Chapter 13
Before continuing the story I get up to get a drink in the kitchen. I’m standing in front of the fridge pondering options when John steps behind me, seamlessly, and takes my wrist.
“What happened?”, he asks
My lips part as I am caught by surprise, before I recompose myself.
“Do you want a drink?”, I say
“I want your story”, John replies, with a new intensity that frightens and thrills me
I free my wrist and disobey, pouring two drinks. I hand John one and take his wrist.
“Let me tell you”, I say, guiding him back to the living room
When we reach the couch I let go off John’s wrist. He raises both hands and presses on my shoulders. The pressure is soft, and yet enough to sit me.
“Tell me now”, he decides, and I start, the glass beside me, untouched
“After the conference I went to New York for the week-end. I stepped in a subway train along the subway line where I had first met Steven. It was late, the train was almost empty and I saw him immediately. He saw me too, and got up from his seat without hesitation, heading in my direction. He said he had been waiting for me, told me he knew I’d go back to NY and ride that subway when he caught sight of me in the restaurant. I didn’t think he had noticed me, and told him so. The thought of him riding the subway hoping to find me there seemed absurd, and yet which reasons did I have to spend the week-end in New York? I realized I was there, riding that subway train, hoping to find him. He pointed at the guy with whom he had been sitting, said he wanted me to meet him. Karl Lennon. As introductions were made I caught a glance of a man, dressed in black, hunched over a newspaper. I wondered if I was in a predefined plot over which I had no control or if I was sailing along the revelation of my own dreams. It didn’t matter though, at that moment the reality in which I was drenched intrigued me immensely. Your guess was right, Steven told me, as I was still trying to take in what was happening. What guess, I wanted to know, and Steven told me he was going to leave the company. He said he needed to put his affairs in order before climbing a glacier with his spiritual guru, and Karl nodded without smiling. Carlie had betrayed him, he said, but he forgave her because society had made her the way she was, it wasn’t her fault. I wanted to know what he meant, and he said Carlie had been speaking about esthanol to Rob Neilson – their competitor. He was sure about it, because Carlie had told him. If she had admitted her mistake was she not honest?, I argued, and Steven said that was not the point. The point was that Rob Neilson knew about ethanol. Now even if he managed to convince Rick Hanson, the owner of his company, to stop the production of the ethanol Rob Neilson would keep exploiting his invention. I asked Steven how climbing a glacier was related to what was happening. And at this moment Karl Lennon spoke, for the first time, and said that Steven had to be one with nature to join the movement. I still didn’t understand, but before I could speak Steven looked at me and thanked me for inspiring him. Then he got up, and while he was a distance from me, close to the door, he told me this: “I will broadcast documents about all the things that have happened. I will not spare any detail. Then I will climb that glacier, and I will fly. It will be my last flight, but at least I will taste freedom”. I couldn’t speak. Then the door opened, and Steven walked away without ever turning my way again. When the door closed the man in black had disappeared too, and I was completely alone in the empty train”