Gods Without Men (48 page)

Then she announced she’d found a job. He hadn’t even known she was looking. She just dropped her car keys on the kitchen counter and told him the news. She was going back to publishing, as an editor for a small imprint that specialized in esoteric and mystical books.

“And you didn’t think to discuss this with me?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure I’d get it. And then when they offered it to me, I wasn’t sure I’d say yes. But then I did.”

“You said yes.”

“I said yes.”

“So who’ll look after Raj?”

“Don’t you even start that! You’re not working. You don’t seem to want to work.”

“Hang on, it’s still my money that’s supporting us.”

“I didn’t mean that. I know where the money’s coming from, and for the moment we don’t need you to get a job. I’m not criticizing, Jaz. I get it. We’ve been through a terrible time and we both need to regroup. But why shouldn’t I have this? Give me one good reason.”

“It’s just—well, it affects me. And Raj. And you just went ahead and did it?”

“Do you want me to turn it down?”

“No, but—”

“But what?”

“It’s not even like it’s a reputable publisher.”

“By reputable you mean mainstream? Oh, come on, Jaz. Why not just come straight out and give your little speech about science and testable hypotheses and all the rest of it?”

“I’m just trying to talk about Raj.”

“Well, so am I. Unlike you, I want to work. Five years, Jaz. Five years I’ve spent at home with him. Why can’t you give me this?”

“OK. It’s not like I don’t want you to have a life. I just—well, I wish you’d talked to me about it before you agreed. We’re supposed to be a family.”

Eventually they came to an arrangement. She’d work. He’d stay home with Raj, at least for six months. At the end of that time, they’d see how things stood. The unspoken variable was Raj’s condition. If he carried on improving, then all kinds of things might be possible. Daycare, school. They’d never allowed themselves to think like that before. The idea of making plans for the future was so alien that it induced a kind of panic in Jaz. Weren’t they just offering hostages to fortune? What if they opened up their horizons again, and it didn’t work out? After Lisa left for her first day in the office he sat at the kitchen counter with Raj, who was drawing a picture, a red crayon held tightly in his small fist. Raj looked up at him, aloof and self-contained. The picture on the pad was almost recognizable; some kind of aircraft, or perhaps a rocket.

A new routine began, the routine of walking. Twice a week, they walked to see Dr. Siddiqi, the speech therapist. She was young and attractive, her thick black hair falling over her shoulders in a shiny wave, or tied back in a loose ponytail so that stray strands fell across her face. She didn’t wear a wedding ring. Jaz would read a magazine, or watch as she worked with Raj, who seemed to like her as much as he did. She’d make up little routines and situations, asking questions, offering and receiving objects, giving praise when he successfully completed some new routine. Though he was developing a vocabulary, he had trouble with what she called the “pragmatics” of conversation. When to ask for something. When to say hello, or thank you, or sorry. After the sessions, she’d make time to talk to Jaz, describing Raj’s progress while the little boy played, or just sat rocking solemnly on a stool by their feet. Jaz felt a strong need to open up to her, to tell her secrets. He described the lack of progress in the investigation, his own suspicion that the abductor was someone who worked on the Marine base, perhaps one of the Iraqis who helped out with their strange war games. He wanted to say more. About Raj, about himself.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve all been through,” she said one day. He flushed with pleasure. From anyone else it would have been a banality.

One evening, while Lisa was at her study group, he found Raj standing in the living-room doorway, staring at him. There was something about the way he was watching, a self-contained intelligence that Jaz found suddenly terrifying. The question formulated itself:
What are you?
Not
What are you doing?
or
What are you thinking?
or even
Who are you? What
are you? What are you if you’re not my son? He poured himself a drink, told himself to get a grip, then spent the rest of the evening trying not to be in the same room as the boy, half hiding in the study but keeping the door open in case there was an emergency. When he heard Lisa’s key in the door, he almost rushed to be by her side. She scooped up Raj and cuddled him, luxuriating in the touch that she’d never been allowed before. She seemed to sense nothing out of the ordinary.

Later, as they got ready for bed, he tried to speak to her.

“Do you think it’s normal, how Raj is behaving?”

“More normal than he’s ever been before.”

“I mean—I don’t know what I mean.”

“You think he’s slipping back?”

“No, not at all. It’s just—I can’t help feeling something’s off about him.”

“Of course there is.”

“Not that.”

“Something …”

He couldn’t find the words. Lisa looked at him quizzically. Then she came and hugged him.

“I know, Jaz. I think we just have to trust in—you know. Just trust.”

“Do you ever think maybe it’s not him?”

“What do you mean?”

“That it’s not Raj.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m just tired.”

He realized that if he pushed it, he’d begin to scare her. He was scaring
himself. The thoughts he was having weren’t normal. They weren’t appropriate. A voice in his head was whispering, softly, insistently—
This is not my child, this is not my child, this is not my child …

So he went for walks, pushing Raj in front of him, willing the voice to shut up and leave him alone. Lisa was thriving. The house was littered with manuscripts and proofs of books with words in the titles like
golden
and
pathway
and
revelation
and
light
. She was talking openly about enrolling Raj in regular school. “He’ll be ready soon, I think,” she said. “He’s actually quite gifted.” One day Jaz found a stack of papers on the kitchen counter, details of expensive specialized IQ tests—the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales. He asked why she had them.

“I think,” she said, “we have to prepare our minds for the realization that the upside may be just as extreme as the down.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Our son is very special. He’s not an ordinary child.”

“A few months ago, he wasn’t even talking.”

“Jaz, come on. Can’t you see it?”

“See what?”

“Wow, you’re really a prisoner of your own negativity.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I know what you’re saying and I wish you’d stop. I can’t be around this energy. It’s draining, Jaz. It really is.”

The next morning his old assistant phoned with the news that Cy Bachman had been found dead. Walkers had discovered his body on a mountainside in the Pyrenees, an apparent suicide. Lisa phoned Ellis, who sounded, she said, absolutely distraught. They talked for a long time, while Jaz hovered in the background. According to Ellis, the failure of the Walter model had been a personal disaster for Bachman. He’d left without telling Ellis where he was going, though the site of his death, near the Spanish border town of Portbou, hadn’t come as a surprise.

Feeling empty, Jaz took Raj to see Dr. Siddiqi. Instead of letting the session start as normal, he told her he needed to talk. She settled herself in a chair opposite him.

“What can I do for you?”

“I know I should be happy about what’s happening. What’s happening with Raj, I mean. But I’m—I have a lot of questions. There’s so much we don’t know. To be honest, I’m scared.”

“Scared?”

He stared down at the carpet, suddenly ashamed by what he’d just admitted. Guiltily he glanced over at Raj, who was sprawled on the floor, surrounded by plastic farm animals. The boy was watching him intently.

Dr. Siddiqi waited patiently for him to continue. He could feel Raj’s eyes on him, a physical sensation, two little fingers pressed into the back of his neck.

“Look, Ayesha. I know this is strange, but I can’t really talk with him in the room. Is there anyone who can look after him for a few minutes?”

“Are you OK?”

“No, not really.”

She called a junior colleague, who took Raj into another office.

“So, Jaz, what is it? Talk to me.”

“This is insane. I know. And I know I shouldn’t be feeling like this. There’s probably a name for it. A syndrome. I’ve been under a lot of pressure. We all have. As a family. What I mean to say, is, I realize it’s probably something wrong with me, not him. But ever since he came back there’s been something different about Raj. He’s not the same kid.”

“It is unusual that he’s made all this progress, just after having gone through such a trauma.”

“No, I mean he’s not the same kid. It’s not Raj.”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

“It looks like him, smells like him. It has his body. But it’s not him.”

“You’re saying you don’t believe this is your son?”

“He scares me.”

“Why? He’s a little boy.”

“He looks like a little boy. For all I know, maybe he is a little boy. I don’t know what he is. But he’s not Raj.”

She looked at him carefully.

“Jaz, have you been sleeping OK?”

“Sure. Well, not brilliantly. But not too badly. Why?”

“Anything else unusual?”

“Like what?”

“Anxiety?”

“Yes.”

“Any other disturbing thoughts? About your wife, for example?”

“No.”

“Have you been—hearing anything? Anything unusual? A voice, for example. Have you felt that people are talking about you behind your back?”

“A voice?”

“Yes. For example, a voice telling you things about Raj.”

“No. Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“No. I mean no.”

“That’s good. But you say sometimes you feel afraid of Raj. Have you ever had the impulse to—defend yourself against him?”

“You mean hurt him?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”

“You think I’m going insane?”

“I’m not saying that. But you’ve come in here and declared to me that you think your son isn’t your son.”

“You think I’m a danger to him?”

He stood up.

“Please sit down, Mr. Matharu. Jaz. Please.”

She was holding her hands out. Suddenly he wanted to embrace her, to take handfuls of her long hair and pull her close to him, to kiss her full, blue-black lips, to push his tongue between her teeth. He took a pace forward, checked himself.

“I’m scared,” he said again.

“Jaz, I know you’ve been under incredible pressure. I must ask you again, do you ever have violent feelings toward your son?”

“No.”

“That’s good. That’s very good.”

“I just want to—know. Someone had him. Do you think it’s possible they—I mean—do you think he could have been replaced?”

“Replaced?”

“By a double. Something that’s like him in every way, except it’s not him.”

She frowned, and placed her hands back in her lap, a neat, deliberate gesture, the gesture of a woman composing herself, putting up her guard. He imagined her naked, a sheen of sweat across her back, her breasts. He felt wild, disturbed. If only she’d come to him. If only she’d touch him, it might be OK.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

Every moment is a bardo, suspended between past and future. We are always in transition, slipping from one state to the next. She’d had doubts over the years, wondering if
this
was where she really was, if this person
Dawn
even existed, or was just a momentary confluence of forces, a ripple on the pond. She’d pause as she made a bed or wrapped a scuffed water glass in a paper sleeve, sure there was something she’d forgotten, braced to find herself back in the dome on the night of the last ritual, falling away from the clear white light.

She shouldn’t have taken that New York woman up to see Judy, except the woman was so drunk and in such trouble already that it seemed like the best option. Judy had to help lay her out on a daybed, while Dawn told her what had happened, how some bastards off the base had gotten her out back of Mulligan’s and were fixing to run a train on her.

“And she’s got a husband, you say?”

“God knows what he’s doing, letting her go drink on her own in that place. Even with him it might not be so good, not in Mulligan’s. He’s from Pakistan, wears boat shoes. They got this retard kid.”

“As in touched? You think he’s got vision?”

“Hell, Judy. He’s a retard. He ain’t got no more vision than a dog. Look at the state of her. Sand all over her clothes.”

The woman—Lisa—babbled a little before she passed out. Take it away, she muttered. This isn’t what I ordered. Judy rolled her eyes, said You and me both, lady, and then got down to why it was so urgent for Dawn to drop everything and drive out. She needed a favor.

“It’s not for me.”

“Jesus, Judy. I already brought you more pain pills. And the chocolate milk you asked for.”

“That’s it. The chocolate milk.”

At least it wasn’t money. And this time Judy could remember making the call, which was something. She said her man was roaming around. He’d called her to say he needed chocolate milk and she was tweaking so hard she couldn’t handle getting behind the wheel.

“You got to drive me, Dawnie.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m serious. It’s important.”

“Fuck his chocolate milk.”