She shakes her head. Only from what Joseph told me. He wanted to marry Ming-Mei, and help her establish a career in America, but she claimed to already be married to a man who had abandoned her and that she had some difficulty obtaining a divorce. Joseph believed her, but I didnt. You understand about him, right? His problem?
There was some allusion to Aspergers syndrome.
Yeah, well, the poor man could have been a poster boy for high-achieving autistics. He knew everything there is to know about quantum physics, but nothing about people in general, and certainly less than nothing about women. My opinion, in her real life Ming-Mei might have been an escort or prostitute. But thats just a guess, from the way she acted. At the very least shes a gold digger. She very conveniently got pregnant within a few months of arriving in Boston.
How did Professor Keener react to that?
Hard to tell-youd have to have known him to know how hard-but I think he was pleased in that he assumed it meant Ming-Mei would marry him. Oddly enough-although not odd for Joseph-he didnt assume they would actually live together when married. At one point he was shopping for another home in his neighborhood, a house that would be for Ming-Mei and the baby. He was quite specific about the impossibility of sharing a house with anyone, even the mother of his child.
Because of his Aspergers.
Clare shrugs. Or his shyness, or his being a genius, or whatever. Despite what was obvious to me and to most people who knew him, Joseph didnt believe he had Aspergers. He always said it was just that he preferred to be alone most of the time.
The baby, Clare. Where was he born?
She shrugs. The Cambridge Birthing Center. And no, Joseph didnt attend. I could have told her that-he found the whole idea of the actual birth process very icky.
Keener hadnt attended the birth of his son. Assuming Ming-Mei hadnt wanted to name him as the father for some reason, that would explain why his name was never associated with the boy in the official birth records.
So did he buy her that house nearby?
Not then, no. A month or so after the baby was born she returned to Hong Kong so that relatives could help her care for the infant. At least that was her story. And the odd thing is, Joseph wasnt as upset as you might expect. He was freaked out whenever baby Joey cried or soiled his diaper, and seemed to be satisfied with video versions.
The video version? I say, thinking of what Shane had mentioned.
Clips attached to his email. Typical new-mother stuff. The baby eating, the baby cooing and so on.
Which he shared with you.
Clares look tells me Ill never understand her relationship to the professor and I should probably quit trying. Hed put them up on his computer screen and then leave his office while I watched. Which was typical of Joseph. He wanted to share but he didnt want to be there when it happened.
If he did have something like Aspergers, he might well have found loud noises intolerable, I point out. A babys cry can be very loud. Verydisturbing.
Clare concedes the point. Joseph did indeed find the babys crying quite difficult to handle, and he remained content with being a video dad for the first year or so.
He never visited Hong Kong?
She shakes her head. Not then, no. And when Joey was a year old Ming-Mei came back and set up house in an Arlington condo. I helped Joseph pick it out-you wont be surprised to hear he couldnt stand dealing with the real estate people. He gave her that condo, too. He insisted that the title be in her name.
You really dont like her, I say.
That phony bitch? Clare crosses her plump, freckled arms. Why would I?
Chapter Twenty-Two
All of which I repeat to Naomi. My opinion, she loved the guy, I add.
Naomi leans back in her seat at the command center, tents her fingers. Nothing about the man sounds particularly lovable.
You really dont like her, I say.
That phony bitch? Clare crosses her plump, freckled arms. Why would I?
Chapter Twenty-Two
All of which I repeat to Naomi. My opinion, she loved the guy, I add.
Naomi leans back in her seat at the command center, tents her fingers. Nothing about the man sounds particularly lovable.
Since when has that stopped anyone of the female persuasion? Or the male, for that matter? Okay, think of her as an office wife. Theres no doubt Professor Keener relied on Clare, and unless shes an amazing liar, he confided in her. Told her things he apparently told no one else.
Clare Jeanne OMalley, Naomi says, sounding skeptical. Teddys running a background as we speak.
Ill bet you a box of sugar donuts she comes up clean.
I dont eat sugar donuts, she says with a shudder.
No, but I do.
So, what happened next, did they ever move in together?
Well, according to Clare, things are peachy for a couple of years. The professor has his house in Cambridge. Ming-Mei and the baby have their place in Arlington. Clare has the impression he rarely if ever visited them there, that by arrangement they visited him. This was apparently at Ming-Meis insistence. She ran the show. The professor danced to her tune, according to Clare, who thought at the time that Ming-Mei was trying to get him used to having people in his house. Sort of preparing the ground so she could eventually move in, or persuade him to buy a much bigger and grander house where theyd all live together. Which he was resisting. Professor Keener liked things just the way they were. He may have danced to the ladys tune, but he was also very stubborn. Liked things distant but close. Again, Clares impression, and her words, distant but close. Recall she never actually met Ming-Mei, and got this in bits and pieces from a man who wasnt exactly a great communicator. So her version is very one-sided.
Understood.
My impression: some of his strangeness rubbed off on her. Clare, I mean. Anyhow, she convinced herself, Clare again, that the hot romance aspect had cooled once Ming-Mei was pregnant, and over the years the relationship evolved into something else entirely. Keener still wanted to marry her, but only to legitimize the boy. Maybe that was Clares wishful thinking, maybe not. But she was very definite about what happened next.
When Joey was about three, Ming-Mei insisted, out of the blue, that she and the boy needed to visit her family in Hong Kong, right away. This was fine with the professor-naturally he financed the trip, had Clare arrange for last-minute first-class tickets. She distinctly recalls the airline, Cathay Pacific, and the price, a little over fourteen thousand, round-trip. Clare was outraged on his behalf-what was wrong with business class, why did she have to fly first? but the professor didnt bat an eye. So off they go to Hong Kong, mother and son, but the thing is, they never return. The ticket is open-one reason it was so pricey-and the visit, which was supposed to be for a few weeks, stretched into months. The professor started getting antsy-there had been no emailed video clips to amuse him during this interval-and six months into the separation, he flew to Hong Kong intending, or so he told Clare, to persuade Ming-Mei to return.
The visit did not go well. Clare doesnt know the details-he clammed up even more than usual-but when he got back he was so upset that he canceled his lectures and refused to leave his house for a couple of weeks-Clare had to have his work messengered back and forth. Keener had returned a changed man, more difficult than ever, and started spending more and more time at his lab at QuantaGate. As a consequence, Clare saw less and less of him, and can only guess at what was really going on. Nothing good, was her conclusion. She surmised the breakup had been final-maybe there was another man, maybe not, Clare couldnt tell-and Ming-Mei was making it difficult for him to see Joey, or even to communicate with the boy. Then, about a year after Ming-Mei returned to Hong Kong, one of her relatives-Clare thinks it was an aunt-called the professor with devastating news. Joey had been kidnapped. Snatched from an upscale mall while Ming-Mei shopped, gone in an instant when she looked away. The aunt and everybody else in the family-and the local police, too, apparently-assumed the boy had been stolen by one of the mainland gangs that procure replacement kids for parents who lost children in the earthquake.
So the boy has been missing for more than a year.
Apparently, yes. Immediately on hearing the news Professor Keener took a leave of absence, went to Hong Kong and from there to the mainland to search for the boy. He was gone for two months-took medical leave with MITs permission-and returned broken inside. Clare described him as hollowed out. The experience would have been difficult for a normal person-for him having to deal with strangers was torture. He had bribed police in Hong Kong, hired private investigators in Beijing, pleaded with government officials, all to no avail. He came back to Cambridge convinced he would never see Joey again. Clare tried to get through to him, suggested grief counseling and so on, but he refused help and threw himself into his work. Clare says he began spending about eighty percent of his time at QuantaGate, often sleeping over in his lab. And showing up on campus only when it was absolutely necessary.
You dont recover from a thing like that.
Right, I agree. But theres a strange kind of twist. For the first time, the professor alluded to his distrust of Ming-Mei. Apparently he suspected that she may have been involved in the kidnapping of her own child. Clare never liked the woman, but she was dismissive of the idea-the woman shed seen in all those video clips had clearly loved the boy. She said the professor never could figure people out, that he had no ability to read faces. He was easy to fool and got people wrong, thats how she put it. Plus, hed become increasingly paranoid. Clare got the impression that he believed he was being spied on.
Oh? Now, thats interesting, Naomi says. Spied on by who?
Clare didnt know, and she thinks he didnt know, not really, although he complained about his own security guards poking around. Thats how she put it, poking around.
At the university? No, unlikely, she says, correcting herself. At his company.
Correct. QuantaGate.
Fascinating.
Thought youd like it. But theres more. Another twist. Ten days before he was killed, Keener took Clare aside. Everything had changed yet again, his whole demeanor. He had suddenly become convinced that hed been wrong about everything. Clares words. Shed never seen him so agitated or excited. And the weird thing was, he was happy. No, happy is wrong-her impression was that he was filled with hope, which isnt the same thing as happy, necessarily. I asked, did he tell her why he was suddenly hopeful, and she said no, not exactly, but her gut told her it had something to do with Joey-what else could it be? He did tell her that someone was going to help, and that it would soon be over. Clare had no idea who or what he was referring to, but Im assuming that the someone was Randall Shane.