Lord of All Things

by Andreas Eschbach

  When she thought of Saturday night, it was as though she were remembering the actions of someone else entirely. What had possessed her to go find Hiroshi, to throw herself at him like that? She had destroyed that friendship irrevocably. She sat back down at her computer but couldn’t concentrate. Instead, she found herself watching the clock and wondering where she would be right now, what she would be doing, if nothing had ever happened with Hiroshi.

  The telephone rang. It was Brenda asking whether she had gotten home safely and how the rest of her weekend had been. Charlotte dodged the question.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” Brenda said. “It’s about Thomas…I mean, Dr. Wickersham.”

  Charlotte raised her eyebrows. Thomas? “Yes?”

  “He called me yesterday. He wants to go out on a date. I wanted to ask you if he’s okay.”

  She didn’t ask whether she should accept. Brenda was not the kind of woman who ever asked other people what she should do—she always knew.

  Could Charlotte tell her that Wickersham was “okay”? He was decent, conscientious. He was dependable. He was unmarried, true, but paleoanthropology wasn’t a career for homebodies, especially with all the fieldwork. He could be entertaining, and he knew how to spread good cheer, but he was serious about teaching. He cared about his subject and about his students. And he was utterly incorruptible. She couldn’t imagine anyone even trying to bribe him. He was, Charlotte realized with a sudden pang, everything James was not.

  “Yes. Wickersham’s okay,” she said and had to fight back the tears. “Brenda, he’s totally okay.”

  The trembling only started when he got back to his room. For at least a quarter of an hour, Hiroshi sat at his desk, drenched in sweat. He had never in his life seen such concentrated aggression, such hatred. Of course, he could tell himself a hundred times over that James was an idiot, a primitive, a moron at the mercy of his basest instincts, that he was nothing but an egomaniac moneybags, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t dangerous. James would have really hurt him if he could have. And he would have done so knowing his money would protect him. That nothing would happen to him, because he was rich, because he could afford the best lawyers and pay any fine the court imposed.

  Hiroshi stared at his bed and thought for the thousandth time of the night he and Charlotte had spent there together. He wanted to understand—really understand—what she saw in James. What he had, what made her say she loved him. It had to be some mistake. Sooner or later she would recognize she was mistaken, and then he would just have to be there for her. They would be together in the end. The thought calmed him. It was a thought he could hold on to.

  The shock was receding. He breathed deeply and considered. Should he be afraid James might take his anger out on Charlotte? He should probably call and warn her. He took out his phone. Of course, he only reached her voice mail. That could mean anything at all, but it probably only meant she didn’t want to talk to him. Whatever. He left a message telling her what her beloved had done and spoke until the time was up. What good would that do her if the worst came to the worst? None. He would have liked to drive over to be with her, to defend her, but he feared if the worst truly did come to the worst, that wouldn’t do any good either. Maybe he should call the police. But what would they do against the son of one of the richest men in the city? It was a tricky situation. He remembered the name of a friend Charlotte had mentioned the night they had met at Phi Beta Kappa. Brenda something…Gilliam, that was it. Brenda Gilliam. They had known one another in Delhi, and Charlotte had run across her again here in Boston—just like she had him. Brenda’s father was a professor of medicine at Harvard. It should be easy enough to find the address.

  Hiroshi switched on his computer. As it booted up, he realized how thirsty he was. Dry as a bone. He leapt to his feet, went down the hall to the drinks machine, and got an ice-cold can of apple soda. His hands trembled as he opened it. He wasn’t quite over the shock yet. It took him less than five minutes to find the address and telephone number of Prof. John Gilliam, in Cambridge. He called and introduced himself as a childhood friend of Charlotte Malroux. Luckily, the woman who took the call, Mrs. Gilliam, recognized the name. He didn’t want to compromise Charlotte needlessly, so he made sure he told the story in such a way Mrs. Gilliam would think there was nothing at all to the rumor that had so enraged James. She promised to tell her daughter as soon as possible but added that, alas, she had moved out of the family home just last weekend. Brenda, she assured him, would know what to do.

  After the call Hiroshi spent a while staring into space and wishing he had taken all the martial arts courses his school had ever offered. He would have loved to fight James, to beat the daylights out of him, if only he had even the ghost of a chance. His gaze fell on his e-mail inbox. Prof. Bowers had sent him a message. He opened it—and froze. His application had been refused. Not just the proposed additions, but the whole project. Bowers wrote that the academic referees had not seen his experiment as deserving of subsidy. He added that he was sorry. Hiroshi felt the breath knocked out of him. James! What had his parting threat been? “I have plenty of other ways of getting at you.” The words rang in his ears.

  There was no question that James Bennett was behind this. His father was a major donor to all the universities in Boston. Somebody like that could pull whatever strings he wanted. He could lean on people. Derailing some insignificant foreign student’s project proposal was a trivial matter for him. Hiroshi read the message again, not wanting to believe what he saw. The rage swelled inside him, a wild, bloodred rage, anger bordering on madness. Okay. James Michael Bennett III wanted war? He’d have war. Hiroshi Kato was not going to give up easily. He would fight to the last drop of blood. He would—

  Hold on! Hiroshi laughed out loud. He’d completely forgotten; he didn’t even need a grant. He jumped to his feet, took down his old Masters of the Universe notebook, and opened it. There it was, a check for more than three million dollars. He could fund his experiment without the university. And at that moment, as he held Rasmussen’s check in his hands, a flash of insight shot through him like a bolt of lightning. He saw what was at work here. For a moment the dark night was dispelled, and every outline was clear and sharp. Now he knew why everything had had to happen the way it did. He understood how destiny worked. And he understood the part he had to play.

  Sunday morning had been the moment of truth. If it had all turned out the way he had wanted it to, then he and Charlotte would be together, and he would be so happy that he would have forgotten his dream. He would have made a life inventing this or that handy little gizmo for Rasmussen, he would have become more or less rich, and he would have died happy, with Charlotte at his side. But fate had other plans for him. Charlotte was meant for him—but she would come at a price. All this time he had wondered why Charlotte chose James over him. Now he realized the reason was utterly banal: because he was rich. Charlotte herself was from a wealthy family, and she was so used to the idea that birds of a feather should flock together that she never even thought to question it. James was rich; he was a good match, and that was enough for her. Enough to convince her that whatever she felt for him was love.

  He understood now that he would only win Charlotte if he realized all his plans, if he realized his dream and created a world where there was no difference between rich and poor, a world where everyone was rich. He had not been granted this vision so that it could gather dust in a notebook from his childhood days. Fate wanted him to make the vision come true, and if he would not do it of his own free will, then fate would force his hand. The path he must take was clear. The best thing to do was to forge ahead. No half measures. The first draft of his proposed study project had been a tentative first step, but the second proposal was little more. Even if he was to finance this experiment out of his own pocket, it would still be a waste of time. No. If he was going to do this, he had to do it all the way. He picked up the phone and
called Jens Rasmussen.

  “I have a project,” he called him. “Mind you, it’s several orders of magnitude above anything we were talking about on Saturday. I’ll need help to make it happen.”

  “Do you have something I can read?” Rasmussen asked.

  “Nearly done,” Hiroshi lied. No need to tell the guy his project plan currently consisted of a hundred pages of Japanese in a child’s careful handwriting.

  “Okay. I’m still in Boston, at the Park Plaza. Maybe we could meet tomorrow for breakfast? Seven o’clock, say?”

  “Seven o’clock. Okay.” Hiroshi happily agreed. That gave him a good eighteen hours to get something down on paper.

  This time James wouldn’t be turned away. When Charlotte opened the door, he pushed his way through and hustled her back into the apartment. He was furious, yes, but he had his fury under control. Control was his watchword now. Control meant that he set the rules. He insisted on that with his friends, that they all understand that he set the rules, nobody else. And that counted for his wife as well, of course. For her, above all. It was time for Charlotte Malroux to learn that.

  “There’s a rumor going around that you’ve been screwing that Jap,” he snarled once they were in her room. “Your childhood friend.”

  “Oh really,” she said, unimpressed. “A rumor going around?”

  “There is. And I want to hear from you how much truth there is to it.”

  Charlotte looked at him coolly. “I didn’t know that you cared so much about fidelity.”

  “What?” James couldn’t believe his ears. “That goes without saying! What the hell do you think? Shouldn’t I care if the woman I’m going to marry jumps into bed with another man?”

  “That’s not quite what I meant,” she said, turning away. “I was thinking rather of your behavior.” She walked across to the closet and opened the door on his clothes. “She took out a shirt and felt the material, then passed it to him. “You were wearing this when you screwed little Wynona from the pedagogy seminar. You fucked her in her car because you decided she wasn’t worth the price of a hotel room.” She threw him the shirt and picked up the next. “You were wearing this last Thursday when you were trying to score with Terry Miller from art history. Hey, she’s really got your balls in a vise, hasn’t she?”

  James stood there and took the shirt from her. He was rooted to the spot. How the devil did she know all that? Had she been watching him? Had she set a detective on him? No. There was no way she could know. On Thursday he had been quite alone in the bushes with Terry. Nobody could have been watching them. Charlotte was guessing. Bluffing.

  “I beg your pardon?” He mustn’t put a foot wrong now. “What are you talking about? None of that’s true.”

  “James! You know it and I know it. Isn’t that your motto? ‘You can’t fuck every woman in the world…but that’s no reason not to try.’ ” She sounded strangely indifferent, as though deep in some other thoughts. She took one of his favorite pairs of pants from the wardrobe. “Two days after you took me to Cloud Eight, you scored with one of the waitresses there. The blond girl who served us, the one with the thin waist. Her name’s Kimberley Watts. You…let’s see now…you’ve screwed nearly every secretary in your father’s office, including two who were only hired since you met me.” She flung the pants at him. “Do you want me to go on?”

  James was flabbergasted. “How do you know all this?”

  “I just do.”

  “Listen…” Goddamn it all. All he could do was salvage whatever he could. If that meant telling the truth, then so be it. “Okay, I confess, I’ve had my moments of weakness. But it doesn’t mean anything! It’s just…you know…old habits die hard. Stuff I used to do before I met you. I’ll stop for sure once we announce our engagement. I’ll give it all up.”

  Charlotte shook her head briefly, almost absent-mindedly. “No you won’t,” she said. “There’s not going to be any engagement.”

  There were only a few people in the breakfast room at the Boston Park Plaza at that hour of the morning. Sturdy pillars supported the vaulted ceiling, the light from the chandeliers mixed with the blue-gray of early dawn, and the thick carpet underfoot swallowed up the sound of footsteps. Rasmussen had chosen a corner table by the window, tucked away behind a bank of houseplants. He was breakfasting on a pot of tea and a fruit platter. He asked what he could order for his guest, but Hiroshi simply pulled his project proposal from his bag and passed it over to him.

  “Just read it, please,” he said.

  “You could eat something while I read,” Rasmussen urged.

  “I wouldn’t be able to swallow a bite.”

  “They make the most amazing pancakes here. You’re really missing something.”

  Hiroshi simply shook his head in exasperation.

  Rasmussen shrugged. “Okay. At least I tried.” He leaned back in his chair, opened the folder, and began to read.

  Hiroshi watched him silently. At first the investor took an occasional sip of tea or speared a slice of apple or melon, but soon he put his fork aside, set down his cup, and became absorbed. The further he read, the deeper his concentration. His brow furrowed in thought. At last, he looked up, and after glancing left and right to make sure they were still alone, he spoke.

  “This is…words fail me. It’s epoch-making. If what you’re proposing here actually works, then it’s not just an invention, it will change the course of history. It’s the project of the millennium. The only comparison I can think of is when man tamed fire. You’ll change the world.”

  Exactly, thought Hiroshi. That’s exactly my goal. “I’d like to try,” he said. “But I need help. You have a list there of everything I need.”

  “Yes.” Rasmussen put the folder down on the table and picked up his napkin. Still frowning in thought, he wiped his mouth. “I know someone crazy enough to fund something like this,” he said after a moment’s thought. “You would probably have to see him in person though, and explain your idea face-to-face.”

  “No problem,” Hiroshi declared.

  “He lives quite far away.”

  “Also no problem.”

  “Okay.” Rasmussen took his phone from his jacket. “When could you leave?”

  Hiroshi shrugged. “Right away if I have to.”

  Charlotte scanned the columns of doorbells for Hiroshi’s name. It made her think of the time in Tokyo when she had visited him at home and stood in front of the intercom panel there, just as helpless. Ah, here it was. Simple. “H. Kato.” She rang. No answer. Well, what had she expected? He must be on campus somewhere, working, just as she should have been doing. She took a pen and paper from her bag to leave him a note. As she leaned the notepad against the wall to write, someone came out the door, a tall, gawky kid with Mexican features. He hurried past, but a moment later she heard him stop behind her.

  “Charlotte Malroux?” he asked.

  She turned. “Yes?”

  His eyes opened wide, as though the sight of her had startled him. “You aren’t looking for Hiroshi Kato, are you?”

  “I am,” she admitted. “Do you know where he is?”

  For a moment he said nothing but seemed to deflate. “This can’t be happening,” he mumbled. Then he sighed and said, “You just missed him. By an hour or so.”

  Charlotte lifted her notepad. “Yes, I was just writing a note to put in his mailbox. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  He shook his head. “He won’t be. He moved out, the jerk. Early this morning. My room is next to his. We’re friends…I thought we were, anyway. He just gave me the key and a check for way too much money and told me to settle everything with the house manager. Said he had to go somewhere, he had a vision to follow, or something like that.” He held out his right hand. “I’m Rodney, by the way.”

  She shook his hand distractedly. “Did he say where he was going?”
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  Rodney’s expression was pained. “Not a word.”

  After that she sat in the car, unable even to turn the key in the ignition. She saw the events of the night before in her mind’s eye replayed like a film. How James had called again and again, pleading, begging, whining, cursing, calling her the most dreadful names by the end. How Brenda had come to the apartment to tell her Hiroshi had called her mother. The story of how James had sought him out at MIT. Hiroshi’s fear that James might do something to her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it and had asked James about it the next time he called. He admitted it straightaway. Worse still, he seemed proud of it. A man had to fight for the woman he loved, blah, blah, blah. She had hung up without a word and pulled the cable out of the wall.

  That night the same thoughts had gone round and round in her head like millstones turning. That perhaps she should give the relationship with Hiroshi another chance. That it wouldn’t work. That she was drawn to him and yet scared of the attraction. That this must have something to do with her mother, who had never been happy in her marriage. That she did not want to be alone. And then the same thoughts all over again. By morning she had finally decided to talk to Hiroshi about all of it. Just to talk at first. Since she hadn’t been able to reach him by phone, she had gotten in the car and driven over to his place. Where was the hand of fate now, the destiny he had believed would bring them together? Hiroshi had clearly convinced himself of that, he was such a romantic. Fate…coincidence—that was all there ever was. For instance, the way she had missed him by an hour. Just bad luck.

  Charlotte leaned forward and turned the key. Perhaps it was for the best that it had happened this way. She could never have had a future with Hiroshi, even less so than with James. At least now she had some fond memories.

  She put the car into gear and drove away.

  At first all he saw were clouds, with a suggestion of some vast continent beneath. Then a coast full of fjords and forest, islands, immense rivers flowing out to sea, and at last an astonishing tangle of skyscrapers, which looked like a strange crystalline structure from up here in the air. And then finally the airport, an island unto itself. Hiroshi peered out of the window. So this was Hong Kong.