Free Dubin's Lives by Bernard Malamud

call-back message. Dubin was looking up Gerry’s number in Stockholm in Kitty’s address book when the telephone shrilly rang—Maud returning his call?
    It was Kitty saying she was in Philadelphia.
    He listened very carefully. “Weren’t you going to Montreal?”
    â€œWhen I left the house I felt I wanted to see Nathanael’s grave. I’ve not been there for years. I hope you don’t mind?”
    He didn’t think there was any reason he’d mind.
    â€œI honestly almost never think of him any more. But when I got to the
highway I had the impulse to see his grave, and drove south instead of north.”
    â€œI don’t mind.”
    â€œYou’re easier on me these days,” Kitty said.
    â€œOne learns,” Dubin said. Then he said, “One thinks he does.”
    â€œYou sound constrained. Are you all right?”
    He was fine.
    â€œI’ll go to the cemetery with some flowers in the morning, then drive home.”
    He said he was surprised to hear her in Philadelphia as he was thinking of her in Montreal.
    â€œYour voice sounds distant. Has something happened?”
    â€œI called Maud. I thought you were Maud calling back.”
    â€œGive her my love,” said Kitty. “I wish they weren’t so far away.”
    Dubin said he’d go out for a short walk before turning in, and Kitty said she was sorry she wasn’t there to walk with him.
    When he hung up she called back.
    Dubin said he’d thought it was Maud again.
    â€œI’m not Maud, I’m me. Please tell me what you’re worried about. Is it the Lawrence?”
    He said no.
    â€œHe’s a hard person to love.”
    â€œI don’t have to love him. I have to say truthfully who he was and what he accomplished. I’ve got to say it with grace.”
    â€œThen is something else worrying you—money, for instance?”
    He confessed he worried about money.
    â€œAre we spending too much?”
    â€œWe’ll be all right for another year and then we may be tight.”
    Kitty said if she had to she would look for a paying job. “Good night, love, don’t worry. I’ll be home tomorrow.” She was tender on the phone when either of them was away.
    Â 
    The night was dark deep and starlit, and Dubin walked longer than he thought he might. He was standing at the poster window of the Center Campobello Cinema when the last show broke and he saw, amid two dozen people straggling out, Fanny Bick in bluejeans and clogs, carrying a shoulder bag. She was wearing a white halter tied around the midriff, her hair bound with a red cord. Dubin sensed her before he saw her. He watched, thinking
she would look up and see him but she didn’t. She seemed to be still into the film, conscious of herself; he recognized the feeling. He had not expected to lay eyes on her again and now he felt he would have regretted not seeing her. Roger Foster was not in the crowd. To make sure he hadn’t stopped in the men’s room, Dubin crossed the street and let Fanny walk on; when he was sure she was alone he recrossed the street and followed her.
    No more than a diversion, the biographer thought. He doubted he would talk to her; then he thought he must talk to her. His odd loneliness still rode him—a discomfort he wanted to be rid of, something from youth that no longer suited him. He felt a hunger to know the girl, could not bear to have her remain a stranger. The lonely feeling would ease, he imagined, if he knew more about her. Crazy thing to feel it so strongly, as though he’d earned the right to know. Here I am hurrying after her as if we are occupying the same dream.
    Fanny sensed something. Her pace quickened, the clogs resounding in the shadowy lamplit street. At the next corner she nearsightedly glanced back nervously.
    â€œWait up, Fanny—it’s William Dubin.”
    She waited, austerely, till he caught up with her. If she was relieved she