"And if you hadn't been there the night of the riot, my Miri would have died. What did you see, Zulfi?"
"What? Well, I had been most thoroughly locked out that evening. The other players on my persona had agendas that did not include any discussion of literature. But I kept trying to get through. The police claimed I never would have succeeded without terrorist assistance. In any case, for a few seconds I could see you lying there on the floor. You asked for my help. The lava was creeping up against your arm" He shivered. "In truth, I couldn't see any more than that."
Robert remembered that conversation. It was one of the sharpest fragments in the jumble.
The two of them, eight thousand miles apart, sat in silence for a few moments. Then Sharif cocked his head quizzically. "Now I am well quit of my perilous literary research. And yet, I cannot resist asking: You are at the beginning of your new life, Professor. Can we expect something new under the sun? For the first time in human history, a new Secret of the Ages?"
Ah. "You're right, there is room for something more. But you know some secrets are beyond the expression of those who experience them."
"Not beyond you, sir!"
Robert found himself smiling back. Sharif deserved the truth. "I could write something, but it would not be poetry. I got a new life, but the Alzheimer's cure it destroyed my talent."
"Oh no! I had heard of Alzheimer failures, but I honestly never suspected you. Thinking there might be another canto of the Secrets was about the only good thing I still hoped to come out of this adventure. I am so sorry."
"Don't be too sorry. I wasn't a very nice person."
Sharif looked down and then back at Robert. "I had heard that. In the days I couldn't get through to you, I interviewed your former colleagues at Stanford, even Winston Blount when he wasn't making conspiracies."
"But "
"It doesn't matter, sir. I eventually realized that you had lost your sadistic edge."
"Then surely you would have guessed the rest!"
"Do you think so? Do you think your talent and your malevolence were a package deal?" Sharif leaned forward, engaged in a way that Robert had not seen since their interviews of weeks before. "I doubt that. But researching the issue would be intriguing. For that matter, I have long wondered and been too timid to ask what really changed in you? Were you a decent fellow from the time of your dementia cure? Or was the change as in Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' with new experience making you kindlier?" He rocked back. "I could make such a splendid thesis out of this!" His eyes swept back to Robert, questioning.
"No way!"
"Yes, yes," said Sharif, nodding. "It is such a great opportunity that I almost forgot my resolutions. And the first of those resolutions is no more activities that get me mixed up with the security authorities." He looked up, as if at unseen watchers. "Do you hear that? I am clean, clean in body and soul and even in my fresh fried clothes!" And then addressing Robert once more: "In fact, I have a new academic major."
"Oh?"
"Yes. It will take several semesters of prerequisite fulfillment, but that will be worth it. You see, the University of Kolkata is starting a new department with new faculty, real go-getters. We have a long way to go considering the competition from the universities in Mumbai but the people here have funding, and they're willing to take on fresh faces such as myself." He grinned enthusiasm at Robert's puzzled look. "It's our new Institute of Bollywood Studies! A combination of cinema and literature. I'll be studying the influence of twentieth-century lit on the latest Indian arts. And much as I regret our lost opportunities, Professor Gu, I am so happy to be in a major that will keep me out of further trouble with the authorities!"
Robert was actually busy between semesters. His contrived synch hack had raised him to the lowest level of guru-hood. He'd been noticed by a small company called Comms-R-Us. In a way it was a traditional firm. It was old (five years old), and it had three full-time employees. So it wasn't as nimble as some operations, but it had managed several innovations in concurrent communications. Comms-R-Us had paid Robert to consult for a period of three weeks. And though it was clear that the "consult" was mainly an opportunity for Comms-R-Us to decide if Robert Gu had any future, Robert jumped at the chance.
For the first time since he lost his marbles, he was creating something that others valued.
Otherwise, things were not going entirely smoothly. Juan Orozco was gone; his parents had taken him on vacation to Puebla, where they were visiting his mother's grandfather. Juan still showed up occasionally, but Miri was not talking to him.
"I'm trying not to care, Robert. Maybe if I stop bothering her, Miri will let me start over with her." Nevertheless, Robert had the feeling the boy might have camped out on their front steps if his parents had not dragged him away.
"I'll talk to her, Juan. I promise."
Juan had looked at him doubtfully. "But don't make her think I put you up to it!"
"I won't. I'll choose the time carefully."
Robert had decades of experience in choosing the right time to strike. This should have been easy. Miri had wangled an Incomplete grade on her demo project. That meant that when she finally did perform, at the end of the next semester, she would have even higher standards to meet. For now, she was a busybody around the house, mainly taking care of her mother. Alice Gu was a ghost of her former self. The steel of the last fifteen weeks of their acquaintance had been torn out of her. The result was charming. More evenings than not, Alice and Miri were down in the kitchen, attempting to make hard work out of modern cookery. His daughter-in-law was distant, but her smile wasn't the meaningless reflex it had often seemed before.
Then Bob was out of town again, and Miri seemed to be busier than ever. Every day, she had some news for him about her searches on burns and limb rehabilitation. Real soon now he should use that as an excuse to set her straight about Juan and about himself.
Maybe tonight was the right night. Bob was still out of town. Alice had retired to the ground-floor den shortly after dinner. None of Miri's "board games" tonight. They were fun, one of the nicer things about life since that terrible night at UCSD but tonight Robert had finally seen his way through some of his Comms-R-Us problems. Working on them, he lost track of the time. When he came up for air, he had some results, maybe things worth showing his employers. What a good night!
Downstairs, a door slammed. His eyes were still on his work, but he heard Miri come pounding up the stairs. She raced down the hallway and into her bedroom.
A few minutes later she came out. There was a knock on his bedroom door. "Hi Robert, can I show you some things I discovered today?"
"Sure."
She bounced into the room and grabbed a chair. "I found three more projects that could help your arm."
In fact, the medical condition of Robert Gu's left arm was best characterized by its absence. It was completely burned off at the lower forearm. There were two places near the shoulder where all that was left was a strip of flesh. His "prosthesis" was more like an old-style plaster cast. But interestingly, the medics had passed on the opportunity to whack the thing off and fit him with some modern miracle. Reed Weber the physician's assistant had resurfaced now that the MDs needed someone to front for them had explained the situation, though perhaps not in quite the way the doctors would like: "You're a victim of the new field of 'prospective medicine,' Robert. You see, we have prosthetics with five-finger motor control, and with almost the durability of a natural arm. But they're a little heavy and the sensor system is nowhere near the real thing. On the other hand, there are clear trends in nerve and bone-regeneration tech. Even though no one knows quite how it will happen or if it will happen the odds are that in eighteen months they'll be able to grow out from what you have now, into an effective natural arm. And the MDs are afraid that debriding what's left of your arm for a prosthesis might make the later solution much more expensive. So for a while you are stuck with a solution that wouldn't have impressed your own grandfather."