Sparta (41 page)

“Sorry,” Conrad said, and the guy moved over. His mouth was open, as though he were being tortured. Conrad wondered if this was his first run ever.

Conrad moved past Desperate, then slid around the next runner, a plump woman with thick, dry hair and bright red matching shorts and jacket. She was barely running at all, just moving at a lively shuffle along the dirt track.

“On your left,” Conrad said, and she gave him a heroic smile without moving her head. He ran past, then around the next runner. He kept moving through the fluid crowd until he was behind Pale Green. He liked watching her run. She had smooth tan legs, a floating stride, and a fast pace. She looked focused and committed. Most people looked as though they were in agony. Conrad had never spoken to her; he'd hardly ever looked her directly in the face. You didn't, running, you were always facing forward.

He ran behind her. They were following the long curve of the water's edge as the sun rose, sending bright shafts across the water. The massed trees along the western shore were suddenly illuminated, the sun striking them into green clouds of glory. Ahead of him, the girl ran without slowing, her brown arms bent loosely, pumping hard, her stride long and tireless. Her back was brown, and gleamed moistly. She never slackened. Her face, when he'd glimpsed it, was sober and expressionless. She didn't wear a headset, either. She was just there, pounding along fast, carrying out a goal. Right in the thick of it, running fast, pushing herself. He loved that.

Conrad followed her for five laps. When he approached the pumping station again, he swerved right, swooping down off the raised track that stretched around the water. He ran down the little bank and onto the grass. He felt good.

He liked pushing himself. At OCS, being pushed felt at first like harassment, but as they'd grown stronger, it became a matter of pride. And pushing yourself, striving, was part of something larger. Conrad, alone, just doing this, just running the New York City reservoir, was part of a long history of Marines pushing themselves, sweating on the PT deck, climbing the ropes, storming the heights. It was the challenge. Conrad liked this, his body sweaty and hot and loose, heart pounding, lungs pumping, everything working.

He ran back across the park, through the stone gateway, and onto the sidewalk. He kept running. When he reached a red light, he jogged in place, waiting for it to change, unwilling to give up the thrumming beat throughout his body. Once, he'd seen a runner in the park meet a pair of friends who were walking. The runner stopped to greet them, but he wouldn't stop running, and he jogged in place as they talked. The walker introduced the runner to his girlfriend. The bobbing jogger put out his hand to shake hers, and the woman took it and out of courtesy began to jog in place, too. For a moment the two of them faced each other, hands clasped, bobbing up and down. Then he released her, she stopped jogging, he went on with his run, and the couple went on with their walk.

When Conrad reached Jenny's block, the day had begun. The sounds were louder and brasher: the roar and clank of trucks and buses, the honks and panting of traffic. The city was awake and at work. Conrad let himself into the dark front hall and took the stairs two at a time.

Jenny was in the kitchen. She was wearing oversize pink flannel pajamas, standing at the table and holding a bowl of granola close to her chest. She raised her spoon at him.

“Hola,”
she said.

“Hi there.” Conrad sat down to take off his shoes.

“How was it?” Jenny asked.

“Good,” Conrad said. “I like running the reservoir. Half of New York is out there. It's cool.”

Jenny nodded.

“Are you about to use the shower?” Conrad asked. “I can wait.”

“I'm about to jump in,” Jenny said. “If that's okay.”

“No problemo,” Conrad said. “I'll wait.”

“Today's your first class?”

He nodded. “Four-ten. Mathematics Hall.”

“Sounds good,” she said.

When she came back out, she was dressed for the day: black T-shirt, bright blue tights, and a striped miniskirt. The big earrings were neon-blue concentric circles.

“I'm heading out,” she said. “I'll see you later. Good luck with the class.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She was gone, clattering down the stairs.

Conrad showered and shaved. In his underwear, he fixed cereal and sat down to read his email. Answering the men was still the main event of his day, though from now on it would be different.

There was a message from Anderson.

Hey LT. I'm still on the job. Glad to have it, cuz I hear a lot of vets are having trouble getting work. It's ok. I don't have to see many people or talk to them, most of the day I'm alone. Kind of weird being out on the roads alone, can't imagine doing that back in-country but its ok. I tried the volunteer thing but it didn't work out. I had to be certified in some way or other, if I was going to actually talk to the kids. They asked me to come and give a speech about being in Iraq at the high school, but I didn't want to. I don't know what to say about it, any of it, is the fact. Do you ever talk about it? It's like a giant country, like a whole fucking continent, that I'm carrying around on my back and don't know what to do with. Let me know what's happening in New York. I miss everyone, weird but true. Anderson.

Conrad answered everyone right away. He still felt connected. He was no longer planning duty rotations and missions, but he still felt responsible and he liked hearing from them.

He was puzzled by what he was hearing from Anderson, who was not a complainer; Conrad couldn't tell if he was in trouble or not. He wrote back.

Anderson. Hey, it's good to hear from you. Glad you're still on the job. Driving a truck without worrying about IEDs and the muj must be hard to imagine. Actually I find myself doing evasive action without realizing it. I scared my mom, driving out on the highway. A white sedan came up on one side and I started swerving like a madman at 70 mph. She nearly jumped out of the car. I felt bad for scaring her, but that still feels like normal driving. I have to keep reminding myself it's not. It's an effort. And I know what you mean about finding it hard to talk about. I hardly talk about it at all. It's hard being back and trying to think like a civilian. I hope you're having an ok time with it. I know some guys are struggling. Keep in touch. Farrell.

There was a brief message from Ollie:

Yo, bro, wassup? This semester is way better, way. Like my profs, like my classes. Have you heard the Blood Lambs? Vry cool I think. Why don'[t you come up? Yah, O.

Conrad had no idea who the Blood Lambs were.

Yo, O. Cant keep up w/ yr music. Don't know the Blood Lambs. Glad to hear the semester is better. Are you in Mandarin II? Better housing? What? All quiet here. My class begins today. Glad to get started. Yah, C.

When he was finished with the emails, Conrad officially started the day. He got dressed, made the bed, and sat down in one of the giant upholstered chairs with the GMAT review book. It was a big fat heavy paperback with a blue cover and ocher-colored lettering. A red starburst announced that it was
The Official Guide
. Conrad planned to study two hours a day with it, more if necessary. He began flipping through the pages.

If
∧
represents one of the operations
+
, –, and
×
, is k
∧
(l
+
m)
=
(k
∧
l) for all numbers k, l, and m?

1) k
∧
1 is not equal to 1
∧
k for some numbers k.

2)
∧
represents subtraction.

Okay, he'd need to brush up on math.

He'd start off with the Diagnostic Test—that would let him know which areas he should focus on. Quantitative: money being spent over a period of months, water flowing into a reservoir, integers and prime numbers. The way that mathematics turned the world into a magic realm of quantities, a huge turning face made up of millions of tiny tiles that clicked into place. He could hear that infinitesimal sound as the right answer revealed itself, set perfectly in the vast mosaic of logic. It was logic that drove all of this, a perfect celestial chorus of logic, calm and absolute. There was no margin. There was only one right answer to any of these. You were with the system or you were against it. He felt as though he'd gotten inside the mechanism of a clock, tiny thrumming wires strung taut all around him. He needed to take a breath, get outside this. Make the logic his own.

The average (arithmetic mean) of the integers from 200 to 400, inclusive, is how much greater than the average of the integers from 50 to 100, inclusive?

He took out a pen.

He could do this, it was just logic. It was just figuring out the approach. He could do it all right. The headache was beginning to hover over his right eye. He could do this. Something had gotten inside his head and was beginning to rattle around in there, something silent and weightless, like a black laser light that flickered and glanced. He reread the question, squinting at it. It was better if he kept his right eye closed. He put one hand over his eye. He knew he could do this. It was a question of focus.

After forty minutes he closed the book, though he had done only three problems. The headache had moved in and taken over the territory. Inside his head it was like a factory, crowded and noisy, throbbing and thundering. He could hardly hear anything else, the sound drowned out everything. It was painful to turn his head. He closed his eyes and set his hands on the arms of the chair as though he were about to be electrocuted. All this—making himself follow that complicated pathway of logic—had started a pounding drumbeat in his brain. The headache was in full stride now, the throb strong and steady, like a silent engine. He sat still and waited for it to subside.

Okay,
he told himself.
Okay.
He counted, breathing. Long, slow breaths.

Later he washed the dishes and set off early for the campus. He wanted to be the first in the room.

Conrad walked up Broadway and in at 116th Street, where the passageway led to the Morningside campus. In the interior was an open space several blocks long, grass and paved walkways. Around the perimeter were tall brick buildings with neoclassical details: busts, cornices. Names were carved on their façades: Socrates, Homer, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Milton. The Williams campus had been huge, more or less the whole of Williamstown, buildings and fields and lawns sprawled out across the landscape. This felt like an urban cloister. The sense of enclosure made him uneasy: there were few escape routes. Crowds were bad enough; crowds in an enclosed space were worse.

A loose surge of students moved along the paved walkway. Conrad joined them. They seemed decades younger, with their fresh faces and sloppy clothes, untied sneakers, careless gestures. These crowds were different from the ones on the street. On the street, people were guarded and composed, self-protective. But here the students were relaxed and inattentive, heedless. They walked along, listening to headsets, talking on cell phones, texting, ignoring everything around them. He wanted them to pay attention. There was no cover along this walkway.

A girl walked toward him. She was wearing a ruffled pink blouse and skintight jeans, looking at something in her hand. She had tousled black hair and wore a headband with a big polka-dotted bow. She walked with quick, small, sure steps, not even looking up. As she neared him, she smiled at what she saw in her hand, and started to laugh. Conrad came into her peripheral vision, and she looked up, her face blank. She swerved around him and looked down again at her hand.

It was none of his business, how she walked. No one had asked him to tell civilians how they should act. But why didn't they know?

He began to sweat slightly. He could feel it on his face, the shirt starting to stick to his back. It was September, still hot. The sun was lowering, but the day's heat had gathered in the bricks and mortar of the buildings, and now they were radiating, giving it back. It wasn't really hot here, not compared to the real heat, but Conrad began to sweat. He didn't like the crowds, and he didn't like the way the kids were so reckless, and he didn't like the way he couldn't ignore that. And he was frightened by what had happened to his mind while he was taking the Diagnostic Test.

He was headed for Mathematics Hall. He could see it now, a tall, handsome neoclassical brick building with white doors and trim, on the northwestern side of the campus. Conrad was about halfway across the quad, on the exposed walkway. Next time he'd walk along the side or up along Broadway.

Something heavy crashed against his back, and Conrad whirled, crouching, his hands raised and ready, his heart racing.

A kid in jeans and a T-shirt had staggered backward into him. His back was to Conrad, and now he lurched against Conrad a second time. Another kid was pursuing him, a taller kid with wild dark hair and black-rimmed glasses. The one who'd crashed into Conrad was short and solid, with sleek mouse-colored hair and too-long khaki pants. He was trying to evade his pursuer, twisting and writhing, falling backward.

“Hey,”
Conrad said. He stepped forward. Mouse Hair had given up, his shoulders hunched, his head down. His hands were raised like paws in front of his chest, trying to fend off the other's pummeling. Conrad moved between them and reached for Black Glasses, who was punching and flailing at Mouse Hair. Conrad grabbed Black Glasses by the shirtfront and saw his face change from feckless grin to frozen, frowning consternation. Conrad was still moving, still in the process of lifting Black Glasses up into the air when it hit him: Mouse Hair was laughing. He was choking and breathless with laughter. They both were. They weren't even fighting. They hadn't even noticed Conrad. Black Glasses looked horrified.