Emily St. John Mandel - The Singer's Gun

“I’m sorry,” Elena whispered, to everyone. She lifted the box (the cat was surprisingly heavy), and opened the bedroom door just as Sophie opened the door to the apartment. Two movers were indoors now, disassembling the bookcases.

“Elena,” Sophie said, “what are you doing with the cat?”

“I’m sorry,” Elena said, again.

There was a soft thud. “Jesus, that was my thumb,” one of the movers said.

“What are you doing with the cat?” Sophie asked again. She didn’t move away from the doorway or look away from Elena’s eyes.

“Anton asked me to send him to Italy.”

Sophie stared at her, silent.

“He said he misses him,” Elena said.

Sophie still didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry. I’m just really — I’m sorry,” Elena said.

The movers, disassembling the bookcase, worked on in awkward silence. Elena felt that she was becoming transparent under Sophie’s gaze. Her knees were weak. She wanted to fall. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, and to her utter mortification she realized that she was beginning to weep. She stood frozen in the bedroom doorway with sunlight pouring through her, a shadow, a ghost, gripping the cat box as tightly as possible and wishing to be anywhere, anywhere else, her shoulder aching from the cat’s weight and tears on her face, her breath catching, and still Sophie only watched her.

The movers had entirely dismantled the bookshelves now — they lay in a stack of flat boards gleaming dark in the sunlight — and they were wrapping the boards in a packing quilt and bundling the packing quilt with tape. The sounds they made were distant, like actions occurring in another room. Elena began walking forward across the room, trying to come to some internal understanding of what she would do if Sophie didn’t step aside from the doorway. But Sophie did step aside, almost at the last moment, and she said nothing as Elena passed by. Elena kept walking, away down the stairs with Sophie looking down from above, until she was out on the street with the cat. She hailed a taxi, asked for Kennedy Airport and closed her eyes in the backseat.

“You okay?” the driver asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “fine—” and realized that there were still tears streaming down her face, unabated. Her hands were shaking.

“Where you traveling today?”

“Italy,” she said.

“Italy,” said the driver. “Without luggage?”

“Without luggage.”

“Who flies without luggage? I didn’t take you for a terrorist.” His tone was jokey; he was trying to make her laugh. She smiled wanly and didn’t answer him.

“Wait,” she said after a moment, “can we make a stop? I forgot my passport.”

“Of course. Wherever you want.” In East Williamsburg she carried the cat into the apartment and the cab idled out front while she threw a few things into a small suitcase: some clothes, a manila envelope containing old postcards, a piece of paper hidden in a blue sock at the back of her sock drawer, both the Canadian and American passports, a few things from the bathroom. Halfway to the door she remembered the cat, and went to the kitchen for a can of tuna and a can opener. A phone message in Caleb’s handwriting was attached to the fridge: ALEXANDRA BRODEN CALLED PLS CALL BACK . She stood for a moment holding the piece of paper, went to the kitchen phone and dialed the number.

“Please don’t ever call me at home again,” Elena said when Broden picked up.

“I tried your work first. You didn’t tell me you’d left and I need to ask you a question.” There was an urgency in Broden’s voice that Elena hadn’t heard before. “Did Anton ever say anything to you about shipping?”

“Shipping?”

“Shipping containers, or boats, or ports, or travel over oceans, or the import-export business. Anything of that nature. Any mention at all.”

“No,” Elena said, after a moment. “He never did.”

“When did you last speak with him?”

“Just before he left.”

“He was supposed to be back weeks ago,” Broden said.

“I know.”

“Well,” Broden said, “we can discuss this tomorrow.”

“I have to see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, at four o’clock. We scheduled this three weeks ago.”

“I’ll be there,” Elena said.

She paused for a moment by the goldfish tank and then locked the apartment door behind her and ran back down the stairs with the cat and the suitcase. The interior of the cab was too warm.

“One more stop before the airport,” she said. She was opening the window. “Can you take me up to Columbia University?”

“Pretty big detour. What time’s your flight?”

“I don’t have a flight.”

He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “You said you were flying to Italy.”

“I am.”

“Okay,” the driver said.

“Are you from Italy?” she asked after a few miles of silence. They had crossed to the Manhattan side of the bridge and they were racing north up the island, streets passing fast. Flashes of mannequins in store windows, people walking on the sidewalks, whole lives played out between avenues, a bright faux-summer day. All the trees she saw were still green.

“Italy? No.”

“Your accent, I thought it sounded. .”

“I’m from a place you’ve never heard of,” he said, and he winked at her in the rearview mirror.

“So am I,” said Elena. She thought for a second about obscure countries and then said, “Kyrgyzstan?”

“Tajikistan,” the cab driver said. He looked at her in the rearview mirror, startled. “But I’ve been to Kyrgyzstan many times. Many times.”

“What’s it like there?”

“Kyrgyzstan? I don’t know. Different from here.”

“Everywhere’s different from here.” The gates of Columbia were on their right. “You’ll wait for me?”

“I’ll wait,” the driver said.

She took her suitcase and the cat with her anyway and made her way through the gates and over the sunlit expanse of the grounds, through a doorway and down several flights of stairs to the underground laboratory where Caleb was working. He looked up from his computer when Elena said his name. On the screen before him line upon line of gibberish ran down the screen. He hit a key and the letters and numbers stopped moving and flickered silently in place.

“Ellie? What’s going on?”

Elena set down her suitcase and Jim, who meowed furiously and then sank into a prowling orange fury that moved him back and forth across the carrier.

“Whose cat is that?”

“It’s Anton’s,” she said. “Caleb, listen—”

“Anton your old boss?”

“Yes. Caleb—”

“Why would you have your boss’s cat? Your ex -boss’s cat.” He spoke without malice.

“Caleb.”

“Are you leaving me?”

Elena found all at once that she had nothing to say. She had planned a speech on the way down the corridor but all the words were fading out in the cool air of the room. She looked down at the floor and nodded.

“You’re leaving me,” Caleb said. He smiled briefly, ran his hands through his hair and looked at her. “Where are you going?”

“Italy,” she said.

“Italy,” he repeated. “With no money, and Anton’s cat.”

“I have a little cash. And I still have a credit card.”

“Italy,” he said again, very quietly, and laughed.

“Caleb, I’m sorry, I just. .”

He raised his hand to stop the sentence, and smiled, and shook his head. She smiled back at him, and for an instant there was peace. Then Jim meowed again, more urgently, and she remembered the time and the cab idling out front with the meter running. She picked up the cat’s carrying box and the suitcase.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m sorry too, I just couldn’t. .”