Richard Powers - Gold Bug Variations

He wore a forgettable light suit, a narrow maroon tie not seen since the fifties, and an immaculate oxford button-down, carefully ironed but pilled to exhaustion around the collar. He emitted the aura — accurate, it turned out — that he found buying clothes too embarrassing. He was over the median age by twenty years. As I stared, wondering if this was an assault, the figure said, in a voice rattling like a cracked distributor, "Excuse me, Miss. There's been a mistake." I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. Worse — the ultimate terror for my profession — I had no source to appeal to. Just his being here disturbed me; at that hour, in autumn, the library was the tacit domain of retirees and transients. A male of employable age, able-bodied albeit as emaciated as a Cranach Christ, upset the statistics. "There's been a mistake. I'm afraid the date is off."

Influenced by earlier having identified the relative strengths of shipmast flags and Aldis lamps, I thought I'd been singled out to receive a cryptogram canceling some covert operation. All-points bulletin: Date off. His fastidiously soft-toned grammar, in best academic fashion, removed all trace of personal involvement: There's been…, The date is…. I gawked at him, mutely rolling my head to either side, Galileo's pendulum experiments with my brain the deadweight. "I apologize for being so unnecessarily elliptical," he added. A frail finger directed my attention to the Today in History. "This account, which I don't for a minute doubt to be accurate in particulars, is, unfortunately, irrelevant." He gave me an apologetic smile, an attempt to be amenable despite having just run over my pet dog. I still produced nothing but an uncomprehending stare. "I'm afraid those things did not take place today. In history."

My response surprised even me and jeopardized my standing in the ALA. I blurted out violently, giving in to that contempt the specialist stores up for the lay passerby, "And how would you know?"

He paled and pulled his mouth into a grimace. "I don't. That is, I wouldn't be able to tell you when, if ever, that particular item took place." He trailed off, considering it unnecessary to explain. Noticing my look change to clinical concern, he added, "To resort to an allusion that won't be lost upon a person in your line: "You can look it up.'"

I brayed out loud, astonished at the combination of scenic-route syntax and citation. I didn't stoop to ask how he could possibly correct my events while admitting ignorance of when they'd happened. Instead, I adopted professional patience and hissed, "Let's just do that." I set off to the Reserves without looking to see if he followed. In seconds I was furiously buzzing over the historical almanacs, amazed at myself for losing equanimity. As the pristine derelict appeared at my side, I hit upon September 26 with a vengeance, confirming both Wilson and the Allied offensive. He passed a cupped hand across that stretch of forehead — God; his quintessential gesture! — and nodded. "I'm convinced, beyond question. Your skill with an index is impressive. Nevertheless…."

He pointed politely to the massive wall calendar that, even from where we stood, broadcast today for all to see. I broke out for a branch-record second laugh in one morning. September 24.

Just what empirical precision prevented him from asserting the obvious more obviously? His radical skepticism had required me to run the full, clumsy experiment of heading to the stacks in the Outside event that the offensive bad begun on the 24th and I'd committed the less likely error of date substitution. I sank into the nearest Breuer chair and exhaled. Thinking I was put out by the effort required to find a replacement, he said, "Might I make up for some of my incurred guilt in this matter by suggesting a substitute? Say, Eisenhower's heart attack; 1955." Making matters worse, he mumbled, "Should that be too obvious, you could take alternative refuge in 1789. Congress passes the Federal Judiciary Act. I'd rate that as fairly crucial, wouldn't you? But perhaps you've used it?"

I couldn't decide if this was burlesque or the fellow's genuine attempt to repair unmeant damage. I tried for knowing reserve. "Ike's heart attack will do just fine."

He straightened like a teen coming clean from the confessional. "Terrific. We're even, then." He shifted weight from one leg to the other and tucked a stitch back into his coat seam. I reestimated his height: five-nine, with a full moon. He coughed and took a nervous step backwards. "I like Ike. How about yourself?"

My introduction to Stuart Ressler's sense of humor. I could think of no answer in the world to give such a thing, so I returned to the almanac. Through the miracle of cross-referencing, I reverse-engineered Ike's coronary and the Federal Judiciary Act. He must have arranged the stunt in advance. But I'd only posted the fact the instant before he jabbed my shoulder. He watched my bewilderment for a few seconds, hunched his back, waved apologetically, and walked away. He was almost gone when I called after him. "I give up," I said, offering a respectful truce. "How'd you do that?"

"Never complain, never explain." He looked furtively around as if it could not have been him, violating this place of public research by talking in full voice.

My propriety vanished. For the first time in years, I stood face to face with another who wanted to force his way into the indifference of data. I slid from hostility to good-natured self-effacement in under a second. "Piece of cake," I baited him back. "Disraeli. I was born knowing that one."

"I'll have to take your word for that. I'm afraid I'm worse than aphasic with quotes." And he abandoned me. Too soon to be leaving. Never would have been too soon.

The rest of that day was dense with its own transactions, but erased from the retrievable record. I half expected him to return a week later, drop in for another chat about retrieval. He didn't. The whole encounter had been an elaborate setup. With no other way to explain it, I unprofessionally let the incident drop until this evening. Friend, why aren't you here now? The date's off again. I too have grown worse than aphasic with quotes. What was it you said to me once? What was it I said back? What had been so urgent for a while, so in need of saying?

But What Do You Do for a Living?

From that clueless beginning dug up from corkboard clippings, to Today in History, 6/23/85: Stuart Ressler — who once put his hands cleanly through the molecular pane, subsequent second-shift recluse, late-in-the-day returnee to the world — dead. I met the man by fluke, the universal architect. I will not meet him ever again. The meeting place he opened for us imploded with him.

Knowing the course of the disease, I thought I was prepared for Todd's mercifully curt devastation. I saw it in the envelope before opening. But when I sat and read, the veins of my neck thickened with chemical fight or flight, as if death dated from the minute I heard of it. Two billion years, and my body is still stupidly literal. My neck-gorge refused to shrink, however hard I rubbed. No RSVP required; just return to work, an afternoon dispensing citations. But I couldn't move from the chair. Something specific was required, some word I had to identify before I lost the few lucid moments grief ever allotted.

I reached for the envelope, my first indication in a year where Franklin was. The name in the cancellation circle pushed me over the edge. My throat hemorrhaged; violent self-control broke into hatcheted crying. Franklin, Dr. Ressler's only student, had posted the note from that Illinois university and farming town where the old man had wandered off the path of human sympathy. Of all the towns packed with all the impotent intensive-care facilities in the world, Ressler chose that one to return his metastasized cells to at the end, as they ran him back into randomness.