“I’m sure they are,” I said.
Moments later she was in my arms, showering me with kisses. I’d never been able to resist her and, after two weeks alone, was unable to now.
***
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said to Alice the next evening, as we snuggled on the sofa. “What’s with the elaborate setup in the bedroom? The canister filter, the pipes that vanish into the closet?”
She brought a finger to her lips. “Later.”
“And what’s up with the aquarium in your living room? That bizarre salamander. It’s a Mexican axolotl, isn’t it? A government-protected species. What’s it doing here?”
“It’s not an axolotl.”
“Just what is it?”
“It’s similar, of course, to the salamander, but-” I didn’t like the way she was looking at me.
“Stop,” I said. “I don’t think I want to hear any more.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, drawing me close and nestling her head against my chest. “One day there will be no secrets …”
It was a night to remember. Alice’s talent as an astrophysicist was eclipsed only by her talent in bed. She left me exhausted, so exhausted, in fact, that-combined with the stresses of the day-I didn’t awake until noon the next day.
And, of course, she was gone.
I sighed, rose from the bed, and dressed. It was Wednesday, the tenth of April. She’d told me she’d be attending an all-day seminar that included several well-known astrophysicists from abroad. There was to be a banquet at six. She wouldn’t be home until nine.
I looked at the closet door. The opportunity was there for the taking. Perhaps it was as Dr. Whistle had indicated, perhaps Alice wantedme to look inside. I had my hand on the knob and had given it a quarter turn when I changed my mind. I couldn’t go through with it! I’d made a promise to her and it was a promise I would keep.
Back in the kitchen, I turned on a gas burner. I cracked an egg into a bowl and heated up the frying pan. I took a slice of bread, cut a hole in the middle, and plopped the yolk inside. It sizzled.
My eyes glazed over as I watched the egg cook. My mind must have been playing tricks on me, for I could have sworn I was looking at the Andromeda Galaxy. The yolk resembled the central core, the albumen the spiral arms. The bread represented the fabric of space. And the steam rising from the frying pan was nothing less than cosmic energy.
It was then I noticed the note next to the phone on the kitchen counter. “Dearest,” it began. “Have to leave in a hurry. Palomar called. Something big has come up. Love, Alice.”
On a whim, I picked up the phone and dialed the airport. Alice always used Delta. The woman on the other end of the line told me there was one daily flight to Los Angeles and that it left at 11 P. M.
That was ten hours from now.
And that was when it hit me.
Alice told me more than once that I wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, and though I’d always laughed, I realize now that she wasn’t kidding. I’d been duped, to put it bluntly, though what she wanted from me I could only guess (I could think of one-disturbing-possibility, but quickly put it out of my mind.) The oversized image of the Andromeda galaxy on her bedroom ceiling, her frequent absences where she was mysteriously out of touch, her sudden and unexplained reappearances. And that elusive black hole, around which her life seemed to revolve. No, she wasn’t smuggling endangered species, but she was acquiring them. And the reason why was terrifying. “Andromeda is her home!” I cried, to no one but myself, for I was alone in my bedroom. It was an exclamation of triumph, I suppose, for I had finally reasoned it
out. I rushed up the stairs, charged across the bedroom-nearly tripping in my haste-and threw open the closet door.
What had my mind imagined I would see? A portal to another world? Another space? Or to another time? What I saw was something quite different. Something so strange and horrifying I shudder even as I write these words. Astrophysics be damned!
It was pitch-black, just as I’d remembered, an endless, yawning abyss. The light from the bedroom reached the threshold and then abruptly vanished. It was as if the closet was walled off from the rest of the room by an unseen, unknown, or unknowable force.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a moan escaped my lips. There was a blinding point of light within the closet. The black hole. Nothing alarming there. It was what surroundedthe hole that held me hostage and quaking like a child. Wrapped around the hole was the image of my beloved Alice, her body stretched to the point of absurdity.
I backed away, sobbing hysterically, and slammed the closet door. And then I fled the apartment in terror, without bothering to collect my things. I hailed a cab, which, as luck would have it, was just passing by. “Get me out of here!” I cried to the bewildered cabby. “Anyplace at all. Just go!” Looking back, I’m surprised he threw open the door to let a wild man enter, much less drive him to a place of safety.
***
Addendum. The details of the subsequent years are not important. Suffice it to say that I
“Must take care of that,” the landlord muttered as we withdrew.