“A bit on the nose, isn’t it?”
Jonas shrugged his admission. His head was swimming, caught between dread and panic. “I think the people who design planetariums don’t value subtlety,” he may have said. He wasn’t sure.
“But the person who turned it on,” Amanda probed, “they can’t see us?”
“No, they just press a button and leave. Why?”
She answered him with a kiss. And then with more. Her hands drifted down his body and took hold of him. Realization grabbed him as well, and he returned her ardor. They peeled off each other’s clothes and lowered themselves to the floor. Above them, the majesty of the cosmos wheeled and turned, oblivious to their passion.
NOW
The connection between Jonas and the woman is evident, Victor Kovacevic notes, even from across the Rue Virginio-Malnati. Cars and trucks and buses whip past, occasionally obscuring the pair. He doesn’t need to see more, though. He’s found the needle he has been searching for in an infinite number of haystacks. He sees the woman giggle at whatever Jonas has said, and he feels that pang of envy, as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice.
Victor reaches down to manipulate his bracelet. Capacitance sensors in the housing register his touch, and he starts to feel the cosmic energies at work. He resists an urge to close his eyes. He wants to see it happen, to watch this universe fold in on itself as he slips the bonds of one reality and deposits himself in another. The sight reminds him of a reflection rippling on the surface of a pond while fireworks blossom and spark overhead. And when the phenomenon is over, when his body no longer feels like it’s plugged into a wall socket, he sees that he’s back in his Manhattan apartment.
Normally, floor-to-ceiling windows offer breathtaking views of the Upper East Side, but Victor has kept the curtains drawn for months. Walls that once held original works of art, a collection amassed at great expense, are now bare. The hardwood floor is discolored where his Steinway Grand once stood. But those were all personal effects, discarded like a snake’s shed skin. The apartment is no longer a home. It hasn’t been since his wife left.
In the void left by art and furniture and sentimental items stands a parade of whiteboards, each covered with exotic equations. They flank a massive device wrought of exotic metals, which reminds Victor of the eye of a giant robot. Cables as thick as human arms curve from it and run along the floor. Enough power flows through them to service ten city blocks. Getting the necessary waivers from Con Edison required an army of lawyers and millions of dollars.
The doorbell startles him. Apart from the occasional food delivery, he hasn’t had a visitor in months. He shucks the coat he wore against the chill of an evening in Switzerland and pads to the door, opening it without bothering with the peephole.
Columbia Dean Dorothy Stanton stands there. He should have known. He should have expected his boss to visit weeks ago.
“Hello, Victor.” She’s five foot three, in her late seventies, and Victor would swear she’s lost an inch since he saw her last. Her skin reminds him of a dried-up apple.
“Dorothy,” he says, willing warmth into his voice. “How are you?” He hopes he’s smiling.
“Can I come in?”
Victor takes more time to consider the question than he should. Eventually, he remembers his manners and waves her inside. “Can I offer you a drink?” he volunteers out of some moribund sense of propriety. She doesn’t answer. He watches her take in the apartment. He knows how it appears, an eight-million-dollar Manhattan penthouse on the Upper West Side reduced to a scientific laboratory. He knows she thinks it’s perverse.
“Your TAs came to me,” she ventures. Victor can tell she’s choosing her words with care. “En banc. They say they’ve been covering your lectures.”
“That’s what teaching assistants are for, isn’t it?” He’s trying to grin, but the image it conjures in his mind is grotesque.
“They say they’ve been covering for you for the past three months.”
“I’ve been consumed with a recent project.”
Dorothy’s head bobs toward the massive device, the elephant in the room. “I can see that,” she says, her tone bone dry. She turns to him with that look he’s learned to despise, that look he’s seen in too many faces, in too many sad expressions. That look he has to clench his fist against, lest he lose his temper. Pity. “I heard about Phaedra. I’m very sorry, Victor.”
Victor swallows his rage. Like anything, it’s become easier with practice. “I know the hour’s late, but I’m really quite busy, so . . .”
“I’m worried about you, Victor.” For once, she sounds sincere. “Everyone at the university is, in fact.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” he asserts, believing it.
“I don’t think that’s true,” she says in a way that suggests she hates to say it. But Victor knows better. He knows how they all see him, how they all judge him, despise him.
“I might be too focused on work at present,” he says, a suspect under interrogation repeating a rehearsed cover story. “But really, I’m fine.”
“This isn’t the home of a man who’s fine, Victor,” Dorothy says, apparently having decided to drop any pretense.
Victor wills his temper to remain in check. He tells himself he’s simply here to play a part. “It’s the home of a newly single man who’s thrown himself into his work. Work that fulfills him.”
“I think you need some time off,” she says, sounding like she’s been practicing the line in her head. “To take care of yourself. Deal with the divorce and whatever else is . . . ailing you.”
“I told you. I’m fine.” The words come out more clipped than he cares for.
The moment yawns, and Victor can see Dorothy is working herself up to bad news.
“The board voted for your suspension tonight,” she finally says. “One year. Half pay.”
A year’s suspension is an ivory-tower death sentence. Victor commands his voice to remain level. “Without a hearing? That feels extreme,” he says, as if all they did was move his parking space.
“It was all I could do to save your job.” Her tone conveys a genuine sympathy. That’s what angers him most of all.
“Well, thank you for that.” He spits out the platitude, devoid of even a glimmer of sincerity. Dorothy begins to talk again, but he cuts her off. “Get out, please.” She tries again, uttering some crap about a therapist that one of the faculty recommends, but it’s just static. He endures as much as he can manage before thundering, “Get out!” Even he is surprised by the might of his rage. The light fixtures tremble in the wake of his outburst. He calms himself, breathing deep, and quiets. “Please.” The word escapes his lips like a prayer.
He moves to his device and begins making adjustments. His ministrations are reminiscent of a lover’s, seeking refuge in the work. He’s so singularly focused on what he’s doing, he barely hears the door shut behind her.
Eva lives in Switzerland. Her apartment is in a diminutive building sandwiched by two skyscrapers. After Jonas’s first week there, when it becomes clear that no solution to his problem is imminent, he offers to get a place of his own. He doesn’t want to intrude on her life any more than he already has, but she reminds him that he has no job and no money. In fact, he doesn’t even possess any form of identification. She has opened her home to a man who doesn’t officially exist.
Each night, Jonas converts the living room couch into his bed. By day, the makeshift bedroom becomes an equally makeshift laboratory, filled with rolling whiteboards he’s purchased on Amazon with her credit card. He works diligently, often for hours, covering and erasing and re-covering the whiteboards with color coded equations sketched out with dry-erase markers. He buys a refurbished MacBook Pro and coaxes every ounce of processing power out of it. He promises to pay Eva back for all his expenditures, but they both know that once he leaves, he won’t be coming back.
Weeks pass into months. One morning, Eva walks into the living room clutching her bathrobe around her with one hand and a mug of scalding coffee in the other. “You didn’t sleep?” she asks, eyeing the couch, which hasn’t yet made its nightly transformation into a bed.
