‘And then put him in prison.’
‘Exactly. Or force him into exile. But have a man like the teacher come forward, and it begins to look much more personal, more preposterous, but also more horrifying. People could relate to it, and in coming forward the teacher would also be protecting himself.’
‘And if the teacher could not bring himself to do this?’
‘The alternative is a country that looks nothing like the country we imagine we live in. A country without privacy is a country without freedom. The archivist does not want to live in that country. And if the teacher doesn’t go public he makes himself disposable. Easily discredited, easily disappeared.’
‘They wouldn’t do that to American citizens.’
‘Don’t be naïve.’
The elevator opens and we turn, walking together down the hall to my daughter’s door. Meredith appears before we can knock, standing in the threshold smiling.
Everything I do is predictable. I can go nowhere and do nothing without being followed — or worse, anticipated.
My mother is already there and before I can say anything further to Mr. Ramsey, she draws me aside.
‘Meredith’s friends are only interested in one another. They never ask me any questions about myself. It’s impossible to have a really meaningful conversation with them. All they want to talk about is business and I just find that all so empty and pointless. No one wants to talk about art or music or books, none of them care about anything unless they can buy it and watch it increase in value and then be able to sell it again. I sometimes wonder how you could have let Meredith marry into such a group of people.’
‘She married Peter, not the people around him.’
‘It’s the same thing. Can’t you see that? It’s the same goddamn thing, Jeremy.’
‘Have you had any more phone calls?’
‘I get phone calls every day. Dozens of them. I’m on that Do Not Call list and they still call me. I had a woman saying she was from some computer company and there was a problem with my security and if I didn’t give her access to my desktop — some kind of remote control thing — then I’d be opening myself up to being hacked, and I said I’m not doing anything over the phone, and she said, well then prepare to be hacked and hung up. I was so upset!’
‘You shouldn’t believe anyone who calls anymore. But remember you had a call over Thanksgiving weekend from someone who was slandering me.’
‘Oh. . him. Yeah, he still calls. He never stopped. He always says more or less the same thing, but I think he’s a nut. Is he some student you failed?’
‘Are you sure it’s always the same person?’
‘Oh yes. Fruity accent, neither British nor American, and I know him the moment he calls because there’s always this slight clicking delay before he starts talking. I tell him to stop calling but he just keeps going on and on and I tell him Jeremy’s nothing like what you say he is, and anyway if you’ve got a child with some Egyptian that’s your business.’
‘So Meredith told you.’
‘Of course she told me. Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I asked?’
‘Shame, I guess.’
‘But that’s just stupid. Am I ever going to meet the kid? I feel a pain about it.’
‘Soon. He and his mother are planning a trip to New York.’
My mother’s eyes grow red. ‘That makes me so happy,’ she whispers.
‘I can’t make any promises.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I can’t promise she’ll be willing to meet you.’
‘She doesn’t have a choice about it. I want to see my grandson.’
The rest of the day unfolds with such predictability that it is not in any meaningful way different from Thanksgiving’s gathering, although I recognize how, taken together, the two holiday parties mark a departure from my old life or lives, the years in Oxford being accountable as a life unto their own. This now feels like a distinct new stage, one that continues to evolve in unpredictable ways.
As I read the most recent issue of Peter’s magazine I contemplate outing myself to the nation, even the world, waking up one morning to find my face on the cover. My mother and ex-wife and daughter and son-in-law and my son-in-law’s parents circle one another, falling off into clusters of conversation. How would they be affected? Would all our lives become impossible?
From time to time Meredith disappears to check on the kitchen and returns to the living room looking so singularly unflustered that I wonder how Susan and I could ever claim responsibility for the person she has become. Her self-assurance is a quality she found on her own; we never modeled anything of the kind. How, in the face of such calm, can I possibly present what Ramsey has outlined? In revealing myself, making public all the minutiae of the last decade or more of my life (and I cannot be certain Ramsey does not have further reserves of secrets to reveal), I would also be revealing aspects of the lives of my family and friends and colleagues, and those who would potentially suffer most from the exposure are Meredith, my mother, and, of course, Fadia and Selim. Is it worth the loss not just of my own privacy (however illusory it may prove), but also of my family’s, merely to demonstrate to the world the extent and perniciousness of what our government is doing, or, more selfishly, to protect my own liberty? In the end, can I be certain beyond doubt that I have never done anything wrong? Am I whiter than white? Have I never strayed across the border of legality? Surely there is no one, anywhere, who is faultless.
Michael Ramsey leaves before I can speak to him again and I cannot help wondering where he will be on Christmas Day, whether he has a family in the city who cook for him or if he has returned to his office and is finding his nourishment by continuing to poke around in my life, or perhaps there is a girlfriend or boyfriend who will slave to make a turkey with all its accompaniments, or perhaps he is alone, in an apartment in Hoboken, eating Chinese takeout. No, I correct myself, I am certain he does not live in New Jersey. However he may have started in life, he is now a Manhattanite, one who can move with all the swiftness of mercury, element rather than god, the metal that measures temperature and just as easily poisons the well, making its victims crazy, emotionally labile, irritable, perhaps even paranoid. Has my own personal mercury made me mad as a hatter? And perhaps he is also my Mercury, my god of communication and messages, of trickery and thievery, perhaps even my conductor beyond this realm, to paradise or the underworld or whatever darkness awaits. If I were to believe in a god, I would have to choose Mercury, no other.
But must one do what a god commands?
~ ~ ~
Although I offered to send a car to meet them at JFK, Fadia declined, saying they would get a taxi, there was no telling how long the passport queue or baggage claim might take and she did not want me paying exorbitant waiting fees. I expected them late this afternoon, and as the hours passed my anxiety grew, the shortness of breath, the cold stab near my heart. I tried the cell number she had given me but there was no answer. I texted and emailed, received no reply, and then, at nearly ten this evening, as the city was already churning with its celebratory New Year’s mood, Ernesto rang the intercom to say they were downstairs.