The God Machine (38 page)

“Later,” Sajan said, “when his sister Jane wrote him in London with some good news about his grandsons, Franklin responded,
‘It brings often afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now dead thirty-six years, whom I have seldom seen equaled in everything, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh.’
This, after thirty-six years! Ironically, he had reported on the death of children before, following the demise of a neighbor's child.
‘What curious joints and hinges on which limbs are moved to and fro!’
he had written.
‘What an inconceivable variety of nerves, veins, arteries, fibers and little invisible parts are found in every member!’
And he wanted to know, how could it be that a
‘good and merciful Creator should produce myriads of such exquisite machines to no
other purpose but to be deposited in the dark chambers of the grave?’”

“You memorized these passages? Why? Why are you telling me this?”

Sajan looked away. Then she said, “How did your son die?”

“I told you. From crib death.”

She nodded. “And what were the odds?”

Koster looked down at his plate, at the way the fish bones were scattered across it. “Twenty thousand to one,” he replied. “Statistically it should never have happened.”

“But it did. And Mariane died, too.” Sajan lifted her hand for the waiter. “Do you know what he said? Franklin, I mean. When thinking of the death of his child.”

Koster watched as the waiter approached and slipped the bill on their table. He shook his head.

“‘When nature gave us tears, she gave us leave to weep.’”
Sajan handed the waiter her credit card. Then she smiled tightly and said, “It's time, isn't it, Joseph?”

T
HAT NIGHT
, K
OSTER FOUND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO SLEEP. AT
one point, he wandered out onto the balcony in his pajamas and scanned the city around him. He would have given practically anything for a joint, or a cigarette, or a bottle of Scotch. Instead, he had to make due with a snifter of cooking brandy pilfered from Emily's meager supplies. Once again, Koster felt somewhat betrayed. She was French, after all.

He stared at the back of the Notre Dame cathedral glowing rhapsodically on the island next door, and, for the first time in years, Koster started to pray. He prayed for his dead son, Zane. And for Mariane, too. The words seemed to well up from some place uncharted within him. He prayed for Savita, for the waitress, for the man in the caves. And he prayed for himself.

He found himself leaning over the balcony's lip, staring down at the moon in the river. And he thought of Ben Franklin, missing his son. Franklin hadn't prayed for Franky. Indeed, Koster recalled, Franklin had once said,
“I imagine it great vanity in me to suppose that the
Supremely Perfect does in the least regard such an inconsiderable nothing as man.”
To Franklin, the “Infinite Father” was far above wanting our praise or our prayers. Then, he remembered what Savita had asked him.
It's time, isn't it, Joseph?
And although he was filled with an inconsolable sorrow, although he seemed weighed down by an ocean of tears, Koster found, unsurprisingly, that he was unable to cry. Not a solitary tear. Not a one.

After another half hour, he crawled back to bed. Then he tossed and he turned, and he finally slept. And he dreamed of his son once again.

Koster pictured himself coming home to the apartment that night. He pictured Priscilla, who was sitting alone on the sofa, reading one of her high fashion magazines. The baby was asleep in the nursery. Koster slipped down the corridor. He stepped through the door. It was raining. Water coursed down the windows in sheets, as if the glass were a liquid.

Zane was lying quite still in his crib. He was lying there, with his small chubby arms and his legs sticking out of his sleepsuit.
What curious joints and hinges
, Koster thought,
on which limbs are moved to and fro
. But these limbs were not moving, and they never would. He could see that now. He leaned over the crib and he knew it instantly. Zane looked up at him with his glassy black eyes, with that reproachful expression, and said, “You're home, finally, Father. You're home. But you're late, and I'm dead, anyway.”

Koster woke up. He felt as if his heart were being pressed in a vise. He opened his eyes. Someone was there. He could feel him. Someone was standing at the rear of the room, by the door.

He heard a floorboard squeak as the intruder approached. Koster longed to look over, but he was frightened to make any movements, as if his very stillness were keeping him safe. He lay there and waited as the
stranger drew nearer. A step. Then another. Then another, and the figure materialized. Inch by inch, he approached. Then he paused for a moment, reaching out toward the chair by the headboard.

A hand passed before Koster's face, only inches away. Koster reached out and grabbed it.

For a moment, they struggled. They rolled from the bed, flopping onto the floor. The room was too dark to make out a face. They rolled over each other. Koster pushed at the stranger in a vain effort to free himself. But each time he attempted to wriggle away, the stranger pulled closer.

“Savita,” he shouted. “Savita, help me!”

Then she laughed, and she reached down and kissed him.

It was Sajan. Koster finally detected the scent of her perfume. She was kissing his mouth, and his eyes and his cheeks. He could feel her breasts, the way they were pressed to his chest. He curled his fingers in her hair, drew her close. He kissed her as if he were at the bottom of the ocean, and she held the last breath of air in her mouth.

“Savita,” he said.

“Shh,” she answered, as she tugged at his waistband. “Don't say anything.”

“Savita,” he repeated. “This isn't right. Are you sure…”

She kissed him again. She straddled him and pulled off her blouse. She tossed it aside and her breasts spilled out of her bra. He reached up and cupped them. She moaned and bit at his neck. Then she fell back on top of him. She lifted her skirt. She started to stroke him inside his pajamas.

“Savita,” he said, and his phone rang. The phone rang again, and again. “Savita,” he said. “It's my phone.” And again.

With a sigh, she rolled off to the side and lay still.

Koster got up on his hands and his knees and hunted about for his cell phone. It was still in his jacket, on the chair by the headboard. He pulled it out, flipped it open.

“Joseph? Is that you?” It was Lyman.

Koster climbed up to the bed. He turned on the light. As soon as he did so, Sajan moaned and covered her eyes with her forearm. Then she reached out and picked up her blouse.

“What is it, Nigel? It's late.”

“Are you two all right?”

“We're fine, Nigel. What's going on?”

“I just got back from London. Someone did indeed report a robbery at the Turing archive in King's College, Cambridge. That's where most of Turing's correspondence is housed. And there's more.”

Koster watched helplessly as Sajan stood up and buttoned her blouse. “What else?” Koster asked.

“I did some snooping about, dug up some old files on Turing. The poor bastard ate an apple tainted with arsenic while working one day in his lab. Looks like one of the inspectors assigned to the case thought Turing didn't die accidentally, as most speculated at the time. He believed he was poisoned intentionally. And more, his chief suspect was an Italian monsignor named Cavelli. Seems the monsignor had been railing against Turing for his so-called deviant behavior. Turing was gay, it appears. But since there was little evidence of foul play, Monsignor Cavelli was released. He returned to Rome shortly thereafter, where he vanished. You'll never guess where?”

“I give up. Where?”

“Into that state within a state at the top of the Aventine Hill. Monsignor Cavelli was a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. A Knight.”

Sajan had finished dressing. She stood by the door. “Don't go,” Koster said.

“What's that?” Lyman answered.

“Not you. I was talking to Savita.”

“Is she there with you now?”

“Yes, want to speak to her?”

“No,” Lyman said. Then he paused. “Listen, Joseph. How well do you know her?”

Koster motioned toward Sajan but she wouldn't come any closer. “Well enough.”

“Be careful, Joseph. She's Robinson's friend. Trust no one.”

“Does that include you? I think you know how I feel about… you know.”

“It's obvious, Joseph.” Lyman laughed. “Except, perhaps, to you. No, really, I'm happy for you. Don't get me wrong,” he continued. “I like her, too. That's the problem.”

Sajan opened the door. She lifted her hand and gave Koster a wave.

“Look, I've got to go,” Koster told Lyman. “Thanks for the news. And for helping.”

“Remember, Joseph. Trust no one.”

Koster hung up the phone. He tossed it back on the chair by the headboard. “Savita—” he started to say, stepping forward.

But when he came up beside her and leaned over to kiss her, she twisted away. “I'm sorry,” he said. “That was Lyman.”

“So I gathered,” she answered.

“Want to know what he told me?”

Sajan shook her head. “Not particularly. I'm sure it can wait till the morning.” She started to slip through the doorway. “Sometimes I wish I had never invented that chip,” she said, looking down at the cell phone on the chair. “None of that stuff brings us closer. Not really. In the end, it just keeps us apart.”

“Look, I'm sorry,” said Koster. “I guess I'm not ready.”

“Ready for what? For someone to give a shit about you again? If God's already forgiven you, Joseph, for whatever you've done, who are you to hold out?”

She reached up and caressed his right cheek. Then she was gone.

Koster walked back to the bed and sat down. He put his face in his hands. With a sigh, he looked up at the door. As he did so, he noticed something lying on the floor. It winked at him, glimmered. It beckoned.

Koster rose and picked it up. It was Sajan's golden necklace and locket. It must have come off as they rolled about on the floor. He turned toward the door. He was just about to call out her name. But something prevented him. He looked down at the locket. It was gold and quite simple, shaped like a tear. He pressed the clasp on the side.

Inside was a photograph of a man and a child. Savita's husband, Jean-Claude, no doubt, Koster thought. He looked strangely familiar. And so did the baby, Maurice, with his rosy round cheeks and those dark soulful eyes. Then he noticed the inscription on the other side of the locket. It was tiny but legible. It read:
From Irene
. And then the initials, in script:
GLF
.

Koster let the locket swing free on the chain. It shimmered, it flashed in the light.
GLF
, he thought.
GLF
. And it came to him like a slap on the face.
The Grande Loge Féminine
. The same female Freemason's Lodge to which the Countess de Rochambaud had belonged, the same woman who had helped him search for the Gospel of Thomas in France years before. And then the next domino fell. Sajan was a Mason. Of course. It was obvious now. Just like Nick Robinson, her “old friend.” All those times, Koster thought. All those times he had lectured her on Masonic lore, on the history of numbers and Gnosticism… she must have been laughing inside.
She knew more about those subjects than he ever would, and yet she had just sat there and listened, egged him on.

Koster spun the gold chain round his fist. He squeezed it tight in his hand.

What a fool he had been. What an idiot. Click, click, as the dominos fell.

And it wasn't just the same Lodge.
Irene
. The same name. It couldn't just be a coincidence. The Countess Irene Chantal de Rochambaud. The locket was from her, from the countess herself. They were both members of the same Lodge, and they obviously knew each other. Or they had, for the countess was dead.

Koster walked back to the bed. Savita was using him; that much was obvious. But why? To what end? For the Gospel of Judas, or was there something greater at stake?

Koster dropped the locket and chain on the chair by the bed as the final domino fell. She was using him, but the truth was, he realized, he just didn't care. Someone needed him.

For the first time in years, he had a purpose again.