The Curiosity: A Novel

by Stephen Kiernan

  “Hey, wow.” I jostle him. “Aren’t you the Elvis of reanimation?”

  He shakes my hands off and gets right in my face. “We both know that you abandoned me completely.” And off he marches, straight for Section 37, Dixon ditched and deserted.

  Well, excuse the shit out of me, your fucking royal fucking highness.

  I wouldn’t have guessed Frank for a sulker, but he moped good and deep. Popped Gerber’s shades back on and shut the door behind. No cheers for the home team, no smile for the camera, goddamn teenager in paradise. That TV crew was going to love the postgame interview.

  “What happened back there?” Gerber asked.

  “Tell you later,” I said.

  “The twentieth century met the twenty-first,” the judge said, crawling back into his mope.

  No skin off me. The Yanks went into the ninth up 3–2, with two down. I was one out away from celebrating. But the Sox rallied. One guy hit to shallow right and got on base, then the next batter crowded the plate till he got a walk, and bingo, there were two men on. The place was raging, and our Frank couldn’t help but stand and join the noise. Gerber stood beside him and whistled.

  Now, in the old days, when all was right in baseball, at a moment like that you could count on the Red Sox to choke like a snake eating a car. Instead this ham-handed galoot from the Dominican stepped to the plate, swung at the first pitch, and hit that ball so goddamn hard I imagine it is still up there somewhere, not quite ready to come down.

  So, pandemonium. Sox win, 5–3. The galoot ran the bases, his pals slapping him high and low as he crossed the plate, while the fans hollered themselves hoarse.

  “Nuff said,” the judge shouted, shaking his cap in the air. “Nuff said.”

  Folks nearby stared at us. Gerber gave me a look that said, What the hell? I shrugged. He laughed, shaking his woolly head, and yelled “nuff said,” too.

  Well, fine. The seats were free, I’d put away a half-dozen dogs, and Gerber bought the beers, so who cares who won? Aside from the crazy-lady episode, the judge had shown himself to be a generally good time, too.

  The loudspeaker started up this tune, “Tessie,” which I hadn’t heard before, and which brought the weirdest moment of the whole day. Some kind of victory song, is what it was. I just sat back while everyone else bellowed the lyrics. Then I happened to notice our old Frank, and he was moving his lips with the words. Not singing, but mouthing right along.

  Now you tell me: when would he have even heard those lyrics, much less learned them by heart? And I realized I was asking myself the same question for the ninety-seventh time: who in the hell is this guy?

  CHAPTER 29

  Just Like Aviation

  My name is Jeremiah Rice, and I begin to accelerate.

  I first noticed in mornings, because I woke earlier. Next I realized what was occurring with books; I was reading faster, finishing sooner, yet enjoying them no less. Madame Bovary fell in a single afternoon. It felt as vivid as inhaling with a perfumed kerchief over my face.

  Subsequently I grew aware of my mind, which shook off the seaweed of lethargy, regained its prior keenness, then seemed to attain more. I understood quickly, I replied promptly, I adapted readily. Still I dismissed these changes as the false allure of pride, the mind always overeager to praise itself.

  However, the final and most persuasive indicator was my appetite, hunger that no volume of Dr. Borden’s fortified gruel could assuage. I snacked, I nibbled anything in reach, I dined outside of his dictates. It was neither a matter of disobedience nor discretion. The rather, at the baseball game I devoured some of the foulest foods of my life’s experience, yet sought more. The next morning, expecting indigestion, I instead discovered myself standing at the chamber window, curtains parted slightly as that reporter chomped through doughnuts as a workhorse does oats, whilst I leered like a dog begging at table.

  I heard the door slide back. “Good morning, Kate. I’ve missed you.”

  “Sorry, it’s just Andrew.” The technician, a black man, hesitated in the doorway.

  “Ah, Andrew. May I ask you a question? I’ve been meaning to for some time.”

  “Of course.”

  “What is your training?”

  “Well, I was a Princeton undergrad. Now I’m at Harvard in cell biology, ABD.”

  “ABD?”

  “All but dissertation, sir. I’m writing my doctoral paper on you.”

  “How odd that is to hear. Please let me know if I can be of any help.”

  “You already are, sir. I’m studying your mitochondria, based on blood we’ve been drawing from you.”

  “I am relieved to know all those needle stickings have a purpose. But may I ask one more question, a somewhat delicate thing?”

  “Anything at all, sir.”

  “Your credentials, your standing here. Is this unusual for a Negroid man today?”

  “A little.” He gave a radiant smile. “But that’s due to the competitiveness of the schools I’ve attended, not my race. Plenty of black people go to college now, and a growing number have advanced degrees.”

  “I am glad of it.”

  “If I may, though, Judge Rice?”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “We’re not called Negroid anymore. Just black. Or best, African American.”

  “Yes, I forgot that Dr. Gerber had mentioned as much. My apologies. And thank you for speaking with me today.”

  “It’s an honor, sir.”

  Andrew started for the door, then caught himself. “I nearly forgot. The reason I came in is that your first appointment of the day is here. In the private conference room.”

  “Thank you. Do you know where Dr. Philo is this morning?”

  He set a chair in the doorway, enabling me to exit later. “Sorry, sir, but I don’t.”

  Alone again, I removed Dr. Gerber’s electrodes, setting the tangle of wires on a side table. In the control room, Dixon was leaving as I entered.

  “Pardon me, do you know where Dr. Philo is today?”

  “You know, it’s been a while since she improved the scenery around here,” he said. “I think she had some deadline to meet for Carthage. ’Scuse me.”

  He hurried on, evidently heading for the washroom, leaving his box of doughnuts unattended.

  Oh,” the interviewer said, “I didn’t realize you hadn’t finished breakfast.”

  “One moment, please,” I replied, completing my purloined snack. “The person who manages my schedule has an obligation today, so I was unaware you would be coming. My apologies.”

  “No need to butter me up, Judge,” the reporter said, pulling papers from a briefcase. “It won’t influence what I write.”

  I marked the man for the first time. He was tall, well dressed, large hands but elegant. He gave his name—Steele—but his manner was off-putting. “Nor have I any reason to flatter or utter falsehoods,” I said.

  He nodded, not speaking, organizing his papers instead. He switched on a small box, placing it between us on the table.

  “What is that device?”

  “You honestly don’t know?”

  Long ago I developed a dislike for people who answer a question with a question. I decided to use Steele’s rhetoric back at him. “Why else would I ask?”

  He pursed his lips in a patronizing expression. “It records our conversation so I have an accurate transcript later. It protects you from being misquoted, and it protects me if you claim I misquoted you.”

  “Apparently accuracy is a concern for you.”

  If Steele was discomfited by my remark, he gave no sign. Nor did he embark based on prior news coverage, as other reporters had. The rather, he began by producing a copy of my senior thesis at Tufts. I scanned it with a sensation akin to vertigo, feeling the chasm of time that had passed since its composition. The document compared Iago’s powers of persuasion in Othello to those of Satan in Paradise Lost. Once upon a time I concerned myself earnestly with such things.

  “Any im
portant memories about that project today?” Steele asked. “Anything significant come to mind?”

  “Only that humanity’s capacity for deception, and self-deception, remains undiminished.”

  “Anything about the project itself? What you read? The scholars you quoted?”

  I smiled, flipping through the pages. “I was twenty years of age. Though I will say that your questions do spark a desire to reread Milton.”

  Steele next showed me an article I had published in law school, in the review. It concerned interstate commerce and a dispute between rail companies in adjoining states.

  “Anything of note about that case you’d care to share?”

  “Strange, how little I remember from that time. A law review paper would be a major endeavor. Yet I would not have said I had published anything.”

  Next the man produced a Globe clipping from the day I was sworn in as a judge. How he had reproduced that article onto a fresh sheet of paper baffled me.

  “Is there anything about your swearing-in that was remarkable? Anything you particularly remember?”

  I fell silent. Seeing that article reminded me of Joan, my confidante, my ballast. On the wintry morning it was published, she used her good sewing scissors to cut the clipping from the newspaper, then pressed it into her scrapbook using one dab of brown glue whose piquant scent reached me across the room. Other women seemingly had more time for such things. Joan included in her book only items she ranked as being of the highest order: an invitation to our wedding, the announcement of Agnes’s birth, her parents’ obituaries. Not the deed to our home, nor articles about cases I’d heard, however controversial or celebrated. Not one clipping, I now realized, from the dozens of news stories prior to our expedition. How had I dared to leave her? How had I trifled with what was most precious?

  “Judge Rice? Any comment?”

  “Forgive my reverie,” I said. “I was remembering not the event, but my wife’s response the following day.”

  “How do you explain having no recall of significant events and writings?”

  I failed to hear, for the moment remaining adrift. What good was life, without those most dear? The desire I felt to hear Joan’s voice, sharp and intelligent, was like wanting enough air to breathe. My craving for Agnes’s fierce hugs, those slender little arms, eclipsed entirely any interest in the here and now.

  I collected my wits. A judge must always pay close attention to what people before him are saying, yet I confess I needed to ask the reporter to repeat himself.

  “We’ll come back to it.” He eyed his notes. “What were your favorite cases, among those tried in your court?”

  “You are expecting a level of recollection quite beyond me, sir. The press of disputes was so great, I might strain to recall a trial two weeks after its conclusion. Yet you inquire about events that occurred more than one hundred years ago. Moreover, a trial’s result would be of paramount interest to the parties, but my concern consisted primarily in providing a fair process.”

  “You don’t remember any particular crimes or suits before your court?”

  “None in sufficient detail to discuss them without risking egregious error.”

  “How convenient.”

  I wondered at that reply. What could he be implying? The reporter nodded at his notepad, a habit he apparently followed to avoid making eye contact. “Let’s shift a bit. Do you remember anything about your reputation as a judge?”

  “I would be the least fit person imaginable to comment. I did my best.”

  “You do recall being controversial?”

  “Every case has a winner and a loser, at least one of whom may be inclined to find fault with the jurisprudence.”

  “But you experienced something more than that, didn’t you, Judge Rice?”

  “Did I?”

  Finally Steele raised his face. Indeed he glared at me. “Weren’t you famously lenient? Or should I say, infamously? Didn’t you release a drunkard on his own recognizance, only for him to torch a shoe factory, killing four people?”

  “How can you suggest such things?” I cried. “Are you manufacturing this information?”

  “It’s all in the public record. Wasn’t your expedition actually a form of escape, to avoid a movement to have you recalled from office?”

  Hm. Now I realized. There would be no offers of baseball tickets at the end of this conversation. This man’s interrogation had a forward lean, an intent to do me harm. Why had Kate not apprised me of this? Indeed, where was she?

  “Let me explain as best I am able,” I said. “May I stand?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Yes, my energy was surging. Despite all those years of being studiously motionless on the bench, now I paced like an animal caged. “Foremost, no. I was not lenient, I was judicious. My responsibilities were to uphold the law, safeguard justice, and respect precedent. If I erred in a ruling with a dire result, any ruling, you may be sure that my conscience paid close heed, if only for the sake of future cases. I am certain history will prove that I did err on occasion, in fact, because I am a human being and courts are human systems and we all err. If there were any movement to recall me, I remain blissfully unaware of it. I remember a number of significant fires in Lynn, some with tragic consequences, but none linked to a case of mine.

  “Your preparation for this meeting, moreover, cannot have failed to find the many ways I contributed far beyond my prescribed role to the city’s well-being, which modesty prevents me from enumerating. Thus your questions indicate a predisposition on your part, against me. We are a free people and thus you may publish what you please, but with your ink comes a grave responsibility.”

  I stopped before him, but my blood was high such that I could not hold still. “Lastly, sir, you are woefully mistaken if you perceive my motives for joining the expedition as anything other than a desire to further scientific inquiry. I was excited, yes, of course. It was a thrilling time on this earth, discoveries all around us. Knowledge seemed to be sitting there, simply waiting for someone to come along who was curious enough. In many ways I was reluctant to go, loath to leave my family, and that was so even when I felt certain of returning. The fact that I never did—”

  My voice betrayed me, catching in my throat, and I felt myself unmanned by the tears that spilled from my eyes. I turned away.

  My interviewer allowed me a respectful minute before his next question: “Do you know how much money they have spent to find you and bring you back to life?”

  “I have made that very inquiry. No one will tell me.”

  “Carthage says this project has spent over twenty-five million dollars.”

  “I have learned that money is different now than in my time. Regardless, I find this to be an inconceivable sum. Breathtaking.”

  “Yes. It would feed every hungry child in Massachusetts for a year. It would provide shelter to every homeless person in Boston.”

  I assessed him. “If I understand your implication, my reply is that I did not choose to die, nor seek to be reawakened. Your quarrel is not with me.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy him. He chewed on the end of his pen, as if deciding which path next to take. “Not a quarrel, more of an observation.”

  I made no reply.

  Steele sighed, then turned to a fresh page. “Judge Rice, what do you know about the circumstances of your reanimation?”

  “I don’t understand your meaning.”

  “Do you know how they did it?”

  I turned to him. He seemed utterly at ease, hands folded on the table, pen beside his notebook. He presented a bland affect, as if he were bored.

  “Do you know,” I said to him, “I have no notion at all.”

  “You aren’t curious? You haven’t even asked?”

  They were brilliant questions. How could I have overlooked such a basic investigation on my own behalf? “No. Though you certainly inspire me.”

  Steele paused, then looked at his watch. If he intended to convey
disrespect, he succeeded brilliantly. I felt it in the roots of my hairs.

  “Judge Rice,” he continued, “forgive me, but you have said repeatedly that you are a person motivated by a desire for learning. Yet you have made no effort to understand your own experience. Do you expect me to believe you?”

  I scoffed. “What you believe, sir, is a matter of indifference to me.”

  “Well, that gets to my real question, then. Which is, why didn’t you choose someone better?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “If you’re going to stage a phony reanimation, why choose a flawed judge for your character? Why not a better one? Or some other profession altogether, one that doesn’t leave a career-long paper trail?” He gestured at his stack of documents. “All these rulings and decisions you could be quizzed on. Why not build your hoax on something simpler?”

  Now I understood who the TV interviewer had meant when she described skeptics. But in his unvarnished animosity, Steele had brought to mind an old witticism of the court: “If a man calls you ‘friend,’ he isn’t. If he declares ‘trust me,’ don’t. If he says ‘I’m telling the truth,’ hide your wallet.”

  Thus I knew better than to attempt to convince this reporter; each word defending my legitimacy would only confirm his disbelief. My college papers were a feint. He could have written his article before entering the conference room.

  But he miscalculated. By challenging my credibility directly, this man awakened my dignity, which was not the result of being a judge but rather the reason the governor had appointed me one, not the outcome of years on the bench but the credential that qualified me to sit there.

  “Good sir,” I said, sitting at the head of the table. “This conversation is at an end.” It felt good to behave like a judge again, a man in possession of his own powers. I gestured two fingers toward the door. “I bid you good day.”

  If there is any person on earth more confounded by time than Jeremiah Rice, I would like to shake his hand and offer my sympathies. After all, how old am I? How many years of my existence do not count? Time, always elusive, has become unknowable. Moreover, my chamber had no timepiece. The only means of knowing the hour was to rise, stand at the far end of my window, and read the clock on the control room wall. That day, chagrined by the audacious reporter, I nonetheless resisted the impulse to demand immediate explanations of anyone. With Kate absent, only one other person at the project enjoyed my trust. An opportunity to speak alone with him would require patience. Oh, the hunger of curiosity is a powerful force. It had led me to sea, I remained mindful, with the ultimate consequence. I would do better to master that appetite now.