Christopher Reich - Rules of Deception

“I can understand.”

“Not like Blighty, is it?” Emma goes on, her tone sympathetic, comrade to comrade. “I saw you were at Oxford. I was at St. Hilda’s. Comparative Political Systems.”

“You mean you’re not a doctor?”

“God no. I’ve got my practical nursing on the side, but admin’s my thing. Logistics and all that. If we ever do have enough O positive, you’ll have me to thank.”

“I didn’t mean to-” Jonathan begins to apologize.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t tell at first whether you were English. Your accent, I mean. I thought either Scottish or London by way of Central Europe. Prague or something.”

“Me? I’m from the southwest. Cornwall, that area. We all talk funny down there. Near Land’s End. Penzance. You know it?”

“ Penzance? In a way.” He takes a breath, and though he knows he will look foolish, he puffs up his chest and recites in a sing-song voice:

I’m very well-acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

When she says nothing, he adds, “Gilbert and Sullivan. Pirates of Penzance. Don’t tell me you don’t know the Modern Major-General?”

Suddenly, Emma bursts out laughing. “Of course I do. One simply isn’t used to hearing that in the wilds of Africa. My God. A fan.”

“Not me. My dad. He was a diplomat. We lived all over the place. Switzerland, Italy, Spain. Wherever we moved, he joined the light opera. He could sing that song in English, German, and French.”

A driving backbeat lifts to them across the crowded night sky. The electric thump of a funky bass. Emma tilts her head in its direction. “The Muthaiga Club. Great dance spot. They don’t do the Mikado, though, I’m afraid.”

“The Muthaiga Club’s in Nairobi. I saw Out of Africa.”

“So did I,” she whispers, standing on her tiptoes. “Don’t tell anybody I pinched the name. You coming?”

“Dancing?” He shakes his head. “I’ve been up way too long. I’m fried.”

“So?” Emma takes his hand and leads him toward the source of the pulsing music.

Jonathan resists. “Thanks, but really, I’ve got to rest.”

“That’s the old you talking.”

“The old me?”

“The chief resident. The terrible drudge. The one who wins all those awards and fellowships.” She tugs his hand. “Don’t look at me like that. I told you I was admin. I read your papers. Want some advice? The old you, the one who works far too hard. Forget about him. He won’t last a week out here.” Emma’s voice drops a notch, and he can’t be sure if she’s serious or scandalous. “This is Africa. Everyone gets a new life here.”

Later, after the dancing and the home brew and the wild, joyous singing, she leads him out of the club, away from the throbbing drums and the swarming bodies, into the bush. They walk through a grove of casuarinas along a footpath, a scratch in the night shadow, until they reach a clearing. Above them a howler monkey lets go with a cry, then bandies from tree to tree. She turns to him, her eyes locked on his, hair askew, falling about her face.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, a hand going to his belt, pulling him toward her.

Jonathan has been waiting for her, too. Not for weeks, or months, but longer. In the space of a day, she has seized him. He is kissing her and she is kissing back. He runs a hand beneath her shirt, feeling the hard, moist skin, sliding it higher, cupping a breast. She bites his lip and presses herself into him. “I’m a good girl, Jonathan. Just so you know going in.”

She unbuttons his shirt and smooths it off his shoulders. A palm rubs his chest, then moves lower. Stepping back, she pulls her T-shirt over her head and kicks off her jeans. She devours his hungry regard.

“How do you know?” he asks, as she wraps her body around his.

“The same way you do.”

He lies down in the grass and she arranges herself above him. The moonlight dances across her burnt copper hair. The trees sway. Somewhere, a shriek pierces the sky.

The train pulled in from Chur, and a minute later, from the opposite direction, one from Zurich. Passengers crowded the pavement fronting the station. It was now or never. Jonathan left the doorway and hurried across the street. Vaulting the wall bordering the parking lot, he walked down the center aisle. If anyone was watching the station, they had a clear view of him. One six-foot-three-inch Caucasian male clad in a newly purchased navy parka, a matching ski cap pulled low over his brow to hide the thick, slightly curly hair that had started to go gray at the age of twenty-three.

Don’t rush, he told himself, straining to keep his muscles in check.

He pulled the keys from his pocket and activated the remote entry. He had the feeling that things were run very tightly around here. Emma had always been a stickler for organization. The car beeped. Don’t look around, he told himself. It’s Emma’s, which means it’s yours. An S600. Diamond Black. The car every surgeon’s wife was born to drive.

He slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. He touched the gearshift and the engine roared to life. He jumped in his seat, slamming his head against the roof. “Shit,” he muttered, before realizing that he’d pressed the ignition button atop the shift lever. It was the latest in automatic functions. He settled down, finding his breath. Soon, he decided, cars would be driving themselves.

It was then that he took in the interior of the automobile. The smell of fresh leather, the pristine condition of the cabin, the air-crackling “newness” of the vehicle. Not just a Mercedes, but a brand-spanking-new, top-of-the-line sedan. Cost: stratospheric. Not so much a car as a temple of luxury; automotive engineering elevated to a higher plane. He got himself settled, adjusting the seat, the mirrors, putting on his seat belt. He slid the transmission into reverse and backed out of the space. The car moved in hushed silence, negotiating the ice-encrusted pavement as if floating on a cloud.

He felt a sudden, irrational streak of hatred for it, not just because it was evidence of Emma’s deception, but because it represented the life he’d never wanted. Too many of the surgical residents at Sloan-Kettering had dreamed aloud about their Park Avenue practices and houses in the Hamptons. They could have their baubles and bangles. God knew they’d worked hard enough to get them. It was just that to him, medicine was not a means to an end. Medicine was the end itself. He refused to be defined in any way by his possessions. By cars like this. It was actions that mattered. Dr. Jonathan Ransom took care of others.

He backed out of the parking space and drove to the exit. On the main road, traffic sped past in both directions. Pedestrians took advantage and crossed in front of the Mercedes. A man drew up and stopped in the glare of Jonathan’s headlights. Shielding his eyes, he looked through the windscreen at Jonathan. It was a policeman. Jonathan was sure of it. He dropped his hands from the wheel and waited for the man to draw his pistol and shout, “Out of the car! You’re under arrest.”

But a moment later, the man was gone, another head weaving in and out of the sea of homebound commuters.