Mysteries of Motion

by Hortense Calisher

  “Seat Six?”

  “Seat Six to you, boy. A princess born—and she is one. You know they’re gonna do half the parturition out there in non-G, to see if there’s pain or isn’t there—a test case? Why’d she agree to it? It’s not the pain is it, I said; it’s not the limelight.” He chuckles. “She answers, ‘Mr. Tuohy—did your babies breast-feed?’” Over his saw-toothed red eyelid the forehead itself is now a faint pink. “So. Time for my sleep-shift. You guys never gonna eat?” He makes for the cot, tapping a pill-dispenser, tearing open the packet, popping the pill in his mouth and flinging the empty in the bin all the way, a soda-jerk ballet.

  “Frank—whistle something first. I get hungry for live music.” Mole knows he really is hungry for the friends whose secret image of themselves comes out in the music they cluster to. It’s the kind of key to yourself you can safely hand around, a form of comradeship.

  But Frank’s whistling is a form of speech. An ironic commentary on his thoughts.

  This time it’s a medley, bits of anthems thrown together. There’s the “Marseillaise.” Then something German. Then the “Volga Boat Song.” Through them the “Star-Spangled Banner” rides triumphant, giving in to a marine-band drill style catch for some bars, rising in a virtuoso trilling toward the awful high note of “Fre-ee” and flattening just as the voice always does, to the not quite lame “ah-ah of—the brave.”

  “I always like that sour ending,” Mole says. “After that impossible high.” Bringing back those shrieking school periods in postures of Attention warm with body-smell, and the imminent release onto the grass of recess—always with the same large sense of belonging to a great if bumbling nation. Not one too neat, like the French.

  “Doesn’t do to save from war to war,” Gilpin says. “The glory never quite fits.”

  Frank’s already snoozing, braced against his moonbeam drawer whose contents he sometimes toys with, shifting the prosthetics there like instructive playthings, cannily estimating their non-performance. The dummy cigarette is lax between his fingers. Though his eyes are shut the flashburns make them seem open in a secondary mask of fright.

  Gilpin, bending to slip the cigarette into the sleeper’s breastpocket, nicks in his head at the sight. “Or the rocket’s red glare.”

  It has grown cold in the Sick Bay. The Auxiliary Environment maybe takes a while to come up to scratch. Mole unsnaps the thermal coverlet from the base of the cot and draws it over the sleeper to protect his body defenses.

  “People when they sleep—they look so—Unknown.”

  Outside in the general corridor he and Gilpin part. Gilpin eats in the cabin’s galley. Mole eats with the second crew, where he also sleeps. Though now and then—he suspects, when something hush-hush is going on there, they let him sleep in Cabin Six, for which they’ve given him a super hang-style sleeping bag. They’ve been nice to him.

  During liftoff this corridor was in total non-G. as it will be again during docking. Meanwhile, a kind of limbo gravity is maintained here, not as forceful as in the main rooms of their section of the ship but sufficient to allow for “ground” walking, and freeing them to wear their fatigues. If it weren’t for the gymnastics in the drill room, where he and Lievering nose-dive and float like giddy Wordsworths in daffodil light—“Which poem are we walking to, today?” Lievering will shout in the gaiety that overtakes him only in non-G—Mole might altogether forget the altered world they’re going to.

  This corridor’s also the least demanding part of the vehicle, having none of the labelings which define and instruct everywhere else. There are even no handrails, though the manual showed them. Perhaps an economy. No one will be here anyway in the crucial times of ascent or descent—or entry and reentry, as he must learn to think of it. Now its long bare limbo is soothing. He’s standing in a cylinder slightly more than man-high, flattened enough at its base to accommodate his in-flight passenger-sandal, or even—he can imagine it—the soles of men soon to be walking into a new century. Or riding.

  It’s a kind of log cabin of the mind, here. A small, unadorned place, of the sort minds have gone to since the beginning of mind, hoping for clarity.

  What’s the medic so afraid of? What frightened him on the flight deck, that he almost certainly knew of, well before? That he saw in extension, in the weird shine of the star-screen? Or in the unexpected flame from behind it? Against which he’d carried in his kit.

  “I-Ching, a-ching, ching,” Mole says, tapping the no-color almost soft wall with the nails he’s let grow long here, imitating Lievering. That is what he and his live-in girl—the one no one knew about, not even Fred—used to say, tossing the omen-sticks onto the counterpane or his drawing table, or flinging sticks of kindling onto the open fire of the apartment he’d moved to because of her, refusing to occupy hers. She, transferred back now by the consular office she worked for, had sometimes chanted in Finnish along with the sticks. She wasn’t too old for him, her sticks had always foretold. But whenever he tossed them, he was too young. I-Ching. A-ching, ching.

  She’d been the most diagnostic of his girls. In glimpses, he still likes to talk to her.

  This is a glimpse. Loopholes are fine and necessary, like the bedtime-past one scrutinizes, but they don’t move you on. A glimpse is wet with the future, like the foal Chape once sent all the senior form to watch get born, saying: Should have done it when you first came.

  In it he can see what scared Frank. The robot vehicle itself, moving on. Not a true robot, the Courier. Nothing like the goofy single-task satellites that seeded earth’s almost suburban belt of them, one or more at this moment reporting the Courier into the homes of civilians who may or may not look at it. Seeable in Finland, too, she’d said. No, the Courier, half-rocket, half-plane, is also a hybrid in brain. Humans cached somewhere on Canaveral or elsewhere are breathing over it as they can. To those cached here. On the not quite robotomized, yet less than autonomous Courier. That’s what Frank saw.

  It’s on the edge of glory, too, that combination. A glory suitable for a man Mole’s own age. Mole raises an arm.

  “No captains here yet, Freddie—” Mole shouts. “Nobody in the main seat.”

  IN THE GALLEY

  GILPIN, ON HIS WAY to the cabin to consult the dictionary in his documents box, checks in at the galley first for what his stomach now recognizes as dinner and even looks forward to. He’s always late. Mulenberg and Wert are already there. They always wait for him in that blend of mutual anxiety, irritation and necessary affection which has come over all of them as a result of their locked-in propinquity. The minute he arrives the punching of buttons begins. Some are on the wall, some at tableside. In a minute their menu is assembled. Touching to see how first this man then that will give a nudge to a packet so that the table will have a semblance of place-setting—men who in most of their lives never set a table before.

  They’ve long since developed a joke routine. “Noisette of lamb—” Wert will say, fingering the stew packet. “With mint jelly? Odd. And I’m afraid the champagne’s only Spanish.” The nozzle for soft drink pulls up from the table, like those for water, milky coffee and a juice which tastes heavily of ascorbic acid. In a pinch—if the mechanical spinning which produces the galley’s modicum of G-force should fail that is—a nozzle can be sprayed directly into a mouth clamped tightly over it, but they’ve almost forgotten this. Like ordinary air travelers they repress all thoughts of any pinch. At least at table.

  The first day all were outraged at the thought that the coffee could have as easily been black, allowing one of the options which meant so much here. For three days running Mulenberg, proud of his winesmanship, pretended to offer them Pouilly Fuissé of different years, to no avail; nobody will touch the soft drink. “No tea?” Wert said early. “That’ll be hard on my wife.” What joy, when powdered tea was discovered. Gilpin yearned for mineral water, Italian preferred. Salads were wistfully spoken of, with some talk as to whether hydroponic vegetables were already in production on habitat.
Now all that’s over; they merely eat, even the ever-present ice cream, a welcome solvent for dry throat. Almost by convention now, Gilpin’s thinking, we’re all optimists.

  “There’ll be beer,” Mulenberg says today, sitting down. “Saw to it myself before leaving Washington. Some in the Payload Bay too. Forgot all about it until yesterday. When I talked to them. Man, that’s a setup in there. Makes our company’s communications room look a toy. One whole end of the flight deck.”

  “You talk about the beer?” Gilpin said.

  Mulenberg laughs. On matters of power he’s not to be embarrassed.

  Wert, who eats unconcernedly of anything and with broadly functional manners, now has a dark mustache of bean sludge. On him it looks grandee. He’s the only one who doesn’t miss cutlery.

  Mulenberg continues stoking in his usual double ration. “No, I bargained. Said I wouldn’t serve except jointly, along with you, Wert. You surprised?”

  “Nothing surprises me about bargaining. Only if there weren’t any.”

  “But you don’t mind I asked?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Don’t you want to hear their answer?”

  “They agreed to it. For say—five and a half months.”

  Gilpin realizes what he’s watching. One negotiator who thinks he’s a master and doesn’t care who sees it. One who is, but would rather not let it show.

  “How’d you know?”

  “My wife has an—aeromedical agreement with them. For about that time.”

  “That when her baby’s due?”

  “She’ll have it in their lab. On habitat. Less birth trauma, they allege, for the child. My wife’s on her way to forty—a first child. And she has certain—muscular rigidities—extending from the fascia of the lower back.”

  So that’s how he bargained to get her here—both with her and with Washington?

  “They said—” Jack hesitates. “That for the look of the thing, I’ll have to appear to make the decisions. You mind that?”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “So they said. Well. That gets everybody out of the hole.” Mulenberg gets up. “Excuse me.” On the way to the Hygiene Unit he reaches back to pat Wert’s shoulder. They hear him try one unit door, then enter the other side.

  Wert looks after him quizzically. He wipes the mustache from his face.

  “What a bargainer you are,” Gilpin says. “They’ll use your experience—which is what they need—and big business will be satisfied.”

  Wert’s looking amused. “Big business, as you call it, always goes to the toilet after a deal’s closed. It’s second only to the cigar.”

  “But you and your wife would have stayed on in any case?”

  “As she wishes.”

  “Then why bother? To consent to it.”

  “I was brought up to serve. Not always being sure of the intention.” Wert’s response is quick, his voice hard. “The bargaining you learn. Then you learn—that it never stops.” He got up, walked tensely round the table and sat down, again the lazy, tentative Wert they know. “At the end of the time period they’ll let Mulenberg go, too, of course. Care to guess why? No? Don’t blame you. So simple it took me a lifetime to learn.” Wert looked over his shoulder. “They’ll do exactly as the Russians would. Or the Chinese. They’ll let him go for having displayed personal allegiances.”

  “You have none of those? Except to the lady, of course.”

  “Not at all. Have them. Just don’t let them show.” Wert’s smile appears, the tired one. “And always bargain short-term. Never let yourself see the end of it.”

  “Ah?” The food’s depressed Gilpin. Or blame the food. “I’m a—long-term man, myself. See though why you’d hesitate—constitutionally.”

  When Wert laughs aloud he can look quite young. “That’s such a Southernism. We have everything like we have the rheumatiz—constitutionally. How’d you come by it?”

  “Boston, my mother. Southerners of the North. Anyway, it was good of you, not to embarrass him.”

  “He cuts his losses. He and I’ll do very well. Though I suspect my household might embarrass him.”

  “Lordy, of course. That Southerner?” Gilpin said. “First the double wedding everybody read about, years back? Rome, Georgia?”

  “Athens, Georgia. My Christian wedding, yes. They tied magnolias to the trees. My old cousin likes to make the South exist again.”

  “She married the butler, both of them in their eighties.”

  “In their nineties now. She and Fereydoun preceded us down the aisle. She said she wanted to go to bed with a man at least once, now that it was safe. Though I doubt they did. But Fereydoun was never exactly a butler. And had inherited a great deal of Iranian money. Which he was unexpectedly allowed to keep.”

  “But you didn’t take your inheritance, by all accounts.”

  “Er, no, I didn’t. That went to my other wife, Soraya, in Switzerland, where it had been banked. She wasn’t yet my wife, at the time. She invested it to considerable advantage for her family’s sake, then returned the original sum to Iran. In exchange for certain—promises. To all of them. In our case so that she and I—so that there could be a wedding. And so that nobody would be assassinated at the reception. Even in Paris, they have a very long arm—my two Sorayas’ enemies.” He waited politely for possible comment. Many people must want to. When Gilpin made none, Wert ducked in acknowledgment, and went on. “That’s where Mulenberg and I did meet. At the wedding reception. My Muslim one.”

  “The second one?” Gilpin said. “Oh well yes. The Christian one would’ve had to be first.”

  They both look up at Mulenberg reentering.

  “Wert says you were at his Paris wedding.”

  “Only been to one in Paris. The Elysée. Packed. Man from Ottoman Grindlay’s Bank in Oman took me. Never did see the groom. Thought he must be some kin to all those Iranian beauties from Switzerland.” His eyes narrow at Wert. “You mean—”

  “I was from there. At the time. So was my boss, Ordoobadi—remember him? Friend of your friend from Grindlay’s Bank. You came there by appointment. To meet him.”

  “The Elysée?” Gilpin said. “Who gave the party, the President of France?”

  “Oh nothing like that,” Wert said. “Just one of the smaller rooms. That’s why it was packed.”

  “No, not the President.” Mulenberg’s rocking on his heels, as much as sandals allow. “But tell him who.”

  “Matter of fact, um—the Sultan. The former Sultan of Muscat.”

  “A mutual friend,” Mulenberg said. “Of my friend and Wert’s.”

  “Friends of friends of friends. It’s confusing.”

  “Not when they’re in armaments, Tom. Or looking for them.” Mulenberg’s laughter rolls. “Your head nipped in at that like a falcon’s, Tom. Had a pet one, once. No, the Sultan on that occasion was a general customer. I’m only in industrial aerospace. Poor Ordoobadi, Wert’s friend—he’s only in software. Yes, he introduced you and me, Wert. Just didn’t catch on you were the groom.”

  “The Sultan was just then presenting Mulenberg with a handsome gold artifact,” Wert said. “What a piece. A breast ornament presumed to date from the Portuguese occupation. Or even earlier. But first he modeled it on the nearest woman. Who wore no jewelry. He remarked on it. A bride.”

  Mulenberg inclines his big head. “A beauty. I remember her very—Bride?”

  “The other Soraya?” Gilpin can’t help himself.

  “At the moment,” Wert says.

  “I beg your pardon,” Gilpin says low. “From your memoir, I see them so plain.”

  “Oh, that’s their family characteristic. One does. That’s why people like me take up with them.”

  “And what of—Manoucher?”

  “Doing very well. In Rio, with a horde of relatives.” Wert turns back to Mulenberg. “Both my wives are named Soraya.”

  “I gave the Sultan’s gift to my daughter,” Mulenberg says stiffly.

 
; “Ah?” Gilpin can’t help saying it. “Which one?”

  Wert stands up between them, quickly.

  “An Amazon of Ephesus, it was,” Mulenberg adds, sullen. “But Tessa’s commune isn’t fussy. So it’s hanging in Mendocino. Safe as anything is above a sink.”

  “Good God.” Gilpin walks his long gallery in the apartment now sold. Did deserted objects somewhere in their molecules scream for us? “Once saw a vase of your description in Isfahan, Wert. I recall you sent yours to Madame—Manoucher’s mother?—in a biscuit box. Still keep her in supply?”

  “Madame died two years ago. But happily. Bought herself two hotels in Vevey, grew thin with the help of the spas and expired in the arms of a gigolo who turned out to be richer than she. He’d simply had the temperament.”

  “Biscuits. Bath Olivers?”

  “Romary’s Tunbridge Wells.”

  “Ah God—the absolute pearls. With cheese.”

  The table, littered with silvery transparencies emptied of their liquids and solids, reminds Gilpin of Tuohy’s moonbeam drawer.

  “Tessa won’t have anything to do with the business. I spoke with both of them,” Mulenberg says.

  “And Maidie?”

  “The one present I could have given her years ago. She jumped at it.”

  “From—so far.”

  Mulenberg slaps the table. “For men like you, Tom, all miracles have to come by faith. Any from our own efforts, you despise. Like”—he makes a grand, enveloping gesture—“this.”

  “I apologize.” Gilpin stamps his foot at himself. “Ow. Had my shooting-stick, wouldn’t happen.”

  “Someone has to be historian,” Wert says. “If—I could make a—ah, suggestion, Gilpin?”

  “So early in my career?”

  “Keep this trip—keep seeing us—in the particular. Don’t be too—”