“And so,” asked Karl, the Karl with a moustache, “how are the negotiations with First Bank?”
“Stalled,” I said. My tongue felt slick in my mouth.
“Turn the key in the ignition,” said the other Karl, “and get somewhere.”
I had been in talks with the First Bank of New York about a touchless alarm system. I had been in talks with Brite-Star Toys about a doll that crawled across the floor. I had been in talks with Marzinotto Screws about a theory for preventing corrosion. All of these talks were genuine. They stalled and unstalled. I scored a minor hit with the electric eye, a security device for sleeping children. It was a familiar principle: an electromagnetic field in a ring around the baby’s crib. Enter the invisible field, and a bell sounds.
The greatest calamity of Charles Lindbergh’s life made me a little rich that summer.
For most of these inventions, full of invisible fields and secret activations, I used the name “teletouch.” Teletouch light switches, teletouch alarm systems, teletouch sensors for automatic doors. I had signed a contract with Nate Stone, of Marchands, to develop teletouch window displays. He planned to sell them to uptown department stores: revolving tables and flashing lights whenever a customer passed close by.
The Karls were unmoved. They applauded windfalls, siphoned money from my accounts, but they were not interested in shopkeepers, infants, mechanical amusements. They wanted contracts with major enterprise, corporate skeleton keys. “Have you spoken with General Motors?” they asked. “Have you followed up with Westinghouse?” Even in my intoxication, I knew enough to lead them on, to offer yeses and maybes. I did not believe in their omnipotence, or in the methods of their bosses, but somewhere at the heart of this matter were the best interests of Mother Russia. One day, perhaps, we would want the same things. I might yet be their spy.
ONE DAY YOU SAID, “Can I show you something?”
There were screws in my mouth; my answer came out mumbled. “ ‘V cur …” I was on my back under a plywood display case, mounting bolts along its lower lip, twisting a screwdriver at an awkward upward-tilted angle. I had the vague feeling there might be ants coming up through the floor. Lucie Rosen had said something about ants next door. Something was at my scalp. Was it ants? I did not know.
“You have to come out,” you said.
I grunted and began extruding myself from under the case. I was thinking of the ants. I sat up, brushing at my hair and neck. You were standing at the far side of the room, behind a space-control theremin. DZEEEEOOOoo, it said. If there were still ants on my head, I forgot them.
Later, you told me how you had come to visit the day before. It was the early evening. You let yourself in but the house seemed empty; there was a breeze coming through the first-floor blinds; nobody was practising. I was away at the kwoon. Sifu was tapping the back of my knees with his stick.
You walked into the living room and found Henry Solomonoff and Charles Ives, waiting for their tea to steep. “Hello!” Henry called out. You removed your hat. They invited you to sit with them, the two composers, and you did; you waited together for the tea to steep. They were talking baseball. Shortstop, they said, RBI, and after a little while you got up. “I’m going to go upstairs,” you told them. On the second floor you wandered through the workshops. You picked through a box of drill bits. You flicked a television screen with your finger. You stood on the inert terpsitone stage, bowed, waved your hand. A theremin sat in the corner, painted flowers on its sides. My former gift to you. You eyed it. “Is everything all right?” asked Solomonoff. He had appeared at the top of the stairs. You looked at him. You were no longer a violinist. You asked him, “Will you show me how to turn this on?”
Now I sat on the floor, astonished. You plucked nineteen notes from the air. The opening bars of “The Swan”: just nineteen notes, nothing more. The last of these, set apart, came out wrong—a quivering F instead of high C. In spite of this, in spite of sharps and flats (and you grimaced comically with each mistake), in spite of the way you slid between each note, unable to control glissando, I was dumbstruck. Accuracy with the theremin is a learned thing, a knack that comes with practice. But you showed even in that clumsy playing a delicacy of tone like I had never heard. Every player of the space-control theremin draws his or her music from the same loose current, the same air, the same relationship of hands and antennas. We are all siblings, summoning the same songs. Somehow yours are more beautiful.
“Well?” you asked.
I was speechless.
“Well?” you asked again, a crooked smile spreading.
“Clara Reisenberg,” I uttered finally, the only words I could say.
I GAVE YOU LESSONS in how to hold your hands. There are some bends of wrist, positions of fingers, that work better; others less well. “Like this,” I said. “Like this.” “Like this.” You stood beside me and asked, “What about this,” touching thumb to forefinger, and it sounded finer than anything I had ever heard.
I sent two theremins to your apartment. The car carried my first gift and a new, modified RCA kit; also a sour cherry tart, a bouquet of jasmine, a bottle of bootlegged gin. I am not sure I knew how to do things by half measures. You practised at home; you practised with me. After the third lesson we went dancing. We played on the Capitol Club’s dance floor, skipping and mirrored, your hair pinned up and me with cufflinks glinting, the whole night glinted, mirroring, and skipped. My hand rested in the fragile strong supple small of your back.
Later, at an automat, I paid a man a dollar and he filled my palm with nickels. The walls had a hundred tiny slots and into these I slipped the coins. Two perfect plates of pie came swinging round on rollers. We poured black coffee from taps, silver spouts shaped like dolphins. We sat side by side. You used a spoon and I used a fork and we ate our pie, speaking of other lemon meringue pies we had eaten, made by bakers in Queens, by hotel chefs, by grandmothers. The automat’s recipes, you told me, were kept in safes. The makers of these mechanisms knew the machines were useless without pie, cake, little pots of crème brûlée. Customers want to spend their nickels on delights. I put my hand on yours. The room shone white and felt like the future. You drew the spoon from your mouth, savouring tart and sun-bright. There, your inclined jaw. We kissed.
We still had more dancing in us. We caught a cab to the Savoy. Harlem’s mixed clubs were our favourites. The air felt thicker, the music better. The big band hollered and you leaned your head into my shoulder. I breathed in, deeply in, gazing into this flowering overgrown throng. We parted. You sparkled on the end of my arm.
We were on the steps outside the Savoy, much later. Lamplight rested on us like a benediction. I could feel the sweat inside my collar, between my shoulder blades, at my wrists. You were tilted away from me. We could hear each other’s breathing, still quick from dancing. The cherry trees were full of petals. The sun was rising. It felt yet like moonlight. I looked toward the city and then back toward you. Now there was a sparrow beside you. She stood near your heels. She was small; she pecked at the stones.
When you turned toward me, the sparrow stayed. You did not see her. You showed me your happiness, and your dark eyes, and the curvature of your silhouette. There was a sparrow at your heels. You held out your long hand to me.
“Clara,” I said softly.
“Yes?” The word was like a silver link.
“Will you marry me?” I said.
You did not move. You stood on the steps and stared at me with stillness. Your eyes trembled. You began to smile and then you did not smile, but my heart was lifting.
I looked down at the sparrow. The sparrow had gone.
SEVEN
PLAIN TIGER
MY HANDS WERE FLAT on the table at Mud Tony’s. Three men sat opposite me; one was a stranger. I had arrived late. I had almost not come at all. There was poison in my chest. There was withering jasmine. There was nothing. I do not know if it was fear that brought me to L’Aujourd’hui or simply the sense that things should
have a sequence. This was the sequence. The restaurant smelled of smoke. I had not slept the previous night. Karl smiled, and Karl smiled, but the man sitting between them did not smile.
“So,” I said. I almost did not recognize my voice.
“So,” said the Karl on the left. “Do you have news to report?”
“No,” I said. We were speaking in English. My voice was acrid. It was as if every hidden inside part of me were made of ash, just ash, bare ash.
“Did you meet with Griffiths?” Griffiths was a man from Douglas Aircraft. They had told me to meet with him.
“No.”
“Lieutenant Groves?” Lieutenant Groves was a man from the navy. They had told me to meet with him.
“No.”
The Karl on the left opened a folder. “Did you deliver the proposal to G.E.?” The proposal was for a long-term teletouch contract. Its smallest print was full of tricks.
“Not yet,” I said.
The man in the centre had not spoken. Whereas the Karl on the left had a beard, and the Karl on the right had a moustache, this man had no hair on his face. His head was shaved almost to his scalp. He had square shoulders but a narrow chest. His forearms were like clubs.
The stranger gestured to the waitress. She went into the kitchen. He looked at me with his deep-set eyes. Next to the jocular Karls, this man seemed like a cinder block. I stared back at him. All three men, I realized, had the same kind of eyes.
The waitress came with four empty cups and four slices of pie.
The man in the centre stacked two of the cups and pushed them aside, beside the napkin dispenser. Next he placed one plate of pie on top of another plate of pie. Cherries sludged between the jadite. He stacked all four plates. It was a sickly, stupid mess. He pushed these aside. He placed one empty glass in front of me and one in front of himself. One of the Karls poured vodka into the glasses. These were not the small shots I was used to drinking with the Karls: spirits filled each glass to the brim. “Drink,” said the other Karl.
I knew enough to obey. I took it in sips. They waited. My eyes began to water. When I had finished, the man lifted his to his lips. He drank the vodka in one swift movement, as if he was swallowing a cup of water. He put down the empty glass. He stared at me.
“What?” I said.
He took out an eyeglasses case and withdrew a pair of spectacles. They were unfashionable, large and square and thick, like a grandfather would wear. He put these on.
“This week you are going to meet with Howard Griffiths,” he said. “You are going to meet with Lieutenant Leslie Groves. You are going to deliver your proposal to Theodore Scott at G.E.”
“Yes?” I said.
The man picked up the bottle of vodka. He poured two more glasses. As we drank, he watched me through the thick lenses of his spectacles. The room began to swim. I felt as if there were ball bearings in my joints.
“How long have you been in America, Lev Sergeyvich?”
“Five years.”
“Are you here legally?”
“Yes.”
“With a visa?”
“Yes.”
“How many times has your visa been renewed?”
“Ten?”
“Eleven times,” he said. “Who renewed your visa?”
I hesitated. “You did.”
“We did.” The man lit a cigarette. “We allowed you to come here. We pay your expenses. We keep you from harm.”
I wanted to say: You do not pay my expenses. I wanted to say: You have not kept me from harm.
“What are you working on now?” asked the man.
“Teletouch,” I said. “Assorted teletouch applications. These men know—”
“Yes,” said the man. “What else?”
“The theremin,” I stammered. “Also, a device that can sense metal objects. And the altimeter …”
“An altimeter. For aeroplanes?”
“Perhaps,” I said.
The man squinted.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, like for aeroplanes.”
“Submarines?”
I had not thought of submarines. “Maybe. Different principles would have a bearing, but—”
“What else?”
I took a breath. “Many things.”
“ ‘Many things,’ ” he repeated, without humour. “Where were you yesterday?” I felt as though he was shoving our conversation across the room.
“At my workshop.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Many th—” I began to say. “Instructing a student.”
“Which student?”
“I don’t recall.”
“You don’t recall?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Try to recall.”
“I need to go,” I said. I stood up, unsteadily.
“Sit down,” said the man.
I began to edge out of the booth.
“Sit down,” the man repeated.
I was in the aisle. The man looked suddenly grotesque, red-lipped, staring at me. His eyes were large behind his square glasses.
“I need to go.”
The two Karls stood up. I was walking past them. The one at the edge of the booth followed me. I could hear his footsteps. I could feel his shadow over mine. I imagined his fists swinging at his sides. I swivelled on my heel. “Do not come closer,” I murmured.
“Or?” he said.
I replied in Russian. “Or I will knock your head from your shoulders.”
Above his little beard, Karl’s expression flickered.
The man had not moved from the table. His back was to me. “Your time is not your own, Termen,” he called out. He was still using English. “It is a gift from your state.”
“I have to go,” I said in a hard voice.
“Where are you going? To flee into the hills? To ask Walter Rosen for another loan? To give another music lesson to a Reisenberg?”
At this, I took a step toward him. “What is your name?” I snarled.
“Come here,” said the man.
Who was this man whose face I could not see, with the voice of an executioner?
He said, “Come here and I will tell you.”
I moved no closer.
The Karls watched me as if I were a wild animal.
The man in the booth stood up. He was my height. He slipped into the aisle, standing at the foot of the table. He turned to look at me. “My name is yours.”
“What?”
“It is Lev.”
“Lev?”
“My name is Lev.”
“Lev what?” I asked.
The man said, “We have given you five years, Lev Sergeyvich. What have you given us? How many months? How much of yourself?”
“I have given you everything,” I said.
“You have not.”
I clenched my jaw. “Fuck you,” I said. It was the first time I had ever said such words in English. “Every idea I have, every invention, I give to the Soviet Union.”
He shook his head. “You are a liar.”
“What?” I shouted. I was drunk. I jumped onto one of the diner’s leather benches. The Karl who had come after me clenched his hands. “What do you call me?” I stood over them, above them. I stared down at this cinder-block Lev. He was a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. I was precarious on the seat, felt precarious inside, but still I knew I could leap across the booth and push the toe of my shoe into this spy’s soft jaw. He stood immobile. He had sunken eyes. He shot a glance at the waitress and she disappeared into the kitchen.
“I am a scientist!” I yelled. I took a deep breath. “I am a scientist,” I repeated, more quietly. “I study things. I learn, I probe, I assess. But I am here in New York City, two thousand miles from home, two thousand miles from my institute. Why? Why did I come to this city of strangers?” I looked at him. With my gaze, I tried to say, Answer me. The man did not answer. “I came because I was asked,” I shouted. “My countrymen asked; I came. When I arrive
d I knew only one man. He has disappeared. My friend has disappeared. I have continued to do my work, to meet here with these olukhi, to sign their papers and make their deals and give everything to Russia. I have given over everything. Now what am I left with? Alone, two thousand miles from home? Nothing. Nothing! I am abandoned. I am drunk in a dingy restaurant. And you call me a liar.” I spat. “Damn you.”
I could hear the cars in the street outside. I could hear the murmuring American voices on the kitchen’s wireless. The man in glasses wore an expression of sadness. He lowered his eyes and picked up the bottle of vodka. After a moment he put it down. He lifted his gaze to mine. He slipped past the Karl and stepped up onto a banquette, and we were facing each other across the rear of a booth, like two children.
“You’re not alone, Lev,” he said.
I wondered if his name was really the same as mine.
“We have work for you to do today.”
THE MAN HAD TWO PIECES of paper in his pocket, folded into his wallet. The first was a map of the Dolores Building in uptown Manhattan, with a red X on the room numbered 818. The second page was a list of numbers. 3105-GH-4X88L. 3011-MM-2A37B. 3102-TY-1O49B. PERS 07. In all, he said, there were twelve files.
“What is this?” I said.
“They are secrets,” he said.
I felt as if my spirit was stumbling through the channels of my body. I was opening and closing my hands. I couldn’t distinguish whether I was even truly angry anymore. I wanted to work myself up to make another speech, vehement, full of affirmations; yet my mind just stuttered, racing and seizing, past images of absent Pash, distant Russia, and you. It ran and ran, like unspooling film.
The man put his palm on my shoulder.
I was a ruined mine, caving in.
In a vanishing voice I asked, “Why should I help you?”
He spoke very gently. “We are Russian,” he said. “You and I—we are comrades.” He left a long silence.
“Yes,” I murmured.
“We carry one another, Lev. We stand side by side.”
I forced a bitter laugh. “Oh yes?”
“Yes,” said the man. He turned his head and I saw the way his eyes were magnified, huge, on the interior of his glasses. “Lev, you are gifted,” he said. “You are an exemplar of our people. Brilliant, with a bold heart, tenacious and brave. Yours is work that no one else can do. You must not doubt for one moment what a treasure you are, for your comrades.”
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