by Alex Lang
“I insist,” she said. “I’d never forgive myself if something were to happen to you.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
One week turned into two, two into three, three into four-and I grew concerned. I called her cell phone several times, but she never answered. I rang up the physics department and inquired as to her whereabouts. I was told she’d attended a conference in northern Chile, but that they weren’t aware of her plans afterwards. Her classes were finished for the semester so they weren’t concerned. I was about to call the police to report Alice missing when I wandered into the living room one morning after breakfast and found her sitting on the sofa thumbing through a magazine, her suitcase on the floor.
“When did you get back?” I stammered. “I was worried sick.”
“The conference went on longer that I expected,” she replied. “Sorry about that.”
And that’s the way life went-for the next several months. There were more conferences and what she said were critically important observing sessions at Palomar and Lick. I asked for details on the latter, but they were not forthcoming. “Boring, scientific measurements,” she said with a shrug. How she equated critical observing sessions with boring measurements was beyond me.
I spent hours reading up on linguistic theory in Alice’s apartment (she’d managed to convince me to apply for re-admittance to graduate school) as well as my astronomical readings
(I’d finished On the Origins of the Universe and now was engrossed in Black Holes, Quasars, and Other Astronomical Oddities by the same author). That and a part-time job shelving books at
Columbia’s health sciences library consumed all my time.
Our six-month anniversary arrived but Alice was gone. I can’t remember the name of the conference, but I recall her telling me she had an important paper to deliver. Alice must have been to a half-dozen conferences in the past six months, yet I’d never seen registration materials or even conference proceedings. She’d never asked me to take a look at one of her papers nor had she practiced any of her talks in my presence. True, I was a layman and probably wouldn’t have understood much; still, I was a former linguistics major and could have offered advice on sentence construction and even critiqued her manner of presentation. I had no reason to question her activities, but I began to wonder: just what was my scientific partner up to?
That evening I called her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. I was slouched on the couch in the living room in front of a roaring fire. Already on my third drink, I was mildly inebriated. It occurred to me that Alice rarely answered when I called. I couldn’t forgive her this time: today was a special occasion!
I went see Dr. Ned Whistle, a clinical psychologist who had expertise in marital conundrums.
“The black hole is the key,” he said, stroking his dark goatee. “Her life seems to revolve around it. It would be wise to confront the issue.”
“She made me promise not to look at it,” I said.
Dr. Whistle sighed. “Has it occurred to you that she said that because she wants you to do precisely the opposite?”
“I took her at her word,” I said. “I’ve never had reason to doubt her.”
“You’ve much to learn about women,” he replied. “My advice is to open the closet door when you get home. I think you’ll see what it is she wants you to see.” He paused, then added, “But if you want my opinion the only thing you’ll see is a sixty-watt bulb.”
It was then I realized the man had been amusing himself at my expense. I left the room in a huff, shooting his secretary an angry look as I exited the lobby.
When I got back to the empty apartment, I fixed dinner and headed up to bed. It had been an exhausting day. The only conclusion I’d come to was that I needed to come to a conclusion- and soon. The stress of our relationship was tearing me apart.
When I opened the bedroom door, I was shocked to find Alice inside. She was standing in front of the closet, unpacking her suitcase. When she saw me, she smiled.
“Alice?”
“Sweetheart!”
“When did you get back?”
“Just now.”
I frowned. “I’ve been downstairs. I didn’t see you come in.”
“Then it must have been a while ago. It’s been an exhausting trip. I’ve lost all track of time!”
I paused. She looked white. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” It was a subtle movement: a backward flick of a right heel. To shut the closet door.
Alice told me the visit to Palomar had gone well. Her group’s research into galactic superclusters was yielding results none of them had anticipated. They’d asked her to stay an extra week and she could hardly say no. Caught up in the excitement, she’d forgotten to call and let me know she’d be late.
All well and good, except that Alice had told me she’d be delivering a paper at the Third
Annual Conference on Galactic Superstructures at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, not doing research at Palomar Observatory in sunny California.
She smiled. “Forgiven?”
Before I had a chance to reply, I heard squeaking noises coming from the closet. Short, staccato bursts. “What’s that?” I asked.
She didn’t miss a beat. “It was a surprise, but …” She opened the door and pulled out a metal cage. Inside was the oddest-looking rodent I’d ever seen. It was about the size of an opossum, with a sleek coat of jet-black fur, enormous pink ears, and a long fluffy-white tail. “A South American spiny rat,” she said. “One of my collaborators presented it to me at the conference. Evidently, they’re quite valuable.”
“I’m sure they are,” I said.
Moments later she was in my arms, showering me with kisses. I’d never been able to resist her and, after two weeks alone, was unable to now.
***
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said to Alice the next evening, as we snuggled on the sofa. “What’s with the elaborate setup in the bedroom? The canister filter, the pipes that vanish into the closet?”
She brought a finger to her lips. “Later.”
“And what’s up with the aquarium in your living room? That bizarre salamander. It’s a Mexican axolotl, isn’t it? A government-protected species. What’s it doing here?”
“It’s not an axolotl.”
“Just what is it?”
“It’s similar, of course, to the salamander, but-” I didn’t like the way she was looking at me.
“Stop,” I said. “I don’t think I want to hear any more.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, drawing me close and nestling her head against my chest. “One day there will be no secrets …”
It was a night to remember. Alice’s talent as an astrophysicist was eclipsed only by her talent in bed. She left me exhausted, so exhausted, in fact, that-combined with the stresses of the day-I didn’t awake until noon the next day.
And, of course, she was gone.
I sighed, rose from the bed, and dressed. It was Wednesday, the tenth of April. She’d told me she’d be attending an all-day seminar that included several well-known astrophysicists from abroad. There was to be a banquet at six. She wouldn’t be home until nine.
I looked at the closet door. The opportunity was there for the taking. Perhaps it was as Dr. Whistle had indicated, perhaps Alice wanted me to look inside. I had my hand on the knob and had given it a quarter turn when I changed my mind. I couldn’t go through with it! I’d made a promise to her and it was a promise I would keep.
Back in the kitchen, I turned on a gas burner. I cracked an egg into a bowl and heated up the frying pan. I took a slice of bread, cut a hole in the middle, and plopped the yolk inside. It sizzled.
My eyes glazed over as I watched the egg cook. My mind must have been playing tricks on me, for I could have sworn I was looking at the Andromeda Galaxy. The yolk resembled the central core, the albumen the spiral arms. The bread represented the fabric of space. And the steam rising from the frying pan was nothing less than
cosmic energy.
It was then I noticed the note next to the phone on the kitchen counter. “Dearest,” it began. “Have to leave in a hurry. Palomar called. Something big has come up. Love, Alice.”
On a whim, I picked up the phone and dialed the airport. Alice always used Delta. The woman on the other end of the line told me there was one daily flight to Los Angeles and that it left at 11 P. M.
That was ten hours from now.
And that was when it hit me.
Alice told me more than once that I wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, and though I’d always laughed, I realize now that she wasn’t kidding. I’d been duped, to put it bluntly, though what she wanted from me I could only guess (I could think of one-disturbing-possibility, but quickly put it out of my mind.) The oversized image of the Andromeda galaxy on her bedroom ceiling, her frequent absences where she was mysteriously out of touch, her sudden and unexplained reappearances. And that elusive black hole, around which her life seemed to revolve. No, she wasn’t smuggling endangered species, but she was acquiring them. And the reason why was terrifying. “Andromeda is her home!” I cried, to no one but myself, for I was alone in my bedroom. It was an exclamation of triumph, I suppose, for I had finally reasoned it
out. I rushed up the stairs, charged across the bedroom-nearly tripping in my haste-and threw open the closet door.
What had my mind imagined I would see? A portal to another world? Another space? Or to another time? What I saw was something quite different. Something so strange and horrifying I shudder even as I write these words. Astrophysics be damned!
It was pitch-black, just as I’d remembered, an endless, yawning abyss. The light from the bedroom reached the threshold and then abruptly vanished. It was as if the closet was walled off from the rest of the room by an unseen, unknown, or unknowable force.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a moan escaped my lips. There was a blinding point of light within the closet. The black hole. Nothing alarming there. It was what surrounded the hole that held me hostage and quaking like a child. Wrapped around the hole was the image of my beloved Alice, her body stretched to the point of absurdity.
I backed away, sobbing hysterically, and slammed the closet door. And then I fled the apartment in terror, without bothering to collect my things. I hailed a cab, which, as luck would have it, was just passing by. “Get me out of here!” I cried to the bewildered cabby. “Anyplace at all. Just go!” Looking back, I’m surprised he threw open the door to let a wild man enter, much less drive him to a place of safety.
***
Addendum. The details of the subsequent years are not important. Suffice it to say that I was eventually able to collect my wits, re-enroll at Columbia, and obtain my linguistics degree. Unfortunately, no job offers were forthcoming and I found myself back home with my parents. I returned to school for an MBA at the urging of my father who was a banker on Wall Street. Six months after I graduated, I found employment as a commodities broker in London. I worked in the smoky city a number of years and acquired a reputation as a man who was both honest and fair. As luck would have it, I found myself in New York City one day negotiating an important deal. On a whim I looked up Alice’s apartment. I expected the dilapidated building to have been razed long ago and was surprised to find it still standing. Our old room was even available. I rang up the landlord and pretended to have an interest in renting the place. He showed me the apartment the following afternoon, leading me through dusty rooms I knew all too well. I talked of financial deals in London and other places, trying to maintain a calm demeanor. When we entered the bedroom, I could restrain myself no longer. I rushed across the musty floor and yanked open the closet door. Alas, the closet was empty; I spied only a bare bulb hanging loosely from the ceiling.
“Must take care of that,” the landlord muttered as we withdrew.
I left town the next day, returning to London where I reside in Notting Hill. I’ve always retained an interest in astronomy and have recently thrown myself into the study of relativity. The laws governing the relative motion of one object with respect to another. I learned that time and space are subject to the same laws. And I nodded knowingly when I read that inside a black hole our physical laws no longer apply, but others do.
So what did happen to Alice? Has she returned to Earth? If not, will she ever? I sigh, realizing that even if she were to return one day, and emerge from the black hole like a golden phoenix with the knowledge of the ages, it will be far too late for me.
My mind is porous, I struggle not to forget. Even as I write these words the passage of time distorts, and will ultimately displace, the memory of the subtle features that once composed my beloved’s face.
The distant stars
BILL HOLT RUSHED INTO the starship’s meeting room thirty minutes late and set his banjo down on the metal conference table. “Sorry to keep y’all waiting,” he panted to the half dozen people. “Earl didn’t show up today.”
Skaggs, the top official from Galactic Mining, took a long slow sip of coffee. “Who’s Earl?”
Bill adjusted a couple of strings. Banjos were temperamental and had to be tuned constantly especially in the constant heat and humidity of this alien world.
“Earl Scruggs. Greatest banjo player of all time. Bluegrass legend. Flatt and Scruggs.”
Skaggs responded with a blank stare.
Captain Beth McNeil had been listening. “That’s what Bill named the alien who comes to see him every once in a while.”
“Every day,” Bill said, not looking up from the instrument. “Until today. Doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re late,” Skaggs snorted.
Bill was weary of the contempt company men like Skaggs showed him. Even though the U. N. was supposedly running this mission the entire crew knew that Galactic pulled the strings.
“I hope y’all didn’t wait for me.”
“Don’t worry. We didn’t,” Skaggs grunted. He turned to the Captain.
“Continue. I’m sure the professor will figure out what he missed.”
Beth was the only one present who showed concern about Earl. “I’m sorry you can’t find Earl, Bill. I know he’s a friend of yours.”
Bill pulled out his battered laptop from his backpack to brief the Captain. Fifty light-years from Earth and he still couldn’t escape committee meetings. Listening to Skaggs posturing was worse than the anthropology department meetings at Appalachian State University. “Thanks, Beth. I hope Earl’s okay.”
Skaggs slurped the last of his coffee. “Waste of time, working with aliens.”
“Dr. Holt, can you tell us about your progress with the natives?” Beth asked.
Bill knew Beth was just being polite. The mission’s real point was to assess mineral deposits on the distant planet of Carnegie. He lapsed into the dry language of academia. “The natives are at least as intelligent as us. Carbon dating shows their civilization is half a million years older than ours. Yet, they are pretty much stuck in a hunting and gathering society. And we have a galactic empire with a star drive.”
Skaggs yawned.
“We heard all about these cavemen yesterday.”
“They don’t live in caves,” Bill snapped. “Earl picked up English in two weeks. He was learning the banjo.”
Skaggs smirked.
“You came all the way out here to teach cavemen country and western?”
Laughter erupted around the table.
“It’s bluegrass,” Bill muttered. He only agreed to come to Carnegie, because it bought him forgiveness of his student loans. Some academics went to prison for defaulting.