The Impossibly (20 page)

In fact, by now I had left my office and, on my way over to the transactions firm to attend to a little business, was running over the sequence of events in my head. Notable about this process was the nagging feeling that I had forgotten something, most likely something important, but I registered that this was not necessarily linked to the somewhat strange events I had just experienced, or rather to the somewhat strange way I had experienced the foregoing events; despite my relative youth during this period, I was already plagued by various failings in memory along with the concomitant anxieties this can provoke. And, my anxieties having further evolved, it troubled me to note (and this is simply the example that leaps to mind) that while I could very clearly recall telling the client about trailing her “husband,” I could no longer recall the trailing itself, and firmly suspected that the events might have occurred otherwise. In which case my performance on the job would have been somewhat less than satisfactory, a hypothesis I found deeply disturbing. I had, after all, accepted money from my client, and I was in no way interested in establishing myself as some moderately hard-boiled variety of charlatan. Clearly, the matter would require follow-up, even if only to put my mind at ease.

I have done many things in my life with the idea of putting my mind at ease. Having come now to this end of it, of life, I am none too happy to report that it is a hopeless task.

Be that as it may, however, it is too early in these proceedings to dwell on that, I soon found myself back at the transactions firm sharing a pleasant drink with three or four fellow transactionists. In accordance with long-standing tradition, drinks were shared in the copy room, and, if one required additional intimacy, in the large closet therein. No additional intimacy being required on this occasion, we stood and leaned against the various machines and reams of paper and drank from bottles and dubiously washed glasses. The largest of my colleagues, an important member of the firm’s junior staff, drank from a bowl. This was the individual who had helped me to set up my office and, in fact, had gotten me started in the firm. He was, as I say, quite a large individual, with much flesh to recommend him. Later—after the events I am setting down here that is—he would grow leaner, and an astonishingly handsome face would emerge from its fleshy encasement, or rather from its entombment, as he would put it, but during this period it was not his looks, or lack thereof, that distinguished him. It was his undeniable talent for transactions—far exceeding my own or that of any other member of the junior staff—that set him apart and ensured him a steady set of interviews with the boss.

It was of the boss that we were speaking as we drank. The boss, apparently something of an aficionado, had recently purchased a new line of track for the enormous electric train set that he kept in his office and which none of us, with the exception of our large colleague, or so I then thought, had seen. Later, I would learn that I had already seen the office and the boss and his train set under conditions both pleasant and less so, but at that moment I was convinced I had not, and so, despite my headache and liminal concerns, listened eagerly to our fleshy colleague’s description of it.

First of all, he said, you have to understand that the office itself is much larger than the ordinary office, both in terms of area and volume, so that one is only gradually struck by the remarkable size and complexity of the boss’s train set. It is quite a pleasant thing, then, to wander through the office and to discover aspect after novel aspect of that network. The mountain range and aerial bridge assert themselves only after one has considered the detailed curiosities of the tropical river and surrounding rain forest or vice versa. Just as the great city seems marvelous only after one has wandered through the desert wastes. This is perhaps a function of the track’s emphatic primacy, and of the single engine, black with a beautiful red smokestack, that is forever sliding along it. It was this circumstance that struck me, in fact—the engine never stops, and he, the boss, was kind enough to confirm this for me.

The engine, he says, will never stop, even as the dust forms high drifts on the savannah, the paint wears off the mountains, and the electric bulbs burn out in the great city’s miniature streetlights. It will continue along the ever-expanding network of track long after he has diverted the river, replaced the stand of rubber trees, and thrown away the plastic glacier. Those of us, he says, who perform satisfactorily, will one day be allowed to take a turn at the switchboard, to feel the curious thrill, the genuine but subtle sense of power, and of loss and bewilderment.

At this point our colleague fell silent and, as we were well along with our respective beverages, one of us suggested that it was time to see about our assignments for the evening. Assignments, in that firm, were generally posted in red marker on a white board outside the second secretary’s office, and the larger part of our number set off to see what had been arranged for them. Soon, in fact, it was just myself and the fleshy colleague left in the copy room.

Well, Sport, he said.

We clinked beverages.

I’m glad it’s just the two of us, I said. I had been hoping to have a moment with you before we got started.

Sure, Sport, no problem, he said.

But the truth is I really didn’t have much of an idea about where to get started. There were several things I hadn’t quite understood about what he had said about the boss’s train set, although I had very much enjoyed his intervention. I told him as much.

Thank you, he said.

Yes, I said. While there were several things I couldn’t quite grasp, I found that your description of the network made me think of deltas.

Deltas?

Not the track—the track doesn’t branch off, it seems—but the visitor to the network experiences a certain measure of branching and expansion in his/her thoughts, presumably. For instance, from the great city to the mountains, but also, simultaneously to the rubber forest and the river, and the tiny lights.

Why are you talking to me about deltas?

I’m not sure.

We stood there.

He told me a joke.

He said, one more for the road?

We had one more.

Deltas, he said.

I told him that it was likely my investigation work that had led me to think of them.

That’s great, Sport, he said.

It’s just that both the blood system in the brain and trees look a lot like deltas if you make a schematic of them. I have been trying to determine how I might make a schematic of a crime or rather of a perpetrator’s actions during the commission of a crime.

You don’t look so good, he said.

I don’t feel so good.

He patted me on the shoulder then pulled a very large bag of unshelled peanuts out of his jacket pocket and offered me a handful.

We put our glasses away.

Let’s go check the board now, Sport.

Okay, but first tell me, where was I last night between 5 and 5:30 p.m.?

You were with me, Sport, don’t you remember?

In fact, now that he mentioned it, I did remember. I could very clearly recall that we had worked together all afternoon and well into the evening. We had worked together on a very unpleasant job; or rather—unpleasant is the wrong word—it was difficult. They were sometimes. Perhaps, then, I had gotten my time frame wrong; perhaps I had trailed my client’s husband the night previous to the previous one; perhaps. Perhaps, indeed, but even if that was the case, my earlier description notwithstanding, I still couldn’t remember having done it. At this juncture, however, my case-related ruminations were cut short by another of my colleagues, who popped his head into the copy room and said, let’s go, Champ, you’re with me.

For the next few hours then, I was very much occupied in some business, a tricky but rewarding transaction for which we acquired a trunk, a razor, and thirty feet of rope. And while it is certainly true that over the course of the evening my thoughts reverted to my client’s lovely bones and perfume and snug-fitting raincoat, I did not trouble myself, or rather had no time to trouble myself, with the residual time- and memory-related vagaries of the case, for which, after all, and this had to indicate an adequate measure of success, I had been quite handsomely paid.

Several days went by. I barely noticed them. In fact one or two of them I did not notice at all and what’s more, when they did come to my attention, a quick inventory revealed that I had nothing in my possession that could definitively account for them.

Incidentally, this has remained a problem. Here, for example, whole weeks slip by, entire months are simply sucked away from me, and I’m left lying in bed in the middle of what should have been.

At any rate, I soon found myself back in the office, back at my desk. Since I had last been there my secretary had made several improvements, including having an intercom system installed so that I would not have to move or shout in order to contact him. I found this arrangement highly satisfactory. We both did. In fact, I quickly took to conducting the larger part of my business with him through the intercom. This was in part to cut down on the number of times I was forced to gaze upon his teeth—so medieval in their aspect—in part because I liked the sound of his voice as it came through the small speaker, and, when we talked at mealtime, the sound he made while eating the moist, warm dishes he favored, his lips smacking lightly at the soft foods. Also I liked to click down on the “communicate” button. It was lovely to do so—to speak then hear a voice in return.

In this way I learned more about the red lake and about his mother and various other things. He in his turn, if he was listening, I could not always be sure that he was, learned various things about me; for example, that I, too, in my earlier years, had gone out in the early morning with a relative onto a lake, although the lake I had gone out onto had not been red, it had been a very murky green. Mostly I would fish, but occasionally my relative, at the time sadly moribund, would instruct me to pull up my line and let go of the oars so that we would “just drift.” Sometimes, as we drifted through the mist across the green lake, my relative would speak. More often, though, my relative remained silent, staring over the side of the boat or into the mist or at me.

At me was the least desirable direction.

There were cataracts involved.

My objection was not aesthetic.

My relative could barely see me: I was barely seen.

It was hard for me to remember that this condition was temporary; that my perceived half presence—“I can hardly see you—wave your arms or something”—would not extend beyond the bounds of the boat, once we had left the misty lake and returned to shore.

It wasn’t.

Temporary I mean.

Are you listening? I said.

There was a silence, quite a long one, and then my secretary said, Yes.

This was true, I thought—I could see him, quite clearly, leaning over the intercom, his chin in his hands, smiling sweetly, attentive, staring at the red light that, illuminated, indicated that the line was open. I should say that since the previous occasion, I had had no such convincing visual confirmation of my secretary’s or anyone else’s activities as they sat in rooms other than the one I sat in. Only once, in fact, during the days that had elapsed (although clearly I do not, here, include the days I could not account for), had anything at all “curious” in this regard happened. One evening, one or two nights previously, as I had lain in bed attempting to sleep—I could not—I had very clearly heard a lawn tractor, with the mower engaged, maybe two or three feet from my bed, and above the sound of the lawn tractor, the sound of my grandmother calling out my name.

I have still not decided whether this event was connected to the predicament I was in then, the predicament I came only quite slowly to recognize, and only lately to fully accept. The business about “seeing” my secretary helped to push this process along. Which is to say that, remembering that I had seen things incorrectly the last time, I stood, crossed the room—very quietly: my secretary, as part of his improvements, had had plush carpet installed—and jerked open the door to the front room.

Hello, I said.

Sitting in one of the two chairs reserved for waiting clients was a very small man wearing a raincoat. It was hard to make out his features, as he was wearing a hat with a wide brim. I could see the end of his nose (large) and his lips (moist, thin). His chin was square and his jaw unusually heavy.

I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, I said. Have you seen my secretary?

I asked him if he wouldn’t mind taking a walk down the hall, just for a few minutes, you understand.

I told him I did.

Then I asked him how long he had been sitting there.

Quite a while.

From where I stood, I could see that the intercom was still on.

Did you …?

Yes, everything.

About the cataracts?

It’s quite a nice story. Your relative lived a very handsome life.

Yes, I said.

Yes, he said. I liked the story about the war, and the military plane, sitting next to the prince and seeing the leaning tower from the air. Have you ever seen it?

No, I said.

I have, he said. It’s a nice tower, you stand on a green lawn and look at it, but it’s not as nice as it would be from the air—blue sky above and around, brown and yellow fields below. And then descending at dusk on the airfield lit by gas lamps to dine with the prince while bombs went off against a backdrop of thunder.

Those were different days, he said.

Yes.

He wasn’t lying, was he, your relative?

I don’t know.

Because they do lie, not always but sometimes.

He was looking at me. I could see his eyes now. They were a very pretty green.

You don’t recognize me, do you? he said.

No, I said.

I don’t mean to imply that you should. I just find it curious—a curious result.

Result of what?

My name is Green.

Mr. Green?

No it’s not, never mind, a little joke, don’t call me that.