The Invisibles

by Hugh Sheehy

  He looked around the suite at the closed doors with dark windows. The white names stenciled on their black placards were uncannily familiar. “Not many people around.”

  “Friday.” She shrugged and glanced at her computer screen, smiled at something there, looked back at him. “Are you still moving out of your office?”

  He nodded and started toward the hallway beyond her, when she rolled her chair back and pointed in the other direction, toward a narrow half-lighted room behind him. The wall was a hive of rectangular wooden mail slots.

  “Your box is full. Let me know when you’ve decided on an address for forwarding, and I’ll take care of that for you.”

  “Thanks.” He slipped into the narrow space, scanning the last names, one beneath each mailbox. It was a confusing system, alphabetized horizontally, and several of the slots were full enough to meet the secretary’s description. He glanced over and saw her frowning as she watched. “Um,” he said.

  “Down two,” she instructed.

  “Aha.” The opening was stuffed with letters and two bulging envelopes he guessed contained journals or books. He pulled them out in a thick stack and hurried past the girl into the tight corridor of faculty offices. He read the name signs on the doors as he went, looking for the one assigned him — Marcus Schwartz. He stepped over cardboard boxes full of dropped-off and graded student papers, glanced at articles and cartoons taped up as semi-public statements. Passing an open doorway he saw he had interrupted two presumable faculty members: a man wearing a T-shirt and jeans, his salt and pepper hair held up with hair glue, sprawled out in a chair before the desk of a woman with striking hazel eyes and curly gray hair to her shoulders. They had been talking in low voices, and when he passed they turned to look, the man with raised eyebrows and the woman with an astonished smile.

  “Hi, Marcus,” she called.

  “Hey,” muttered the man, turning his head to look elsewhere.

  He lifted a hand in greeting and hurried on, terrified by the prospect of academic banter, with its mazes of connotations and pauses, and nearly missed the name he was looking for. He got out the keys, intending to lock himself in, and tried four before one fit the knob.

  If he was this person, Marcus Schwartz, he had kept a messy office by his own standards, though he immediately liked the large map of the ancient world taped to the wall: its land was condensed into a honey-colored croissant resting on a swirled blue plate called Ocean. Books lay scattered across the desk, overturned or propped open with coffee mugs and other books. A brick of student papers slumped on the front left corner; bookshelves bulged. Aside from the map and wrappers and empty to-go coffee cups, there were no personal effects. He sat in his chair and switched on his computer screen. The desktop and e-mail account had been left open. Letters and memos lay around like fallen leaves.

  He opened the paper mail, most of it garbage, memos and ads and newsletters, and found a letter addressing Dr. Schwartz. It was from a publishing house called Triton, and it told of a decision to pulp the remaining copies of a book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Marcus Schwartz had translated.

  Strange, he knew Latin, he found, old and new, as various quotations floated to the surface of his mind. He knew several languages. He ran his eyes over the titles on the shelf, their words blurring together. Even if the translation did not tell him who he was — or what had happened to him, if he was Marcus Schwartz — he felt sure it contained a clue. The publisher’s letter said no more than, Given the overwhelming evidence of willful falsification in this matter, Triton Press sees no alternative but to proceed with the recall and destruction of this edition, and with the severance of all ties to its author. He read through the e-mails. Most were student questions about grades. He deleted them, presuming they were the department’s concern now. He read the more personal correspondence, condolences from Schwartz’s former students, colleagues, and friends. Many mentioned the insignificance — one, the mischief — of Schwartz’s act, but none said what he had done.

  There was an article on the Saint Anthony student paper website titled Professor Resigns after Accusations of Academic Dishonesty. It said Marcus Schwartz, a translator who taught classics and theater, had quit after being accused of adding an apocryphal story to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, claiming to have discovered a new fragment. The article described how other scholars concluded no such fragment existed, speculating Schwartz himself wrote the tale. The counterfeit myth was not described.

  He searched the office, taking the books one at a time from the shelf and then tossing them aside onto the floor. Soon he had made such a pile that he was put in mind of a bonfire ready for ignition, and he had moved on to ferreting out books concealed under papers when someone knocked at the door. He ignored the disturbance and gave the room a final scan. Odd he would not have a copy of his own book in his university office, where it seemed several should be lying around.

  The knocking came again. “It’s Catherine.”

  Deciding her voice sounded more eager to talk than to listen, he opened the door and looked down at the woman whose conversation he had interrupted earlier. She smoothed down the front of her maroon sweater over the waist of her gray skirt.

  “Hey, Catherine,” he said. “What’s up?”

  She looked down the corridor as if to ensure they were alone. “I didn’t know if you would be back. Ever.”

  “Look at this mess. Can’t just leave this behind.”

  “In all honesty,” she said, looking past him, “I thought you would just abandon it. Just leave it all. I guess I do that, imagine people are more impetuous than I am, to live vicariously. How long has it been?”

  “A while, I guess. I haven’t really kept track. In fact, I’m actually about to step out, and I can’t say when I’ll be back.”

  “Listen, Marcus.” She crossed her arms firmly across her chest and looked up into his eyes. “I just want you to know that some of us are behind you. No matter what the dean says. I’ve talked to friends at other schools, and I don’t think this thing will dog you. You’ll be okay.”

  His eyes moved past her earnestly trembling face to the office almost right across the hall. Through the open door he could see, beyond a desk covered in Faberge eggs and figurines, her shelves of hardcover books in shining dust jackets. “Thanks, Catherine, it means a lot. By the way, would you happen to have a copy of Metamorphoses?”

  She tensed at the shoulders like a cornered animal. “Which one?”

  “Mine.”

  “Oh.” She pressed her lips together and breathed through her nose. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I sent mine back to Triton. I didn’t want to, but mine was a gift edition, and Henry contacted me personally. They’re so embarrassed, you know. And the bookstore here had already sent theirs back.” She glanced away. “I didn’t want to send it back. You know what it’s like in this field. There are only so many places to publish.”

  Laura picked up on the third ring. “Hey,” she said in a depthless monotone. He gathered that her cell phone informed her that the office of Marcus Schwartz was calling. Machines recognized Marcus Schwartz, he reflected, and would continue doing so until someone else took over that information. “I’m at lunch. Can I call you back?”

  “I just have a quick question. It shouldn’t compromise you at all.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “Do you know my address? My home address, I mean.”

  She paused, breathing into the phone as she fiddled with something. “Yeah, hold on, it’s in my purse. Are you ready?”

  He wrote it down on a sticky yellow note and put it in his pocket. “Are you busy later?”

  “I can’t talk right now. Call me later.”

  Back on the train, seated beside the doors, he read vandalized ads for night schools and free background checks and glanced at the faces of fellow passengers, all of them looking forward to being elsewhere. The car was warm, and the linoleum was covered with puddles of melted ice. Outside the smeared plastic window a moderate sn
ow was falling on the city and the snow-covered river. At each stop, a new mob of strangers boarded blowing clouds of breath, rubbing their hands together as they sought out open seats. An old woman wearing a pink parka and a plastic babushka sat in the space beside him, using her sharp little elbow to prod him into the corner. In place, she looked straight ahead, her wrinkled nose and frowning mouth framed tightly by her steel-colored hair and her shawl.

  The train rushed forward over an elevated track, descended along a three-block stretch, and plunged into a tunnel under the city. As the daylight disappeared and the dark walls and vacant passageways came on, now visible, now gone, he felt the first clutches of fear in his chest. He was suddenly certain that he would not like what he was going to find in the apartment, that whatever lay hidden there would tie him forever to an awful crime. Who was Marcus Schwartz, anyway? Who had he been that he had forgotten who he was? The truth must be terrible, he thought, if he had somehow hidden it from himself. That the people who recognized him and the messages he’d read suggested he was a nice person pointed to secrecy, which frightened him more.

  He stepped out in a crush of people onto the platform beside the ghoulish mosaic of Lazarus. The hustle of others moved him along quickly, down the long, bright white, domed tunnel, then up another flight to the bustling city street. Winter air descended onto his head and shoulders like a heavy blanket, stuffed his lungs with chill. He walked through black and gray slush past people hidden under long coats, scarves, hats. Many women were wearing fur-lined boots. He walked through the clouds of strangers’ breath, past bright storefronts displaying gaudy jewelry and winter hats on mannequins dressed in form-fitting clothes. He watched out for the slush holes appearing suddenly underfoot. The blocks were long, but eventually he came to the address Laura had given him on a quiet street.

  It was an eight-story brick building, old and faded and ugly, with a black fire escape zigzagging up the side. The doorman, seeing him wander onto the green doormat and stamp the ice from his loafers and soaked pant cuffs, came and let him in. He was an older man, with heavy jowls and thick folds in the cheeks around his smile. He nodded slowly in the manner of monolingual immigrants and ushered him toward the steel elevator doors.

  He rode to the eighth floor and went to the apartment number Laura had given him. The hallway was dark, the walls covered in burgundy wallpaper, the red and orange carpet short and coarse. He looked through the peephole and saw dim daylight on the other side, the gray wateriness of depression. He knocked and waited, listened to the wood and heard nothing within. He took out his key ring and tried keys. His hands were shaking a little. The dead bolt turned on his second try.

  Mail had piled up in a heap inside the door, and he smeared it across the foyer pushing his way in. The warm air held the wild stink of unwashed dishes and the life forms they favored, cigarettes and booze, garbage long ready to go out. The kitchen was as the stench portended — dirty dishes and pans and empty bottles appeared to have erupted from the sink and flowed out over the countertops. By the blankets and crushed pillow on the living room couch, he guessed Marcus Schwartz had been sleeping there, perhaps too drained to drag himself to bed when there was a television to keep him company. In the bedroom, the mattress was stripped bare and covered with wrinkled and dirty clothes. In the half-open drawers he found a pair of clean socks, briefs, dry jeans, a few shirts. Fresh jogging shoes on the closet floor. In the dingy bathroom, he looked at his weary reflection as he scrubbed his hands with hot water to warm them up and decided, as it appeared no one had been here for a while or would be soon, that he could take a shower. Afterward, shaved and washed, wearing Marcus Schwartz’s clothes — which fit him well — he felt like someone else. He opened the medicine cabinet and found an old blue toothbrush and a curled tube of toothpaste.

  In a spare bedroom that had been used as an office, he dug through bookshelves and the stacks of books left on the desk and in the corners. He could not find the translation by Marcus Schwartz. Only when he had given up searching did he notice the answering machine on the shelf above the writing desk, message button blinking red. He stood licking his lips, unsure about the situation. He felt now as if he were being guided toward some fate of Marcus Schwartz’s design; after all, who else was responsible for all that had happened to him so far?

  To know or not was not much of a choice. He pressed the button. An automated male voice informed him he had fifteen messages. The first was over thirteen days old. A woman’s voice, husky and full of sadness, filled the room. He knew immediately he had heard it many times.

  “It’s Liz. I’m wondering if you’re going to ever call. I know you’re probably sitting there, all messed up and angry at me, but I wish you’d just pick up. Don’t be such a baby. Pick up. I’m worried about you, okay?”

  Seven of the messages were from Liz. Starting almost two weeks ago she had called once a day for six days, finally threatening to come over and use her key. In the seventh message, left on the evening of the seventh day, she reported stopping over and coming in, finding the place filthy as his place in Boston, which he guessed dated from college or grad school. He had not been there, she said; he should call her when he was sober and ready to talk. The rest of the messages were robocalls from politicians, credit card companies, insurance scams.

  He picked up the phone, found Liz’s number in the caller ID, and called her. It rang five times before she answered. She sounded in good spirits but a little detached, as if she were in the middle of vacuuming the house.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  “I see,” she said. “So.”

  “I’m at the apartment now.”

  “Finally decided to call me back, I see.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I — ”

  “Don’t apologize, Marcus. Don’t do it.” He saw her: a tall woman with a pretty, expressive face and long cinnamon-colored hair, pinching the bridge of her prominent nose, closing her eyes. “I’m really just not up for that right now. I kind of doubt you are, either.”

  “Something’s happened.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it. Really.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “Marcus. You can do what you want to do to yourself. It’s not my business any more. Listen, I screwed up, too, I’m just as much to blame as you are. We fucked it up a long time ago. I can’t go into it. The thing with Jeff, and you, you were in a completely different world. And that shit with your job.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess maybe that’s it.”

  “You guess? Jesus, Marcus, we were like a fucking case study. We started too young, forced it too long. Period.” Her voice was filled with nostalgia and relief. She gave a long sniff. Then she spoke away from the mouthpiece. “Hold on a sec, okay? It’s Marcus. Are you there? God, I wish you had called some other time. Jeff and I have got this thing at the Breton tonight. It’s a little one-act we wrote together. We’re just getting ready. Can I call you back?”

  “Sure. But Liz, hold on.”

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  “Do you have a copy of that book?”

  It was where she said she’d leave it, in a manila envelope leaning at the foot of the townhouse door. She had left the lamp on, as she said she would, so he could see it there. A brass ashtray on a tall tripod stood beside the door, and he knew before he looked in it that he would see half-smoked menthols, their white butts stained with pink lipstick. He leaned and picked up the envelope. The name Marcus had been scrawled hastily across the paper in her large looping script, was sealed with a red sticker shaped like a heart. She used these for everyone, to represent her friendship, but he could imagine the pain she must have felt sealing this parcel. He tore open the package and removed the book, a black paperback with an image of a green ouroboros on the cover, beneath the title. He looked at the dark bay window beside the door, its white curtain concealing a living room, dining room, or some other room that called to mind a stage set. He wondered what it looked like,
how the air inside smelled and felt. He felt compelled to ask for a glimpse, a taste, to join it temporarily, to knock on the heavy wood, to speak his name and be admitted. He knew they had plans tonight, that the house stood empty. He had heard the excitement in her voice.

  He sat on the top stair and read through the table of contents. He knew these stories, had committed many to memory. He had been translating them almost twenty years, since his first days as an undergraduate, and still he loved their distance, their romance. He found what he was looking for right away. He read it twice and sat in the cold night, lost in vague thoughts, until he heard someone coming. It was a younger couple, still in their work clothes, stumbling drunkenly up the sidewalk. He imagined they had just come from happy hour somewhere, surrounded by strangers whose minute differences from them and each other made the world feel safe and rich. They passed through a streetlight. The man was tall, grinning under his thick-framed glasses. She was laughing hard with her eyes shut tight, her arm wrapped around his narrow waist. She had reached a state where all he said made her laugh harder, bent over by stomach cramps.

  He watched them walk down the darkened street until they passed beyond his sight. Then he stood and walked, moving his stiffening joints through the cold air until they warmed and found a rhythm. He stopped at the corner and dropped the book into a black steel garbage can. The book hit the bottom and made a single dull echo. Seeing the yellow glow of a drugstore across the street, he proceeded to the pay telephone next to the door, took the scratched black receiver from the cradle, wiping it on his coat before he placed it beneath his ear. He dug out Laura’s card and, in the yellow glare of the sign, read the neat printing on the soft rose-colored paper. He slid two quarters through the coin slot, looking through the glass. The shopkeeper leaned on the counter, reading a magazine over a display of lottery tickets.