'Comrade,' Nathaniel said, 'I have no wives and I don't want to abandon my platoon.'

'The war is over. Everyone is dead and gone. They have been so for some time — for years. You've done a find job, Comrade. Now go in peace.'

'I know who you are but — ' He swallowed deeply. 'I don't know what you are.'

'The opposite of what I was I suppose. When you figure out what life is go 180 degrees counter to it and there you will be at death. It isn't all that much different — just different corners of the block.'

'Yes, I believe so Comrade Stalin.'

'Comrade Trotsky.'

'Yes, Comrade. Comrade Trotsky. Comrade Trotsky, I fear that the Queen of Antarctica, angered at my conquering abilities of her homeland, will blockade all supplies and let me perish out here with no Christmas.'

'Well, Adagio, at last here the two of us are all alone as you have always wanted it, as you have dreamed it even if it is so late and with a ghost…quality time we should have had more of if I hadn't been so preoccupied with trying to understand this marriage of mine with a woman who did not want to live with me. I think that she wanted me to be closer to you but how she thought that was possible with a husband and wife having separate lives is difficult to understand. She is difficult to understand but that is no excuse for not forgiving her. We all deserve to be forgiven. All humans deserve that, Adagio. Why can't you forgive her?'

'Because I hate her!'

'Hate? Here you are as a grown man and yet you sit in those branches as if nothing has changed. A few sharp movements and you will fall off with the limbs that once cradled the sport of a boy. You spied on us a lot in those branches, if you remember. But now there is nothing to spy on. The house is old and in decay. Boards are nailed over the windows. The naked dance of a man with his wife that you thought was so intriguing has ended. The partners are separated and have withdrawn—one into old age to begin her own descent to the earth and me visiting you on top of a tree because of a Siberian wind happening to settle me here. Nothing is there now so there is nothing to hate. What possibly can you see up there at this point?'