Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (27 page)

Never give up until you have to.

I stepped back into the kitchen and watched as she walked right past me into the center of the room. She took another long, appraising look around and then ambled into the bedroom. I followed her, standing in the doorway where I could get out of her way again when she decided to come out.

The first thing she did was to open the closet door and peer carefully inside. Evidently, the authorities had already tracked me down and were using my secretary to spy on me. But what, exactly, was she looking for? She came out of the closet and looked at the top of my dresser. She pulled open one of the top drawers and glanced inside. The drawer below contained my invisible objects. What was I going to do, when she got to it? Almost absent-mindedly, she pushed the top drawer shut and turned away from the dresser. This was not a systematic search. If she was a police spy, her training had been sloppy. She turned again and studied a photograph of me with some friends on a porch on Cape Cod five summers before.

I grasped, at last, what was happening. She was simply curious. She was a snoop. I was at the same time relieved and outraged. She was plainly without the slightest scruple or concern for the rules with which civilized people try to protect their own and each other’s privacy. I was surprised, because I had known her for several years and had always held a very different opinion of her. But then today I was seeing her in a situation in which it seemed to her that there was absolutely no risk of being found out.

She walked over to the desk and, expertly placing the fingertips of one hand on a small pile of correspondence to hold it in place, she flipped through the pile with the other hand. Nothing interesting there. She opened my checkbook and began leafing through the notations of my expenses and income for the last two years. That infuriated me, and I considered making some sort of noise from the other room to frighten her off, but I thought better of it. Let this intrusion run its course. What difference did it make? Anyway, all of my life up to yesterday was irrelevant now: why protect it from intruders? And probably I was beginning to recognize how little privacy we all have. You think you have secrets, but what the people around you are protecting and respecting is not your privacy but the pretense of it. Everyone knows more than you think, enough to wither you with shame, but if they are civilized they don’t let on — and you return the favor.

Cathy flipped to the last page of entries to get the current balance in my account. Then she pulled the main desk drawer all the way out and began poking about cautiously. A handwritten letter caught her attention, and she carefully picked it up and withdrew it from its envelope. It was from a great-aunt, instructing me in my prospective duties with regard to an estate of which I was to be an executor but not a beneficiary. Well, that was one small benefit of my situation — they would have to look for someone else now. Cathy quickly lost interest in the letter and refolded and replaced it.

All the way in the left rear corner of the drawer she found a little stack of Polaroid photographs of a girl I had known. They were all much the same: a woman sprawled naked across the couch in the next room, smiling salaciously. Cathy studied each of the pictures at length. The sight of her doing that I found somehow compelling, and I took a cautious step toward her so that I could watch her more closely. She was quite intent. There was the photograph that had always appealed to me more than the others: Pam with one leg raised and resting on the back of the couch and her head tilted back provocatively, her lips parted. Cathy paused on the next one, which was bordered along one side by a blurred segment of my leg. I watched her moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue. As she shifted her ample weight from one foot to the other, I could hear the rustle of her clothing. I had never felt any sexual interest — no, it is never, or almost never true to say that you have never felt sexual interest in someone with whom you are in continual proximity: on certain days, in certain moods, those thoughts and desires flicker over the situation as naturally as random shadows. But I had hardly been conscious of any such feelings about Cathy, and anyway, it is much easier to find sexual gratification than a good secretary. You have to be careful in these situations: what you hope will be no more than innocent pleasures of the flesh are apt to mushroom uncontrollably into emotions and obligations that can poison a good working relationship.

But now, as I watched Cathy flip back to the photograph that included my leg, I thought with pleasure of what it would be like to seize her by the shoulders and force her onto the bed. It would be quite a surprise for her. She returned the photographs to the back of the drawer and bent over so that she could get a closer look at the remaining contents. Hoping for more photographs, presumably. She gently pushed the drawer back in and took another look around the room. Then she lifted her arm, glanced at her watch, and abruptly strode past me. I never had time to move. I felt her clothing brush against me and smelled her perfume. But she never noticed me as she marched out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, where she matter-of-factly yanked her underpants down to her ankles, hoisted her skirt up to her waist, and sat down on the toilet.

I watched her sitting there and heard the sound of the urine running into the toilet. The sight of someone urinating does not as a general rule hold much appeal for me. There was, of course, the view of her naked legs, but, more than that, I found it fascinating to observe another person who was utterly unaware of being observed — and particularly at such close proximity. The unguarded movements, the adjustments of clothing, the facial expression uncomposed for other people, the betrayal of character. It was, in the end, more fascinating than infuriating to observe Cathy revealing her inquisitiveness, her unqualified lack of concern for my privacy.

I watched with distaste but interest as she lifted the hem of her skirt and, peering down at herself, wiped the excess urine with a fold of toilet paper. She half stood up, pulled up her pants, and flushed the toilet. Then she stepped in front of the mirror and with her hands still under her skirt pulled her blouse down tight over her large breasts. Turning sideways to survey herself from another angle, she adjusted the blouse at the waist and walked out of the bathroom. I stepped out of her way and followed her, two steps behind, to the couch, where she picked up her bag, and then to the front door. She turned and surveyed the room once again, her gaze lingering on the coffee table: in her absolutely reliable way, she would be checking off the items there — newspapers, mail and messages in manila envelope, $250, keys — to be sure that she had done her job perfectly. She opened the door, stepped out into the corridor, and pulled the door shut, twisting the doorknob both ways and then pushing on it, to make sure it had latched properly. From one of the front windows, I watched her come out the entrance and walk toward Madison.

When she had disappeared around the corner, I hurried back into the kitchen. Hunger and thirst were going to be my biggest problem. If they did capture me, at least I would be able to start eating some real food again. Maybe. Probably they would want to give me little measured doses of everything — so that they could keep track of the caloric content and the saturated and unsaturated fats, and the quantity of zinc, and so forth. What exactly are unsaturated fats? That was one of many things I would no doubt be finding out.

I took another glassful of water and watched it gallop unpleasantly down into my stomach. Now it would be another ten or fifteen minutes before I was properly invisible again. The trouble with water was that it did nothing whatever for hunger, no matter how much of it you consumed. Jesus, I was hungry.

I went back to my desk and looked up the number of the supermarket around the corner on Madison Avenue. A voice with the accent and the flat, indifferent rudeness of New York answered.

“FoodRite.”

“Hello. I’d like to make an order for delivery.”

“Name?”

“Halloway. I’d—”

“Address?”

“Twenty-four East Eighty-ninth. I—”

“Apartment number?”

“Fourth floor.”

“I need the apartment number.”

I thought of explaining that there was only one apartment on the fourth floor, but you can’t let yourself get drawn into these dialogues. “Four,” I said.

“Four what?”

I thought briefly of calling another supermarket. “Four A,” I said.

“Whatdoyouwant?”

“By the way, I wonder if it would be possible to pay by check.”

“Do you have a check authorization on file at this branch only?”

“No, I don’t, but I always shop at your store — at your branch only, as it happens — and I’d like—”

“Come into the store in person anytime before five, and you can fill out an application for approval.”

“I’m not feeling very well today. Not well enough to go out. I’ll pay cash. Although you might stick an application in with the order—”

“Whaddyawant.”

“Let’s see … I think I’d like some of those little bouillon cubes.”

“Beef, chicken, or vegetable?”

“Which is clearest?”

“Clearest?”

“Yes, clearest. Which one is most transparent?”

“I don’t know anything about transparent. Maybe the chicken. They’re all the same.”

“Send me one… How do they come?”

“Cardboard container. Twenty-five servings.”

“Give me one container of each. Then, a case of Canada Dry club soda. Better send some six-packs of tonic as well — four six-packs. And some limes. And lemons… A little package of each. What about gelatine?” I remembered there was always a box of gelatine in my mother’s kitchen, although its actual use was obscure.

“What about it? You want it, we got it.”

“It’s quite clear, isn’t it?”

“What’s this clear thing? We have gelatine if you want it. What do you want to do with it, anyway?” he added suspiciously.

“I’m looking for clear foods. No color, and easy to digest. It’s my doctor: he’s told me to eat only clear foods.”

“Look. Why don’t you come in to the store. We got a whole section on health foods. No artificial insecticides or preservatives. I’m not saying you don’t pay for it, but you know what you’re getting. And you got the peace of mind. Whether it’s mainly health or religious, it’s all natural.”

“It’s really only the color of the food that I’m supposed to—”

“I told you: there’s no artificial coloring or preservatives. You want some granola? We also got unpasteurized milk. It’s up to you.”

“Send me a package of the gelatine. What about those transparent Chinese noodles? Do you carry those?”

“Sure. One package of shining noodles. What kind of doctor you seeing, anyway? Chiropractor, right?”

“Sort of. If you can think of any other clear foods… or even just foods that are especially easy to digest… preferably white, I suppose, if they aren’t clear.”

“Look, I don’t digest food; I just sell it. You ought to come in to the store. I can see you got problems, but that way you can take your time, figure out what you want. We only got three phones here and a lot of people want to call in orders.”

“Of course. You’re absolutely right.” FoodRite lost $12 million in the last fiscal year. With any luck, they would soon close this branch and this man would lose his job. “I hate to waste your time. Why don’t you send me some fish, a pound of some very clear type of fish, and a small sack of potatoes—”

“That it?”

“Yes. Let me try that for now, and—”

“Someone be in all afternoon?”

“Yes. How much—”

“You’ll get a bill with the delivery.” Click.

I called the liquor store, where a much more amiable and accommodating man took my order for two cases of white wine and three quarts of gin. The druggist seemed mystified when I questioned him about the transparency of various vitamin pills, but he promised to do his best.

The first to arrive was the delivery boy from the liquor store, and when he rang up on the intercom, I buzzed him in and unlocked my front door, leaving it slightly ajar. I went in and turned on the shower and then stood waiting in the doorway between the bathroom and the living room. When the doorbell rang, I shouted across the room, “Come on in!” The doorknob turned, and the delivery boy appeared sideways, holding two cartons and a paper bag in his arms and pushing the door open with his shoulder. He looked around the room expectantly.

I held a hand over my mouth to create a muffled sound, and shouted, “I’m in the shower. Just leave everything by the door. There’s a check on the table. The two dollars are for you.”

He set down the cartons and the bag and went over to the table. He pocketed the two dollar bills and then, after studiously comparing the bill with my check, he folded the latter and put it in his shirt pocket. “Thank you!” he shouted. At the same time he picked up from the coffee table an antique silver box and inspected it with interest. He put it down again and took a leisurely look around the room.

“Thank you!” I shouted back. “Goodbye!” I was again startled to see how differently a person will behave when he believes himself to be entirely unobserved.

He walked back toward the entrance and stopped to examine a cluster of photographs on the wall. “Goodbye!” he shouted back. He continued studying the photographs for several seconds and then let himself out.

The next delivery boy was from the pharmacy, and he was small, white, and diffident. He touched nothing except the check I had left out for him, but he glanced furtively about the room the entire time he was there, and he bent over and tried to read the mail that Cathy had brought and that I had left half-opened on the table. I wondered if I behaved in the same sneaky, prying way when I was alone in new surroundings. It struck me suddenly that studying this child from the vantage point of my invisibility was precisely the same sort of sneaky curiosity. And come to think of it, I was a securities analyst: it was my job to be a prying sneak. Holding my hand over my mouth again, I shouted out my explanation that not only was I in the shower but I was ill and would he mind taking down the bag of garbage in the hall.