Jonathan nodded slightly, to greet again the members of the committee.
“I have complete faith in your judgement,” the director went on. “The one thing I would ask you, as you examine the profiles of the candidates, is to do your best to put together a diverse group. This project needs to be staffed by a crew that represents—how shall I put this?—a variety of points of view.”
Helen Kippenberg, the psychologist, broke in with her deep voice: “Michael, can’t you give us a few details about this mission? How can I evaluate the profiles of the candidates if I have no idea what the devil they’re going to be doing up there?”
The director smiled at no one in particular, as though he hadn’t heard the question. His face looked like the face of a tired child. He said nothing more, except to wish them the best in their endeavours. He got to his feet and walked softly out of the room.
The six people who remained were disconcerted for a moment. They glanced at one another with a mixture of fellowship and suspicion, each one wondering what the others knew. At last, since there were many candidates to be considered, and part of the morning was already gone, they set to work. They started examining and debating the profiles of the candidates, on each of whom Jonathan extracted from a leather briefcase, one after another, a slender bound file. Nearly all the candidates were familiar names to the committee members. It wasn’t especially hard to evaluate their profiles. The discussion seemed to be moving forward, around the table, in a general climate of agreement.
Reed commented. He offered concise opinions. He played his role. This wasn’t the first time that the space agency had summoned him to headquarters with a similar protocol, and he wasn’t so alarmed at the project’s apparent secrecy. He wasn’t overwhelmed by the air of importance that surrounded the meeting, nor by the cryptic attitude of the NASA officers. He’d attended much stranger meetings in his life. He’d been in far more tense situations. What was worrying him was something else.
Something was surging up inside him. It had begun bubbling immediately, the minute Michael began his opening speech, or perhaps even earlier. Perhaps when Mrs. Glasseye spoke to him during the Christmas party, or even earlier, when he had first been summoned, and he had been sent that memorandum by fax, and he’d avoided reading it and focusing his mind on exactly what that summons meant. On what he would be asked to do in Washington, on the task that would be awaiting him there. To select the candidates for the crew of a space probe.
Each time that Jonathan pulled a new file out of the leather briefcase, Reed felt his stomach cramp up. His body, his elastic body, seemed to contract like a piece of fabric drying out in the sun. Then he would relax. Oh, it just couldn’t be. That sort of coincidence couldn’t happen. It couldn’t. Or could it? A tremendous, embarrassing suspicion had surged up inside him. The suspicion kept coming in waves, and went on that way until lunchtime, when the others decided to take a forty-minute break. They had already selected half a dozen profiles.
During lunch, in a comfortable private dining room adjoining the cafeteria, they chatted about the Batman case, the complexities of the trial, with mentions of the obscene manner in which the corpse had been defiled. They talked about the president’s latest foot-in-mouth gaffes, and the recent study on oral gonorrhoea among American teenage girls, and all the other topics that millions of people were talking about that day, at lunch, in a more-or-less distracted, more-or-less worried, more-or-less frivolous tone of voice. It was all normal. A group of famous experts eating lunch in a dining room, drinking iced water, diverting themselves with the news of the day. Reed took part in the conversation, happy that no one was talking in depth about anything, happy just to be skimming the surface: their conversation, even their acquaintance with one another. Things that remained on the surface seemed more normal. Decidedly more innocuous.
He had almost regained his composure when they returned to the conference room, each of them carrying a cup of coffee. He took his seat at the table, slumping into his chair with a sigh, and that was when the situation collapsed around him. The inevitable finally happened.
“Bernard Dunn.” The name was read out by Jonathan, in a neutral tone, from the cover page of the new file he’d extracted from the leather briefcase.
Reed kept his eyes down, focused on the small notepad in front of him. The air had dried up and seemed to scratch him with every breath he took.
“Here comes the new blood,” someone commented. It was the outside consultant. “I suppose that when Michael talked about diversity,” he added, “this is some of what he had in mind, right? Considering candidate astronauts who will be flying their first mission?”
“I was in charge of him during a training session in Houston,” one of the NASA executives said. “Remarkable subject, highly ambitious.”
Reed took a covert glance at the file Jonathan was holding. He recognised a small photograph of Bernard, and the sight triggered a familiar stab in his hip, a microscopic crater gaping open, for the umpteenth time, spitting forth its seething flow of lava. Jealousy. Resentment. Hostility. Damned cocksucker. You’re even tormenting me here.
“I remember meeting him at a seminar in New Jersey,” Helen Kippenberg was saying. “I didn’t have the chance to get an accurate impression. Reed, what do you say about him?”
Reed didn’t react right away. “Bernard Dunn?…” He pretended to struggle to remember the name. “I think I saw him at a lecture or two.”
There was a pause. “Well?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, what?” Reed echoed him.
“What I mean to say,” Jonathan said, “is we’d like your opinion. Do we put him in the candidate pile or the reject pile?”
Reed closed his eyes, in an apparent attempt to concentrate. He couldn’t look his fellow committee members in the eye. He felt unpleasantly transparent. He plunged into an abyss of indecision, then felt the answer rising from his guts, as fast as a ricocheting pinball, scurrying up through his stomach and hurtling out through his lips: “Reject pile.”
The discussion of Bernard’s CV lasted a few more minutes. Reed paid no attention to it; he was too busy trying to comprehend what he had done. I didn’t give it a second’s thought. It was a purely instinctive response. His negative opinion seemed to influence the others, and in the end the panel voted to reject Bernard’s candidacy. Reed felt like asking them to think it over. Give him a little more consideration. Don’t let my answer sway you. I don’t want to cast the deciding vote… There was no time. They were moving on to the next profile. Reed closed his eyes, again, breathing in as much air as he could, praying that it wouldn’t happen.
But it happened.
“Elaine Ryan,” Jonathan read out this time.
A surge of panic shot through Reed, mixed with a kind of intense astonishment. That name. He couldn’t believe that it could be uttered like that, aloud, by a stranger, by someone who knew nothing about her skin, her scent, the warmth of the person to whom that name corresponded. You can’t say that name. That name is for me, and me alone.
And yet it was there. That name was filling the space around the table, in the conference room with its muffled atmosphere, in the headquarters of a government agency. “Elaine Ryan,” Jonathan said again, looking up from the file. “One of the few female candidates,” he pointed out.
“And in absolute terms, the youngest candidate,” said Helen Kippenberg, who seemed to have studied Elaine’s profile. Reed was afraid that she too was about to utter her name, the forbidden name, the heart-stopping name, with that perfectly poised voice of hers, the voice of a fashionable psychologist. “In my opinion,” the woman said, “she has a very interesting profile.”
For several long minutes, the tableful of people spoke about Elaine. Reed didn’t dare to breathe a word. It all seemed so surreal, so impossible, and he sat there staring into the middle distance as if trying to blend in with the air in the room. He thought about pretending to feel unwell, a coughing fit or something of the kind, any
excuse to get out. But that would have just attracted more attention. He sat there, petrified, while Helen took the floor. “Elaine Ryan’s educational transcript is virtually perfect,” said the psychologist. She had an affected accent, like someone doing elocution exercises or rehearsing for an interview on the radio. Reed hated that voice. He hated the way she pronounced the name and absolutely hated the moment when she said: “Reed, you must have run into her more than once at the space centre in New Jersey. What do you think of her?”
Every eye in the room turned towards him. For one horrible instant he thought he was about to blush. “I guess you’re right,” he said, laconically. “It’s a good profile,” he added, without emotion, without meeting the gaze of the psychologist who was looking at him, in expectation, dissatisfied with his answer. He wondered whether Helen Kippenberg was trying to put him in a corner. Maybe she knows. Maybe she’s been in New York recently, or at the space centre in New Jersey, and she’s heard some talk.
“All right,” Jonathan broke in, “what do you say? Candidate pile or reject pile?”
Reed gulped. “Oh,” he did his best to smile. “You’re not going to ask me to be the first to express an opinion again, are you?!”
“Why not?” Jonathan replied. “As far as the New York candidates go, you’re probably the one who knows them best.”
Everyone went on looking at him. Reed started sweating under the crossfire of those stares, at the edge of that table. He felt he had no way out. He couldn’t stand up to all those stares at once. Perhaps he’d have to give in, confess that he couldn’t answer, that he had no right, that he was personally involved. Unless they already know that. As soon as that thought surfaced in his mind, he felt he was lost. There really was no way out. No avoiding the weight of those eyes, no escape from the torment of doubt: was the rumour of his relationship with Elaine common knowledge in Washington, too? Was that meeting really what it appeared? Or had they summoned him just to put him in a false position, to test his professional ethics?
“Reed?” he heard someone call. Maybe it was Jonathan. The scene had taken on a strange texture. Focus. You have to get yourself out of this situation. “Reed, are you all right?”
“The fact is,” Helen Kippenberg said, filling the gap in the conversation, throwing him a moment’s temporary salvation, “that Elaine Ryan has passed every kind of test with flying colours.” Reed went so far as to wonder whether the psychologist was a lesbian. Whether she’d fallen for Elaine. The thought rocketed through him, without a purpose, without a source, a meteor flashing across the sky of his mind, before the woman could lob the question back in his direction: “So, Reed. Given the apparently brilliant foundations of this candidate, it’s crucial for us to have your opinion. Should we consider this candidate, yes or no?”
Reed felt like screaming. He felt like ordering those people to stop it, to stop talking about Elaine, he felt an urge to protect his love and to envelop it, now, in a blanket of blessed silence. He wanted to call her and beg her forgiveness for having talked about her from a distance, in a detached manner, or maybe he felt like berating her violently—my God—and forcing her to confess the way things truly stood. Did you know what would happen? Did you know that I would be a member of the committee?! The enormity of this suspicion made him black out for a second, but then he came to in the room, once again, without knowing what Elaine knew, without knowing what the other committee members knew, without knowing, without knowing. He was the man who didn’t know, and all he knew for certain was one thing. If Elaine is accepted, I might not be able to see her for months.
This thought too made him feel worn out, almost on the point of vanishing. He thought about Mrs. Glasseye, who had recommended that he decline the invitation. For some reason, he was sorry that she wasn’t there, next to him, with her magnificent cleavage, with her provocative ways. Mrs. Glasseye wasn’t a bad person. She’d had her share of trouble in life, and at the Christmas party she’d done her best to warn him. But she wasn’t there. Reed was alone, and he had to give them a reply.
He had such a powerful urge to scream. But it was with a calm and measured voice, on the verge of the robotic, that he finally gave his reply.
*
That evening he returned to New York in a daze, exhausted as if from a weeks-long trip. As soon as he got home, he took off his shirt and shoes and wandered through the rooms of his apartment, half-naked, with a glass of wine in his hand. Outside, the rain was pounding down. Practically a tropical downpour. Reed stared out of the window, hypnotised, sipping wine, doing his best to rinse away the taste of anxiety, of suspicion, that had swept over him that afternoon in Washington. He set down his glass and finished undressing. In the shower, he turned the water on as hot as it would go, well aware it wasn’t good for him, that the elastic structure of his body tended to deteriorate with heat. Dissolve, doubt. Slide away, torment.
When he got out of the shower his skin was reddened and his hair smelt of shampoo, but his mood hadn’t improved. It was nearly midnight, he hadn’t eaten dinner, and yet had no desire to eat or sleep. All he could manage was to turn on his laptop, search for the folder where he stored his pictures of Elaine, and study them one by one like an investigator looking for a clue. That face. That reddish hair. It seemed intolerable, almost obscene, to imagine that lovely mouth uttering lies. Oh, even if Elaine did know about the committee, she hadn’t technically lied. It was if anything a crime of omission: she had just failed to tell him something.
Reed decided that he needed to know. There was no point in standing there, naked, brushing the computer screen with his fingertips. He hastily dressed and called a taxi.
Later on, as the taxi was wending its way through the streets of South Brooklyn, and the rain drummed on the vehicle’s roof, Reed wondered whether he’d made the right decision. He wanted to turn back, seek the protective shelter of the bright lights of Manhattan, or better still, his own apartment. But now he was here, and he hated the idea of changing course. He had always considered himself a decisive person, someone who was able to face up, with courage, without uncertainty, to the solitary pain of making decisions. All kinds of decisions. That was why he hated it so much, lately, when he discovered that he was incapable of making a firm decision. It must be an effect of his relationship with Elaine. She’s proved that she’s more determined than I am. She’s showing a stronger will than mine. Every relationship is a meeting place of two wills: when the weaker will comes into contact with the stronger one, it collapses.
There was her window. The light was on. He asked the cab driver to stop and wait while he made a phone call. He imagined the ringtone of Elaine’s cell phone, its vibration on the table or on her pillow, he imagined Elaine picking it up and reading Reed’s name on the display. “Hello?” said her voice.
“Hello. Were you sleeping?” he asked pointlessly, and without waiting for an answer: “I’m downstairs. Can I come up?”
There was a moment’s silence. “Come on up,” Elaine replied.
Reed paid the cabbie, embarrassed that the man had listened to the phone call. He stepped out into the rain. He hurried across the sidewalk and was swallowed up by the dark-coloured street door.
Upstairs, he found the apartment door ajar. There was a small living room, flooded with the orange light of a lamp, and a door leading into another room. Elaine emerged from there. “Reed…what a surprise.” She was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a rock group emblazoned on it. Bare feet. A stab of unease, verging on panic, pulsed in Reed when he saw her looking like this. She looked like a young girl. A teenager. They stood there staring at each other, both dazzled, until she shook herself and ran into his arms. She hugged him tight. “Oh Reed!” she sighed, her face radiant. “I’ve been summoned for the space mission. I have to go to Washington tomorrow!”
“I know,” he said, stiffly, keeping himself from returning her embrace. “I was on the committee. We examined dozens of profiles and selected ten or so candidates. T
omorrow you’ll all be in Washington. A different committee will select the final four members of the space probe crew. You’ve got a good shot at it. I know everything. I was in Washington today. I gave a positive vote on you and the rest of the committee went along with my opinion. I know everything, you see? And you knew everything too. You knew that I was going to be on that committee.”
Elaine broke away from him. She looked at him as if he had spoken to her in some exotic foreign language. With a smile still on her face, she moved into the other room. “Come on in,” she said.
The bedroom was furnished soberly, in an almost minimalist style, with a small cream-coloured armoire, and a futon on the wooden floor. The bonsai that Reed had sent her months ago sat on the window sill, looking slightly sickly. A bookshelf contained, arranged in order, dozens of volumes on astronomy, meteorology, physics, and space engineering. Reed looked at the books, one by one, relieved to find something familiar in that setting. This was his first time here. His first time in Elaine’s home. Every detail of that bedroom struck him as wonderful, in some sense disconcerting, but most of all there was the suitcase. Reed felt a painful pulsing in his hip. There was an oversized suitcase lying open on the floor, and Elaine was filling it with clothes. “If they pick me tomorrow, I’ll have to fly straight to Houston,” she explained. “At least three months of continuous training at the Johnson Space Center. This mission is proceeding according to a record time frame. Everything will be very intense.”
“I know,” Reed said again. He sat down on the only chair in the room, a small white chair, and watched Elaine folding and packing her clothes.
“I can’t believe it, I still can’t believe it,” she said, as she slipped a pile of underwear into her suitcase. “I’ve been called in for the interview. I feel like I’m dreaming.”
Erotic Lives of the Superheroes Page 10