A Tangled Web

by Judith Michael

  “And it was your people who gave me food and water in Chile?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were here to open my prison. I do thank you. You must think very highly of Robert and of what he’s doing.”

  “We are good friends,” Robert said. “Jana, shall we get you something to eat?”

  “No, thank you, Robert, but I can wait. How long is it to . . . where are we going?”

  “To Cavaillon. You’ll come home with me just for tonight; tomorrow you return to London. It’s two hours to Cavaillon, probably less, with Max driving. But you should have something—”

  “Robert, I’m fine.”

  “Just a minute.” Max went into the café. He returned shortly and handed her a paper bag. “Ham sandwiches and coffee. You can eat in the car.”

  “Thank you.” But he was walking ahead and she and Robert walked quickly to catch up to him.

  In the car, she devoured a sandwich, drank the coffee, then curled up on the back seat and fell asleep. She woke only long enough to realize they were in Cavaillon, to see Max’s long look as she said goodbye, and to feel Robert’s hand under her arm as he helped her up some stairs and onto a couch already made up with sheets and a light blanket.

  The next morning there was barely time to discuss her work as they drove to Avignon, where she would catch a plane for Paris and then London. “A vacation,” Robert said. “We will not talk about any more work for you for a while. You were in Chile for eight months; that is a long stint.”

  “I just want to know what you’re thinking of, for me.”

  “I’m not, not yet. There is time, Jana; don’t you want to play for a little while? Don’t you have a young man to see?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then for now that is what you should be doing.” He kissed her on both cheeks and held her close. “I am so proud of you. And grateful; you keep my hope alive. Now go; you’ll miss your plane. I’ll call you in a few weeks.”

  He is so good, Jana thought, and that was what she told Alan that night, when they were in his bed in London. “He doesn’t want anything for himself; he just wants people to be happy. And to see justice done.”

  “I’ll bet he gets a kick out of it, though,” Alan said lazily. He lay beside her, his head propped on his arm, stroking her body. “God, you’re thin. It looks as if you haven’t eaten for eight months.”

  “I ate what the peasants ate. What does that mean: he gets a kick out of it?”

  “Oh, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, bad guys and good guys. It’s a lot more exciting than sprinkling holy water.”

  “He does more than that; he runs a school,”

  “So it’s more exciting than running a school.”

  “Well, of course it is. But he really thinks he can make the world better. For everybody, but especially for poor people.”

  “I know, you tell me that all the time. But everybody likes excitement, you know: danger or just a few thrills. You do, or you wouldn’t go to those places. In fact, I want to talk to you about that.”

  No, Jana thought; not now. I like you, someday I might love you, but right now I don’t want to get married; I don’t want to stop what I’m doing. I’m only twenty-six; I’m not ready to settle down.

  She cast about for something to change the subject. “Alan, do you remember Max Stuyvesant?”

  “Sure; he was killed when his boat blew up. Last year, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something if you promise to keep it to yourself.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “No, I mean it, Alan; I think we should keep it a secret.”

  “Then you shouldn’t tell me. I tend to talk.”

  “Do you? I never thought that. Well, then, I won’t.”

  “I only do sometimes. For you I’d keep quiet. And now you’ve started; you have to finish it. Something to do with Max? A sly fellow, you know; he owned Westbridge. Remember that story?”

  “Yes. Would you really keep it to yourself?”

  “Word of honor on my titled ancestors’ graves.”

  “You don’t have titled ancestors.”

  “One of them was a duke, somewhere in there; I never paid much attention; it always seemed overrated to me. I mean, look at Denton Longworth, for God’s sake; does he look like nobility to you?”

  Jana laughed. “No, nothing like the fairy tales. Have you seen him lately?”

  “Oh, here and there. We belong to the same club and you know how everybody goes to the same parties. They’re all incredibly dull, I might add, when you’re not around. Denton’s all right, you know; he and Max were close friends.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, actually I didn’t either, but he went ballistic when Max was killed. He kept after the police to find out if Max was really dead or not, kept saying Max wasn’t the type to die, he had the luck of fifteen cats, that kind of thing, on and on. I never saw anybody as cut up as he was. Are you going to tell me the secret about old Max?”

  “Well . . . I saw him in France.”

  “You mean his ghost? Come on, Jana, you don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “I saw Max Stuyvesant. He isn’t dead. He’s alive and living in a little town called Cavaillon . . . well, actually, I’m not sure he lives there; he took Robert and me there and then drove off. But he must live around there, because when we left Marseilles he said he was going home, and he looks just the same except of course for his beard and I think he’s dyed his hair. Wasn’t it red?”

  “With lots of gray,” Alan said absently. “You’re sure it was Max?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I saw him at Olivia’s a few times . . . in fact, the first time I saw him there was years ago, and Denton was there with Sabrina—you know, his wife? Before they were divorced. Anyway, I saw Max at Olivia’s a few times, and then his picture was in the paper in all those stories about Westbridge. It’s very strange—”

  “Strange! It’s crazy. Why would he let everybody think he’s dead? Maybe he doesn’t know who he is; maybe he lost his memory.”

  “No, he knew I recognized him. He was waiting for me to say something.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “No. Alan, he was helping Robert; he got me out. I owed him something. And it was his company’s crate that I was hiding in; if I’d been found, he could have been prosecuted.”

  “He could have wriggled out of it. Said he didn’t know how you got in there.”

  “Still, it would have been hard for him. I mean, I’m sure his company is reputable and he isn’t doing any smuggling like he did with Westbridge—”

  “He smuggled you.”

  “That’s different. That’s doing good. For Robert.”

  “Well, that part’s crazy, too, if you ask me. It doesn’t sound like Max Stuyvesant, cozying up to a priest and helping him fight for the rights of poor people.”

  “Well, it was Max and he is doing good and that’s why I didn’t say anything. I mean, maybe he’s trying to make up for what he did with Westbridge, so why not let him? I mean, I haven’t any right to give him away, and I’m not going to. And neither are you.”

  “No, right, of course not. Except, you know, it isn’t really fair to people who really care about him not to let them know—”

  “Alan! You promised!”

  “I know, but, you know, reporters . . . police . . . people like that shouldn’t know. But what about his friends?”

  “If he wanted them to know he would have told them himself.”

  “Well, it’s hard to pick up the telephone and say, ‘I say, old chap, this is Max Stuyvesant and I know you think I’ve been dead for lo these many months, but the fact is . . .’ ”

  Jana was laughing, but she was uncomfortable. “You promised you’d keep it a secret.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Now, how about if we stop talking about Max? I haven’t seen you in eight months and I think—”

  “Yes,” Jana said, and put her arms u
p to encircle his neck. “Yes, that would be lovely.”

  “And you’ll stay with me through the weekend?”

  “Till Monday. I told my parents I’d be home then.”

  “Oh, well, we can put it out of our minds, then. Monday is three whole days away.”

  And so it was not until the middle of the next week, when he went to his club, that Alan ran into Denton Longworth at the bar and told him, in absolute confidence, that he’d be pleased to hear that his good friend Max Stuyvesant was alive and well after all, and living in France, somewhere around Cavaillon.

  CHAPTER 15

  Garth locked the blood samples from Lu Zhen’s mice in the refrigerator in his office, locked the office and left the biology building, letting the door slam shut and lock behind him. Anger and pain propelled him across the campus; he was almost running, furious at Lu, furious at himself, and as hurt by the betrayal as if he had been dealt a body blow. The air was heavy and hot even now, at one in the morning, with no breeze from the lake to lighten it; the streetlights were softly smudged in the humidity and the trees seemed to droop and sleep. The campus was so quiet Garth’s steps were loud on the paved walk. Lights burned in dormitory windows and he pictured students at Friday night parties or hunched over their desks or in armchairs, reading. Lu Zhen was behind one of those windows, perhaps writing to his family that his esteemed Professor Andersen would soon send his paper to a professional journal; that the years of study and sacrifice were about to culminate in widespread applause and a triumphant return to China.

  Almost triumphant, Garth thought. Almost. The esteemed professor was careless, put his name on a fraud, and came close to sending it out for the world to see.

  Lu should know. He pulled up in his headlong rush across the campus. Why wait until tomorrow? I should tell him what I’ve found, that his paper won’t be published, that he’s through here. He turned back toward the dormitories, but this time his steps dragged and soon he stopped again. He wanted to go home first; he wanted to talk to Sabrina.

  He turned again and strode through the high Gothic gate at the corner of the campus and then past darkened houses through empty streets to his home. His house was not dark: the porch lights blazed and the curved windows of the upstairs bedroom shone for him. He let himself in the front door and took the stairs two at a time. Sabrina met him in the center of the room and put her arms around him and kissed him, and the tension in his body began to ease.

  She smiled at him. “Coffee and cake in the library. Unless you want a drink.”

  “A drink and then coffee. Thank you, my love.”

  They walked downstairs, arms around each other. Garth felt her fine bones beneath her light silk robe, the smooth grace of her muscles as she moved, the strength of her body holding him, matching his steps. He was filled with the continuing wonder of it: that there was a door always open to him, lamps lit for him, and love to welcome him. “God, it’s good to be here. I was so damned furious, and all I wanted was to talk to you about it.”

  In the library, he mixed Scotch and water and added ice. Sabrina had turned on a table lamp, and its soft light picked out the familiar shapes of furniture and books and stacks of magazines and journals on the tables and the floor, and Garth sighed, as if he had come to sanctuary. “Oh, what about Penny? Alexandra stayed while you picked her up?”

  “Yes. I hope she had a good time; she didn’t talk much. I’ll ask her about it tomorrow.” She poured coffee from a thermos and curled up in a corner of the couch. “Now tell me. What happened with Lu?”

  “He faked his results. The experiment didn’t work, but he wrote it up as if it had. Brilliantly conceived, beautifully constructed, and every word a lie.”

  “The experiment didn’t work or he made mistakes in doing it?”

  “It didn’t work. It couldn’t have.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I am surprised.”

  “But not shocked. You never did trust him, did you?”

  “Not lately. But I wouldn’t have guessed anything like this. I just thought he’d grab all the credit, use you to get ahead, that kind of thing.”

  “That kind of thing and a lot more is exactly what he did. And I should have caught it earlier. I’d been worried about his results off and on, but he had such confidence and I had confidence in him and I didn’t watch closely enough. Then tonight I called Bill Farver and he told me they’d been having exactly the problems I’d been worried about. Lu knew about them—I’d mentioned them and he had to come up against them in his work—but he evidently brushed them aside. He could have called Bill or other biologists around the country to compare notes, but he was too damned arrogant—”

  “Would they have told him? Isn’t there a lot of competition in research?”

  “Yes. You’re right: they might not have told him. But if he’d asked, I could have called Bill a long time ago. I wasn’t paying enough attention, I know that now, but all Lu had to do was ask me to find out what directions other researchers were going . . . he knows I would have done that. But he was so damn sure his way was the only way . . .”

  “Or he was afraid.”

  There was a pause. “Could be, but I think more likely he was so convinced he’d found the answer that he was like a horse wearing blinders. Or maybe it was both: he was afraid and he isn’t someone who lets himself question his own theories. But then, when the experiment failed . . .”

  He stood and paced the length of the room. He felt Sabrina’s eyes following him as he prowled. He loved that feeling of being in her sight, as if he were being held, caressed, encouraged to be himself without posturing, because she loved him as he was, and always would. An uncritical love, he thought, meeting her clear look, that made him far better than he would have been without it.

  He moved restlessly back and forth, fingering objects on shelves and tables, skirting piles of books on the floor. “The damnedest thing is that he thought he could get away with it. He’s working in one of the hottest fields in science today, along with hundreds of others, all of them ready to replicate experiments the minute they’re published, to build on them and take the research even further. He knew that no one could replicate his experiment, because it didn’t work, but he went ahead; he built an elegant structure over a rotten foundation, as if elegance were all that mattered. And I wasn’t watching. I should have been meeting with him every week, forcing him to explain and defend every step of his experiment. But I trusted him. And I was careless.”

  “I don’t suppose,” Sabrina said thoughtfully, “that this is the first time this has ever happened in scientific research.”

  Garth gave a rueful laugh. “No, you’re right; of course it’s not the first time. Or the last: there are always people who will fake results if they’re at a dead end. I’ve never understood how they can do it, any more than I can understand Lu, but I know they’re out there. Some of them land on the front page of the New York Times, which is where I would have been if I’d sent in Lu’s paper. And I wouldn’t have been director of a genetics institute, here or anywhere else. I’d have been lucky to keep on teaching; Claudia would have been under a lot of pressure to get rid of me.”

  He contemplated the dark fireplace, neatly swept for the summer. “I was so proud of him.”

  Sabrina heard the despair in his voice, and ached for him. “He gave you every reason to be proud. There was no way you could have known that he’d do this.”

  “But he lied about more than his work. He not only faked his research and put his career at risk, he put mine at risk as well, and that would have harmed all of us. All those nights he sat at our table, acting as if he liked being part of our family . . . that was another lie.”

  “He did like it.” Sabrina went to him. “He missed his family, he liked being part of ours, and he likes all of us. He adores you, Garth; remember when I told you that? I’ve watched him looking at you and I know he loves you. It makes me wonder . . . are you sure he really
knew all the implications of what he was doing?”

  “He’s been working with other scientists; he’s very smart. He knew.”

  “But when you talk to him, you might try to find out what he was thinking, instead of straight out accusing him. He may not have thought it through. I just can’t believe he’d purposely put you in danger.”

  Garth thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe. More likely he knew what he was doing and regretted it, but whatever he felt for me wasn’t strong enough to overcome the pressures from his family and his government. Well, I’ll know tomorrow morning.” He took her in his arms. “Do you know, the only thing that cut through my anger tonight was knowing I could come home to you. No one else helps make my world as clear as you do. It’s hard to keep believing that we can create order when things get messy, but somehow you do that for me; you help me believe it—”

  As no one else has ever done. He thought that but could not say it, could never say it. He could never say that he and Stephanie had lost their way so long ago that for years they had been unable to make for each other, as he and Sabrina had done, a place to belong and a sense of self that was fixed and solid in a shifting world.

  “—and I keep wanting to thank you,” he said, “to tell you what you give me each day, every day . . .”

  “But you do the same for me. And it always seems new and wonderful and even surprising, and then I feel so grateful, because I’m where I want to be, and I’m with you, and I never want to be with anyone else, and it is so good to love you—”

  His mouth met hers, and Sabrina closed her eyes as her arms curved around the familiar shape of his shoulders and his body fitted itself to hers. It was all familiar now, as welcoming as the rooms and lighted windows of their home, and they grew more confident in their coming together with each week and month of knowing that what they had was solidly theirs, not something balanced precariously on the edge of a deception. They kissed and held each other with the effortless merging of a swimmer slipping through water, weightless, almost without form, but at the same time sharply aware of an individual self, exultant and powerful, independent but still buoyed up and stronger for what was shared.