Sparta (48 page)

Right after Thanksgiving—he'd gone out only for the night—his mother started leaving messages about Christmas.

Why don't you come out early? The week before? We'd love to see you.

Ollie texted him:
Im through the 18th. When r u coming?

Conrad replied that his final was the twentieth and that he'd let them know.

He wasn't too worried about the econ exam. Whatever was wrong with him had phases, and sometimes he felt pretty normal. He'd gone slowly through the textbook, rereading the theories until they made sense. He pretty much knew the material. If he didn't get the headache, he'd do all right.

The GMAT was different. These weren't theories that he could learn and absorb; they were unrelated problems that required analysis. Sometimes his mind was fine and he could focus on the problem, drill right into it. Sometimes his mind went off track, and he could feel it grinding, like a car in a snowbank. The GMAT was more important than the econ exam. It wasn't actually a stretch to say that the results would determine his future.

You found out the results, except for the essay score, right after you finished the test. If you really screwed up, you could have the results erased. But you had to decide right then, after you finished but before you saw the results. And even if you erased them, your record would show that you'd taken them and had the results erased.

Conrad thought that if he went in there and the headache came down, he'd screw it up. He might screw it up anyway by not being able to focus. It gave him a sick feeling.

The night before the test he took a pill, got to sleep around eleven, but woke with a nightmare at two-thirty. He took another pill and slept until five, when he was jolted awake by a siren. It was too late to go back to sleep. He got up and put on his running clothes. Outside it was not quite night, though the streetlights were still on. The sidewalks were empty and the streets felt greasy. It was cold, and he could see his breath vanishing ahead of him in little pale drifts. When he reached the reservoir, the sky was nearly light, and he ran through a silky dimness. He heard the sound of steady footsteps around him; he could hear the runners before he could see them. Gradually the sky appeared: it was overcast. The water was a muted pewter gray, without reflection. Conrad ran four laps and then headed back. It was fully light now, and he felt better.

The testing center was in an office building on West Forty-eighth Street. Conrad arrived half an hour early. On the ninth floor there was already a line of people waiting to check in. He stood behind a short brown-haired girl wearing a blue parka. The parka rustled when she moved. No one talked. They were all moving slowly, step-by-step, toward a young Asian man who sat at a desk behind a glass barrier. When Conrad reached him, he asked to see Conrad's ID.

“Look at the camera, please.” The man looked Korean, square face and short black brushy hair. He was a geek, of course, with a short-sleeved white shirt and glasses. Everyone here was a geek, it was Geek Nation. This guy was probably already at B-school himself, working his way through with this job.

The geek typed things on his computer, then handed back Conrad's ID. He told him to go to the locker area.

“The proctors inside will explain the rules.”

Conrad nodded. “Okay.”

“Good luck,” the Korean said, and smiled.

“Thanks,” Conrad said.

The lockers were beige, little cubicles stacked on top of each other. Each had a padlock. People opened the lockers and stood in silence, taking off coats, watches. Everything personal had to be left in the lockers—watches, cell phones, all printed material. Nothing could be taken into the test—no pens, pencils, or markers. Conrad was impressed by the resourcefulness of the cheating that all this implied. No pencils? That would mean microchips. For scribbling you were issued a noteboard, a laminated-paper notebook, with pens.

Conrad chose a locker and stashed his jacket and wallet, his watch and cell phone, inside it. The girl with the blue parka was next to him, silent and preoccupied. She took off her rustling parka and hung it up. The narrow aisles were full of people, lockers clicking open and clanging shut. No one spoke.

The testing area was bland and modern, a beige warren of three-sided cubicles, with walls that went halfway to the ceiling. In each cubicle was a chair and a laptop. The cubicles stood in rows down the center of the room; on either side were glassed-in observation rooms with video cameras and screens. There were monitors and observers everywhere. They could watch him, but he couldn't watch them. He wouldn't be able to put his back to the wall, and once he was seated, he couldn't see over the partitions. People would be walking behind him, unseen. It was a bad tactical position: facing inward, exposed behind. He wasn't going to think about that.

Ten minutes left. People milled around, their faces stiff and empty. Everyone seemed younger than he. No one spoke, as though they were filled to the brim and any conversation might cause them to spill. A young man at the front of the room began to talk, and everyone swiveled toward him. He was a proctor, solid and blond, reliable-looking. He explained the rules, though everyone knew them. The test took four hours, with two optional breaks. You couldn't leave your cubicle otherwise. If you needed to leave, you raised your hand and a proctor would escort you out. Conrad half listened. He could feel the headache, small, heavy, poised.

They were told to choose a cubicle and sit down. Conrad took a place at the end of a row. It was good that the test was so long: panic wouldn't last four hours. If it hit him it would pass, and he'd have time to recover. There'd be parts when he'd be fine.

He sat down and pulled his chair in. It made no sound on the carpeting. He settled himself in front of the computer. The screen lit up.
Welcome to the Graduate Management Admission Test.

The first part was writing, two essays: one on poorly made products, the second on safety in the workplace. He thought it would be all right, though he felt a little dizzy as he approached the subjects. As though his brain were slightly off-kilter. He knew what he was saying, but he couldn't seem to set it down logically. He had the feeling that he was repeating himself; then he thought he hadn't been clear. He read each one over. He thought they were all right. Each essay was meant to take half an hour. There was a big clock on the wall, and at the end of the first hour he had finished the essays and the headache had not descended. He thought it might be all right.

At the start of the quantitative section his chest began to tighten. The computer screen was relentless: lines of mathematical problems. There was no end to them. He felt claustrophobic at the sight. You had to solve them in order, you couldn't skip one and come back. It felt oppressive, the screen covered in lines of equations and charts and diagrams.

By the first optional break, his head was pounding. He was screwing it up. He couldn't think his way through the equations. He kept starting over and getting stalled. He wrote down the problems on his noteboard, to try to get his mind working, like priming a pump, but it didn't help. His mind was blurred. This was like being on drugs, everything looming and distant by turns. He couldn't think his way into these things. He couldn't manage his mind.

When the break was called, he stood up and went back to the lockers.
Don't fuck this up,
he told himself.
Just don't
. His head was on fire, as though someone were loose in there with a blowtorch. Against the wall was a table packed with rows of bottled water. He took a bottle. He opened his throat and let the water run down inside. This was how they drank it in-country. Almost without swallowing, letting it run straight down.

His chest felt constricted. All of him felt constricted.

For the rest of the break he walked around, his pulse racing. He told himself to calm down. He told himself he wasn't fucking it up. If worse came to worst, if he really did, he could have the whole thing erased. But the thing was that, actually, he knew he was fucking it up. He was fucking it up.

The room was getting warmer. He could smell the sweat in the air, hear the whisper of arms shifting on the desktops, the sighs as people drew quiet breaths, the silvery slither of chairs across the carpet. Palms rubbing on thighs, a fingernail tapping on the desktop. The quiet, steady clicking of keyboards. The silent grinding of people's minds.

He was screwing it up. It was getting worse. He couldn't pound the little things into any kind of sense. It was getting worse, and the worse he felt, the worse he did. He was in a long panicked slide backward. He could feel himself going and couldn't stop himself.

At the second break, he walked around again. He wondered if people were looking at him. He had the feeling that the panic was visible, hovering over him like a tornado funnel. Did he give off that aura? He breathed carefully, long, deep breaths. He made no eye contact. He drank some more water, then went to the men's room. He took a long piss. He was fucking it up.

He did the last four questions in twelve minutes and finished with two minutes still to go.

After he typed in the last answer, the screen changed.

Just one moment, please.

It was tabulating the scores.

You have the option to delete your scores at this time. If you delete them, they will never be posted on any record, but the fact that you took the test and deleted them will be recorded. You must decide now, before you see your scores, whether or not you choose to delete them. To delete, click on
DELETE
. To see the scores, click on
SEE SCORES
.

Conrad stared at the screen.

He'd screwed it up. He knew it. He couldn't bring himself to press “Delete.” He should. He should just delete the whole thing. What if he'd done better than he thought? He couldn't be sure. Deleting the whole thing would be like erasing himself. He couldn't do it.

He clicked on See Scores.

And there they were. He'd fucked up.

These scores would get him in nowhere.

He clicked through and turned off the computer. He pushed his chair back and stood up. Everyone was standing up.
Now what?
he thought. The headache was thundering inside.

*   *   *

On the way back uptown, he sat in the subway and stared at the ads for computer school in three languages.
Okay,
he told himself.
Okay.
Then he thought,
Fuck.

No plan survives contact with the enemy,
he told himself.
New plan.

The next plan was: Do all right on the econ exam, take another econ course next semester, and take the GMAT again in the spring. Because here was the thing: Once he started treatment at the VA, everything would be different. They'd fix his brain and he'd be able to focus on problems, he'd be able to take a four-hour test without going off like a rocket. He'd be able to think again.

*   *   *

That night, Jenny asked him about the test as soon as she came home. She stood by the door, unwrapping the long wool scarf from around her neck. “So, how was it?” she asked. “How'd it go?”

By then he was able to shrug his shoulders.

“It didn't go too well,” Conrad said. “I'm going to take it again in the spring.”

She looked at him for a moment. “What happened?”

He shook his head. “Gonna take it again in the spring.”

“Sounds good,” she said.

She unzipped her coat and turned to hang it up. He saw that his own response would govern that of others. She couldn't see his fear, which he had strapped and throttled and was holding underground.

“When do you want to come out to Katonah?” she asked. “They're giving us the day off on the twenty-fourth, so I'm going out after work on the twenty-third. Want to come on the same train?”

“I'm not coming until the next day,” Conrad said.

“Christmas Eve?” Jenny said. She turned to look at him again and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater.

“Stuff to do,” Conrad said. “I'll see you out there.”

She gazed at him for a moment but didn't say anything more.

“And I'll move out as soon as we get back,” he said.

“Don't worry about it,” she said.

“No, I'm gone.” Conrad shook his head and smiled.

He dreaded going out there. He dreaded Christmas itself, the whole noisy, tinselly passage, the glittering decorations and the flickering candles and the high-pitched songs and the mound of presents. He dreaded everyone's eyes on him, filled with expectation. He dreaded the silent plea to be one of them, to be part of something he did not feel part of, dreaded the joyful and unspoken declaration that everything had returned to normal.

Here he was, went the declaration, back home again, and all the golden cogs and gears had clicked silently back into place. The great machine of family life had started up once more, spinning and gyrating and humming in harmony, as if nothing had ever interrupted it. He'd been hearing that silent declaration for weeks, for months, in all those cheery notes and bright pleading messages. He dreaded seeing his mother's eyes on him, he dreaded the moment when she realized how wrong things had gone, when her face flooded with worry. He couldn't pretend he was back, and one of them. He couldn't pretend everything was fine. He dreaded telling them he'd fucked up the GMAT.

*   *   *

On the twentieth, the econ exam went all right, or he thought it did. He'd worked on it all semester; he knew the ideas, he understood the premises. He wasn't sure how well he'd done on the essay; he was afraid his writing was kind of confused. That's why he was going to the VA. Mental confusion: that was a symptom. That's what they addressed.

Conrad emailed the guys who would not be coming home for Christmas.