Colson Whitehead - The Intuitionist

“I haven’t lied, Jesus, please let me out,” Ben croaks.

John does not seem impressed. His dark eyes flicker out to the pavement before them, then return to Ben. “That’s another lie,” he says. “Since you’re obviously of a mendicant bent, I’ll tell you. Four times. And for each lie, my partner Jim is going to break a finger by exerting pressure on — well, I’m not sure exactly what the bone is called proper, it’s been a while since I flipped through Gray’s —but suffice it to say that Jim is going to exert pressure where it shouldn’t be exerted.”

Jim bends Ben’s middle finger until it touches the back of his hand, and there is another twiggy sound.

John starts again, “You lied when you said you wouldn’t get upset if I told you not to pursue a certain line of inquiry. I can see by the shiny areas on your suit around the elbows and knees that you are not a man who lives and dies by the petty dictates of the social sphere. Most people, they go out, they want to look their best. Like the folks in that car back there — they’ve had a little dinner, seen a show, and they look nice. But that doesn’t mean a whit to a man like you, a man of such keen moral sense. It offends you that two thugs — for that’s what we are when you really get down to it, no matter how I try to convince myself otherwise — that two thugs would tell you to back off of what you see as a moral imperative. So you lied. That was one finger.” John swivels his head back and forth. “Hold on a second,” he asks. The dark blue sedan in front of him is sending mixed messages tinged with an unsubtle flash of aggression. “Did you see that? This guy just cut me off. If he wanted to turn, he could have at least signaled, you know what I’m saying?”

“Please, I swear I’ll back off the story,” Ben begs. “I swear.”

“Yeah, well,” John says. “You lied again when you said you knew what Johnny Shush did to people who cross him. Because if you really did know — didn’t just cook something up from what you picked up in the tabloids or god forbid the movies — you would have never ever, ever, ever done anything to make Johnny angry. You would have known better. We wouldn’t be here right now. Driving in midtown at this time of night? Forget about it. So that was another lie, and another finger. Two more lies to go. You lied when you said you didn’t lie, so that’s another finger, but I’m going to ask Jim to hold off on the breaking-finger business for now because that snapping sound really distracts me and it’s hard enough to drive with these maniacs in this city without me being distracted. Is that okay with you, Jim? Just nod because I know it hurts to talk, what with your tooth and all.”

Jim nods, grateful that his friend and partner understands him so well.

“There’s one more lie, and it’s the first one you told us. When I asked you for the time, you said you didn’t know. But I know it was another one of your mendacities because I can see your watch right there, right below where Jim is holding your wrist. And that’s the worst lie of all, because when a stranger asks you the time, you should never lie. It’s just not neighborly.”

* * *

Lila Mae reclines on the bed, drawing plans for war. After their talk, Mr. Reed excused himself to attend to pressing business — related or not related to the matter concerning Lila Mae, she doesn’t know — and left her to the garden. A slow hour passed, distracted by intermittent drops of moisture from above, as if the sky were conducting a feasibility study on the implications of rain. Of committing to a course of action. Lila Mae left the garden and resumed her scheming in her room. At eight o’clock, Mrs. Gravely served her a dinner of no small culinary accomplishment. Mrs. Gravely was not as Lila Mae imagined. She was a small, energetic woman whose gray hair coiled tightly on her head like a knob. She smiled politely as she placed the tray across Lila Mae’s knees and even paused, before departing, to beat fluff into the pillows. She didn’t say anything. As Lila Mae ate (slowly, as her mother had taught her), she wondered why the handsome man from the morning had not brought it to her.

She recognizes his knock a few hours later: light, regularly spaced, forceful. Her day’s worth of plans recede and Lila Mae sits up in the bed. Tells him to come in.

“I just came up to see if you needed anything,” Natchez says. His thumb is locked into the corner of his pocket, his fingers splayed across a hip.

“No, thank you,” Lila Mae responds. Then, thinking better, adds, “You’re on all night? I mean, you sleep here?”

He shakes his head, amused. “No, ma’am,” he says, “I’m off in a few minutes. I just wanted to see if you needed anything before I leave. Mrs. Gravely’s asleep, so you’re on your own once I’m gone.”

“I’m fine. Thank you again.”

His body tilts to leave, but Lila Mae stops him with, “Is that where you’re from? Natchez?”

“That’s where my mama’s from,” he replies. He leans against the door. “She didn’t like it enough to stay there, but she liked it enough to name me after it. She still wants to hear people say it.”

“I’m from down South, too.”

“Where?”

“A dirty town.”

“You’re not much for talking, are you?”

“I talk.”

Natchez shakes his head again and grins. “Okay, then,” he says. “You one of those visiting professors they always have staying here? You giving a speech?”

“No, I’m an elevator inspector.” Lila Mae’s voice automatically rises at those last two words, up to the tone she uses when she’s on a case.

“I didn’t know they let us do that,” Natchez tells her. “Even up here.”

“They don’t but I’m doing it anyway.”

“Is that good work — working on elevators? That’s a city job, right?”

“It’s not bad,” Lila Mae says, stealing a quick look at his hands. His fingers are wide. Arrogant, they seem to her. “They go up and they go down. You just have to understand why they do that.” She watches his eyes. “What do you do when you’re not here? This isn’t your regular job, right?”

“I’m just filling in. I do this and that,” he says. “Whatever comes my way. This city is tough, I’ll tell you that.”

“It’s a tough city,” Lila Mae repeats. She’s just reached the end of her conversational props.

Natchez doesn’t mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he says. “My uncle, he’s still sick.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He says he can’t feel his leg.” Natchez frowns. “He says it feels like it’s been cut off.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It happens to him from time to time.”

“Thanks for checking in on me.”

“You sleep tight, Lila Mae. Sleep tight.”

* * *

The children masticate rock candy in greasy teeth and wait for their saliva to thicken into sugar. In the heat everything is sticky. Their tongues are green and red, from the candy.

At the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, the flags from every civilized country dangle in the limp air like the rags of stable hands. The sun stokes, gleams on the monstrous edifice of the Crystal Palace, which is a replica of its namesake in London: iron and wood and glass, radial ribs strengthened by slender cross-ribs. A Royal bauble. Before they invented verticality, that was all there was to aspire to, glass and steel confection delivered by spyglass from overseas.

To the west of the Crystal Palace is the fetid Croton reservoir; east is Sixth Avenue, a gargoyle of carriages and hooves. The Crystal Palace will fall five years later in 1858, devoured by fire in fifteen minutes, and become Times Square, in due course. But today, a thousand windows snare the light and the glass is streaked with the brackish film of condensed sweat. It is a greenhouse, and what treasures bloom there! In one room is arrayed raw materials on velvet, behind glass: minerals, ores in all shapes, coal, copper, stone, marble, crystal, diverse wonders all. In one gallery a locomotive squats on iron haunches atop a black pedestal: the machine is this dynamic age distilled, these vehicular times. They come from all over the world. Hamburg presents many articles in horn, some pretty furniture, a large collection of sticks, embroideries, and Turkey showcases fine silks, raw materials, stuff of the earth, carpets and rugs much remarked upon. A million people under that glass during the course of the Exhibition. They dally and gasp at the exquisite watches from Switzerland, very diminutive, true craft, barely an inch in circumference and wound and ticking audibly, most beautifully set with lovely enameled exteriors. Grain and chocolate and guns, muskets and French pistols (the famous duels) and a stuffed Apache. Crimson fruit from Amazon vines and brown slivers of llama meat, dried and cured.