Being Invisible: A Novel

by Thomas Berger

  It was almost noon before the telephone rang. Why Jackie had waited so long was a mystery. In any event he would have his alibi for not answering. He showered and dressed and left the apartment to go to the doctor. He now had more reason than ever not to be seen, and therefore he made himself invisible just before stepping out the door.

  8

  WAGNER MET NO ONE IN the elevator, but a stout woman took up most of the space in the mailbox-alcove off the lobby, and finding a sizable quantity of enclosures in her box, she stayed there to peruse each.

  When he was finally able to reach his own mail, and become visible in order to read it, he found he had received none that bore a stamp, but already there was another pink envelope from Sandra, this one so pungently scented as to perfume the entire nook.

  Darling—

  Silly me, I tried to phone you about 11:30 today. Don’t know what it’s like to have a man who earns a living!!! Darn, should have gotten your office no., don’t even know name of your company. ... I got to work til 8 tonite, so hope you can wait for a late dinner. Pick me up at the hotel, please. That’s the Tally Ho English Lounge, remember, not the Montezuma Room which is on the same floor, other end, easy to mix up, but remember I play harp and not the marimba!

  Your my boy,

  S

  Wagner could not believe he had given the woman any reason whatever to assume he would be dining with her tonight. His parting from her had naturally been genial but no more: the confident implication of the note was that they had established a permanent arrangement very like marriage. He could not allow her to labor under such a erroneous assumption. Remaining visible, he rode a bus to his doctor’s block. Before going into the building he stopped at an outdoor telephone and tried to get Sandra’s number from Information. It turned out to be unlisted. He would have to reach her later at the Hotel Pierce.

  As luck would have it, Wagner was not forced to undergo the usual interminable wait to see the doctor. He was shown into the inner sanctum on arrival at the office.

  Dr. Leprak’s head was lowered over a medical file. “Oh, hi, Fred,” said he, raising his pale eyes but not his sandy-haired head as yet. “Better start getting ’em off.”

  Wagner had had time to think of a reasonable pretext for the visit. He complained of sleeplessness. “I’ve been under a lot of strain, Doctor: changes at work, and so on.”

  “The real problem, though, wouldn’t you say?” asked Dr. Leprak, “would be the failure of your marriage.”

  Wagner was unfastening his shirt. “You know about that?”

  “Remember, Carla’s my patient too.”

  “She’s been in? She’s sick?”

  “You know I can’t tell you those things,” said the doctor, but he smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”

  “We’re just separated,” said Wagner. “We’re not divorced.”

  “OK,” Leprak said. “You can let the pants go while I listen here.” He moved the stethoscope from around his neck to a connection with his ears and pressed the free end to Wagner’s upper torso. Almost immediately he pulled it away to say, “You’ve obviously lost some weight, Fred. We’ll see how much, on the scale. Have you been missing meals?” He returned the little cup to Wagner’s chest and listened at various points. As he had throughout his life, Wagner felt tickling sensations and had to restrain himself from chuckling.

  “I’m OK, though,” he said. “I feel fine.”

  Leprak proceeded to give him a complete physical examination, taking blood samples and X-raying his thorax. Finally he put Wagner on the scale.

  “Mm, you have lost some weight,” said the doctor, squinting at the chromium cylinder he had moved along the horizontal element of the balance. He whisked it away with a finger before Wagner could bend and look, went to his desk, and wrote rapidly. “Here you go.”

  So Wagner got a legitimate prescription without asking. “What is this for?”

  “Something to stimulate your appetite.”

  “But I seem to be generally all right?”

  Leprak was scribbling in the file. He glanced up as if he were already vague as to Wagner’s identity. “We’ll have to see what the tests say.”

  Now that he had a genuine excuse for his absence, Wagner decided to report to his own office even though more than half the day was gone.

  He had to pass Jackie’s lair anyway, so he stopped there before proceeding to his cubicle. She was editing someone’s copy, rapidly and with bold strokes of the vermilion pen with which she had replaced the traditional blue of her predecessor. Before she looked up through the outsized saucer-lenses, she groaned and said, “You’re going to have to rewrite this completely, Mary Alice.” Her look of exasperation became hostile when she recognized Wagner. She lowered the pen and asked coldly, “What do you want?”

  “Your line was busy, so I left a message.” He extended the prescription blank. “In case you need evidence.”

  “I don’t,” said Jackie.

  “Just trying to do the right thing.”

  She produced an ugly blurting laugh. “That’s your specialty, isn’t it? The gall you’ve got! You just go collect your check over at Accounting. It’s waiting for you.”

  He could not believe what he was hearing. He waved the prescription at her. “You think I forged it? Then call his office, Dr. Howard Leprak...” He squinted at the phone number printed next to the doctor’s address. “Six-one-two, three-four—”

  Jackie stood up and pointed the red pen at him. “Sneaky little skunk. What did you do, shadow us?”

  “What?”

  “Couldn’t face me like a man, could you? At least you could have made the accusation face to face. Instead you write that poison-pen letter.”

  What a complete misinterpretation of his obvious intent. He was so upset as rashly to forsake anonymity. “Please, Jackie, don’t say that. You can’t possibly believe I was out to damage you. The letter seemed the best way to handle it.”

  “My husband read it.” Jackie sat down. Her fury was replaced by a deeper emotion. “How do you think he felt? He’s been sick for a long time. He’s not able to—”

  “But how could that have happened?” Wagner asked. “It was internal office mail. Furthermore, I sealed it and marked it ‘personal.’” He would have been angry now at the injustice of it had not Jackie seemingly laid claim to all available feelings.

  “I threw it into the case with some other papers I was taking home to read. My husband likes to hear about my day: I let him look at the stuff I bring home. The worst of his existence is the boredom. He was once an active executive.” Sadness was softening the usually harsh lines of her chin.

  “God, I’m sorry, Jackie. I didn’t know about any of this. My whole idea was to be discreet. What can I say?”

  She reacquired her previous look. “‘Goodbye,’” she answered.

  He grimaced at the floor. “I can certainly understand how you must feel. But with all respect, a terrible mistake of this kind doesn’t have any bearing on how I do my job.”

  “You’re being treated more than fairly,” Jackie said. “Three months’ severance pay. Morton’s already okayed it. And I won’t bum-rap you on a recommendation anyplace else.”

  Wagner pinched his lip between thumb and forefinger, hurting himself before he realized what he was doing. “How about this: you got that note by accident. It had been intended for someone else. There wasn’t any name in the text, as I remember: it could have applied to any woman in the office. I’d be willing to call up your husband and swear to that, or even go see him if you’d like.”

  Jackie stared at him, again with that new suggestion of vulnerability. “I told Howard the truth,” she said. “I owed him that much.” She curled her lip at Wagner. “What do you take me for?”

  He was contrite. “Obviously I underrated you. I humbly apologize for that too.”

  She lowered her head and seemed genuinely to be reacting to his self-abasement. “All right, Fred. ...
But you still have to leave.”

  Of course he knew she was right. She had lost face before a subordinate. He said no more but left her and went quickly along the little corridor to his cubicle. Delphine was on the telephone. In his own chair he saw Gordon’s person. The former office boy remained oblivious to his arrival until addressed.

  Wagner coughed to open the constriction in his throat. “I’ve got some personal possessions in the middle drawer. ... If you don’t mind. It won’t take a moment.”

  Gordon swiveled himself around. “Oh, hi, Fred. Listen, all your stuff is in a big manila envelope being held at the stockroom.”

  “Terry has it?”

  Gordon was no longer nursing his grudge. With a sweet smile he said, “That’s right.”

  Wagner stuck out his hand. “Good luck to you, Gordon—in everything: the promotion and of course the poetry too.”

  Gordon languidly shook hands. “I’m leaving here in a couple of weeks myself,” he said. “I’m just doing this for a few days till Jackie hires somebody. I’m taking that post at the Critical Edge. I’ll be losing money, but it’s worth the sacrifice, I think.”

  “I can understand,” said Wagner. “I’ve been reading it for years: it meets a real need.”

  “Maybe you’re thinking of another publication,” Gordon suggested. “CE was just started last May.”

  “Oh, sure.” Wagner scraped his lower front teeth across the moist undersurface of the upper lip. “Gordon, may I ask your advice? You know about that novel I’m writing. I—”

  “I know nothing about it,” said Gordon. “All I have ever known is that you told me once you were working on some such.”

  “I stand corrected once more. But what I wanted was to ask you for your advice. Supposing I had enough of a manuscript which, perhaps augmented by an outline or detailed notes on that part of the story yet to come—uh, making a package of this all, would it be legitimate, do you think, to show it to a publisher at that point? I’m aware it would be quite a tentative thing at best, but—”

  Gordon’s voice was chilly. “I haven’t the foggiest as to what is done with fiction. All I can say with authority is that I never read it. Sorry, Fred.” He turned the chair, and himself, back to a working situation.

  Yet Wagner persisted: at this point he was desperate for any kind of assent, however faint.

  “I know this is an imposition.” He spoke to Gordon’s perfectly barbered nape. “But do you suppose I might just mention your name if I wanted someone at Burbage to take me seriously?”

  Gordon apparently wrote the first draft of his catalogue copy by hand. His moving pencil did not stop now.

  “It wouldn’t do you any good.” But then impulsively he dropped the pencil and spun around. “Now, Fred, if you’ll reflect you know I’m right. Please don’t take the easy way out and call me mean.”

  The swine had effectively blocked him in all directions. To maintain any pride at all, Wagner had fervently to disavow all feelings of resentment and furthermore to provide Gordon with better reasons than the contemptible young man probably had. “No, I understand perfectly. The novel people are completely different from the poetry department, so your intervention would be irrelevant at best. At worst, it might be taken as an offensive piece of cronyism.”

  Gordon said drily, “Yes, something like that.” He went back to work.

  With blood in his eye Wagner looked for Pascal, the one person whom he could punish without fear of reprisal. As he had always made it his purpose to avoid the man, he had only a vague sense of just where the appropriate desk could be located, and had to peep into a series of cubicles occupied by persons whom he usually saw only at staff meetings in Jackie’s office or at drinking fountains and snack machines. When he had begun, six years before, the Xmas party had provided an annual opportunity for intramural fraternization, including some decorous foolery under a sprig of mistletoe at the end of a string tied to a ceiling sprinkler (“Watch out you don’t set it off!”), but on coming to power Jackie had substituted the universally preferred half-day off, and thus Wagner knew few of his remotely situated co-workers as unique human beings.

  For example, for a good four years he had had Meg Mulhare as a colleague, yet if asked to characterize her could have said nothing but that she was extremely fat. He passed her cubicle now.

  “Hey, Fred, I hear you’re leaving us,” she cried. With her little eyes and pouchy cheeks it was difficult to assess her expression, and her voice was flat by nature.

  “You know already?”

  She made some movement of the flesh which was perhaps a shrug. “It’s a secret?”

  “No, certainly not. Uh, so long to you, Meg. It’s been nice working with you.”

  Her frown was easier to identify. “I don’t think we ever actually did, though. We just worked at the same place, not really with one another.”

  “I can see why you’re a good copywriter,” said Wagner, spiteful all at once. “You use words with care. However, when speaking of only two persons, preferred usage calls for ‘each other,’ not ‘one another,’ which is reserved for three or more.”

  Meg’s little mouth quivered. “You better watch your dangling participles, Fred. I don’t believe you mean that Preferred Usage is doing the speaking.”

  “The only reason I’m here, Meg, is that I’m looking for Roy Pascal’s desk.”

  She disdainfully pointed, with a swollen finger, at the fiberglass partition the west face of which made the east wall of her own niche. And hard thereafter came Pascal’s voice.

  “Come on over, Fred!”

  Wagner went to him, and even before speaking saw the 24-inch steel rule lying at the top of Pascal’s desk, otherwise a barren place sans photos, writing implements, even any notes stuck into the sides of the blotter-holder.

  “That happens to be my personal property.” He pointed angrily at the rule.

  Pascal smiled. “I know. That’s why I kept it out. So I wouldn’t forget.”

  “In the unlikely case I came to say goodbye. Is that your story?”

  “Come on, Fred. There’s no argument.”

  “And what about the pen with the different colors? That was mine. It was given me by Harwich House. I mean it was not just the sample. They specifically said it was a gift. They are out of business now, but before your time they were a big client of ours.”

  “Fred,” said Pascal, “it wasn’t before my time, and—or should I say ‘but’—I didn’t take the pen.” He lifted the steel rule and handed it to Wagner. “Here.”

  “Keep it,” Wagner said with heat. “Add it to the other things you stole from me over the months, while I was away from my desk.”

  Pascal blinked, as if to clear his eyes for the look of pain that entered them now. “I assume you’re joking, Fred. The only time I ever touched your desk in your absence was yesterday, when Jackie asked me to stay late and do a rush rewrite of the copy for the Perpetual Faith Calendar. She said you must still have the research. You had already gone, so I looked for it in the desk. I couldn’t find it.”

  “Naturally you didn’t consider the file cabinet.”

  “I looked there first of all.” Pascal stood up and put out his hand. “Let’s not make this the occasion of a fight.”

  Beyond the thin partition Meg complained, “Keep it down! I’m trying to work!”

  “You bastard,” Wagner said to Pascal. “Don’t try to pretend you’re my friend. You never were.”

  Pascal lowered his hand and said soberly, “All right, Fred. But it seems to me you could use one.”

  He was right, of course, but it enraged Wagner further that such a truth would be uttered at such a place and time. “Pascal—” he began, but was interrupted by Meg Mulhare, who had lifted her bulk from the chair and waddled to the threshold of her cubicle.

  “You’re creating a disturbance, Wagner. Just get the hell out. You don’t work here any more.”

  “If you still want to maintain the illusion that you�
��re a man,” Wagner said to Pascal, “you’ll go with me to where we can have some privacy.”

  Pascal shrugged. “You know I’m always somebody you can talk with.”

  Wagner led the way in quickstep. As he passed Meg he answered her. “Go to hell, you tub of lard.”

  She screamed at his back, “Shit on you, Wagner!” This could be heard throughout the department and heads began to appear around other partitions. Until this time Wagner had had no reason to suppose he was not the most respected copywriter in the firm. An awful thing was happening, and he suspected he might be only making it worse by what he was doing now. Nevertheless he could not or perhaps would not arrest the thrilling progress towards destruction.

  He led Pascal to what by now seemed the unique piece of nonhostile turf at hand: the landing just behind the door to the stairs.

  “Why are we out here?” Pascal asked, his complexion sickly in the dim light that was wasted on the deserted staircase. “Can it be that private?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass you,” Wagner lied. Without further preface he threw a roundhouse punch at the other man, which however the intended recipient easily dodged.

  “What are you doing, Fred?”

  “You son of a bitch,” Wagner said. “I never liked you even when I thought you were sincere. But then I finally saw the light: you were sucking up to me in public while sabotaging me behind my back.” He sent a violent jab Pascal’s way, but once again it was effortlessly evaded. Wagner believed it was his overcharged emotional state that caused his punches to be so ineffectual: it was like being drunk. He must try to exert command over himself without losing any of the healthy rage that had brought him this far.

  Smirking, Pascal said, “Very funny. Now why are we really out here?”

  This time Wagner managed to connect, if not quite solidly: he gazed the man’s cheek and struck the right ear, but the blow was sufficient at last to erase Pascal’s smile.

  “You’re not kidding,” Pascal said in quiet astonishment, rubbing his ear.

  “You scum,” said Wagner. “You sent that poison-pen letter to Wilton.”