Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (12 page)

No one moved. He looked truly miraculous standing there in midair. Even I was amazed by the spectacle. For although my own situation was far more extraordinary, it had inherently very little visual impact.

Then I saw that the man in the business suit had begun to speak into his microphone. He made a little gesture toward the crater and looked down at his plans. The astronaut made a clumsy nodding movement and turned around again. He took several more steps toward the center of the crater, waving the detector before him, until it abruptly banged up against the invisible front wall of the building. He moved in closer and slid the detector over the surface as high as he could reach and as far out to each side. Then he bent laboriously at the waist and laid the detector on the invisible ground. He watched it for a moment, as if expecting it to fall after all to the bottom of the crater. He pushed against the wall, testing it, and then began exploring it with his massively gloved hands. Soon he seemed to have located something: he delineated its rectangular contour by moving his hand around it several times. It was obviously a window.

There was a long delay, and I could see that the three men on the lawn were not satisfied with the discovery. They were having an animated discussion in which they referred frequently to the plans. Then, presumably in response to some command, the astronaut pushed himself up flat against the building, facing into it, and extended his arms straight out to the sides along the wall, like a human signpost. This seemed to solve their problem. The man in the business suit indicated with his pencil two invisible points over the crater and drew an imaginary line between them. Evidently they had misjudged the orientation of the building. Perhaps the plans were incorrect, or perhaps they had been misled by the angled path from the parking lot. All three men, enlightened by this information, shifted their positions several degrees, to face the invisible building at the appropriate ninety-degree angle.

The astronaut now picked up his detector again and began to move along the front wall back in my direction. He kept his left hand in contact with the wall, and when he encountered the next window, he again delineated it for the others — to their apparent satisfaction this time. Only a few more steps would put him at the entrance to the building, but at the excruciating rate at which he was progressing, it was impossible to say how long that might take. And then he would have to work his way through the building to me. I felt myself becoming frantic with impatience, and finally I could wait no longer. I stood up and set out to meet him.

I meant to walk, to work my way carefully toward the entrance, but probably I started to run. I had my hands out in front of me to check for walls and doors, but my foot caught on something — a towel or a piece of clothing left on the floor — and I went lurching forward onto the bathroom tiles. I felt a stupefying impact through my entire body and an excruciating pain in the elbow on which I had come down. Damn! Have to take it slowly. I raised myself to my knees, banging my head on the door frame in the process. Damn! Staying on all fours, I crawled pathetically into Wachs’s office and along the wall to the door into the reception room.

Still kneeling, I reached up and found the doorknob. I turned it and pulled. No movement. Keeping it turned, I pushed. Nothing. The door was locked. Stay calm. It doesn’t matter. They’ll get it open.

The man in the protective suit had reached the entrance and was less than ten feet away, so that although two doors separated us, I could see his face now through the tinted face mask. Half leaning forward and half crouching, he located the two steps before the threshold and laid down his Geiger counter again. He began moving his hands over the door. His right hand found what he was looking for, and he made a sort of waving gesture with the other arm. It would be the doorknob. He was having trouble turning it with his bulky, badly articulated gloves. The cat was howling insupportably now. It suddenly occurred to me that the cat must have been watching the man as well, although what it made of the spectacle I could not imagine. Abruptly the man’s hand swung forward several inches. He had the door open!

It could not have been open more than a crack, but I found that suddenly I could hear him quite clearly.

“A fucking cat! I swear to God, it’s a fucking cat! Can you hear it? It’s a fucking cat! There’s nothing else it could be! Jesus! A fucking invisible cat!”

He paused, evidently listening to whatever they were saying to him through his earphones. I couldn’t hear any of it. “Yes, sir,” he was saying. “Sorry, sir… No, sir. This cat is going absolutely
nowhere…
I’m pretty sure it’s right at the door… No, sir. No problem. In no way is this cat going
anywhere.”

I was looking straight at the man, right into his eyes. I cannot say why I did not call out to him at that moment. I had been screaming uselessly for help off and on all morning. Now help was here. I had only to speak. But I didn’t yet. Perhaps the knowledge that people were at hand whenever I wanted them reassured me enough that I felt I could do without them a little longer. Then, too, I was caught up in the drama of the explorer’s progress, and I wanted to see how he would do with the cat. There was no need to interrupt just then. And perhaps — looking back on it, I am not sure — perhaps I was feeling the first pathetic, childish pleasure in my invisibility. I was right there, but they couldn’t see me. Why give up the secret just yet?

The man still seemed to be holding the door open just an inch or two. He had retrieved the detector and was pushing it through the crack and twisting it around inside the reception room. For some reason this made the cat abruptly cease howling. I heard the evil hissing sound that cats make when they are angry or desperate.

“Any reading? … Still nothing? This whole place is as clean as my elbow. I ought to take this suit off… Yes, sir.”

My heart leapt. He seemed to be saying that there was no radioactivity. I almost spoke out to him.

He withdrew the detector and laid it aside. He had one hand on the doorknob and one hand down at the threshold in what must have been the opening between the door and the frame.

“Kitty kitty kitty,” he chanted. “Come on, kitty kitty kitty.” The cat was emitting a steady hiss. The man’s arm slid slowly forward. “Kitty kitty kitty.” Suddenly the hand that had been holding the doorknob shot out and down, and the man lunged forward a step. He held his two hands in front of him, the palms facing each other and separated by the thickness of a compressed cat. There was a nasty snarl.

“Got it! I got it! Easy, kitty! Easy! Hold it!” The man was inside the building now, precariously stooped over. He clutched his hands violently to his chest in an apparent attempt to pin the struggling cat. He straightened himself with a jerk. He swung his right hand suddenly down onto his stomach where it seemed to writhe for a moment. “Hold it, you fucker!” Then his left hand slapped down to his thigh. He was trying to lift his right leg. Then he swung his entire body violently around to the left and lunged back toward the door. It was difficult to say whether he collided with the door or the frame or both, but he collapsed in an ungainly heap.

“Shit! Oh, Christ, that hurts… The fucker is gone. Shit… Through the door. Sorry. Jesus… It must be headed straight toward you. Try and stop it!”

The men on the lawn, to whom these remarks were presumably addressed, seemed to know that this was not a promising course of action. The large man in the western shirt took a step forward and without much conviction started to chant just loudly enough so that I could make it out,
“Here,
kitty kitty.
Here,
kitty kitty.” The other two men stood glumly in place, staring straight ahead at the moaning figure writhing in midair.
“Here,
kitty kitty.” I knew nothing about how Kitty was generally with strangers or about the quality of Kitty’s previous life, but the last twenty-four hours had certainly been trying for her. It seemed unlikely that Kitty would be seeking human companionship anytime soon. The cowboy tried one more, “Here, kitty,” and then, without looking at the others, stepped uncomfortably back into the group.

The man in the spacesuit was continuing to apologize as he slowly picked himself up. “Yes, sir… I understand that, sir… No, sir. You’re right. There’s no way I can be absolutely sure the cat is out of the building, sir… Yes, sir. I am closing it up, sir. I’m coming right away, sir.”

It took me a moment to comprehend that the man was about to leave the building, and when I did, I was instantly overcome with unreasoning panic again. “Wait!” I shrieked, more loudly than I had screamed since childhood.
“Help!”
I banged on the door with my fists. “I need help over here!”

The man in white was absolutely motionless. Through the tinted visor I watched his eyes staring past me — through me — blankly mistrustful and afraid. Trying, probably, to collect his wits. He pushed the door open again, stepped warily back inside, and very carefully shut the door behind himself, as if afraid that I might hear him. Then he shouted out in my direction.

“Where are you, buddy? I can’t hear you very well.”

“Over here,” I shouted back. “On the other side of this door.” I banged again with both fists by way of illustration. Of course, he couldn’t hear me sealed up in his damned spacesuit and with them jabbering at him the whole time through his headset as well. He had stopped moving again and was staring stupidly in my general direction. “For Christ’s sake, man, get me out of here! You’ve got to get this door open! The door is locked!”

Without moving, and still staring warily, he began to speak very softly — but not to me. He seemed to think that, because he could barely hear me, I could not hear him.

“Can you guys hold it for a minute? There’s something you should know about here. Jesus! There’s a fucking human being in here! Jesus… No, I can’t see him! Can you see him?” This last was uttered with a sarcasm tinged with fear. “He seems to be in another room. Says he’s locked in. Jesus, this is crazy. I can’t hear him very well. He says he wants to get out.”

There was a little pause. Then he shouted out to me again. “Can you hear me, buddy?”

“Just barely,” I answered, not quite so loudly this time — and not quite so forthrightly. I liked being able to hear half of his conversation without his knowing. Still, it was troubling that my rescuer and I were not establishing a relationship of trust. He was of course on unfamiliar and unsettling terrain. As was I. And my disembodied voice must have been uncanny. And then, the escape of the cat was on their minds. But the fact was that none of them were doing anything to help me. Instead of rushing to my rescue, they were standing back with uncharitable wariness. The astronaut had his back to me now and was facing the three men on the lawn, who were in animated discussion. Abruptly they stopped and looked over in our direction. Evidently something had been decided on. The astronaut turned back toward me and shouted.

“Can you see me, buddy?”

Good question. Someone had come up with a very good question indeed. They had no way of knowing the laws of this little invisible universe. Perhaps the invisible man saw all the invisible objects perfectly, just as before. Perhaps the invisible wall was opaque to him, as a wall should be. Or perhaps not. Or for that matter, perhaps he could see nothing at all: perhaps invisible men are blind.

“Can you see me?”

“No,” I answered. “I’m in here.” I suppose the escape of the cat was on my mind as well as theirs. Soon, of course, I would have to explain my situation to them accurately. So that they could give me the medical help I needed. But there was no need to get ahead of myself; they didn’t need that information now. We would all be cautious.

There was another pause. The men on the lawn were talking to my rescuer in white. Then he shouted to me again.

“Listen, buddy, I can’t get the door open by myself. Can you hang on while I get some help? We’re going to get you out of there real soon.”

Clearly, he couldn’t get the door open unless he tried. Without thinking much about how I should proceed, I started to run my hands over the surface of the door, searching again for some way to unlock it myself. Several inches above the doorknob I found a lock cylinder with an empty key slot.

“Are you O.K.?” he added, almost as an afterthought. The question overwhelmed me: I tried to think what an adequate and accurate answer might be, and I felt my eyes filling with tears.

Not receiving an immediate reply, he continued. “Tell me, buddy, how does everything look in there?”

I had no wish to discuss that melancholy topic. “I just want to get out of here,” I answered.

“You’ll be out real soon,” he shouted.

“Get me out of here now! Please!”

“I’ve got to leave for a minute and get help. You’re going to be all right. I’ll be right back. You hang on, buddy.”

For some reason he slowly backed out of the building, as if I were an animal that might attack him. He closed the door, turned, and walked back onto the visible charred rim of the crater, where he stopped and remained patiently standing.

For nearly ten minutes none of us moved. The men on the lawn stood gazing in my direction; occasionally one would speak to the others and then settle again into silence. Why were they standing immobile, when their only thought should have been to rescue me? They seemed to be waiting for something. I was afraid and angry. But I waited passively. There must be some reason for not breaking open the door at once and getting me out, something I didn’t know. Something terrible perhaps. Probably something to do with the radiation — something they had to guard against, or something they had to do to help me.

Then, in the background, I saw the fence gate swing open. A white van with a flashing light on its roof drove through and moved slowly towards the parking lot. The black man walked over to meet it and motioned it up to the other two vans. I had difficulty reading what was written across the front until I realized that the word
AMBULANCE
had been lettered in mirror reflection. Of course! They had only been waiting for proper medical support, before they tried to move me. My situation was horrible, but I had to stop myself from becoming suspicious and angry and afraid of the people who were trying to help me. Stop myself from becoming insane. Perhaps I already was. I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps that was the explanation.