The Roberts Read online

  “ Rōbert,” he said, gently correcting her, “agrees. Both of us want to do what’s best for you. It is, after all, why we’re here.”

  He stopped what he was doing and turned to her, his big brown eyes soft and round. “I worry that we’re a burden on you, Grace. That we’re taking up too much of you. Interfering somehow. Getting in the way.”

  “The way of what?”

  “Your happiness. What else?”

  The words were right, but something didn’t ring true. She frowned, and No.3 was quick to respond. “Now look what I’ve done. I’ve given you wrinkles.”

  He kissed his fingers and transferred the kiss to her forehead. In a solicitous voice he said, “you and Robert had another fight, didn’t you?”

  “We talked, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Jealousy is such a blight.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  3 sighed. “It is. And we are. Stupid. Men, I mean. We get jealous so easily. It seems to run in our blood. Jealousy and hurt and vindictiveness. I wish I’d been born a woman. Like you, Grace. I wish I’d been born like you.”

  She felt that he was making fun of her. “I’m sorry you’re not happy with the job I did.”

  ”It never occurred to you to make me female?”

  “Not once.”

  “I would have still been Robert. Or as close to him, or nearly as close, as I am now. And I do feel close to him. I truly do. I know how much it hurts him when he fights with you. And when he knows that you’ve been with Rōbert. It’s a terrible feeling when the one you love loves someone else.”

  “He gave me Rōbert. It was his idea. And I don’t love someone else. There is no someone else. I love Robert. I love all of you.”

  “So much love. It’s your gift, Grace. A woman’s gift.”

  She glared at him. “You make that sound like an insult.”

  “It’s something I read. Men have a different muscle. It’s why we worship you. Why we can’t get enough. Why we have to run away.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Not what I want. What I read.”

  “Not very nice.”

  “I agree. Personally, I have the utmost respect for women. I have the utmost respect for you, Grace.” He returned to his dicing, then paused and gave her a peck on the cheek. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. You did a fabulous job with me. I wouldn’t be here, and I certainly wouldn’t be the man I am, if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Or Robert.”

  “Both of you. I owe my life to you. And four… what can I say? Four is just a fabulous number. Pure genius.”

  It was another jab. “Four was unplanned.”

  “Planning’s overrated. Sometimes it’s best to leave things to chance. Just think if there’d been only three of us.”

  Just then Rōbert entered the kitchen. No.3 looked up instantly, a smile on his face, and it struck Grace how often this happened, that he looked up smiling, especially with Rōbert. This time the smile was returned, and Grace felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. They were looking at each other in just the way she looked at Robert when she was full of love for him. The way he sometimes looked at her.

  “What’s for dinner?” Rōbert asked.

  She and No.3 started to reply simultaneously. Both halted, then Grace untied her apron and laid it on the counter. 3 was wrong to think that men had the market on jealousy. She was amazed at herself, to feel such a thing. She hadn’t thought herself capable. Then again, it wasn’t so surprising, considering who had made her. Barring the stab of it, and the way it constricted her chest and filled her mind with the most wild, improbable and terrible thoughts, it was a lot like love. She wanted to scratch somebody’s eyes out.

  “Vegetables,” she told Rōbert. “And chicken. Your favorite meal. Cooked by your favorite cook.”

  “Cooks,” he said.

  “Whatever.”

  She told No.3 she’d think about what he’d said. She seemed to recall Robert’s extolling the virtues of the triangle, explaining how it was the strongest, most reliable, sturdiest shape. Retreating upstairs, she pondered this, concluding that he would have thought differently—and in fact would never have made such a claim—had he been forced to build with humans.

  Meanwhile, across town, Robert was supervising a crew of humans, who were earning his lasting respect for the incredibly difficult job they were doing. The shell of the museum, two hundred feet in diameter and three hundred and fifty feet tall, was in place, and into it the crew was lowering the Domome, all in one piece. There was a modest breeze, which sang through the taut cables of the five mammoth cranes and added a note of urgency to the procedure. Though nominally in charge, Robert was completely dependent on the skill of the crane operators, and he stood at a safe distance, watching anxiously. It would have been far easier for the house to have been disassembled, trucked in and reassembled, but its Pakki-flex sheath might not have survived intact. Furthermore, there were no openings in the shell big enough for anything but the smallest section of the house to fit through. Robert had envisioned (and designed) an enclosure that, save for an entrance and an exit door, was one continuous and inviolate envelope, immutable as it were, in contrast to (and comment on) the house itself, whose Pakki-flex dome and walls mutated seemingly at will. It was cylindrical in shape and constructed of hundreds of panels of glass, each of which spanned the full height of the museum. They were staggered in front and behind one another and joined by a perpendicular glass weld, and each curved ever so slightly outward, so that the mouth of the cylinder gently spread as it rose, like a fountain. The glass was lightly frosted, denser in some parts than others, which gave it the appearance of dappled foam. It was thick and impenetrable, except of course to light. Or possibly a heavy object, such as a swinging building, which the crane operators were doing their utmost to control. The obvious alternative—to build the museum around the house—had been the subject of intense debate and ultimately opposed by the project’s structural engineers, although now Robert wished he’d been more insistent. On the other hand, it was a remarkable thing to see, his house being slowly swallowed by the great maw of glass.

  Finally it was down, or nearly down, hovering a foot or two above its elevated concrete pallet, previously poured, while the ground crew awaited Robert’s instructions to position it. When that task was done, the front door of the house aligned with the museum’s entrance door—giving what he hoped would be a diorama-like, keyhole effect—it was quitting time, and the workers fled, leaving Robert alone.

  The sun was sinking, and its long light poured through the western curve of the museum, passing through the glass on the opposite wall but also reflecting off it. The upper reaches of the museum, already a buttery gold, blazed brighter, as if from a newfound source of light. From where he stood it seemed that the sun, in addition to setting, was rising. There could have been two or even three suns in the sky. Gradually, the light thickened, until the whole interior of the museum—now a deep, rich honey color—glowed. It was almost palpable. Robert, who had conceived, designed and even, to a certain degree, foreseen these effects, had not foreseen how striking they would be. Nor how moved he would feel. It was as though he were immersed in radiance, bathed and baptized by a power, a benevolence, beyond what he knew. For an instant he felt a shift—a dilation—in consciousness. This creation of his was grounded in reality and at the same time suggested a higher reality, a greater, loftier one. The way a person could be at a particular time and place, a particular moment, in his life, and then, triggered by the least of things—a sound, a scent, a random thought—be somewhere else entirely. There were worlds upon worlds, worlds within worlds…wasn’t this what architecture, at its best, hinted at?

  He entered the Domome, which was shielded but not exempt from the light show overhead. He had the sense of being underwater. The light appeared to ripple as it fell across the floor. Shadows shifted, edges softened, doors and windows seemed to have double lives. H
e made a full transit of the house, beginning in the main wing, moving quickly through the living quarters and ending in the dome room. Like all the others, it was empty. The air was slightly stale, and as the sound of his footsteps died, he glanced at the dome, half-expecting it to respond to his presence, to quiver, shrink, pucker, collapse. But it was motionless, as graceful and flawless as the day it was created. There was no hint of its history, though in his own mind it was painfully clear. After the ill-fated dinner party, the press had had a field day, and the humiliated owners had slapped him with a high profile and crippling lawsuit. Recalling that difficult time, he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time just how wise it was to refer to it intentionally, to make it, indeed, the centerpiece of this endeavor. Julian liked to say that success was built on failure, and in the lab, the marketplace of ideas, this, no doubt, was true. But in the marketplace of taste? Of art? Better perhaps, certainly more realistic, to view failure as a chance for success, an opportunity but no guarantee. People had to be ready. Things had to fall into place. Luck was involved.

  Much, he believed, depended on the Domome itself, which presently, being uninhabited, was inert. They were interviewing prospective residents, and now that the house was in place, they could start to screen them actively. Only some would be able to trigger the Pakki-flex, and a far fewer would have the emotional makeup and temperament to be on more or less permanent display. Many sought attention without knowing the price of attention. Some became bloated with it, some nervous, some depressed and withdrawn. The optimal candidate had to be stable, and steady under pressure. Outgoing, communicable and enthusiastic. Intelligence, while not critical, was a definite plus.

  So far the prospects were not good, and as he left the Domome and then the museum, he tried to imagine who would possibly welcome such a job. Julian had suggested he design someone for the purpose, but Robert, who had designed everything else, felt that would be extreme. Already the project bordered on the grandiose.

  He reached his car as the sun was about to disappear. The museum shone like a ruby and seemed indeed to be emerging from the ground, just as he had first imagined it, a jewel in the process of extrusion, of birth, from Mother Earth. It seemed made of man and nature both, of man’s nature, his aspirations, and Robert felt a chill. He had achieved something here. There was no denying it. Something of note. Would it stand the test of time? That was out of his hands. But at this moment—this hour, this day—it stood a more important and stringent test: his own. He felt an odd mixture of humility and elation, and he wanted to share it with someone, and that someone was Grace.

  But Grace was not with him. Grace in all likelihood was home. And he didn’t want to go home. With the veiled and not-so-veiled affronts he was sure to encounter there, the cloak and dagger looks, the various and sundry assaults on his equanimity and peace of mind, home was the last place he wanted to go.

  For the second time in as many weeks he became conscious of his missing eye. No.2, who liked to hover just past the edge of his vision on that side, as if to emphasize his disability, had made a joke about it. Something clever and seemingly harmless, such that even Grace had smiled. He didn’t like No.2. He hadn’t from the start. He found him self-serving, aggressive, egotistical and pompous. When he thought of 2, he thought of something low to the ground. When he looked at him, he saw a lesser man.

  On the face of things this was absurd. Except for the eye, the two of them were the same, in every conceivable way. He had told Grace, before being cuckolded, that he felt awkward around 2, uneasy, that he didn’t feel himself. This was true enough (and more now than ever), but the deeper truth was that he felt himself in the extreme, himself magnified, caricatured and exposed.

  He got in his car and drove around aimlessly, ending up, as he so often did these days, at his office. He called Grace, who didn’t pick up, and was left with a recording of her cheerful, fluted voice, which under the circumstances sounded derisive and mocking. He read through the applications of a dozen new candidates for the job of Domome resident, a grueling and discouraging experience, then got out his blanket and pillow. The futon stared at him like the cold eye of a fish. Daybreak was a lifetime away. His chest ached at the thought of another night alone.

  Some weeks later, he and Grace went for a drive. Things simply could not go on the way they were. It was early autumn, sunshiny and cool, and they left the city in the afternoon for a nearby woods, what remained of a much larger forest. Conversation was limited to small talk, wedged like a struggling alpine plant between blocks of silence. Robert was so full of things to say, so full of feelings, he didn’t know where or how to begin. Excitement at the museum’s imminent completion, anticipation as to how it would be received, nervousness, confidence, uncertainty, pride…these and more occupied his mind, and along with them, shading, infiltrating, underscoring everything, were his feelings for Grace. And what, at this troubled point, he could only hope were hers for him. More intricate and complex than any piece of architecture, any building.

  As for Grace, she was determined to enjoy herself, which at the moment meant thinking as little as possible. The small and great things she had on her mind, the trivial and the consequential, could wait. She had a desire, if not a need, for more immediate and tangible pleasures.

  She rolled the window down and let the wind fill her face. It was a joy to be on the road. She loved the city, but it had begun to oppress her, particularly her small corner of it, bounded by the walls of her home and the men within those walls. She had been designed to love, and love she did, but this didn’t stop her from having other feelings, and at present, flawed creature that she was, she was feeling over-Roberted.

  So what, she had to ask, was she doing in the car? It was a question that even the most obdurately thought-avoidant of women might profitably consider. Was there something she was trying to prove? To prevent? To save? As a matter of habit, she did not put a great deal of store in the hidden mind, but lately she’d been having dreams—scary, exhilarating dreams—of flight.

  They drove north then west, past the suburbs and the cow and horse farms, up and over one ridge then another, into a valley at the base of a small mountain, thick with pines, madrones and oaks and cut by a lazy stream. The air was dry but pungent. A gentle breeze stirred the tops of the trees.

  They left the car at the head of a dirt path and started off on foot. The silence they had commandeered while driving still possessed them, although now, in the bosom of Nature and Her lively arboreal choir, it was less fraught. They walked abreast, at times brushing shoulders, until at length Robert took Grace’s hand. The trail steepened, and they came to a downed tree, where they stopped to catch their breaths.

  The section of the tree that had blocked the trail had been sawed out and removed, while the remainder had been left where it had fallen. On the downhill side the long, hefty trunk lay on the slope as straight as a pipe, looking much the same as it must have when it stood, save for the gentlest of undulations at its fracture points. Its bark looked like the bark on living trees, as bark resisted change, unlike the wood beneath it, which was slowly melting into the ground. On the uphill side, looming above them, sat the root ball, a tangled mass of feeder and anchor roots bridged by clods of dirt, now covered with a blush of moss and overrun with vines and creepers. It had been a year or two since the tree had fallen. One home—to jays, squirrels, hawks and other high-dwelling creatures—had been lost, but a new one—to towhees, sparrows and mice—had been created. This was the world of the forest.

  In the world of construction, there was also loss. Of the old, or, in the case of building from scratch, on undisturbed land, the loss of nature. How one responded to that loss could define a career. One could no longer despise and bully nature and seek to bury her, at least not overtly. Having been tamed throughout the world, she could now be duly flattered and loved. But love came in different flavors and styles, and sometimes it came in a form that seemed distorted, the very opposite of what it purported
to be. There were architects who spoke of warmth and harmony and built abominations. Others were more honest. For the museum Robert had sought to do justice to a great many things: the city, the materials, the environment, the times, and above all, his belief that human beings were put on earth to delight and inspire one another. The dance of light through glass, the upswooping cathedral-like enclosure, the exterior reflection of other buildings and of the water and the sky…all were meant to convey, if not deliver, this message. Life, however carefully planned, was full of surprises. This was another of his beliefs, a corollary of the first, and throughout the design process he had strived to give it voice, guided by intuition and love of his craft and of his city and of nature, and also love of human beings, and of one in particular, and he longed to know what she thought.

  “Have you seen it?” he asked, breaking their long silence.

  Grace had no need to ask what he meant. “Yes. Of course. I can see it from the bedroom window.”

  “But lately. Have you seen it lately?”

  “Yes. I look at it every day.”

  “Up close? Have you seen it up close?”

  “That too,” she said, smiling. “I also use binoculars.”

  He’d seen the binoculars and had wondered what they were for. Now, like a supplicant, he waited, not only for her opinion but also, and perhaps more importantly, her praise.

  “It’s beautiful. It’s the finest thing you’ve ever done.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. I love it.”

  He could scarcely contain his happiness. “That’s good. That’s very good.” He looked away from her, fighting back emotion. “Thank you.”

  “Why? You’re the one who designed it. Thank yourself.”

  “You inspired it. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  She was surprised, particularly considering how things had been of late. “Have you decided who’s going to live in it?”