The Immortalists(100)

‘It’ll be easier that way,’ says Annie, haltingly. ‘To continue your career.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Varya uses a napkin to blow her nose. ‘There’s no way to keep this quiet.’

Annie is silent, conceding this. ‘Still,’ she says. ‘It’s a better way to go.’

Annie has kept the bulk of her anger from Varya, if only because, unlike Bob, she knows Varya’s story: in the hospital, Varya confessed the truth about Luke as Annie’s expression moved from fury to disbelief to pity.

‘Goddammit,’ she said. ‘I wanted to hate you.’

‘You still can.’

‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘But it’s harder now.’

Now Varya swallows a bite of her wrap. She is not used to restaurant portions, which seem comically huge. ‘What will happen to Frida?’

‘You know as well as I do.’

Varya nods. If Frida is very lucky, she’ll be moved to a primate sanctuary, where former research animals live with minimal human intervention. Varya has campaigned for this, making daily calls to the hospital and to a sanctuary in Kentucky where primates roam thirty acres of outdoor enclosures. But the sanctuary’s capacity is limited. More likely, Frida will be shipped to another research center and used for a different experiment.

That evening, Varya falls asleep at seven and wakes just after midnight. She crawls out of bed in her nightgown and stands at the window, opening the blinds for the first time in months. The moon is bright enough for Varya to see the rest of the condominium complex; across the way, somebody’s kitchen light is on. She has a curious feeling of purgatory, or perhaps it is afterlife. She has lost her work, which was meant to be her contribution to the world – her repayment. The worst has happened, and amidst the hollowing loss is the thought that now there is much less to fear.

She retrieves her cell phone from the bedside table and sits on top of the covers. The other line rings and rings. Just when she is resigned that it will go to voice mail, someone answers.

‘Hello?’ asks the voice, uncertainly.

‘Luke.’ She is overcome by two emotions: relief that he has picked up, and fear that whatever window he’ll give her will not be long enough for her to earn his forgiveness. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for what happened to your brother, and I’m sorry for what happened to you. You should never have had to experience that, never; I wish you hadn’t, I wish I could take it away from you.’

Silence on the other end. Varya presses the phone to her ear, breathing shallowly.

‘How did you get my number?’ he asks, finally.

‘It was in your e-mail to Annie – when you asked for the interview.’ He is quiet again, and Varya continues. ‘Listen to me, Luke. You can’t go through life convinced it was your fault. You have to forgive yourself. You won’t survive otherwise – not in any comprehensive way. Not in the way you deserve to.’

‘I’ll be like you.’

‘Yes,’ she says, and wills herself not to cry again. These words apply to her, too, of course. But she’s never let herself believe them before.

‘Are you really going to Jewish-mother me now? Because I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations ran out on that one twenty-six years ago.’

‘That’s fair,’ she says, though she coughs out a laugh. ‘That’s true.’

She transmits a plea: that he will extend to her the gift of empathy, however undeserved. She looks across the condominium complex, at the one lit kitchen.

‘I have to go to bed,’ says Luke. ‘You woke me up, you know.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Varya. Her chin – stitched, still bandaged – trembles.

‘Can you call me tomorrow? I get off work at five.’

‘Yes,’ Varya says, closing her eyes. ‘Thank you. Where do you work?’

‘Sports Basement. It’s an outlet for outdoor gear.’

‘I thought, the day I met you – I thought you looked ready to go hiking.’

‘I usually do. We get a huge employee discount.’

How little she knows of him. She feels a bolt of disappointment that her son is not a biologist or a journalist but a retail employee, and then she rebukes herself. He is being honest now, and she holds his honesty inside her: one more thing she knows of him that’s real.

Three months later, Varya sits in a French bakery in Hayes Valley. When the man she has come to meet enters the café, she recognizes him immediately. They’ve never met in person, but she’s seen promotional photos of him online. Of course, he is featured too in older snapshots with Simon and Klara. The one Varya likes best was taken in the Collingwood Street apartment Klara and Simon once shared. A black man sits on the floor, leaning against the window, one arm slung up on the frame. His other arm rests on Simon, who lies with his head in the first man’s lap.

‘Robert,’ says Varya, standing.

Robert turns. She can see the handsome, muscular man he used to be – he is tall and arresting, his expression alert – though he is now sixty and thinner, his hair half-gray.

Varya has wondered about him for years, but she wasn’t brave enough to search for him in any serious way until this summer. She found an article about two men who run a contemporary dance company in Chicago. When she wrote by e-mail, he told her he would be in San Francisco this week for a dance festival at Stern Grove. Now they chat about her research, his choreography, and the South Side flat where he and his husband, Billy, live with two Maine Coon cats. ‘Ewoks,’ Robert says. He’s laughing, showing her photos on his cell phone, and Varya is laughing, too, until she’s suddenly close to tears.