The Curiosity: A Novel

by Stephen Kiernan

I was glad for the minutes alone. Not that I felt burdened by him, no. I craved every second that I could get. But matching his tirelessness was exhausting.

  Also I needed to catch up online. I wanted to see what the world was saying, what Carthage was up to, without leading Jeremiah to think I was doing anything more than taking a vacation. While the computer booted up I pulled on underwear and my last clean shirt. It was as yellow as a sunflower.

  I sat at the tiny dressing table that served as the room’s desk, tucking my knees to one side. We were staying in a B&B, so the place was better equipped for downtime than for surfing. I had ninety-four new e-mails. None from Carthage. Half a dozen from Chloe with subject lines whose use of capital letters increased with each unanswered one. Plus interview requests, the usual attacks on my conduct and character. Ironically, those people were helping me grow a thick skin. If you’re going to vilify someone anonymously and with lots of obscenities, at least check your spelling.

  At the project’s internal site my account was disabled, password invalid. The public home page announced that Carthage was holding a news conference that day to refute the slanderous allegations that had been made against the project.

  Allegations? A quick search found this headline: FORMER INSIDER CLAIMS FRAUD AT LAB. One more search produced a video of Dixon’s news conference, unedited.

  I watched all fifty minutes, my emotions covering miles along the way: surprise that Dixon had the nerve to challenge Carthage, dismay that he sincerely believed he had revealed us to be frauds, concern about the harm he might do to the reputations of good people. I even felt badly for Dixon, figuring no one would be more damaged by this error than him.

  When he reached his so-called fourth proof, my sympathies evaporated. The vulture had been spying on us the whole time. It didn’t matter that my relationship with Jeremiah was chaste. In Dixon’s lens, we looked sordid. I felt rage at the invasion of privacy. Yet I kept viewing the photos, tugs of nostalgia at the waiter who sang to us, until the one where I held a grieving Jeremiah in the graveyard. With his coarse sexual innuendos, Dixon had managed to diminish even that.

  My first impulse was protective. I could handle this onslaught, ugly as it was. I could explain everything. But Jeremiah, for all of his intelligence, was unequipped.

  My search found one more story, media writing about the media, which was the most chilling of all. Yes, the paparazzi were seeking us, they staked out the project offices, they chased down every tip and rumor about our hiding place. The scary part was that some of the protesters were following them. Wade tepidly disavowed the conduct of his followers, one of whom was quoted as saying: “It doesn’t matter whether these people demean the sanctity of life through science or through lies. They are evil and must be stopped.”

  I closed the laptop. Now I felt especially glad Jeremiah had gone for a walk. I needed to think. I pulled on jeans and jogged downstairs for the breakfast on which the Harborview Inn prided itself, a big coffee before anything else.

  There she is,” sang Carolyn, the proprietor of the inn, whose white hair belied her energy and poise. “And you have the place all to yourself.”

  I had learned about Carolyn’s past over three prior breakfasts. A former travel agent, she bought the inn when she retired. That first winter she discovered yoga. Seven years later she not only attended class daily, she also fell into poses during conversation. Carolyn seasoned breakfast with her chatty history of Marblehead, banter about Massachusetts politics, jokes about her knees’ ability to forecast storms—all while standing on one foot, or turning her head frighteningly far to the back, like an owl.

  The first day she noted my coffee consumption. The next morning she swapped the dainty teacup at my place for a tall red mug. I was, therefore, a fan.

  She brought a thermos, filling my mug while stretching at the waist. “Your friend had breakfast earlier and went out. Ate like a teenager, to tell you the truth.”

  “I’m sorry about that. He has an endocrine problem.”

  She arched her upper back, chest high. “You don’t need to tell me. The guy has thyroid written all over him. Scrambled eggs for you again?”

  I blew on the coffee to cool it. “Please.”

  “Here’s the day’s blues,” she said, bringing newspapers from the counter. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Holler if you need anything, okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean anything,” she said, holding out the stack. “Any thing.”

  “Thanks very much,” I said, puzzling at her meaning as she stretched and bent her way out of the room. Then I turned the papers over and saw the Herald’s front page.

  WHERE ARE THEY? read the headline, above a photo of our kiss outside my apartment. I flipped to the Globe. COUPLE MISSING IN ALLEGED FRAUD. It was incredible, complete with pictures of our faces cropped to look like mug shots.

  I gulped coffee. It was clear the reporters believed Dixon. Carthage issued one written statement: We do not stoop to refuting nonsense. Now there were questions about who was bankrolling the project’s work. Through it all, every reference to Jeremiah included me, our disappearance likened to the escape of Bonnie and Clyde.

  Meanwhile Jeremiah was dying. There was nothing I could do. I felt his body jump and twitch. I saw him eat enough for four people. In Falmouth, a tremor struck just as he was raising a spoonful of chowder, causing him to spill it on his front, and I ran for the restroom rather than have him clean himself up in front of me. After that I’d managed to arrange most meals to be outdoors, at hamburger stands or lobster-roll shacks.

  I often wondered how much he knew. When we sat on the beach at Nauset, I watched him pour sand from hand to hand for a solid hour, studying the falling granules as intently as if they held the secret to everything unknown. I didn’t dare interrupt.

  Neither, however, did I find the courage to tell him. It was all another drive, another beach, anything but the truth. I felt like a scuba diver, swimming along with my tank full of oxygen while the person beside me unknowingly runs out.

  I threw the papers across the table. Right then, Carolyn returned with my toast and eggs. We made eye contact and she did not flinch.

  “None of it is true, you know,” I said.

  She set the plate beside my coffee. “It’s not important to me.”

  “It is extremely important to me,” I said. “And to Jeremiah. It’s all lies.”

  “I want you to know something.” She held a chair and arched her back. “All kinds of people come through here, not all of them saints. I can keep a secret.”

  “We have nothing to hide. There are predators, though, who would love to—”

  “I don’t blame you, anyway. A guy that unique? I’d want him for myself, too.”

  “That’s not at all what I’m doing. Not the littlest bit.”

  Carolyn smiled, not saying a word. She topped my coffee and left for the kitchen.

  Is that what I was doing? Protecting him or keeping him to myself? Giving peace to him or seeking it for myself? I heard the inn’s front door swing wide, Jeremiah’s boots ringing on the wood floors. Passing the dining room, he peered in, veered back to me.

  “I had to obtain more food,” he said, “and get some air. I love this old town, all the well-preserved houses. I hope you weren’t worrying about me.”

  “Not a bit.” I stroked his hand, then saw the papers spread on the table. I flipped them facedown. “Did you chat with anyone while you were walking?”

  He considered. “Some children by the docks. I confused myself in the streets, and needed directions back. They were playing stickball. I showed one boy how to hold the . . . the . . .” He raised his hands, pantomiming while he searched for the word.

  “Bat?”

  “Exactly. Bat, yes. The lad had never heard of choking up.”

  “Jeremiah.” I stared at my plate. “Did any of those children recognize you?”

  He smiled. “I’d say so. The boy with the bat asked if I was ‘him.
’ ”

  “Damn it all.”

  “Are we in trouble?”

  “Some people are after us again. Bad people.”

  “Hm.” One of his hands fluttered up. He stuffed it in his pocket. “We need to go.”

  “Yes.” I stood, my chair trumpeting on the floor as it slid back. “I’ll have to square things away with Carolyn.”

  He led the way into the hall. “Let’s pack our things first.”

  “Okay. But we don’t have much time.”

  Jeremiah stopped short then, so quickly I bumped him. He took both of my hands in both of his own. He spoke in a solemn voice. “I know.”

  So there it was. Unsaid, but somehow said. I raised one hand to touch his cheek. “I know, too.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Those Who Still Believe

  (Daniel Dixon)

  Last time I was in a hospital, it was the night my parents died. The docs admitted me for observation due to smoke inhalation. But I understood it was actually so they could help me handle a diagnosis of permanent orphanhood. Really, though, what help can there be? They gave me sedatives, so I did my crying quietly. The drugs lasted till the next day when my aunt and uncle picked me up and brought me to their house, where I lived four more years till college. It was never home, it was never supposed to be home.

  I’m not singing any blues here, we all get our share. Only trying to explain why, when I hopped off the T that morning and made my way to the main entrance of Mass General, I found myself hesitating on the threshold. The white stone exterior held so much glass I could see the giant paintings inside. I just stood there a minute.

  There was no question of whether to go in, of course. While the regular media were busy chasing the missing phonies, no one had thought to pay a visit to the person who’d already paid a physical price for their lies. Only yours truly.

  Was it creepy, door-stepping him in the hospital? Was it overboard to bring a camera? I answered myself with the reporter’s most reliable consolation: it would make a great story. Anything is permissible if it makes a great story.

  The woman wearing a “volunteer” tag at the welcome desk could have been four hundred years old, but she looked up the room number and pointed me toward the elevators with cool competence. The young thing at the fifth-floor nursing station was too skinny for my taste, looking like she needed six months of square meals. But her directions had a little surprise at the end.

  “Four doors down, sir, but please keep it brief. He already has someone with him.”

  Well, that frosted me. Scooped after all. As I drew up to the half-closed door, though, I recognized the British accent of the voice chatting inside.

  “Transfusion?” Billings coughed. “Of course. Brilliant.”

  “Hello, gents,” I said, swinging the door back.

  It was like entering a walk-in freezer. Gerber took one look and rolled onto his side, staring at the opposite wall. Billings drew up like a cat flaring his fur to look bigger.

  “Hey, guys, I just came by to see how the patient is doing.”

  Billings pointed. “With a camera?”

  “I take one everywhere, you ought to know that by now.”

  “Parasite.”

  Enough of him. He wasn’t the one I came to see anyway. But Gerber, on inspection, looked like a prizefighter who should have retired three bouts ago. His eyes were blackened, he had a strip of stitches across his cheekbone, and one wrist was in some kind of splint.

  “Whoa,” I said. “You look like hell.”

  “So says Mr. Sunshine,” Gerber replied, still studying the wall.

  “You have some nerve, coming here,” Billings said.

  “Give it a rest,” I answered. “Here I am, all right? Deal with it.”

  Billings started to speak, then shut his mouth without a word.

  “Tell him about the song,” Gerber croaked. “Start there.”

  I resisted the urge to pull out a notebook. “What are you talking about?”

  Billings sniffed. “That ‘Tessie’ song you wrote about. You only did enough homework to find out they started singing it at Red Sox games a few years ago. But they sang it in Judge Rice’s time as well. It was from a Broadway show.”

  “You can’t possibly still believe? Even now?”

  “Don’t be daft,” Billings said. “The facts are plain. Your ideas are mere speculation.”

  I crossed my arms. “So now I’m supposed to believe he remembered the words for over a hundred years?”

  “And while we’re on the topic of shoddy reporting,” he continued, “I’ll have you know that I was wearing diving undergear that night at the iceberg, too. You didn’t notice, because mine wasn’t the backside you were ogling.”

  “Look.” I gave a monumental sigh. “There is no way at this point that you or anyone is going to change my mind about all of this.”

  “Nor would I waste my breath trying.” Billings pivoted his head back to Gerber like a tank turret fixing on a target. “You were speaking of hemoglobin.”

  “For O2 saturation,” Gerber said. He sounded spectacularly tired. “Transfusing two units ought to be enough. More blood volume means more oxygen transport. The frenzy should pass, we’ll break the cycle, and Judge Rice can live to inspire the tabloids for another day.”

  “If you can find him,” I scoffed. “That guy is as vanished as Amelia Earhart.”

  “I’ll follow the paparazzi,” Billings said. “I have a trusty old motorbike. Also a certain debt that needs repayment. And now”—he approached Gerber’s bed—“you rest. You’ve done your part.” He turned for the door. “Two units. I’ll find him.”

  “Thanks,” Gerber said, almost in a whisper, but Billings was gone. I tried to picture him on a motorcycle, helmet and leathers, and it did not compute. The man was too much of a pudding.

  We had an awkward silence then, Gerber and I. The nurses’ call button rang a few rooms away. Someone hurried down the corridor, rubber heels squeaking on the linoleum. Gerber picked at his blanket.

  Finally I was the one to break. “I want you to know I believe you had no part in the fraud. They duped you, just like they duped me. I think you are on the up-and-up.”

  Gerber laid his hand flat. “You know nothing.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so pissed at me,” I said. “I was the one who ran for help, when they all went berserk on you.”

  Gerber blinked a couple of times, and I thought his eyes might be brimming. I couldn’t imagine why. A sore wrist? A couple of stitches? What was there to cry about?

  “Remember that bike helmet Judge Rice gave me, the one you teased me about?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “What about it?”

  Finally he faced me head-on, and his look was solid ice. “If I’d been wearing it that day, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Kinds of Politeness

  (Erastus Carthage)

  I’m sorry, sir,” Thomas says, standing in the doorway and wringing his hands. “The printer is broken. A problem with the ink.”

  You are facing the mirror, retying your necktie. “For God’s sake, Thomas, use your brain. Does this place only have one working printer?”

  “Of course not, sir. But you insisted on keeping your computer separate from the network. You’re not linked into anything else.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to eleven, sir.”

  “Plenty of time. We have till six minutes after.”

  “What would you like me to do, sir?”

  You finish knotting, it’s perfect, good enough for a banker. You lift the remote. “I would like you to deal with it.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  So he departs, and you command the television on. It remains tuned to the news channel that has found delight in your misfortune, the one which presented that fool’s nonsensical allegations as certain facts, and the one that you have not been able to tear your eyes from for the past five d
ays. You wonder if they will have the temerity to cover your rebuttal speech that morning. If they do, would that be evidence of fairness, or gall?

  As if in answer, the station breaks to the latest developments about you. Their position is evident even without sound, because of their symbol for this coverage, pasted electronically in the upper right of the screen: the Lazarus Project logo, standing on a house of cards, with one wall fallen inward. Subtlety is not this channel’s strong suit.

  But then, what developments could there be? Dixon has made no new allegations, despite repeating his initial claims for five days on every talk show and news program with a chair large enough for his hefty carcass. Meanwhile your press event hasn’t even begun. How can there be developments without you?

  The answer is a clip of Gerald T. Walker, vice president of the United States, standing at a podium in Wisconsin. Oh, wonderful. A candidate, that most appetizing of human creatures, weighing in with his considered opinion based on the manufactured version of a fraction of the story. You do not bother to raise the volume, just wait for the ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

  And there it is: Walker withdraws Lazarus Project endorsement, demands “verification of reanimation claims,” calls for audit of all federally funded research.

  Tidy as a birthday present, and maligning not just you but every scientist in the country. He also conveniently forgot that this was a private lab, recipient of not one penny of federal coin. Here you thought reason had triumphed over emotion back in the era of the Enlightenment. Apparently the vice president neglected to study history, a crime he would hardly be the first politician to commit.

  “Thomas.”

  “Sir?”

  There is such a pleasure in how punctually that young man presents himself for duty. “Do you have that printer working yet?”

  “Almost, sir. Apparently it’s a toner problem, and we’re tracking down a replacement cartridge.”

  “Fine. Please reopen my speech. We must add a reply to the vice president.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be right in for your dictation.”