“My family has,” she spoke severely, the weeping mole brighter still, “Absolutely must you help my husband.” Then she softened.
“Excuse,” she said, “he needs your assistance. This is my fondest wish and why I wish to spend this time with you.”
Ardently. Szejmcaj’s note from her had used this word and because of it he had agreed to see her. “My husband ardently desires freedom and his soul is of the poet and the jazz.”
She left the empty plates before them, smears of creamy ivory, dots of cheese and stray needles of dill marking what was gone.
“Before your arrival here, for him there was nothing. Only working selling strokes books and the drinking and his sorrows. Our son should not grow to see his father a broken man. You can help him with his applications for university. That is nothing! What you must do is to hear his story, help him write a version of what has happened to him. I am asking this in every way I have possible. I implore you!”