“Thank you, Ray,” he said. “That’s kind of you to say. Though perhaps more modest, more ascetic than we might have come to had my wife been given her head—you have seen the rest of the house—it is for me a beautiful room.” It was not easy to think of it as modest. “A place of quiet and retreat,” he said. “Of study and prayer. Of sanctuary. Which I find I more and more need. I’m at peace here, among my books. As I’m sure you will understand. I hope you’ve been comfortable so far in your stay with us.”
“I’ve been very comfortable,” I said. “Thank you. And extremely well fed. I’m glad to get to see where Sara grew up. It helps me imagine her as a little girl. I’m also happy to be away from school. If you could see the way I live, you’d know I’m not used to,” indicating the room, “this level of,” I would attempt an ingratiating joke, “modesty.”
Given my usual reticence, this was a veritable aria. I saw Sara stiffen as I finished, without, at the time, understanding why. He would soon hear from Sara herself—I didn’t know she’d come home to tell him this—that she and I were living together. When she told him—I was not present, and probably should have been—he was furious with her. On moral, and other, less admirable grounds. There was no reason for him to hear preemptively from me—the agent of his heartbreak, the unworthy, uncouth, godless graduate student who would separate him from the girl of his dreams—even an intimation of the truth: that we lived, his daughter and I, like squatters in a rat-trap apartment above a Hmong gift shop on the shabbiest street in downtown Ames.
“I trust, then,” he said, “you will do your best to make yourself at home.”
“I will,” I said, without any idea what we were really talking about, though I felt again, for the first time since my mother’s death, the pang of orphanhood. As a graduate student, my present state was impecunious, but I was not starving or freezing or without shelter. Going forward, there was for me some likelihood of gainful, if not bountiful employment. But I had no one at my back. In the face of small favors, I would be grateful and dimwitted, slow to take umbrage. Too slow at times. Too grateful. A shriveled nut of civility.
I can’t remember what Sara said, how she managed her exit, but it was graceful. She was standing beside her father, then she was beside me, the back of her hand brushing the back of my hand, then she was gone, the clean smell of her still in the air, promising, I think, to be right back, after she did what she was pretending she needed to do. I was the perfect stooge—mildly suspicious I was being set up, too good a guest, too fatted a goose, too stupid with love, to protest. The subsequent and very unpleasant conversation between Sara’s father and me lasted no more than fifteen minutes. At which point, as if she’d been watching the clock—we were done talking, and I felt pretty much dispatched—Sara, who made enough noise coming down the hall to alert us to her approach, gaily blew into the room, expecting, I suppose, to find us joined in an embrace of mutual and manly affection. She was so fine, so ungodly innocent, to see her all at once like that was a detonation in the heart, a clearing shot to the brain.
“Hello, you two,” she said, before she could take an accurate reading of the scene. “Miss me?”
Below, I provide an arrantly stark reconstruction of my conversation with Sara’s father. I dispense with all interpolated notation of gesture and action, and I do this more for the sake of accuracy than of ease. During our conversation there was no action or gesture. At his bidding, so we would not have to call from across the room, I came closer. Hard as this is to credit, we stood, like duelists, facing one another at an uncordial distance of five or six feet, and talked back and forth.
HIM: So. I’m glad to have this chance to speak with you. Without Sara present.
ME: All right.
HIM: Would you prefer to be sitting?
ME: No. I’m fine where I am. Thank you.
HIM: It is my practice in situations like this one to speak candidly.
ME: Please do.
HIM: You are a graduate student at the university. Am I right?
ME: In my first year. That’s right.
HIM: In math.
ME: Yes.
HIM: At present you are not a candidate for the Ph.D.
ME: No. I’m not interested in a doctorate. I don’t like math enough, to tell you the truth.
HIM: Which is to say you are pursuing a Masters’ degree.
ME: That’s my plan. Yes.
HIM: Your plan is to teach.
ME: Yes.
HIM: To teach at what level?
ME: High school. At least, that’s my thought at the moment.
HIM: Well. If teaching is worth doing, then it’s worth doing at any level.
ME: I suppose that’s right. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.
HIM: Sara tells me you are from New Hampshire.
ME: Yes.
HIM: You were born there?
ME: And bred.
HIM: What part of New Hampshire?
ME: The western part. Not too far from Vermont. It’s a small state. Have you been to New Hampshire?
HIM: I have not.
ME: It’s a nice place.
HIM: I’m sure it is. And it is true that neither of your parents is alive?
ME: Sadly. My father died when I was young. My mother died this past Thanksgiving.
HIM: I’m sorry for your loss.
ME: Thank you.
HIM: Have you any brothers or sisters?
ME: No.
HIM: You are alone.
ME: More or less. Yes.
HIM: Who were your parents?
ME: Who were they?
HIM: What did they do?
ME: For a living, you mean?
HIM: Well, yes.
ME: My father was an accountant. He worked as an auditor. My mother, when she worked, worked at the high school, in the attendance office.
HIM: I’m interested: What was your parents’ faith?
ME: I’m not sure what you mean.
HIM: I mean, son, in what form, if any, did their faith, if any, express itself? I mean, did your parents worship? How did they worship? Where did they worship? Which God did they pray to?
ME: Let’s see. They were Presbyterian. My mother was a Methodist, but she switched when she married my father. I assume they prayed to the same God you pray to. They were good people. They had a good marriage. We were a happy family.
HIM: And you? What is your faith?
ME: I can’t answer that question.
HIM: Because?
ME: Because I don’t know what my faith is.
HIM: You don’t know.
ME: I don’t. I don’t think about it. Maybe I should.
HIM: And what do you think of Sara?
ME: I think she’s remarkable.
HIM: And it is not her money you are interested in?
ME: Of course not.
HIM: She stands to inherit a great deal of money. Do you pretend that you are unaware of this?
ME: I don’t pretend anything, Mr. Bird. I was unaware of it, until just now. And I’m sorry, but I don’t give one hoot.
HIM: What is the nature of your relationship with my daughter?
ME: I’m not sure it’s my place to say. What has Sara told you?
HIM: She has told me very little. I’m hoping you will tell me. That you will be man enough to tell me.
ME: I will speak only for myself. I like your daughter very much.
HIM: You like her.
ME: Yes, I do. Though I wonder why she’d bother with me.
HIM: Yes. Well. I have to say I wonder the same. I mean, to speak frankly, on what basis do you permit yourself to think you are worthy of her?
ME: I don’t think I’m worthy of her.
HIM: Yet you pursue her. You allow her to involve herself with you to the extent that she is no longer likely to explore other options.
ME: I wouldn’t say it’s a matter of my allowing Sara to do anything. She does as she pleases. I don’t know that I have m
uch, or any, say in what she does.
HIM: I assure you, you do.
ME: I don’t know how you could know that.
HIM: Please. Don’t underestimate me. I also know, for instance, that Sara no longer lives in the dorm. That she now lives with you.
ME: She has told you that?
HIM: She has not. I’ll say this simply. I want you to discourage her. Sara’s judgment may be faulty, but she is not a fool. She has seen something to value in you, and I will believe it is there. On the face of things, you seem reasonably intelligent, and not unkind. You might be pleasant to sit next to on a plane. But you are not the man for Sara. Not by a long shot. I won’t let you let her so radically undervalue herself. I won’t sit passively by as she makes such an egregious mistake. I want you, on your return to Ames, as soon as it is possible, to bring to an end your relationship with her. I want her to return to the dorm. I want you to leave her alone. I wish you well in your studies. Chances are you will make a fine high school teacher. But you have no earthly business with my daughter. You can’t possibly imagine that you do. I don’t want to hear about you again.
ME: Should this not be Sara’s decision?
HIM: Absolutely not. My plan for Sara is that she go to Paris in the fall to study at the Sorbonne. I expect you to do nothing to interfere with that plan.
ME: Have you talked about this with Sara?
HIM: About Paris?
ME: Yes.
HIM: That is not your concern. I will assume that we have come to an understanding, Ray, you and I. And I will ask that you keep what was here said between us in confidence. There is nothing to be gained from including Sara in this conversation.
ME: I don’t agree, Mr. Bird.
HIM: Whether you agree or not is of no consequence. I expect you to do as I say.
ME: That’s ridiculous.
HIM: And if I find that you have betrayed this confidence, I will take the steps necessary to have you dismissed from the university.
ME: You think you can do that? You can’t do that.
HIM: I can. And, be clear, I will.
He didn’t take the steps necessary to have me dismissed—whatever those steps might have been, and assuming he could have done so—because, when it became clear, as it soon did, that Sara had thrown her lot in with me, to injure me would have been also to injure her. In the car on the way back to Ames, before we were even out of Indianola, I told Sara exactly what her father had said to me.
She was appalled. “How could he have said such things to you?” she said. “How dare he do that? And, think, I brought you to him. I am so sorry. My poor boy.”
“I have to admit,” I said, “I was a bit overmatched.”
She smiled at me, leaned across the front seat, and kissed me on the ear. “Of course you were. Will you forgive me? He said he wanted to meet you. He said he just wanted time to talk with you alone, to get to know you. And then he told me how much he liked you.”
“I don’t think he liked me,” I said, with some glee.
In their final conversation, which had occurred in the library on the morning of our departure, her father said he’d “very much enjoyed” our talk. Sara took that moment to tell him she had moved in with me.
“He flipped into a rage,” she said
I wondered, not aloud, how much of it was feigned. “He already knew,” I said.
“What?”
“He already knew you were living with me.”
“You told him?”
“He told me.”
“How did he know?” she said.
“I have no idea.”
He told her how disappointed in her he was. That he could not condone her behavior. That her behavior was scandalous. That he was embarrassed for her, embarrassed by her. Had she forgotten who she was? Then, as if to punish her, he told her she would be going to Paris in the fall. She said she wouldn’t go. She would go, he said, because he had decided she would go. No, she absolutely would not go. Would she defy him? he asked. If she had to, she said. He wanted to know, was it because of me? That was part of it, she told him. She was determined, then, to stay with me? She said she thought she was. He said that if she defied him, he would have no recourse but to disown her. “Go ahead,” she said.
I loved her for that. By that time, I needed no more reason to love her.
It was the evening of the last day of Anna’s visit. She would leave for Iowa first thing the next morning. It was after we’d eaten a cold supper at the kitchen table, after I’d done the dishes, before we said good night. We hadn’t talked much since the afternoon. No mention of my clone, or her group, or anything else of any seriousness. Not since the conversation in which she told me what they wanted me to do, and how dangerous it would be for me to do it. She’d left the house for several hours. I don’t know what she did while she was out. The day was very hot. I was feeling a bit shaky and oddly chilled, and stayed inside. I watched out the window for the twins, Sophie and Marie, but they didn’t appear. When Anna returned, she went straight into the guest room to begin packing her things. It was obvious she meant to leave me to myself. I tried to take the time she gave me to think about what she’d proposed. I was dutiful, but more than usually diffuse. When there was nothing left to do with the day but call an end to it—it was what my mother, for reasons unexplained, called the violet hour—we wound up sitting quietly together in the living room. Anna was finishing a cup of tea. I was idle. It was as if we’d been married for forty years. It was then—the question came to me only after I’d stopped thinking—I asked her: Wasn’t I the very first person the government would look to when they discovered my clone was missing? Wasn’t I, therefore, the very last person her group ought to want anywhere near their clone, now they finally had one?
What I asked was something she and the others had thought long about. Her response was seamless and more thorough than seemed necessary—she told me more than, at the time, I wanted to know—as if, as part of her charge, she was bent to the service of logical completeness.
Figure the odds, she said. The likelihood of a clone escaping from the Clearances was negligible. In any case, she said, it would not be an “escape.” The clone would have no concept of escape, no way of planning or imagining his survival outside the Clearances, no idea there existed anything outside the Clearances he might escape to. The clone would have no idea about the possibility of sanctuary, in Canada or any other place. Because, of course, the clone would have no idea about political boundaries or nation states. Should a clone find himself somehow outside the Clearances, she said, he would be absolutely unable to deal with the world. The clone, I must remember, would not know he was a clone, would not understand the concept of clone, would not know there were originals and copies of originals. The clone would likely not have sufficient language to tell anyone he might encounter who, or what, he was, or where he was from. The clone would likely not understand roads, or cars, or shops, or money. More to the point, the clone—this they knew, empirically, was true—would be medicated to the edge of catatonia. He would very possibly be hit by a car or truck on any road he was unlucky enough to wander on to. Should he survive, he would most likely be reported to the local police as a vagrant, or a drunk, or a lunatic. In which case, he would be picked up and taken into custody. If he then happened to be seen by someone who, observing the barcode on the inside of his left forearm, could deduce its meaning, the clone might be handed over to an official connected with the Clearances, where, because the clone had seen, however dimly, the world outside, he would immediately be executed. If, as was more likely, the clone was not recognized as a clone, and if he did not find some way to kill himself first, he would, sooner rather than later, end up in an institution for the insane.
The chances of any of this happening, she said, were infinitesimal. Even so, there was far less chance that the clone would, before anything else happened to him, come into contact with one of the smattering of resisters—however vigilant they were—who li
ved on the margins of the Clearances. Far less likely still was the possibility that one of the resisters who recovered the clone would recognize in him his original. The government would have figured that the odds against a wayward clone being found by, or given to, a member of the resistance who just happened to know the clone’s original, and who could recognize that original in the clone, were staggering, way too small to be given any consideration at all. Factor in their general operating principle—that an original must never think about his copy, is never contacted, not even when his copy dies—and it is certain that the clone’s original would be the very last person the government would suspect, or communicate with, when that clone went missing. It was, thus, precisely me, Anna said, the Dolly Squad (should such an entity actually exist) would come for last.
“But, eventually, they will come,” I said.
“They will come,” she said.
The next morning, early, we were in the kitchen. I’d watched dully, while Anna ate a quick breakfast. Now she was ready to go. I’d done nothing to help her get ready. She had beside her on the kitchen floor a suitcase, a shopping bag filled with food and drink for the trip, and a small black satchel I’d not seen before. “I’ll call you in three days, when I get back to Iowa,” she said. “You can tell me then what you’ve decided.”
“What if I need more time?” The question was false. I had, I believe, already made my decision.
“We don’t have more time,” she said. “If you decide to do what they’ve asked, I’ll be back to get you exactly ten days from now. You’ll have to be ready to go with me.”
“Go where?”
“Canada.”
“Where in Canada?” I said.
“I can’t tell you that until you’ve made your decision.”
“I have an appointment with the doctor,” I said. “In six weeks. He needs to see the damage to my heart. To see how bad it is.”
“There are doctors in Canada,” she said.
“Would I bring along my medical records?” I was nothing other than a feeble old man, standing in the kitchen in his bathrobe and bare bony feet, with his hammertoes and poor circulation, whining about his feeble heart.
The Bradbury Report Page 9