Three Moments of an Explosion

by China Miéville

  As a TVT practitioner, I’m versed in detective techniques. I’d never asked Annalise any direct questions about Sandra. She’d never even mentioned her full name. Based on what little she had said, though, it hadn’t been difficult, with some careful search-strings and phone calls, to ascertain her details, her address, enough about her life to make a plan.

  Most of the time what our patients need is a compassionate, rigorous, sympathetic interlocutor. Sometimes the externalized trauma-vectors in dysfunctional interpersonal codependent psychodynamics are powerful enough that more robust therapeutic intervention is necessary. I checked my ammunition.

  It’s often parents and partners, but not always. I’ve intervened with teachers, friends, bosses, subordinates, exes, and stalking strangers. In an ideal world, I’d have had longer to plan. It makes things easier. A spring-loaded blade on a timer switch by the cables under a car, and the love-avoiding conduit for inadequacy in my patient Duane B had been lost in an accident. While no one else was on the road, let me add: I’ve never had any collateral damage. The father whose undermining of my patient Vince R kept him in a state of depression and anxiety died in what appeared to be a mugging gone wrong (I study Muay Thai). The guy still punishing his ex for his failure to be responsible for him half a decade on, skillfully feeding his anhedonia, had a tragic allergic reaction (this is why research is so important: I could have wasted time with potassium, cyanide, and so on, but it merely involved some judiciously placed peanut butter). Occasionally, though, therapy might be required on very little notice.

  Sandra entered the room. She held her laptop in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. She wore a dressing gown and expensive glasses. She was tall and curved, with long blond hair, striking and intense-looking. She sat at the table, squinted at her screen.

  I adjusted for wind. I breathed out, steadied my hand.

  As I started to tighten my finger, something shook against me.

  I jerked, released my grip on my weapon and pulled my hands back, blinking. Being startled like that, in that moment, it would take almost nothing, the tiniest movement, to fire at the wrong instant, or to twitch the barrel, and then there’d have been a whole situation.

  It was my phone. A text from Elliott, rescheduling. Another night owl, clearly. I was angry with myself for not turning vibrate mode off during a session. It was unprofessional. I shut the phone down and shook my head. At least I hadn’t left the ringer on.

  I rearranged myself and my rifle, looked back through the scope. Sandra was typing. I focused again. Got her in my crosshairs.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  The shot punched through the window and took out the back of her head. She went face down hard onto her keyboard.

  I reloaded and waited and held my breath. Long seconds passed and nothing happened.

  I was pleased. Annalise had made a real breakthrough.

  I got home at about 6 a.m. When I’d been confident I wouldn’t be interrupted, I’d descended, forced entry and removed the body and whatever money and valuables I could quickly find (as per the ethics of TVT practice, I would only keep money to cover my costs for the evening—everything else I would dump). To any detective with time and energy, this would look like a very peculiar robbery, but a lot of detectives don’t have time or energy. And my patients, of course, know nothing about these radical interventions.

  Annalise has an alibi, and there’s nothing to link this trauma-vector to me.

  I used Sandra’s car to take the body to the river in Red Hook. I weighted it, and sank it. There’s no way it won’t be found. But by the time it is, it’ll simply be even more of a mystery.

  I sent emails to the three patients I’d been due to see that day, postponing, citing illness. I unlocked my work cupboard, moved my katana and put the 2000 back in its box, reshelved the Mellody book back next to the army sniper field manual 23-10. I lay down on the sofa and fell, finally, into some kind of sleep.

  Even after such inadequate rest, the day after a tough session I always wake up energetic. I went out for a large breakfast, and sat for two hours over coffee, writing up my notes.

  None of us knows—well, we shouldn’t—which of our colleagues are TVT. If anyone asks, I’m a psychodynamic therapist. Which is true. Of course we all have close friends in the field, and you pick up cues and clues. I’m sure some of us end up admitting our theoretical approach to close friends we think share it. I never have, but I have suspicions of a few of the therapists I meet.

  We publish in our forums and publications under noms de thérapie—mine is “petita,” a throwback to a brief Lacanian moment. Of course we have our sub-schools, our debates, our symposia. But there’s never been an overview of the field. We’ve never had a textbook, an introduction for the aspirant practitioner.

  The reason my book’s taking so long is because I’ve become more ambitious for it. I want it to fill that gap.

  I want sections on the history of psychotherapy; the influences that fed in to TVT; best practice in the clinic and the field; controversies; talking cures; research techniques; therapeutic intervention at close range (blade-work, poison, unarmed combat); therapy at range; disguising the scene of therapy; responding to a patient’s guilty relief; and so on. The whole book’s going to be interspersed with case studies. I’ve decided to make a virtue of a necessity: last night’s action will illustrate a chapter on emergency interventions.

  Of course I won’t be able to publish openly, under my own name. I won’t profit from it. What I hope, though, is that it might be important for our field. A seminal secret work. My ambitions are high, I openly admit.

  Elliott goes for a more austere look than mine, both in person and in his clinical setting. His walls are white, his pieces of furniture few and plain. He has a small, tidy bookshelf full of dark hardbacks. He eschews pictures for trimmed plants in slim pots. He’s more than ten years older than me, with short pepper-and-salt hair and expensive, slim-fitting suits that he can get away with. He’s in good shape.

  I must want all this authority or I wouldn’t work with him.

  I sat quietly. He wouldn’t be much good at his job if he couldn’t tell when I’ve had a difficult time.

  “So,” he said. “You postponed.”

  “I had to work late. I didn’t have the energy. The focus. But look, I got your text, I came as soon as I could.”

  “Was this to do with your patient?”

  “It was to do with the book. I was researching. For a chapter. Involving the patient, Annalise, yes.”

  I told him about her session, about the post, the messages. Her depression. I told him I was concerned, but at the same time confident she was close to moving toward a new phase.

  “You’ve told me a little about this situation before,” he said.

  “So anyway, afterwards, I went to the gym, and I was going to just wind down, but I couldn’t. It’s been going through my brain. So I gave up and cracked on with some work.”

  “Did you finish it? Your work?” He steepled his fingers.

  “I did,” I said. “I really think I did. I think it was worth doing.”

  “Have you spoken to the patient?”

  “Not yet. I will, though.”

  “I’m sure.” He pursed his lips and looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re very invested in this patient.”

  “You think? I’m invested in all of them.”

  “Of course. But—and I think you may not be aware of this—when you talk about her … Well, take a look.”

  He gestured. I realized I was sitting forward in my chair, as if spectating at a sports match. I sat back, self-conscious.

  “You tend to do that,” he said. “You speak more quickly. I think you’ve become very particularly focused on this patient.”

  “Possibly.”

  “There’s no judgment, you know that. This is part of what makes you a good therapist. And you’re aware that those skills come with dangers. You’re a facilitator: you’re not a savi
or.”

  Elliott gave a rare smile, which I returned. Plenty of people in our line of work have something of a white knight in them.

  “Well,” I said, “I will say I find her … congenial, as well as interesting. So maybe, selfishly, I am invested in her. As a case study. For the book.”

  He put his head to one side. He nodded slowly.

  “Let me tell you what I see,” he said. “You’re tired. You’ve been working very hard, very long hours. Your demeanor changes when you talk about this patient. Which is often. Do you feel manic? You remember your desire for calm? What’s happening is about your investment. This is about you, and in these terms, speaking as your therapist, this patient is about you, too.”

  I was very still.

  I looked away from him, at his books. The DSM-IV. Kohut on narcissistic injury. Jenkins on surveillance techniques. I breathed out.

  Elliott opened his hands. “I feel like you’re carrying something of this person, with her complicity,” he said. “That she’s becoming a function for you. A vector.”

  There’s an empty lot across the street from Annalise’s apartment. I’m crouched there behind an old washing machine. I’m watching the building with a customized AN/PVS-14 night-scope.

  Annalise went to bed forty minutes ago, walking through her apartment dressed in a thin white nightgown, carrying a glass of water, her hand clenched around what I suspect is at least one sleeping pill. She, like me, has insomnia, and any kind of loud work at ground level is always risky, so I’m carrying my JM Special dart gun loaded with an S10 syringe of etorphine hydrochloride.

  It’s not ideal. I’ll be exposed for several seconds, but I’ve already prepped a car, I’ll be across the road fast the moment the seizure starts. No one’s coming back from that amount of M99.

  I took a Provigil earlier, and I feel sharp. I could really have used an early night, but, like Elliott, I take my therapeutic practice very seriously. My priority is my patients.

  As I lean into the battered metal, I hear a faint sound behind me. I turn fast and stare into the shadow. There’s nothing. A few tall weeds wave in the dirt, overlooked by the walls of apartment buildings. A rat, I think. A cat.

  And as I think that, a strong arm goes around my throat and another disarms me with an expert twist, throwing the dart gun across the lot.

  I should have predicted this. He’s a professional. He predicted me, that I’d guess his therapeutic plans and try to stop him. But then I am his patient.

  “I think we should talk about strategies and decision-making, Dana,” Elliott whispers into my ear. He’s trying to get me in a headlock.

  I struggle to get away, then abruptly push back into him. He’s off-balance and I slip out of the hold but he blocks my elbow strike and counterattacks hard enough to send me staggering.

  He’s between me and the dart gun. He’s in the same all-black gear as me, a stab-jacket, cargo pants. He’s got a knife sheathed on his belt. “I understand you have hesitations, and I know this approach will be difficult,” he says, gesturing at Annalise’s window. I can tell from his stance that he prefers groundwork. He wants to go for a takedown. I stagger, act more dazed than I am. He probably knew I’d do that. He’s good at his job.

  “I think we should talk about your mother’s unhappiness,” he says. “It’s time for you to stop carrying it.” He grabs for Aikido nikyo grip but I back out of range. “You’re using your relationship with this patient as a block.”

  We circle. He slaps away my body kick. His guard is up, he’s quick, he’s stronger than me, and he knows me well.

  But I have two things on my side.

  The first is that I do my research. I feint right, then as he goes for the shoot I spin and take out his left knee, where I know he has a sports injury dating back to college. It buckles.

  The second is that I’m his patient.

  I lean over and shove him down and he’s holding back, restraining himself, trying to strike up at me with open hands, going for an immobilizing lock, not a disabling or killing blow. My welfare is his prime consideration. That’s why he’s here.

  “She’s a vector,” he grunts. “Let me do my job.” I put my left hand over his mouth and he tries to bite me through my glove. He grabs for my fingers as I fumble in my stab-jacket pouch for another syringe.

  I’ve never had to take a second shot, to use spare ammunition. That doesn’t mean I’m foolish enough to not bring it.

  I’m not constrained like Elliott, of course. We’re both here for our patients.

  I shove the needle into his neck and push the plunger. His eyes go wide and he grunts under my hand and shakes and tries to dislodge me but he weakens fast. I hold him down as he goes sluggish. He spasms.

  Cautiously, I take my hand away. “Let me help you,” he mumbles while my adrenaline subsides. His eyes roll back and he starts to fit.

  Eventually he stops moving. I sit back and take shaky breaths. I try to be mindful.

  There are no unusual sounds in the streets. No cop cars approaching. I slump with relief. No lights have come on in Annalise’s apartment.

  He’s a heavy, muscular guy: it’s going to be a long night. When Annalise wakes up tomorrow, she won’t even know it, but a serious potential setback in her recovery will have been overcome.

  I need a new therapist.

  AFTER THE FESTIVAL

  Charlie and Tova had been in Dalston Square since before noon, and it was past three. Spring light made the windows and the shop signs shine. “I can’t believe how gentrified this place is,” Charlie said.

  The last band had finished playing several minutes earlier, but Charlie still had to shout over the oomph of a stereo.

  “Yeah yeah blah blah,” Tova said. “I can’t believe how ugly it is. Who’d live here? Come on.” She pulled him by his collar and they squeezed through the crowd to get close to the stage. “Right then,” she said.

  The proscenium around the stage-front was festooned with sponsors’ logos. Technicians in black took away the last of the drum kit, set up microphones, wheeled a big industrial cooker to the back of the stage, and bolted a steel framework into place in the center. They checked the connections, the restraints and chains.

  “They’re running so late,” Charlie said.

  “They always do,” Tova said. “Look, there he is.”

  The young TV presenter was smoking with his back to the chilly wind, going over notes and talking to a striking, well-dressed woman in her fifties, his director, who showed him marks on the stage.

  “Have you ever seen his show?” Tova said. She took a picture of the man. “For the niece,” she explained.

  “Yeah right,” said Charlie.

  Someone in the audience cheered, and the cheer spread and grew louder and more confident. Charlie tapped Tova’s shoulder as a group of men and women in white butcher’s uniforms walked onto the stage. The director waved them to a corner and spoke into her headset.

  The presenter went to the front of the stage and shouted into a mic, “Not yet, you muppets!” He grinned into the laughter and put a finger to his earpiece and listened. He thought to put on a pompous face and hold up his hand to the crowd like someone taking a brief phone call, so there were more laughs.

  “I’m talking bollocks,” he said. “Turns out it is yet.” There was another, louder cheer as the technicians cleared the stage.

  Electronic music came on, too loud.

  “Ouch,” said Tova.

  “Are you ready?” the presenter shouted, raising whoops. You could have hoped for warmer weather but it wasn’t raining. People in the crowd started dancing.

  “He’s such an annoying prick,” Charlie said as the presenter gabbled.

  “Shut up, Granddad,” Tova said. She gripped his arm because, this close to the stage, even over the music, they could hear snorting and the step of hoofs.

  Three more butchers came on. They led a pig in chains.

  The crowd hallooed. Tova ululated and Charlie
laughed.

  The pig was huge, close to two meters from nose to the end of its tail. It was lean and muscular and it strained against its chains with a recalcitrant dignity. Everyone knew it was drugged. Its handlers locked it into position in the reinforced frame and clicked the spatter-guard in place.

  “Oh yuck,” Tova said. She turned away and met Charlie’s eyes. “Tell me when it’s over.”

  “Why do I have to watch?” he said.

  Tova was not alone: many people in the crowd were covering their eyes. The presenter’s inanities did not lessen the tension. Music still played but they turned it down and the pig, perhaps caught up in the tension, grunted louder and louder.

  “Get on with it,” Tova said, still looking at Charlie. “Tell them to get on with it.”

  “All right then,” the presenter announced. Some young men tried to start up a football chant but it didn’t take. The head butcher held an electric device to the pig’s head.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Charlie said.

  When the man triggered it the current made no sound and the pig’s convulsion was abrupt and contained. The crowd hushed to see it spasm and slump in its chains.

  “Is that it?” said Tova.

  Charlie shook his head. “Just the stun.”

  The butcher picked up a knife and cut the animal’s throat.

  Blood hit the plastic shield. People throughout the crowd gasped and Charlie hissed and Tova’s eyes widened at the sight of his expression.

  The organizers turned up the music as the pig bled out and the knifemen and knifewomen started up the burners. “Wait,” Charlie said, but Tova was already turning to see.

  Everyone was quick. By the time the performers were halfway through butchering the carcass, the first rounds of cuts were cooking and the delicious smell was spreading, and the crowd was noisy and the young man from TV had his momentum back. It was a carnival again.

  “OK, I get it,” Charlie said. “He is annoying but he’s quite good at this shit.”

  When Tova shouted, “How can it be this late?” and Charlie looked up in surprise at the dark sky, they were both drunk. People were dancing and lining up for meat. A ska band played at the side of the stage, the lead singer cavorting around the butchers. The pig was nearly gone.