The Deep End of Your Dreams Ch. 07

And she almost believed that, too.

On one of their last walks together in New Mexico she'd asked him about that. About what he felt when he saw attractive young men. "I don't know," he'd replied hesitantly, his eyes looking away, his shame apparent. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you seem so full of desire."

"I do?"

"What do you mean, 'I do?' Are you telling me you aren't homosexual?"

"I don't know. I suppose I might be..."

"You mean you've never...?"

"Good God, no!"

"But you're attracted to men, right?"

"I don't know," he'd said with a sigh. "I suppose it's possible."

Yet as hard as she tried to believe him, she knew he was lying. She knew this was so because she could see deceit in his eyes when he spoke just then, something she'd never expected to see from him. So, when he'd walked away from Roosevelt that night on deck, he'd walked away from her too. From any idea of a future together.

Yet there was something about him that attracted her still. His empathic soul, perhaps. His ability to see into people, to understand them. Yes, it was simply ironic that he couldn't see into his own soul, or that he was willing to walk away from what he saw about himself, but this only made the tragic flaw all the more intriguing.

So, she'd thought about him that first night in Tehran. She wondered if he might indeed be a good father, a good partner for the rest of their lives. Could she ignore his lustful impulses, contain them enough to keep him from destroying their lives? Would it be worthwhile to even live like that? Would she want the central equation of their lives reduced to an ongoing series of evasions?

Yet the very next day, while walking to the British embassy, she'd felt a young man fall in beside her...

"Dr. Aubuchon?" the man asked.

"Yes?"

"My name is Trevor. Trevor Goldberg. I'm with the British legation."

"Ah."

"If you have some time after the next session, I'd like to talk with you if I could."

"About?"

"Your work."

"Indeed. And why would I do that?"

"I've asked my minister to have a word with Secretary Hull; he'll vouch for my status."

"Alright, Mr Goldberg."

"It's doctor, if you don't mind."

"Ah. And your field of study is, Dr. Goldberg?"

"Quantum mechanics."

"What?"

"I'll explain later," the man said, but without saying another word he veered off and joined another group, and she watched him as they walked away, lost inside the peculiar reality of those two words. Nobody was specializing in quantum mechanics, not yet, anyway, so what did he mean by that?

Yet just then she was struck by an even more unsettling realization: she'd seen him before.

On that ship. On that ship with the red walls, the ship where she and Roosevelt stood together, looking out over Saturn's rings.

(c) 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | fiction, through and through