The Speculist

Chapter Eight

Part I

Chapter Eight

Reuben spent the first few days reading and sleeping. He would occasionally see Sergei or the old man, whom he questioned incessantly about Ksenia. He learned that she had arrived at the clinic with him in the ambulance, but stayed only a short time. Sergei arrived soon after, and he and Ksenia waited together while Reuben was in surgery. As soon as it was clear that Reuben would survive, she insisted on leaving. Sergei protested, but Ksenia was adamant.

Her brother had died and she would be needed at home.

After that, Sergei kept a close watch on her, unsure as to whether she was in any danger. Kolkhi might decide lash out because he was annoyed at having been crossed, but Ksenia seemed an unlikely target. She was merely Pasha’s sister, a person of no significance.

"To him, she is not worth wasting bullet," Sergei had opined, and he was probably right.

Kolkhi might decide to go after Sergei or the militia captain, but Ksenia was not worth killing. Reuben and Keyes, on the other hand, were probably too important to be considered targets (Reuben only by way of his close association with the old man.) Going after either of them would require Markku’s approval, which he was not likely to give.

Sergei speculated that, in fact, Kolkhi couldn’t go after any of them — not even Ksenia, had he been so inclined — without his uncle’s approval. Reuben found that surprising.

"You mean you have this big crime boss in Moscow and he can’t hit anyone without phoning home first? Sounds like Markku is quite the micro manager."

"Da," Sergei said, "he may be micro manager like executives from WorldConneX. But normally I think he doesn’t care who Kolkhi moves against. Kolkhi plays game all the time, I don’t think he checks with Markku first."

"Right," said Reuben. "And he doesn’t have to check in every time an old lady who owns a prime piece of real estate gets hit by a speeding car."

Sergei winced at this, and looked away.

"Yes," he said after a moment. His voice had grown cold. "But to move against any of us it will be different."

"Why?" Reuben wondered how what he said had brought about this change in Sergei.

"Because militia have been involved. Because Mr. Keyes’ name has been raised. Markku does not like it when profile is raised."

With Pasha gone, Ksenia had soon lost her job at the Mezh. Keyes offered to help her find another, but she refused any help. She was certain that she could find employment on her own. She spoke to Sergei once or twice a week, and always asked about Reuben. She promised to come and visit when he was stronger, but so far had made no appearance.

Meanwhile, Reuben continued his recuperation. A few days after being taken off the medication, he was able to get up. Before long he was taking daily walks around the clinic, which he quickly learned occupied two wings of a sprawling country manor. The old man referred to it, as the dacha, a term used by well-to-do Muscovites for their (usually modest) weekend country homes.

It took Reuben a few days to get the lay of the place. He first explored what he was told was the south wing of the dacha. His own and several other ward rooms were located on the first floor of that wing. All of these, save his own, were unoccupied. Dr. Chevlenko and the nurses also had offices on that floor, and there was a sitting room with books and television, all in Russian. (The nurses had provided Reuben a few English-language books and magazines in his room.) Upstairs there was a laboratory, which Reuben was not allowed to enter, and several rooms that he took to be meeting rooms or classrooms. The third floor was closed off, Chevlenko had explained to Reuben, because of weather damage.

The main building was where Keyes and the staff lived. Its first floor consisted of an impressive entryway, a huge expanse of empty space called the Great Hall, and a surprisingly small dining room in the back, where the old man and the staff ate.

There were large windows on the outer wall of the entryway, two on either side of the front door, facing a grand double staircase. The windows were mostly boarded up, with just a few panes of glass remaining. The marble tiles of the staircase were chipped, its banister was mostly missing. The second floor contained a library, empty, and a ballroom which, like the rest of the house, had clearly seen better days. The staff quarters were also on that floor. The old man lived on the third floor.

The stairways leading to that floor were always locked, and Reuben had not so far been invited to pay a visit. He was also not permitted to visit the north wing of the dacha, which housed the rest of the clinic. No one would tell him anything about it. In fact, no one would say much of anything about the dacha or its history; and the old man never seemed to get around to explaining to Reuben why he had happened to buy a clinic in Russia, or what he was even doing there.

This mystery was cleared up one afternoon when Reuben, up for an afternoon walk which had, to that point, been in compliance with all (or at least most) of Olga’s clearly stated regulations, tried the door leading to the north wing and found it unlocked.

Well, he thought, somebody made a mistake.

Although he had been explicitly told to stay out of the north wing, he decided that — with the door unexpectedly unlocked — he should just check in and make sure everything was all right.

Anyway, that would be his line should he be caught.

He found the north wing to be the mirror image of the south. The clinic wings were in much better condition than the main house. The patient rooms looked empty, although in one the bed was made and there was a vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table. When Reuben reached the end of the hall, he found a sitting room, furnished and lighted better than the one in the south wing. Sitting on a small sofa, wearing pajamas and a pink bathrobe, a woman was hard at work marking up a manuscript, which was strewn out on the coffee table in front of her.

It was Betty Keyes, the old man’s wife.

Betty was a small woman, and thin. She had always seemed petite when contrasted with her larger-than-life husband. But now she looked as though she had been worn thin; she had grown frail. Reuben had not seen her in a year or two, and the change was more than noticeable.

"Hi, Betty," he said.

She glanced up and was clearly surprised by who she saw. Her eyes were bright as ever, and her smile as warm. Reuben realized that he had missed her, just as he had the old man.

"Reuben," she said. "I wondered when I was ever going to get to see you." She set her work down and reached out to him. Reuben came into the sitting room. He bent down and hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek. Then he sat next to her on the sofa and held her small hands in his. They felt brittle and cold.

"I had no idea you were even here," he said. "It’s good to see you."

"Let me look at you," she said.

She studied his face. Then she looked at the bandage on his head and what she could see of his shoulder through his blue flannel pajamas. "Oh, dear," she said, and then "oh, my." She looked at his face again and gasped, noticing the burn mark, partially covered by bandages, for the first time.

"My poor Reuben," she said, reaching out to touch the burn. "Oh, my God. We’re so lucky to still have you with us."

She treated him to a severe look.

"I knew it," she said. "I knew something like this would happen. This is why I said I would never approve of your cloak-and-dagger ambitions, and I was right. I knew it would come to something like this. Or worse."

She glared at him.

"What do you think your mother would say if she were here?"

Reuben sighed. He wanted to laugh, but didn’t.

"She would say exactly what you’re saying," he said, realizing how much he had missed this oft-repeated argument. "But she would be wrong. Remember? I quit the Agency a while back. All this happened to me while working for the phone company."

She made a dismissive gesture. "Don’t try that with me. I’ve heard the whole story. None of this would have happened if you had just worked for the phone company like you were supposed to."

"Maybe you have a point, Betty. If it will make you feel any better, I’ve been giving some thought to my next career move, what I’m going to do when I’m better. WorldConneX probably won’t take me back. I was thinking about seeing whether the old man needs any help."

Betty’s face lit up. She forgot all about being severe.

"Do you really mean it?"

Reuben nodded.

"I said I’m thinking about it. I haven’t said anything to him yet."

"Oh, that’s such good news," she said. "That’s the most wonderful news. It will mean so much to him, Reuben. To both of us."

This subject had come up many times in the past. Keyes had never pressured Reuben to join him in his business, although he made it clear time and again that there was a place for him. Betty, on the other hand, had not been shy about telling him where she thought he belonged.

But Reuben would never hear of it.

Reuben’s parents were killed in an airplane crash when he was fourteen. The old man and Betty, who had never had a child of their own, took him in. The situation was awkward at the start and only grew worse. Reuben had known and loved them all his life. But at fourteen, having just lost his parents, he could not accept the Keyes in this new role. He eventually settled the matter to his own satisfaction by applying to, and being accepted at, an exclusive boarding school in Europe.

The Keyes reluctantly let him go. So at age fifteen, he moved out.

Reuben saw them only occasionally after that. He usually made it home for Christmas and a week or so in the summer. When he turned eighteen, he called the old man and told him bluntly that he had won a scholarship to a state university, not one of the Ivy-League schools that he could have easily been admitted to, and that he had a job (he would not inherit his parents’ estate until he turned twenty-three); therefore he would no longer accept any financial assistance from the Keyes. Reuben would never forget how hurt the old man sounded when he told him that he respected his decision, even if he disagreed with it. And that he knew his parents would be proud of him.

After that, things warmed up somewhat between them. Once Reuben established that he didn’t need the Keyes’ money, it seemed easier for him to be around them. He began to visit more often.

Reuben majored in political science. He told the Keyes that, after his time in Europe, he was thinking about a career in the Foreign Service. He wouldn’t listen to Betty’s suggestions that the old man could help him get posted anywhere he liked. Just before graduation, he announced that he had decided against diplomacy in favor of espionage. He had been recruited as an analyst for the CIA. He knew there was no point trying to maintain a cover with the Keyes — the old man was bound to find out what Reuben was doing through his own channels. Even so, he wouldn’t allow the old man to make any calls or pull any strings on his behalf.

The years passed.

After Reuben’s wife died, he decided to leave the Agency. For the first time, he made a concession in the old fight. He wanted to go into corporate intelligence work, and he let the old man get him a job with WorldConneX. (A list of the members of the board of directors for WorldConneX would include the name Michael Keyes.) Now that that job was apparently over, Reuben was thinking about throwing in the towel.

He was nearing forty, after all. He had proved that he could fend for himself. Except for some cousins on his mother’s side whom he barely knew and an ancient grandmother in Jamaica whom he had seen only a few times (but with whom he corresponded two or three times a year) the Keyes were the only family Reuben had. Maybe working with the old man was the right answer, a way to re-connect with the Keyes and (in a way) with his parents.

He wasn’t sure. He was still thinking about it.

"We can talk about all that later, Betty," he said. "What I really want to know is: what is this place? Really. The old man has been evasive, more than usual. And what are you doing here?"

Betty sat back and seemed to think about the questions for a moment. Soon she was staring into space, and Reuben could tell that her thoughts were far from this sitting room in the dacha. After a long while, she seemed to remember herself. She smiled.

"I’m dying, Reuben," she said after a moment.

Reuben coughed; he felt like he was choking. Somehow he was stunned but not surprised by the news. There had to be a reason for all this, after all: a reason for the old man to buy a private clinic, a reason for him to be so evasive, a reason that Reuben had not heard any news of Betty in the weeks he had spent there.

"I apologize for the melodrama, but it’s the simple truth. Of course, Mike doesn’t see it that way, doesn’t want to see it that way. He brought me here because we’re through with the doctors back home. There’s really nothing more they can do. I got them to admit that much.

"But here Mike is free to pursue…well, different avenues, I suppose."

"But what’s wrong with you?"

"That’s the mystery. There have been as many theories as there have been specialists. All we truly know is that I don’t have cancer. Or lupus. Or AIDS. Or three dozen other things. It may be a virus, but they can’t seem to isolate it. It might be a genetic problem — perhaps I’m poorly wired, like this old house. Or it may just be age."

"But that’s crazy," Reuben protested. It occurred to him that he didn’t actually know her age, but he she was certainly younger than the old man, by at least a dozen years.

"Not crazy," she said. "But also probably not true."

"What…what are your symptoms?"

Betty sighed.

"Weakness," she said. "Some days it’s overwhelming, other days not so bad."

"Well, that could be a lot of things."

Betty smiled.

"So I’m told, dear. Then there’s dizziness. Nausea. Occasional bleeding, both internal and external."

Her tone of voice was completely matter-of-fact as she worked her way through the list.

"Let’s see…shortness of breath. Kidney problems. Heart palpitations. It just quits on me from time to time. Occasional problems with vision, with hearing, with speech. Oh, and pain. A lot of pain."

Reuben nodded. He felt disoriented and strangely detached. It was almost as if he was observing this conversation take place between two strangers.

"So if nobody knows what’s wrong with you, what goes on at this place?"

Betty looked around the room as though making sure no one else was there. She lowered her voice and moved in close.

"Just between the two of us?" she whispered, conspiratorially.

"Okay," said Reuben, also lowering his voice. Not that there appeared to be any need.

"Quackery goes on here," she said, her eyes wide with mirth. "It’s as simple as that. And you have no idea, my dear, what a vast menu of snake oil this world has to offer. But Mike does, not that he sees it in precisely those terms."

"So this Chevlenko is some kind of fraud, you think?"

"Oh, no, absolutely not. He’s an old friend of Mike’s and a very good doctor. It’s the others who come in. Psychic surgeons from the Philippines. Experts in crystal healing from Egypt by way of France. Herbalists from California. A shaman here, a witch doctor there. We’re covering all the bases. When I finally admitted that traditional medicine wasn’t going to work and agreed to start looking for alternatives, it was like giving your godfather a gift. He had so many ideas, so much information. You know how he is."

"Yes, I know."

"I couldn’t see the harm in letting him try. Not when it means so much to him. Mike believes, really believes, that there’s some kind of magic out there hidden in the world that can help me. So this is where we carry out the search for it. We decided on Russia because I’ve always wanted to come back here, and because it’s easier for Mike to sneak people and things into this country than it would be back home."

Reuben didn’t know how to respond to any of this. He felt great sorrow at the thought of losing Betty. But what was worse was the frustration that the old man would put her through this ordeal, rather than letting her spend her remaining time with some peace and dignity.

"Betty, I —" he started. He put his hand to his forehead, touching the scar from the burn. This had become an instinctive move for him when thinking. "I don’t know what to say," he continued after a moment. "Do you want me to see if I can do anything? Talk to the old man?"

She shook her head.

"There’s nothing for you to do, my dear. Nothing for you and Mike to talk about. This matter is settled; I’ve agreed to it."

Reuben sighed.

"Don’t worry. This may sound strange, but it’s wonderful to be able to spend so much time together. You know how Mike has always tried to juggle a dozen different projects at once. Well, right now he has only one. Or at least only one big one. And I’m it.

"Besides, I attached some strict terms to allowing him this indulgence. I insisted on doing whatever we were going to do in a real medical setting, with real medical supervision. That’s where Dr. Chevlenko and Olga and Maria came in. And I told Mike that I wouldn’t proceed with anything that seemed too painful or silly, or that the doctor recommended against. And most importantly, I told him that whatever they did, it couldn’t be allowed to interfere with this."

She held up the manuscript page she had been working on when he came in.

"A new book?" he asked.

Betty had once been a journalist. She had met the old man while working on a series of articles about him. She continued writing after they were married. As long as Reuben had known her, she had always been working on a book.

"Yes. My last, almost certainly. It’s about Russia. Russian saints, to be precise."

"Saints?"

"Yes, saints. That surprises you."

He shrugged.

"No topic you pick could ever really surprise me. You’ve been all over the map. It just seems a little out of character for you. You’ve always been so hard-nosed. Or is this some kind of exposé?"

She laughed.

"You know me too well. I started out doing a history of the Soviet collective farms, focusing on the personal stories of individuals who were a part of the system. The saints were just going to be a literary device; I would start each chapter with the story of a saint whose life made a good counterpoint to the person whose story I was telling. But then I got more interested in the saints than I was the farms. So the gimmick became the whole book.

"Even so, it’s hardly an exposé. Debunking the saints? To what end? To try to take away the one glimmer of hope in the lives of some very poor, very old ladies? Do you think I’m that cynical?"

Reuben blinked.

"No. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a subject that seems more up the old man’s alley than yours."

"It’s true that, in this marriage, Mike has always had the market cornered on the eccentric. If I had any interest in debunking, he has provided plenty of material worthy I could work with. And he continues to do so. Anyway, the book is not an exposé, just a re-telling of some of the stories. I’m thinking about making it big and colorful, with imprints of iconographic art. You know, a coffee table book."

"That sounds really nice," said Reuben

Betty laughed again.

"My God, how did such a miserable liar ever decide he wanted to be a spy? You think I’ve gone off the deep end, don’t you?"

"No, Betty," he protested. "It just sounds like a real change for you. I think of the important books you’ve written. They’ve always been about serious topics, current topics. You know, wars. Political scandals. That one about the train wreck in Turkey."

"You’re right. This is a departure from those books. It won’t be a bestseller, but then I’ve never really written one of those, anyway. But I hardly need worry about whether this book sells many copies. We seem to be doing all right financially. And I’m certainly not concerned with my place in the annals of literary greatness."

Reuben shrugged.

"Well, I always liked your stuff. If anybody could make Russian Orthodox saints interesting, I suppose you could."

"Oh, they’re quite fascinating," she continued. " And I do consider them to be a serious subject, perhaps all the more so because they aren’t current. When we’re both feeling up to it, we’ll take a trip to the Monastery of St. Sergius. It’s not too far from here. You can learn a little about one of my favorite saints; you might be interested in this one yourself."

"Oh yeah?" said Reuben, seriously doubting that he would.

"Yes. Hers is a beautiful story. A little sad, perhaps, but very touching. And she had a lovely name."

"What was her name?"

Betty smiled at him.

"Her name was Ksenia."

Reuben coughed and looked around the room for a moment.

"Yeah, that’s cute," he said at last. "That’s really cute. But all that tells me is that you’ve been keeping up on what’s going on with me, while I didn’t even know that you were here. Much less that you were —"

The end of the sentence hung in the air between them. Dying.

Everybody dies.

Someone had just said that to Reuben. Just the other day. Who was it?

"That you were so sick," he said after a moment. His head hurt.

"I know. You have to forgive Mike. He was worried about you, Reuben. You had been through so much; he just wanted to hold off on breaking the bad news to you. Until you were stronger."

Reuben stood up, angry.

"I know," he said, not meaning it. "I know. The old man did the right thing."

He paced to the other end of the sitting room and looked at the bookshelf. The books on this room’s shelf were in English, he noted absently. He looked for the television, wanting to see if the old man had hooked up a satellite dish for Betty. But of course, there was none to be found. She had always hated TV.

He walked back to the sofa and sat down. The rage had passed, but he was still trembling.

"Anyway," he said, "I’m glad I know that you’re here. This will be great. We can keep each other company."

She put her hand against his cheek and brushed away a tear that he hadn’t even realized was there.

"That will be marvelous," she said.

Posted by Phil at March 1, 2004 12:00 AM | TrackBack