“I failed, okay? I failed and broke my uncle’s heart. You happy now?”
When he didn’t answer, my eyes welled up, and I covered my face with the crook of my arm, and then he did something absolutely astonishing. He reached into his pocket, punched something into his phone, and the lights dimmed, just a hair, but it softened the room. It was the most graceful, compassionate gesture I’d ever seen a man do. Now all I could make of this curious, embarrassing moment were the shadows of red curtain, the tin ridged ceiling, the blurry black wrist of my hoodie in near darkness, stanching tears off my face. Bahari said absolutely nothing for a long time; I didn’t either. Together, we let the kaleidoscope of sorrow spin.
When I regained my breath, I said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For coming here—waking you up.”
He burst out laughing.
I said, “I made a mistake, okay?”
“I disagree. I say you came to the exact right place. The cosmos has asked you to solve the riddle of The Daily Telegraph, and the only honest person who can help you do that is me. Because I know that the only way for you to come even close is to circle around your motivation. Find your inner Emil—and you just may fulfill your mission after all.”
“I think I understand you, Dr. Bahari. I’ve done a little therapy in my time. But I don’t believe you. I wish I did.”
“You promised to not call this therapy.”
“Okay.”
He said, “Let me explain it another way. You are the son, seeking the father, who is seeking the son. Really trapped in a cycle of guilt and retribution. Yesterday it was your dead uncle. Today you choose Charles Elkaim for a substitute. Tomorrow, you’ll find another. Ad infinitum. You are looking to encounter Uncle’s death head-on, but you can’t, because the death is inside you. And you’re stuck in the loop of it.”
“I feel guilty, I—”
“Guilt,” he said definitively, “is a way of hanging on.”
I sat up, eyes wet and wide open. Defensive, proud: “My uncle served in the 186th infantry; he fought the battle of Khe Sanh.”
“Okay.”
“He got a purple medal. He told President Nixon to fuck off. To his face.”
Bahari chuckled. “Brave man.”
“Right,” I said. “Unlike me.”
“Your uncle’s context was his, yours is yours. And the war you’re up against may be invisible, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t as tough as ole Dick Nixon.”
We had a little laugh together—there was just no way to hate this guy.
I said, “Is there a way out—of the loop?”
“You know the way out, kid. Unleash the pain. Obviously. Otherwise, you’ll be trying to placate an unforgiving ghost for all time. And it won’t work. Uncle. Will never. Forgive.”
My eyes softened to the darkness, a wash of patterns. I thought I might cry again but my lungs filled with sweet oxygen, and for a moment, all was calm.
I said, “How do you know so much about me? Like, so fast?”
“It’s just what I do. Some people are good at making cupcakes. I’m good at helping people see what’s already right in front of them.”
I checked the wallpaper. “I still see swirls.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know. But behind the swirls?”
I closed my eyes again and, without any effort on my part, the patterns crashed into each other and separated, like the great pulling back of an inner velvet curtain in an old movie house. But the image revealed was tiny, microscopic, and detailed beyond belief. How did the mind do these instant vivid tricks?
“My uncle,” I said, “alone in his backyard, digging, planting seeds.”
“How is he feeling in the yard? And remember—it’s all projection.”
“Really?”
“Maybe not all, but you’d be amazed.”
“Well, it’s him. He’s disappointed. Bitter. Life hasn’t worked out as he’d hoped. He…it’s all been a—” Big breath. “But me in particular, I’m—”
“Yes. You.”
“I’m like, a symbol of—”
“Say it.”
“Disappointment.”
A deep sob filled me, without tears, ricocheting in the zilliondollar room. Bahari smacked his hands together.
“So you’re a symbol,” he said, the way a comedian might set up a joke. Then he laid out the punch line as flat and as matter-of-fact as a waitress repeating an order at IHOP: “A symbol of someone else’s…failure.” He thumbed the phone and the lights faded up. “Our work for the evening is done.”
