With the Innenwelt book open in his lap, Nachman fell asleep and had a vivid, frightening dream. He saw Adele kissing the mustache man. Nachman ran desperately toward them to pull her away. “No!” he cried, and he found himself awake, crying, “No, no, no!” his feet churning beneath the blanket, running nowhere.
Shaken by the dream, Nachman turned off the lamp and lay staring into the darkness. He didn’t know what, if anything, his dream had revealed to him. He was aware only of a certain tumultuous feeling. He’d been aware of it before, when Adele had asked if he was in love with her. He saw the silent question in her green eyes, and he heard her cigarette voice say, “I thought we were friends.” Nachman suddenly felt very lonely, lying in the darkness, wondering if he was in love with Adele.
Cryptology
NACHMAN HAD ARRIVED IN NEW YORK the previous evening, and was walking along Fifth Avenue when she came up behind him, calling, “Nachman, Nachman, is that you?” He looked back and saw a woman shining with happiness, for which he, apparently, was responsible. His mere existence had turned on her lights. Nachman kissed her on both cheeks, and then they stood chatting at the corner of Forty-second Street, the millions passing with the minutes. When Nachman parted from her, he was holding her business card and the key to her apartment in Chelsea, having promised to join her and her husband for dinner that evening.
“If you arrive before us, just wait in the apartment,” she had said. “It’s been so many years, Nachman. I’m Helen Ferris now. Do you know my husband, Benjamin Strong Ferris? He’s a lawyer. Also a name in computer science and cryptology. I assume you’re in New York for the cryptology conference. Benjamin goes there to find geniuses like you for his company.”
“As a matter of fact …” Nachman had said, but she was still talking.
“It would be wonderful if we could have a drink, just you and me, and remember the old days, but I have to run. There’ll be time to talk later. I can’t tell you how glad I am that we ran into each other. Actually, Nachman, I followed you for about five blocks. I couldn’t believe it was you. Benjamin will be so delighted. He’s heard me talk about you so often. Should I cook, or should we have dinner out? Oh, let’s decide later.”
When she had stopped talking, Nachman said he didn’t know the name Benjamin Strong Ferris, and he didn’t consider himself a genius. “I’m a good mathematician,” he added. “Good is rare enough.”
Helen Ferris smiled with affectionate understanding, as if his modesty amused her, but there was also something more. She seemed to believe a special bond existed between them. While Nachman’s every word nourished her smile, her dark brown eyes bloomed with sensual anticipation, as if at any moment Nachman might do something very pleasing. To disguise his ignorance — what special bond was there between them? — Nachman became expansive, even somewhat confessional.
He told Helen Ferris that he was indeed in New York for the cryptology conference; he’d been invited to a job interview by a representative of the Delphic Corporation. But whoever had invited him hadn’t given his name.
Helen Ferris obviously took great pleasure in listening to Nachman, and yet, in the center of her rapt, almost delirious focus, Nachman saw a curious blank spot, as if she were not conversing so much as savoring. Her brown eyes devoured his, and her smile suggested a rictus in its unrelieved tension and shape. This intensity, and her alarming red lipstick, made Nachman think she wanted to eat him. A smile is a primitive expression, he supposed, carried in the genes, the reflexive anticipation of a meal — not necessarily of people, but who knows the ancestral diet? Nachman smiled in response, but felt no desire to eat her.
“So the person who invited you didn’t give his name?” she prompted.
She’d repeated the information, presumably, to hold Nachman a moment longer and give him a chance to say something more. Her devouring smile made him nervous, and he astonished himself by talking like a man making a police report, obsessed with facts.
“The letter was signed by a secretary. Abigail Stokes. She just gave me the name of the hotel and a date and time for the interview. To tell the truth, I didn’t really come to New York because of the interview — I wanted to visit my father, who lives in Brooklyn. I haven’t seen him in years. And since Delphic was paying for my plane ticket and hotel room, why not? The interview was set for one o’clock this afternoon, and I figured they were taking me to lunch, but nobody was there to meet me. No one at the hotel desk had heard of the Delphic Corporation, and my room had been paid for by someone whose name they weren’t free to disclose.”
He paused after his recitation of the facts, then gave her a last little personal tidbit to chew on. “So, since then I’ve been walking around feeling a bit … I don’t know what. Weirdly disappointed.”
“It is weird,” said Helen Ferris. “But why feel disappointed? You got a free trip to New York. How clever of you! The airline ticket was prepaid?”
“If I had to put down one cent to fly three thousand miles and meet a nameless person, I wouldn’t be here,” said Nachman, with indignation. “I hate to travel, but I showed up for the interview. The other party didn’t.”
“I see. You were hurt. You’re sure there was no other name at the bottom of the letter? It didn’t say something like ‘Abigail Stokes for Joe Schmo’?”
Nachman wondered fleetingly if Helen Ferris thought he was an idiot.
“No Joe Schmo. Somebody anonymous wanted to interview me for a job. I have a job. I’m not looking for another one. But I agreed to come. Why not? I figured I might even learn about cryptology, an exciting field. A good mathematician could make a lot of money fooling with codes.”
“But that’s not like you. Would you really have considered taking the job?”
“I guess not, though it might be fun to be a millionaire. I fancied myself buying things like a dishwasher, but I don’t work for money. You know what I mean. My salary check pays my bills. I work like most people, not to waste my life.”
Nachman had begun to relax into his subject. “Have you been to Santa Monica? That’s where I live. On the beach you see people with nice bodies and no jobs. Also no brains. Life is too short to waste a minute getting a sunburn. I’ve never even taken a vacation. I don’t know why anybody would want to. Anyhow, as I said, I wanted to visit my father. This was an opportunity. Expenses paid by the Delphic mystery man.”
“You don’t own a dishwasher?” Helen Ferris asked, giggling. “That’s also mysterious. I bet I know what happened. Delphic sent out a form letter signed by Abigail Stokes. The letter went to a hundred mathematicians like you. A few of them accepted the invitation and came to New York. Before you arrived, Delphic decided to hire one of these. So you no longer existed as far as they were concerned. They simply forgot about you.”