This was not university business; this was, as the professor had said himself, something practical. Something big enough that the army would dispatch a courier, on short notice, to get the results. He was reminded of that letter he’d seen, the one from the White House, in Einstein’s study.
Einstein was intently, though silently, watching the transaction from his own chair, too. The lines on his face were deeply etched, and his white hair, as always, looked like it had been styled with an eggbeater. Many people said that in his company, they felt they were in the presence of an otherworldly being, someone who existed on a slightly different, and more elevated, plane than the rest of humanity. His gaze, according to a magazine article that Lucas had recently read, “extended to the frontiers of eternity.” Yes, he was a little old man, with a funny accent and a thick mustache, but he was also, in an odd way, like some kind of ancient ascetic, one of those hermits, or holy men — a Saint Anthony — who had experienced great solitude, high on a mountaintop, and from that vantage point seen things no one else ever had, done things no one else could have done. Even in a ratty robe and beaded moccasins, he radiated fortitude and wisdom and benevolence.
Which was why it seemed so strange, when the door closed on the courier and he turned again toward Lucas, that his brow should be so furrowed and he should look, for a second or two, like someone awakening from an awful dream. He fidgeted in his seat, and Lucas thought he was about to jump up from the chair, call the soldier back, and retrieve the envelope.
“Are you feeling all right, Professor?” Lucas asked.
Einstein simply shuddered and passed a hand across his eyes. Helen, spotting the shiver, said, “I told you to put on some socks. You are going to catch the flu.”
“Ach, I have not had the flu since 1938.”
She poured some milk into a saucer, and placed it on the floor by the stove. “Well then, don’t complain to me when you do.”
As she lifted the teapot to refill Lucas’s cup, he held up a hand and said, “I really have to get going.”
From the front stairs, he saw a cat mosey around the banister, then saunter toward the kitchen and the waiting saucer of milk. When it saw him, it stopped in its tracks. Turning in his chair, Einstein said, “Ah, there she is — my little muse.”
But the cat stayed put.
“Here kitty kitty,” Helen called to it. “Come have your breakfast.”
“Late last night,” Einstein went on, “the cat came to keep me company. How she made it all the way up to my window, I do not know. But she scratched on the glass, and I let her in. She must have known I could not sleep.”
“Warm milk,” Helen told him, “tonight you are going to drink a glass of warm milk before you go to bed.”
“Sometimes,” Einstein said, “she watched me write on the blackboard, and sometimes she just sat in my lap, helping me with my equations.”
“Come on,” Helen said to the cat, bending forward and clapping her hands. “Come and eat. The professor says you have earned it.”
The cat went to the bowl, and after a sniff or two, began lapping at the milk.
“The solutions,” he said, “they came to me like I was twenty again.”
The cat’s ears twitched, as if it knew it was being talked about.
Lucas, getting up, thanked them for the tea and muffin, and Einstein said, “You must come and have a sail with me sometime.”
“I’d be happy to,” he said, though from what he’d heard of the professor’s seamanship, it would be best to wear a life preserver at all times.
Opening the door, he saw the ambulance from the morgue rumbling down the alleyway, its light flashing but the siren off.
“Quick — the draft,” Helen said, motioning for him to close the door again.
The last thing he saw inside was the cat, contentedly licking its whiskers and watching him go, as if he were the luckiest mouse alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
He’d been right about the hot water, Simone thought. She had barely soaped up in the shower before the water ran cool, then cold. But how, she wondered, did Lucas even maneuver in this cramped stall that had been jury-rigged under the eaves? She rinsed off hastily, got dressed, and tried to make herself look as proper as possible before daring to appear downstairs. It didn’t make it any easier that, apart from the medicine chest, the room had no mirror. She fixed her hair as well as she could, and was pleased to see that the extra few hours of sleep she had just had — the clock said it was almost noon already — had restored some of her normal skin color.
Now if only she could clear her thoughts as well. The ordeal at the Nassau Inn was something that she simply had to keep at bay.
Closing the door of Lucas’s room and tucking a scarf under the lapels of her coat, she stopped to listen for sounds downstairs. Earlier, she thought she’d heard men’s voices — and in her sleep, she’d dreamt of helicopters buzzing overhead — but now it was only the whine of a vacuum cleaner on the floor below. When she got there, and glanced into the front room, she saw what had to be the landlady, her hair tied up in a blue rag, pushing a Hoover back and forth across the floor. The drawers of the desk and dresser were all opened and empty, as was the closet; Simone saw nothing inside but wire hangers. The bed had been stripped of its linens.
“Hello,” Simone said, but the vacuum racket swallowed her words. She said it again, adding, “You must be Mrs. Caputo.”
This time the landlady did hear, and looking up, she shut off the machine, and said, “Oh, hello.”
“I’m Simone… Rashid.”
“Yes, I know.”
The two of them stood where they were awkwardly, wondering who should speak next.
Finally, breaking the silence, Mrs. Caputo said, “You and Lucas work together?”
“Yes, at the university.”
“You’re a professor there?” she asked, sounding a bit awestruck, perhaps at the notion of a woman — much less such a young one — holding that post.
“Oh, no, I’m just there temporarily — helping out with one project.”
Mrs. Caputo nodded nervously and glanced around as if looking for something other than the elephant in the room to discuss.
“Looks like someone has moved out,” Simone remarked.
“Yes, only this morning,” she said, averting her eyes altogether. “It was very unexpected.”
“I do want to thank you for allowing me to stay here last night. I was in a bit of a bind, to put it mildly. I know it won’t do for me to stay on.”
“No, that’s right, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Caputo agreed. “It’s just that there are city codes, you know, about unmarried people living together, and then there’s my daughter to think of. I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong—”
“No need to say anymore,” Simone assured her. “I understand completely.”
“I’m so sorry, but—”
“I’m sure I’ll find something in town.”
“I’m sure you will. In fact, I can recommend—” And then she stopped, her hand still on the vacuum cleaner, just as the same thought occurred to Simone. For a second or two, it hovered in the air like a hummingbird. “Of course, if you wanted to stay close to this neighborhood—”
“I do.”
“—and if it would be helpful to you to live near Lucas—”
“It would.”
“Then, well, perhaps,” Mrs. Caputo said, looking around the room that was even then in transition, “you might want to rent this room? It’s all cleared out now, and I’ll be making the bed up fresh this afternoon, as soon as the sheets have been ironed.”