CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The support crew for Apollo 19 was in the simulator. Al sat at one of the consoles, feeding them information from Cap Com. It wasn't easy to focus on the task at hand: he found his eyes constantly wandering over to the Operations station, where Elsa Orsós was coaching a fresh-faced intern in the use of the console. She looked absolutely stunning this morning, with her hair swept up away from her face, and her shapely legs curved around the chair. After breakfasting together on Easter Monday they had continued with life as usual. It had been a week and a half now: ample time for Al to reach a decision. He just hoped that it was the right one.
A sharply repeated query from the simulator brought Al back to the task at hand. As he turned back to the itinerary he fancied that he could feel cool sapphire eyes on the back of his neck. He grinned. She was stubborn and outspoken and difficult and utterly delightful. Absolutely best of all, she was unlike any woman he had ever been with, and especially, unlike Beth.
The exercise was concluded successfully, and while the others were comparing notes Al sidled over to Elsa and bent to kiss the tip of her ear. She whirled, eyes flashing with anger. Seeing who it was, she blushed and smiled.
"Calvichy," she said. "You need to be more careful, or one of these days your head will be rolling towards the door before I see who it is."
Al chose to take that as a compliment. "Miss Orsós," he said ironically. Then he added, in earnest; "You look gorgeous today."
She frowned in challenge. "I'm a professional and—"
"Does that mean I can't ask you out for dinner?" Al queried.
She bristled. "It most certainly—" She stopped. "Dinner?" she echoed.
"Well, yeah." Al shrugged. "I mean, it's about time we went on a real date, don't you think? We've seen an awful lot of each other. Lately," he added, as she cast him a murderous glare. "Seen an awful lot of each other lately. "
"I…" she faltered, clearly out of her depth. Al donned his most charming smile.
"I thought tonight," he said. "I could pick you up at seven."
She looked uncertain. Al put two fingers on each of her hips and rocked a little. She followed his motion, and the first stirrings of a smile appeared upon her lips.
"I have your address," he added.
She froze in surprise. "You kept my address from Christmas?" she said.
Al shrugged. "Never throw away a beautiful woman's address.
He realized the second the words were out that he had said the wrong thing. HE withdrew his hands, expecting a slap or an enraged defamation. To his surprise, Elsa smiled coyly.
"So now I'm beautiful?" she said.
"You've always been beautiful," Al told her. "The difference now is I'm starting to think you might not burn me at the stake if I say so."
She smoothed her hair and smiled almost shyly. "Tonight would be good," she said. "But half past seven. I'll wait by the doors."
"Perfect!" Al said. "You like Mexican?"
Her brows furrowed. "I've never been to Mexico."
He laughed. "No, Mexican food!" he said. "Haven't you ever had Mexican food?"
"I… don't think so…" she said.
"Well, that's what we'll do, then," said Al. "Seven-thirty."
"Seven-thirty." She smiled once more, then got up and started to reset the simulator. Al turned towards the astronauts climbing out of the simulator.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThe panic was passed. The screams were finished. There was nothing left but a deep, paralysing terror. Tremors shook Al's limbs as he hugged them close to his shivering torso. The walls were pressing in against him. His breath came in shallow, painful gasps. Hot tears were streaming down his cheeks, uncontrollable and debasing. He wanted to get out of here. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. Unfortunately, he couldn't open the door either, and the more he screamed and begged for release, the longer they would leave him here.
No, some sane part of his mind protested. Not they. Him. Him. Doctor Mortmain. This wasn't Cam Hoi. He wasn't locked in a cache below the floor of Quon's bunker. He was in a broom cupboard in Mortmain's office at Cape Canaveral, and—
The latch was being lifted. Al hastily tried to wipe his face. The door opened and the light blinded him. He gasped for air against his will, and Mortmain took his hand and gripped his shoulder, drawing him out of the cupboard. Al was shaking so violently that he couldn't keep his feet, but the psychiatrist gripped him firmly around his chest and half dragged, half carried him to the sofa. Al was too weak with relief to fight the man as he eased him into a prone position. A moment later, a damp, cool cloth was laid over his forehead. Al's hand flew gratefully to it. The gentle chill eased the throbbing in his frontal lobe.
His breathing was evening out, but his chest ached and his abdomen was sore, and his throat felt like it had been rasped with forty-grain sandpaper. He dragged the cloth over his swollen eyes. Mortmain was dragging over his chair, so that he could start the debriefing. They both knew the drill now, after God knew how many of these sessions. There was an elaborate dance that they would do. Before that could happen, however, Al would have to calm down enough to take some water.
Mortmain was waiting when at last his patient slid the cloth over his nose and onto his throat, and put out an unsteady hand for the glass. The fluid soothed his strained vocal cords and ate away at the headache.
"You did much better today," Mortmain said, pressing the tips of his fingers together and putting on the look that always, despite the man's consideration, made Al feel like some kind of rare and exotic but vaguely loathsome specimen in the hands of an eager scientist. "How long do you think you were in there?"
"One hundred and fifty-three years, seven months, twenty-two days, and six point eight hours," Al supplied, by way of a rough estimate.
"Have you always had this sense of humor?" Mortmain asked.
"Just since I started hanging out with jokers like you."
"It must have been an important survival skill," the shrink observed mildly.
"It definitely makes these sessions more bearable," Al said, though he knew what the man meant. He re-folded the cloth to fin d a cool spot for his forehead.
"I meant in Vietnam." There was a tiny hint of annoyance in Mortmain's voice.
"You should have said," Al quipped. "This one time, Chip and I—Chip was my tailpipe buddy: we'd known each other twenty years—we got ourselves a basket full of baby geckos while we were on shore leave. Snuck into Commander Hartley's quarters and let those suckers loose. Nobody could pin it on us, but of course, everybody knew who did it! Oh, we had some great times!"
"I'm glad," Mortmain said. "But I meant when you were a prisoner."
"Hang on, Doc, we had a deal," Al said, glaring up at him. "I'm here to talk about claustrophobia. I do not have Delayed Stress Symptoms."
"Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and I didn't say that you did," Mortmain told him. "I just think that like any other unpleasant experience it would help if—"
Al laughed. "Unpleasant? Damn, you should run for governor! With a silver tongue like that you'd be able to convince people that north is south!"
"Commander Calavicci, you've been through experiences that most of us can't even imagine, and I would be failing my professional oath if I didn't try to help you cope with them…"
"I'm coping just fine, Doc, thanks," Al said. "Nothing but blue skies and dragonflies from here on out. Besides, your colleagues at Balboa damned near psychoanalyzed me to death."
"My concern is that at the time you were so preoccupied with the pain of coming home to find that your wife had moved on that you weren't coping with your experiences in—"
That was enough! He had been plenty patient, but the nozzle had just stepped over the line. Al sprung to his feet so quickly that he almost keeled over with the dizziness that swept through him. He clutched the back of the sofa defiantly, resisting the urge to sink back down upon it.
"You listen here!" he snapped. "I want to go into space. I've been very cooperative. So far, I've seen almost no results from this treatment. All you do is lock me up in that damned cupboard and leave me there! Now, I can take that, and I can put up with the occasional dig about Vietnam, but if you start dragging Beth into this, God damn it, I'll find myself another therapist!"
"This is an important breakthrough," Mortmain observed. "You're starting to express your feelings about what happened to you: that's very good. What you need to realize now is that anger is a secondary emotion, and you need to explore the feelings that lie hidden behind it. Grief, humiliation, betrayal—"
"She didn't betray me!" Al shouted. "She didn't betray me: it wasn't her fault! We drove her to it: me and the Navy and that legal bastard she ran off with! Now you shut up and leave Beth out of this!"
So saying, he stormed from the room. As he went, Mortmain made one final note on his clipboard.
"Or love," he murmured as the pencil twitched over the paper.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl wasn't sure how he got home. All he knew was that it was lucky that there wasn't much traffic around in the middle of the day, or he probably would have killed someone. Trembling with choler and the kind of psychological agony that you could expect to experience when the shrinks sunk their meathooks into you, he showered, then went into the other room and rolled into his bed.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAt ten minutes to eight, Elsa finally gave up. She turned her back on the empty street beyond the foyer windows, and sped up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, trying not to allow herself to feel the bitter disappointment. He hadn't come. He didn't really care. He was just like all the others.
All the others except Andrew, she thought fiercely as she stumbled into her bedroom, kicking off her pumps as she went. Andrew had never done a thoughtless thing in his life. Andrew had loved her.
The cruel voice in the back of her head mocked her: but he left! He left you! And he didn't come back, not even when he had the chance!
No! It wasn't Andrew's fault. It wasn't. If she had been there she could have helped him fight. If she had been in California instead of out here, starting with NASA, then she could have helped him fight, kept him from giving up.
She picked up the box, a hand-carved wooden box that her father had made for her and given to her on the day she had become a woman. She opened it and upended its contents. They whispered as they slithered out into her cupped hand. She threw the box down on the bed and clutched the cool bundle to her heart.
"Andrew," she whispered. "Andrew, imádlak…"
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl stared at the clock on the dashboard, as if by doing so he could will it to show a half hour earlier. No such luck. It was eight o'clock and he was late.
He had never been late for a date in his life, unless you counted the reunion he had planned for the end of his second tour. But today he had fallen asleep, only to awaken with a start at twenty after seven.
He sighed and got out of the car. He didn't even have flowers, which he had intended to get. He was, however, impeccably dressed and hopefully adequately contrite.
She wasn't in the lobby, big surprise, so he checked the registry on the wall. Apartment 3-F was labeled Orsós. It was an older building, without buzzers, and Al mounted the stairs, smoothing his ruffled spirits and preparing his apology. He would have to tell her the truth, of course. At least that way he would be able to point out that he was a nozzle, but he was also an honest nozzle.
To his surprise, the door to 3-F was ajar, the key still in the lock. For a second he debated whether or not he should knock. Then he decided against it. He took the key and closed the door behind him, moving quietly through.
The apartment was larger than his, but so full of furnishings, books and knickknacks that it seemed positively tiny. So she was a bit of a packrat. All of the furniture was heavy: she seemed to favor dark woods and even darker upholstery. She wasn't in the kitchen or the living room. Al approached the bedroom door on cat's feet. Two green satin pumps lay discarded on the floor. He picked them up.
Elsa was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs curled under her. Her face was wet with tears. As Al watched she opened her hand and kissed something resting in the palm, then picked up a box lying on the coverlet and put the object away. She turned to set it on the bedside table, and gasped as she spotted the intruder.
"I'm sorry," Al said softly, even before she could speak. "I didn't… I had…" The truth, he reminded himself fiercely. "I lost my head in my psyche session today. When I got home I was a wreck, and I fell asleep. I'm sorry I'm late."
She was wiping her eyes fiercely, and smearing her makeup. Al plucked a tissue from the nightstand and passed it to her. He knelt at her feet.
"Your shoes," he said. She stared at him as he slipped them onto her feet. She was wearing a green evening gown and a pearl necklace. "Elsa, I'm sorry," he said, reaching up to stroke her cheek. "I'm so sorry. Please don't cry."
"It isn't that…It isn't you…" she whispered. Then she put out her arms like a child begging to be held. He slipped up onto the bed and hugged her tightly, patting her back.
"That's my girl," he murmured. "Don't cry."
She returned the embrace. "I was scared that you had forgotten me," she said.
"How could I forget you?" Al asked. "Like an idiot I forgot to set an alarm before I passed out. Forgive me?"
She nodded, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes. She looked at the soiled tissue. "I'll have to fix my makeup," she said ruefully. "Then we can go for Mexican food."
Al shook his head. "Actually," he said; "I was thinking about that. How do you feel about Italian instead?"
Elsa smiled and straightened his tie for him. "I like Italian," she said softly.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThey ate at an intimate little restaurant just off of Park Avenue, talking happily about everything and nothing. Afterwards they ventured out under the trees, Al's arm curved around Elsa's waist while she rested her head on his shoulder.
"You know, Calvichy," she said presently; "I think I was wrong about you. You are a good man."
He could have corrected her, but she had given him far too good an opening for the direction he wanted to take this conversation. Any doubts he'd had had been dispersed by Mortmain's allegations about Beth. Time to shut up the gossips once and for all.
"You'd better learn how to pronounce my last name," he said. "It's Calavicci."
"Calvichy," she tried.
"No, Calavicci."
"Calyvichy." She smiled impishly as she said it.
"Come on," Al coaxed; "concentrate. Cal-a-vee-chee."
She furrowed her brow. "Cal-va-chee-chee?"
He stopped and frowned. "You're stringing me along!" he accused.
"Why should I learn how to pronounce your stupid last name?" she demanded, indignant at being caught so blatantly in the act.
If this wasn't a perfect moment, there was never going to be one. Al slipped away from her and dropped to one knee, drawing a little box out of his pocket as he did so.
"Because it could be your stupid last name," he said, holding out the ring.
She just stared at him.