Leviathan Read Free

end—writing down the titles of my books for an FBI agent. Even now, I’m hard-pressed to know what he was after. Perhaps he thinks he’ll find some clues in them, or perhaps it was just a subtle way of telling me that he’ll be back, that he hasn’t finished with me yet. I’m still their only lead, after all, and if they go on the assumption that I lied to them, then they’re not about to forget me. Beyond that, I haven’t the vaguest notion of what they’re thinking. It seems unlikely that they consider me a terrorist, but I say that only because I know I’m not. They know nothing, and therefore they could be working on that premise, furiously searching for something that would link me to the bomb that went off in Wisconsin last week. And even if they aren’t, I have to accept the fact that they’ll be on my case for a long time to come. They’ll ask questions, they’ll dig into my life, they’ll find out who my friends are, and sooner or later Sachs’s name will come up. In other words, the whole time I’m here in Vermont writing this story, they’ll be busy writing their own story. It will be my story, and once they’ve finished it, they’ll know as much about me as I do myself.
    My wife and daughter returned home about two hours after the FBI men left. They had gone off early that morning to spend the day with friends, and I was glad they hadn’t been around for Harris and Worthy’s visit. My wife and I share almost everything with each other, but in this case I don’t think I should tell her what happened. Iris has always been very fond of Sachs, but I come first for her, and if she discovered that I was about to get into trouble with the FBI because of him, she would do everything in her power to make mestop. I can’t run that risk now. Even if I managed to convince her that I was doing the right thing, it would take a long time to wear her down, and I don’t have that luxury, I have to spend every minute on the job I’ve set for myself. Besides, even if she gave in, she would only worry herself sick about it, and I don’t see how any good could come of that. Eventually, she’s going to learn the truth anyway; when the time comes, everything will be dragged out into the open. It’s not that I want to deceive her, I simply want to spare her for as long as possible. As it happens, I don’t think that will be terribly difficult. I’m here to write, after all, and if Iris thinks I’m up to my old tricks out in my little shack every day, what harm can come of that? She’ll assume I’m scribbling away on my new novel, and when she sees how much time I’m devoting to it, how much progress is being made from my long hours of work, she’ll feel happy. Iris is a part of the equation, too, and without her happiness I don’t think I would have the courage to begin.
    This is the second summer we’ve spent in this place. Back in the old days, when Sachs and his wife used to come here every July and August, they would sometimes invite me up to visit, but those were always brief excursions, and I rarely stayed for more than three or four nights. After Iris and I were married nine years ago, we made the trip together several times, and once we even helped Fanny and Ben paint the outside of the house. Fanny’s parents bought the property during the Depression, at a time when farms like this one could be had for next to nothing. It came with more than a hundred acres and its own private pond, and although the house was run-down, it was spacious and airy inside, and only minor improvements were needed to make it habitable. The Goodmans were New York City schoolteachers, and they could never afford to do much with the place after they bought it, so for all these years the house has kept its primitive, barebones look: the iron bedsteads, the potbellied stovein the kitchen, the cracked ceilings and walls, the gray painted floors. Still, there’s something solid in this dilapidation, and it would be