command and submission to command.
“No propositions,” the sheik asserted. “There will be no designs outside the grand design. You learners will go to our southern madrasa with Hassan.”
“But, sir—”
His good eye slitted and became even fiercer, and the Afghani bodyguards seemed to lean closer. “I don’t never take no refusals.”
This time the woman who sat in Auslander’s waiting room appeared more or less normal. She was thin and pretty and blond, with her eyes buried in a magazine called Beginnings. She didn’t even look up as he crossed the room to press Auslander’s button. Almost immediately, the man’s head appeared and nodded him in.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I wasn’t sure, either. I’ve been to the boys’ school but there’s not much to report yet.”
“I didn’t expect much yet.”
Jack Liffey sat exactly where he had sat before and stared at the seascape print, obviously meant to be soothing. Fierce surf pounded down on some jagged rocks. Maybe it would actually be soothing once the sea’s rasp had smoothed the earth down to a billiard ball, he thought.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No.”
They were both silent for a while.
“So, losing Marlena surprised you with its power. It knocked you for a loop.”
Jack Liffey said nothing.
“That’s what I hear, anyway. I imagine it shook up your sense of yourself and your own strengths. It made it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Made you rethink a lot of your life and wonder where you’re heading.”
Jack Liffey wondered if the door across the office led to the outside world. The window shade was pretty bright, and his sense of the geography of the complicated hallway suggested he was probably at the rear, with the backyard just beyond. He could just walk out.
“Sooner or later that happens to all of us, if we suffer enough of a loss, or a truly unexpected loss. The emotional power of it isn’t really a mystery, or it shouldn’t be. Loss is more or less the primal experience. The first separation from the mother, the first realization that we’re not the center of the universe, the best friend–playmate who moves away. A large enough loss delivers us straight back to childhood. I mean, emotionally.”
Jack Liffey wondered if Dicky Auslander, in his years of dispensing facile advice to desperate people, had ever had one of them come across the room and punch him out. He figured it might even be good for the man, might improve his sense of perspective.
“A place of consolation is gone with the loss, and you’re helpless about it. But as an adult, you no longer have the defenses of childhood, so it’s really worse. You can’t invent some kind of magic meaning for your loss. You know better now. Loss is just loss.”
He noticed that Auslander had buttoned his open-necked shirt wrong, an extra buttonhole flying high under his chin. He thought about striding across the office, pushing him down in the chair, and then wrenching the shirt open to rebutton it for him. It would be very satisfying.
“The anguish of loss is like being trapped in a moment of time that can never change, never get better,” Auslander pontificated. “Like right now. If we go on glaring at each other for fifty-five minutes, it’s going to get pretty boring.”
“I thought there was a rule in psychology that the party in question has to ask for help to do any good.”
“It’s not hard and fast. There’s such a thing as intervention when things get bad. As Lon and Virginia tried to do for you, by talking to me. It’s a sign they care for you.”
Once more there was a faint but terrible shriek from one of the other rooms. It was weak, yet quite distinct. And as it came again, over and over like a ritual of pain giving, then tailed off, they both looked at the wall as if they could see through it to that horrible distress. It reminded him that there were other, haunted, worlds all around, overlapping his, and many
“No propositions,” the sheik asserted. “There will be no designs outside the grand design. You learners will go to our southern madrasa with Hassan.”
“But, sir—”
His good eye slitted and became even fiercer, and the Afghani bodyguards seemed to lean closer. “I don’t never take no refusals.”
This time the woman who sat in Auslander’s waiting room appeared more or less normal. She was thin and pretty and blond, with her eyes buried in a magazine called Beginnings. She didn’t even look up as he crossed the room to press Auslander’s button. Almost immediately, the man’s head appeared and nodded him in.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I wasn’t sure, either. I’ve been to the boys’ school but there’s not much to report yet.”
“I didn’t expect much yet.”
Jack Liffey sat exactly where he had sat before and stared at the seascape print, obviously meant to be soothing. Fierce surf pounded down on some jagged rocks. Maybe it would actually be soothing once the sea’s rasp had smoothed the earth down to a billiard ball, he thought.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No.”
They were both silent for a while.
“So, losing Marlena surprised you with its power. It knocked you for a loop.”
Jack Liffey said nothing.
“That’s what I hear, anyway. I imagine it shook up your sense of yourself and your own strengths. It made it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Made you rethink a lot of your life and wonder where you’re heading.”
Jack Liffey wondered if the door across the office led to the outside world. The window shade was pretty bright, and his sense of the geography of the complicated hallway suggested he was probably at the rear, with the backyard just beyond. He could just walk out.
“Sooner or later that happens to all of us, if we suffer enough of a loss, or a truly unexpected loss. The emotional power of it isn’t really a mystery, or it shouldn’t be. Loss is more or less the primal experience. The first separation from the mother, the first realization that we’re not the center of the universe, the best friend–playmate who moves away. A large enough loss delivers us straight back to childhood. I mean, emotionally.”
Jack Liffey wondered if Dicky Auslander, in his years of dispensing facile advice to desperate people, had ever had one of them come across the room and punch him out. He figured it might even be good for the man, might improve his sense of perspective.
“A place of consolation is gone with the loss, and you’re helpless about it. But as an adult, you no longer have the defenses of childhood, so it’s really worse. You can’t invent some kind of magic meaning for your loss. You know better now. Loss is just loss.”
He noticed that Auslander had buttoned his open-necked shirt wrong, an extra buttonhole flying high under his chin. He thought about striding across the office, pushing him down in the chair, and then wrenching the shirt open to rebutton it for him. It would be very satisfying.
“The anguish of loss is like being trapped in a moment of time that can never change, never get better,” Auslander pontificated. “Like right now. If we go on glaring at each other for fifty-five minutes, it’s going to get pretty boring.”
“I thought there was a rule in psychology that the party in question has to ask for help to do any good.”
“It’s not hard and fast. There’s such a thing as intervention when things get bad. As Lon and Virginia tried to do for you, by talking to me. It’s a sign they care for you.”
Once more there was a faint but terrible shriek from one of the other rooms. It was weak, yet quite distinct. And as it came again, over and over like a ritual of pain giving, then tailed off, they both looked at the wall as if they could see through it to that horrible distress. It reminded him that there were other, haunted, worlds all around, overlapping his, and many
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