On Mars, he’d hardly had any time to gaze into the universe; everything had revolved around drilling. Luckily, there had been a good satellite connection with a couple of his favorite talk shows, which offered a bit of relief. He lived for those moments of reprieve between shifts.
2.
In the evening, Marcel looked through a telescope at Mars, where he had left his colleagues behind. He never should have left. He cherished the long conversations they’d had with each other. What he’d told them about Marrakech, the Red City. “We’re on the red planet, but the Red City is also special,” he would say. Then he would tell them about the couple of times he had been there. But he only told them the good things. The men were not travelers — they hung onto his every word. Some had never been more than sixty miles from home before their journey to Mars. Most of them came from little American towns he’d never heard of before, and weren’t planning to ever go anywhere else again once they got back.
“When we return, let’s all go to Marrakech together,” proposed one of the men one night.
“I’m never going back to Marrakech,” Marcel vowed. “Apart from everything that was wonderful, I had a bad experience there.”
“And that’s why you’re on Mars,” they told him supportively. “You can’t be farther away from your problems.”
“Yes I can,” Marcel had said. “Because I’m so far away, I feel less — but what I can feel, I feel all the more.”
It went quiet around the table. He realized that he had expressed a feeling that they all understood. The men respected his privacy. They all had something to hide. If being on Earth was always painful, then there definitely must be something to hide. Could someone be so far away without suffering? They all felt better on Mars than at home.
3.
The agent kept ringing. He was a persistent type who owed his success to hard work rather than big breaks. Getting rich is like threading beads was the man’s motto.
The job was to write the biography of the major media magnate Max Hirschfeld. What a name! Hirschfeld always appeared on the lists of movers and shakers around the world, and he had taken up residence at the Mamounia, the famous luxury hotel where the British prime minister Winston Churchill had spent his summers. The man had painted hideous pictures there that raised huge amounts at auction. Marcel was already anticipating having to spend two weeks with an egocentric, conceited, rich narcissist who wanted his every fart recorded for posterity. Marcel could use the money, but it would be at the cost of his psychological well-being.
“When I suggested that you be the one to write it, he agreed immediately,” said his agent.
“Does he know my work?”
“No, but he liked your name,” his agent told him. “His favorite grandfather was named Marcel.”
“It’s always something like this,” Marcel said, exasperated.
“Don’t knock it!” The agent had called on a Friday morning; the man smelled money. “If it makes it any easier, I won’t charge you any commission... just the other party. What do you think of that?”
Marcel didn’t try to explain that he really did not want to go to Marrakech. “I’ll gladly go to New York or London or wherever else he lives.”
“As long as he likes it there, he’s staying in Marrakech.”
“Can’t it be done virtually?”
“Don’t be daft! You’ve got to see the man,” his agent scoffed. “Smell him, experience him. Otherwise, we’ll find someone else to do it.”
His wife was levitating above the yoga mat in a side room. It was a mystery to him how she managed it. It made her attractive: freeing her exceptional body from weightlessness with one jump, throwing her on the bed, and calmly unrolling the Lycra clothes so that she was as naked as light. He had never known that she had so much inner power. After his journey to and from Mars, he’d had enough of weightlessness. The sensation of floating didn’t compensate for the inconvenience. His wife mumbled something in his ear about self-awareness and transition. The last thing Marcel wanted to hear about was self-awareness and transition. What he wanted to hear was that she’d had enough of living in the here and now and that she had applied for a job. But there was no point in bringing that up, since he had fallen a long way in her esteem. His reluctance to talk about his time on Mars didn’t go over well with her, either.
“Your lack of communication is appalling,” she chided, as she began slamming doors. After which they had sex; that’s the way it went every time. He never got used to it, but it was always enjoyable.
It wasn’t a bad thing that he ultimately hadn’t earned any money on Mars, of course, but she would have appreciated the trip more if the journey had changed him... and it hadn’t.
“I was too busy working to change,” he’d told her.
She found that strange. “You’re not living in the here and now.”
4.
It was Saturday night. Marcel had difficulty sleeping, so he read about potential investments on the computer. Perhaps it might be better to invest what he had left to make good on some of his losses. Good times always follow the bad times. On Mars, his friends had told him about what they did with their money. Investing seemed a sensible option, according to some of them. Everyone did it in the United States. He should do it too. So, in the middle of the night, after three glasses of whiskey, he bought shares with what was left of his capital.
It was fast — faster than he’d expected. He prepared his portfolio after just two swigs of whiskey and went to bed cheerful. His wife was asleep, but he woke her and convinced her to make love. She enjoyed the smell of whiskey on his breath.
5.
The stock exchanges opened with huge losses on Monday. The Central Bank responded to the panic by printing a substantial amount of money. It had to be done to preserve what was left of public confidence in the monetary system, otherwise it would have meant disaster. “They’re Printing Money!” was the news headline.
Again, Marcel thought.
Even more inflation! It would take months, perhaps years, for his investments to recover their value. He had little, he had nothing, and what he did have was worth even less. He had never been so miserable in his life. Marcel hid his wife’s yoga mat to stop her from making his mood even worse with her levitating. The panic in her eyes when she couldn’t find it was somewhat of a comfort. If he had to suffer, then she had to as well. He didn’t tell her about his losses. He had become a heartless man because of what had happened to him. So, in desperation, he rang his agent.
He told his wife that he would be away for a month, which was not too bad in comparison with the four years on Mars. But she was more emotional than the last time. It almost certainly had something to do with the crisis.
“You will send money for the housekeeping, won’t you?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea if you went and looked for a job?” Marcel retorted.
“I’d rather be dead than hear you say things like that.”
“I hate it when you say that sort of thing,” he snapped.
“Come back with good news,” she said.
“I’ll be coming back with material for a book.”
He wondered if he should tell her why he didn’t want to go to Marrakech. He would rather go to any other place on Earth. Would she understand? But then he would have to tell her that Marrakech had been an experience that had changed him, that had made him who he was. Without that period in his life, he would never have begun a long-term relationship.