Jihadi (26 page)

Thelonius woke and started the conversation before the Raisin could.

‘Did you hear me say anything as I slept?’

‘Yes. You said, “Why did I do it?” Over and over.’

A dangerous habit, one he did not know how to reverse. Best to focus on lunch – greasy rice, what appeared to be chunks of lamb and a little carton of milk. The fading glow from the window bothered him. The Raisin’s eyes were down, their owner eating, as usual, with the thin fingers of the right hand.

‘Did you ever hear of a fork?’ The instant the words left his mouth, he loathed them.

‘This is how the Prophet, peace be upon him, used to eat.’

Thelonius nodded. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘It’s just – fingers…’

A little grimace from the Raisin. And that was all. Who knew what it was thinking.

How to talk to someone like there were actually two people in the room. How to sew something back up when it ripped. That had always eluded him.

Thelonius got to thinking of the many times in his life when he had tried to reconnect after things had gotten weird. Usually, that kind of discussion had not gone well. He would start out thinking he was improving matters and end up being part of something darker, something he hadn’t intended. The kid he ran down and elbowed in that race – Thelonius knew he should apologize, and thought he
was about to, but he taunted the boy, called him out for being an android while he was prone and gasping.

Also Becky, back in Salem, right after he learned about her and Dick Unferth and then bolted for three days. He’d had every intention of being mature.

After those three days away from her, with the volcano in the centre of his chest pulsing out new rivers of molten rage at unpredictable intervals, Thelonius had reached only one firm conclusion: that he should, somehow, at some point, find some place to stand that was lava-free. Find some way to act like an adult about all this. That would be essential if they were going to get anywhere.

At one point, he awoke from the reclined driver’s seat of the Siena at about two in the morning and thought: What the hell do we do now? As though there
were
a we. He didn’t know about that anymore.
Was
there a we? Could there be a we? Should there?

Had he ended it already? A better husband would have shared what he knew about her medical issues, no matter what Dad had had to say about it. Did he owe her an apology, some sort of full accounting of all his mistakes? He imagined he did, but every time he set about connecting any one part of that apology (what might be said to her) to any other part (where and when it might be said), the unstable mountain had taken over, and his heart had rumbled and spattered fresh waves of lava.

Dick Unferth. That bullshit artist. Of all people. Dick
Unferth
.

Even thinking his name, even picturing his rat-like eyes and pockmarked face, set the mountain’s insides churning.

On the morning of his third straight brunch at Starbucks, an unwelcome thought presented itself to Thelonius: The affair was utterly unlike Becky.

At least (and this was the disturbing part) it was unlike the Becky he had been led to believe was still on duty: the careful organizer of notes, projects and agendas, the collector and resuscitator of couple-related anecdotes, the supplier of knowing glances and mock-serious scoldings. The cautious chess player. The avoider of
sudden moves. The one who knew what to do and what not to do. The therapist.

Someone far angrier, far less certain about the terrain, now lived in her. He had seen that furious, reckless, lost person surface when she bore down on him and set free that indiscreet word ‘Richard’. Even replaying that moment for a fraction of a second made the lava of Mount Richard stir, flow and burn in him.

He leaped over the lava, landed on a safe place, found his balance, caught his breath.

He asked himself whether this enraged, misplaced person he had seen could have taken up residence within Becky overnight … or whether she had
always
been hiding inside Becky. Perhaps what had changed was that the Plum had grown enough to create a crack through which this person was now visible.

What would he do if the crack continued to widen?

After years of being the one whose behaviour had to be monitored with care, Thelonius found himself locked in a minivan, in the middle of the night, face-to-face, not just with insomnia, not just with betrayal, but with a role reversal. He had to address the possibility that
Becky
might be the one in need of close watching. That
he
might need to do the watching. That her behaviour was likely to get worse, more impossible to ignore, perhaps more dangerous as time passed. That they had reached the endgame, the point of sudden shift or collapse, much faster than he had anticipated. He had done nothing to prepare her for it. Nothing. Why?

Dad. Obeying Dad.

Things had gone wrong now. Thelonius had been part of the wrongdoing. He knew that. Once the lava had cooled, he would be forced to admit that much, after her years of care and patience and support. He certainly owed her
something
.

She had a right to know everything. She had had a right to know years ago. He had kept too much from Becky for too long.

This realization changed him.

He would tell Becky of the Plum spreading within the confines of
her skull. He would tell her that face-to-face. She was sick. Whatever their differences, whatever they decided or didn’t decide, whatever Dad might later have to say about it, he owed her that information. Now. And he owed her an apology for obeying Dad, for deleting and shredding all the documents that told him what her prognosis was. He owed her for his silence. He wasn’t sure what would happen next in their world. But he was sure he had let her down. Maybe it was best to begin with that. Maybe he could start by making amends.

Mount Richard rumbled, though.

From his self-imposed exile in what had become ‘his’ Starbucks, he’d sent her a text, arranged to meet her for lunch at The Campaign, a quiet upscale Salem restaurant they once favoured, and an important early mutual staring venue in the first year of their relationship. She’d texted she would take a cab. It was to be the first time they had seen each other since he’d bolted out of the house in the middle of the night.

He’d shown up twenty minutes after the appointed time.

‘Sorry to be late,’ Thelonius lied. And when she looked him over, he felt it rumble, felt the lava glow, unglue itself, break through, and begin flowing down the sides of the mountain.

She waited for him to take a seat.

Just Get Started.

He sat.

She flipped on, without warning, an odd half-smile he had never seen before.

‘Every one of us knows,’ Becky said calmly, all in peach, dark eyes clear, firing the first round, ‘that as time goes on we get a little older – tick tock, tick tock – and a little slower, too. Tick tock.’

Something had changed. She knew all about the Plum.

How she’d found out, Thelonius couldn’t say, but there was no doubt that she knew. For a split second he considered leaving, because he had no plan in place now, a perilous situation. But he had been in quarrels with Becky before. Walking away would only make things worse. Better to ride it out.

He considered asking her outright, nailing down when and how she’d found out, whether Dad had had anything to do with it, but after looking into those eyes, malevolent and clear and quiet and terrified, the resolution he saw there led him only to crevices and unstable hot ground.

Stress breath.

Calm her down.

‘You look nice.’

‘Don’t I, though. Richard thought so.’ A false wink. She was beyond herself, well beyond.

Wait. Had Dick Unferth had her since Thelonius had last seen her? The mountain churned and glowed. Deep seduction in her eyes now, but the kind that only gleamed with toxins.

The waitress came, thank God. Early twenties. Short, blonde, ponytail, radiant, clear skin, well-balanced features, loose white blouse with the sleeves rolled up, jeans too tight, Celtic tattoo on her forearm. Smiling with them as though she had been part of the conversation she’d interrupted. About to introduce herself. On the cusp, the inhalation point, of some word beginning with H.

‘Take away these flowers,’ Becky ordered.

‘Sure,’ said the waitress, puzzled only for the briefest instant. Beaming grin. Both she and the vase of wildflowers disappeared.

‘Have a drink?’ Becky asked, too bright and too sudden. ‘She’ll be back soon, you know. You can ask her for anything.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘To our new life.’ She toasted him with what appeared to be a shot of tequila. She downed it. Her cheeks flexed in parody of an instantaneous grin, which then collapsed. She held the shot glass toward the stained-glass lampshade above them. ‘To it. However badly it may suck.’

‘Is that your first shot of the day?’

‘No.’

‘Not safe for the drive home.’

Becky always drove whenever the two of them travelled. It had
become a habit of over a decade’s standing. Never challenged, never discussed. Like which side of the road one used.

‘Oh, it’s perfectly safe, perfectly legal.’ She set the shot glass down in front of him. ‘Or.
Or – you’ll
be driving home. That’s better. Such a big boy, now. And you’re well below the legal limit. Come on. Have one. Bet you can’t catch up. I got here early.’

Thelonius took up the shot glass and sniffed it. Tequila.

‘Not my brand. Sorry. So. How are you?’

‘Don’t be sorry, T.
Please
don’t be sorry about anything, ever. How. Am. I. Well. How should I be? Really, how
am
I? You and Dad would know better than I would.’

He set the glass down in front of her.

‘You put on quite a show the other night,’ she said.

‘I needed some time to think.’ And
he
faked a grin.

‘And? What did you think up? After all that time thinking?’

‘Becky, I came here to tell you something it looks like you already know,’ Thelonius said.

‘
Do
I?’ Becky asked, perilously cheerful.

‘I think it’s time for us to talk about finding a way for you to be better taken care of.’

‘
Do
you?’ Becky demanded. ‘
Do
you think that? Have you been studying up on the Massachusetts spousal commitment statutes, T? Is that what you’ve been busy with?’

‘What? No.’

‘No? You sure?’

The waitress returned and resumed her assault on the conversation with the same battle-tested initial consonant: ‘Hey there, guys.’ Imperturbable. Professionally upbeat. As though the flower thing had never happened. ‘I’m Sally and I’ll be your waitress tonight.’

Becky sniffed, pursed her lips, and spewed a gob of greenish spit at the waitress.

She missed. Not by much. It flew past a white-clad, cotton-covered shoulder, landed on the garish, geometric orange-and-black carpet beyond.

‘You know, I’m really not a political person,’ Becky announced to the world at large, far too loud, while fixing the waitress in her crosshairs. ‘But someone like
you
looks to someone like
me
to be socially active, if you know what I mean, Sally. One of the Young Reformers, capital Y, capital R, and leading, shrewdly, with those ominous breast implants and that tightly clad groin. Yes? That’s you? Social revolutionary? So quiet all of a sudden. Where’s the perky? You do get paid for perky, right? I mean, the tips do correlate with that, over time, yes?’

Sally, frozen, made a tight ‘O’ with her mouth. Thelonius guessed she was now attempting to leave and not succeeding. Perhaps something had happened to her once.

Things were always happening to people.

‘So, Sally, Sally, clarify, please.
Are
you one of those serially polygamous, personal-relationship reformer types? What I mean to ask is,
are
you out to change the world for the better now, like my husband here? Get to the bottom of everything? He’s got a conscience now, it turns out. Harry Truman, sleep deprivation, unconstitutional,
et cetera
. What the hell did he marry
me
for, you might wonder? Anyway. You. Sally. The moment I saw you, I wanted to ask you: Do you suppose that maybe if you screwed my husband in that storeroom back there, he and I could even things out and then perhaps pick up from where we left off? Wouldn’t take you two but five minutes or so. I said screw. Apologies. I presume upon your virtue. You could stay upstairs with him if you like, for all I care. No, no, I know there is no
architectural
upstairs here. Stay fully clothed, I mean, if that’s important to you. He doesn’t have to go downstairs, this one. He’s quite happy with upstairs. You’d be striking a blow, as it were, for liberty or self-determination or autonomy or the ability to sleep or whatever it is you people post all your messages about. Watch out, though. No straps, no blindfolds. This one will go on at length about Harry Truman, about civil
liberties
. About having a
conscience
.’

She sniffed, spat again. Hit Sally square in the face. Shaken out
of her trance, Sally screamed, dropped her menus, and ran off in a kind of crouch.

A short, bald manager, and what appeared to be the entire wait staff, stood in front of the bar, rapt. The manager received a whisper from a tall man behind the bar. The tall man, who sported a crew cut forty years behind the times, produced a telephone and began to dial it.

‘He
knew
I was sick, by the way.’ She was standing and shouting now, full voice. To everyone and no one. To Sally, now weeping and cowering in the storeroom.

‘He
knew
it. But I have to get checked up for everything, everything now, whether or not Dad knows about the appointment. That’s what they forgot. And my husband
knew
I was sick, Sally. Kept that to himself. Not sick venereally, though; you two don’t have to worry about that. But sick in the head.
That’s
why I cheated on him. Just so we can all know what he came here to find out. That’s why I did it. Get him back. For not fucking telling me I’m sick in the head. Still working on how to get Dad back. Can you ever really get Dad back? Anyway,
Sally. Sally
. What’s your
answer
? If you two were to start right now, back there in that storeroom, do you think I would get
this
guy back by the time we got our appetizers?’