing attention. A fine thing! Tomorrow morning, he would get up, shower, towel himself off … pretend he was just another decent man!
    That night he dreamed pregnant dreams: rising dough, hot-air balloons, great windy dirigibles.
    The Village Cinema just down the street was showing Jean Cocteau’s
Beauty and the Beast
. Bern talked Kate into going with him. She wore a