End of Secrets Read online

  There were several moments during the film when Kera was aware of Bolívar next to her. Once she felt him watching her and turned to face him. She was startled to find herself wanting to see desire in his eyes—and then was terrified to find it there.

  Afterward Bolívar introduced her to Natalie Smith. They were standing in a large group, and Natalie was fielding questions from people electrified by what they’d just seen.

  “Where did you get the idea for this film?” someone asked.

  “A critic of my last movie declared that I would never be a commercial success because I was out of touch with the average American.”

  “So you made this film as a rebuttal to a critic?”

  “No. I made this film to expose why we shouldn’t care a damn about the average American.”

  “What do you have against the average American?” someone asked, a little self-consciously. “Some people are bound to be average. Isn’t that a statistical certainty?”

  “My understanding of what it means to be average has nothing to do with statistics. The average American is truly average only in the ways he falls short of his own potential, particularly when he is motivated by the expectations of others. There is always someone more to the right or left of you, someone more or less attractive than you, someone richer or poorer, someone who claims to know how you should live your life better than you know it. People are average when they are driven by a motivation to fit in. The American challenge, then, is to be oneself—only, exactly, and totally.”

  “Why is that American?”

  “Because of our freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. People assume the most important word in that sentence is ‘freedom,’ when, in fact, it is ‘pursue.’ If we don’t pursue life, we are just as free to waste it. Our averageness is the degree to which we fail to attempt that pursuit. It is also the degree to which we accept the status quo. The status quo beckons us in not because it’s evil, but because it’s the status quo. That’s its nature. Our culture’s failure is not that we have a status quo—that fact is perfectly unavoidable in any mob. Our failure is that we actively resist people who fall outside the status quo and especially those who reach beyond it on purpose. An average American is one who cannot overcome his instinct to view the honest aspirations of others with suspicion.”

  Kera realized that Bolívar was not by her side. He had excused himself at some point and had not returned. She glanced around, looking for him, but continued to listen in on the conversation.

  “Didn’t the studio claim that your film was unpatriotic?” someone asked.

  “Yes, but only after certain interest groups characterized the film that way, which is their right. And which, as I’ve just explained, makes them average.” A healthy ripple of laughter spread through the group. “Average—not because they didn’t like it, but because their reason for not liking it was dishonest.”

  “Don’t they have a point, though? The film is more of a criticism, rather than a defense of, America?”

  “I believe patriotism requires a clear understanding of who we are. How do we defend ourselves if we don’t know what about us is worth defending?”

  “Do you doubt that parts of this country are worth defending?”

  “I don’t view the question itself as blasphemy, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  Kera slipped away to go in search of Bolívar. He was not in the main room. She checked the park-facing balcony where they’d stood talking before the film. No sign of him there either. She cut back through the crowd and stepped through a door onto a long, narrow terrace that stretched along the south side of the building. Darkness had settled over the city while they were in the theater, and the balcony was lit with dim, infrequently spaced fixtures.

  She almost didn’t see the two figures. The terrace contained a series of benches and ashtrays arranged into groups separated by iron planters that sprouted trimmed hedges. In the dark she at first confused the two men with silhouettes of foliage. She had paused to look south at the view of the city, and as she did, her eyes must have adjusted to the relative darkness. When she turned back to the door to go inside, she spotted them, just barely distinguishable from the shadows.

  Bolívar was seated on a bench at the very far end of the balcony. He had his back to her and was huddled next to another figure who wore a hat and dark jacket. They were talking in low voices, and she would not have interrupted except that Bolívar turned. A few seconds later, he stood and came toward her. The person he was with never looked back in her direction.

  “Who was that?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. But when they were back inside, she saw that his face had drained of its color. She studied his eyes; behind them, his mind was off somewhere faraway.

  “Do you feel well?”

  “I’m fine. But I think I’m ready to leave. Would you like to come downstairs with me?”

  She could not be certain exactly what he was asking her. But she voided any chance that there had been a misunderstanding when she said yes, and they stepped together into the elevator.

  FORTY

  The building’s floor plans had clearly illustrated a two-bed, two-bath unit with a central living space that provided park views and opened to a large kitchen with a center island and bar. What Kera did not know from studying the plans was how he’d furnished the space or, more importantly, what he did in there alone when the lights were lit into the small hours of the morning.

  When Bolívar opened the door for her and she stepped inside, her first thought was that it was larger than she’d imagined. The ceilings in the main living area were very high. The rooms throughout, from the closets on up, were of a different scale than the residential Manhattan she knew. There was real space here. The floors were concrete and wood, decorated tastefully with rugs. The walls were concrete and clean white plaster, decorated boldly with contemporary paintings that hung in minimalist steel frames. All of the paintings were originals. If Bolívar was a heavy reader, as Kera suspected he must be, he read e-books. There were no bookshelves or stacks of physical books lying around. The furniture was minimalist but less bold than the paintings and, she thought, less tasteful than the rugs. Also of note were the screens of varying size built into the walls in each room, installed in places that were convenient to control the lighting or music or to display videos or Internet access.

  She took three or four steps into the living room and laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I heard you tell a whole room full of people that paintings have no value to pop culture and that pop culture is the only culture that has any value anymore. And look at this place. It’s like a gallery.”

  “I’ve said a lot of things. I wish you wouldn’t pay so much attention to all that.”

  “Don’t you think it matters, what we say?” She forgot to listen for his answer because she was distracted suddenly by one of the paintings. It was not one of the prominent works that hung on the big walls of the living room but a smaller canvas, about the size of a poster, centered on a small wall in a recessed area that led to the two bedrooms.

  “Where did you get this?” Kera said, walking toward it.

  An odd look of thoughtfulness crossed Bolívar’s face when he saw which painting she meant. He hesitated before he said, “Someone gave it to me.”

  “It’s . . . it’s by that artist they call It?”

  Again, a hesitation. But then he shrugged. “That was painted by a classmate of mine in college.”

  “But look at it!” It was obvious. The painting was of a young man reclined on a rooftop. His face had no features, yet it seemed clear from the way he lay on his back with his hands behind his head that he was looking up at the stars, thinking rather than sleeping. The artist had not needed to give the subject eyes to express this. Every stroke of paint said it. The lines were graceful and confident; not one of them was unnecessary. The colors were harsh, a little rebellious. There was no mistaking it—there was
only one artist she knew of that created art like this.

  Kera was tempted to press Bolívar further on the artist’s identity, but he stepped in to give her a tour of the place.

  “What’s in there?” she asked, nodding at a closed door across from the master bedroom. She knew from the floor plans that the space was intended to be the second bedroom. But the door she was looking at was metal and had been outfitted with a serious-looking lock controlled by a keypad.

  “Just some work stuff.” He did not offer to show her. Instead, he detoured to the bar in the kitchen to pour two glasses of wine. She trailed behind, noting the cleanliness—or was it barrenness?—of his home.

  “Is something wrong?” Kera said. Bolívar had fallen silent and was looking over at the small painting again. He seemed entranced by it, as if he hadn’t noticed it hanging there in a while.

  “No, I was just thinking,” he said. “Have you ever created art?”

  “No.” She almost laughed. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “I always wanted to be an artist,” he said. “Not because I was very talented as a painter or writer, nor because I thought I had anything important to say. You know what it was? It was because of the commitment an artist must make in order to have even a chance to succeed. It was something I admired. It’s incredible, if you think about it, for someone to be so passionate about one small corner of our world that it drives him to give up everything else—to forgo a stable career, to spend hours by himself in thought, to approach the word processor or easel or instrument every day with the discipline of an Olympic athlete. And for what? No certain reward. Merely for the opportunity to try to convince his peers not just that there is beauty in the world, but that paying attention to that beauty might lead to a greater understanding of ourselves. That motivation, that drive to create art, is so inherently optimistic, it’s so for the cause of human progress, that it has always been startling to me that most artists fail.”

  Kera stood perfectly still, watching him. She felt almost as if he didn’t know she was there. She did not want to make any move that might startle him and interrupt his thought.

  “I was never going to be an artist,” Bolívar said. “But I thought if we could figure out a way to integrate that artist’s drive for human progress into our most basic cultural infrastructure, we would be . . . better, I guess. It’s strange, there isn’t a word for what I’m trying to describe. In the business world, it’s called ‘profit.’ But we don’t have a word outside of the commercial realm for prioritizing human betterment. Happiness, maybe, comes close. But that refers to an individual’s state of mind, and the problem I’ve always wanted to solve is on a larger scale than that.” As he spoke, he had taken a few steps into the living area so that he could look up at the canvases on his wall. Very softly, almost to himself, he said, “And now I’ve solved it.”

  “What?” She thought she’d been following him, but now she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I solved it. You’re the first person I’ve told. Don’t worry, I don’t expect it to mean anything to you.” He turned back to her. “I’m being a terrible host. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said. She did not know him—this was only their second conversation—but she felt certain that something about him had changed, right here, tonight. It had happened at some point after the film, when they were upstairs. “Who was that person you were talking to on the balcony?” she asked.

  Bolívar closed his eyes and shook his head. And Kera knew suddenly that he would say no more. He looked beautiful, she thought. He was standing with the large windows behind him, and through the glass she could see the peaceful, meandering lights of the park and the abrupt line where the park met the wall of Midtown. Bolívar, she realized, had retained a youthfulness that was absent from other successful people in this city. Because he was known as a precocious businessman, she had always assumed that he was cunning and conservative. But looking at him now, as he stood in his apartment with his walls of paintings and something troubling his mind, she saw he was none of what he appeared to be to the world. He was, when he was most himself, a fearless dreamer. Upon naming this in her mind, her first feeling was of deep admiration. And then, without warning, she felt a new fearlessness of her own. She moved toward him. If he was surprised, he did not show it. He welcomed her, his eyes on hers, steady as a heartbeat.

  She had to have his hands on her. Those hands. It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that this kind of creature desire was something she needed in her life. She had never needed it before. Not like this. She let him press her against the dizzying glass of the living room window as they kissed. And then his hands and lips weren’t enough, and she started to undo the buttons of his white shirt.

  They were lying naked on his chair and ottoman later when Kera thought of a question. It was one she’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask, but suddenly felt entitled to.

  “Will you tell Natalie? I think she’s in love with you.”

  She expected Bolívar’s body to tense up in defense or anger, but he was still. He said simply, “She knows.”

  She knows. What made Kera shudder was the idea that this was already so deep. It had not merely been, as she’d told herself, a sudden urge to put her mouth against his. There was a grander scheme, already in motion before tonight, and it was undeniable enough to have been noticed at the very least by Natalie Smith.

  Kera thought suddenly of Parker and felt very lonely. She did not feel guilt, at least not a guilt she assigned specifically to herself. It was more like a heavy sadness for what the human species was capable of, the relentless burdens of emotion that balanced the risk of feeling love with the pain of falling short. All of a sudden, she was furious with Rafa Bolívar. Why was he allowed to do this to her? Didn’t he know that there would be consequences? And if he didn’t, then had it even meant anything to him? This frustration did not stop her from running her hand gently back and forth across his chest.

  “What do you do in your free time?” she said.

  “All of my time is free. My family is enormously wealthy.” He said it without shame or pride. “My father owns Venezuela’s largest media conglomerate. I suppose you know about all that. He threatened to cut me off when he learned I’d become an American, but then I started making him more money from the US market than he’d ever made in South America.”

  “But you continue to work, even though you don’t need to.”

  “Work isn’t the right word for it. Work is what people do to survive. That kind of work is rarely interesting, least of all to the people who are doing it. The things we choose to pursue in our own time are what matter.”

  “And for you that’s proving something to your father?”

  “No. But that keeps people from speculating about the real reason.”

  “You have interesting views about work for someone who doesn’t really need to think about it at all.” She didn’t know what to make of what Bolívar was saying or the way he was acting.

  Who were you talking to up there? she wanted to ask him again.

  But then he rose from where he’d been lying on his back, with her hand rising and falling with his chest. He went to the window and stood with his naked body silhouetted against the city. He was quiet for so long that Kera felt again like she was no longer there. Then suddenly, he turned to face her.

  “You have no reason to trust me, so I won’t ask you to. Just as I have no reason to trust you,” he said. “In a way, we are both undercover, and that makes trust impossible. I hope someday we can meet again when the circumstances are different.”

  “Meet again? I don’t understand you.”

  “You will,” he said.

  She got up to put on her clothes and to wrap her head around the idea that she had to get on the subway now and go home to Parker. In the elevator, as she descended alone to the lobby, she braced herself for a wave of regret that didn’t come, but was hit with an even m
ore grotesque emotion: the consequence of not feeling regret for what she’d done.

  Kera Mersal stepped out of the elevator at 0234 hours and was visible to three of the small cameras that were hidden inside small reflective-glass domes mounted to the lobby ceiling. Like the thousands of hours of footage being collected around the world every second, this surveillance was fed through HawkEye’s filters on computers a dozen blocks south and two blocks east. As soon as Kera’s face was visible to the nearest camera, HawkEye’s facial-recognition software identified her, which triggered an alert on the only workstation still lit in the Control Room.

  J. D. Jones looked up.

  He’d planned to leave the office hours ago, around nine. But then, in a moment of weakness as he was preparing to leave, he’d checked HawkEye to see whether Kera was still at home. That’s when he discovered something strange. The computer indicated that her phone was at her apartment, but a camera on Fifty-Ninth Street had flagged her as a partial/probable match. Jones watched the tape. It was her all right, wearing large, dark glasses to throw off the recog software. His curiosity turned to shame when he recognized the man who greeted her and escorted her inside. Bolívar.

  Angry with himself for spying on her, he’d ordered himself to log off and go home. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was like an addiction he’d grown to hate and still couldn’t quit.

  Finally, just after two thirty in the morning, he watched her come out of Bolívar’s building, and his self-loathing reached its climax. It seemed an appropriate punishment, he thought. At least now he’d gotten what he deserved: the knowledge that Kera was out of his league.