The Mirror Apocalypse

by John Ayang

  “You did,” Barbara replied. “Admittedly, I am having a hard time trusting that that will be the case, but am ready to gamble. So, Crysie did some research on her own, without my knowledge, and found out that her biological father went by the name of ‘California two four nine’ and she confronted me with it. I didn’t know who ‘California two four nine’ was, so I brought her here today so that you can help by letting her know the person’s name. She wants to know and I don’t think there is any need to continue pretending to hide from her what she already knows. So, who is ‘California two four nine’?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Barbara, quit asking pretentious questions about what you already know.”

  “No, Doctor, I don’t know,” Barbara replied, contentiously. “How WOULD I know when you LIED to me? You deceived me and kept me in the dark.”

  “No, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek countered. “I did not lie to you and I did not deceive you. I am positive about that.”

  “Yes, Doctor, you did,” Barbara continued. “Just as you did concerning your marriage to that lady surgeon.”

  “Mom!” Crystal called out, alarmed that her mother was derailing the whole process that started peacefully. “What are you doing, Mom? This is not about you. This is about me. Can you please just let us approach this peacefully?” She was visibly shaken, feeling that her mother’s unjustifiable heckling of Dr. Horacek would make him mad and inflexible.

  “No, Crysie, it’s not about me,” Barbara agreed. “But it is all interlinked, and I am trying to appeal to him to be forthcoming, for your sake.”

  “You don’t make an appeal to someone by heckling and nagging them,” Crystal said, becoming more upset with her mother.

  “It’s okay, Crystal,” Dr. Horacek assured her. “I understand where your mother is coming from. She has every right to be angry with me. And she is right, too. It is all interlinked, but I can assure you that it’s all going to be well in the end. Barbara, the man who went by the nickname ‘California two four nine’ is ready to take responsibility. He promises to be forthcoming. That, I can assure you. But first, I think we should all go out and have lunch together before we come back to listen to him. His story might turn out to be a long one. Again, he promises to be forthcoming.”

  “He had better be,” Barbara continued, unrelentingly. “Everything hangs on his being honest. That’s what Crysie, here, is looking for. By the way, where is your wife? I hope we will be gone before she returns. The last thing we need is a jealous, angry wife trying to protect her husband. Where is she? At work?”

  “Dead,” Dr. Horacek said curtly, without emotion.

  “What?!” Barbara thought she did not hear correctly.

  “She died,” Dr. Horacek repeated with the same emotionless demeanor.

  “I’m so sorry!” Crystal said, genuinely feeling for Dr. Horacek. “Was she ill?”

  “Automobile accident,” Dr. Horacek replied, still without emotion. There were several seconds of awkward silence as Barbara continued staring blankly at Dr. Horacek. Crystal looked down at the coffee table top, squirming uncomfortably in her seat. “She died on impact—she AND her boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend!” Barbara blurted out. “What do you mean, ‘her boyfriend’?”

  “Our marriage fell apart, Barbara, five years after you left the clinic and went to Texas. Of course, you know it was a business marriage; it wasn’t really founded on love. The good thing is that there were no children involved. So, it was an easy process. She was happy with her new man, and I was happy to be left alone to face work at my clinic. According to the story, they were returning from El Paso, where they went to visit his parents, and apparently, he had had enough to drink, and fell asleep at the wheel at a high rate of speed, veered off the road, hit the ramp of the bridge, and somersaulted, plunging to the road crossing bellow. The wreckage was unbelievable. This happened almost three years to the day after our divorce.”

  “Dr. Horacek,” Barbara called, still staring blankly into space.

  “Yes?” he replied.

  “I think I will take the Jamaican rum now,” she said.

  “You are a bundle of surprises, Barbara,” he said, getting up to pour her the drink at the bar.

  “I am so sorry for your loss, Sir,” Crystal said again, unsure of anything else to say at that moment.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Dr. Horacek said, coming back with the drink for Barbara. “I don’t miss her. I’m not callous, and I am not happy that she died that way. I don’t think she deserved to die violently as she did. It’s just that time had elapsed since we got divorced, and we didn’t really click emotionally to the extent that I would miss her so much to consider her death a loss to me. If you understand what I mean.” He crossed the room and began to pull down the blinds. “If you ladies don’t mind, we can go out to lunch together. It’s almost past lunch time. When we come back from lunch, I will explain everything.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” Barbara said as she put down her empty glass and got up.

  “I’m sure I do, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek replied with a tinge of wry humor.

  Later that afternoon, at approximately 2:53 p.m., and back at the house, Dr. Josef Bernard Horacek killed the engine of his Toyota Prius, got out, and entered the house through the door connecting the garage to the kitchen. He crossed the kitchen into the siting room and made for the front door to open it for Barbara and Crystal, whom he had dropped off at the front of the house while he drove around to the back of the house, where the garage was located. Before he could turn the knob of the door, the soft music from the doorbell chimed. He opened the door to see Barbara looking straight into his face, her face flushed and pleasant, almost smiling. He knew that the category three purple Margaritas—a.k.a., Bahama Mama—that Barbara had gulped down at the restaurant always had more than a warm effect on her, but the look on her face was not that of a woman tipsy on cherry-tinged rum. He guessed she probably rang it as a prank, but he decided to ask why, anyway.

  “You rang the doorbell?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, looking pleasantly at his face. Then she added, for his benefit, “I like the music. It’s soft and celebratory. Happy Birthday, Dr. Josef Bernard Horacek!”

  “Oh, gosh! Oh, gosh! Oh, my goodness! You remembered?!” Dr. Horacek exclaimed in disbelief. Barbara thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head because they bulged with so much excitement. “Barbara, you remembered my birthday, and I forgot it myself! Oh, gosh! Thank you! Thank you so much! Please, come inside!”

  “Truthfully, I forgot it myself, but remembered in the restaurant when the waiters gathered around the elderly couple who sat three tables away from us and sang Happy Anniversary for them,” Barbara said, taking her seat again on the sofa.

  “And that should have been my cue,” Dr. Horacek replied in mild self-excoriation. “I stopped celebrating my birthday the year my wife and I got divorced. She always planned and executed it. When she was gone, I saw no need to continue the ritual. Moreover, it would have always been a painful reminder, instead of a pleasant experience.”

  “Happy Birthday, Dr. Horacek!” Crystal chimed in her felicitations.

  “Thank you, Miss Sanders!” he replied, with a slight nod of the head. Then, he looked again, longingly at Barbara. “Barbara, you still remembered my birthday, even after these fifteen years!”

  “Sixteen years,” Barbara corrected again. She thought Dr. Horacek was on the verge of breaking down. She could see he was struggling to hold back tears. “When I recalled it in the restaurant, my first thought was that you took us out to celebrate it. But as I watched, I realized that that was not the case, and that you had probably forgotten. Your doorbell music sounds like a birthday song. That’s why I rang it.”

  “Thank you, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek said, composing himself. “Thank you so much. As it stands, I am indebted to you so much that I need to start
paying up. And I will pay by installments.” He pulled up a chair and sat directly in front of Barbara and Crystal, instead of sitting on the sofa, as before. He relaxed, crossed one leg over the other, and began to speak. “So, first installment: Miss Crystal Sanders,” he addressed himself directly to Crystal. “Where do I start?”

  “I have something here to show you, Sir.” Crystal reached into her handbag and brought out a piece of paper, the one that she had shoved in front of her mother three weeks earlier, the evening of her outburst, and asked the question, “Surely you remember the man who went by this name and worked at the clinic the same time you worked there?” She handed it to Dr. Horacek.

  “That’s the name of the man whom I discovered to be my biological father,” she said, evidently. “And as it stands, the only man I know as the owner of that name is you, Sir. Are you my dad, Sir? My biological father?”

  “As sure as daylight follows the night, Miss Sanders, I am Josef Bernard Horacek and, as far as I can tell the code name here, California 249, is, or was, my code name.” Then he turned to Barbara and asked, “You knew about this and you didn’t let me in on it?”

  “I didn’t know Crysie was doing research to find out her biological father’s identity,” Barbara protested. “How could I have known when she only confronted me about it three weeks ago?”

  “I don’t mean the research part,” Dr. Horacek replied. “I mean the fact that she already found out and linked my real name to my code name, ‘California 249’. You could have told me she already knew that for a fact. Since you called me up last week, we have talked twice over the phone. You could have dropped me a clue.”

  “You mean the way you dropped me a clue that you were my ‘sperm donor’ for this past eighteen years?” Barbara asked, mockingly.

  “Okay, Barbara. That’s very sarcastic.” Dr. Horacek said, resignedly. “Now that you’ve had your revenge, are we even?”

  “No, Sir!” Barbara replied, then added, “Not until I give you a thorough whipping for messing with my emotions for these past eighteen years,” seemingly spoiling for a fight.

  “Mom!” Crystal called out, warily. “You’re starting again!”

  “I’m so sorry! I got carried away!” Barbara sounded calmer, but suddenly stoked the fire again by addressing Dr. Horacek directly. “I just want to let you know that I would not have made any claims on you if you had told me that I was carrying your child in my womb.”

  “Mom, why are you doing this?” Crystal asked, visibly irate. She was about to launch into a tirade against her mom, but Dr. Horacek deftly interjected.

  “Miss Sanders, please! Don’t lose you calm. Your mother means well. I understand where she is coming from and she is right.” Then he addressed Barbara directly. “I must say, Barbara, that I am stung to the quick by your last statement. And it’s more painful than the poison from a hornet’s sting because you and I know that that is not the truth. You know, partly, why I couldn’t tell you that I was the so-called ‘sperm donor’. The part that you don’t know is what I am going to tell you now, if you would please allow me.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I signed a contract binding myself to a clause forbidding me to make inquiries about the identity of my donor,” Barbara acknowledged with a derisive grudge. “But you could have told me later, considering that we were close enough for you to do so. So, what other explanation do you have to show, that you were not deliberately walling me out because you thought I would make demands on you?”

  “That is very strange, Barbara,” Dr. Horacek replied with a faint smile and a slight squint. “You know the same could be said about you. You were eager to sign that part of the contract because you thought, based on the information you got, that the donor was a financially distressed construction worker. You were eager to wall him out so he wouldn’t know the woman who was the recipient of his sperm. You were afraid that being financially distressed, he might try to suck up to you, using the fact of his being the biological father of your child.”

  “Oh yeah? That’s what you think I did, you son of a…” Barbara launched.

  “Mom!” Crystal interrupted, almost yelling. “If you continue this, I will walk out and take a taxi back to the hotel.” Then she addressed Dr. Horacek. “Sir, is there any way we can change the tone and focus of this conversation? I didn’t come here to listen to you two fight with yourselves over each other. Y’all had the opportunity to fall in love with each other, but didn’t. Y’all missed it. Can’t y’all move on? This was about me, not either of you. It’s about MY identity and MY sanity. Is that too much to ask?”

  Crystal’s vehemence had a calming effect on both of her parents. For several seconds, no one spoke. Then eventually, Dr. Horacek cleared his throat and began to speak.

  “Miss Sanders, I must say, that was quite intense, but I loved it.” He paused and smiled faintly. “I loved it because that was me coming out of you. I loved the passion…”

  “Dr. Horacek, can you please be civil enough and quit claiming credits so early,” Barbara said, plaintively. “At least, I never knew you to be that greedy,” she added, intending to hurt him with the calculated insult. Instead, her insult had a punchy effect on Dr. Horacek. He cracked up, laughing joyfully.

  “I’m not claiming any credits. Miss Sanders is my child, as far as blood is concerned,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “I’M her mother,” Barbara retorted, petulantly. “I carried her in my womb for nine months, almost ten.”

  Crystal rolled her eyes exasperatingly and sank back into the sofa. She figured there was nothing she could do, but wait for her combatting parents to either satiate themselves in their fight, or get tired of it, whichever came first. She, too, was riled at the turn of events, but she was grateful that Dr. Horacek DID acknowledge paternity of her. What remained was whether he would agree to be her dad. That part, she intended to find out, if her mother would allow sanity to prevail. The next statement by Dr. Horacek fanned her hopes.

  “Barbara, let’s not spoil the day by intractable squabbling. You don’t know how both of you have made my day today. I can tell you in all honesty that I am one lucky son of a bitch. You called me that many years ago, remember? And you were about to call me that again today, before Miss Sanders interrupted you. Only that you forgot to add the adjective ‘lucky’. For me, this is how I see it: What would have been, eighteen years ago, has come full circle to be. You are her mom. I am her father. Whether we like it or not, the three of us in this room are family, even if a loose one. So, I am still a lucky son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t brag about it,” Barbara retorted, still defiantly petulant.

  “I won’t, although I have the right,” Dr. Horacek replied, half appeasing and half mocking. “When I finish my story, you will, perhaps, see what I mean and you will count yourself lucky, too, if you can calm down enough to dismount your high horse of righteous anger.”

  Barbara started to retort, but caught the glare in Crystal’s glance and retreated into her corner of the sofa, squirming. She sat back, pouting slightly, crossed her legs, and folded her arms across her chest without a word, seething impotently like a restrained tigress. Dr. Horacek shifted his weight in the chair, sat up, looked straight at Crystal, and began his story.

  “My real name is Josef Ezra Ben Murdoch. My ancestry is not strictly Bohemian, but Jewish. My family history is quite a checkered one and I will not bore you with it. Suffice it to say that our family name had to be changed from Murdoch to Horacek for survival reasons. That is how my grandparents escaped the gas chambers and were able to migrate from Bavaria to Schellingwoude in Amsterdam, in the Spring of 1945. In 1955, my parents decided to migrate once more from Amsterdam to the United States of America. Born in Amsterdam in December of 1945, on the Feast of the Holy Family, I was christened Josef Bernard. Although my parents were Jewish, they were influenced more by the cultural milieu of Christendom than by tradition
al Judaism. So, I was christened and dedicated to the foster father of Jesus and the husband of Mary. I was almost 9 years old at the time we came to the United States. That year, something very tragic happened in our family, and to this day, I am still thinking that that incident may have been the catalyst in my father’s decision to migrate. It was also an incident that left an indelible mark on my memory and, perhaps, contributed to my future life and career as an OB/GYN.

  My auntie, Susana, my dad’s only sister, was nursing a pregnancy. For some reason that nobody could tell, she went into labor on a certain day in the seventh month, and was taken to the hospital. The doctors decided to deliver the child by caesarian section. By the time she was operated upon, the child had already died in her womb. My auntie died of complications five days later. I was seriously scarred by that incident because I was close to my auntie. Though it’s fuzzy in my mind now, it must have been then that I decided that I would grow up to be a medical doctor. When I finally entered medical school, my choice of specialty was definitely influenced by the memory of what happened to my auntie.”

  Dr. Horacek’s story was fascinating and Crystal listened with rapt attention. Barbara was enchanted, too, but pretended nonchalance. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she enjoyed his story. Dr. Horacek’s story was fast-paced. He described his years at Berkeley School of Medicine, where he joined the Theta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and adopted the code name, California 249. He explained that the code name was a simple way of referencing where he resided in apartment 249 in California Hall on the west side of the campus. He explained that his first cultural awakening occurred at Berkeley, where he met two African members of the fraternity who, according to his honest judgment, were sort of prodigies.

  “One of them was Martin Osei Damkwa, from Ghana, and the other was Barnaby Edidiong Eshiet, from Nigeria, the first son of the Chief of the Annang tribe. He was always vain and boastful and hated his first name, which, according to him, was a symbol of European colonization of the mind of the African man. So, he eventually switched the order of his names altogether, and started going by Edidiong Eshiet. They were always impeccably dressed, and Edidiong eventually attached the title ‘Prince’ to his name and went by Prince Edidiong till we graduated from medical school and dispersed, as it were, for internship. Dr. Damkwa went back to Ghana and, last I heard about him, became the Minster of Health in his country.