Cosmic Hotel (19 page)

“I haven't felt like this in years,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He glanced down the wide hallway to his shut bedroom door. He tapped his knuckle on the wall as if trying to locate a stud, trying to figure out a way to ask her for money. Instead he said, “Did you hear that I have a new book out too?”

“Yes,” she said. “Why don't you call him?”

Someone with money?
he thought. “Who?” he said.

“Sandeep.”

“I absolutely will,” he said. “Did you say that you read my new book?”

“Yes, Charles, we've all read it.”

“Sandeep has?”

“Of course.”

“Elizabeth, are you okay? I won't hang up this phone until I know you are okay.”

“I am fine. I don't even know why you ask if I'm okay. We are staying at the Grand Aerodrome . . .”

He shut the bedroom door before the dog could come inside.

Ruth smoked a new cigarette staring out the window, flicking ashes directly on his floor and letting them blow inside on the breeze.

“Something has come up,” he started.

“Yes, it has.” She threw her phone to the foot of the bed. “Read that.”

He picked it up. It was in the middle of a
Times
article, and he went backward to read the headline,
CREW DEAD
.

“
What?
” he said. “This isn't real.”

“There was a fire in the forward bay,” she said. “What's not real about six dead, no survivors?”

He scrolled down the article where it mentioned that Ruth Christmas had been the seventh crewmember but had made an emergency return to Earth in January because of “acute appendicitis.”

Cold night air flowed through the open French doors.

“Oh my God,” he said. “This is impossible.”

“It's not impossible. They're all dead. That's a fact.” The muscles in her cheeks flexed as if to form a smile, but her mouth pulled straight. “So how would you feel if your dog problem just went away?”

“I don't have a dog problem,” he mumbled, but then he understood what she was getting at. “The father?” he asked her.

“What about him?”

Van Raye didn't speak.

She said, “Yes, he's dead. He didn't know about . . . you know, this.” She pointed to her belly.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Trust me, there are worse things than death.”

“They were all your friends.”

She tilted her head back and blew smoke. “Asphyxiation isn't a bad way to go. Burning alive would be bad. That place was an accident waiting to happen. Now it's an orbiting mausoleum, a big charred mausoleum. I'm sure people are going to make a big fucking deal out of that, a perpetually orbiting crypt. Isn't that a kick?”

“Ruth, do you have someone you should call?”

“Why?” she said.

“I don't know. They'll be coming after you. You'll want to attend services. They'll want you . . . You'll want to go, right?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Certainly not, but I just thought . . . I don't know what I can do. I'm not good at these things.”

“What do you have to be good at?” Ruth said, and she put her hand on her belly. “The weird part about this is that when I saw the news, I realized I'd had a premonition about this.”

“There are no premonitions,” he said.

“Shut up. I know that.”

“Let me ask you this, and I don't mean to be insensitive, but how are we going to get the software for the booster?”

“I don't know,” she said.

“Do you know anyone who can, you know, get it?” he asked.

“Sure. And guess what?
They're all dead
.”

“We'll get it, somehow, though, right?” he said. “Is the station's antenna still tracking on the planet?”

She went and turned the Trans-Oceanic radio on.

Please, please
, he thought.

He worked the knob and the hum and clicks of Chava Norma tuned in strong. These sounds began three thousand light-years away, traveled to space spreading out and losing energy, but a tiny bit arrived at the space station, was gain-boosted there and rebroadcast over the earth.

He watched Ruth crawl back in bed on all fours, roll over, and put her hand on her belly. She held her breath.

He clicked the radio off.

“You're hearing it now?” he whispered, using his eyes to indicate her belly.

She put the other hand on her stomach. “You can't hear
that
? It's as clear as day to me. Music.”

“Is it a song?”

“It's just . . . like music-box music,” she said.

He waited for her to tell him to come over and listen to her stomach. She waited for him to say he wanted to listen. Neither happened.

CHAPTER 25

I don't remember the first words I spoke. Recovery happened too slowly. What was a loud breath, or what was a syllable? One week I was flexing fingers; the next week there was movement at my wrist, the tingling, like an occupying army, decided to pick up and retreat, and the elation of the vivid dream that night had long faded though the memory was there, and I did not anticipate the coming of December 12 because it wasn't in my mind.

After six weeks and two days Elizabeth pulled the December 11 off the wall calendar in my hospital room, and suddenly there was December 12 staring me in the face, and I remember Randolph telling, and the memory flooded in. I had the sensation of falling, heart palpitating and my breath short. There was nothing to grab but the bed's railing. Time imploded, and I had the sensation that one second ago Randolph had told me this date when I was standing in the doorway waiting for Elizabeth to get me a glass of water, and in a blink of the eye here I was seeing Elizabeth crumbling up the eleventh and dropping it into a wastebasket, but I had all memories of what had happened here at the hospital. It was like waking from anesthesia, thinking not enough time had gone by for everything to have occurred, but yet all the memories were there, including Ursula reading, the experience of the vivid dream, the elation of having believed.

Elizabeth kept talking as she walked around the room, but I wasn't listening. I was dizzy with fear, hand to my chest. The sensation was terrifying. I knew then that I didn't ever want this to happen again,
my life leaping forward. I opened and closed my hand; I moved my fingers, watching the tendons in my wrist flex.

I heard about the disaster on the space station when we were on the old plum-colored shuttle going back to the hotel. Of course I didn't know this had anything to do with my life.

When I finally went back to the Grand Aerodrome, when I finally pushed the door open to my room, I hobbled to my dresser and found everything exactly as I'd left it six weeks ago: my watch, my wallet, my money clip, the hardcopy of
The Universe Is a Pair of Pants
, and Barbie, and my phone. It was like I'd left it yesterday.

I plugged in my phone and waited for it to get enough charge to power on.

Elizabeth stood in the door watching me. I angled the phone so I could see her reflection in its black screen.

“Sandeep, there are things that I don't understand, and you can explain them to me.”

I turned to her. “Did something happen?”

“I have my violin,” she said. “How did that happen? And then you got sick.”

I waited for the phone, adjusted Barbie's arms so that they were down beside her and not reaching out as if she wanted me. I sat her on her bottom and loved that smile of hers that was like a smile that was beginning to blossom, as if she were about to face some life-altering happiness.

“I know,” I said. “I don't understand it all either. Charles will know. He'll tell us when he gets here.”

“What does he have to do with this?” she said. “We don't know for sure he's coming.”

I watched my phone finally come alive. “Can you play now?” I said to Elizabeth. “Please.” She looked to see if I were serious and turned to her room. There, I heard the latches on the case open.

My screen turned a light gray, and the home screen came up. I scrolled to my text conversations and found nothing there from Randolph. It was as if it had never happened. I had no proof that he existed other than that the violin was in our possession. Then a text dinged in:

Elizabeth began Sarasate again just as she'd played the night I'd gotten sick, the night she first got the violin back. I texted:

Elizabeth was at the point that the bow was drawn slowly. I knew if I went to show her this conversation, it would disappear.

Dog again? What dog?

When Elizabeth's music changed to the next movement—sad and slow—I typed and sent:

The answer came quickly:

I thought of ways to trick him, try to run to Elizabeth and show her the text, try to copy the text.

I used my cane to go to the bathroom and I ran water in the glass, drank it, refilled, indulged myself by spitting it in the basin and drinking more and more, no longer thirsty now that I could drink all the water I wanted. I splashed it on my face. There was me in the mirror, wearing a tracksuit a size too big for my body, my hair over my ears. I got the old tinfoil sheet of pills out of my shaving kit and punched out two of Dr. Ahuja's antidepressants and looked at the medicine's box where a dancing figure spun as if in a fit of euphoria, and I thought about Elvis movies, musicals, and happiness. I was ready for the musical based on my life to begin.

CHAPTER 26

In the middle of the night, Van Raye and Ruth left Palo Alto. He felt good behind the wheel of his old Jaguar, headed out on the nearly deserted causeway to the interstate.

“He smells awful,” Ruth said.

Van Raye glanced at the light crossing over her closed eyes. The dog was in the backseat making snotty noseprints on the window, the smears twinkling brighter.

On the dashboard, the alien statue stared back at him. “Do we really need this?” he said.

“Yes,” Ruth said. She'd drug it out of his suitcase the other day. “Because,” she said, “I can tell you hate it. Whoever gave you this, you fucked her.” He saw her rubbing her own belly. “Let's call it therapy,” she said.

Forty-five minutes into the trip, she asked, “When are we going to stop?”

She wore her standard green unflattering flight suit. When she'd thrown her one duffle into the trunk on top of Van Raye's three garbage bags of stuff, he'd noticed the bulge of her belly in the jumpsuit.

Now there was starlight overhead and dark forests on both sides of the road, woods thick enough to do what was best, and he had a pregnant ex-wife in the car, a whole country to drive across, had another ex-wife to find, and he told himself that he had to start organizing his writing so he could perfectly tell the story of his discovery and how he sent his own message to the planet before anyone else did.

Van Raye found the right spot to pull off the road. Ruth pretended to stay asleep against the passenger door when he shut the engine off. They'd discussed this, agreed it was best, but he stepped out alone, scared by the silence of the woods. Lightning bugs tricked his eyes. The concrete of the highway sparkled moonlight, and the heat of the Jaguar's engine smelled good as it ticked and cooled. Van Raye opened the back door. “Come on,” he said to the dog.

Ruth was a dark, unmoving, silent mound in the passenger seat. The dog hopped out and never lost momentum, zigzagging back and forth, nose going over the ground.

Ruth's door creaked open. She shoved it wider and grabbed the doorframe. “What a son of a bitch you are,” she said calmly. She hauled herself out.

“Don't . . . ” he said.

How
, he thought,
did I end up with a pregnant ex-wife who was hearing music in her belly, a hundred miles from nowhere, letting a dog go in the woods?

Her flip-flops scraped the pavement as she went to the driver's side, slid behind the wheel, and started the car.

The dog stopped, turned and looked at them, tongue out. Van Raye got in the passenger side and pulled his silver pipe out as she got the car going.
I will sleep it off
, he told himself.

It was Ruth who said, “You let him go rather easily.”

“What dog wouldn't want to be free in the woods?” he said.

Ruth ran the car up to ninety, the hand on the bottom of the wheel, the car swaying, and put another cigarette in her mouth.

“Be careful,” he said.

“What does it matter?” she said. “This is dark. Dark, dark.” She pushed the lighter in. “I'm going to remind you in the daylight what you are capable of, what we are all capable of, and see how you feel then. This isn't a ‘never talk about it' moment.”

“You don't believe in those, do you?” he said.

“I don't think we can just forget letting a dog go.”

The lighter popped out.

“Don't mention it if we're in Texas, please,” he said. “Texas is depressing enough. Wait till we're through Texas, if you must. Maybe we shouldn't go into Texas.”

“I'll save it for Texas. Let's heap the shit on and see what happens.” One hand on the wheel, the other with the cigarette rubbed her belly in the jumpsuit, and he knew she was hearing the music.

“Who was the father?” he said.

“A cosmonaut,” she said.

“What happened to you up there?” he said. “I'm not talking about
that
.”

She didn't answer at first but then said, “I got a glimpse of the big thing that scares everyone.”

“What ‘big thing'?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Like nothing ‘never mind,' or like nothing
nothing
?”

“Capital-N Nothing,” she said. “I saw Nothing. I saw it when I was up there. Nothing is horrifyingly bright. That was the scary part—it was bright and nothing.”

“Quit talking like that. I'm not in the mood,” he said.

She made a defeated sigh.

He said, “You need some professional help. You've been through a major trauma.”

“I am professional help,” she said.

“Doctor, heal thyself?” he muttered.

In a few minutes, after staring at the road, watching the trees go by, she said, “What does this Elizabeth look like?”

“Don't be petty. My son is sick, and we are going to visit him for a few days and see what progress we can make on finding an antenna to send my message.”

Smoke filled the car.

On one of the trees she drove past, there was a small white sign, and Ruth had time to read it as they flashed by. It said
HELL IS REAL
, and Ruth said, “Hell is real. Why not send that?”

“Quit,” he said.

“That is succinct and it's very helpful.”

He didn't say anything and then softly, “Poor baby.”

“What did you say?” she said.

“I didn't say anything.”

When Van Raye fell asleep against his door, he dreamed he was in the woods trying to re-catch the dog. The dog stood still long enough for Van Raye to see a medical porthole in the side of the dog. He looked inside, expecting intestines like in the cow in the pasture, but instead there was clean blackness of space and one bright shiny point of light. It was, Van Raye knew, the star with Chava Norma orbiting around it, a whole other world inside the dog. In his dream, he tried to get closer, but the dog ran away.