Antiphony (8 page)

Perhaps he has been blowing it all out of proportion.

Because he has tensed himself in expectation of a backlash this morning, he still cannot settle himself into his typical Monday morning mindset. He has a million things to do, only a few of which really matter, yet he cannot determine what to do next. On the wall that faces his desk, there is a framed art print of Degas dancers, the one with the mirror in the middle of the room, reflecting the exposed back of the plump dancer pointing her toes down and curling her foot. Theodore loves that foot—he can stare at it in its silvery slipper, the ankle wrapped by a white satin strap, for great stretches of time when he is lost in thought, daydreaming, waiting for the moment of insight to
arrive. Usually, Pradeep will have appeared in his doorway by now, checking in to rehash the weekend and what's coming up in the day ahead, sometimes boring him with a recap of an absurdly drawn-out innings from an English or Indian cricket match he has watched on satellite television the night before. But he has not shown up today. Perhaps this is Theodore's first true indication that things have changed in the aftermath of his speech. Pradeep is the supplicant, who comes to Theodore's office for their daily talks, seeking wisdom from an older and wiser man. The seekers of wisdom always journey to the oracle; the oracle never travels to them. But today, Theodore cannot wait for Pradeep to appear. He must know what the reaction is to what he has said and done—he decides to get up and go to Pradeep's office, two doors down.

Theodore has been mentally bracing for this moment to such an extent that the sight of Pradeep sitting at his desk catches him off guard. “What is it, Pradeep—what's wrong?” He cannot be sure, but Pradeep's eyes have the blurred look that suggests he may have been crying.

“Ah, it is a… an unfortunate thing has happened. My brother,” he says, looking away towards the faint winter sunlight in the quad. “His wife is in the hospital, and he needs me to come to Pennsylvania, to help him look after the kids while he tends to her.” Pradeep cannot look at Theodore, so it is hard to tell whether he is upset about having to leave town, or something more. “She had pain, sharp pain, in the lower back. And when he took her in yesterday, they found a large tumor. They are operating now.” His dark eyes shift to look at Theodore directly,
the whites of them glimmering, wet. “They will know later this morning, whether they caught it too late.”

The way he has expressed this is typical of Pradeep—minimal, yet precise. The full meaning is there in a handful of words.

“How old are his kids?” Already, they have become his brother's kids alone; perhaps they will not have a mother soon. Theodore asks this question as a way of shifting the topic incrementally away from the chief concern, ratcheting back one notch towards practical matters and the effect this will have on Pradeep. “Maybe Julie can go.” Julie is Pradeep's wife. In stating this, he lets Pradeep know that he understands Pradeep is torn by the idea of having to leave town at a critical time, on the eve of the Board Meeting.

“I have to go. My brother asked me.” Saying this, Pradeep brings his eyes back to peer at Theodore, slowly, deliberately judging his reaction, and, what Theodore can't help but think, given the situation the two of them are enduring this week, sizing him up, his competitor, his adversary. An opponent brusquely shaking hands at the middle of a playing field before the silver coin is tossed in the air and the contest begins. Then, Theodore sees that something else is enfolded within the numb, forthright expectancy of Pradeep's glaring eyes.

“One night, when I was a boy, fifteen years old, my father died.” The words are flat, toneless, recited as if Pradeep were reading them from a teleprompter. “Because I was the oldest son, I had to be the chief mourner, the one who was responsible for preparing his body for cremation.” He sucks in a breath, so more words can come out. “I did what they told me to do,
placed him on the floor with his head pointing south, lit the oil lamp and placed it next to him. I touched him only enough to move him, into the proper position, as the ritual requires; facing south, the direction of the dead.” He blinks once and keeps his eyes closed for a moment, either shutting out a vision or shielding it from expression, so it will not come out as words.

“I had to walk to the center of the village, where the well was, to fetch two buckets of water so that I could bathe his body. When I got to the well, the whole village was silent. It was pitch dark, after midnight. The kind of darkness we never have here, in the city. When I looked into the well, the water black and still, there were two brilliant stars reflected in it, their white light shining back at me from the surface of the deep water.” His eyes blink again, once, twice. “And then I saw something else that frightened me: my own young face staring back at me, framed by the two stars in the depths of the water and in the sky above.” Theodore is struck by the ghostly image Pradeep is describing, an echo of the white mask he envisioned floating above a black pool during his speech.

“What frightened me then, and still does, was the feeling that entered my head that I was utterly alone. There was no one else but me and those two stars, whose light had traveled hundreds of millions of miles to reflect off that water into my eyes.” Theodore can see too, in his own mind, the faint, twinkling light of those stars, so far away, so separate from each other and from the one who saw them, alone on a cold distant planet hurtling through the void. “My father was gone. And I had the feeling that there was only me, I was the only one who ever existed, and everything else in the world might vanish if I were to
close my eyes or look away for a moment.” His face, turning now to stare at Theodore, reveals that the Board Meeting has been the least of his concerns; his lower lip, drawn back between his teeth, his chin pulled up to keep the emotions inside.

“It was then that I decided, or at least first had the idea, that I wanted to understand what those stars were and how they came to be. I would study them and know what my place was, what my relationship is to them. That black emptiness … was a challenge to me, to understand it. If I could understand how it all worked, then I would never have to be afraid like that again.”

There is something Theodore wants to say to him, but it is probably not the right time. And, thankfully, he is prevented from speaking by a light rap on the door behind him.

“There you are.” It is the administrative assistant of Victor Fieldman, their boss, the Research Director both of them are seeking to replace. She is speaking to Theodore, not Pradeep. “Victor has been looking for you. I came by your office earlier, and you weren't there. He'd like to talk to you now.”

So, his sense of impending doom this morning has not been without reason. He wheels around to follow her out of Pradeep's office, and, as he turns to go, he hears Pradeep call after him.

“Ted,” he says in a diminished voice, the look of dismay that has haunted him still shrouding his features. “Remember—there is no God.”

H
E HAS OFTEN
followed Amanda through her undersized office, past her desk and the two chairs with magazines arranged on a low table which constitute a cramped waiting room for those who have an appointment with Dr. Victor Fieldman. Unlike most others, he rarely has to wait to see him—and today is no exception. Amanda's sandy brown hair is done up in a loose bun clamped to the back of her head with a many-pronged tortoiseshell comb from which long loopy strands have come free. She is at an indeterminate age that could be twenty-eight or could be verging on forty, an age in which her status as a single woman emanates from her as a whiff of desperation. Her hips are too wide for her shoulders somehow. Her dangly earrings are designed to draw the eye up and away from her body. She is bright enough to navigate the politics of the office and at least recognize at a surface level the topics of the meetings she has to schedule. And she is astute enough to skillfully read Victor Fieldman's moods, an art that took Theodore many years to master.

This is the first time he has ever seen her open Victor's door without knocking; she simply turns the knob and motions him in.

Victor's office is a long, narrow room, unusual in its size and length for this office building, positioned as it is at the vertex of one of the irregular angles overlooking the north quad of the campus. Both walls of the cloistered space are lined with towering bookshelves, two lines of perspective that pull him towards the far end of the room, where Victor crouches behind the hulking mass of his desk. A series of high, lozenge-shaped windows on the left wall above the bookshelves is darkened by
blinds drawn tight to disallow the sun from casting any shadows. It could be nine o'clock at night in here.

Theodore has lately been picturing in his head a number of ways he could redesign this office, to make it his own. It is another one of his favorite thought projects, an enjoyable way to while away the last lazy forty-five minutes before five o'clock arrives and it is late enough to venture out of his own office for the hour-long drive home. He would remove a lot of these books and clear out most of the bookshelves; open the place up a bit. Maybe add more comfortable furniture, possibly a couch where he could lie back and think—he does some of his best thinking at home in his study when he lies down and closes his eyes for a few minutes, something he can't presently do here in the office. And also, add several more pieces of framed artwork—he has been spending an occasional lunch break recently at a frame shop in the gritty neighborhood west of campus, eyeing the art prints and European advertising posters they sell there, savoring the process of choosing exactly which ones he will invest in to liven up this room. Another thing would be to take the blinds off these windows and let in some light here—why Victor insists on spending his days shuttered in darkness has always been beyond him. He could do away with the blinds altogether. The slanting rays of sun would make a stunning effect against his new prints lined up on the opposite wall, a kind of art gallery where his own appreciation of beauty can be on display for the many visitors he will receive and entertain here.

That has been the plan, at least, until a couple of days ago.

Victor raises himself to his full height, which isn't so much, and Theodore sees now why he was hunched over: in his left
hand he has one of his stumpy cigars he likes to puff on, the lit end of it glowing in the gloom.

“I have to hide it from her,” he says, his bushy eyebrows pinching together, like two timid furry animals scurrying to meet each other. “She pretends she doesn't know, but if she sees me, she gets a little mad and tells me to put it out. Rules are rules, you know.” He motions for Theodore to come over and sit down, in one of the leather chairs opposite his desk. “I don't like to get her upset.” He nods his head vigorously as Theodore sits. “She does a nice job for me.”

Theodore agrees with him. “She's excellent.” Theodore has been hoping that Amanda will remain on board during the transition period, providing some much-needed continuity and helping him get up to speed with the day-to-day routine of Victor's job. All of these things he has been planning, rehearsing, in preparation for what he has hoped would be nothing more than a formality: the Board Meeting on Wednesday, when he will be voted in as the new Research Director. All of these things that may turn out to be only a fantasy.

“So,” Victor says, waving the cigar at him, sending coils of fragrant smoke into the dusky air above his head. “Tell me what this is about.”

Theodore doesn't know what to say, even though he has churned it over in his head throughout the past weekend and on the plane home and late into Sunday night, when the jet lag coming back from the West Coast kept him up much later than normal. He knew he would have to speak to Victor about it sooner or later—probably this morning. And here he is, facing the man who has treated him more like a son than anything else
throughout the bulk of his career, encouraging him, guiding him, grooming him to be the next leader of this organization. The man who has placed his trust in him. What is there to say? Nothing more than the truth.

“I lost my notes.” He starts with this, for in his mind this is still the chief cause he has been able to attribute to the words he spoke. “I was all set to go, talking to Ilene in the lobby of the hotel, and then I thought—shit, where the hell are my notes.” He tells it like a rueful joke, something that might be funny, if it had happened to someone else. “So I go up to the room and rummage around, look in my briefcase, under the bed—everywhere. No notes.” He runs his hand across his forehead, around the side of his face and down the back of his neck, wincing to remember it. “It threw me off my game, Vic. I don't know how else to explain it. I panicked. You know how it is, before a big speech, you get a little nervous, and then I felt like I was running late, without my notes, and I started rushing down to the ballroom—I saw Pradeep in the hallway, he helped calm me down.” He has to get this in, even though it's a bit out of sequence, just to let him know that he always is a good team player. And to let him know that he's not even remotely threatened by Pradeep. Pradeep is still his junior.