Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear (28 page)

“I’m fine. How are you?” Get to the point, thought Anne.

“I’m not really fine, since you ask,” Victor said, and stretched out his arms over his head. “Oh, my, these old bones. Well, I am, and I am not. Anne, sit down.”

Anne dropped into the chair that faced his desk. Now what? She felt blood humming in her ears.

“I have had some surprising news, Anne.” He stopped and looked at her. Anne wondered for a nauseating moment if Annamarie was going to have another baby.

“I must stress to you what a surprise this is,” he went on. Every time he said the word
surprise
, Anne heard something in his voice that was like a lie. Victor took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He left his glasses on his desk and leaned back in his chair. Anne knew that with his glasses off she had become a blur.

“I have received a promotion,” Victor said, rotating his chair to face the window, then swinging it back. He tilted his head in her direction. He smiled. Afforded the privacy of Victor’s myopic gaze, Anne allowed herself the luxury of letting her face go completely blank, making no effort to mirror his reaction with the expected duplicate mask. She thought of Dr. Van Loeb.

“Congratulations,” she murmured. She waited.

“Thank you. I am glad that you are pleased for me. I must tell you something more, though. I am being put in charge of the regional UGP office in Cairo.” Victor stopped twirling around and landed with his feet on the floor in front of him. He put his glasses back on and searched Anne’s face.

She looked down. What would Harriet say? So this is how the story ends, Anne thought.

“Anne?”

“When do you go, if I may ask?” Anne asked in a hoarse
voice. She knitted her hands together and clasped them so tightly that her ring gouged her interlaced fingers.

“Officially, I take charge there on September one, but what with housing and arranging for the children”—he looked vaguely apologetic for a moment—“it looks as though we’ll go in perhaps three weeks, or even sooner, depending on Annamarie.”

“Does it?”

“Does what?”

“Does it depend on Annamarie, Victor?”

He looked irritated. “She has a great deal to do, to organize, to pack, to arrange the children’s school records and so on. It’s possible that Lucien may go off to boarding school. Nothing is certain.”

“Don’t make me ask, Victor. Or do you want to hear me say it?”

“Don’t, my darling.” He got to his feet and came around the desk to where she was sitting. He stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You are a very, very brave girl. I have not forgotten you. I know this is quite difficult. Not what we planned, you and I.” He stroked her bare neck with one finger.

“Victor, what will we do? What will I do?” Anne felt as though a trapdoor had opened under her feet. A trapdoor that had been there all along. Suddenly, this moment seemed inevitable.

“I have been thinking of that. I have already this morning put in a recommendation for a promotion for you—here, let me show you the letter.” He stepped briskly over to the window behind his desk and pawed through a pile of manila folders lying on the table there. He found the right folder, opened it, and pulled out a letter. He rushed back to Anne and flourished it under her nose; Anne pushed it away, certain she
would cry if she saw the words on the page. He ignored her and began to read:

“Blah blah blah, ‘in sum, Miss Gordon has proved herself remarkably capable in all ways, and in the months of work for UGP under my direct supervision she has shown a diligence and trustworthiness that demonstrates how eminently qualified she is for a promotion to Senior Account Supervisor,’ et cetera, et cetera.

“You see,” he explained obliviously to the stricken Anne, “in a few months’ time, as a senior account supervisor, it would be perfectly natural for you to put in for a transfer to Cairo.”

“Why are you doing this?” Anne whispered.

“Doing what? Writing you up for a promotion you deserve in any case? You might thank me, you know. There are going to be a lot of people begging me for recommendations before I leave, once word gets out. The jockeying for power on this floor will be overwhelming. There will be a stampede for this office, I can assure you.” Victor looked around his office and smiled as he considered the various power plays his leaving would occasion.

“How long have you known about this?”

Victor didn’t say anything for a beat too long. “I got the call this morning,” he said, not quite answering the question.

Back at her desk, Anne sat and stared at a blank note pad for a long time. She made a short list:

The last possibility on the list she crossed out immediately. Working her way up the list from the bottom, Anne drew a line through each item until she reached the top and had crossed everything out. Then she went back to work.

As lunchtime approached, Anne wasn’t sure what to do. Her apocalyptic meeting with Victor had ended abruptly when Miss Sreenivasan had come in with an armful of faxes that needed urgent attention. Victor had waggled his eyebrows apologetically at Anne over Miss Sreenivasan’s head as she bent over his desk, laying out the papers before him. Anne had fled.

Was their luncheon rendezvous still on? Anne didn’t want to ring his office to confirm it, as that would seem too desperate. Yet she was desperate to spend the hour alone with Victor, to feel the one thing she knew was real, his skin against hers. The power she felt in his need for her was something for which she was hungry, and she needed proof of it today, proof that she was still powerful, that he was still hers.

Having heard nothing further from Victor all morning, Anne decided that this was a good sign and felt reassured. As the usual time for synchronized ducking out of the office approached, she returned one last call, typed up one last interim adjustment figure, and then left the UGP offices and headed to the flat.

She rushed through all the usual preparations of the bed and found herself nervously spritzing with cologne, brushing her teeth, changing out of her clothes and into nothing, under her slinky robe. Then, as time passed, she changed her earrings, washed a few dishes, filed a hangnail. Victor was late. Anne looked through Harriet’s odd collection of old snapshots of a man, a woman, and a little girl. More time passed. Anne wondered miserably where Harriet was, aware that Harriet had cleared away from the flat to suit Anne and Victor’s need
to meet. Harriet’s camera was on the table. Usually she took it with her.

Victor was very late. Anne decided to telephone his private line, clinging to the hope that he had lost track of the time or been held up by an unexpected telephone call from the field.

It rang for a long time, and then Sonya Trout picked up with her usual crisp, “Victor Marks’s line. Miss Trout here.”

“Is he there?” Anne did not identify herself.

“Is that you, Anne?”

Damn Sonya Trout.
“Mmmn.”

“Where are you, Anne? You’re missing our little celebration.”

“Sorry?”

“We’re throwing Victor an impromptu celebration lunch; we’re celebrating his promotion. I looked for you, but you had left. Are you feeling unwell? You looked as though you were coming down with something this morning. We’re all in the conference room.” Miss Trout sounded positively giddy. She must have held out the telephone to demonstrate, as Anne could for that moment hear the murmuring sounds of a party. “I’ve got champagne, and I ordered sandwiches—smoked salmon and cucumber, the kind he likes,” Miss Trout added proudly.

“So, everybody at UGP knows about the promotion now,” Anne asked woodenly, clutching her robe around her as though Miss Trout could intuit precisely what she was wearing.

“Yes, there was a memo distributed this morning. Of course, I knew all along he would get the promotion when I typed up his application for the Cairo posting—when was it—about six weeks ago,” Miss Trout said smugly.

“Well, you sound like the cat who ate the canary,” Anne snapped at her, giving up all pretense of formality at this appalling, though not entirely shocking, revelation.

“The cat who has been approved as special assistant to go along with the new section supervisor to Cairo,” Miss Trout virtually crowed.

“Oh, fuck off, you cunt on wheels!” Anne shouted into the telephone. “If you’re lucky, he’ll let you lick Tipp-Ex from his ass and you’ll have the first orgasm of your life!” She slammed down the telephone, breathing hard.

While she dressed, jerked the lunch-hour sheets off the bed and remade it, and then left the flat to return to the office, Anne’s mind was racing. I have no choice, I have no choice, she repeated to herself in rhythm to the click of her heels on the pavement as she sped along. No choice, no choice.

At the office, Anne avoided staff and stayed at her desk, and she got the distinct feeling that Miss Trout had publicized some version of their telephone chat, as even the usual flow of office communication seemed to pass her by. Her telephone rang. She let it ring for a while, then answered it. It was Harriet, calling from the flat. Out of the blue, Benedict had shown up, was here in Geneva. Would Anne and Victor like to join them for dinner? Anne was noncommittal, indicated that she would join them on her own, let Harriet think she wasn’t alone, put up with Harriet’s teasing about her stony manner, and rang off.

Benedict. Oh, God, the notebook. Brilliant timing.

The telephone rang again. Harriet again? Sometimes when Harriet sensed that Anne was in need of something, she would call back with a knock-knock joke, or something similar that would leave Anne smiling into her afternoon, although Harriet more often than not had to explain a lot of stupid jokes to Anne, who never got them. (Only the day before, Harriet had first told her about, then explained, the news that Cock Robin turns out to have changed his name. It seems it had formerly been Penis Robinowitz.) But it was Victor.

“Anne. You’re there.”

“Not really,” she whispered into the phone, suddenly near tears at the sound of his voice. She bit her lip.

“I’m sorry about the schedule. I did not know what Sonya had planned. You had already left. And I am sorry that I did not tell you myself that Sonya is coming to Cairo. I didn’t think it was important. I understand that you were upset when she told you about it.”

“Yes, upset. Is that the word she used?” Anne was curious. She hadn’t seen hide nor freckle of the darling Miss Trout since returning from her so-called lunch. Anne would be hungry if she weren’t on the verge of throwing up.

“I think so,” said Victor. “You might consider some sort of apology for your temper the next time you see her. I have given Sonya, Miss Trout, the rest of the day off, so she can see about her visa at the British consulate.”

“How nice.”

“Anne, don’t be childish. You can handle this. We must talk. Shall we meet in our usual fashion tomorrow? I promise I will be there. I long to see you. To see all of you.” He shifted the telephone, and Anne could hear sounds in his office of papers shuffling, then a male voice asking a question, and then Victor covered the phone, though not very effectively, and said to whoever had come into his office, “Yes, aren’t those all the figures? … Shit. I will attend to that.… No, they should match.… Yes, stay. I will get rid of this call.” He came back on the line. “My darling? I must go. Tomorrow.”

Anne hung up the telephone without bothering to reply, as he had already disconnected. Her head throbbed with the beginning of a nasty, migrainelike band of pain. Anne found it oddly good company. She could hear her blood roaring in her ears. It was like the ocean.

When Anne was five, she had spent a week one summer at a beach on Long Island (Lido Beach, a hilarious redundancy, as Harriet had pointed out at dinner only the night before when the talk had centered on Shrimp Scampi and other menu silliness). The first afternoon, while Henry and Elizabeth read books under their striped umbrella, Anne had stood just a few feet in front of them in the waves, facing out to sea, afraid of the slight undertow, immobilized by terror while the tide rushed in and receded, rushed in and receded.

Standing still, her feet had slowly sunk into the sand until they were completely covered past her ankles. She thought she would die there. She accepted that this was her fate, and so she stood, paralyzed, not moving, not asking for help. Henry had sneaked up behind her then and lifted her free, hoisting her up into the air and swinging her around. He had meant to surprise her, harmlessly, as a father teases his little girl, and was disconcerted when she burst into tears. At first, he thought he had startled her, but then he understood that she sobbed and clung to him at that moment because he had saved her.

“You are so little to know how cruel the world is, my pet,” Henry had murmured into her ear as he held her tightly in the bright summer sun. He stroked her and whispered into her ear, while Anne studied his Auschwitz number. Little hairs grew around it. This would be Anne’s earliest memory of Henry’s number, her sense that she herself was invisibly marked as well.