Here & There

by Joshua V. Scher

  Except for the nurse who kept eyeballing me from behind her cherry-wood counter, mustering a patronizing though still wary smile every time I happened to meet her gaze. She’d been suspicious since the moment I handed her Dr. Rasmussen’s Scotch taped–together business card. I can’t really blame her. Even if I did do my best to sound professional and state I was sent to see him by Dr. Hilary Kahn. Let’s not forget I’m running on about eighty minutes of sleep, a couple grams of Sudafed dust, and a liter-and-a-half of Starbucks. If I were in Nurse Wary’s orthopedic white shoes, I’d probably be halfway through filling out an admittance form for me.

  They’re out there.

  Best opening line of any American novel. Damn it if maybe I didn’t belong in here. Truth be told I wasn’t feeling paranoid anymore. I sat in the leather and steel chair staring out at the woods and wasn’t imagining Department commandos coalescing out of the trees like the Viet Cong in a war movie.

  But they’re out there.

  Nurse Wary raised a quizzical eyebrow at me. I think I might’ve laughed out loud to myself without realizing it.

  I gave her a wink. “Just thinking of an old joke.”

  She nodded and went back to pretending to work.

  I wanted a smile. “I knew a reporter who got a tip about this insane asylum that was holding sane people against their will. So, she went there to check it out. Snuck in and snooped around. Stumbled into the gymnasium where a guy was shooting hoops and sinking every shot. My reporter friend asked if he was being held there against his will, and he said, ‘Yeah, I was gonna be in the NBA until they locked me in here.’ She took note and continued her exploration. Not too long after she found a woman playing a beautiful song on the violin. When my reporter friend asked the woman if she was being held against her will, the woman said, ‘I am. I was going to be a concert violinist but they locked me in here.’ My friend frowned and shared her sympathy and went off to do some more digging. Found her way into another patient’s room, where a man sat naked at a card table, with his penis in a bowl of almonds. My reporter friend asked, ‘Are you being held against your will?’ The man said, ‘No, I’m fucking nuts!’”

  Not even a chortle.

  “Dr. Rasmussen will see you now,” she said, and gestured up the stairs. “Take a right at the top, third door on the left.”

  I went with one last glance at the woods. Let ‘em be out there. I’m in here. I took the stairs two at a time.

  Halfway up, the nurse called out to me, “Stay away from the nuts.”

  I laughed and continued my bounding.

  * * *

  -----Original Message-----

  From: Donald Pierce [mailto:donald.pierce@darpa.mil]

  Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2008 11:56 p.m.

  To: larry.woodbury@darpa.mil

  Subject: prodigal wife

  Larry, how can there still be no update on the Retrieval Team? They couldn’t have just disappeared between JFK and the safe house . . .

  Until we know more, we stick with ignorant Good Cop role. While I concede your point on the effectiveness of intimidation through insinuation, the fact is our position is weak. Especially considering the fact that mother goose and the ducklings have returned to roost. And clearly with some impressive help.

  I want you to get up to NYC first thing in the morning and personally debrief the DHS boys. Make sure there were no official mentions.

  If we’re clear on that, then it was a run-of-the-mill random SNAFU. The RT business happened off campus. For all we know it was a disinformation strategy staged by any number of unfriendly competing parties.

  As such, it’s an opportunity to officially implement round-the-clock security—for their own safety.

  The aggregate of all the recent coincidences adds up to a deliberate and designed sum.

  -DP

  Their reunion is heartfelt—hugs, tears, kisses, apologies—but nevertheless a complete and utter performance.

  Reidier can barely get the pizza onto the kitchen counter before Eve surges into him, burying her face in his chest, sobbing into his embrace. Otto is wrapped around his leg, for a knee-height hug. Reidier rains down susurrations of comfort, his right hand on his son’s head, his left grabbing a fistful of Eve’s hair while he kisses her and whispers into her ear. He murmurs indecipherable directives while staring over her shoulder, across the room, at Ecco, who sits on the table examining the trio with a detached curiosity.

  Eve gives the slightest of nods when Reidier finishes.

  It’s hard to say whether Reidier’s near-manic state of disbelief is a result of Eve’s absence, Curzwell’s story, or the Department’s involvement (or lack thereof). All that’s clear is that Reidier is a man colliding with the edge of his limitations and badly bruising his psyche as a result.

  For several minutes he keeps going back and forth from Eve to Otto, touching, scanning, caressing, grasping. “I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry,” he says.

  “I know, my love,” she says.

  “But you’re good? You’re ok? No one’s hurt?”

  “We’re all fine.”

  Again Reidier’s gaze drifts over to Ecco. He crosses over behind him, kisses the top of his head, and runs his hands across Ecco’s shoulders and arms.

  “The boys didn’t give you too much trouble?”

  “No, they were—”

  “Ecco didn’t give you too much trouble?”

  “—fine. Ecco was good. Just some trouble sleeping. We went to the Met. He liked the hall of statues. We all agreed the statue of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s Ugolino and His Sons was the best.”

  Reidier nods, registering Eve said something, but not really hearing more than they’re all ok.

  Later that evening, after putting the boys to bed, Reidier and Eve find themselves sitting on the floor, on opposite sides of the hall outside Otto’s and Ecco’s rooms.

  They listen to the children sleep, mirroring each other’s postures. Reidier’s left leg bent upward, his left arm resting on his knee, Eve’s right leg bent upward, her right arm resting on her knee. His right leg stretched out across the hall floor, her left leg the same. Their stockinged feet touching, pushing against each other, rocking their feet to the right in unison.

  “What did the doctors at Sloan Kettering say?”

  Eve shrugs. “That I have a brain tumor. That it’s too deep to operate. That there are some experimental chemo treatments. Everything Bert already went over with us.”

  Reidier chokes on his thought. “I can’t lose you. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t be. Without you here, it was like some sort of walk-through play rehearsal, just to get through the day. I wasn’t me, I was my own stand-in. I can’t lose you.” The tears drip off his chin and blossom into a Rorschach spot on his shirt. He shakes his head no in answer to some unasked question.

  “I know.”

  Eve crawls across the hall to him, crawls between his legs, kisses his salty lips. “I know.” Her hand rests on his chest, over his heart. “You’re here with me. I feel you.”

  Reidier nods.

  “I see you, Kerek.” She kisses him again. “I see you.”

  “I see you,” he echoes.

  Eve half smiles, half frowns at him. “We simply have to do it your way.”

  Reidier nods.

  “You won’t lose me?”

  Reidier shakes his head no.

  Eve smiles and stands. Her gaze drifts down the hall toward the boys’ rooms. “Maybe it’ll be a catharsis, for all of us.” Her kisses gently touch the top of Reidier’s head.

  Eve walks down the hall into their bedroom.

  Reidier watches her go. He dries his eyes on his sleeve and then gets up to check on the boys. Otto sleeps soundly. Ecco lies in his bed, wide awake. Reidier collects the boy and carries him downstairs with him into his lab, and calls Pierce.

  Transcript excerpt from the phone log of the Office of the Director of the Strategic Technology, Donald Pierce; 6/12/2008, 1:32 a.m.

  P
ierce: Kerek? What time is it?

  Reidier: The men in the SUV outside, they’re yours?

  Pierce: Yes. Department Security. After everything that happened today, we figured your family could use the extra security.

  Reidier: What is it that happened today?

  Pierce: I’m sending Larry up to debrief with DHS and find out. (sighs) Honestly, we should be asking you, though. The higher-ups have been chomping at the bit to talk to Eve. It took a lot of string pulling to get them to back down, so I can give you guys a little room to recuperate. We’re going to need to talk to her, though.

  Reidier: No. You won’t.

  Pause.

  Reidier: Eve doesn’t know anything. None of them do. The men who took them were in masks. They didn’t talk to them, they didn’t torture them, they didn’t hold them for three days.

  Pause.

  Reidier: All they did was drop them at the train station in Stamford and give them train tickets home.

  Pierce: Now why in the hell would they go to all the trouble to do that?

  Reidier: The more pressing question for me is why were they being held by the Department?

  Pierce: Kerek, I told you already, that was DHS. Some clerical error put Eve on a watch list. I would’ve had her out of there in an afternoon if I had found out about it sooner.

  Reidier: And you didn’t find out until after they had been freed?

  Pierce: Interdepartmental bullshit politics. Like I said, a clerical SNAFU. A threat to your family is the same as a threat to the Department.

  Reidier: They weren’t threatening my family. They were leveling the playing field.

  Pierce: . . . At your request?

  Pause.

  Pierce: Look Kerek, if you don’t work with me, I can’t protect you.

  Reidier: I told you, we weren’t threatened.

  Pierce: Not from them.

  Pause.

  Reidier: The higher-ups?

  Pause.

  Reidier: Did they have the DHS detain Eve and the boys?

  Pierce: I don’t know. Honest to goddamn Christ. It’s above my pay grade. All I know is you’re of great value to the Department, and the best thing for all of us is for you to finish your work.

  Pause.

  Reidier: Eve has a brain tumor.

  Pierce: Shit. I’m sorry to hear that. I know some folks over at NIH. I could pull some strings . . .

  Reidier: As long as I finish my work. Which is it, Pierce, are you a puppet or a puppeteer?

  Pierce: I’m a fr—I’m a man with a vested interest in you. Our fates are bound together. Which makes me a whole lot more trustworthy than any other goddamn friend you’ve got. I’ll help you, I’ll help Eve as long as I’m permitted.

  Reidier: It’s out of your hands.

  Pierce: Kerek—

  CLICK

  NB Footage: Providence, June 22, 2008 3:08 a.m.—

  Kerek shuffles into Ecco’s room and looks down at the sleeping boy. He half smiles, sighs, and sits down on the floor next to the bed, leaning back against the wall, and shuts his eyes. Ecco turns over and faces his father. He reaches his small hand out and touches his father’s face.

  “Still awake?” Kerek asks, opening his eyes.

  Ecco nods.

  “I can’t sleep either.”

  They sit in silence for a few moments. Ecco moves his hands up to his father’s brow and lightly draws his fingers down over Kerek’s eyes, closing them. Ecco keeps repeating the gesture, his fingertips fluttering like raindrops across his father’s eyelids.

  Reidier smiles, enjoying the sensation. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Eve.”

  “You saw Mommy do that with Otto?”

  Ecco shakes his head. “She does it with me.”

  “That’s nice!” Reidier’s exhaustion covers up the surprise in his tone.

  Ecco keeps tracing his fingers over his father’s eyes. The boy starts singing in a light, soprano voice. “Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last. Just kicking down the cobblestones. Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.”

  Reidier relaxes into sleep.

  Ecco lies on his side, watching his father.

  *

  * * *

  * The worst part about going crazy is how sane you are for the whole ride down. Her ending can’t have been a to-do list.

  At the bottom of the briefcase was a key to room fourteen at the Stone’s Throw Inn, a Hertz car rental key, and an Amtrak ticket stub for one Mary Palmore from West Kingston Station, RI to Union Station, Washington, DC.

  Was this my mother’s last stand? Was this where she came to die? Butler on Blackstone?

  “Here we are,” Dr. Rasmussen announced as he crossed his office to the knock at the door. He smiled at me, his crow’s-feet turned up and pulled taut, some of the loose skin hanging off his cheeks and chin.

  He opened the door, and the sun flooded in around him and the figure now standing in the threshold. The light bled everything white, blackening them into silhouettes: Dr. Rasmussen engulfed by the swooping shape of his lab coat and the shade of Hilary hugging her arms around her torso, shadows of buckles dangling from her straitjacket.

  She wrested her arm loose from her constraints, reached for Dr. Rasmussen . . . and handed him a folder of papers?

  My pupils finally telescoped out the surge of sunlight, and I watched my mother morph into a female colleague of Dr. Rasmussen. The dangling straps of her straitjacket transmogrified into buckles and straps of a leather jacket, which the woman had kept on while they fixed the heat in her office.

  Dr. Rasmussen whispered his thanks and crossed back to his desk while I tried to get my heart rate back down below 250 bpms.

  “As I told you, I can’t disclose any patient information, but I don’t see a problem in sharing what your mother had him working on.” Dr. Rasmussen thumbed through the folder’s contents, then closed it and slid it across his desk toward me. “It’s a shame there won’t be more. This work has been very therapeutic for the patient. It prompted a significant calming effect.”

  The color suddenly drained out of Dr. Rasmussen’s face. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to imply that Hilary’s . . .”

  I held up my hand, like a benevolent pope. “It’s all right, Dr. Rasmussen. I know what you meant.”

  “Please, call me Steven.”

  “It’s ok. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.” I nodded at the folder on his desk between us. I didn’t reach for it.

  Steven frowned with sympathy. “How long has it been?”

  “Hard to say, since we don’t know exactly when she disappeared. Around two years, though.”

  “Your mother was a friend and a colleague. Her mind was beyond sharp.” Steven nodded. “How are you holding up?”

  “Like a seeding dandelion in a tornado.”

  He nodded again.

  “Steven, there is one other favor, if I might.” I put my hand on the folder. “Did my mother mention whom she was working for on this project?”

  “She just emphasized the need for discretion.”

  “Yes, she went to great lengths to conceal what she was doing here. From what I can garner, there’s a distinct possibility that her employer might have a hand in her disappearance.”

  “Jesus . . .”

  “Anyhow, I was wondering if we might continue her request for discretion.”

  “Of course, as I said as a doctor I cannot—”

  “Steven, I’m afraid I’m asking for a little more than that.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It had a professional, in-control tone. Apparently hallucinating visions of my mother really focused the shit out of me. “Is it possible that Hilary never came here? Never worked with any patient? Never picked up any material?” I picked up the folder and placed it in my lap.

  Steven took it all in, leaned back in his chair, and gazed out his window at the woods. Finally, he nodded and stood up. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I wish I could help mor
e, but I haven’t seen your mother in a number of years. Not since she came in to consult on a couple patients back around 2000.”

  He looked at me over the rim of his glasses. It took a second for me to catch on. “Well, thanks for your time,” I said, standing myself.

  I rolled up the folder and tucked it into my inside pocket.

  “Take care with that,” he said. “It’ll be the only remaining copy soon.”

  We shook hands and parted ways.

  It took me a while to open the folder. I was scared what might be in it, and I was terrified about what might not be in it.

  It sat on the passenger side, atop the mess of other folders from her report, while I stared out the windshield at the “Stuck-Up Bridge.” The Seekonk River Drawbridge had been stuck in the open position since the ‘70s, a charming bit of urban decay that had been another hook-up haunt of mine in college.

  After an hour of hemming, hawing, and a whole lot of muttering, I finally took a pen and gingerly flipped her folder open, like it might be booby-trapped.

  I knew what it was instantly. The chaotic designs, the seeming gibberish: these were pages from Leo’s Notebook—coded copies and decoded revelations.

  Her Blackstone cipher had cracked it. Some crazy kid lodged in Butler, well past sanity, who dreamt in prime numbers, had been able to tease apart the enigmas. Well, at least some of them.

  * * *

  LEO’S REIDIER’S

  NOTEBOOK: DECODED

  September 5, 2007

  Iteration 1* has proved psychologically successful. Ecco appears to have maintained all of his long-term memories since his initial appearance. More accurately, since the move to Providence. (This was not because he didn’t necessarily remember before that, but due to the fact that there did not seem to be sufficient means for testing his brief stint in Chicago. Therefore, whether his memory encompassed that time or not is still inconclusive.) Upon successful transfer, subject was immediately examined through an informal series of tests.**

  * * *