Being Invisible: A Novel

by Thomas Berger

  “Are you invisible now?” asked Leprak, the fingers of his left hand gathered into a kind of claw with which he picked at his chin.

  “Well, certainly not!” Wagner was annoyed. “As you can plainly see.”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” said the doctor, with a rolling motion of his head as if to relieve a stiff neck. “Let’s move step by step from what we can establish as veritable fact and try to avoid epistemological tricks by which je pense can pretend to be proof that je suis.”

  “Wouldn’t you say that if you can see me it means I’m visible?” Wagner asked in exasperation.

  “Now we’re quibbling about terms,” Dr. Leprak said, leaning back in his chair. “I’m no match for you there, I’m afraid. Don’t you write lexicographical definitions or the like?”

  “Yes, the like,” said Wagner. He became invisible. “Is this sufficient evidence?”

  “Now, that’s not fair,” the doctor complained, looking around the room. “Come out. I wish you’d stop treating this as a game. You remind me of my son. That’s his trouble, you know. He’s not a bad boy, but he tries to make everything a competition: that rubs people the wrong way.”

  “I’m still here where I was,” Wagner said. “Only invisible.” He felt silly having to explain something that was self-evident.

  Leprak said, “I assure you I am not going to make an ass of myself and come over there and poke into empty space while you jeer at me from hiding. As your doctor, Fred, I’m asking you to submit yourself to further examination. Now is that unreasonable? If it turns out you are suffering from some disorder, I don’t want you to say I was derelict in my professional duty.”

  “It sounds to me as though you are refusing to admit that I am invisible,” Wagner said. “You are ducking the real issue. That’s hardly science.”

  “On the contrary,” said the doctor, “that’s precisely what science does: reserves judgment till a preponderance of incontrovertible evidence has been provided. And all I contracted to do was to pursue the matter of the missing internal organs—remember that.”

  “You will grant that at least they are invisible.”

  “Not at all!” cried Leprak. “I will ‘grant,’ to use your term though it’s hardly apropos, only that I was not able to see them just now with the fluoroscope.”

  Wagner got up and went to a little white-enamel table on which stood a jar full of cotton swabs. He lifted the jar and shook it at the physician.

  “Look here!”

  But as soon as it lost contact with the table, the jar vanished. Having nothing to see, Leprak continued to stare expressionlessly into the middle distance.

  Wagner refused to be so vulgar, and so destructive, as to hurl the jar at the wall in the fashion of the protagonist in trick-photography invisible-man movies.

  “I’m waiting,” the doctor said after another moment. “But my time is not my own to squander, you know.”

  Wagner was exasperated. He wished he could reappear partially; that would certainly prove his point... but as it happened he possessed no technique for fine-tuning his state. He became visible all at once and in toto.

  The doctor had blinked at the appropriate instant, or had been distracted, and therefore put no great value on Wagner’s reappearance—unless it was for him some matter of face not to admit that he had been confronted with a phenomenon he could not begin to explain: in ex officio situations doctors outrank even the emperors and dictators of the laity and cannot afford to admit a loss. Wagner decided that delicacy was called for.

  “I’ll try to go through it more slowly,” he said with a smile.

  Leprak rose. “I’m sorry, Fred, we just don’t have time for any more shenanigans. Mind you, I’m not worried, but I do want you to go over to General on leaving here. Now, it’s not going to hurt, for golly sake.” He had arrived at Wagner’s side, and he patted him in the small of the back while grasping with his right hand at Wagner’s fist. “They’ll give you a milkshake and take some pictures.” His mustached chuckle was designed to dismiss all menace from this projection.

  “That’s a GI series, isn’t it?” Wagner asked, remembering the earliest phases of his mother’s last illness. “I’ll have to be there overnight?”

  The doctor leered into his face. “If you’ll reflect, Fred, isn’t that what hospitals are for, and aren’t we lucky that surgery is no longer done in barbershops?”

  Wagner left the treatment room and spitefully became invisible during the short trip to Miss Brink’s desk and slipped out of the office without paying. Of course the bill would be mailed to him, but he was anyway evading compliance with Leprak’s pay-as-you-go policy, announced in prominent black type on a white card that stood atop the little counter provided as a surface for check-writing.

  Once he reached the street he found that his exasperation with the doctor was replaced by worry. Until now he had avoided looking at his situation in that way, but of course it could not be denied that his ability to become invisible had to have a cause; perhaps it was a pathological condition, as was said to be the case with the husky voice of certain popular singers. And it might not be good news that he now was able to disappear instantaneously, whereas only a day or so ago it had taken him a few seconds to complete the process. What had at first seemed such a useful change might instead be seen as an advanced stage of disease. His internal organs had disappeared permanently from detection by X ray. Obviously they remained in place and were functioning, else he would be dead, but it was clearly not an acceptable state of affairs even if it went no further, but the worry was that, like many human progressions, it would be degenerative.

  And if the innards went, could the carapace be far behind? To be permanently invisible would have little to recommend it—Wagner was by now sufficiently experienced to know that.

  He decided to go to the hospital. From a street telephone he called both Mary Alice and Sandra to tell them as much. Neither answered. It was likely that the former had gone back to sleep, so he hung up after not too many rings, but he persisted in Sandra’s case, determined to force her to hear what he was saying for once and inclined even to attempt to bring their affair, though not necessarily their friendship, to a halt by confessing that another woman had moved in with him. At this point Mary Alice was the greater problem. But he succeeded in speaking with nobody.

  It was now too late to pick up his check and get it to the bank before closing time. As it happened, he had counted on collecting some cash by that means, and had left the remainder of his ready spending money at home with Mary Alice, should she want to send out for food before he returned. In the cab, within a block of the hospital, he discovered that he carried too little cash to meet the fare recorded on the meter. He became invisible and as unobtrusively as he could left the vehicle while it was stopped at a light, yet the driver did not miss the sound made by the closing door and jumped cursing into the street to look for him in vain. A day or so earlier Wagner would at least have pretended to himself that he would memorize the number of the cab and the name of the firm which owned it, with a purpose of sending the fare along by mail, but now he had become too desperate and therefore too spiritually coarse even to consider such an exercise in conventional morality.

  He materialized to be admitted as a patient in the hospital. Despite the astronomical price he signed up for a private room, for conversing with a stranger in another bed would have been unacceptable at this time.

  As soon as he reached his room he again tried to telephone Mary Alice & Sandra, of whom he was beginning to think as a team; it might soon get to the point that having reached one, he would ask her to take a message for the other. As it was, he still could not rouse either.

  But as a patient in a hospital he assumed he had gained the right to break the rule against calling Babe at work, and he dialed the number of the Guillaume Gallery. The phone was answered by Cleve. Wagner did not want him to know who was calling, so he lowered his voice and also assumed a style of speech other than hi
s usual.

  “Hiya. I wanna talk to Carla.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Don’t you mind about that,” Wagner said. “Just you put her on the line.”

  Guillaume said, “Pardon me, but I don’t think you have to be rude.”

  Wagner’s patience was fraying. “Goddammit,” said he, “is she there?”

  “Is it really Carla you’re after?” Cleve’s voice had gone very arch.

  The last thread parted, and Wagner said, “Do you think I’d be calling for you?”

  The gallery owner sounded full-throated laughter. “What a bitch you are, Ralphie! I trust you didn’t think you were fooling me. So where are we eating tonight?”

  Wagner hung up in chagrin. He must wait awhile before placing a call in his normal voice. And now that his demon had been temporarily appeased, he was able to regret the manifestation of bad feeling against Guillaume, who was not the world’s worst, and he began to think about making it up to him, along with performing an act of atonement with respect to Roy Pascal, by perhaps bringing the two of them together in view of their common interest. However, Guillaume never seemed to lack for friends, well-to-do as he was, and Pascal was not all that attractive. It must be tough to be in his situation with so few resources.

  On a generous impulse Wagner now phoned him at the office.

  “Roy, Fred Wagner. Let me say this before I run out of nerve. I apologize for yesterday. I hope you can find it possible to disregard what I said: I realize now it was contemptible nonsense. You’ve always been more than decent to me.”

  Pascal was obviously moved. “That’s awfully nice of you, Fred. It takes a lot of character to say such a thing. How are you?”

  Wagner said flatly that he was OK. Squaring the account was one matter; he didn’t want the man to believe he was offering close friendship.

  “I hope you’ll continue to keep in touch,” Pascal said. “This place’s not the same without you. In any event, I hope you will come to the reception next month. The invitation’s in the mail.”

  “Reception?”

  “I told you,” said Pascal. “I’m getting married. But now, please, no gift is expected.”

  “What’s his name?” Wagner asked, fortunately in a voice that must have been so contorted as to render the possessive pronoun incomprehensible, for Pascal answered with no special emphasis.

  “Dorothy Kilbride,” said he. “My childhood sweetheart. She got sidetracked for a while and married somebody else, but they’re divorced now and we’re getting together at last.”

  Wagner’s annoyance now switched itself to focus on Mary Alice. How irresponsible she was! He had all but disgraced himself with Pascal.

  “My congratulations,” he now said with shy heartiness. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

  “I trust we’ll be seeing a lot of you and Carla,” Pascal said. “I’ve certainly told Dorothy about my best friend and the terrific woman he married, and she can’t wait to meet you both.”

  Wagner made some additional congratulatory comments and got away from him. This time he at last made telephone contact with Mary Alice.

  “I’m in the hospital, of all places,” he told her. “I have a mysterious condition: that is, I mean I’m in one. Now, Mary Alice, with all respect, I am aware that in view of what happened last evening, you believe we are in a special sort of association, but you must realize that it had to happen eventually with someone of the male sex. Perhaps it was just by chance that I was at hand.”

  “I don’t know what kind of crap you are pulling now,” said Mary Alice, “but I won’t buy it.”

  Irritated by this response, Wagner asked, “Why did you say Roy Pascal was homosexual? He’s not. He’s getting married.”

  “Now, let’s not go into that again. I told you: you and he were inseparable. He didn’t have a wife, and you had just lost yours. Neither of you seemed to know I was alive—in that way. Fred? When are you coming home? I need you, if you know what I mean: I don’t want to spell it out on the public wire.”

  “Didn’t you just hear me say I am in the hospital?” He had originally intended to play down his “condition,” whatever it was, but now decided to exploit it. “I’ve got my doctor worried. I might have a serious disorder. In any event it looks as though I’ll be here for a while.”

  “A while?” Mary Alice asked in whining incredulity. “You say that just as if it doesn’t mean anything to you at all. What about me in the meantime?”

  “Aha,” said he. “I left some money in the blue bowl in the kitchen cabinet on the right of the fridge, for groceries and other household needs, or you can eat out. I’ve got a charge account at the deli two blocks down and also at the bakery around the corner: just mention my name.”

  “I don’t care about food, for Christ’s sake!” Mary Alice’s voice had turned nasty. “You just get back here pronto or I won’t answer for the consequences.” She hung up.

  After a moment Wagner realized that this had ended better than it had begun. The “consequences” were just what would be welcome: viz., that Mary Alice would walk out on him. As to Sandra, he decided not to try again to reach her. He would simply stay out of touch so long that she would eventually have to infer that he was indifferent to her. It was unpleasant medicine to prescribe in the case of someone who had given him nothing but kindness, but he saw no alternative.

  He refused to abandon a belief in the possibility of a permanent reunion with Babe, though no hope might be more unreasonable.

  He now phoned the Guillaume Gallery again, and when Cleve answered he said, “Hello, Cleve. This is Fred Wagner. How are you?”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Guillaume. “Do I know you?”

  “Carla’s husband,” Wagner said. “We met once at an opening several years ago. No reason for you to remember.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Guillaume said abstractedly. “But husband? Shouldn’t your name be Morgat?”

  “That’s her maiden and professional name.”

  “I’m so pleased we’ve got that cleared up,” said Guillaume. “Would you like to leave a message?”

  “She’s not there?”

  “She’s holding Siv Zirko’s hand. This show has him all frazzled. He’s an artist, you know. I warn you: never let one in your house.”

  Wagner asked, as if with polite curiosity, “Isn’t the show sold out?”

  “Of course,” said Guillaume. “And that’s just the trouble, you see. Siv feels he’s done it all, shot his wad with nothing left, never to sculpt again.”

  “‘Sculpture,’” said Wagner. “The verb is ‘to sculpture.’ There is no such word as ‘sculpt.’”

  “Why, sure there is,” Guillaume said enthusiastically. “I use it all the time.”

  Wagner took a lungful of the medicinally scented air of the hospital and said quickly, “Siv is a titan.”

  “Why so lukewarm?” asked Guillaume, making what Wagner at length identified as a joke.

  “He’s changed studios, hasn’t he?”

  “Nobody ever tells me anything,” Guillaume complained. “But I just saw him two days ago at the old place.”

  Wagner got the address by pretending to want to verify an invented one: he had learned this technique from a movie. He hung up just as a tall nurse entered the room.

  “Afraid you don’t get dinner, Mr. Wagner,” said she, prognathously inspecting the chart that hung at the foot of the bed. “We’ve got to take a look at your tumtum and the other things in its locality, and everything’s supposed to be emptied out by tomorrow morning.”

  “Fine,” said Wagner.

  She peered at him. “You can’t mean that.”

  “Oh, but I do,” said Wagner, and then feigned drowsiness. As soon as the nurse left he found his clothes in the closet and put them on. Invisibly he left the room and the hospital, materialized to catch a cab, and then once again beat a furious driver out of the fare by disappearing: the difference this time was that Wagner felt n
o sense of triumph.

  Zirko’s studio was in a sizable building in a district of wholesalers. A carpeting business occupied the ground floor, and a truck was pulled across the sidewalk at a loading door. Alongside stood three stocky persons who were airing contrasting opinions, one punctuating his remarks with the tiniest butt of a cigarette.

  The board in the little lobby to the left of the carpet firm said a company with “Belting” in its name was on 2 and “SZ” was on the floor above that. Wagner used the iron stairs, for he assumed that the outsized elevator opened directly into Zirko’s studio.

  On reaching the third floor he went to the available door, which was made of battered, dun-colored metal and unlabeled. Still invisible, he turned the knob and entered. He was in a large enclosure, which obviously had been designed for industrial use. It was now empty up front, near the wall of large, iron-framed windows, one of which was open on the street. At the distant rear were collected, in a crowded corner, the furniture and appliances pertaining to quotidian life: sink, fridge, stove, and not far from that cuisinatory complex, a couch, a canvas sling chair, and a kind of coffee table of which the base was a metal milk case and the top a rectangle of unpainted plywood. No works of art were in evidence throughout the vast loft, but that it was Zirko’s studio was confirmed by the artist’s presence on the couch.

  Babe sat in the canvas chair. Wagner approached her, walking quietly on rubber-soled shoes.

  The loft was so long that it took him a while before he was near enough to hear what Zirko was saying. The artist was barefoot. He sprawled on the couch in such a fashion that the protuberant crotch of his tight denims was projected towards his vis-à-vis.

  By the time Wagner got there, Zirko was rounding off his latest comment with a sequence of “shits.”

  “Oh,” said Babe. “I’ve heard all of that before. Bet you’ve already forgotten your depression after the last show. You’ll feel differently when your creative reservoir has been refilled, just as you did then.”

  “But I didn’t jack off into a plastic bubble that time,” said Zirko. “That’s all of me down there, doll.”