Prizes (34 page)

She pondered for a moment and then smiled. “I’d be very grateful.”

He was silent during the first part of the ride, stealing
occasional glances at his passenger. She seemed shy and reticent, but more beautiful and desirable than ever. He knew he could not simply drop her off.

As they were nearing Watertown Square, he inquired, “Have you got time for a quick bite?”

She hesitated for a moment and then asked deliberately, “Have you?”

“Uh, yes. My wife’s in Washington today.”

Anya made one further halfhearted attempt to discourage him. “That means your daughter must eat—”

He tried not to think of Heather, for whom Wednesday dinner was special since she had him to herself. Suppressing his qualms, he responded, “I can just give the housekeeper a call … she’s used to my coming home from the lab at all hours.”

Anya smiled. “In that case, why don’t we go by the market and I will buy a few things and make something simple.”

The apartment seemed to have undergone a metamorphosis, with new living room wallpaper matching new curtains. There was a large, cheery Miró poster, its bright colors clearly reflecting the purchaser’s change of mood.

And the bookshelf was nearly full.

Since there was still a shortage of furniture, they were forced to sit cross-legged on the floor and eat from the coffee table.

At first conversation was awkward.

“How’s your work going?”

“I love it.” She smiled. “Your main project is very exciting. How could anyone have ever imagined that simple progesterone could have such immunosuppressive effects?”

“Actually, the drug’s been around for so long, the medical community’s kind of taken it for granted,” Adam commented. “Back in ’seventy-three, a Paraguayan doctor named Csapo ran a pretty cruel experiment.
He had removed the ovaries from women at various stages of pregnancy, and demonstrated that those who had them taken out after nine weeks could still carry their babies to term—though unfortunately for the last time.”

“That’s terrible,” she sympathized. “But it does prove why your progesterone therapy is only needed for the first trimester.”

“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “But there is still the remote possibility of side effects. So I won’t be home free until I synthesize it—then maybe rearrange the molecules. I hope the work they’ve given you isn’t boring.”

“On the contrary,” she countered with fervor, “It’s an education just being in a room with so many creative people. Even the brief time I spent with Dmitri’s colleagues in the academy taught me to distinguish a mind that’s not merely good, but great. And you, Adam, are the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.”

He smiled. “Well, while we’re dishing out compliments, even though we’ve only worked together for a few weeks, I can tell you have wonderful scientific intuition.”

She blushed. “You flatter me.”

“It’s still true,” he insisted. “And another thing,” he continued, moving closer to her, locking her eyes with his own gaze. “I love you, Anya.”

“And I love you,” she responded. “But what can we do about it?”

“We can give in to our feelings. We’ve been apart too long—I can’t bear it anymore.”

She did not try to move away as he took her in his arms, though there was a split second during which she had to let down the last of her defenses.

The hours they spent together in the tiny Watertown apartment were the most blissful Adam had ever experienced. It was not only that he filled a desperate void in her life, but he was also enthralled by her indescribable
maternal quality, which satisfied a need he had never acknowledged before.

He had now crossed the Rubicon.

Late one Sunday afternoon, he reluctantly left Anya’s embrace and, as he dressed himself, murmured, “I can’t go on like this.”

“Adam,” she whispered, “believe me, I understand. If you told me this was the last time we would see each other, I would grieve. But I would accept it.”

He turned and said passionately, “No, Anya, it’s just the opposite. My life has boiled down to a single desire—to spend the rest of it with you.”

As he walked slowly down the porch steps, the icy weather awakened both the inner and the outer man. It made him realize that he was a moral coward. Counter-balancing the resolve he had so bravely displayed before Anya was the fear of hurting his family. And saying what now had to be said.

As he was putting his key in the lock of his car door, Adam heard the persistent ringing of his cellular telephone. He clambered in and grabbed it.

“This is Dr. Coopersmith,” he gasped, lungs burning from the cold.

“Where in God’s name are you?”

It was Toni, in a fury.

He stalled for time by saying, “Take it easy, I’m on my way back.”

Toni ignored his reply and fulminated. “Heather waited in the cold for nearly an hour.”

“Heather?”

“Yes, Adam. You may remember taking your daughter to ice-skate this afternoon. You were supposed to meet her outside the Watson Rink at four. I don’t know what time zone you’re in, buddy, but my watch says nearly six o’clock. You claimed you were going to the lab while she skated,” Toni went on. “I called but nobody had even seen you. So I got into the car and picked her up myself.

“Don’t try to fabricate an excuse. Tell me the truth. It can’t be worse than what I’m thinking. What the hell have you been doing?”

This jolted him into breaking silence. “Toni,” he mumbled hoarsely, “we’ve got to talk.”

“Okay, talk.”

“No—not like this. Face-to-face.”

“Adam, don’t take me for a total fool,” she stormed. “I know there’s someone else in your life. And since she seems to have such a hold on you that you’d let your own daughter freeze to death, you’d better stay away.”

Her sudden silence puzzled him, until he could discern her weeping softly. At last she managed to say, “Just tell me where to send it.”

“Send wh-what?” he asked with a slight stammer.

“The subpoena, dammit,” she raged through her tears. “I’m calling the best divorce lawyer in our firm to have him nail you to the wall.”

“Don’t I even get a chance to speak in my own defense?”

“Of course, Adam,” she replied bitterly. “As soon as the court fixes a date.”

He hung up in a state of shock, swept off his feet by the cyclone of Toni’s justifiable anger. And yet he also felt a curious relief, because he would no longer be preoccupied in trying to find the courage to tell his wife.

But now something terrible overwhelmed all other thoughts: Oh God, Heather. How could I do this to you?

35
 

For the first time, Isabel was unable to focus like a laser on her studies. Her mind wandered. She daydreamed of Jerry. Perhaps her father noticed, but he misinterpreted what he saw. Scientists also let their minds roam in search of ideas.

Even at his most paranoid, Raymond would never imagine that thoughts of Jerry Pracht could possibly take precedence over his daughter’s research.

Since she was taking only graduate seminars now, there was no possible pretext for Raymond to be present in the small classrooms. He merely escorted her to Le Conte Hall, and would be waiting like a stage-door Johnny when she emerged.

It did not take her long to ferret out the most secluded public phone in the building. As soon as she was sure that Ray was well on his way home, she would call Jerry. Knowing how limited her pocket money was, he would call her right back and they would chat until it was time for him to get ready to leave for the club.

A sure sign of their deepening relationship was the fact that they could talk endlessly about everything—and nothing. She would tell him about what she was studying, and he went to great lengths to protest that it was all too far above his head. Yet by the time she had explained things to him in broad strokes, she was sure he understood.

The study of theoretical physics follows no timetable. The activity goes on as long as the brain holds out.

Isabel’s afternoon sessions exploring the theoretical possibilities for her master’s dissertation began to stretch out later and later into the evening. Since going out to eat might break the momentum of her thoughts, she would bring sandwiches with her so she could stay in her carrel and keep concentrating.

“The most important issue in high-energy physics deals with certain properties of a particle called the kaon,” she explained to Jerry. “For some of the latest thinkers, this calls into question Einstein’s principle of equivalence.”

“God, poor Albert,” he lamented. “They use the old guy like a football, don’t they? What are they doing to him now?”

“Well,” Isabel expounded, “the classic example is of a man riding in an elevator mounted on top of a rocket, smoothly accelerating into outer space Despite the speed of the rocket, the man inside—”

“Let’s call him the elevatornaut,” he joked.

“Fine. A real ‘nautcase,’ ” Isabel countered with a grin. “Anyway, as the elevator is climbing, the guy is somehow still rooted to the floor. According to Uncle Albert, that’s because the force of gravity and the acceleration are indistinguishable.”

“In other words, if my brilliant dad and his brilliant protógé are right,” Jerry interjected, “then Einstein takes it on the chin, right?”

“Right. In fact, this information can actually be traced back to Newton.” She glanced at her watch. “Ohmigod, I have a meeting with your father in about four minutes, and he’s going to want to hear what I’ve come up with.”

“I’ll give you something really novel,” Jerry suggested. “Tell him you want to take a sabbatical and come with me on the indoor tour.”

“Come on,” she protested. “If you keep bugging me about that, I’ll encourage him to pressure you into going back and taking your high school exams.”

He reacted in mock horror. “Anything but that! Now, when am I going to see you in person?”

“I don’t know,” she answered earnestly. “I’m trying to figure something out.”

“Well hurry the hell up,” he urged. “Take a look at my father’s forehead. The men in our family lose their
hair early. Don’t you want to know me before I’m bald?”

By mid-February, Isabel was putting in so many hours in the library after dinner that she looked haggard and on the verge of exhaustion. Uncharacteristically, even Raymond began to plead with her to ease up, but her only reply was, “I can’t yet, Dad, I’m into something really important and I’ve got to finish it as soon as possible.”

“Any little hints for your poor old father?” he asked with mock pathos.

“Sorry, Mr. da Costa.” She smiled mischievously. “This item is still strictly classified.”

Raymond was disappointed but did not press the issue, though this was the first time she did not share the totality of her thoughts with him. She had never before been secretive with any of her projects—and yet she had never been so deeply involved as she was now.

He consoled himself with the thought that she was nearing a breakthrough that would bring her recognition transcending the now tired journalistic superlatives like “child prodigy” or “girl genius.” They would simply trumpet, “Isabel da Costa, the renowned physicist, today announced …”

One evening just after nine
P.M.
, while Ray was finishing a session with one of his pupils, the phone rang. He assumed it was one of his students, pestering him about something trivial.

He could not have been more wrong.

“Dad, come to the back of Le Conte and pick me up right away. I’ve got to talk to you.”

Her tone was urgent. There was even a touch of fear in her voice.

“What is it?” he asked anxiously. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t talk on the phone. Please hurry.”

Terrified, Ray summarily dismissed the pupil he was teaching, and rushed for the car.