They wouldn’t let me in the ambulance. No surprise, perhaps. They left me in that dingy, over-stuffed apartment. Silverman wanted to talk, only I hurried him outside and shut the door. After that, I simply stood there in the wreckage, wondering what to do. It was the most desolate feeling. There was debris all around me—thirty-year-old magazines, and a child’s doll, and photographs of people that I didn’t know and likely no one else did either, and a souvenir sombrero pinned up on the wall as if it were an antique shield . . .
And for no particular reason, I looked round for the strongbox. It had been kicked across the room, against a sofa piled with clothes, all neatly stored in plastic bags—the fashions of a bygone age. I went over, nudged it with my foot, and saw the paper tucked inside.
I suppose it was just superstition, but I felt a real fear as I reached down and snatched it out. The god was gone, but it seemed a kind of residue remained, a trepidation I could not shake off.
I took the paper and unfolded it.
It was a photocopy. A cartoon, printed off-center, in thick, black, grainy lines. No words. An ugly, in-your-face kind of thing, and not at all the sort of picture I’d imagined Melody would like.
A boy—a teenager, perhaps—was staring out at me, over his shoulder, holding up an apple with a bite chomped out of it. His brows made a V and his mouth made a V, and his whole face had been scrunched into a wicked, grinning leer. It was vulgar and defiant and in some way challenging, and I felt that my reactions to it were too strong, over-wrought by what I’d just been through, and by the former presence of a god.
I put the paper in my pocket. I looked around for anything that might have some connection with the job that might explain things or else give me a clue to what was going on here. But there was nothing. I picked the flask up, shoved the cables in an empty bag, then went downstairs, and called a taxi.
I was ready to drop. But the night was far from over.
They had the kind of lights that drain the life out of you. Even if you’re well, they still make you look sick.
I was in the ER waiting room. I was there with the victims and the worried families and the old Hispanic man who started praying very loudly and whom everyone was too polite to interrupt.
I’d been sitting about ten minutes when Silverman arrived, red-faced and sweaty. He dropped into the seat beside me, ran his hand over his thinning hair.
“State of the traffic, bike’s as good as a car in this town.” He drew a breath. “You’ve got the cables, by the way.”
I’d stuffed the plastic bag under my seat.
“Flask, too,” he said.
“You can have the cables. The flask, I’ll keep. In case we got something.”
“Ah.” He sat back. “So we might have done it?”
He seemed genuinely thrilled.
“Don’t know. Not hopeful, to be honest.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“They said she was alive when she came in. That’s if they’re telling me the truth.”
I did not trust doctors. I did not trust nurses. And receptionists, I trusted even less than that.
Silverman clicked his tongue. Then he reached under my chair, pulling out the cables bag. He began to disentangle the mess, the wires pooling round his feet. This brought some odd looks from the others in the waiting room.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “I’m grateful for your help. You were actually pretty good back there, you know? But if you’re not Registry, how’ve you got the gear?”
“Oh—that.” He was stretching out the cable like a yarn of wool, winding it between his hand and elbow. He broke off to reach into his pocket and pass me a card.
I read: Paul Silverman, filmmaker, educational consultant, museum displays, film and photography, design, text There was a quote from Aristotle (at least, he got the credit for it): Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
“Hall of Science,” he said.
“What?”
“Flushing Meadows?”
“What about them?”
“Museum, you know? It’s an exhibition. ‘We Got the Power.’ Shitty title. Anyway. I’m working on it. Part of a team. Design, installations. All that.”
“And the Registry’s just . . . handing out equipment?”
“They’re financing the thing. Well, mostly them. The city’s putting in, and a couple of private trusts—”
“Oh, I get it. In my country, we call that, ‘advertising’.”
He smiled. “Sponsorship,” he countered.
“And it’s going to be fair and unbiased and well-researched and tell you that the Registry offers the safest and most viable source of electric power, sustainable, clean, and all the rest?”
He nodded.
“Thought it might.”
He paused a moment. Then he said, “You don’t believe it?”
“Oh, I believe it. Couldn’t not, could I? Besides,” I said, “you don’t want Fukoshima in your backyard, do you?” I shrugged. “You’ll need to find a new flask, by the way.”
“You said. Newark, right?”
“That’s right.”