Dark Matter (28 page)

Between Lexington and Interstate 66, we realized we had another problem.

Credit cards. Buying air tickets to Israel for cash would raise concerns, as would the fact that we had no advance hotel reservations. Friends or relatives would have to make reservations for us in our new names, using legitimate credit cards. My parents were dead, and all my friends would be covered by the NSA. Rachel's parents, ex-husband, and friends would be covered as well. In the end, she chose to call a doctor to whom she'd almost become engaged when she was attending Columbia. He was Jewish, traveled often to Israel, and was utterly devoted to her. I thought a request to make flight and hotel reservations in names he didn't know might worry the man, but Rachel assured me that anything she asked would be done. She tried three times to phone him before we reached D.C., but had no luck. His answering service refused to give out his cell number, and Rachel couldn't leave a number for him to call back.

The bathroom door opened with a rush of steam, and Rachel emerged with one towel wrapped around her body, another around her head.

"There's still some hot water left. And one towel. You should try it. I feel human again."

"We need to try your doctor friend one more time. I brought in your clothes.

They're pretty dirty."

She smiled wearily. "I'd give a thousand dollars for my flannel pajamas."

"We'll get some new clothes tomorrow. Or tonight, if you really want some.

After we make that call."

Her shoulders sagged. "Can't we just sleep for a while?"

"We need that hotel reservation to date from as early as possible before our departure. Most reservations like that are made weeks in advance."

"You're telling me to get dressed?"

I nodded.

She sat on the edge of the bed and began drying her hair.

"I was thinking," I said. "If you don't have any problem with it, we should travel as husband and wife."

She turned and looked at me. "Do I look like I have a problem with it?"

"Good. We'll give your friend married names for the reservations. Should we use Jewish names?"

"No. You wouldn't fool an Israeli for five seconds. I'm a good Jewish girl who broke down and married a goy. I'll do all the talking."

She picked up her shirt off the bedspread and walked back into the bathroom. I heard the wet towel land on the shower rod; then she returned wearing only the shirt. Its tail hung halfway down her thighs, but there was nothing beneath, and it left little to the imagination.

"I have to lie down," she said. "Wake me up when you're ready to go."

I looked at my watch. It was 5:45 p.m. Letting her fall asleep would be a mistake, but it was probably better to wait for dark. I didn't think I could get up yet either. I'd had no real sleep for two days, and I ached in muscles I hadn't used for years.

Rachel pulled back her bedcovers, climbed under them, and lay on her stomach, her face turned toward me. Her dark eyes were cloudy with fatigue, but there was a trace of a smile on her lips.

"I can hardly think," she said. "You?"

"I'm barely here."

"Do you know why I'm really here?"

"Because you're afraid of dying?"

"No. Because I'm more afraid of not living than I am of dying. Does that make sense?"

"Some."

She slid deeper under the covers. "You don't understand. My son is dead. My marriage is over. What do I have to lose?"

Rachel had always surprised me, but maybe this time she was delirious. "I'm sure your patients—"

"If I died tomorrow, my patients would get another shrink. I sit in that room for days on end, listening to people who are depressed, afraid, angry, paranoid. I listen to other people's lives and try to make sense of them. Then I go home and write about them for the journals."

She smiled strangely. "But today is different. Today a man I diagnosed as delusional has pulled me into his delusion. I'm Alice through the looking glass. People are trying to kill me, but I'm still alive. And now I'm going to fly to Israel because of a hallucination. Because a man I actually respect has suddenly decided he's Jesus."

"You need sleep."

She shook her head, her eyes never leaving my face. "Sleep won't change how I feel about this."

In that moment I wasn't sure what she was referring to. I slid down the headboard, rested my head on my elbow, and looked across the space between the beds. Her shoulders were dark against the white sheet, and her damp hair spilled across her eyes.

"What are you really talking about?" I asked.

Her eyes looked through mine the way they sometimes had in her office, as though all the walls I had put up since my family's death were nothing to her.

Then, very deliberately, she smiled.

"I have no idea. Why don't you go take a shower?"

The look in her eyes spoke more directly than her mouth. I got up and went to the bathroom, stripping off my dirty clothes as I went. After two days of running for my life, the steaming water felt more nourishing than food. My hands and neck stung from brier scratches, but my muscles began to relax under the spray. As I washed my hair with shampoo from the tiny hotel bottle, I thought of Rachel's dark hair spread over the pillow, and I hurried to finish.

She had to be as exhausted as I was, and sleep would be hard to fight. I toweled off in the bathroom, then tied the towel around my waist and walked out to the space between the beds.

Rachel still lay on her stomach, but now her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and regular. I looked down at her, wishing she had managed to stay awake, but I couldn't blame her. She had seen too much in the past two days, and run too far. I pulled off my towel, then sat on the edge of my bed and started drying my hair. After a few moments, I wanted only to fall back on the bed and sleep until I could sleep no more.

A dark, slender arm crossed the narrow space between the beds. Rachel's hand touched my knee, then opened and closed in the air, as if grasping for something. When I put my hand in hers, she pulled me over to her bed with surprising strength. I slid in beside her and looked down into her eyes, which were open wide, like dark pools.

"Did you think I was asleep?" she asked.

"You were."

"Am I dreaming, then?"

I smiled. "Hallucinating, maybe."

"Then I can do anything I want."

"That's true."

She raised her head and kissed me. Her lips were firm and filled with blood, and her mouth opened with a hunger that told me she had wanted this for a long time. I undid the buttons of her shirt and pulled her over onto me. She laughed as her damp hair fell across my face.

"Did you think about this during our sessions?" she asked.

"Never."'

"Liar."

"Maybe once or twice."

She kissed me again, and the way she molded her body to mine told me there would be no fumbling of first-time lovers. Her touch was as knowing and confident as her eyes, and as she focused all her attention upon me, I remembered that there is nothing so thrilling as a woman of words when she decides that the time for words is past.

I jerked awake in a panic, certain that we had waited too late to make our call. The glow of the television illuminated the motel room. The bedside clock read 11:30 P.M. Rachel lay on her back beside me, one arm thrown over her face, the other lying along my body.

She was a different woman to me now. After three months of professional distance, she had given herself to me without reservation. My memories of what we had done before giving in to sleep seemed more like hallucinations than any of the visions I'd had during my narcoleptic episodes. Yet they were real.

Rachel needed sleep, but I had to wake her. I sat up and drank a bottle of Dasani in one long series of swallows, then gently shook her upper arm. I was afraid she would awaken in a panic, as she had in the truck, but this time she stirred slowly, then reached out and squeezed my wrist.

"Hey," I said. "How do you feel?"

She opened her eyes but did not speak. Instead, she took a deep breath, then sat up and hugged me. I hugged her back, wishing that this had all happened long before, in some other place.

"We have to try to call your friend again," I said.

"Can't I just do it from here?"

"No. If you were that close to this guy in medical school, the NSA could know.

And if they've tapped his line, they can trace our location in seconds. If we do reach your friend, we should stake out the phone booth we used and wait to see if anyone shows up. That will tell us if his line's safe or not."

"Okay." She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. "Let's get it over with."

Five miles west of the motel, I saw a pay phone outside a gas station on the Columbia Pike that looked private enough. I parked so that I could watch the road while Rachel made her call.

She went straight to the phone, carrying the phone card we'd bought at a Quik Stop near the motel. After a few moments, she smiled, gave me a thumbs-up sign, and began talking. The conversation lasted a long time, but I thought it must be going well, because I saw her reading our fictional names off the motel stationery. Mr. and Mrs. John David Stephens. Rachel's "maiden name" was Horowitz, and her passport would list her as Hannah Horowitz Stephens. As she talked, I thought about how deeply this doctor must have loved her, that he would do this for her after fifteen years. She hung up and came back to the truck.

"Well?" I said.

She closed the door. "No problem. He'll make reservations for everything. The plane, the hotel, even a couple of sight-seeing tours."

"Out of New York?" We couldn't risk staying in Washington an hour longer than necessary.

"JFK."

"Who is this guy?"

"Adam Stern. He's an OB in Manhattan. He has four kids now."

"He must have liked you a lot in the old days."

She gave me a sly smile. "They never get over me."

I drove a hundred meters up the road, parked, and left the engine running. I could still see the pay phone Rachel had used.

"Adam says this is the busiest week of the year for tourism in Israel," she said. "Easter in Jerusalem is like Mardi Gras in New Orleans."

"That may be good for us."

"If we can get a flight at all. He's going to try for something besides El Al, but there are no guarantees."

"Anything's good. They don't seem to be hunting us publicly yet."

We sat awhile in the drone of the idling engine, but no one approached the pay phone. I slid my hand across the seat and closed it around hers.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded but didn't look at me. "It's been a long time since I felt good about doing what we did."

I squeezed her hand, and she turned to me. Her eyes were wet. I knew then how long she had lived without real intimacy. Probably about as long as I had.

"I'm glad you're here," I said. "And I'm glad you're coming with me to Israel.

I couldn't do it without you."

She took back her hand and wiped her eyes.

I glanced at the phone. There was no one near it. "I think we're okay. You ready to get some real sleep?"

"I'm ready for a cheeseburger. Then sleep."

At nine-thirty the next morning, we were crossing Memorial Bridge, rolling toward the Lincoln Memorial. I'd last visited Washington to film part of the NOVA series based on my book. The contrast between that visit and today did not bear thinking about.

We found a Kinko's copy shop southeast of Capitol Hill and in twenty minutes had the passport photos we'd been instructed to drop off at the Au Bon Pain cafe in Union Station. As I drove toward the station, pedestrian traffic increased, and I began to get nervous. With Washington topping the list of terrorist targets, there were bound to be surveillance cameras near all important public buildings. They might not be visible, but they would be there. And the NSA had the computing power to do visual searches of those surveillance tapes. I kept well clear of the Mall and parked in a lot on the east side of Union Station.

As we walked toward the massive white granite building, we moved quickly toward the main entrance. Rachel kept abreast of me all the way, a Kinko's bag swinging from her right hand. She didn't know that I was carrying my revolver in the small of my back, beneath my shirt. If there were metal detectors at the station's entrance, I would have to return to the truck. Dozens of people were lined up at the entrance, but after watching the flow of visitors, I breathed a sigh of relief. They were moving too quickly to be passing through serious security.

Once through the doors, we joined the throngs moving through the renovated beaux arts rail station. We passed an elevated restaurant standing in the middle of the floor, then moved farther into the cavernous main hall. This led into a multilevel mall area where tour groups, travelers, and shoppers jostled each other on walkways and curving staircases, marveling at the statuary and pointing into store windows. I could tell by the rumbling under my shoes that trains were running nearby, yet my surroundings looked as pristine as a museum.

"There's the Au Bon Pain," Rachel said, pulling me to the left.

A huge B. Dalton bookstore anchored this end of the mall, and the Au Bon Pain cafe was on its right. People moved quickly in and out of the cafe, and I could see that our contact had chosen well.

Rachel walked through the wide entrance and joined a queue before some coffee urns on a marble table. I joined her, casually scanning the tables to our right. She'd been instructed to look for a woman carrying a copy of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. I figured I would be able to guess which woman would carry that book by appearance alone.

At a table near the back I saw a red-haired woman of fifty with no makeup and a hard line of a mouth. She kept her eyes on the table, as though afraid she might be accosted by a stranger. I was preparing to wager a hundred dollars that this was our contact when Rachel pulled at my arm and pointed at a fortyish African-American woman standing by the pastry racks and reading The Second Sex. Rachel left the queue and approached her.