Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

The phone rang when he was looking at an image labeled “Lagoon Nebula Detail,” a luminescent turquoise field obscured by darkly glowing clouds. On the phone’s tiny screen was a local number he did not recognize. “Keith Corcoran,” he said.

“Captain Corcoran, it’s Tom Chen at Dreyfuss.”

“Tom,” Keith said, surprised. “How are you?”

“I’m well. And you?”

“Good, good.”

“Nice work on the last mission,” Chen said.

“Oh,” Keith said. “Thanks.”

“I know you’re busy so let me get right to the point. I got that e-mail about your friend from Ukraine.”

“Oh, yeah.” He sat up abruptly, knocking the table with his knee, coffee sloshing onto its surface.

“Well, listen, if you think this guy is for real I’d like to see his résumé if you can send it over.”

“Really?”

“We might have something. It’s not much but we have a kind of work overflow here and need someone to just kind of keep things moving. I called the NAS at Golosiiv and spoke with some people there just to find out who we were talking about and the people there think your friend walks on water.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, he must really be something. Anyway, I don’t know if this position will be too simple for him but it’s a way to get him in here. But I need to see the résumé. Maybe you can give me his phone number and I can talk to him directly about it.”

“I’ll need to get the phone number off the résumé,” Keith said, “but I will. I’ll have him get in touch with you right away.”

“That would be great. This position has been officially open for two weeks and it closes tomorrow. I would have contacted you earlier but things got backed up here. This isn’t usually how we do things.”

“I appreciate it.”

“So I’d need the résumé and contact info today or tomorrow morning at the very latest. Actually today would be best because I’d likely have to do some kind of interview in the next day or so just to make sure we’re on the official schedule. Anyway, I thought maybe I’d poke around about the guy a bit first before calling you. Just to make sure. I know you’re busy.”

“Yeah, well, that’s good.”

“I’m assuming you think he’d fit here.”

“I think so. He’s really dedicated to the kinds of things you’re doing there. The astronomy side of it. That’s where his head is.”

“That’s great. That’s totally what we’re looking for. And we’re trying to avoid just getting someone right out of school. A couple of years on the job is better than the degree, at least for this. Cheaper too.”

“Sure.”

“Hey, listen, since I have you on the phone I wanted to say that I’m real sorry about your daughter.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway, let us know if there’s anything we can do. Of course, you know that.”

“Sure,” Keith said. “Will do.”

They exchanged a few pleasantries and the conversation ended. Keith sat at the back of the coffeeshop smiling broadly. He finished his coffee and then returned the astronomy book to his bag and tossed the newspaper onto a nearby table. Audrey was at the counter and she waved to him as he passed. He was still smiling. “You look happy today,” she said.

“I guess I am,” he said, and he was.

When he passed Peter’s house on his way home he stopped and walked to the door and knocked but there was no answer. He had been looking forward to telling Peter the news but now that he was unable to do so it occurred to him that he might just as well get Chen the résumé on his own.

He returned home with this in mind, retrieving the pages from the kitchen island and reading through them with careful attention. Perhaps he had underestimated Petruso Kovalenko’s talents; were he a personnel officer at a research center, Peter’s résumé might have appeared impressive indeed and while there was too much detail in the résumé—it seemed to list every job Peter had ever held — the relevant material, especially the work he had done at Golosiiv, was interesting.

He continued to ruminate on this as he once again entered his car and drove to an office supply store and asked them to scan and e-mail the document directly to Tom Chen. As he waited, his phone began to buzz, but it was Jim Mullins and he did not feel the need to speak to him now. The voice mail he left was curt: “Keith, please call me at your earliest convenience.” He left the phone number, as if Keith might not have it. It was a call he would need to respond to at some point but it could wait.

When he returned home he sat in his car and watched as the big gray sofa was carefully loaded onto the back of a pickup truck by two men in powder blue denim shirts, men clearly on lunch break from their tractor work. The men eyed him with some level of suspicion but as he did nothing to stop them they continued without pause until the sofa was gently secured. The truck was dilapidated, the windows rolled down as the only defense against the summer heat and a moment later it drove away, the sofa longer than the bed of the truck so that it suspended a full foot over the moving asphalt. In the next instant it had rounded the corner and disappeared from view. The other workmen sat in the shadow of one of the tractors, eating their lunches, their conversation impossible to hear.

He was surprised when the doorbell rang a few hours later, the sound so foreign that it took him several moments to determine what it was, but he was even more surprised when he opened the door and Luda threw her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder, weeping. “Thank you. Thank you,” she said between her sobs.

His own arms embraced her as reflex and then relaxed to patting her back softly. “Whoa,” he said. “What’s going on?” He looked past her at Peter, who stood smiling in a button shirt and tie, a wrinkled sport coat stretched over his broad shoulders.

“You are sweet, sweet man,” Luda said. She leaned back from him and took his face in her hands and kissed his cheeks with a loud smacking sound. Her eyes continued to swim with tears.

“OK, OK,” Keith said. He was smiling, more from the absurdity of the situation than anything else. As if Luda’s behavior were not enough, Peter came forward, still smiling, still unspeaking, and grabbed Keith’s face and again planted one wet, smacking kiss on each cheek, stepping back then and saying, “You are good friend to do this for me.”

“OK,” Keith said. “What are we talking about?”

“The NASA called,” Luda said. “The NASA called for Petruso.”

“Your friend, Mr. Chen, asked me for interview. It will be Monday at three and he will ask me about my experiences at Golosiiv.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Keith said. He let out a loud and involuntary laugh.

“You come to our home now and you have dinner with us. The children they are at brother’s house so no bother,” Luda said.

Before Keith could so much as nod, Peter said, “Yes, all true. You come. I know you have no plans tonight better than this and sofa is gone so nowhere to sit. You come and we eat holubtsi and you will never before taste holubtsi as my Luda will make for you.”

Keith looked at them, all three of them smiling now. “It sounds like something I shouldn’t pass up,” he said.

He slipped into his shoes and they led him across the cul-de-sac and down the sidewalk and as they walked he thought he could see Jennifer peeking through the upstairs window of her house but he could not be sure and did not know if he even cared. The night air was cool but heat still radiated from the concrete and asphalt and above them the sky glowed with stars bright enough to be visible beyond the halo of the streetlamps and the houses that lined the streets and courts and ways around them, each holding a green square of lawn that sloped slowly and carefully to the sidewalk as they passed, the whole of it universal and orderly and silent, the unfinished lots and empty foreclosed homes presenting dark vacancies amidst the lit houses of the living.