Noah’s Compass: A Novel Read online

  “I was going to hire someone?”

  Ishmael Cope and his assistant exchanged a glance. Clearly a con man, they must be thinking. Or no, perhaps not; for next Mr. Cope said, in a wondering tone, “I promised a man a job!”

  So this is what it had come to, was what that glance had meant. A whole new symptom, more advanced than any they’d seen before.

  All Liam wanted now was to take back everything he’d said. He had never intended to cause the man distress. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he’d intended, beyond gaining a few moments of conversation with the assistant. He said, “Oh, no, it wasn’t an actual promise. It was more like …” He turned to the assistant, hoping she could somehow rescue him. “Maybe I misunderstood,” he told her. “I must have. I’m sure I did. You know how it is at these galas: glasses clinking, music playing, everyone talking at once …”

  “Oh, sometimes people can’t hear themselves think,” she said.

  That low, clear, level voice—the voice that had murmured “Verity” in Dr. Morrow’s waiting room—made Liam feel reassured, although he couldn’t say exactly why. He gave her his widest smile. “I’m sorry,” he told her, “I don’t remember your name.”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  He knew he must look like a fool, with all these “sorry”s. He was doing everything wrong. “It’s just …” he said, “I mistrust my memory so these days; I always act on the assumption that I’ve met somebody even when I haven’t.” His laugh came out sounding false, at least to his own ears. “I have the world’s worst memory,” he told Ishmael Cope.

  Which was a stroke of genius, come to think of it. Without planning to, he had arrived at the subject most likely to enlist the man’s sympathy.

  But Ishmael Cope said, “That must be difficult. And you don’t look all that old, either.”

  “I’m not. I’m sixty.”

  “Only sixty? Then there’s no excuse whatsoever.”

  This was becoming annoying. Liam glanced toward the assistant. She was sending Mr. Cope a look of amusement. “Now, now,” she said indulgently, and then she told Liam, “To hear Mr. C. talk, you’d never know we all forget things from time to time.”

  “The trick is mental exercise,” Ishmael Cope said to Liam. “Work crossword puzzles. Solve brainteasers.”

  “I’ll have to try that,” Liam said.

  He was developing an active dislike for the man. But he gave the assistant another wide smile and said, “I didn’t mean to hold you both up.”

  “About the interview …” she said. She glanced uncertainly at Ishmael Cope.

  But Liam said, “Oh, no, really, it’s not important. It’s quite all right. I don’t need a job. I don’t want a job. I was only, you know …”

  He was edging away as he spoke, backing off in the direction he had just come from. “Good to see you both,” he said. “Sorry to … Goodbye.”

  He turned and plunged off blindly.

  Idiot.

  Traffic was picking up now, and more pedestrians dotted the sidewalk, all bustling toward their offices with briefcases and folded newspapers. He was the only one empty-handed. Everyone else had someplace to get to. He slowed his pace and surveyed each building he passed with an intent, abstracted expression, as if he were hunting a specific address.

  What on earth had he expected from that encounter, anyway? Even if things had gone as he’d hoped—if he and the assistant had struck up a separate conversation, if she had admitted outright the true nature of her role—how would that have helped him? She wasn’t going to drop everything and come be his rememberer. In any event, she couldn’t help him retrieve an experience she hadn’t been there for. And what good would it have done even if she could retrieve it?

  He really was losing his mind, he thought.

  When he reached his car he found he’d been issued a parking ticket. Oh, damn. He plucked it from the windshield and frowned at it. Twenty-seven dollars. For nothing.

  “Excuse me?” someone called.

  He looked up. The assistant was hurrying toward him, pink-faced and out of breath, clutching her purse to her pillowy bosom with both hands. “Excuse me, I just wanted to thank you,” she said when she arrived in front of him.

  “Thank me for what?” he asked.

  “It was kind of you to be so understanding back there. Somebody else might have … pushed. Might have pressed him.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” he said, meaninglessly.

  “Mr. … Pennyworth?”

  “Pennywell. Liam,” he said.

  “Liam. I’m Eunice, Mr. Cope’s assistant. Liam, I’m not at liberty to explain but … I guess you must have realized that Mr. C. is not in charge of hiring.”

  “I understand perfectly,” he said. “Don’t give it a thought.”

  If he had been the ruthless type, he would have pretended not to understand. He would have forced her to spell it out. But she looked so anxious, with her forehead creased and her oversized glasses slipping down her shiny nose; he didn’t have the heart to add to her discomfort. He said, “I meant it when I said I didn’t need a job. I really don’t. Honest.”

  She gazed at him for such a long moment that he wondered if she had misheard him. And he was sure of it when she told him, finally, “You’re a very nice man, Liam.”

  “No, no, I—”

  “Where is it you’re employed?” she said.

  “Right now? Well, right now, um …”

  She reached out and laid a hand briefly on his arm. “Forgive me. Please forget I asked that,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s not a secret,” he said. “I used to teach fifth grade. The school is downsizing at the moment, but that’s okay. I might retire anyhow.”

  She said, “Liam, would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

  “Oh!”

  “Someplace nearby?”

  “I would love to, but—shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “I’m finished with work,” she said.

  “You are?”

  “Well, at least for …” She checked her watch—a big clunky thing on a leather wristband even thicker than her sandal straps. “At least for an hour or so,” she said. “I just have to be there for transitions.”

  “Transitions,” Liam repeated.

  “Getting Mr. C. from one place to another place. Till ten o’clock he’ll be in his office, reading The Wall Street Journal.”

  “I see.”

  Liam allowed her some time to expand on that topic, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “PeeWee’s is good.”

  “Pardon?”

  “For coffee. PeeWee’s Café.”

  “Oh, fine,” Liam said. “Is that in walking distance?”

  “It’s right around the corner.”

  He looked down at the parking ticket he held. Then he turned and jammed it back under the windshield wiper. “Let’s go, then,” he told her.

  He couldn’t believe his luck. As they headed up the street he had to keep fighting back a huge grin.

  Although now that he had her all to himself, what was he going to ask? Nothing came to mind. Really he wanted to reach out and touch her—even just touch her skirt, as if she were some sort of talisman. But he dug both hands in his trouser pockets instead, and he was careful not to brush against her as they walked.

  “The hiring and firing at Cope is handled by a man named McPherson,” Eunice told him. “Unfortunately, I don’t know him well.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Liam said.

  “I was hired myself by Mrs. Cope.”

  This was getting more interesting. Liam said, “Why was that?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story, but my point is, I didn’t have many dealings with the Personnel Department.”

  “How did Mrs. Cope find you?” Liam asked.

  “She’s friends with my mother.”

  “Oh.”

  He waited. Eunice walked beside him in a companionable silence. She had stopped hugging her purse b
y now. It swung from her shoulder with a faint rattling sound, as if it were full of ping-pong balls.

  “The two of them play bridge together,” Eunice said. “So … you know.”

  No, he didn’t know. He looked at her expectantly.

  “I don’t suppose you play bridge,” Eunice said.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?” he asked. “If I did play, you’d get me into a game with Mrs. Cope?”

  He was being facetious, but she seemed to give the question serious consideration before she said, “No, I don’t guess that’s too practical. Well, back to Mr. McPherson, then.”

  It was on the tip of Liam’s tongue to remind her that he wasn’t job hunting. Since the job hunt seemed to be his main attraction, however, he kept silent.

  This block was even more rundown than Bunker Street. Most of the rowhouses were boarded up, and bits of trash flocked the gutters. The café, when they arrived there, didn’t even have a real sign—just PeeWeEs scrawled in downward-slanting whitewash across the window, above a pale avocado tree struggling up from a grapefruit-juice tin on the sill. Liam would never have dared to enter such a place by himself, but Eunice yanked open the baggy screen door without hesitation. He followed her into a small front room—clearly a parlor, once, with dramatic black-and-gold wallpaper and a faded, rose-colored linoleum floor stippled to look like shag carpeting. Three mismatched tables all but filled the space. Through a doorway to the rear, Liam heard pots clanking and water running.

  “Hello!” Eunice called, and she pulled out the nearest chair and plunked herself down on it. Liam took the seat across from her. His own chair seemed to have come from a classroom—it was that familiar blend of blond wood and tan-painted steel—but Eunice’s was part of a dinette set, upholstered in bright-yellow vinyl.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Eunice asked him.

  “No thanks,” he said—addressing, at the last minute, the large woman in a housecoat who appeared in the rear doorway. “Just coffee, please.”

  “I’ll have coffee and a Tastykake,” Eunice told the woman.

  “Huh,” the woman said, and she vanished again. Eunice smiled after her. Either she was admirably at ease anywhere or she suffered from a total lack of discrimination; Liam couldn’t decide which.

  He hunched forward in his seat as soon as they were alone. (He had to make the most of this one chance.) Keeping his tone casual, he asked, “Why is it that you’re needed only for transitions?”

  “Oh, well,” Eunice said vaguely. “I’m sort of a … facilitator. Sort of, I don’t know, a social facilitator, maybe you could say.”

  “You remind Mr. Cope of appointments and such.”

  “Well, yes.”

  She picked up an ashtray. Liam hadn’t seen an ashtray on a table in years. This one was a triangle of black plastic, with Flagg Family Crab House, Ocean City, Maryland stamped in white around the rim. She turned it over and examined the bottom.

  “Boy, could I ever use reminding,” Liam said. “Especially when it comes to names. If I’m, for instance, walking down the street with someone and another person pops up that I know, and I have to all at once make the introductions … well, I’m at a loss. Both people’s names just fly clean out of my head.”

  “Have you ever been involved in any community leadership?” Eunice asked him.

  “Pardon?”

  “Like, had to explain a project or something at a meeting?”

  The large woman reappeared just then, scuffing across the linoleum in rubber flip-flops and carrying a tray. She set down two Styrofoam cups of coffee and a piece of yellow cake wrapped in cellophane.

  “Thank you,” Liam said. He waited until she was gone before he told Eunice, “No, I don’t enjoy public speaking.”

  “I’m just trying to think what qualities we should stress on your application.”

  “Oh, well, I—”

  “You have been speaking to classes, all these years.”

  “That’s not the same, somehow.”

  “But suppose there was a meeting of people objecting to something. And you were asked to make a speech telling them why they were wrong. I’m thinking you would be good at that!”

  When she got going this way, he could understand how he had first taken her for a much younger woman. She was leaning toward him eagerly, holding on to her Styrofoam cup with both hands, oblivious to the bra strap that had slid down her left arm. (Her bra would be one of those no-nonsense white cotton items, circle-stitched, in a super-duper size. He could detect its outline through her blouse.) He shifted his gaze to his coffee. Judging from the strand of bubbles skimming the surface, he wondered if it might be instant. “I’m just not a very public person,” he said.

  “If we could point up the classroom angle … like, stress your persuasive abilities. Every teacher has persuasive abilities!”

  “You really think so,” he said noncommittally.

  Then, “Tell me, Eunice. Have you been working for Mr. Cope long?”

  “What? Oh, no. Just a few months.”

  She sat back and began unwrapping her cake. He seized his advantage. “I like your attitude toward him,” he said.

  “How do you mean, my attitude?”

  “I mean, you’re helpful but respectful. You allow him his dignity.”

  “Well, that’s not so hard.” She took a bite of her cake.

  “Not for you, obviously. You must have a knack for it.”

  She shrugged. “Want to hear something funny?” she asked when she had swallowed. “My major was biology.”

  “Biology!”

  “But I couldn’t find a job in biology. Mostly, I’ve been unemployed. My parents think I’m a failure.”

  “Well, they’re wrong,” he said. He experienced a kind of rush to his head. He had not felt this strongly in years. “Good Lord, you’re the diametrical opposite of a failure! If only you knew how you seem from outside, so efficient and discreet!”

  Eunice looked surprised.

  “At least,” he said hastily, “that’s how it struck me when I saw you in front of the Cope building.”

  She said, “Why, thank you, Liam.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I do work really hard at this job. Not everybody appreciates that.”

  “That’s because your purpose is to make it not look hard,” he said.

  “Oh, you’re right!”

  He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. Yes, instant, beyond a doubt, and barely lukewarm besides.

  “It isn’t only names I was talking about,” he told her. “When I said I could use reminding, I mean.” He shot her a glance. “The fact is, I was hit on the head by a burglar a few weeks ago. Since then I seem to be suffering a bit of amnesia.”

  “Amnesia!” she said. “You’ve forgotten your identity?”

  “No, no, nothing so extreme as that. It’s just that I’ve forgotten the experience of being hit. I have no recollection of it.”

  He waited for her to ask, as everyone did, why he would want such a recollection, but she just made a tsk-ing sound.

  “I guess I should be glad,” he told her. “I’m better off forgetting, right? But that’s not how I feel about it.”

  “Well, of course it’s not,” she said. “You want to know what happened.”

  “Yes, but there’s more to it than that. Even if someone could tell me what happened—even if they told me every detail—I would still feel … I don’t know …”

  “You would still feel something was missing,” Eunice said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Something you yourself have lived through, and it ought to belong to you now, not just to someone who tells you about it. But it doesn’t.”

  “That’s it exactly!”

  He was grateful to hear it put into words. He felt a sudden flood of affection for her—for the errant bra strap, even, and the headlamp look of her eyes behind her big glasses.

  “Eunice,” he said
consideringly.

  She paused in the midst of licking a dab of frosting off one finger.

  “Properly speaking,” he said, “it should be ‘You-nike-ee.’ That’s the way the Greeks would have said it.”

  “‘You-niss is bad enough,” she told him. “I’ve always hated my name.”

  “Oh, it’s a fine name. It means ‘victorious.’”

  She set down her cake. She sat up straighter. “So …” she said, “um, tell me, is your … wife a teacher too?”

  “Wife? I’m not married. The Romans would have said ‘You-nice-ee.’ But I can understand how that wouldn’t work in English.”

  “Liam?” Eunice said. “I really meant it when I said you should apply for a job.”

  “Oh. Well, actually, since I’m sixty years old—”

  “They can’t object to that! Age discrimination’s illegal.”

  “Yes, but I meant—”

  “Is it the résumé you’re worried about? I’ll help you. I’m really good at résumés,” she said, and she gave a little laugh. “I’ve certainly had enough practice.”

  “Well, actually—”

  “We could get together and whip one up after I finish work. I could come to your house.”

  “Apartment,” he said without planning to.

  “I could come to your apartment.”

  She would walk into his den and see the patio door where the burglar had slipped through. “Hmm,” she would muse aloud. She would turn and examine Liam’s face, cocking her head appraisingly. “In my experience,” she would say, “a memory that’s associated with trauma …” Or, “A memory that’s imprinted in someone roused from deep sleep …”

  Oh, don’t be absurd. This was just a glorified secretary, working at a made-up job her mother had cadged from a friend.

  But even as he was thinking that, Liam was saying, “Well, if you’re sure you can spare the time.”

  “I have all the time in the world! I get off at five o’clock today. Here,” she said, and she reached to the floor for her purse and turned it upside down over the table. A wallet and keys and pill bottles and bits of paper fell out. She chose one of the bits of paper—a ruled sheet torn from a memo pad—and thrust it toward him. Milk, toothpaste, plant food, he read. “Write down your address,” she ordered. “Is it someplace I can find?”