“Very funny, Lou. My husband’s name is Robert and the hill Mr. Zheng is referring to was Everest,” Monique said as she started to turn but was called back.
“Oh my God, really?” Margarita from Metronome exclaimed. “My husband and I both started to rock climb last year. Is he going to eat with us?”
“Of course, I told you we have the most interesting table, didn’t I?” Lou chimed in.
“Yes.” Monique politely smiled. “And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get him.”
“Can’t wait!” Margarita called out as Monique turned away from the table.
Monique waved to the occupants, but she had no intention of bringing Robert back to their table. There were too many things she needed to speak to him about now.
She looked up at the stage. Amir was sitting by his table and eating. She felt a little nervous—an excited nervousness. What was she going to say first? What were those magical words that would open the door, which had been shut so tight for so long? She stopped at the bottom of the steps, closed her eyes for a moment to settle her nerves, then opened her eyes and started to make her way...’To begin,’ she thought. ‘Yes, to begin!’
Monique climbed the stairs, walked onto the stage and pulled the curtain aside, but Robert was not there. She crossed to the other side of the stage but didn’t find him there either. Her heart jumped a little.
She turned to Amir who looked up from his lunch and the magazine he was reading.
“Amir, where is Robert?”
Amir wiped a little dressing from his chin as he spoke. “Oh, he said he wanted to get off the stage for a while. I think for quiet.”
“How did he do that?”
“I helped him down the stairs.”
“Did you see where he went?”
“Oh yes, and don’t worry yourself, Miss Monique. You see those doors on the side of the stage? He went in there.”
“Where it says staff only? And what’s in there?”
“Oh, just a small hallway connecting some rooms, but all the rooms are locked. There’s nowhere to go, so he must be still sitting in the hallway there. Would you like me to bring him back up here?”
“No, it’s okay. I can go and get him. Thanks, Amir.”
Amir’s easy going demeanour calmed her heart. Monique crossed the stage but when she was halfway down the steps, Greg stopped her.
“Ah, Monique, I was looking for you. Oh, you look different. Did you change your hair?”
Monique touched her hair. She felt a little self-conscious and wondered if her face still showed signs of crying. “Yes, it—um—it felt too formal, I thought.”
“Well, looks good. Okay, a couple of things. First, did you and your husband get a chance to eat?”
“No, I’m just going to get him.”
“Great, I just wanted to see if you’d be ready to go at twelve twenty-five?”
Monique looked at her watch. It was five to twelve. She felt a little relieved that she still had about half an hour to at least start to talk to her husband.
“In a half hour?” she asked and Greg nodded with a smile. “Sure, Greg, no problem.”
Monique started to walk away but Greg quickly called back to her. “Oh, Monique—”
She stepped down as he walked over to her. He put a hand on her shoulder and spoke in a confidential voice. “Please forgive me, Monique, but I changed your table. You’re sitting with Lou now. It’s just I noticed some...well, you and your husband seemed a bit—you know...tense. So I thought maybe a little Lou might help.”
Oh my God, was it that obvious? Normally Monique would have thought of some kind of excuse for what Greg saw, but at this moment, being inspired by this new sense of purpose, she opened up to her boss in a way she never had before.
“Greg, I’m your senior advisor of communications right? But do you know that I have never even asked my husband what it’s like to have no legs? What kind of communication is that?”
Greg let his hand fall off Monique’s shoulder. His mouth opened, but no words came out.
“And we don’t talk Greg. My husband and I, we simply don’t talk. There’s this huge change happening in our lives and we just pretend it’s all going to go back to normal. Can you believe it? We don’t ever talk about it!”
There was now the look of terror in Greg’s eyes.
“What does this mean, Monique? Why are you telling me this now? Is there not going to be a presentation?”
“No, I’m so sorry, Greg. Don’t worry. I’m just telling you that that was the tension you saw and...and I—Oh God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t really need to tell you all that. Please, don’t worry, Greg. I mean, look around you; it’s going great today, isn’t it? People are talking and that’s what we wanted, right? So, don’t you worry! There will be a presentation. Sorry about all that. Look, please go back and eat.”
She looked at her watch. “And don’t worry...It’s twenty-seven minutes to show time!”
Greg smiled, although he still looked a bit uneasy and perplexed. “Okay, good. Sorry about you and your husband not...um...you know what you said—not talking...so...Well, good, twenty-seven minutes then? Hopefully Mr. Romano from Linkup will have arrived then. Okay, good. Um...I’ll come up and do a little introduction before Robert starts, alright?”
“Wonderful.” Then Monique did another thing she had never done. She opened her arms, hugged her boss and said, “Great work, Greg. It’s wonderful working with a man like you.”
But before Greg had a chance to respond, Monique let him go, turned around and hurried to the door on the left side of the stage. As her hand touched the knob, she stopped herself and thought, What am I going to say to Robert first? There are so many questions! She laid her head against the door, but in a second, she smiled knowingly as the first question came to her. She leaned against the door, took a deep breath and then opened it.
34. 2 WEEKS AGO – SEEMA’S OFFICE
“Have you ever felt nothing?”
Seema put her pen down and looked at Robert. “What exactly do you mean by nothing?”
“I mean nothing. Being...feeling...void, vacant. Feeling absolutely empty—like there is no reason to think or to even have any thought.”
Seema let out a smiled sigh. “Hmmm...you know, Robert, I’m not sure if there really ever is a nothing because, even as you describe it, well, it sounds like something. Sounds like you’re feeling the absence of something—”
Robert threw his arms up. “—No, please don’t! Don’t get all linguistic about it. When I said ‘nothing’ I meant—Ah, you know what? Forget it.”
He put his hands to the wheels of his chair to push himself away, but then stopped suddenly. “No! Okay, remember after my last operation...I sat right here. Right here by this very window. And out there was a woman, a woman with a dog and she threw a ball...and that dog ran with all its life to get that ball. Remember? And then he brought it back to that woman and dropped it right in front of her. Remember that?”
Seema nodded with a questioning look.
“That dog had one purpose. And that purpose was for her to throw the ball again so he could chase it—so he could get that ball and give back to her. Remember how he sat there, waiting? The dog’s whole body was starving to do it again. He was so excited and filled with a purpose—his purpose to relive that whole experience again, right?”
Seema’s whole face smiled. It made her feel an unexpected joy to hear Robert speak so willingly and openly.
“Yes, I remember it very well,” she said.
“Well, that’s the ‘nothing’ I’m talking about. You see, I’ve come to understand that...that dog—that dog who is simply chasing that ball—has something I don’t. That dog is able to get pleasure from something so simple. I don’t have that either! You see, that dog has more purpose, more purpose than I think I’ll ever feel again.”
Seema’s smiled face fell, “But, Robert—”
“No, Seema, don’t say it. Please don’t! I can’t
bear to hear about all the things I can still do. I just can’t stomach it anymore, okay? It’s just...well, all my life it seems...all my life I’ve been—do you know how many lost souls I have helped? Helped to find a reason, an excitement to do something? Helped them discover a purpose—helped them to simply be happy? To feel that simple thing—that...that reason to exist?”
“I’m sure it has been many, Robert, I’m sure.”
“And you know what I’ve found? Just because I’ve helped all those people, that doesn’t mean it’s going to help me, does it?”
Seema suddenly sat up. Her hand went over her mouth. “Do you mean like, do we really listen or follow our own advice?”
“Yeah, but it’s deeper than that...more—it’s something even more profound than listening to our own advice.”
Robert turned his wheelchair away from the window and looked right at Seema. “Like you. You told me when you worked in that prison, you had to leave because you felt, well, I am not sure exactly what you felt, but you said something about how you left that prison job because you thought there were some people you just couldn’t rehabilitate, right?”
Seema pulled her chair close to the desk and leaned toward Robert. “And?”
“So you’re here now, helping, rehabilitating, working with all sorts of people who lost their arms, legs...lost—”
Robert stopped for a moment, looked away in thought and then continued, “Lost parts of themselves, parts that they’ll never ever get back. They will never get it back, no matter how hard you try, no matter what Benny Tucci or Seema does, they’ll never get their arms or legs or whatever they lost back. It’s lost to them forever, right?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep trying to—”
“—Really, Miss Pourshadi? Ask yourself this: if you lost your hands or both your legs and then you came here to this centre, with whatever you lost—do you think that what you do, all the therapy and techniques you employ for all your patients, all the things you say to them—everything Seema knows—would that be enough for you? Would your ways actually help you?”
Seema wasn’t prepared for the question, so she repeated what Robert asked. “Lost my hands or my legs?”
She waited for a response but Robert stayed silent.
“Well...Maybe, I...you know, each one of us deals with loss differently, Robert.”
“Yeah, we do! But can you answer the question? Could everything you know and do help you—Seema Pourshadi?”
Seema looked down at the desk and blinked nervously as she spoke. “I...I guess it’s one of those things that I’ll never know unless it actually happens to me.”
“But I know, Seema! Not about you, but I know about me!”
Seema was a little confused so she waited a beat and then asked, “Okay...Well, what is it you know, Robert?”
Robert turned around, faced the window again, and spoke without emotion. “Some years ago, I did a workshop and there was this boy. Jake, his name was. Jake didn’t want to have anything to do with what I was doing that day. He looked as miserable as a human being could. And Jake had good reason to, because you see, eight months before I met Jake he was drinking a bit much and dove into his friend’s pool and broke his neck. And now Jake was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Oh and I...I tried everything I could to engage that kid that day. But about halfway through the workshop, Jake started opening up—he was now talking, he was sharing...And near the end of the day, I did this exercise where people had to cross this line I put on the floor. They cross it if they feel or believe they are the answer to something I ask. Well, I asked if anyone, no matter how many people were around them, no matter how many friends they had, if they still felt alone. Well, Jake wheeled himself across the line. Everyone watched him slowly roll his chair...and after about ten full seconds of looking at him sitting in that wheelchair on the other side of the line, the whole room, suddenly just crossed over to Jake and some girls hugged him, guys high-fived him and they were all saying ‘Don’t worry, Jake, we’ll make sure you never feel alone again.’”
Robert stopped. Seema wasn’t sure it was the end of the story so she added, “Well, that must have felt great—being in that moment—seeing all those students supporting Jake!”
“Yeah, you’re right, Miss Pourshadi, I felt great about that moment. I felt so good about what happened. I told my wife and daughter all about it that night at supper. And my daughter actually got up from table and kissed my forehead, telling me how proud she was of her father. And I really...I really felt I helped create a difference in that kid’s life. Until...until I heard from the principal the next day. She told me that Jake shot himself with his father’s shotgun that night.”
Seema gasped, “Oh no!”
“You see, it didn’t matter what I did, Miss Pourshadi, or what any of those kids did. Jake had lost something and none of us could make it better. We couldn’t fix it for him. We couldn’t rehabilitate him. We couldn’t make him feel—Yes, that’s it; we couldn’t make him feel like he had any purpose to live. We didn’t succeed at giving him enough of a reason to exist.”
Seema was speechless. She tightly pulled at her scarf and watched Robert wheel himself away from the window and start going toward the office door. He stopped and turned his wheelchair around, but only halfway, and then, without looking at her, he said, “So you can stop trying now, Seema. You can finally stop trying to give me a reason.”
35. PRESENT DAY – AT THE HOTEL
Monique’s new sense of purpose had her flying towards the door at the side of the stage. She flung the door open, fully expecting to see Robert sitting in the hallway. But he was not behind the door.
It was just a small, empty hallway about twenty-five feet long. There were three doors. One door was at the end of the hallway and the other two were on the right, side by side, connected to the stage.
She went to the first door and again she took a breath and prepared a smile to greet her husband. But as she turned the doorknob, it wouldn’t budge. It was locked. She quickly put her hand on the next doorknob, still ready and smiling, but it was locked as well.
The doors being locked made her feel a little anxious and she quickly walked the ten feet to the door at the end of the hall. She didn’t pause to take a breath or to smile this time and just quickly grabbed the knob, only to find it locked as well.
She spoke in a half-whisper as she knocked on the door. “Robert? Bobby, are you in there?” She waited and listened, but there was no response. She knocked on the door again and spoke a little louder.
“Bobby...Bobby, are you in there?” Nothing! She moved back to the other two doors. This time knocking louder and speaking in a full voice.
“Bobby, are you in there? Please, if you are, open the door.”
She knocked on each door and repeated, “Bobby, please...please...Bobby, if you’re in there, please open the door. I’m sorry about what I said! Please come out. We need to talk.”
Monique started to feel a little panicked but quickly calmed herself, thinking maybe this wasn’t where Amir said Robert was. So, she walked as fast as she could back out to the front of the stage and got Amir’s attention by waving her hands at him.
Amir left his table and came down to the front of the stage. “What is it, Miss Monique?”
“Robert, he’s not in there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I checked. And all the doors in there are locked. Are you sure he didn’t come back out?”
“No, I think I would have seen him, Miss Monique.”
“Could he have gone into one of those rooms back there?”
“I doubt it, I was back there this morning and I am sure I locked the rooms.”
“Well, maybe one was opened and he went in and locked himself inside.”
“Didn’t you knock on the door to see if he was in there?”
Monique lied and said, “No, sorry, I just checked the door.”
“Okay, I have
the keys to the two rooms along the stage, please let me check the music first and I’ll come down with you and see.”
Amir went back to his table and Monique looked out into the room, scanning every table, but Robert was not there. When Lou caught her eye, he waved and held up a full fork of steak to her in an obvious gesture of showing her what she was missing. He then pointed at the empty chairs beside him. She smiled tightly and held up her index finger to indicate she needed to do something else first.
Amir tapped her on the shoulder, which made her jump. He leaped down from the stage and stood beside her. “Okay, Miss Monique. Come, let’s check.”
She followed Amir, who was jingling the keys as he walked. “I don’t know why he would go into these rooms even if they were open. It’s just a lot of sound equipment and lights. And the other is just filled with extra chairs and tables.”
“I don’t know, maybe he just wandered inside and got locked in?” Monique was becoming more and more anxious and was starting to imagine why Robert would lock himself in a room and not answer.
Amir slid the key in the lock and opened the first door. It was pitch back.
“Ah, I don’t know why they put the light switch behind the door!” Amir said as he walked behind the door and switched the light on.
Bright white, fluorescent lights emblazoned the room.
Monique was now breathing short quick breaths as she looked in the room. It wasn’t very large and had two tables that were covered in monitors, mixing boards and microphones. Six speakers were stacked on top of each other and coils of extension cords hung on the walls. Monique felt a little momentary relief.
“Well, he’s not in here, Miss Monique.”
Monique’s looked at the corner of the room where a couple of huge signs were leaning against some lecterns. High enough to hide a man in a wheelchair, she thought to herself.
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