NATHANIEL RECALLS THE MIRACLE
The grandchildren approach.
Nathaniel can make them out dimly in the shadows.
When it’s time, he’ll tell them about the miracle.
It was the dawn of the new millenium, he’ll say. I was living in
the Midwest back then, but my friends from college persuaded me to
come to New York.
I arrived a few days ahead of the amazing occasion, and all over
the city there was an atmosphere of feverish anticipation. The year two
thousand! The new millennium! Some people thought it was sure to
be the end of the world. Others thought we were at the threshold of
something completely new and better. The tabloids carried wild predictions
from celebrity clairvoyants, and even people who scoffed and said
that the date was an arbitrary and meaningless one were secretly agitated.
In short, we were suddenly aware of ourselves standing there,
staring at the future blindfolded.
I suppose, looking back on it, that all the commotion seems comical
and ridiculous. And perhaps you’re thinking that we churned it
up to entertain ourselves because we were bored or because our lives
felt too easy-trivial and mundane. But consider: ceremonial occasions,
even purely personal ones like birthdays or anniversaries, remind
us that the world is full of terrifying surprises and no one knows what
even the very next seared will bring!
Well, shortly below the momentous day, a strange news item
appeared: experts were saying that a little mistake had been made-just
one tiny mistake, a little detail in the way computers everywhere had
been programmed. But the consequences of this detail, the experts
said, were potentially disastrous; tiny as it was, the detail might affect
everybody, and in a very big way!
You see, if history has anything to teach us, it’s that-despite all
our efforts, despite our best (or worst) intentions, despite our touchingly
indestructible faith in our own foresight-we poor humans cannot actually
think ahead; there are just too many variables. And so, when it
comes down to it, it always turns out that no one is in charge of the
things that really matter.
It must be hard for you to imagine-it’s even hard for me to
remember-but people hadn’t been using computers for very long. As
far as I know, my mother (your great-grandmother) never even touched
one! And no one had thought to inform the computers that one day
the universe would pass front the years of the one thousands into the
years of the two thousands. So the machines, as these experts suddenly
realized, were not equipped to understand that at the conclusion of
1999 time would not start over from 1900, time would keep going.
People all over America-all over the world!-began to speak, of
“a crisis of major proportions” (which was a phrase we used to use
back then). Because, all the routine operations that we’d so blithely
delegated to computers, the operations we all took for granted and
depended on-how would they proceed?
Might one be fatally trapped in an elevator? Would we have to
huddle together for warmth and scrabble frantically through our pockets
for a pack of fancy restaurant matches so we could set our stacks of
old New York Reviews ablaze? Would all the food rot in heaps out
there on the highways, leaving us to pounce on fat old street rats and
grill them over the flames? What was going to happen to our bank
accounts-would they vaporize? And what about air traffic control?
On December 31 when the second hand moved from 11:59:59 to
midnight, would all the airplanes in the shy collide?
Everyone was thinking of more and more alarming possibilities.
Some people committed their last night on this earth to partying, and
others rushed around buying freeze-dried provisions and cases of water
and flashlights and radios and heavy blankets in the event that the
disastrous problem might somehow eventually be solved.
And then, as the clock ticked its way through the enormous gatherings
in celebration of the era that was due to begin in a matter of
hours, then minutes, then seconds, we waited to learn the terrible consequences
of the tiny oversight. Khartoum, Budapest, Paris-we
watched on television, our hearts fluttering, as midnight, first just a
tiny speck in the east, unfurled gently, darkening the sky and moving
toward us over the globe.
But the amazing thing, Nathaniel will tell his grandchildren,
was that nothing happened! We held our breath … And there
was nothing! It was a miracle. Over the face of the earth, from east to
west and back again, nothing catastrophic happened at all.
Oh, well. Frankly, by the time he or any of his friends get
around to producing a grandchild (or even a child, come to
think of it) they might well have to explain what computers
had been. And freeze-dried food. And celebrity clairvoyants
and airplanes and New York and America and even cities, and
heaven only knows what.
FROGBOIL
Lucien watches absently as his assistant, Sharmila, prepares to
close up the gallery for the evening; something keeps tugging
at his attention …
Oh, yes. It’s the phrase Yoshi Matsumoto used this morning
when he called from Tokyo. Back to normal … Back to
normal …
What’s that famous, revolting, sadistic experiment? Something
like, you drop the frog into a pot of boiling water and it
jumps out. But if you drop it into a pot of cold water and
slowly bring the water to a boil, the frog stays put and gets
boiled.
Itami Systems is reopening its New York branch, was what
Matsumoto called to tell Lucien; he’ll be returning to the
city soon. Lucien pictured his old friend’s mournful, ironic
expression as he added, “They tell me they’re ‘exploring additional
avenues of development now that New York is back to
normal.'”
Lucien had made an inadvertent squawklike sound. He
shook his head, then he shook his head again.
“Hello?” Matsumoto said.
“I’m here,” Lucien said. “Well, it’ll be good to see you
again. But steel yourself for a wait at customs; they’re finger-printing.”
VIEW
Mr. Matsumoto’s loft is a jungle of big rubbery trees, under
which crouch sleek items of chrome and leather. Spindly electronic
devices blink or warble amid the foliage, and here and
there one comes upon an immense flat-screen TV-the first
of their kind that Nathaniel ever handled.
Nathaniel and his friends have been subletting-thanks,
obviously, to Uncle Lucien-for a ridiculously minimal rent
and on Mr. Matsumoto’s highly tolerable conditions of cat-sitting
and general upkeep. Nathaniel and Lyle and Amity and
Madison each have something like an actual bedroom,
and there are three whole bathrooms, one equipped with a
Jacuzzi. The kitchen, stone and steel, has cupboards bigger
than most of their friends’ apartments. Art-important, soon
to be important, or very recently important, most of which
was acquired from Uncle Lucien-hangs on the walls.
And the terrace! One has only to open the magic sliding
panel to find oneself halfway to heaven. On the evening, over
three years ago, when Uncle Lucien completed the arrangements
for Nathaniel to sublet and showed him the place,
Nathaniel stepped out onto the terrace and tears shot right up
into his eyes.
There was that unearthly palace, the Chrysler Building!
There was the Empire State Building, like a brilliant violet
hologram! There were the vast, twinkling prairies of Brooklyn
and New Jersey! And best of all, Nathaniel could make out
the Statue of Liberty holding her torch aloft, as she had held it
for each of his parents when they arrived as children from
across the ocean-terrified, filthy, and hungry-to safety.
Stars glimmered nearby; towers and spires, glowing emerald,
topaz, ruby, sapphire, soared below. The avenues and
bridges slung a trembling net of light across the rivers, over
the buildings. Everything was spangled and dancing; the little
boats glittered. The lights floated up and up like bubbles.
Back when Nathaniel moved into Mr. Matsumoto’s loft,
shortly after his millennial arrival in New York, sitting out on
the terrace had been like looking down over the rim into a
gigantic glass of champagne.
UNCLE LUCIEN’S WORDS OF REASSURANCE
So, Matsumoto is returning. And Lucien has called Nathaniel,
the nephew of his adored late wife, Charlie, to break the
news.
Well, of course it’s hardly a catastrophe for the boy. Matsumoto’s
place was only a sublet in any case, and Nathaniel
and his friends will all find other apartments.
But it’s such an ordeal in this city. And all four of the
young people, however different they might be, strike Lucien
as being in some kind of holding pattern-as if they’re temporizing,
or muffled by unspoken reservations. Of course, he
doesn’t really know them. Maybe it’s just the eternal, poignant
weariness of youth.
The strangest thing about getting old (or one of the many
strangest things) is that young people sometimes appear to
Lucien-as, in fact, Sharmila does at this very moment-in a
nimbus of tender light. It’s as if her unrealized future were
projecting outward like ectoplasm.
“Doing anything entertaining this evening?” he asks her.
She sighs. “Time will tell,” she says.
She’s a nice young woman; he’d like to give her a few
words of advice, or reassurance.
But what could they possibly be? “Don’t-” he begins.
Don’t worry? HAHAHAHAHA! Don’t feel sad? “Don’t
bother about the phones,” is what he settles down on. A new
show goes up tomorrow, and it’s become Lucien’s custom on
such evenings to linger in the stripped gallery and have a glass
of wine. “I’ll take care of them.”
But how has he gotten so old?
SUSPENSION
So, there was the famous, strangely blank New Year’s Eve, the
nothing at all that happened, neither the apocalypse nor the
failure of the planet’s computers, nor, evidently, the dawning
of a better age. Nathaniel had gone to parties with his old
friends from school and was asleep before dawn; the next afternoon
he awoke with only a mild hangover and an uneasy
impression of something left undone.
Next thing you knew, along came that slump, as it was
called-the general economic blight that withered the New
York branch of Mr. Matsumoto’s firm and clusters of jobs all
over the city. There appeared to be no jobs at all, in fact, but
then-somehow-Uncle Lucien unearthed one for Nathaniel
in the architectural division of the subway system. It was virtually
impossible to afford an apartment, but Uncle Lucien
arranged for Nathaniel to sublet Mr. Matsumoto’s loft.
Then Madison and his girlfriend broke up, so Madison
moved into Mr. Matsumoto’s, too. Not long afterward, the
brokerage house where Amity was working collapsed resoundingly,
and she’d joined them. Then Lyle’s landlord jacked
up his rent, so Lyle started living at Mr. Matsumoto’s as well.
As the return of Mr. Matsumoto to New York was contingent
upon the return of a reasonable business climate, one way
or another it had sort of slipped their minds that Mr. Matsumoto
was real. And for over three years there they’ve been,
hanging in temporary splendor thirty-one floors above the
pavement.
They’re all out on the terrace this evening. Madison has
brought in champagne so that they can salute with an adequate
flourish the end of their tenure in Mr. Matsumoto’s
place. And except for Amity, who takes a principled stand
against thoughtful moods, and Amity’s new friend or possibly
suitor, Russell, who has no history here, they’re kind of quiet.
REUNION
Now that Sharmila has gone, Lucien’s stunning, cutting-edge
gallery space blurs a bit and recedes. The room, in fact, seems
almost like an old snapshot from that bizarre, quaintly futuristic
century, the twentieth. Lucien takes a bottle of white wine
from the little fridge in the office, pours himself a glass, and
from behind a door in that century, emerges Charlie.
Charlie-Oh, how long it’s been, how unbearably long!
Lucien luxuriates in the little pulse of warmth just under his
skin that indicates her presence. He strains for traces of her
voice, but her words degrade like the words in a dream, as if
they’re being rubbed through a sieve.
Yes, yes, Lucien assures her. He’ll put his mind to finding
another apartment for her nephew. And when her poor,
exasperating sister and brother-in-law call frantically about
Nathaniel, as they’re bound to do, he’ll do his best to calm
them down.
But what a nuisance it all is! The boy is as opaque to his parents
as a turnip. He was the child of their old age and he’s also,
obviously, the repository of all of their baroque hopes and
fears. By their own account, they throw up their hands and
wring them, lecture Nathaniel about frugality, then press
spending money upon him and fret when he doesn’t use it.
Between Charlie’s death and Nathaniel’s arrival in New
York, Lucien heard from Rose and Isaac only at what they
considered moments of emergency: Nathaniel’s grades were
erratic! His friends were bizarre! Nathaniel had expressed an
interest in architecture, an unreliable future! He drew, and Lucien
had better sit down, comics!
The lamentations would pour through the phone, and
then, the instant Lucien hung up, evaporate. But if he had
given the matter one moment’s thought, he realizes, he would
have understood from very early on that it was only a matter
of time until the boy found his way to the city.
It was about four years ago now that Rose and Isaac put
in an especially urgent call. Lucien held the receiver at arm’s
length and gritted his teeth. “You’re an important man,” Rose
was shouting. “We understand that, we understand how busy
you are, you know we’d never do this, but it’s an emergency.
The boy’s in New York, and he sounds terrible. He doesn’t
have a job, lord only knows what he eats-I don’t know what
to think, Lucien, he drifts, he’s just drifting. Call him, promise
me, that’s all I’m asking.”
“Fine, certainly, good,” Lucien said, already gabbling; he
would have agreed to anything if Rose would only hang up.
“But whatever you do,” she added, “please, please, under
no circumstances should you let him know that we asked you
to call.”
Lucien looked at the receiver incredulously. “But how else
would I have known he was in New York?” he said. “How
else would I have gotten his number?”
There was a silence, and then a brief, amazed laugh from
Isaac on another extension. “Well, I don’t know what you’ll
tell him,” Isaac said admiringly, “But you’re the brains of the
family, you’ll think of something.”
INNOCENCE
And actually, Russell (who seems to be not only Amity’s
friend and possible suitor but also her agent) has obtained for
Amity a whopping big advance from some outfit that Madison
refers to as Cheeseball Editions, so whatever else they
might all be drinking to (or drinking about) naturally Amity’s
celebrating a bit. And Russell, recently arrived from L.A., cannot
suppress his ecstasy about how ur New York, as he puts it,
Mr. Matsumoto’s loft is, tactless as he apparently recognizes
this untimely ecstasy to be.
“It’s fantastic,” he says. “Who did it, do you know?”
Nathaniel nods. “Matthias Lehmann.”
“That’s what I thought, I thought so,” Russell says. “It
looks like Lehmann. Oh, wow, I can’t believe you guys have to
move out-I mean, it’s just so totally amazing!”
Nathaniel and Madison nod and Lyle sniffs peevishly. Lyle
is stretched out on a yoga mat that Nathaniel once bought in
preparation for a romance (as yet manqué) with a prettily tattoed
yoga teacher he runs into in the bodega on the corner.
Lyle’s skin has a waxy, bluish cast: there are dark patches beneath
his eyes. He looks like a child too precociously worried
to sleep. His boyfriend, Jahan, has more or less relocated to
London, and Lyle has been missing him frantically. Lying there
so still on the yoga mat with his eyes closed, he appears to be
a tomb sculpture from an as yet nonexistent civilization.
“And the view!” Russell says. “This is probably the most
incredible view on the planet.”
The others consider the sight of Russell’s eager face. And
then Amity says, “More champagne, anyone?”
Well, sure, who knows where Russell had been? Who
knows where he would have been on that shining, calm, perfectly
blue September morning when the rest of them were
here having coffee on the terrace and looked up at the annoying
racket of a low-flying plane? Why should they expect
Russell-now, nearly three years later-to imagine that moment
out on the terrace when Lyle spilled his coffee and said,
“Oh, shit,” and something flashed and something tore, and the
cloudless sky ignited.
HOME
Rose and Isaac have elbowed their way in behind Charlie, and
no matter how forcefully Lucien tries to boot them out,
they’re making themselves at home, airing their dreary history.
Both sailed as tiny, traumatized children with their separate
families and on separate voyages right into the Statue of
Liberty’s open arms. Rose was almost eleven when her little
sister, Charlie, came into being, along with a stainless American
birth certificate.
Neither Rose and Charlie’s parents nor Isaac’s ever recovered
from their journey to the New World, to say nothing of
what had preceded it. The two sets of old folks spoke, between
them, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Slovenian,
Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Rumanian, Latvian, Czech, and Hungarian,
Charlie had once told Lucien, but not one of the four
ever managed to learn more English than was needed to procure
a quarter pound of smoked sturgeon from the deli. They
worked impossible hours, they drank a little schnapps, and
then, in due course, they died.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERHEROES
by DEBORAH EISENBERG
Copyright © 2006 by Deborah Eisenberg.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
Copyright © 2006
Deborah Eisenberg
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-374-29941-2
