Noah's Compass

by Anne Tyler

  The rememberer, on the other hand, looked rumpled and uncomfortable. Under the glaring sunlight she was not quite so young as Liam had first assumed. Nor did she seem so professional. She somehow got her purse strap entangled when she tried to close the car door, and as she was guiding Mr. Cope up the front steps she managed to trample on the hem of her own skirt. The elastic waist slid perilously low on one side; she yanked it up again and gave a quick glance around her, luckily not appearing to notice Liam in his car. Then she cupped a hand under Mr. Cope’s elbow and shepherded him into the building. The door swung shut behind them.

  It wasn’t clear to Liam what he had hoped to gain from this sighting. He started his engine and rolled up his window and drove home.

  Toward the end of June he phoned Bundy and invited him to supper on a night when Bundy’s fiancée had yoga class. He planned a real menu; it gave him something to do. He went to the supermarket for groceries, and he roasted a chicken. It was way too hot for roast chicken, but he didn’t know how to cook much of anything else. And Bundy was appreciative, since his fiancée fed him a steady diet of Lean Cuisines.

  Liam couldn’t quite explain why he and Bundy were friends. It was surely none of his doing. But from the day they’d met, at a St. Dyfrig teachers’ meeting one September, Bundy had seemed to view Liam with a mixture of fascination and … well, glee would have to be the word for it. And Liam, almost against his will, found himself playing into that view. Leading Bundy through the apartment this evening, for instance, he flung open the closet door to show off his new tie rack. “A separate little spoke for each tie! And see how it revolves for easy access.” Bundy rocked back on his heels, grinning.

  When it grew apparent that the apartment’s air conditioning couldn’t handle the heat of the oven, they moved their meal to the patio. They sat out on the tiny square of concrete in two rotting canvas butterfly chairs left behind by the previous tenant, and they ate from makeshift trays formed by several folded newspaper sections laid across their knees.

  Bundy shook his head when he heard about the intruder. He said, “Ah, man. And you’re in the county now!” But he showed less sympathy for Liam’s memory lapse. “Shoot,” he said, “that happens to me just about every weekend. No big deal about that.”

  Then he drifted into St. Dyfrig gossip—the headmaster’s latest cockamamie piece of foolishness, the latest dispute with some pigheaded parent. He knew all of Liam’s old students and could tell him what most were up to, since he was in charge of athletics for St. Dyfrig’s summer program. Brucie Winston had been caught selling drugs, which was something of a dilemma since Brucie’s parents had just single-handedly funded the new auditorium. Lewis Bent was failing his make-up math course and there was talk of holding him back next year. Liam had never much liked Brucie Winston, but Lewis was a whole other story. He tsk-ed and said, “Well, that’s a shame.” He wondered if there were something he should have done differently while Lewis was in his class.

  When they’d polished off the dessert (a pint of pistachio ice cream) and it was time for Bundy to go, Liam led him back through the apartment, carelessly leaving the patio door unlocked behind them. Even as he was telling Bundy good night he had an edgy awareness of that unlocked door at his rear. “Sure, you’re welcome; any time,” he said, almost pushing Bundy out. But it wasn’t anxiety that made him hurry back to the patio; it was a sort of magnetic pull, a half-guilty, compelling attraction. All for nothing, as it happened. No one was trying to get in.

  That night he dreamed that he woke to a sense of someone standing over his bed. He dreamed that he lay very still, curled on his side, pretending to be asleep. He could hear soft, steady breathing. He could feel a thread-thin blade of cold steel placed lightly against his bare neck. Then the blade was raised in the air to strike the fatal blow.

  Who would have guessed that a killer would make that trial move first? Like setting a cleaver against a joint of meat before lifting it to chop, Liam thought. The horror of that image caused his eyes to fly open in the dark. His heart was beating so violently that it rustled his pajamas.

  5

  There was a parking space in front of the Mission for Indigent Men, but Liam didn’t stop there. He drove on past it, past Cope Development and Curtis Plumbing Supply, and turned right at the corner and pulled in at a meter halfway up the next block. When he got out of his car he found he didn’t have any quarters—the only coins the meter accepted—but he decided to take his chances.

  He walked back to Bunker Street, turned left, and slowed until he was nearly at a standstill. Already, at not even nine a.m., the sun felt uncomfortably hot on his head and the back of his neck. He came to a halt near a hydrant and painstakingly, deliberatively rolled his shirtsleeves up, flattening each fold with great care. Two men in suits strode past. He watched after them, but they didn’t turn in at Cope Development.

  He studied the graffiti painted across the base of the hydrant: BLAST, in luminous white, with a sloppily drawn star before and after. He examined the word closely, frowning, as if he were pondering its meaning. Blast. A woman clipped by with a jingling sound of keys or maybe jewelry. She had a purposeful, confident gait. At Cope Development, she pivoted smartly and climbed the steps and disappeared inside.

  A green Corolla approached from the other end of the block, stopped just past the mission, and backed into the parking space there.

  Liam abandoned the hydrant. He straightened and resumed walking in the direction of Cope Development.

  The assistant’s unfortunate fashion statements were becoming familiar to him. Even from a distance he recognized the too-long skirt (in some bandanna-type print of red and blue, today) that made her seem to be walking on her knees as she rounded her car, and the sleeveless blouse that rode up and exposed a bulge of bare midriff when she bent to help Ishmael Cope from the passenger seat. Liam was close enough now to hear the inconclusive clucking sound the car door made as she clumsily nudged it almost shut with one hip. He heard the pat-pat of Ishmael Cope’s crablike hands checking all his suit pockets before he took hold of the arm she offered.

  Liam sped up.

  They met in front of the Cope building. The assistant was preparing to inch the old man up the steps. Liam said, “Why! Mr. Cope!”

  The two of them turned and peered into his face, wearing almost comically similar expressions of puzzlement and concern.

  “Fancy running into you!” Liam said. “It’s Liam Pennywell. Remember?”

  Ishmael Cope said, “Um …”

  He turned to his assistant, who instantly flushed all over—a mottled, dark-red flush beginning at the deep V-neck of her blouse and rising to her round cheeks.

  “We met at the gala,” Liam said. “For juvenile diabetes; remember? We had a long conversation. You suggested I come in sometime and interview for a job.”

  From their instantaneous reaction—no longer confusion but outright shock—Liam sensed at once that he had made a mistake. Maybe Ishmael Cope didn’t have anything to do anymore with hiring employees. Well, of course he wouldn’t. Liam cursed his own stupidity. Ishmael Cope said, “A job?”

  “Why, ah, that is …”

  “I was going to hire someone?”

  Ishmael Cope and his assistant exchanged a glance. Clearly a con man, they must be thinking. Or no, perhaps not; for next Mr. Cope said, in a wondering tone, “I promised a man a job!”

  So this is what it had come to, was what that glance had meant. A whole new symptom, more advanced than any they’d seen before.

  All Liam wanted now was to take back everything he’d said. He had never intended to cause the man distress. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he’d intended, beyond gaining a few moments of conversation with the assistant. He said, “Oh, no, it wasn’t an actual promise. It was more like …” He turned to the assistant, hoping she could somehow rescue him. “Maybe I misunderstood,” he told her. “I must have. I’m sure I did. You know how it is at these galas: glasses clinking, music playing,
everyone talking at once …”

  “Oh, sometimes people can’t hear themselves think,” she said.

  That low, clear, level voice—the voice that had murmured “Verity” in Dr. Morrow’s waiting room—made Liam feel reassured, although he couldn’t say exactly why. He gave her his widest smile. “I’m sorry,” he told her, “I don’t remember your name.”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  He knew he must look like a fool, with all these “sorry”s. He was doing everything wrong. “It’s just …” he said, “I mistrust my memory so these days; I always act on the assumption that I’ve met somebody even when I haven’t.” His laugh came out sounding false, at least to his own ears. “I have the world’s worst memory,” he told Ishmael Cope.

  Which was a stroke of genius, come to think of it. Without planning to, he had arrived at the subject most likely to enlist the man’s sympathy.

  But Ishmael Cope said, “That must be difficult. And you don’t look all that old, either.”

  “I’m not. I’m sixty.”

  “Only sixty? Then there’s no excuse whatsoever.”

  This was becoming annoying. Liam glanced toward the assistant. She was sending Mr. Cope a look of amusement. “Now, now,” she said indulgently, and then she told Liam, “To hear Mr. C. talk, you’d never know we all forget things from time to time.”

  “The trick is mental exercise,” Ishmael Cope said to Liam. “Work crossword puzzles. Solve brainteasers.”

  “I’ll have to try that,” Liam said.

  He was developing an active dislike for the man. But he gave the assistant another wide smile and said, “I didn’t mean to hold you both up.”

  “About the interview …” she said. She glanced uncertainly at Ishmael Cope.

  But Liam said, “Oh, no, really, it’s not important. It’s quite all right. I don’t need a job. I don’t want a job. I was only, you know …”

  He was edging away as he spoke, backing off in the direction he had just come from. “Good to see you both,” he said. “Sorry to … Goodbye.”

  He turned and plunged off blindly.

  Idiot.

  Traffic was picking up now, and more pedestrians dotted the sidewalk, all bustling toward their offices with briefcases and folded newspapers. He was the only one empty-handed. Everyone else had someplace to get to. He slowed his pace and surveyed each building he passed with an intent, abstracted expression, as if he were hunting a specific address.

  What on earth had he expected from that encounter, anyway? Even if things had gone as he’d hoped—if he and the assistant had struck up a separate conversation, if she had admitted outright the true nature of her role—how would that have helped him? She wasn’t going to drop everything and come be his rememberer. In any event, she couldn’t help him retrieve an experience she hadn’t been there for. And what good would it have done even if she could retrieve it?

  He really was losing his mind, he thought.

  When he reached his car he found he’d been issued a parking ticket. Oh, damn. He plucked it from the windshield and frowned at it. Twenty-seven dollars. For nothing.

  “Excuse me?” someone called.

  He looked up. The assistant was hurrying toward him, pink-faced and out of breath, clutching her purse to her pillowy bosom with both hands. “Excuse me, I just wanted to thank you,” she said when she arrived in front of him.

  “Thank me for what?” he asked.

  “It was kind of you to be so understanding back there. Somebody else might have … pushed. Might have pressed him.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” he said, meaninglessly.

  “Mr.… Pennyworth?”

  “Pennywell. Liam,” he said.

  “Liam. I’m Eunice, Mr. Cope’s assistant. Liam, I’m not at liberty to explain but … I guess you must have realized that Mr. C. is not in charge of hiring.”

  “I understand perfectly,” he said. “Don’t give it a thought.”

  If he had been the ruthless type, he would have pretended not to understand. He would have forced her to spell it out. But she looked so anxious, with her forehead creased and her oversized glasses slipping down her shiny nose; he didn’t have the heart to add to her discomfort. He said, “I meant it when I said I didn’t need a job. I really don’t. Honest.”

  She gazed at him for such a long moment that he wondered if she had misheard him. And he was sure of it when she told him, finally, “You’re a very nice man, Liam.”

  “No, no, I—”

  “Where is it you’re employed?” she said.

  “Right now? Well, right now, um …”

  She reached out and laid a hand briefly on his arm. “Forgive me. Please forget I asked that,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s not a secret,” he said. “I used to teach fifth grade. The school is downsizing at the moment, but that’s okay. I might retire anyhow.”

  She said, “Liam, would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

  “Oh!”

  “Someplace nearby?”

  “I would love to, but—shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “I’m finished with work,” she said.

  “You are?”

  “Well, at least for …” She checked her watch—a big clunky thing on a leather wristband even thicker than her sandal straps. “At least for an hour or so,” she said. “I just have to be there for transitions.”

  “Transitions,” Liam repeated.

  “Getting Mr. C. from one place to another place. Till ten o’clock he’ll be in his office, reading The Wall Street Journal.”

  “I see.”

  Liam allowed her some time to expand on that topic, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “PeeWee’s is good.”

  “Pardon?”

  “For coffee. PeeWee’s Café.”

  “Oh, fine,” Liam said. “Is that in walking distance?”

  “It’s right around the corner.”

  He looked down at the parking ticket he held. Then he turned and jammed it back under the windshield wiper. “Let’s go, then,” he told her.

  He couldn’t believe his luck. As they headed up the street he had to keep fighting back a huge grin.

  Although now that he had her all to himself, what was he going to ask? Nothing came to mind. Really he wanted to reach out and touch her—even just touch her skirt, as if she were some sort of talisman. But he dug both hands in his trouser pockets instead, and he was careful not to brush against her as they walked.

  “The hiring and firing at Cope is handled by a man named McPherson,” Eunice told him. “Unfortunately, I don’t know him well.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Liam said.

  “I was hired myself by Mrs. Cope.”

  This was getting more interesting. Liam said, “Why was that?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story, but my point is, I didn’t have many dealings with the Personnel Department.”

  “How did Mrs. Cope find you?” Liam asked.

  “She’s friends with my mother.”

  “Oh.”

  He waited. Eunice walked beside him in a companionable silence. She had stopped hugging her purse by now. It swung from her shoulder with a faint rattling sound, as if it were full of ping-pong balls.

  “The two of them play bridge together,” Eunice said. “So … you know.”

  No, he didn’t know. He looked at her expectantly.

  “I don’t suppose you play bridge,” Eunice said.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?” he asked. “If I did play, you’d get me into a game with Mrs. Cope?”

  He was being facetious, but she seemed to give the question serious consideration before she said, “No, I don’t guess that’s too practical. Well, back to Mr. McPherson, then.”

  It was on the tip of Liam’s tongue to remind her that he wasn’t job hunting. Since the job hunt seemed to be his main attraction, however, he kept silent.

  This block was even more rund
own than Bunker Street. Most of the rowhouses were boarded up, and bits of trash flocked the gutters. The café, when they arrived there, didn’t even have a real sign—just PeeWeEs scrawled in downward-slanting whitewash across the window, above a pale avocado tree struggling up from a grapefruit-juice tin on the sill. Liam would never have dared to enter such a place by himself, but Eunice yanked open the baggy screen door without hesitation. He followed her into a small front room—clearly a parlor, once, with dramatic black-and-gold wallpaper and a faded, rose-colored linoleum floor stippled to look like shag carpeting. Three mismatched tables all but filled the space. Through a doorway to the rear, Liam heard pots clanking and water running.

  “Hello!” Eunice called, and she pulled out the nearest chair and plunked herself down on it. Liam took the seat across from her. His own chair seemed to have come from a classroom—it was that familiar blend of blond wood and tan-painted steel—but Eunice’s was part of a dinette set, upholstered in bright-yellow vinyl.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Eunice asked him.

  “No thanks,” he said—addressing, at the last minute, the large woman in a housecoat who appeared in the rear doorway. “Just coffee, please.”

  “I’ll have coffee and a Tastykake,” Eunice told the woman.

  “Huh,” the woman said, and she vanished again. Eunice smiled after her. Either she was admirably at ease anywhere or she suffered from a total lack of discrimination; Liam couldn’t decide which.

  He hunched forward in his seat as soon as they were alone. (He had to make the most of this one chance.) Keeping his tone casual, he asked, “Why is it that you’re needed only for transitions?”

  “Oh, well,” Eunice said vaguely. “I’m sort of a … facilitator. Sort of, I don’t know, a social facilitator, maybe you could say.”

  “You remind Mr. Cope of appointments and such.”

  “Well, yes.”

  She picked up an ashtray. Liam hadn’t seen an ashtray on a table in years. This one was a triangle of black plastic, with Flagg Family Crab House, Ocean City, Maryland stamped in white around the rim. She turned it over and examined the bottom.