Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

Shaking Lindquist’s long, cool surgeon’s hand, Nachman decided not to give any hints. Lindquist was disarming in his friendliness, which made it harder, not easier, to suggest his failure. Besides, Lindquist was extremely quick. He might see everything instantly, regardless of how subtle the hint, and he’d be furious because Nachman hadn’t been forthright. Others would sympathize with Lindquist. Even when they saw that Nachman was right — no, especially when they saw he was right. Better to keep his mouth shut. Nachman knew what he knew. A difficult knowledge. Why bring himself into bad odor? People need to believe, which requires an irrationality, a suspension of critical faculties, an abnegation of will, a spreading of the thighs. Nachman’s colleagues, like Saint Teresa, had been ravished, penetrated with belief. Between a mistake and madness, there was a nourishing relationship. If they knew what Nachman thought, they’d despise and revile him. Chertoff was right. Nachman was frightened.

The Swede looked with blue incisiveness into Nachman’s brown eyes. “What do you say, Nachman? It was all right?”

As if speaking from a trance, Nachman said, “Wonderful.”

“Wonderful? Did I play the cello? I only did mathematics. I saw you in the audience and watched your face. It didn’t look full of wonder.”

Nachman shouldn’t have said “Wonderful.” A bleat of mindless enthusiasm. Helpless to undo the word, Nachman repeated it, “Wonderful.”

Lindquist nodded gravely. “All right, then, wonderful. Such praise coming from you is …” He made a noise, not an intelligible word. His tone was grim, as if he detected in the word “wonderful” a form of contempt. “Do you have time to talk, Nachman? If you want to say something, I want to listen.”

“Now?” Nachman had intended to say he had nothing to say. With the question—“Now?”—he surprised himself. Where did the word come from? It made him feel like a liar.

“Lunch tomorrow. Could you call my room in the morning?”

“You’re staying at this hotel?”

Another question. Of course Lindquist was staying at this hotel. The whole conference was here. Lindquist looked puzzled and mock-injured, pouting as if Nachman’s question were an oblique insult. “Are you being evasive, Nachman? Would you prefer not to meet for lunch?”

“I will,” said Nachman. “I’ll call.” His voice was eager, compensating for the imagined insult. The talk had been stressful, making Lindquist hypersensitive, but there had been no insult. Unless he’d been struck by a critical thought-ray from Nachman’s subconscious, a flow of searing deadly brainlight. Nachman remembered Chertoff’s question, “If he’s a mathematician, what are you?” He’d meant that Lindquist’s existence, merely that, threatened Nachman’s, and vice versa. Confused and embarrassed, Nachman backed away, repeating, “I’ll call,” and turned, hurrying out of the lecture hall, then to a men’s room, where he shoved into an empty stall, dropped his briefcase, and — no time to spare — threw up. Weak and dizzy, he washed his face. He did it to clean himself and also not to let himself think. It came to him that he, too, was a believer. He believed there is good and bad. He’d been bad not to speak up when Lindquist asked for his reaction. Nachman saw again the solemn handsome face and heard the simple appeal: “It was all right?”

Bad not to answer. Bad not to tell the truth. But how could it matter if Nachman’s mere existence was potentially lethal. Nachman dried his face, and then, staring into the mirror above the sink, said to himself, “Let him have the solution. I’ll settle for the slave girl.”

Nachman left the men’s room and wandered into the hotel lobby, dazed and disoriented. He looked about for people he knew. Where was Chertoff? To see the hideous blue suit, the ferocious eyes and teeth, would be a blessing. Nachman badly needed someone to talk to. Moving through the crowd, he sensed people turning in his direction. He knew he was being recognized, but he recognized nobody. The crowd seemed too young. The conversations on every side — in Italian, French, German, Russian, Japanese — were estranging. Mathematicians had flown in from everywhere. Nachman had surely met many of them, but he’d never been a sociable fellow, never made sure to remember names. Groups of two and three clustered about the lobby, talking with frenzied energy, as if desperate for communion. Nachman wandered among the groups, feeling awkward and self-conscious, scrutinizing name tags, which he considered rude. Some faces were familiar, but no names. He couldn’t bring himself to approach a familiar face without knowing the name that went with it. With exasperation, he asked himself why he was in this hotel lobby. Nobody was talking to him. Nachman supposed he looked forbidding, unapproachable. He had no reason to stay.

Planes left for Los Angeles every half hour. Nachman could be in Santa Monica, in his own house, well before midnight. Tomorrow he’d phone the hotel and leave a message at the desk for Lindquist, apologizing. Not for missing their lunch, but for what Nachman couldn’t tell him, though he’d say it was for missing lunch. Nachman remembered saying, “I will.”

He felt like a criminal, as if he were fleeing, when he saw the taxis at the curb in front of the hotel, but he stepped quickly up to one of them and jumped inside. “The airport,” he said. The taxi nudged into traffic. Minutes later it was free of city streets, passing other cars along the highway. Nachman sat with his briefcase in his lap and looked across the gleaming blue of San Francisco Bay to the tawny hills in the east. He wasn’t sorry he’d made the trip, yet his heart was fraught with regret even as it swelled and beat against the bone cage, Nachman’s chest, with triumph.

Abruptly from this beating and swelling issued a strangled cry, “Turn around, please, I must go back.”

Nachman was more embarrassed than surprised by his outburst. Would the taxi driver think he was crazy? They drove now in loud silence. Nachman sat rigidly, as if braced to receive a blow. His eyes were fixed on the back of the taxi driver’s head, expecting him to question the order, or simply to ignore it and drive on to the airport. But the driver took the first exit off the highway, smoothly reversing direction, and headed back to San Francisco. Then he said, “You forgot something at the hotel?” The voice was a gentle tenor and seemed incongruous with the man. He was big, heavy, broad-shouldered, and black.

“Yes,” said Nachman.

“Happens.”

“I’m sorry. I feel very foolish.”

“No problem. Maybe you don’t really want to leave the city.”

“I don’t always know what I want.”

“That sounds like my wife. We go out for ice cream, it’s always a crisis. I say, ‘Pick any flavor. You don’t like it, we’ll throw it away and get another. Just pick.’ But she stands at the counter having a nervous breakdown over vanilla or pistachio.”

“That’s it. I’m having a crisis,” Nachman said to himself.

At the hotel, Nachman went to the desk. He intended to phone Lindquist’s room and ask if they could meet that evening, but before he could get the clerk’s attention, Chertoff appeared.

“Nachman, you’re still here. It was my impression that you were leaving.”

“What do you want?”

“Want? Nothing. Are you angry, Nachman?”

“What do you want?”

“I believe you are angry.”

“Are you going to tell me to kill Lindquist?”

“Did I upset you?”

“Yes, you upset me.”

“I meant no harm. My way of speaking is too strong on occasion. Forgive me. What I said is only because I am your great admirer. I would like to be your friend. Let me buy you a drink. Over there is a pleasant bar.”