Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (64 page)

I spent my days finding out everything there was to know about David Jenkins. The long walks from agency to agency were at this time of year almost a pleasure, and the locks I encountered everywhere presented no problem now that I had my invisible lock-picking tools. I had been afraid at first that I might be walking into a trap, but it quickly became clear that for the second time Jenkins had failed to anticipate me. I found everything I was looking for, although it took me not several days as I had expected but almost two weeks, and I had to spend many nights locked in offices or archives.

I found out almost immediately that Jenkins had moved his operations to the fifth floor of a loft building on West Thirty-eighth Street and that he had no promising lead whatever. At least none that he was reporting— and surely he would want to report anything he had. Thanks to my helpful telephone call, he did know that as of last November I had still been alive and probably still in Manhattan, but beyond that he had lost my trail completely. He had people watching empty apartments and clubs and Nick Halloway’s friends and business associates, but there had been no verifiable sign of me for many months now. I wondered how long he could go empty-handed before his funding would begin to dry up.

More difficult was the task of tracing Jenkins’s career through a succession of name changes and through a hierarchy of assignments and reassignments from one agency to another and back again, so that no one file contained anything approaching a complete or even accurate account. In the end, I think I may have been the only person who knew everything about him. I knew, come to think of it — the files these organizations maintain on their employees are extraordinarily detailed — almost as much about him as he about me.

But just what use it all might be to me was not clear. Jenkins did not seem to have told anyone that I had destroyed whatever evidence he had once possessed that might have made my existence credible. Only I knew that he was left with nothing but a few fragments of “superglass.” I might be able to embarrass him by informing his superiors or some Congressional oversight committee that they were funding a search for a will-o’-the-wisp. Or I might tell Anne Epstein, who could tell the public. But the fact was that Jenkins had not really done anything or even said anything on the record that he could not explain away with a minimum of awkwardness. As I went over the problem, I saw that he had hardly exposed himself at all. I had found out everything there was to find out, and there seemed to be nothing more I could do. Only keep moving. If I got caught, it would be from staying too long in one place and confiding too much in Alice.

W
e tried once that Summer to go to the seashore, but the first time I walked out onto the beach, I saw that it would be impossible. No matter how carefully I brought my foot down, each step churned a nasty little cavity in the dry sand; and, worse yet, when I reached the wet sand along the water, perfect footprints began to appear beneath me. I insisted on getting into the car and driving straight back to Manhattan.

But after our trip to Washington, we drove up to the Berkshires, and Alice rented an old farmhouse not far from Sheffield. There was no other human habitation within view, only fields and woods, and we could take long walks outside without any fear of being seen or heard. During what was left of summer and the beginning of autumn, we went up every weekend.

During the week, while Alice was in her studio, I toiled in my workshop, mastering the tools and trying to figure out how I could make the best possible use of my supply of invisible materials. As I saw the summer drawing to a close, I turned to the most important project of all, the fabrication of new clothes. I had an assortment of random articles of invisible clothing, most of them too small for me, and a collection of window curtains and upholstery pulled off the MicroMagnetics office furniture. I had never in my life held a needle and thread in my hands, and I did not even know the names of the different kinds of fabric, but I hoped to stitch together whatever I had into a workable wardrobe for the rest of my life. I had assumed that sewing would be much easier than the woodworking and metalworking I had been doing, but I quickly saw that it was in fact much more difficult. I abandoned almost at once any idea of working with a sewing machine — although I had purchased what was described as the most versatile and usable machine in existence. Even with visible thread and cloth I found it to be the most unmanageable piece of equipment I had.

Next, I experimented for several days with needles and visible thread, at the same time reading various incomprehensible books on needlework and tailoring. Then, when I thought I was reasonably proficient at sewing by hand, I unraveled part of one of the invisible drapes and tried to use the thread to stitch together some of the other material. It was slow, nasty, infuriating work. It is almost impossible to thread even the largest needle with invisible thread, and no matter how careful I was, it always seemed to pull free again immediately. My fingers were soon raw from pulling on thread. Furthermore I could tell it was coming out badly. Whenever I would run my fingers along one of my seams, I would find that it was hopelessly crooked and that it pulled open at random places.

I could not face another winter without more clothing, but I could see that, at the rate I was learning to sew, I would never outfit myself in time. Furthermore, I was particularly unwilling to risk wasting my small supply of cloth on more botched attempts. After considerable debate with myself, I finally turned to Alice for help.

“Alice, do you know how to sew?”

“Of course. But why? Are your clothes beginning to wear out?”

“They seem to be holding up surprisingly well, actually. There is a tear in this shirt that I’d like to repair, but what I—”

“And what about you? Are you wearing out?” she asked. “Or are you going to stay the same… the same age… Are you going to stay the same for hundreds of years?”

“Based on the aches and pains and the wobbliness in certain joints, I would say I was getting older in the usual way. Hard to judge the wrinkles by touch — and I haven’t had enough time yet, anyway.”

“I’ll tell you why I ask. I’m wearing out, myself, and if you’re not, I’m not sure I can count on holding your interest through the winter years.”

I always hated conversations like this. But that is the trouble with asking people for favors: you have to be civil.

“So far, I see no sign whatever of any waning of my interest in you. And anyway, as I keep telling you, I hope, with luck, to die of old age at around the usual time. The only plausible alternative would seem to involve dying much sooner.”

“And when you next die. What will happen then?”

“I don’t know, and I try my best to avoid thinking about it. But I have adopted as a working hypothesis that absolutely nothing happens. I lie in cold obstruction and rot. Anything more would be in the realm of the miraculous and entirely inconsistent with everything I have so far seen in the world.”

“Well, you’re here now,” she said, reaching out and poking a finger into my belly. She caught me by surprise and it felt quite unpleasant. “In whatever form you’re in. Wouldn’t you call that miraculous? Most people would.”

“I suppose it is miraculous in a way, but not now that I’ve grown so used to it. It’s really no more miraculous than your being here. Actually,” I added, kissing her forehead, “your being here is altogether miraculous.”

“Speaking of things you’ve grown used to.” She smiled, but her eyes did not take part in the smile, and I wondered if tears were forming in them. Alice had been increasingly moody these last weeks.

“You know, now that you mention it,
you’ve
grown used to
me,
haven’t you? The novelty of living with an invisible spirit has pretty much worn off. And the thrill is gone even from the secret, isn’t it?”

“Well what’s the point of a secret you can’t tell anybody?”

“Do you sew?”

“I told you I did. What would you like me to sew?”

“I just want you to show me how.”

“You have new clothes, don’t you? After wearing the same things every day for almost a year, you suddenly have all sorts of new things. But of course you can’t discuss that at present. That, or where you keep your new clothes, or what it is you’re doing, or why you’re away so much now. Or what it is you’re so preoccupied about all the time. Why don’t you just show me what you want me to sew. You won’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

After several unsuccessful experiments, Alice worked out a technique in which she basted pieces of visible tissue paper onto the pieces of invisible fabric. Then, once she had sewn everything together, she would remove the paper. Out of the various fragments of cloth I had salvaged, Alice stitched together a patchwork overcoat, lining it with pieces of material cut from a sweatsuit; and with other bits of fabric she lengthened the trouser legs and sleeves of the invisible clothing which was too small for me. The garments she produced in this way felt quite odd, being pieced together out of scraps of different textures and weights, and no one piece of clothing, not even the coat, was in itself very warm, but by wearing several layers at once I was going to be able to survive the winter in reasonable comfort.

A
s I thought about it, I realized that Alice really had grown used to me. She was no longer amazed at the sight of the pencil dancing over the paper, the glass of wine floating through the room and tipping itself into thin air and then evaporating. She would no longer suddenly reach out and run her hands over my body, marveling to find the solid human form invisible in her grasp. These things had become part of her daily life and no more miraculous than the kitchen table or the view from her window or anything else in creation. In fact, she seemed at times rather to regret that I was not like everyone else than to marvel at my uniqueness. I wondered whether it was all gradually becoming boring for her. She would realize that she was harboring a defective fugitive rather than some magical being.

She would often run her fingers over my face, in what I thought at first was a sort of caress, but was, I one day realized with a little shock, her way of trying to see my features. And one evening, when I had fallen asleep on the bed, I awoke to find her smoothing the sheet over my face. “I was just curious to see what you looked like,” she said. “I don’t look like anything,” I said with annoyance, pulling the sheet abruptly away.

But when I saw her staring down at me, I at once felt remorseful and as a show of good will drew the sheet over my face again.

“All right, then. What do you think? A good face, or just as well that you can’t see it?”

“A difficult call,” she said appraisingly. “But the sheet doesn’t suit you at all. Too much like a death mask.”

“Just the right effect for a ghost, I should have thought.” She pulled the sheet away and ran her hand over my face and down onto my chest. “Yes, that’s definitely better.”

“Alice, you haven’t ever told anyone, have you? About living with a ghost?”

“I’ve never said a thing to anyone. I gave you my word.”

She seemed genuinely aggrieved at the question. But something about her answer made me uneasy all the same.

“And anyway,” she went on, “who do you imagine I would tell? I sit alone all day in my studio, and I spend the rest of the time with you. You’re the only person I ever see. Or you would be, if I could see you.”

“Well who is ‘James,’ then?” The question escaped me before I was quite aware that I was asking it — it is never a good idea to ask this sort of question. “The one who keeps calling up and leaving messages on the answering machine.”

There was a little pause.

“That would probably be
Father
James,” she said, “calling about the exorcism. Did he leave an estimate?”

I did not reply, and there was another pause.

“Or then again it might just be James Larson,” she resumed, “calling about the book jackets I’m doing for him… What’s the matter? Don’t you like exorcism jokes?”

“Not particularly.”

“Sorry. But frankly it seemed like just the sort of remark you might make.”

“Did it? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you never tell anyone about me.”

“Is that the important thing? It’s good you tell me, so I don’t lose sight of what’s important and what isn’t.”

Alice seemed unhappy out of all proportion to whatever it was we had been talking about. But her moodiness was hardly surprising, I reflected. It must be a rather odd and unsatisfactory life that she was leading with me, cut off from everyone she had known before.

One day, I remember, as we walked together down Madison Avenue, a man, well dressed, in his thirties, stopped and greeted Alice, a vast smile breaking out on a pleasant, handsome face.

“Alice!”

Holding her by both arms, he kissed each of her cheeks. Alice was uncomfortable.

“How are you,” she said.

“What’s become of you? All of sudden there, you just disappeared from my life. Stopped returning my calls. And now I hear you’re engaged to someone no one has ever seen.”

“Sort of. How are you?”

Alice shifted her weight uneasily from one foot to the other and glanced nervously at where I had been standing beside her. I stepped away. Perhaps it would be more considerate to walk out of earshot, although it would hardly help Alice, since she would have no way of knowing I had done it.

“Why don’t we have dinner. I gather this guy is out of town a lot.” He still held her left arm.

“I really can’t. I—”

“Or we’ll get together for lunch. Very discreet.”

“Maybe when Nick is in town we can all get together—”

“I’ll call you at work, Alice.” His fingers slid down her arm and he gave her hand a squeeze. “Take care.”

We walked together in silence for several blocks.

“You know, Alice, you probably ought to get out and meet some nice, visible young men. You’re going to waste your youth hanging out with wraiths.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You think so? Maybe you should concentrate on your own affairs. Whatever they may be.”