“Nothing’s in there, Mrs. Haven. I’ve checked.”
“He’s keeping his eye on me,” you said without turning. “For my own protection. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m going to guess you shouldn’t be here, either.”
You kept your face toward the box, one hand against its tarock-card-sized window. “You’re right about that.”
“But you came anyway.” I took a half step closer. “And so did I.”
You straightened your shoulders and took in a breath: you were steeling yourself. In a moment you’d explain to me, in a cordial, room-temperature voice, that you saw no way for us to continue our friendship. I’d turned out to be a liar, and far worse than that, a coward: my fear of the Husband — your husband — had compelled me to lie. You could not excuse that. It embarrassed you to admit it, but you’d made a mistake. If I’d been honest from the start, perhaps, there might have been—
“Come to Vienna with me,” I said, laying my hands on your shoulders. “There’s a mystery there that I’m trying to solve. It involves the Gestapo, and the war, and the speed of light, and a card game no one plays anymore. It involves the Husband—your husband — and the whole United Church of Synchronology. I’ll tell you everything, the whole sleazy story, if you’ll only say yes. Come to Vienna with me, Mrs. Haven. Without you I don’t stand a chance in hell.”
I said more than that — much more — and you kept still and listened. I stood closer to you than anyone but a lover had the right to stand, and you made no move, either toward me or away. Your hair smelled of smoke, I remember — of clove cigarettes, or possibly pot. The down on your nape stirred in time to my breath. As long as I kept talking, things would remain as they were, in a state of suspension; but I couldn’t keep talking. When it was clear that I’d finally run out of breath, you nodded to yourself and turned to me.
“I can’t come to Vienna with you, Walter. You know that.”
It was happening now, just as I had foreseen. The floor started to tilt.
“Give me one hour, then. You can spare me that much. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
* * *
The Xanthia’s citizenry generally disappeared into their rooms after TV hour like mollusks pulling back into their shells, but Palladian was the exception. I knew we’d find him in a Naugahyde recliner in the Montmartre Lounge, reading the business section of The Wall Street Journal from back to front and scribbling compound fractions in its margins. He looked up with a smile when he heard me come in, and his smile got so wide when he saw who I’d brought that it nearly put a crack in his pomade. Palladian was a ladies’ man, as a legion of scandalized Xanthettes could attest — allegedly he was a pincher. I could see right away, however, from the look on his face, that today he’d be on his best behavior. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, Mrs. Haven, but you made Abel Palladian shy.
“Mr. Abel Isaiah Palladian — Mrs. Hildegard Haven.”
“Charmed,” said Palladian, flashing his teeth.
You’d kept quiet in the cab, barely meeting my eye, but you played along willingly now. “Please don’t get up, Mr. Palladian,” you said, sitting down next to him. “Walter’s told me quite a bit about you.”
Palladian arched his kudzu-like eyebrows at me. “He’s told you what, princess? That my kneecaps don’t work?”
“Nothing like that. About your many gifts.”
“My gifts?” The eyebrows went up even higher. “Sweetheart, if I was a hundred years younger—”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Ask him.”
“Aha!” said Palladian. “Sure.”
You glanced at me uncertainly. “Wombat?”
Palladian bobbed his head in a dreamy sort of way and cleared his throat. “The coarse-haired wombat of Australia resembles a small bear and can live twenty years in captivity.”
You laughed for the first time that day. “All right, Mr. Palladian.” You thought hard for a moment. “A football.”
This time the answer came instantly. “Although it is traditionally called a ‘pigksin,’ the ball that the pros use is made of cowhide, a more durable variety of leather. Practice balls have a life span of two to three days; professional game balls in the National Football League have a much shorter term. Because the quote-unquote ‘home team’ is required to provide two dozen new balls for each game, and because between eight and twelve of these balls actually get used — and are then disposed of — a football could be said to last six minutes, on average.” He held up a finger. “Six minutes, that is, of regulation play.”
I expected you to laugh again, or to acknowledge my smile, but you did no such thing. “A black hole,” you said softly.
“She asks the good questions, this one.” Palladian leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes.
“A quote-unquote ‘black hole’ is the burned-out remains of a star that has collapsed under its own weight. A black hole with the mass of our sun, more or less, would exist for twenty billion years times ten to the fifty-fourth power, which is roughly the present age of our universe. At the center of a black hole, of course, the enormous gravitation would produce a quote-unquote ‘singularity.’ A place where none of the standard laws of the universe apply — time included.” His eyes fluttered open. “Drop in there, princess, and you’ll stay gone forever.”
Palladian’s answer seemed to soothe you. You took a deep breath, satisfied, and beamed down at him for a while. Then you looked up at me. Your smile was about as similar to the one you’d given me at the James A. Farley Post Office as a coarse-haired wombat is to a black hole.
“Mr. Palladian,” you said, “you’re a bona fide wonder.”
Never one for false modesty, Palladian concurred.
“Well!” I said. “I’m glad you two—”
“Marry this woman, Mr. Tolliver. Give this woman children.”
“I’m married already,” you informed him serenely.
Palladian nodded. “No children, however.”
“That’s true.”
No one spoke for a moment. The two of you seemed to consider the subject closed.
“I’ve asked Mrs. Haven to travel with me to Europe,” I said, more shrilly than I’d intended. “To Vienna. I have family there.”
“Ah!” Palladian’s eyes gleamed. “An elopement.”
“A trip to Vienna,” I said quickly. “No more than that.”
“I don’t think a person can elope,” you put in, “if that person is married.”
You were watching Palladian closely. He was pursing his lips like a schoolteacher. I’d given up trying to guess what was going on.
“Mr. Tolliver,” he said, “would you mind stepping out of the lounge?”
I stared at him blankly. “Stepping out of the lounge?”
“That’s correct.”
A man I’d never seen before was sitting at the Xanthia’s front desk. He was chewing on an unlit Dutch Masters cigarillo and wearing a kind of serape, as if to blend in with the poster of Bolivia on the wall behind him. He bore a distinct resemblance to the man your husband’s enforcers had called Little Brother, which didn’t do much for my mental comfort. I sat down in a plastic armchair and watched the minute hand of the clock, which was shaped like a kitten, refuse to advance a single millimeter.