The Divide

by Robert Charles Wilson

PART 1

PRIVATE EXPERIMENTS

1

Such an ordinary house. Such an ordinary beginning.

But I want it to be an ordinary house, Susan Christopher thought. An ordinary house with an ordinary man in it. Not this monster—to whom I must deliver a message.

It was a yellow brick boardinghouse in the St. Jamestown area of Toronto, a neighborhood of low-rent high-rises and immigrant housing. Susan was from suburban Los Angeles—lately from the University of Chicago—and she felt misplaced here. She stood for a moment in the chill, sunny silence of the afternoon, double-checking the address Dr. Kyriakides had written on a slip of pink memo paper. This number, yes, this street.

She fought a momentary urge to run away.

Then up the walk through a scatter of October leaves, pausing a moment in the cold foyer … the inner door stood open … finally down a corridor to the door marked with a chipped gilt number 2.

She knocked twice, aware of her small knuckles against the ancient veneer of the door. Across the hall, a wizened East Indian man peered out from behind his chain-lock. Susan looked up at the ceiling, where a swastika had been spray-painted onto the cloudy stucco. She was about to knock again when the door opened under her hand.

But it was a woman who answered … a young woman in a white blouse, denim skirt, torn khaki jacket. Her feet were bare on the cracked linoleum. The woman’s expression was sullen—her lips in a ready, belligerent pout—and Susan dropped her eyes from the narrow face to the jacket, where there was a small constellation of buttons and badges: BON JOVI, JIM MORRISON, LED ZEPPELIN…

“You want something?”

Susan guessed this was a French-Canadian accent, nasal and impatient. She forced herself to meet the woman’s eyes. Woman or girl? Older than she had first seemed: maybe around my age, Susan thought; but it was hard to be sure, with the make-up and all.

She cleared her throat. “I’m looking for John Shaw.”

“Oh …him.”

“Is he here?”

“No.” The girl ran a hand through her hair. Long nails. Short hair.

“But he lives here?”

“Uh—sometimes. Are you a friend of his?”

Susan shook her head. “Not exactly … are you?”

Now there was the barest hint of a smile. “Not exactly.” The girl extended her hand. “I’m Amelie”

The hand was small and cool. Susan introduced herself; Amelie said, “He’s not here … but you can maybe find him at the 24-Hour on Wellesley. You know, the doughnut shop?”

Susan nodded. She would look for ” Wellesley ” on her map.

Amelie said, “Is it important? You look kind of, ah, worried.”

“It’s pretty important,” Susan said, thinking: Life or death. Dr. Kyriakides had told her that.

Susan saw him for the first time, her first real look at him, through the plate-glass window of the doughnut shop.

She allowed herself this moment, seeing him without being seen. She recognized him from the pictures Dr. Kyriakides had shown her. But Susan imagined that she might have guessed who he was, just from looking at him—that she would have known, at least, that he was not entirely normal.

To begin with, he was alone.

He sat at a small table in the long room, three steps down from the sidewalk. His face was angled up at the October sunlight, relishing it. There was a chessboard in front of him—the board built into the lacquered surface of the table and the pieces arranged in ready ranks.

She had dreamed about this, about meeting him, dreams that occasionally bordered on nightmares. In the dreams John Shaw was barely human, his head unnaturally enlarged, his eyes needle-sharp and unblinking. The real John Shaw was nothing like that, of course, in his photographs or here, in the flesh; his monstrosities, she thought, were buried—but she mustn’t think of him that way. He was in trouble and he needed her help.

Hello, John Shaw, she thought.

His hair was cut close, a burr cut, but that was fashionable now; he was meticulously clean-shaven. Regular features, frown lines, maps of character emerging from the geography of his fairly young face. Here is a man, Susan thought, who worries a lot. A gust of wind lifted her hair; she reached up to smooth it back and he must have glimpsed the motion. His head turned—a swift owlish flick of the eyes—and for that moment he did not seem human; the swivel of his head was too calculated, the focus of his eyes too fine. His eyes, suddenly, were like the eyes in her dreams.

John Shaw regarded her through the window and she felt spotlit, or, worse, pinned—a butterfly in a specimen case.

Both of them were motionless in this tableau until, finally, John Shaw raised a hand and beckoned her inside.

Well, Susan Christopher thought, there’s no turning back now, is there?

Breathing hard, she moved down the three cracked steps and through the door of the shop. There was no one inside but John Shaw and the middle-aged woman refilling the coffee machine. Susan approached him and then stood mute beside the table: she couldn’t find the words to begin.

He said, “You might as well sit down.”

His voice was controlled, unafraid, neutral in accent. Susan took the chair opposite him. They were separated, now, by the ranks of the chessboard.

He said, “Do you play?”

“Oh … I didn’t come here to play chess.”

“No. Max sent you.”

Her eyes widened at this Holmes-like deduction. John said, “Well, obviously you were looking for me. And I’ve taken some pains to be unlooked-for. I could imagine the American government wanting a word with me. But you don’t look like you work for the government. It wasn’t a long shot—I’m assuming I’m correct?”

“Yes,” Susan stammered. “Dr. Kyriakides … yes.”

“I thought he might do this. Sometime.”

“It’s more important than you think.” But how to say this? “He wants you to know—”

John hushed her. “Humor me,” he said. “Give me a game.”

She looked at the board. In high school, she had belonged to the chess club. She had even played in a couple of local tournaments—not too badly. But—

“You’ll win,” she said.

“You know that about me?”

“Dr. Kyriakides said—”

“Your move,” John said.

She advanced the white king’s pawn two squares, reflexively.

“No talk,” John instructed her. “As a favor.” He responded with his own king’s pawn. “I appreciate it.”

She played out the opening—a Ruy Lopez—but was soon in a kind of free fall; he did something unexpected with his queen’s knight and her pawn ranks began to unravel. His queen stood in place, a vast but nonspecific threat; he gave up a bishop to expose her king, and the queen at last came swooping out to give checkmate. They had not even castled.

Of course, the winning was inevitable. She knew—Dr. Kyriakides had told her—that John Shaw had played tournament chess for a time; that he had never lost a game; that he had dropped out of competition before his record and rating began to attract attention. She wondered how the board must look to him. Simple, she imagined. A graph of possibilities; a kindergarten problem.

He thanked her and began to set up the pieces again, his large hands moving slowly, meticulously. She said, “You spend a lot of time here?”

“Yes.”

“Playing chess?”

“Sometimes. Most of the regulars have given up on me.”

“But you still do it.”

“When I get the chance.”

“But surely … I mean, don’t you always win?”

He looked at her. He smiled, but the smile was cryptic … she couldn’t tell whether he was amused or disappointed.