P. Deutermann - The Last Man

“Tell me about your work, Mr. Hall. What does a nuclear engineer do?”

“First, it’s time to call me David.”

“Perhaps.”

“No, it’s David.”

She spoke his name, softly, still looking down at the table. He leaned back in his chair and saluted her with his glass. “See?” he said. “That wasn’t hard. What shall I call you?”

“ Dr. Ressner?” she suggested, her face a study in innocence.

He told her about his engineering career over dinner, up to the point where he opened the can of worms on missing nuclear material.

“Where had it gone?” she asked.

“The funny thing is, I only got as far as proving that there was a large quantity of heavy water unaccounted for. Once the NRC got into it, I discovered that I was no longer in the loop, as we say. Once the company terminated me, I was really out in the cold. I have no idea where it went.”

“In the loop. Out in the cold. I have much to learn about American idiom.”

“If you could hear us talking in the office, it would sound like alphabet soup.”

She sipped her wine, an iced Carmel white, letting her lips linger on the rim of the glass. She held the glass in both hands, her elbows on the table, which accentuated her lush figure. A tiny drop of condensation was forming on the bottom of the wineglass, gathering heft and curvature, threatening to drop strategically into that heavenly cleft, and he found that he was having trouble staying… focused, yeah, that was the word. He had noticed that her manner had changed during the course of dinner, the stoic, ultraserious academic blossoming into an entrancing woman who might be making up her mind about something. Or him.

“Anyway, it worked out, in the end. The big problem now is what to do next.”

The drop finally let go, but she tipped the bottom of the glass forward just enough to keep from getting wet. It still took an effort not to follow the drop.

“Have you never wanted to do something more, I don’t know, adventurous?” she asked.

Now he had to really control his face. He wanted to laugh out loud. Or cry. Part of him was once again dying to reveal what he was actually doing here. Why? To impress her? He realized he wanted this woman to like him.

“About the only adventure I get is through diving. Didn’t you tell me you were a diver?”

“Yes, but not for some years now. Nothing too challenging: shallow-water dives off the coast. Things like the Caesarea Maritima dives you are doing. Back when… when I was still married. Dov was an excellent diver. I was technically competent, but not addicted, like Dov. He went everywhere to dive.”

“I’ve become something of an addict. Did it scare you?”

“I was not so much frightened as uneasy. I felt we did not belong down there. Too much imagination, Dov said. So once he was gone, I put my equipment away. Looking back, I did the scuba mostly to please him, to be with him, I think.”

Equipment. Another idea surfaced in his mind: Tell her now and take her along. Then he shelved the notion just about as fast as he’d thought of it.

“Yes, well, I understand that feeling,” he said, finishing his wine, “and sometimes things come into view down there that reinforce the notion of whose place it really is. That’s the adventure, I suppose. We live in such a controlled environment these days that we almost have to create risks to experience life.”

She nodded slowly, but her eyes were no longer quite focused. He started to say something but then held back, keeping quiet while she communed with some comforting reverie from the past. Then, with a start, she came back.

“Sorry,” she said, putting down her glass and fidgeting with her napkin.

“I understand,” he said. “Really, I do. Listen, I was thinking: As you said, I’m going to spend two more days diving at Caesarea. Would you want to come along? I realize tomorrow’s short notice, but perhaps Wednesday?”

She gave him a mildly surprised look across the table, a look that said, Why are you asking me?

“Look, I hope I’m not being insensitive. You just told me that diving was something you did with your husband, but you’re also trying to make a break with that past, to start doing things despite the fact that your husband is gone. Not to mention the fact that I would very much enjoy your company. Everything’s arranged. You still have your gear — why not?”

“Well, I do have a job, Mr. — David. I’m a professor, remember?”

“Sure, but you go see your chairman and tell him what you’re doing, and why. There’s no way he can tell you no. Especially after I call and offer him generous bribes.”

She smiled again, eyes down. He was getting to really like that smile. Then she nodded. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. They’ll have to refresh my qualifications.”

“I’ll have the dive shop take care of that. Bring your PADI card. They’ll do a quick review and then check you out in the harbor at Caesarea — it’s usually flat water. The weather’s supposed to be great, and we’re not going beyond ten meters down anyway. Do you have a buoyancy control device?”

“No, those came along after I stopped. We used weights.”

“I’ll have them bring one out. This is great. Now, how about we get our check and maybe take a walk on the beach. I think I ate too much.”

The waiter slipped out of the dining room long enough to make a quick call on his cell phone. A man’s voice answered.

“International Planning.”

The waiter gave his name. The man told him to wait, and then he was connected with his controller.

“They have just left,” he said, turning his head as a couple of tourists came out of the dining room and walked right by him. “I think they are going for a walk on the beach.”

“Together?”

“Yes, together; what do you think?”

“I think they could be going separately. How the hell would I know?”

“You haven’t seen her. That would tell you quick enough. You have people out there?”

“Thanks for the call. Go back to work now.”

Fifteen minutes later they walked down between two swimming pools to the beach itself. He got her to open up a little more about her own life, her childhood in Haifa, college, and then the long haul to the Ph.D. She ran aground slightly when it came to talking about Dov, how they met, and their first few years of marriage, but it seemed to get easier as she talked. He was enjoying the way passing men looked at her but remained painfully aware of the underlying deception.

“I just folded in,” she was explaining. “I felt profound loss, and then, of course, the absence of completion. There was no funeral, no grave, no memorial I could visit. Because of the security I couldn’t tell my friends at the university anything except that Dov had died in an accident. Everyone assumed a traffic accident, of course.”

“Then the government made some things happen? A pension, an insurance policy, perhaps, and maybe a little influence with the appointment?”

“Yes, they did all of those things. In return for my silence, I suppose. There was this scary-looking man, a Russian émigré, someone who was involved with security matters for the Dimona laboratories, who laid it all out for me. In fact—”

“What?” he asked.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he came to see me just before this trip to Metsadá. Our trip.”

A mental alarm bell started ringing in David’s head. “A security officer from Dimona?”

“Well, actually, I don’t know. Those people are all so mysterious and elliptical. We have so many secret agents here in Israel, who can keep track? Anyway, part of my job down there was to make sure you were, how did he put it — that you were what you said you were. It didn’t make too much sense.”