Ark

by Charles McCarry

  Without really knowing why, I worried about the compound of yurts in Hsi-tau. I felt even greater anxiety about the circle of big rockets we had overflown as the Gulfstream came in for a landing. Were these really nuclear missiles aimed at the USA, as I had assumed, or were they launch vehicles for components of Henry’s spaceship? If this was a secret missile site, why hadn’t the Chinese blown it up? If the rockets belonged to Henry, as seemed more probable every second I thought about it, I had less to teach him about hiding things in plain sight than I had given myself credit for.

  My life had become a marathon of uncertainties.

  Sometimes, crazily, I thought I was in love.

  5

  IN SOME WAYS, I MIGHT as well have been. I was getting practically no sleep. My routine was taking a beating. My habit was to finish work, lollygag for four hours, go for a run, take a shower, put on my pajamas, make a salad or order takeout and read a junk book while eating it, then watch a movie or a ballgame. In the pre-Henry era I had usually fallen asleep halfway through the movie or in the top of the fifth inning. Since going through the looking glass, I was more likely to watch the movie or the game until the end, then read until dawn—good book or bad, it didn’t matter. The alternative was to lie on my back, thinking about the end of things, eyes wide open, watching a window full of yellowish city light pulsing as if synchronized to my breath.

  Listen to me! I would tell myself. No matter how certain or how near the end might be, worrying, much less imagining a romance that would never happen, was a waste of whatever time was left to the world. But I didn’t listen to my saner self—who does?—and I didn’t sleep. The enemy I lived with was not fear. It was realization. This thing, this Event was going to happen. Henry said so. Even if I fell asleep for a while—and now and then I couldn’t help but do so—I would wake with a start, realizing I would see it sooner or later—waves of solid ground filled with boulders sweeping in a towering tsunami across the continents, dust bursting like umber spindrift from the monster as it knocked down cities and mountains and sucked the water from lakes and seas and inhaled all this into itself, changing everything forever. It was always the destruction of inanimate objects—not the death of man but the erasure of his works—that made my heart ache and my lungs fail me. I could not explain this to myself.

  Gradually, I got over my insomnia by running a little farther every day and adding an hour of yoga to my routine and just not thinking about extinction after the sun went down. Nevertheless, when I turned off the lights, psychosis crouched at the foot of the bed.

  Henry came back and life got busier. We began running together—his idea, like nearly everything else I now did. But Henry ran six miles, or ten kilometers, every other day, always in the park. The distance around the Central Park Reservoir is 1.5 miles, or 2.4 kilometers, which meant four complete circuits—a lot. Usually we went our separate ways at the end of the run. But one day in March—patches of dirty snow underfoot, mist on the water, breath visible—we cooled off by walking to the Ramble. We found a bench and sat down.

  A bird sang, and Henry pointed a finger at a small, black-headed bit of fluff that hung upside down from a naked twig.

  “Black-capped chickadee,” he said. “Wonder what he’s doing here.”

  The bird fluttered away.

  I began to shiver. I pulled a thick sweatshirt out of my daypack and put it on. This did little good. The sweatshirt had no hood. It captured less body heat than the amount that was escaping through my scalp.

  I said, “Henry, let’s go. I’m getting a chill.”

  He looked me over, nodded, and got out his cell phone. By the time we walked to the gate, the car and driver were waiting. I expected to be taken home, but instead we headed west. Traffic was light. The car, which smelled brand-new with the heater on, was toasty. Gradually I dried out and warmed up. Henry asked if I was feeling better. I replied that I was fine now. This was a lie. I just didn’t want to be alone.

  I asked him about the black-capped chickadee. Why had he been so interested in it? Had it been in the wrong place, far from its usual habitat, or what?

  Henry said, “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, magnetism has something to do with bird migrations, no? I just wondered if the patterns might be changing as a result of what’s happening to the magnetic field.”

  “Interesting thought,” Henry said, “but the bird wasn’t in the wrong place. Its range includes Central Park, but just barely, so I was a little surprised to see it, that’s all.”

  At West End Drive and Seventy-ninth Street, Henry asked the driver to pull over. The driver, showing no surprise, stopped the car and got out. Leaving the driver on the sidewalk, Henry drove onto the West Side Highway and we sped north on back roads along the Hudson River. He was a fast driver. Pretty soon we were in Westchester, then beyond it. It began to snow. Henry didn’t slow down one iota as he rounded curves at eighty miles an hour. Somehow I kept from gasping and waving my arms.

  Around noon Henry turned into a driveway that led to a house overlooking the Hudson. It was a showplace, pillared and porticoed. The view of the river alone was worth millions. Three other cars, all made in Germany of course, were parked in the driveway.

  A fiftyish man who looked like the young Vittorio De Sica—hawk-nosed, tall and trim, with a head of curly, jet-black hair—opened the door. With a brilliant smile and a glad masculine cry he embraced Henry, then extended his hand to me.

  “Amerigo Vespucci,” he said, slowly and distinctly pronouncing the first name correctly: Am-air-EE-go.

  The foyer was cavernous. The décor seemed to have been chosen by a decorator. A faux Flanders tapestry hung on the back wall. Bland white nineteenth-century statuary stood in ranks, portraits of ancestors hung on the walls. From deeper in the house, voices floated. Amerigo led us toward them. A tall, dramatically slim woman with a Garbo face flew to Henry and kissed him three times on the cheeks before pulling him into the crowd. Others greeted him so enthusiastically I thought the party might at any moment burst into applause or “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” They were a stylish crowd. No woman in the room was wearing less than ten thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and jewelry. I was still in my sweats and sneakers. Garbo noticed. Before leaving me alone in a corner, she gave me with her own hands a glass of champagne and a triangle of toast loaded with caviar. Also something that might have been a smile. She did not tell me her name or show the faintest interest in knowing mine.

  Outside the windows, snow continued to fall—big fat flakes. By three o’clock it was ankle deep. The guests brushed off their Mercedeses and BMWs and drove away. Henry and Amerigo vanished. Garbo and I were left alone in the chilly foyer.

  “I’m told you and Henry and my husband have things to talk about,” she said. “So I’m going to disappear.”

  She did so without further ado, drifting up the double staircase and leaving behind a smile as if it were another point of toast and caviar. What was I supposed to do now? How would I find Henry and Amerigo? I was feeling worse by the minute, coughing, sneezing, burning with fever.

  Amerigo appeared. He offered his arm.

  “Henry awaits,” he said, then marched me through lofty rooms to the library, where Henry was indeed waiting for us, goblet of springwater in hand.

  Hanging on the wall behind the desk was a large oil portrait of a man in Cinquecento costume.

  “Your seafaring ancestor?” I asked.

  “My father certainly thought so,” he said. “This was his place. Would you like something to drink?”

  I shook my head. To make sure I meant it, he tempted me with coffee, tea, San Pellegrino water.

  “Lemonade?” he said. “Hot lemonade?”

  Again I declined.

  Amerigo said, “Henry tells me you’re his amanuensis in this new thing of his.”

  I had never before heard the word amanuensis spoken aloud. “Nothing as fancy as that,” I said. “How do you fit in?”

  “I am the mi
ssion pharmacist. I own a little drug company in Milan.”

  I started to speak, failed to get a word out, cleared my throat, coughed spasmodically. My earlier symptoms were getting worse. Amerigo instantly fetched a box of Kleenex and a glass of water.

  “You don’t get to go on the spaceship with that cold, young lady,” he said, wagging a finger.

  He then spoke at length about the many kinds of pills and serums his company, Vespucci S.p.A., made and sold.

  “The Vespucci are still making discoveries,” he said. “And going on great voyages. Our crew will be well protected.”

  “Maybe the better approach would be to select a crew that doesn’t get sick,” I croaked.

  Henry pounced. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Select people whose DNA suggests they have little or no chance of developing a fatal condition. Once in space, and effectively in permanent quarantine, you could breed a replacement population that was even healthier than the original crew. Smarter, too. As I understand it, embryos are easier to work with than adults—fewer cells, therefore simpler procedures.”

  Henry and Amerigo looked appalled.

  Amerigo said to Henry, “She knows?”

  Knew what?

  By now I was coughing uncontrollably. I excused myself. In the lavatory mirror, I looked as awful as I felt—tangled hair, swollen nose, red eyes, chapped lips, chalky skin. No wonder Garbo had quarantined me from her other guests and fled up the stairway. I was still wearing the gizmo that measured my heart rate and blood pressure when I ran. I pressed the button. Blood pressure one sixty over ninety, heart rate ninety-two. Head stuffy, stomach sour, curiosity activated.

  We talked some more—aimlessly, it seemed. The snow continued to accumulate. I felt worse by the minute. The last thing I wanted to do was sleep in this house. I asked Henry to take me home. We left immediately, tires crunching. It was dark, winter-dark. Snow swirled hypnotically in the headlights. Sunday-evening traffic was heavy, as weekenders streamed back to Manhattan. My stomach grew queasier. I figured out how the front passenger seat worked and tilted it back, meaning to sleep or at least feign sleep.

  At this moment, Henry decided to abandon the taciturnity that had been the most noticeable thing about him since he returned from the Hsi-tau. He began talking about the Event and the thousands of things that remained to be done to prepare for it. The discourse went on for some time—the ship, the crew, the cargo, the itinerary, the many subcategories under each of these headings, and the uncountable details attaching to each subcategory. I pretended to listen. I never wanted to meet another Garbo or another Amerigo or another engineer.

  While Henry went on about our epic to-do list, I fantasized about writing him a check for the money that remained in my checking account. Very little of the five hundred thousand dollars he had deposited had been spent. Only the week before I had received a royalty check that would keep me afloat for six months, so I could afford to return Henry’s half million and call it quits and just perish with everybody else.

  In the theater of my mind I wrote the check, smelled the ink, tasted the envelope flap.

  6

  I HID OUT LIKE A sick cat for a week. After that, the old boyfriend who had taken me to the depressing play and the trattoria phoned and asked me out again. We arranged to meet in a restaurant in Chelsea. I went down a couple of hours early so I could wander through the galleries by myself. In one place that displayed gargantuan paintings of galaxies, I noticed a man. He was around six feet tall, Roman nose, nice jawline, curly hair, body fat close to zero. Nothing he wore was new: a suede blazer over a black knit shirt, scarf, corduroy pants, scuffed loafers. We stood side by side, looking at the same picture.

  He said, “What do you think?”

  “I like it. But I don’t have a place to hang it.”

  The canvas was about twenty feet long and maybe twelve feet high.

  He said, “I’ve got the same problem.”

  He followed me to the next picture—same galaxy, bigger painting.

  He said, “Would you like to grab a drink?”

  I looked at my watch. I had ten minutes to get to the restaurant, which was about fifteen minutes away.

  He said in a flatter voice, “You’ve got to go.”

  I nodded.

  He smiled with just the right amount of regret. “Nice talking to you. I hope you find a bigger place.”

  “What?”

  “I said I hope you find a bigger apartment,” he said. “So you can buy the picture.”

  At the restaurant, another trattoria, the old boyfriend was seated at a table with another couple. The woman was a pretty, bosomy blonde, a lot younger than her husband. She wore a wedding ring and a large diamond engagement ring. She told me that my date and the husband had gone to Colgate together. They played varsity lacrosse and almost won the championship in their senior year. She was from Wisconsin. There was an empty chair at the table. Was another Colgate chum on his way?

  The wife confided that she was a new wife. Her husband was wonderful in every way, but his three teenage kids came to stay with them every other weekend and on alternate Wednesday nights. They made it obvious—she described exactly how they did this—that they wished she had remained in Wisconsin, or better yet, been killed in a plane crash on her way to New York. Her eyes filled with tears. I said, “There, there.” We retired to the ladies’ room.

  By the time we returned to the table, the extra chair was occupied. The newcomer was the man I had met in the art gallery half an hour before. My friend introduced him to the wife, whom he greeted with grave formality, gazing into her eyes as if forbidden by some code of chivalry to look at any other part of her wondrous person. He gave no sign that he recognized me.

  His name was Adam.

  “Adam is a big fan of your books,” the old boyfriend said. “When he found out I knew you he gave me no peace until I said I’d introduce him.”

  “How sweet,” I said. “So tell me, Adam, which is your favorite book?”

  “All of them.”

  That’s what they all said.

  “Give me a straight answer or I won’t let you sit down,” I said.

  Adam rattled off the titles of five of my six novels and then quoted the opening paragraph of my first book, which was set in Perugia, where I had spent my junior year abroad. The passage contained a phrase in Italian that referred to the huge white truffles of Umbria. He pronounced the Italian perfectly, and then translated it to show that he knew what it meant.

  I said, “OK, Adam, you can sit down.”

  My date said, “After all that, you should maybe sit on his lap.”

  Not such a bad idea. The waiter delivered a large platter of antipasto.

  Adam said, “I’ll be mother.”

  “Why you?” asked the husband, who also seemed to know him.

  “Because I was late,” Adam said.

  “Late? Is that what you call it? You practically stood us up.”

  Without looking at me, Adam said, “Yeah. Well, I was recovering from a terrible disappointment.”

  I said, “Did Adam play lacrosse for Colgate, too?”

  “No,” my date said. “He played for Syracuse. They kicked the crap out of us three years in a row. Adam did most of the damage.”

  Handling serving spoon and fork with one hand, Adam filled our plates and handed them around. Suddenly I had an appetite. I gobbled the antipasto and ordered gnocchi. It was after midnight when the party ended with half a dozen empty wine bottles on the table. Adam picked up the tab. The other two insisted on taking care of the tip. After they stood up and turned their backs, Adam counted the bills they had left on the table and added another twenty.

  Hmmm, said the wine.

  On the sidewalk, the old boyfriend wondered if I’d mind finding my own way home. He was staying with the newlyweds, and they lived in New Jersey. He’d find a cab for me.

  Adam said, “I’ll see her home, if that’s OK.”

  �
�Same old Adam,” said the husband.

  My date just smiled nicely and waggled his fingers at me. Apparently Adam had won me in a long-ago lacrosse game.

  Adam and I walked to his car, one of those convertibles with a metal roof that folds into the trunk. Despite the weather he put the top down. It wasn’t snowing, but it was cold, and as the car moved, the windchill factor took effect. He asked where I lived. I told him. The air smelled washed. Adam smelled like coffee, having drunk two double espressos in the restaurant, and the aroma reminded me of Italy. I felt safe with him. I felt other things besides. I had drunk a lot of wine.

  I asked him what he did for a living. He pretended not to hear me. We arrived at my building.

  Adam said, “Shall I park the car or say goodnight?”

  I didn’t answer the question, but I didn’t open the door, either.

  He put the car in gear and found a parking space about half a block away. He backed into it expertly and turned to me. I must have looked like I was going to ask another question, because he put a gloved finger to my half-frozen lips and said, “I’m a lawyer.”

  “You don’t smell like a lawyer.”

  “Neither do you,” Adam said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  The next morning, while Adam slept, I wrote a scene that described in exquisite detail what had happened between the two of us the night before. Unbeknownst to me, Adam stood behind me as I typed and read over my shoulder.

  He said, “I really hope you’re going to do this every time we have sex.”

  I was naked. He put his fingertips on my shoulders and pressed lightly.

  Later, while I regretfully took a shower—all those olfactory delights swirling down the drain to be replaced by the aroma of Olay soap—Adam prepared breakfast. It was nothing like one of Henry’s gourmet repasts, but it was fine. This guy knew how to poach eggs in the microwave, make toast, pour orange juice.

  Over coffee, Adam told me he had grown up in Saratoga Springs. He had had a happy childhood. Like me, he was an only child. His father was a stockbroker who in his youth had played football at Syracuse. His mother, who had almost made the Olympics as an equestrian, owned a stable and taught kids to ride. He had spent four years on destroyers, and then gone to law school at Georgetown. After that he worked for the government in Washington for a while, and finally hung out his shingle in Manhattan—in SoHo, on Wooster Street, in fact, because he wanted to live a funky life. He had his own law firm, no partners yet. He made a living, he had a little money of his own. This recitation sounded like a wedding notice in the “Sunday Styles” section of the Times.