Giorgio Faletti - I'm God

But if other people died, she would have to live with the consequences for ever.

She walked into the apartment of a sick, desperate man who for years had gone by the name of Wendell Johnson. She found the same bare surroundings, the same sense of hopeless solitude. The grey light coming in through the window made everything seem flat, drab, devoid of life and hope.

She wandered through the apartment, waiting for it to speak to her.

She didn’t even know what she was looking for, but she knew there was something unexplored here, like a suggestion whispered in her ear that she hadn’t been able to understand or decipher. She just had to calm down and forget all the rest if she wanted to remember what it was. She moved the one chair from the table into the middle of the kitchen, sat down with her legs apart and her arms resting on the rough fabric of her jeans, and looked around.

The telephone rang in the pocket of her jacket.

Instinctively, she felt like turning it off without even looking to see who the call was from. Then, with a sigh, took the call. She heard Russell’s excited voice.

‘Vivien, at last. It’s Russell. I found him.’

The line was not very good and Vivien couldn’t hear him terribly well. ‘Calm down. Speak slowly. Who did you find?’

Russell started enunciating the words clearly. And at last Vivien understood what he was talking about. ‘The real name of the man who passed himself off as Wendell Johnson all those years was Matt Corey. He was born in Chillicothe, in Ohio. And he had a son. I have his name and his photograph.’

‘Have you gone crazy? How did you manage that?’

‘It’s a long story. Where are you now?’

‘In Wen-’ She broke off. She decided to give Russell the benefit of the doubt, until she had proof of the contrary. ‘In Matt Corey’s apartment, on Broadway, in Williamsburg. And you?’

‘I landed at La Guardia fifteen minutes ago. Right now I’m on the Brooklyn Expressway, travelling south. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

‘Okay. Come as fast as you can. I’ll wait here.’

She tried to sit down again, but she had the feeling that her legs would soon start to bump together from sheer nervousness and she wouldn’t be able to sit still.

She stood up and took a few steps around an apartment she knew by heart now. Russell had succeeded where she had failed. She noticed that there was no anger or envy in her. Just relief and admiration for what he had managed to do. She didn’t feel humiliated. And she immediately realized why. It was because he wasn’t just any man, he was Russell. The worm started gnawing at her again, heedless of her impatience. You felt pleasure at someone else’s success only when you loved them. And she realized that she was completely in thrall to that man. She was sure that sooner or later she would get him out of her head, but it would take a lot of time and a lot of effort.

She hoped, with a touch of self-mockery, that looking for a new job would keep her sufficiently busy. She went into the bedroom, switched on the light and for the umpteenth time looked around that apartment.

It hit her at the speed of light, the speed of thought.

No pictures on the walls…

When she had been with Richard, her former boyfriend, she had learned all about artists. He was an architect, but he was also a reasonable painter. The many pictures hanging in their apartment demonstrated that. But what they also demonstrated was the natural narcissism all artists seemed to possess. Often in inverse proportion to their talent. What seemed strange to her was that this man, this Matt Corey, had done all those drawings and over the years had somehow avoided the temptation to put even one of them up on the wall.

Unless…

A couple of steps, and she stood in front of the rack. She took the big grey folder from the lower shelf, opened it, and went quickly through the drawings done on the unusual medium of transparent plastic…

Constellation of Karen, Constellation of Beauty, Constellation of the End …

… until she found the one she was looking for. The bell rang just as she was taking it out of the pile. She placed the drawing on the rough wooden surface and went to open the door, hoping it wasn’t Judith with more complaints. But it was Russell, looking dishevelled, with a couple of days’ growth of beard, his hair unkempt and his clothes crumpled. In his right hand he held an object that looked like a rolled-up poster.

She thought two things simultaneously: that he was very handsome and that she was a fool.

She took him by the arm and pulled him into the apartment before the door opposite could open. ‘Come inside.’

Vivien closed the door again immediately, the noise of the lock covering Russell’s excited voice.

‘I have something to show you-’

‘Just a minute. First check something for me.’

She went back into the bedroom, followed by a puzzled-looking Russell. She picked up the plastic sheet with its blue surround, on which the artist had drawn what according to him was The Constellation of Wrath. The drawing consisted of a series of white dots supplemented here and there with little red dots.

As Russell looked on curiously, she went to the map of New York hanging on the wall and placed the drawing over it. They matched perfectly. But whereas the white dots appeared to be placed at random, some lost in the river or the sea, the red dots were all on dry land and had specific geographical locations.

In a low voice, Vivien said to herself, ‘It’s a memorandum.’

Still holding the drawing against the map, Vivien turned her head towards Russell, who was now standing beside her. He was starting to understand, even though he had no idea how Vivien had got there.

‘This Matt Corey had no artistic ambitions. He knew perfectly well he didn’t have any talent. That’s why he didn’t display a single drawing. The only reason he did them was to conceal this map. I’m sure the red dots correspond to all the places where he hid the bombs.’

She moved the plastic sheet away, and when she looked again at the map of the city, she could feel herself turn white. She was unable to restrain an anguished cry.

‘Oh, my God!’

Vivien hoped she was wrong. But when she again placed the plastic sheet over the map, her impression was confirmed. She checked it again and again, running her finger over the sheet, going so close to it, she was almost touching the wall.

‘There are bombs at Joy.’

‘What’s Joy?’

‘Not now. We have to go. Straight away.’

‘But I-’

‘You can tell me on the way. Right now, there isn’t a minute to lose.’

Vivien was already at the door. She held it open until Russell joined her.

‘Hurry up. Code RFL.’

As they waited for the elevator, Vivienne felt more lucid than she’d ever felt in her life. She didn’t know if it was the situation, or the pill Dr Savine had given her. Right now, she didn’t care. She tried to remember the exact words the man in the green jacket had said in the confessional.

Holiness is in the end. That is why I shall not rest on Sunday …

That meant that the next attack was planned for the following Sunday. That gave her a little breathing space, if her theory about the drawing proved correct. But where Joy was concerned, she couldn’t afford to run any risks. It had to be evacuated as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to lose her sister and her niece in one day.

They went out on the street and ran to the car. She heard Russell panting behind her. He seemed to be physically exhausted. He would have time to rest during the journey to the Bronx, Vivien thought.

She tried to call Father McKean but his telephone was off. She wondered why. He must surely have got back to Joy from Saint John’s by now. Maybe after what he had been through in the confessional he didn’t want the telephone to be anything but an inanimate object buried deep in his pocket. She tried calling John Kortighan’s number, but it just kept ringing.