In December, after a chess game that he almost won, Tom asked him directly: 'What happens in September?'
Eliot looked at the board. He had almost won, which meant that Tom had won, as usual.
'What do you mean?'
'The fellowship ends in September,' Tom said. 'She's been there three months. Nine more to go. What happens at the end of it?'
'I don't know,' Eliot said.
'Have you talked about it?'
'Not directly. In the letters we — circle it. There's a shape of something. But we haven't named it.'
Tom nodded slowly. He set up the pieces for another game with the patience of a man who understood that the game was not primarily the point. 'What do you want to happen?' he asked.
Eliot considered. He thought about November, about the West Village street and walking north with the city around them and her question: What are we doing? He thought about the letters in his notebook. He thought about the listening journal, about the entry from the week of her arrival at Carver: He hears the thing underneath the thing.
'I want to be where she is,' he said. 'Not because I can't manage here. I can manage here. But I've been doing the accounting and I find that when I add it all up, the weight is on the side of wanting my life to be in the same place as hers.'
Tom moved a pawn. He was quiet for a moment. Then: 'What would that mean practically?'
'I'd have to leave Carver,' Eliot said. 'Resign. Find something in New York, or find a way to work independently for a while. The novel might help.' He paused. 'It's not nothing. It's a significant thing to ask of myself.'
'But?'
'But the alternative is more significant.'
Tom smiled — not the strategic smile, but the real one, the rarer one. 'There it is,' he said.
'I'm not going to say anything to her yet,' Eliot said. 'Not until I know what it actually looks like. I don't want to offer something I haven't thought through.'
'Reasonable,' Tom said. 'You have nine months.'
'Don't rush me.'
'I'm not rushing you,' Tom said. 'I'm just noting that nine months is actually quite a lot of time, if you use it.'
He moved his knight. He took Tom's bishop, which he had been waiting to do for four games.
'There,' he said.
Tom looked at the board with genuine surprise. 'Well,' he said. 'You've been paying attention.'