Fifty Degrees Below (45 page)

But he worked every day with Diane, and he couldn’t help but admire how skillful she was, and determined. They were entering the final stage of arrangements for the North Atlantic intervention, and Diane now devoted a good part of every day talking to the people running the various parts of it. The International Maritime Organization was in charge of shipping; UNEP was making arrangements for salt; the big four re-insurance companies were providing or raising most of the funding. Wracke and the Corps were providing engineering and logistics.

There were some 3,500 oil tankers in operation around the world, they had learned, and about thirty percent of those were still the older single-hulled kind that were legally required to be replaced. Five hundred Very Large Crude Carriers were identified by the IMO as being past due for retirement and potentially available for sale or lease, and as the alternative to a deal would be either the breaker’s yard or legal complications, the ship owners were being very accommodating. These old single-hulled VLCCs had an average capacity of ten million tons, small compared to the Ultra Large Crude Carriers now replacing them, but taken altogether, enough to do the job. The real problem here would be maintaining oil supplies at an adequate level with so much shipping taken out of transport all at once, but plans were being made to build up reserves, speed the construction of new double-hulled ULCCs, and return some of the superannuated fleet to oil transport once the salt operation was done.

So shipping capacity was not proving to be the choke point on the operation. More difficult was coming up with enough salt. Five hundred million metric tons turned out to be equal to about two years of total world production. When the working group first learned this they wondered if the project was impossible, at least in the time frame Diane was calling for. But Diane ordered the group to find out how quickly supplementary salt production could be ramped up. It soon became clear that the 225 million tons a year was more a matter of demand than supply; the salt industry in the Caribbean alone had years of salt dried in the pans ready to go, and the hardrock mines of New Brunswick and the rest of Canada also had a huge inventory, although it was more difficult to speed up extraction there than in the salt pans. In general there was a much greater productive capacity than was needed. Annual supply of highway rock salt in the U.S. only amounted to thirty million tons a year. So there was excess salt, ready at hand in almost every drying pan and hardrock mine on the planet.

So the plan was physically possible, and the winter’s unprecedented harshness meant it was now greeted with cries of hope and anticipation, rather than the raised eyebrows and shaking heads that had met it the previous summer. Indeed the futures market in salt had already jumped, Frank was interested to learn; prices had shot up five hundred percent. Fortunately enough futures had been bought by Swiss Re to bypass this inflation. Already production had been amped up, and the full complement of salt would be ready later that year, at about the same time the fleet of tankers would be ready to be filled. As far as Diane could tell, the project was on course for a rendezvous of the fleet in the north Atlantic that fall. The unlikely-sounding idea first broached in Diane’s office was going to happen, at a total cost of what looked to be about a hundred billion dollars. Swiss Re reported that they were on schedule in their fundraising, and anticipated no problems.

“That’s how desperate this winter has made people,” Edgardo observed.

“I told you the cold snap was a good thing,” Diane replied.

Frank found it interesting, but beyond that felt little. It was hard to connect all the activity to the brainstorming of last summer, when it had been only one of many ideas, and not the most likely at that. Now it had the look of something obvious and inevitable, what Edgardo called a silver bullet solution; a grand exercise in planetary engineering that was exciting worldwide attention, funding, and controversy.

Very interesting indeed; but now it was out of their hands, and Frank’s daily work centered on other things. The Carbon Capture Campaign legislation was about to be introduced by one of Phil Chase’s allies on the House Resources Committee, and Frank was involved with the graphs and tables evaluating various options and scenarios. Then also the test result evaluations on three different heat-to-electricity transformers had to be finished; and the SSEEP project was still generating huge amounts of trouble for NSF, as many accused them of illegally entering into presidential politics, and in a most crassly unfashionable old-left way at that. Diane occasionally thought she would get fired over it, although there was no mechanism or precedent. The heat was coming from all directions—even the Phil Chase campaign, which now appeared to regard the SSEEP platform as some kind of third-party competition. Judging by the results so far, it had possibly been a bad idea to suggest a scientific approach to political problems, but on most days Frank was still glad they had tried it. Something had to be done. Although choosing which something remained a problem. One morning, walking from Optimodal to work, Diane said to him, “So what are you going to work on this morning?”

And Frank, distracted, said, “I don’t know. I could meet with Kenzo, or talk to George in Engineering, or call Yann. Or I could work on the Stirling calculations, or check into those flexible mirrors. Or call up the photovoltaics group. Or I could call Wracke, or the people at NASA to see if their heavy-duty booster is going to be ready this decade. Or there are these glassy metals I could—”

The light changed and they crossed Wilson. Diane, laughing at him, said, “You sound like I feel.” But she didn’t know how he felt; and he truly didn’t know what to do. But then going into the building, the way she looked up at him, he saw that she knew that.

Edgardo and Kenzo dropped by to ask him if he wanted to join them for a run, as he hadn’t for a while. He agreed to it, and they got dressed and took off.

It was crisp but sunny, perfect for running. It turned out Edgardo and Kenzo had run all winter long, except for during the cold snap. They were the most faithful of the faithful, also the most talkative of the talkative, which no doubt explained it. Only on a long run could you hold the floor for ten or fifteen minutes straight, discoursing on some subject or other while your audience pounded along, happy to listen because it distracted from their effort.

Edgardo was still the main talker, perhaps only because he was in the best running shape, and could natter on while the others were having to huff and puff. “Yes,” he was explaining to Bob, “the series is called the Alexandria Quartet.”

“Someone wrote four books about
Alexandria
?”

“That would be Alexandria, Egypt.”

“Oh!”

“Good books, really. Heavily dependent on Proust, of course, but how bad is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I read a good book,” Frank offered, having contributed nothing to the conversation. “
The Long Winter,
by Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

“Some kind of children’s writer?” Edgardo guessed.

“Yes, she wrote
Little House on the Prairie,
and a whole bunch of others. You’d call her a girl’s writer I guess, but this book was as good as anything I’ve ever read. Better, really. I mean really. I can’t remember reading a better novel.”

Edgardo laughed delightedly: “The great American novel! Here is all this debate about which is the Great American Novel, and meanwhile the real thing is a girl’s book hiding right under our noses.”

“I think so.”

“That would be so wonderful. But I have to suspect your judgment has perhaps been influenced by the winter we have just lived through. Content of a work of art tends to influence people’s aesthetic judgment to an unfortunate extent.”

“Like Anna’s husband Charlie, thinking
Mr. Mom
is Hollywood’s greatest movie.”

“Ha. Exactly! We love the art that tells our story. Maybe that’s why I love the Quartet so much. Expatriate angst in a steamy exotic city, full of sin and craziness. Maybe it’s the same Alexandria after all.”

“And is that why
The Triplets of Belleville
is your favorite movie?”

“Yes! Story of my life, every single detail of it, right down to the frogs. Right down to the
dog
.”

On they ran, laughing at Edgardo.

In the evenings Frank returned to the Khembali house. He learned that it had an “entertaining kitchen,” occupying the back half of the house’s ground floor. It had been big to begin with, and was now equipped as if for a restaurant and bakery. Its exquisite heat always enveloped a dozen women and half a dozen men, shouting over the steamy clangor in Tibetan, and also a guttural English that was like Indian English but not. Frank now understood why they sometimes put subtitles under the Dalai Lama on film when he was speaking English.

Early on Drepung introduced Frank to two men and three women, all of whom spoke this English Frank could barely understand.

“So good to have you,” one said.

“Welcome to Khembalung,” said another.

“Can I help?” Frank asked.

“Yes. The bread will soon be ready to take out, and there are many potatoes to peel for dinner.”

“How many do you feed per meal?” Frank asked later, surveying the bustle as he scraped the skin off a potato.

“Hundred. First hundred eat here, the rest have to eat out. Or leftovers. Makes people timely.”

“Wow.”

Sucandra came by when he was finished and led him out back past a frozen compost heap to show him the backyard, now a frozen garden patch and a small greenhouse, the steamy clear plastic walls gleaming greenly, like a shower stall for vegetable people. “Best to join garden duty now,” Sucandra suggested. “It will be very nice in the spring.”

Frank nodded, inspecting the trees in the yard. Possibly one at the back could support a platform. Something to bring up later, obviously.

Sucandra and Padma’s room was a half-flight below Frank and Rudra’s. This meant Frank had other acquaintances to talk to, even when Rudra was asleep or Drepung was gone. Sometimes one of them came up to translate something Rudra had failed to communicate in English but still wanted to say. Mostly the two new roommates were left to hash it out on their own. In practice this meant a few exchanges a day, combining with a formal lesson in the last hour before the old man fell asleep. Rudra would nod out over
Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever,
muttering in his gravelly low voice, “chalk, pencil sharpener, milk, cookies, paper clip, thumbtacks, lost clothing drawer,” chuckling as his finger tapped on the latest appearance of the pig man with the windblown hat. He would tell Frank the Tibetan words for these items, sometimes, but the main focus of their sessions was on English; Frank could learn Tibetan or not, Rudra did not care, he even appeared to scoff at the idea. “What’s the use?” he would growl. “Tibet gone, ha.” Many odd things appeared to strike him funny, and he laughed with an abrupt low
“Ha,”
as if laughter were a surprise attack against invisible demons.

Frank was content to lie there on his groundpad in the evening, listening to the old man read and occasionally correcting his pronunciation. Usually Frank worked on his laptop.

“Pumpkin, ghost, what say? What say?” This was something the Khembalis often said as a kind of “um” or “er” as they searched for the right word or expression, so Frank had to be prompted to treat it as a real question.

“Oh sorry. That’s a witch on a broom, but he’s made the witch an owl in this case.”

“Ghost festival?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“That is very danger.” Tibetan was made of syllable roots that stayed the same in different word forms, and Frank noticed that a lot of the Khembalis used English nouns the same way, letting them do the work of verbs and modifiers: “You will learn to meditation.” “He became enlightenment.”

As they drifted off to sleep the two of them would hold strange conversations, involving both languages and a lot of confusion. Companionship without comprehension; it was just the kind of company that suited Frank. It reminded him of the bros in the park. In fact he told Rudra about his acquaintances in the park, and the winter they had had.

“Wandering tramps are often spirits in disguise.”

“I’m sure.”

The whole situation in the household was proving more congenial to Frank than he had expected it to be. Not knowing the language excused him from many conversations, but there were always people around; a crowd, faces gradually known, amazing faces, but few of them named or spoken to. That too was somewhat like being in the park with the bros. But it was warmer; and easier. He didn’t have to decide where to be so often, where to go. What to do next—it was as simple as that. He didn’t have to decide what to do every hour or so. That was hard even without damage to the prefrontal cortex.

One decision remained easy; on Friday after work, he drove over to Bethesda and ate at Rio Grande, and then at quarter to nine he was standing before his telephone at the Metro bus stop. He waited through nine, and at 9:05 called Caroline’s number. No answer.

He wondered if he could find out the location of her number. But would knowing it help him in any way, given that she didn’t appear to be going there? What could have happened? What he should do? What might keep her from calling? Deep uneasiness was almost indistinguishable from fear.

He was walking sightlessly down Wisconsin toward his van, deep in his uneasiness, when his cell phone rang. He snatched it out of his pocket, while at the same time seeing that he was standing right before the elevator box that he and Caroline had emerged from last year. His heart leaped—”Hello?”

“Frank it’s me.”

“Oh good. What’s happening?”

“—really sorry, I couldn’t get there last week and I thought I’d be able to make it this week but I couldn’t. I can’t talk long. I just slipped out.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Well yeah, but look I need to just set up another call here and get off. He’s suddenly asking me to do things on Fridays and I don’t know if it means anything, but can you be there at that number next Monday at nine?”