The Experiment of Dreams (10 page)

Not a moment after they finished the appetizer, the waiter arrived carrying two circular plates on the tips of his fingers.

“The miso salmon, and the fillet.” He placed them down with the same fluid grace and disappeared on spring-like steps.

The portions were small, but beautiful. Sophia’s salmon filet was more of a thin strip than a filet, lightly browned, and served opposite a soy lentil concoction mixed with spinach and kale. Ben’s fillet was the size of a fist, crisp about the edges and glistening with the seared juices. A few pieces of steamed baby carrots were on the side, shining with the butter and honey mixture they were sautéed in, and tied about the middle in a bow that could have been the string off a piece of celery.

A mixture of porcini and shitake mushrooms was spooned beside the steak, in a thick red wine and shallot sauce that smelled earthy—like sage and thyme, and deeply of garlic. They sat smelling the rising vapors before picking up their forks and knives. Sophia cut a small piece of the salmon, and held it up, blowing away the steam. Ben could not help staring at her; even the way she ate was sexy.

After a moment of respective silence she said, “Oh my god.”

“Good?”

“You have to try this.”

It did not take long for them to eat, and when they finished, they leaned back and talked about the meal. Ben was waiting for Sophia to bring up his work again. He hoped she would understand that he could not talk about it. However, she did not say anything. Maybe she already understood, and he would not have to explain himself. Maybe.

The waiter appeared a moment later. “Are we finished?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Would you like anything wrapped?”

Ben looked at Sophia’s plate. It was nearly empty, just a small piece left. Sophia shook her head.

“No, thank you,” Ben said.

“Very well.” The waiter took the plates and walked away.

Ben felt his body tense, and Sophia put a hand on his forearm.

“These places,” Sophia said, “they’re so pretentious. They think that just because they serve good food, it gives them the right to treat people like idiots. It’s the same in Paris; the restaurant people consider themselves artists, and artists can be very sensitive. Don’t let him bother you; I’m having fun. Why don’t we get the check and go for a walk, maybe find something for dessert?”

“You’re right. That sounds good.”

Ben walked Sophia home—insisting—so she would not wind up in a bad part of town. She reached out as they walked and held his hand in hers. Her hand radiated warmth, like a kitten.

“This is it,” Sophia said, stopping before a brownstone. “My sister’s house.”

She turned to face him; the weight of her gaze made him look away.

“This is the part of the date when you kiss me.”

“Sophia, I …”

“Ben, look at me.”

Ben looked up, her gaze crushing the thoughts going through his mind. His attention was enraptured, causing that moment to become locked in time.

“I don’t know who she was … but I’m sorry, and I understand—”

Ben leaned in and kissed her. His lip hit her tooth, and for a moment he was mortified, but she kissed him back. A good kiss—not too long, but hardly a peck on the cheek. Long enough for it to mean something. They split apart. That moment would be forever stuck in time, for all of eternity—yet it was over in a flash.

“Thank you for tonight, Benjamin. I had a great time.”

He felt tears coming, but fought them back.

“I’m leaving Baltimore tomorrow to visit a friend in New York before I go home. Will I see you again?”

“I’m traveling to Rome in a month or two, but I don’t know the date. Maybe you can meet me there?”

“You’re going to Rome? Lucky bartender.” She smirked. Perhaps his silence on the topic was becoming evident. She continued, “It’s a long drive to Rome. I would have to take off from work. I don’t know if I can; I used my vacation days for this trip.” She looked at him inquisitively. “Why are you flying to Rome?”

“It’s a long story. Fly then, don’t drive. I’ll take care of the ticket. I’ll even book it for you.”

“You’re full of long stories.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I think there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

“How about I tell you more about myself when we’re both in the Vatican.”

“The Vatican? I thought you said Rome? I didn’t take you for a religious man.”

Ben smiled. They kissed again, and slowly pulled away.

“Call me,” she said. “Let me know when you’re going to Italy. I’ll try to take off from work. I’ll take care of the ticket; you don’t have to pay for it.”

“No, I insist. If you have to take off from work, let me at least pay for the ticket. Seriously, it would be my pleasure.”

“We’ll see. Goodnight, Benjamin Walker.”

“Goodnight, Sophia Lorenz.”

She walked to the doorway, stopping to turn and smile, and then vanished. The door closed behind her.

Ben stood on the sidewalk, watching the light emanate from the curtained windows of the old townhouse. He wanted desperately to be inside with her, in the warmth of the house, seeing her beauty in the light. He did not want her to go. Was the night really over? It felt like it had just begun. He stood there in the silence, enjoying the faint sound of the wind. The street was dark and quiet in the late hour, save for the streetlights overhead, buzzing like flies in a jar. He turned and walked down the deserted sidewalk.

As Ben walked home, he thought about something else that happened
earlier
, that same day. It was sometime in the afternoon when Ben was mustering up the courage to call Sophia. He was sitting on the couch looking over the numbers scribbled on the back page of his book and contemplating having a drink to calm his nerves. His cell phone was in the palm of his hand, the number pad beckoning him to dial the ten-digits that would connect him with Sophia. Suddenly, the phone lit up, vibrating in his hand. The screen said ‘
Doc Wolf.’
Ben picked up.

“Hello, Doctor.”

“Ben, my boy. How are you?”

“Good. You’re sounding rather chipper.”

“Ah, well, yes. There is a lot to be chipper about.”

Dr. Wulfric began to explain to Ben about their new assignment in the Vatican, and then Ben said, “Oh crap. That’s a ton of work.”

“Don’t be glum. Our work in Paris is turning out to be extraordinary; we won’t need to spend nearly as much time on each piece of art as we did at the Louvre. I think it’s safe to say we can cut our focusing time in half.”

“Well, that’s something. Still—the Vatican? The Sistine Chapel?” Ben had only ever seen pictures of the church, never having gone there himself, but he knew the scale of the art in the building to be extraordinary. “What’s with all the art?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just wondering—why do we keep studying art? Not that I’m complaining about going to Paris, or Rome.”

“It’s Mr. Kalispell’s decision regarding where we conduct our experiments.”

“It just seems odd that Mr. Kalispell is sending us all over the world. Couldn’t we study something else, like a tree outside? Again, I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering.”

“He’s a, well … an interesting man. I don’t think the cost of sending us overseas bothers him in the least, not as long as we continue to get results.”

“Right. Okay, I guess it’s best to not ask questions.”
Because they’re not going to give me answers.

“Mr. Kalispell would like for me to inform you that there will be no shortage of work for a long time to come. That is essentially why I’m calling you, as well as to tell you that the results we processed from Paris are extraordinarily good. I wasn’t supposed to mention anything about the Vatican, but it is such exciting news. When Iain calls, act surprised.”

“I will.”

“We’re going to Italy, Ben! And who knows where to after! Spain, Belgium, Austria, Germany …”

Ben smiled. He was excited, even though he was still jet lagged from Paris. They had only just returned.

“You’re right, Doc. This is great news.”

“We also have a few smaller jobs for you, closer to home, before we go. The Met in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and we’re looking at a few in Baltimore.”

Ben agreed to do any job that came up. He felt it was his duty. Over the years, he had never turned down an assignment with Dr. Wright, and the money Mr. Kalispell was paying made it possible to work fewer shifts at the bar. It was not like years ago when he was working side by side with his wife. Putting the bar business behind him would be relieving, but he could not quit just yet. He needed to stay on payroll. The money coming in from Lucy was all in cash—illegal but essential. With a pay stub from the bar, he could deposit small amounts of the cash at a time.

In Ben’s bedroom, in a shoebox under a loose floorboard, he kept stacks of hundred-dollar bills wrapped tightly in plastic wrap. If everything stayed the way it was going, he could survive that way for a long, long time.

T
he flight to Rome was long, but Ben barely noticed. He was flying in business class again, a luxury he could get used too. The flight would have gone much faster, though, if Ben had Sophia on the seat beside him. Instead, he had Dr. Wulfric as a neighbor, and the doctor had no problem sleeping the entire duration of the flight.

The hotel was only a half-mile outside of Vatican City. The architecture of the building was not quite as inspiring as the hotel in Paris. As they checked in at the front desk, Iain Marcus informed Ben and Dr. Wulfric that the hotel had a rooftop lounge with incredible views of the city and an open-air bar at night. They agreed to meet in the lounge in two hours, after they freshened up.

“
Grazie
,” Iain said to the receptionist.

“Of course you speak Italian,” Ben laughed.

Iain passed out their room keys. Ben’s room was next to Iain’s, and Dr. Wulfric’s was across the hall. The view from Ben’s room window overlooked an alley, but the interior was bright, vibrant, and incredibly modern.

Ben put his luggage on the carousel, removed the toiletries, and stood before the bathroom mirror to brush his teeth. It was a marvelous bathroom, with large white marble tiles accented by smaller black tiles lining the edge of the floor. There was a bidet, a heated towel rack, and a large marble bathtub with a mirror spanning the wall behind it. This large mirror reflected the vanity mirror, creating multiple images that appeared to stretch to infinity. Next to the bathtub was a separate standing shower with a glass door. Mr. Kalispell had spared no expense in their lodgings. Ben opened the balcony doors and stepped outside into the open air. The sun was warm on his face, and the breeze felt dry and cool.

There was plenty of work to do the next nine days. The thought of craning his head and staring up at the high ceiling for hours on end, in a poorly lit chapel, sent Ben’s mind in a tizzy.

He already had a slight headache from the last three weeks when he, Dr. Wulfric, and Iain visited several local museums in the New York and Baltimore areas. Three days before departing for Rome, they spent hours in the Met.

The day before departure, Dr. Wulfric asked Ben to come to the lab to discuss what to expect in Rome. When Ben walked into the lab, Dr. Wulfric was in the process of laying out large, square photographs on a cleared work desk, like a puzzle. When he finished, a panorama of the cathedral ceiling and walls lay before them. Dr. Wulfric divided the room into a grid, one through nine, each representing a day of work. They went over the art and compositions so they would not waste time when they arrived.

After preparing for over an hour, Iain Marcus joined them and took Ben to a different desk.

“Mr. Kalispell is offering you six thousand dollars for your work in Italy, and, of course, all of your meals and lodging will be taken care of.”

It would take Ben over a month to make that kind of money at the bar. Ben knew he should not bargain, but he thought,
what the hell,
I have something to bargain with—they need me
.

“Ten thousand. Let’s make it ten thousand dollars, one thousand dollars a day. I’m not looking forward to craning my neck at the ceiling for hours on end; it’s not going to be easy, not by any means.”

Iain didn’t flinch. He picked up his leather briefcase and removed a black binder. He flipped it open, trailing his eyes over a page. “Eight thousand,” he said.

Ben remained silent. It was an old trick Emily had taught him years ago when they were buying a new car.
‘Don’t say anything when he makes us an offer,’
she would say.
‘Stay quiet, like you’re thinking, even when it gets uncomfortable.’

The trick worked. After a few tense minutes of silence, the car salesman had cleared his throat and came back with a better offer. Iain, however, did not wait until the silence became uncomfortable. He flipped a page in the ledger.

“You received a thousand dollars each night for the first three tests. You received five thousand for your work in Paris, and then one thousand dollars for your work at the Met; one thousand dollars at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and one thousand dollars at the Walters Art Museum. That gives us a total of eleven thousand dollars. Let’s meet at nine thousand for Italy, giving you a total of twenty thousand dollars for your work with us so far. I think that’s adequate, don’t you? We’re going up three thousand dollars from our original offer, and you’re going down one thousand from your counter offer.”

Ben had the feeling Mr. Kalispell would not care if it cost him fifty thousand—the man had bottomless pockets, but it was Iain’s job to set boundaries.

“Okay, Iain. That’s fair.”

“Excellent.”

Iain Marcus took out a stack of money from his briefcase, counted out four-and-a-half-thousand dollars, and placed the money in a blue zippered bank bag.

“That’s half of the sum we agreed upon. When we return from Rome, you’ll receive the rest.”

Ben’s original idea was to include a tape of his dreams into the bargaining. Perhaps they thought he no longer wanted to see it since he stopped bringing it up, but he did. Not only that, but Ben also wanted to know what was going on in the room next to the lab, behind that door in the center of the room. He’d spent six nights in the same bedroom on the second floor, and each morning subsequent each night, he heard the noises behind the wall: ticking, like that of a cab meter, with various mechanical bumps and grinds. Sometimes the sounds were very loud—like an auto garage with power tools and compressors.

The noise did not bother him, but whenever he asked Dr. Wulfric or Dr. Egan, they stuttered some excuse, changing the subject. Moreover, there were always cars and trucks parked along the side of the lab that seemed to belong to no one; but they had to belong to someone, because they came and went without Ben ever seeing anyone. What Ben really wanted was knowledge, but in the end, after some thought and consideration, he felt it was better not to bargain and leave the subject for another day. Maybe it was better to be kept in the dark. Why should he care? As long as they were paying him, and paying him well, he would quell his pursuit of knowledge, at least for the time being. Later, maybe, after Rome, he would rethink his strategy.

Ben left the balcony, closing the double doors behind him. He laid on the bed and flipped through the various channels on the television. Italian soap operas and foreign news reports flashed on the screen. One channel was showing American sitcoms—currently an episode of
Friends
was playing. Another channel showed world news anchored by a heavily accented newscaster speaking English. He should be concentrating on the work ahead, but his mind kept wandering to his last day in Italy, the day when Sophia Lorenz was flying to meet him. She could not spend the night in Rome; taking two days off from work was impossible. Somehow, Ben persuaded her to fly in for just one day, returning to Paris that very same night. It was silly, impractical, stupid, exhausting, and a waste of both time and money, but that was all the more reason Sophia agreed to do it. The fact that Ben would pay a round-trip ticket just to see her for only a few hours made her swoon. It was something people did in the movies, not in real life, and that made it even more exciting.

The men stood inside the Sistine Chapel, in complete and utter awe. The art in the building was all encompassing, everywhere to be seen, impossible to take in all at once. For nearly an hour, they didn’t say a word, but wandered around in astonishment. Dr. Wulfric broke the silence.

“Breathtaking. Absolutely beautiful.”

“We have our work cut out for us, don’t we, Doc?”

“It’s Peter, Ben. Peter.”

Dr. Wulfric locked eyes with Ben, and the intense feeling of being in over their heads, drowning in a sea with no horizon in sight, made them break out in laughter. Iain Marcus snapped out of his hypnotic wandering and began elbowing past the crowd of people to get back beside them.

“My god,” Iain said. “This is amazing.”

Dr. Wulfric nodded, “Let’s get to work, Ben. We have a long day ahead of us.”

They began in Zone One: The Last Judgment. An enormous fresco spanning the entire wall behind the alter. Dr. Wulfric swung his satchel bag in front of him, removed two small binoculars, handing a pair to Ben. He rummaged through the bag for his sketchpad and charcoals.

“All right, Doc—Peter—where do we begin?”

“Let’s just take it in for a few minutes.”

Three hours later, they were still standing before the enormous painting. The image of Saint Bartholomew, with his face contorted in contempt, his hand holding out his own flayed skin, was etched in Ben’s mind.

“It is believed that the face of Bartholomew is a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself,” Dr. Wulfric informed Ben, squinting through the binoculars.

“Why does he look so mad?”

“Well, because he was flayed alive.”

“No, I don’t mean Saint Bartholomew. Why did Michelangelo depict himself angry?”

“Because Michelangelo never wanted to do this—to paint the ceiling, paint the Sistine Chapel. He told the Pope he would prefer
not
to be commissioned, if possible. But the Pope commissioned him anyway.”

“That’s crazy. I wouldn’t think an artist of his caliber would turn down an offer to compose something of this magnitude. Arguably, the greatest artistic achievement ever created—in the world. Something to live on long after his death.”

“At that stage in Michelangelo’s life, he thought of himself as more of a sculptor and was frustrated that he would have to spend years of his life painting the Chapel instead of doing what he felt was his calling. But who knows, it’s just a theory.”

On the third day of the trip, Iain Marcus made an appointment at a local spa for Ben and Dr. Wulfric after seeing how fatigued they were becoming. They had both spent hours staring straight up at the ceiling, squinting through binoculars, developing headaches that aspirin couldn’t cure, and painful cricks in their necks that became unbearable at times. Dr. Wulfric often joked that it would be easier for them to lie on the floor while studying the ceiling. It would be so much easier. The spa was enjoyable, and when they left they felt recharged, but the pain came back the moment they reentered the cathedral.

The fifth night, Ben retreated to his room so completely drained and mentally fatigued that his knees were wobbly the last few steps in the hallway. He opened the door to his room and collapsed on the bed. An hour later, he was still in bed, his hands and feet tingling with exhaustion, and his stomach growling audibly with hunger. However, he didn’t feel he had the strength to leave the bed to get food. He sat propped up with pillows and swaddled with blankets, aware that he had to use the bathroom, but unwilling to get up to do so.

A news anchor on TV was covering a story about a small earthquake that had hit a rural area in southern Italy. The olive-skinned, clean-cut man explained the level of devastation in a coarse accent that matched the rugged and earthy terrain of the small town he was describing. A clip of an old woman in a black shawl played along with his commentary, crying and howling outside the rubble of what was only minutes ago her family’s home.

The scene changed to an interview with a dusty-looking, sunbaked man speaking in rushed Italian. An English translation followed:
“I don’t know where we’ll sleep tonight. It happened so fast. I felt the earth rumble and didn’t know what was happening, and then the buildings around me started to shake, and I started hearing loud crashes. Everything was coming down. My house is destroyed; it’s gone. I don’t know what we’ll do, but I am so thankful that my wife and children are safe. I praise the Lord for saving them. So many were not as fortunate.”
Behind the man, people stood in a group beside the rubble of his home, staring into the camera with drawn faces. Everyone looked grey, as if they belonged to the rubble that was all around. A group of sheep appeared in the distance, followed by a Shepherd, and even their white fleeces were grey with dust.

Ben blinked his eyes away from the television. He saw the bright outline of the screen on the blank wall, etched in his vision. He blinked again—the image stayed, burned in his retinas. He closed his eyes for several seconds, taking deep breaths in and out. The colors became brighter in the darkness, twinkling like lights on a Christmas tree.

“Oh hell,” he said. “Oh shit.”

He kept his eyes shut.

In the darkness, the crisp lines of the screen blurred around the edges, branching out in crystalized colors, zigzagging in thunderbolt arrays both colorful and blinding. Bright white patches and black spots grew and changed form.

He turned off the TV and picked up the phone next to the bed, dialing Dr. Wulfric’s room. The numbers on the keypad were hard to make out, and he had to use his memory.

“Hello?”

“Doc, it’s Ben.” There was a waver in his voice and his hand was trembling on the receiver.

“Ben, what’s the matter?”

“I’m getting a migraine. The aura is starting.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Ben hung up, and not a moment later there was a knock at his door. Ben let Dr. Wulfric in.

“How bad is it? Are you in any pain?”

“No pain. It’s dull.”

“Lie on the bed.”

Dr. Wulfric turned off all the lights in the room except for one small reading lamp. He gave Ben two Triptans, popping the pills out from their protective shells. The pills instantly dissolved on Ben’s tongue like snowflakes.

“How bad is the aura? Can you see?”

It was impossible to focus on any one area of the aura; it grew along the edge of his vision, along the border, like how a camera flash might leave an impression in the corner of the eye. It had grown now to the point where it encompassed his complete field of vision, and Ben could only see the outline of Dr. Wulfric through patches of pitch-black and bright, colorful lights. If he had to count how many fingers the doctor held up, it would be difficult.

“It’s bad, Doc.”

“Follow this pen with your eyes. Don’t move your head, just your eyes.”