by Davis Bunn
“I suppose . . . Luke would be fitting.”
“Then Luke it is. Do you like stories, young man?”
“Very much.”
“My own grandfather, of blessed memory, was a senior official in the Shah’s government. He even once served as Iran’s ambassador to France. I rarely speak of such matters. But tonight we are revealing secrets. When my grandfather first detected signs of the revolution, he began pestering my father, who was a very . . . How should I say this?”
Lucius found no need to speak. The pavement was cracked and uneven. The alley was made even tighter by the cars parked along one side. Their only illumination came from the windows they passed and the silver moon. Revealing his own secrets had left Lucius strangely replete. As though he had scaled some great peak, rising through clouds of emotions so thick he did not even realize what he had climbed. He looked up at the moon and took long breaths of the shadowed night.
“Decisive,” Sonya went on. “Yes. And confrontational. He was Tehran’s senior prosecutor and very political. When my grandfather insisted the family flee Iran, my father refused. For eight months they argued over this. And then, finally, my father relented and sent me and my brother to America. I was eighteen. Alas, Selim, my brother, was never in good health, and died of kidney failure the year after we arrived. I was very much alone, and very much broke, because all of the funds we had brought were devoured by his medical bills.” Sonya was silent for a time, then, “I dreamed of Selim recently. After all these years, he is with me still.”
Lucius asked, “What of your family in Iran?”
“Lost. All of them. Asha and her parents are my family now. There was a doctor who treated my brother. A young resident, a man who deeply cared about my poor brother and, eventually, for me. For myself, I seem to have been head over heels in love with this young doctor from the very first meeting. With a Jew. Me, a Muslim and a Persian. And so eventually I accepted the invitation of marriage from an American Jew.”
They emerged from the narrow lane into a well-lit street. A car passed them on whispering tires. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Otherwise the night and the avenue were theirs. “When word of my wedding reached Tehran, my family disowned me. More than that, young man. They spoke the service for the recently deceased over an open grave. My father commanded that my name never again be uttered.”
Lucius halted beneath a streetlight. He had no idea what to say, so remained silent. The woman’s features were turned craven by the yellow shadows. She appeared a figure drawn with such power that the meager events of any modern era were rendered insignificant.
“I heard the news from a neighbor, my mother’s dearest friend, who wrote in secret,” Sonya continued. “The letter arrived the same day I learned I was pregnant with Asha’s father. And I knew in that first horrid moment that I faced a choice. One that would shape the remainder of all my days. Either I turned away from the tragic events that had shaped one reality, or it would consume me. Blind me. Seal my fate. Ruin any hope I might have of being the mother and wife that I yearned to be. But there was a very grave problem. The past is the dominant force in my culture. It is very difficult for an outsider to comprehend the power that the past holds over every act, every decision, every spoken word. The past is now. Understand that and you begin to understand the Persian mind. And yet for me to succeed in this new life, I had to turn away from my past and my heritage.”
“The past is now,” Lucius murmured.
“And so for the sake of my new family, I turned away from the impossibles. Not once, but every time the unbearable elements of life threatened to overwhelm me. My brother’s funeral. A wedding in an empty office of the justice of the peace, with two strangers for witnesses. News of the Iranian revolution and the Shah’s downfall. The disappearance of my family in Tehran. I continued to turn away. I built a life with what I was given. With what brought me and my husband joy.”
Lucius felt his being resonate at some deep and invisible level to the power of her words. “Could I see you again?”
Sonya took her time inspecting him, then replied, “You strike me as an intensely lonely young man.”
“Jessica said very much the same thing.”
“Jessica is your lady friend from . . .”
“Before. Yes. Jessica Waverly.”
Her dark eyes glittered as she examined him. Luke waited patiently. She had not dismissed his impossible tale out of hand. She had offered him a companionship worthy of the night. Sonya could look as long as she liked.
She said, “Asha considers it part of her professional duties to create a safe haven for her patients.”
“I am not one of those,” Lucius replied, his voice as soft as her own.
“She does not see that.”
“Yet,” Lucius corrected. “Sooner or later, that must change.”
“But for now, she thinks she has failed you tonight. That is what has left her so troubled, far more than anything that Jeffrey might have told her. Asha wants her patients to know that when they are with her, they are safe, they are cared for, they are shielded, and they can reveal their innermost selves.”
“Her patients are very fortunate indeed,” Lucius said.
Lucius stood there, enduring her penetrating gaze and listening to the passing traffic, until Sonya said, “I think it would be very nice to speak with you again. But perhaps it would be best if you allow me to discuss this with my granddaughter when I feel the time has arrived.”
“I understand.”
But Sonya felt a need to explain. “Asha is a skilled professional. But she is also a product of her culture and her generation. My Asha sees the world as black or white, left or right. I, on the other hand, am gifted with the flexibility of the East.”
“You believe me?”
Sonya lifted her chin, a polite negation. “That is not for me to decide this night. What I do believe is this. You need a friend.”
Then Asha came rushing around the corner. “Sorry to make you wait.”
“It was a pleasure,” Lucius said. And meant it.
CHAPTER 20
The next morning Asha sat in Dino’s outer office and listened to the muffled voices from next door. Saturday morning was often a clinician’s busiest appointment period. The weekend’s woes collected into a crisis that could not wait. She winced as a strident voice shrieked through the wall, “I’m at my wit’s end!” Her eyes felt grainy and her limbs partially disconnected. Her sleep had been repeatedly shattered by impressions of two men. One of them had shouted with the voice of a Ferrari, the other spoke calmly about events from the previous century. Both seemed amazed that she would question their ability to spin truth from lies. Which they had been doing, of course. In the harsh morning light it seemed abundantly clear that Luke Benoit was fashioning a new reality that suited only him, one as false as his previous state of perpetual victimhood.
Which was what she was reflecting upon as the door opened and the couple stormed past, and Dino waved her inside.
Dino’s inner sanctum looked more like a leather-lined library than a clinician’s office. All the medical journals and books were hidden in antique mahogany cabinets. Instead of a desk, Dino used an oval table of some blond wood, probably maple. There was no large computer screen, no phone, not even drawers. A trio of Swedish recliners encircled a coffee table by the side window. The walls held paintings by local artists, mostly seascapes, including one Asha had always been drawn to by the late Miramar Bay painter, Gareth Cassick. The result was a gentle invitation to rest easy and talk freely with a friend and confidant.
Dino greeted her with, “Coffee?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Dino walked to the rear corner and opened a sliding wooden screen to reveal a full kitchenette. “When is Luke due?”
“Now. He’s late.”
“Then I’ll come straight to the point. Asha, I had the distinct impression that last night you faced some issue unrelated to Luke.” He refilled his mu
g and carried it back to the chair behind his table. “I just wanted to be certain it wasn’t that you were troubled over meeting in my home.”
“No, not at all. Last night . . .” Asha hated talking about her own problems, but there was no alternative. She described the emergency that had caused her to be an hour late. Rushing back to the apartment, revealing to Luke where she lived, her grandmother waiting at the door, and Jeffrey. And the argument. In public. In front of a patient.
Dino’s response surprised her. He rose from his desk and walked to the window, then returned and picked up his mug and stepped back over to where he could watch the passing traffic. His office was across the broad thoroughfare from the university’s main entrance. Over half of his patients came through the university’s medical center. He wanted them to understand that this was a place both separate and private. And yet close enough to show a clear sense of understanding to the world and pressures they currently faced. “I suppose you heard about my divorce.”
“I knew it had happened, but very little more.”
“She ran away with my childhood friend, the best man at our wedding. Apparently, it had been going on for several years.” He kept his face close enough to the window to fog the pane with his breath. “At such times, Asha, it is almost impossible to keep your private world from crowding into your professional life.”
She swallowed hard. “I try so hard.”
“And I want you to know that as far as I can see, you are doing an excellent job.” He returned to his chair. “I’m also very sorry that you’ve had to endure this ongoing trial with your former boyfriend.”
Asha managed, “Thank you.”
“As for Luke, the patient trusts you. You need to forge an even closer relationship. In some respects, seeing you at your weakest may actually help us save his life. I think . . .” He was interrupted by a soft chime. Dino swung his chair around, checked the security cam wired to his tablet, and said, “Your patient has arrived.”
CHAPTER 21
Lucius was seventeen minutes late arriving at Dr. Barbieri’s office because he had been taking his first lesson in computers.
He would have been much later, had it not been for how his instructor’s mother had become anxious.
His teacher was a nine-year-old lad named Matt. Lucius had met him while seated by the fountain, reading another astonishing newspaper after another splendid breakfast. Over the water’s music he had heard the faint sound of tapping, and found a serious young boy typing furiously into what Lucius learned was called a “laptop.” Lucius had apologized for interrupting, introduced himself, then asked Matt what he was doing. Matt had responded with questions of his own, until Lucius found himself dancing around an explanation of why he had no idea how to operate a computer. But, apparently, Matt had experience in asking questions for which adults supplied no decent answer. And Matt clearly relished the chance to share his passion. So Matt began explaining the rudiments of computing to a complete and utter neophyte. Forty-five minutes later, Matt’s mother emerged, and Lucius found it necessary to retreat from her far more strident questions. Only then did he realize he was already late.
Asha’s directions were clear enough. The office building was only half a mile from the guesthouse, a four-story block of offices built to resemble the older structures along the avenue.
Lucius pressed the button by the name BARBIERI and pushed the door open. He reveled in the strength to climb two flights of stairs. The outer door was ajar, but Lucius knocked anyway, and Dino called for him to enter.
Dino’s office was entirely different from the barely controlled chaos of his small home. The doctor’s professional persona was revealed here. Everything was precisely laid out, a theater set intended to relax the patient. Lucius felt the old tension return in a rush, his instantaneous response to all the half-truths so many doctors used to control, to dominate, to reduce the patient to measurable components.
Asha’s greeting was the only genuine element in the entire place. “Thank you for coming, Luke.”
Dino shook his hand. “Or should we call you Lucius?”
He saw the same tight analysis behind Dino’s smile. So similar to Dino’s grandfather, and so different. “Whichever you prefer.”
“In that case, let’s stay with Luke.” He pointed to a chair on the empty table’s opposite side. “Is that suitable? Or would you be more comfortable on the sofa?”
“Most definitely not.”
Asha said, “You seem tense, Luke.”
He looked from one face to the other, and knew a mild dismay over the fact that Asha had joined forces with the other doctor. “Evidently neither of you accept my account as true.”
“I haven’t said that.”
“No lies. Please. We’ve been honest up to this point. Let’s hold on to that at least.”
Asha nodded slowly. “All right, Luke. You are correct. The clinical evidence suggests that you have entered into a delusional state. One that could very well endanger your life.”
“Then we don’t have anything further to discuss.”
But as he rose from the chair, Dino said, “If you leave my office now, I will be compelled to alert the police.”
Lucius found it something of a relief to have the man’s hostility out in the open. “Then I will have no choice but to revert to legal action.”
This time Dino did not back down. “You can take whatever action you like. But recent court decisions are on my side. Given what you stated last night, in front of multiple witnesses, the court may very well decide that you pose a distinct threat to yourself and to others.”
Asha now sided with her associate. “Are you willing to take that risk, Luke?”
“I don’t see that either of you are offering me a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice.” Dino responded with the sort of superior distance that Lucius had known and despised his entire life. “You can continue regular counseling sessions with Ms. Meisel.”
Asha tried for a more placating tone. “We need to ensure that you remain safe, Luke. It is our professional responsibility—”
“Very well. I agree.”
Dino went on talking. “And you will begin a regimen of medicines that are intended—”
“No drugs. Not now, not ever.”
“Luke, be reasonable. You can’t expect us—”
“I will not allow you to cloud my mental capacities. I will take you to court over that if I must.”
Asha asked gently, “Instead, you will continue to self-medicate with marijuana and alcohol?”
Lucius shook his head over the revelation. He felt disgust, and yet could not help but feel pity as well. What a total disaster that poor young man’s life must have been.
“Luke?”
“I will agree to weekly blood tests to ensure that I remain free of all such nonsense,” Lucius replied. “If I fail to do so, then I agree to take your medicines.”
It was their turn to hesitate. Lucius realized he had entered into familiar terrain. He was putting together a deal. He was negotiating terms.
Dino’s chair creaked softly as he leaned back. “What you told us last night, Luke, was a mental and emotional fabrication, one that I think you sincerely believe to be true. Do you see where I’m coming from?”
Lucius was tempted to simply depart. Accept counseling, leave it at that. Nothing he said was going to change this doctor’s opinion. Lucius had endured the iron-hard superiority of the medical profession for most of his previous existence. They spent years learning the discipline of medicine. They were so tightly focused on what they had been forced to endure in their training that they refused to even consider the variants beyond those boundaries.
Asha pleaded, “Please, Luke. Please let us help you.”
Lucius knew it was probably futile, but the young woman’s genuine concern pushed him to try once more. He asked Dino, “You have a relative named Nico Barbieri?” When Lucius saw Dino was not going to respond, he went on. “
You must be related. There is so much of that man in you. And so much that is absent, I’m sorry to say. Check his records. I was his patient for almost twenty years. Lucius Quarterfield. Died in May of 1969 . . .”
Lucius stopped talking because he saw the walls descend over Dino’s gaze. Dino’s expression turned hard, angry. And in that instant Lucius knew there was no hope for him here in this room. Whatever Asha might have felt about his claims no longer mattered. Dino would force her to choose between her professional future and the outlandish claims of a former patient. Lucius was glad now he had not shown them the advertisement torn from that morning’s paper, the one folded and stuck in his back pocket. Four pages this time, all color, all promoting Quarterfield Motors. They did not need to know what this possibly meant about his Jessica.
Lucius rose from his chair and said to Asha, “I agree to counseling. And blood tests. But no drugs. I wish you both a good day.”
CHAPTER 22
Asha had never before seen her supervisor so angry.
“I am utterly baffled,” Dino said. He rose from his chair as though drawn by threads of rage. “How did he get his hands on information about my grandfather? Did you say something?”
“No, Dino. Of course not. But your grandfather was a physician, I recall you telling Sonya.”
“Internal medicine, with a focus on the long-term effect of childhood diseases.” Dino’s gaze remained tightly focused upon the empty chair across from where he stood. “Your patient obtained information that could be used to manipulate the situation. It is worse than wrong. It is dangerous.”
Asha realized what upset him so much. Dino had lost control of the session.
“I am utterly flummoxed. How he could possibly have accessed my grandfather’s medical records is beyond me.” Dino pointed at the door leading to his outer office. “That man is a menace to himself and everyone around him. He needs to be locked up. For his own good.” Dino’s chest rose and fell like he was coming off a marathon run. “I am going to call the police and demand that he be placed in the secure wing. Today.”
