The Experimentalist

by Nick Salaman

  ‘When will it end?’

  ‘It will end when it ends. Not a moment before.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘It will end when we have the information we need.’

  ‘When I die? Is that it? Have you injected me with something? Do you mean to kill me?’

  ‘Your date of death is not known at this stage. Only when it happens can we process the report and be able to answer the questions you have been asking.’

  ‘I want to see my daughter.’

  ‘You do not have a daughter. You were very ill, remember. You should worry about yourself. The experiment is entering the next stage. You must consider this next move. Come. We will find a car to take you to your apartment.’

  ‘It’s not an experiment at all,’ she said, ‘it’s just a game. A horrible, cruel, despicable game. You just can’t give it up.’

  ‘It is a complex version of a game God invented called Snakes and Ladders,’ he said. ‘And an experiment as well. I think you should come and live with me until your marriage. Your old room is waiting.’

  At this stage it seemed better neither to accept or refuse, just to acquiesce.

  ‘I may come and go as I please? And keep my apartment in town?’

  ‘Of course. You are well now, apart from the stress you feel. You must suit yourself.’

  ‘I don’t feel stress,’ she lied.

  ‘Ah, but you will find that you do.’

  He said it with such certainty that she felt again that familiar pang of fear. It would have been easier if he had appeared wrathful, resentful, indignant, punitive or even simply cruel. It was the impassivity that was alarming.

  Above all else, that was the duty of the observer in the experiment: detachment. What she had to remember was, nothing that happened was random.

  ‘Is that the whole truth, then, at last? Everything out in the open?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, smiling, ‘if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’

  ***

  Marie turned up late next day at the house where she had lived that strange, passionless, inert half-life, until suddenly thrown into turmoil by a man with a letter – a man evidently introduced by Middleburg himself.

  The shadows were lengthening and the house was bathed in the russet pink of sunset. She noticed that the wax-leaf privet needed trimming. Last time she had been here, they had been preparing for a wedding, her wedding to Middleburg. Now it was for her wedding to David. It seemed ludicrous to think of herself in captivity here now. Middleburg appeared to take her new emancipation all in his stride. Indeed, he walked out to greet her as if he were about to present her with an award. The new husband-and-wife team, the Grimshaws, were lined up to greet her too. Middleburg pumped her hand and introduced them to her and they extended their congratulations.

  ‘So pleased to meet you … Anything we can do…’

  ‘We’ve heard so much about you.’

  She smiled back. Quite edible smells were wafting out through the hall from the kitchen, so unlike poor Mrs Holdsworth with her unrequited passion and her frozen Hostess boeuf en croute. The Grimshaws were no worse than the Holdsworths. Indeed, Mrs G was evidently a better cook.

  Middleburg smothered Marie in questions, how she had made the journey, what sort of day had she had, was she thirsty, had she eaten, did she like oysters, would she like to go up to her room now and so forth. The house received her back like a roast come back for a crisping. The first thing she noticed when she did go to her bedroom was the wedding dress she had chosen for her marriage to Middleburg hanging in the wardrobe. There was something terribly plausible about it all.

  She insisted to Middleburg that she keep on her old room in Echo Park as a bolt-hole. No one made any fuss about it; everyone quite understood. She even allowed David to make love to her there, but it wasn’t as good as under the stars. Nothing ever would be. She cried about it after he had gone, but she was becoming quite reconciled to the idea of a rich life with a good-looking plausible husband whom she had once loved more than life itself. The father of her child.

  After all, what would she do if she didn’t marry David? She would have nothing, not even a name. But afterwards, as Mrs Drummond and with money in her purse and a passport, anything was possible. Indeed, as she thought about it, it was not only possible but probable.

  ***

  A week later, she was walking down 6th Street with Margot. She had given up her job at Merrymaids because Middleburg had told her it was not appropriate for the heir of the Founder-Vice President of Messinger’s to work in what was little better than a clip joint. And somewhat contrary to his expectation, she had agreed with him. It would give her more time to work on thwarting him. Meanwhile, she was exercising her freedom in the new Middleburg ménage.

  Mr Merriman, though annoyed at first on hearing her news (‘lousy drop-out’), was impressed by her report of the impending ceremony and wanted her to go on writing songs for him. She said she would be happy to do that.

  She and Margot had been idly looking at clothes downtown, as one does. They were moving towards Bullock’s on Wilshire and at the same time vaguely looking for somewhere to eat.

  ‘Have you settled on a date yet?’ asked Margot. Marie had told her that Middleburg wanted her to marry David.

  ‘Three weeks or so, I think.’

  ‘You shouldn’t do it.’

  ‘I am no one. I don’t exist. I’ll be deported if I make a fuss. But where to – England? Germany? Even there I have no records. I am an unperson. I only exist because of Middleburg. Once I am Mrs David, I will have a footing. I can start making plans…’

  ‘But you don’t love him.’

  ‘I do in a way. I did. He can help me find my child. It’s his child too.’

  ‘Middleburg will still have a hold over you, because that’s his game…’

  There was a pause and Marie took advantage of it. ‘Margot, why did you appear in that film?’

  ‘What film?’

  ‘You know, the party one.’

  ‘Oh, that. They asked us to keep it quiet. It was meant to be a surprise.’

  ‘Who asked you?’

  ‘The film company. It seemed OK. Quite witty, actually.’

  ‘Oh.’ Marie wondered for the first time if she really completely trusted Margot.

  ‘You might have told me,’ she said.

  But there was still one person she trusted.

  ***

  The wedding preparations were even more elaborate than for her aborted wedding to Middleburg himself. All the details turned out to be much the same as on that previous occasion, only more extreme. There were swags, there were festoons, there was bunting, there were curlicues, there was – everywhere – what the French call signes extérieurs de richesse.

  It was going to be a civil ceremony; Marie didn’t want to make vows before a priest and David, being divorced, seemed to have no firm opinion on the matter.

  ‘Anything you like, hon,’ he told her.

  ‘Don’t call me hon. That’s what we used to call the Nazis. Huns.’

  ‘OK, hon … I mean darling.’

  David couldn’t believe his luck in marrying his childhood sweetheart – that’s what he kept telling everyone – who also happened to be his passport to untold riches (which he mentioned only to one or two close associates). In anticipation of this, he had given her an engagement ring featuring a diamond of unusual opulence.

  The wedding itself passed in a blur. Middleburg gave her away, David and she said ‘I do’, David produced a ring and David’s now divorced parents, each with a new, almost identical partner, sat on the groom’s side of the enormous Middleburg drawing-room where the ceremony was held and gave her a glad if somewhat guilty eye. He had not told them about the child, which in other circumstances they would have said could not possibly be his, but they were conscious of their role in having driven the young Romeo and Juliet apart.

  The reception was long and gastronomically acclai
med. Speeches of great weight and length were made. Marie drank too much and David drank much too much, but finally, far too late, the tumult and the shouting died and they went upstairs to their suite in the Middleburg mansion (so christened by Marie) where they were staying the night. They were catching a flight to Nice first thing in the morning and Middleburg said it would be madness to sleep anywhere else.

  David had insisted that they should honeymoon in Cannes where it had all started.

  ***

  Cannes was little changed, but it seemed completely different.

  There were small, inevitable alterations. Marguerite had gone from her plage. There was a new face in the bar at the Bristol and a monster yacht lay in the harbour. When she had last been here, the place had been suffused in the rosy glow of youth and love. Now she wasn’t so young any more and love was off the menu.

  They hired a car and drove up to St Paul de Vence and the Colombe d’Or with the lovely swimming pool and the even lovelier food. They went to Antibes and Mougins and looked at the lavender fields. They bought perfume for her and aftershave for him. David ate a great deal, drank a lot of red wine and became noticeably plumper. They swam in the sea and had lunch on the beach under the awning. They even took out a sailing boat and forgot about the strong wind that blows up around noon, making it hard to come back, but they managed it. He made love to her a great deal, usually in the hotel. They tried once under the stars, but the pine-needles prickled. This time, she took precautions. She thought he enjoyed the honeymoon. She hoped so.

  Every now and then she would take out her passport and look at it carefully.

  On their return to LA, they moved into the new house in Beverly Hills that Middleburg had bought for them. It had a swimming pool and a privet hedge and a maid who came every day, and a gardener to take care of the pool and the lawn. David had his first day at the office in Wilshire and came back full of his new job and his colleagues. She could tell he had an attractive secretary with whom he would soon be unfaithful to her. But it didn’t upset her. They had married because they both needed to be married and that was an end to it.

  Marie was glad that she had kept her old studio apartment. She needed somewhere to be alone. Somewhere to work. She told them she was starting a children's book about a girl who had lost her mother. Middleburg expressed an interest in publishing the story. He had even thought of a good ending, he told her. She didn't ask what it was.

  ***

  Three weeks after the wedding Middleburg had arranged a big welcome-back supper party – how he loved a party, or so he said – in aid of which he had ordered a reputedly amazing conjuror to entertain the guests: just a few friends, about forty in number, mostly David’s, at home. Marie’s only friends were Margot and a few girls from Merrymaids, who were considered unsuitable, but they came anyway.

  The conjuror spoke with a mid-European accent and had a familiar face, yet Marie was sure she had never met him. Of course, sometimes one does meet someone new yet strangely familiar, just as occasionally someone smiles at you in the street as though you both belong to a secret club, just for a moment as you pass. So it was with this man.

  Something strange happened during his act. He had said he was going to make a member of the audience disappear and invited volunteers for the role. Marie put her hand up because she rather wanted to disappear. A couple of other girls also volunteered. He invited them all up on stage and she stood there, with the two others, grinning foolishly. To each one, he asked the question: why do you want me to make you disappear?

  The first girl, name of Annabel, said, ‘I want to see what it feels like.’ Lots of laughter, barracking and feely jokes, some going a little too far.

  The second one called Suzanne said, ‘I don’t mind disappearing, but I want to come back.’ More laughter and cries of ‘why?’ and ‘but it’s good on the other side’.

  But to Marie, he whispered a message of his own.

  ‘I don’t have to make you disappear. You can do it perfectly well by yourself.’ He said it as though he knew her. That is magicians for you.

  ‘Whisper something to me. Anything,’ he told her.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she said. ‘You are a good magician.’

  ‘She says she doesn’t want to disappear. She’s having a great time as it is,’ he announced to the gathering. There were cheers and whoops and all the sounds of wealthy America at play. Thinking about it later, it seemed as though the man had indeed passed her a message and it gave her an idea. No – it gave her determination.

  ***

  That was why, a few days later, she stood on the kerb by a dusty road near a gas station somewhere on the outskirts on the wrong side of LA. She was holding a bag which contained her passport, The Oxford Book of English Verse, her toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush and comb, some minimal make-up in a sponge-bag, a spare shirt and jeans, two spare pairs of knickers and what money she had – about a hundred and fifty dollars. The clothes she had bought in LA were all left behind. A suitcase would have been too noticeable, too heavy.

  She had told Middleburg and the Grimshaws and her husband that she was going to spend the evening at Merrymaids, would probably be late as befitted her last appearance at the place and that she would therefore stay at her little apartment in Echo Park. They made no trouble. Why should they? She was married. Independence up to a point had been part of her bargain with Middleburg. It seemed to her prudent, however, not to spend the night at her studio, which they would be watching, but to book into a little hotel nearby where no questions would be asked and no answers given. She had been sorry to say goodbye to her studio. She had grown to love the place, it marked a new chapter in her life, and it was the closest she had ever come to having a home of her own.

  She had left before dawn and where possible had kept to the side streets, walking in darkness. There was hardly anyone about. By the time the sun was rising she was well into the suburbs.

  Half an hour later, things didn’t look so good. The thought crossed her mind that maybe he was not going to come. She paused to look at her map. A sudden wind blew the dust on the sidewalk and it rattled the empty beer cans. She was in a part of town she didn’t know; pale houses stretched away on either side. For a moment, insecurity swept over her, shaking her resolve. He’d had second thoughts. Middleburg had found a way to stop him.

  Well, if he did not come, she would catch a bus which would take her to some other dusty place where she could disappear. But could she? Would she? Perhaps there could be no future without a past. She had a vision of her comfortable bed in her new home and the sleepy tranquillity of life in the house in Beverly Hills. It had been safe and undisturbed. She hadn’t had to make decisions there. She could still go back. Middleburg and the Grimshaws would look after her and Fist, or something worse, would see she never strayed. It was the sort of thought she’d had when first diving off the high board in the (unheated) school swimming pool, the plunge into the unknown.

  And then she thought how meagre it would be to wait around until Middleburg considered the experiment was over. It was not an option. Besides, was that what he really wanted – the end of the game? She was sure he did not and neither, certainly, did she. She still had a few pawns to play – maybe more. Was that what the experiment was really about? She felt her childhood detach and float away from her like a spent rocket.

  And now she stood waiting. She was early. She kept her head down and the hood of her coat up.

  A bus drew up a few yards away from her, with people looking idly out of the window. What did they see? Was she there at all? She made a decision. But was it her decision? Had any of her decisions really been hers? She climbed aboard, paid the driver five dollars and made her way towards an empty seat. The bus pulled out and accelerated down the road to nowhere. Houses and trees flew by; the world was all before her.

  Marie settled back into her seat and prepared to be swallowed up by the vastness of America.

  Three minutes later, a Ch
evrolet van arrived at the gas station. The driver – with a slightly Red Indian appearance, a Chumash if you were a connoisseur of such matters – looked around, waited, checked his watch and the details on the bus stop, walked into the gas station to use the telephone and called a number. He spoke briefly, nodded, returned to his van and drove off in the direction the bus had taken.

  Soon he too was no more than a wriggle of dust on the road.

  * * *

  *Dear Moon, you ride so quietly

  Through the evening clouds.

  The wise will of your Creator

  Directs you in your course.

  Kindly shine for the weary one

  In the quiet little room

  And your light will pour peace

  Into the oppressed heart!

  The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies

  Three gypsies stood at the castle gate,

  They sang so high, they sang so low.

  The lady sat in her chamber late,

  Her heart it melted away like snow.

  They sang so sweet, they sang so shrill,

  That fast her tears began to flow,

  And she cast down her silken gown,

  Her golden rings and all her show.

  She plucked off her high-heeled shoes

  A-made of Spanish leather, O,

  She would in the street with her bare, bare feet,

  All out in the wind and weather, O.

  O saddle to me my milk-white steed,

  And go and fetch me my pony, O!

  That I may ride and seek my bride,

  Who is gone with the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O.