Free The Bend of the World: A Novel by Jacob Bacharach

other than Dr. Martin Dopffnording, a famous German expatriate who’d worked on the Philadelphia experiment and was now a vice-chancellor of the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
    Being a curious child, Zollen followed this odd duo. They were deep in conversation, and didn’t notice him.
    To his surprise, they did not go into the bar, but instead passed through a doorway to a small dark stairwell that he’d never noticed before. He gave them a few moments and then followed them. The stairs seemed to descend for many stories, frequently switching back on themselves. Why would a social hall have such a deep basement? he wondered.
    At the base of the stairs was a small lobby with a sagging couch, a few chairs, some filing cabinets, and a receptionist desk. Beyond the desk, there was a heavy wooden door. He surmised the men had gone through the doorway, but dared not follow them, lest he be caught. Instead, he hid behind the desk.
    He must have dozed off. He awoke some time later to the sound of the men emerging from the room. They passed swiftly, speaking to each other in a language that he did not understand at the time, although subsequent studies and investigations lead me to believe that it was an Altaic derivation of middle high Atlantean.
    Wilhelm dashed across the room and through the slowly closing door. The room beyond was vast and dimly lit and very cold. In it, as far as the eye could see, were row upon row of heavy wooden planters, each of which held a single, healthy evergreen.
    Anyway, Wilhelm explores, leaves, finds his stepfather half delirious and drunk at the bar. He gets the man home; the mother—it’s implied that she’s a sort of Blanche DuBois character, lost and alone in the industrial north—remonstrates the stepfather. He strikes her. Zollen attempts to intervene. The stepfather strikes him. When he wakes, he finds himself in some sort of examination room. An orifice opens on the far wall. In walks a man whose principal identifying mark is the big signet ring on his right hand and his eerily patrician voice. Don’t worry, he says. I’m a doctor.
    4
    Johnny said that he refused to believe that I’d seen a UFO.
    I refuse to believe it, he said. You? You saw it? Of all people. Where’s the justice in that?
    We were at the diner on Sunday. I’d eaten a quarter of a wet BLT and pushed it away. Johnny had ordered six scrambled eggs and toast and was working his way methodically through the pile.
    What can I say? I saw a goddamn UFO. Three, actually.
    Spiro, Johnny called to the owner, who was near the cash register reading a newspaper. Can you believe this guy says he saw a UFO?
    Spiro shrugged. Effreeone sees crazy things these days. He shrugged. Welcome to your country. He leaned back in his stool and lifted the paper. I caught the front page: Mayor Denies Gay Rumors Led to Firings at Economy Council.
    So, Johnny said to me, would you say that it was mirrored, or more like quicksilver? Quicksilver? Mercury. Um, both? In other words you had a sense that the skin had a certain liquid quality, as if it had been poured? Yes, yeah. But you say you could see your reflection? Yes, clearly. Was it illuminated? My reflection? No; are you being intentionally difficult; no, the ship! Well, I guess; I mean, we could see it. Wait, we? Yes, I told you: me and Mark and Helen. Who are Mark and Helen? The couple we met at the museum; who formed the entire first half of the story. Did they see it, too? Yes, like I told you . I’m not one to get caught up in the secondary details. Now, the ship, was it illuminated—self-illuminated?—I don’t know; it would have been hard to say; it reflected everything. Did you detect an aura of light around it? What sort of aura? Any sort—listen, you’re the one who saw the fucker, so describe it to me . I would not say there was an aura. A corona? Or a corona. A halo? You mean, like an aura? (Johnny put a hand over his face, inhaled deeply, said: Of all the people, it had