Truth and Consequences (16 page)

The young policeman said nothing, but it was clear from his expression that this was exactly what he did think. Henry, however, laughed, causing Jane to look at him with disapproval.

“Why, I asked them, would an American citizen, born in Forest Hills, New York, wish to attack an American plane? And if I wished to do so, why would I bring my wife and children into danger? I tried to be reasonable. I pointed out that we are not Muslims, we are Hindus, whereas the terrorists of September 11 were Muslims. If they are so determined to arrest someone, I said, why didn't they arrest Charles Amir when he flew to Washington last week? He is a Muslim, and he is not a citizen.”

The young policeman, who had been sitting at the table in an attitude of deep boredom, looked up. “Would you repeat that name, please?” he asked.

“Amir, A-M-I—Wait a minute.” Davi checked himself. “I am not accusing anyone of anything, I am merely trying to suggest that this sort of profiling is irrational, appalling, and illegal.”

“Professor Gakar,” Jane said, feeling helpless, “I'm sure this can be resolved—” But Henry interrupted her, turning on Davi.

“Listen,” he said. “If you want to get out of here today and get to that wedding, you've got to shut up. These guys don't get academic irony. Didn't you see that sign by the screener in the airport, warning people not to make jokes? You go on like this, you're digging your cell with your own teeth.”

“So what do you suggest I should do?” Davi asked scornfully.

“I suggest you should stop complaining and start apologizing for all the trouble you've caused.”

“The trouble
I've
caused?” Davi inquired. He frowned, cleared his throat, and looked up at the acoustical tiles as if they were an object of scholarly interest. “You may have a point,” he finally said, lowering his gaze. “In certain situations, expediency rules.”

Now more people entered the room: the sheriff followed by Bill Laird and an energetic young lawyer from the University counsel's office. It was clear that the balance of the event had shifted. Polite and conciliatory remarks were exchanged by all parties; local and long-distance phone calls were made. The airport manager was consulted, and it was arranged that the Gakars could leave on the next flight to New York, which would depart in about an hour. The carving set and the nail scissors would be transported in checked baggage; the flute and the yellow bulldozer were returned to their owners. Everyone shook hands and smiled, some agreeably and others wearily or ironically. The sheriff bought cans of Pepsi-Cola for the Gakar children from a vending machine, causing them to giggle and gobble, while their mother the dentist suppressed her natural reaction with difficulty. Finally Henry and Jane conveyed the family back to the airport.

 

 

“It was really great, what you said to Davi Gakar,” Jane told him as they drove away through the rain. “I wouldn't have dared, but it worked.”

“For the moment,” Henry remarked.

“He was being unreasonable. And why did he insist on putting that carving knife into a carry-on bag?”

“Some people hate to check luggage.”

“Then he could have mailed it. Wait, you're going in the wrong direction; this isn't the way to the Center.”

“Yeah, I know.” Henry turned off the main road onto a wooded lane.

“I have to get back,” Jane protested as he stopped the car under a big dripping maple tree whose wet leaves had turned a brilliant gold.

“Not yet.” Henry turned off the engine. He moved closer, and kissed her.

“No, you shouldn't,” Jane said weakly.

“Yes, I should. We deserve it. You know we do.”

“No,” Jane murmured, but when Henry moved back she met his mouth with her own. Just this once, she told herself.

Two minutes passed in a silent, deeply satisfying blur; then another car went by, throwing up a heavy spray of water.

“I must get back to the office,” Jane said, trembling all over. “Susie will wonder what happened—Bill Laird's probably called too—”

“All right.” Henry started the car. “I'll come by the Center later.”

“No, please don't. Not now. I can't—it's too much—”

“Okay. But you'll be at the Farmers' Market tomorrow morning, right?”

“Yes, I guess so.” I don't have to go, she told her conscience.

“Good.” Henry turned back onto the highway. “You don't know how long I've been wanting to do that,” he said.

“No,” Jane agreed, thinking that it couldn't be as long as she had wanted it. “How long?”

“Since the first time I saw you at the Center, when you were so mean about the sofas.”

“Really?” And in spite of herself, she smiled.

TEN

On a late October afternoon, Alan Mackenzie stood at the window of a Manhattan apartment, gazing east across Central Park. Back in Corinth the trees were unsightly and bare; but here they still kept their leaves, and from the tenth floor the view was of a broad sunlit carpet of chrome yellow and ocher and flame-colored chrysanthemums, rippled by a gentle breeze. Indoors, however, there was little to see. This two-room apartment, the occasional pied-à-terre of an acquaintance of Delia Delaney, was furnished in a bleak, minimalist style, all smoky gray mirrors and black leather and chrome.

For Alan, the last twenty-four hours had been strange: alternately exhausting and exhilarating. It was his first trip alone since his illness. Jane had offered to come, but he had refused, partly but not wholly because he knew she disapproved of his purpose and was reluctant to ask for a leave from her job. But without Jane's help he had been burdened with invalid equipment: the cane, the wheeled carry-on, and the clumsy black nylon bag containing his medications, his two icepacks, and the three foam rubber chair pads that he needed to make almost any chair tolerable. Even so he could not sit for more than fifteen minutes without pain, and the flight to New York had been hideous. The seats on the little commuter plane were narrow and hard, and its wind-buffeted motion made him ill. The ride to the city in the jolting taxi was even worse, and by the time he reached his destination he was in agony.

Jim Weisman and Katie Fenn, the friends with whom Alan was staying near Columbia, were among his oldest and closest. They had been on sabbatical all last academic year, and had not seen him since his back trouble. They were clearly disconcerted to find him walking with a cane, and even more when he asked almost at once if he could put his icepacks in their freezer and lie on their sofa, with a tapestry pillow under his head and another between his knees. As he explained his condition, they listened with concern and dismay. They turned with relief to their own immediate history, describing with enthusiasm a Fulbright year in Southeast Asia, where Alan would now probably never go, and New York theater and opera productions that he would never see.

After half an hour his exhaustion and pain were so great that he had to retreat to his friends' spare room. For over an hour he lay there, unable to sleep, listening to their murmured voices. He could not distinguish the words, but it was clear from the tone that Jim and Katie were distressed. He realized that he should somehow have prepared them for the change in his condition and appearance, which for people back in Corinth had come more gradually.

By the time Alan emerged from the spare room, there had been a seismic shift in his friends' attitude. They were now warm and solicitous, offering vodka and wine and bourbon, and then chicken curry and fruit sherbet; but for the rest of the evening they spoke mostly of the past, recalling their mutual adventures in college and graduate school and several European countries. Though he joined in, laughing and reminiscing, he became more and more aware that invisibly his friends had taken a step or two away from him. He had become a beloved character from their past rather than their present or future.

Alan and Jim were almost exact contemporaries, but he had always been just a little ahead: published sooner, promoted to tenure sooner, married more successfully (Katie was Jim's second wife). Now it was clear that he had lost this edge. He was no longer ahead of his friends or even parallel with them, but a member of another, inferior species: an invalid. His project for a book on religious architecture was old news, and he could see that they were surprised that it was not yet completed.

Out of superstitious motives, he did not say that he might soon be having a show of his watercolor paintings. Delia had been enthusiastic and optimistic, but she was not part of the New York art world. It was quite possible that she had exaggerated her friend's interest in Alan's work, or that his gallery was only a shabby small-time operation. That at least was what Jane suspected. She had been doubtful about the whole project. (“If that dealer really wants your pictures, why doesn't he come here to see you? He knows you're ill, doesn't he?”) Of course, Jane had also been prejudiced against Delia from the beginning, for some reason, and suspicious of her motives. (“She's always flattering people and wanting them to think she has a lot of power and influence.”)

Last night Alan had slept badly, in spite or perhaps because of all the wine and bourbon he had drunk and the various pills he had taken. At four a.m. he staggered into the guest bathroom in a state of dizzy, blurred pain and despair. Unlike the bathroom at home, Jim and Katie's was brilliantly lit, and in the mirror he could see himself with hideous clarity as they must have seen him: a sick, worn, overweight, prematurely aging man with a scruffy haircut. That wasn't his fault: for almost a year and a half he had been unable to sit in a barber's chair, and at monthly intervals Jane had climbed on a stool to cut his hair. She had done the best she could; but by New York standards her best was not very good.

As he stood before the mirror a great wash of despair and self-disgust came over Alan. Why am I kidding myself? he thought. My back is not getting better. I am not teaching or working on my book, only wasting time making drawings of imaginary ruins. I am the ruin of a professor, the ruin of a scholar, the ruin of a man. It would be better if I were dead. In a drugged blur of self-hatred he turned to the bathroom window and tried to lift the sash. But the building was old, and the window had warped shut; he could only raise it a couple of inches before he had to give up and lie down on the guest room bed again, giddy and gasping with the effort, wracked and wrecked with pain.

It's a good thing I couldn't get that window open last night, Alan thought now as he stood looking over the field of flowers that was Central Park. I must have been a little crazed from all those drugs. For one thing, Jim and Katie's apartment was on the second floor, and probably he would only have injured himself further, not to mention causing them lifelong remorse. (“What could we have said to make him do that?”)

 

 

After breakfast Alan had taken a painful taxi ride to the rather grand building on Central Park West where Delia was staying, and waited in the lobby for fifteen increasingly painful minutes. Finally she appeared, strangely transformed. Her mass of hair had been compressed into a chignon from which only a few gold-red tendrils escaped; she was elaborately made up and dressed in fashionable New York black: a long-skirted suit, a black silk blouse, a trailing black lace scarf, and dangerous-looking pointed black high-heeled sandals. She did not apologize for making Alan wait, only gave him a New York air kiss near one cheek.

“I hardly recognized you in that getup,” he said as they started across town in another horrible jolting taxi.

“It's protective coloration. I'm having lunch with a new editor; I want to scare him a little.”

“I was hoping to have lunch with you myself,” Alan said, attempting without total success to keep disappointment and jealousy out of his voice.

“Sorry. Business before pleasure.” Even Delia's voice seemed different. Then she turned toward him and gave her familiar low, warm laugh. “You have to dress to distress in this city. And by the way, you should get rid of that tie before Jacky sees it. Artists don't wear ties here, only businessmen.”

“You really think—?”

“Absolutely. Anyhow it looks too academic. Jacky doesn't want to meet a professor, he wants to meet a genius. You should really have on jeans and a black sweater.”

“Well, all right.” Alan laughed. After all, what had he to lose? He pulled off his striped tie, rolled it up, and put it in his pocket.

“Oh, and when you're at the gallery, you should be the strong silent type. Don't talk much. And don't sign anything.”

“You're suggesting that Mr. Herbert is a crook,” Alan said.

“No, no. Jacky's a very charming, kind man. I adore him.”

“Really,” Alan said, this time managing to keep the irrational rush of jealousy out of his voice.

“But of course he's also an art dealer. So if he gives you a contract, just say you'd like to show it to your lawyer first.”

“In other words, let him know I don't trust him.” Alan winced as the taxi jolted over a pothole.

“No, not at all. He'll respect you for it.”

Contrary to Jane's suspicions, the gallery, in a Madison Avenue office building, seemed prosperous, and the work on the walls was interesting. And Jacky Herbert was an unlikely object of jealousy, being a heavy, elderly gay man with a shiny pink bald head surrounded by pale gray curls. He was impeccably dressed in a pale gray suit and shiny pink silk tie, and his handshake was fleshy but firm.

After an exchange of compliments and news about mutual friends that Alan could not follow, Jacky expressed his admiration for Alan's art. He would like, he declared, to put four or five of the big drawings into his December group show. Indeed, he had already shared some of the slides with one or two privileged patrons (“I don't like the term ‘customers' ”) and might make a sale even sooner.