by Cote Smith
* * *
“Took you long enough,” Tracey said. She and Emile were sitting in Emile’s office, the fan humming around them. James was better now. Tracey typed up how Emile had gotten through to him, by listening, by matching wavelengths. With James, there were waves upon waves. A swift-moving tide. Emile had to learn their patterns, which ones pulled and which ones pushed, which ones lifted and which ones dragged. Only then could he get James to listen, to understand. That his last story was just that, a narrative his mind made up. After Emile showed him a fiction, he could show him a fact, and show James the difference. That way, long after he left here, James could spot the rogue waves that threatened to pull him under, and stay far, far away.
“You know there are machines that can measure this kind of stuff,” Tracey said. “We could throw some electrodes on you, read your brain waves, and see when they’re synced. Might go quicker.”
“No,” Emile said. “No machines.” He knew what it would do to James to be hooked up to something like that. He would feel like a lab rat, as Emile had at the Eldridge. “It just takes time.”
“What does?” Tracey asked.
Emile stood up. He patted Tracey on the shoulder on his way out. “To get someone to listen.”
He walked down to the beach. It was late, a few hours before dawn. The limestone family was still hidden in the dark. He figured he’d find Moyer there, sitting on the sand, staring at the ocean, a small part of him wishing a rogue wave would suck him in and get it over with. He’d been melodramatic about Tracey as of late, noting the irony that here they were helping patients become well enough to reintegrate into society, only to end up alone themselves.
Emile watched the water churn until he heard a familiar pattern. That quick pace, those thoughts that couldn’t wait to rush out.
“Emile!” Moyer said. “You did it! I’ll admit, I had my doubts. But I should’ve known. It’s finally happening.”
“It’s just another patient,” Emile replied.
Moyer turned. Emile felt a realization in him, a blip of joy. “You haven’t heard.”
* * *
After Emile talked to Moyer, he saw James to the van, where James hugged him. He saw the calm in James’s mind, the peaceful sea. But beneath its surface, in the dark of the water, where the sun couldn’t reach, an undercurrent of worry. What would happen if he lost control again? If he couldn’t separate the fact from the fiction?
“We’ll be in touch,” Emile said, knowing it wasn’t true. Tracey would drive James back to his family and that would be the end of it. Before dawn, the van would return, and in James’s place another addled soul.
“It’s not enough,” a voice said. “Is it? You think it would be. Saving these people’s lives. And make no bones about it, son, that is what you’re doing here.”
Oskar Totem had arrived earlier that evening, somehow without Emile knowing. Perhaps because Emile expected a more outlandish entrance—a private helicopter, a plane that skimmed the ocean. Instead, Totem drove an ordinary car up to the gate. He had to tell Tracey his name three different times before she let him in.
“Should we take a walk, Emile? Before another patient arrives?”
It was the moment Emile had been waiting for. He led the way, tracing the path he and Tracey had traversed many times before. After years of feeling like a puppet, here was his chance to sever the ties with the man tugging the strings. And now that Totem was so close . . . Emile prepared to dive into Totem’s mind, to break him the way the Eldridge had broken Brenda, the way it had nearly broken Emile. To needle at his sanity.
At the top of the hill, Emile paused, steeling himself. In the near distance the lonely man built another bonfire.
“Is he too close for your liking?” Totem asked.
“He’s fine,” Emile said. He didn’t reveal that he had once talked to the man, invited him to the facility, before dipping into his mind deep enough to scare him away. “He’s just a little lonely.”
“Ah,” Totem said. Emile stole a glance at him. He was and wasn’t what Emile expected. The thin, premature silver hair fit, but the face was less stern than Emile had imagined. Emile thought he would be taller. But that voice, the one he’d heard filtered through Moyer’s and Jacob’s minds, and in Claire’s memory, was exactly what he remembered.
“I know you’ve been waiting for me,” Totem said. “The good doctor has relayed all your messages. And I would apologize—I really would, I’m not above it—but that’s not what you want to hear.”
In the valley below them the man’s bonfire grew. When Emile closed his eyes, he felt the heat on his face.
“The reality is you don’t want me to say I’m sorry. You want me to stick to my guns, as it were, proudly proclaim that I’m a pioneer, a genius, and geniuses never dwell on mistakes, do they?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Emile said.
“You want an enemy. But the truth is you’re not angry with me. Though you may think you are.”
Far above them, a plane blinked its red dot among the southern hemisphere’s strange constellations.
“If you knew how I truly felt about you,” Emile said, “you never would have come.”
Totem laughed uncomfortably. The plane hummed its way out of view. “You know,” he finally said, “I have this reputation—I don’t know what you’ve heard—but I have this reputation that tends to follow me wherever I go. This idea that I don’t get along well with others.
“But the thing is, I have no problem with people. They are a necessity, after all, if we want to live in a civilization. And we must live in a civilization, Emile, despite what you or that man in the distance there might desire. How does the quote go? ‘A man with no need for others is either a beast or a god.’ Are you familiar with Aristotle?”
“I didn’t finish high school,” Emile said.
“But you understand his point. We need each other. To survive. To progress. Otherwise we’re just, well, animals.” Totem clapped his hands. “So. Why am I telling you this?”
“You want to create a new civilization,” Emile said. He saw it all, there in Totem’s head. “You want to use me to change the world.”
He faced Totem. He wanted to see his expression when he realized Emile already knew every word to his speech.
“You don’t want to play god. You tell yourself you’re too humble. You were raised with religion. You don’t believe like you used to, but there will always be a bit of the supernatural seeded into your DNA. So you don’t want to play god; you want to help Him.”
“Yes.”
“God set us on this path, gave each of us a purpose. Telos, you call it, thinking the Greek gives your idea more importance, more credibility. You don’t want to change our purpose, alter what God assigned us. You want to help us achieve our purpose sooner. You’re confident that not only are our best days ahead of us, they’re right in front of our faces.”
“That’s it.”
“And here you circle back to what you said before. The idea that you don’t work well with others. They misunderstand you. It’s not that you dislike them as people. As human beings. It’s that you have no time for those who refuse to acknowledge their purpose. Why we’re here. When you see an ordinary person middling about their life, you want to shake them, wake them from their dream. You see yourself as a liberator.”
“You forgot the best part,” Totem said. “How everyone has a role to play.”
“I didn’t forget,” Emile said. “It’s just so trite I didn’t want to say it out loud.”
Finally, Emile felt it. A swell of anger.
“You’re disappointed?” Totem said.
Emile looked Totem in the eyes, or the best he could in the purple darkness. “I was disappointed the moment I heard you, even before you opened your mouth,” Emile answered. He stared at Totem until Totem blinked, then Emile started down the hill.
* * *
It was true. Emile had wanted more. More from the man who broke Brenda, w
ho persuaded Jacob to leave him, Claire to spy on and use him. Who had convinced Emile someone was out to get him, to the point that he sabotaged his last chance at happiness. Emile had spent all this time building up Totem in his mind, the voice, the big man, this bogus bogeyman, but once he met him, once he stepped inside his thoughts, he knew it had been a waste. Totem was a man. A visionary, fine, but still a man, filled with greed and weakness like anyone else. He took pleasure in helping others not because it brought him joy to see a life saved, but because of the way the saved looked at him when they realized they were better. The awe and marvel of it all. There was power in that. There was ascension. And none of that mattered to Emile.
Totem found Emile at the beach half an hour later. It was still dark.
“You know what I want to do,” Totem said. “What I want to build for you.”
Emile nodded. Yes, he had seen it. The town. The people. Though it was mostly hazy in Totem’s mind. The houses were sterile blocks, the people faceless. Everything else remained gray, save a large shadow at the edge of Totem’s imagination.
“What you saw is only an outline,” Totem said. “It can be whatever you like, Emile. It could be the place of your dreams.”
“My dreams,” Emile said.
“Yes,” Totem said, not realizing his mistake. “It could be the home you never had.”
“You ruined my life,” Emile said. His mind was yelling, but he kept his voice calm. “You promised me. You promised all of us.”
“And I kept my promises,” Totem said, “to those who kept theirs. Your brother left school of his own volition. You, you could have had any life you chose—if you’d stayed. If you’d had a little more . . . faith. In the experiment.”
“You locked me up.”
“I trusted the wrong people. At the Eldridge, I placed all my emphasis on devotion and vision. Left out the humanity.”
Emile grinded his teeth. To this day, he could still call up Vince’s smile, as he looked down at Emile in that grim cell.
“Another reason why I need you,” Totem said. “I’ve been all over the world, handpicking the brightest scientists. Lining up the richest investors, the R. B. Villards of the world. But are they good people? Are they well suited to build a town from scratch? It’s difficult to say. One of my failings is that unlike the philosopher, I struggle to see the utility of morals. But,” Totem said, “you could select anyone you see fit. Friend, family member. Anyone your heart desires.”
Emile shook his head. He told himself his mind was already made up, that he’d have to be insane to work with Oskar Totem again. He had waited and plotted and waited so he could confront him in person, look into his eyes and say “no” to the next big thing he was planning.
But then, without his permission, his mind thought about what the perfect place would look like. Emile sat in the sand. He took a fistful and let it fall through his hand like an hourglass.
“You know,” Totem said, “Plato wrote an entire book about how to construct the perfect city. Everything it would need to survive and flourish.”
Emile wasn’t listening. He was aware of Totem’s voice the way you might be cognizant of a housefly. Instead, he conjured up the moments he found perfect. He saw Lost 80 and Austin, himself at sixteen. He saw his brother, when it was just the two of them versus the guardians, against the world. He remembered the pizza place they ate at in Archer Park before they went to the Eldridge, before everything changed. He remembered the feeling of possibility, that his future was his to write, not something foretold in anyone’s dream.
He saw the movie theater. He saw Claire. He felt her hand in his, afterward, in the park, their fingers woven together in the dark.
Then he saw Lia. The house in Lawrence. He saw her take his hand under his tree at Lost 80, the way he had once held her mother’s.
“Emile,” Totem said. “Are you listening?”
Emile snapped back to reality. “I’m always listening.”
“Then you know that I can’t let you say no. You know there are people depending on me. People I have made promises to.”
“Always more promises.”
A wave reached Emile’s bare feet. The water was ice cold. Emile shivered. He saw them now. Dark meeting places, menacing, shadowy faces.
“Tell me what it will take,” Totem said.
Emile let himself consider the question. His mind kept swirling to the same answer. Totem shifted his weight from foot to foot. Emile heard his mind churning, trying to find another way to reach Emile, weighing various advantages until—
“Don’t,” Emile said.
“You saw it.”
“I’m telling you.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“No,” Emile said, but of course he did. Totem wanted him to see. Claire. She was outside a house, a different house, one that Emile didn’t recognize. She was loading a bag into the back of her car. A girl watched from the front porch. Emile didn’t recognize her at first. Lia was older now. Seven or eight, he couldn’t say. But she had the same serious face, only now it looked even more like her mother’s.
She wanted to know where Claire was going.
Claire told her nowhere.
Claire shut the trunk. She looked around, her face scrunched with worry. No one on the sidewalk, no neighbors maintaining their yards or walking their pets with their kids. She thought her way was clear. She did not see the man in the car parked catty-corner across the street, watching the scene unfold in his side mirror.
Lia stayed put. She didn’t believe what her mother was saying, and neither did the observer.
“I need to visit someone. That’s all. I’ll be back.”
“Who?”
“Emile.”
Lia tilted her head. “Who’s that?”
“Your uncle,” Claire said. “You don’t remember him.”
“I do too.”
“No,” Claire said. “You don’t.”
“When will you come back?” Lia said.
“I don’t know.”
“Does someone have to watch me?”
“Your dad will be home any minute. The neighbors can watch you until then.”
Claire set Lia down on the porch. Lia stood tall at the top of the steps. “I don’t need them,” she said. “I don’t need anyone.”
Claire smiled. “How will you get to school?”
“I’ll walk. Or I won’t go.”
“Who will make you dinner?”
“I’ll have cereal.”
“Again?” Claire asked. She brushed Lia’s hair behind her ear. The scars they called cowlicks wouldn’t let the hair stay in place. “What about bedtime? Who will tuck you in and say ‘Sweet dreams’?”
“I don’t have dreams anymore,” Lia said, matter-of-factly.
“None?”
“None,” Lia answered. She looked her mother in the eye. Claire’s face weakened. She looked back at the car, packed with her bags, then down their still quiet street. She climbed the steps and sat down, beckoned Lia to do the same.
“Do you want to know something?” Claire said. “About my dreams? They’re about you now. Your future. I see the places you’ll go and the people you’ll meet.”
“Are they scary?”
“Some are,” Claire said. “But there’s nothing I’ve seen that you can’t handle.”
“Because I’m strong.”
“Because you’re strong.”
Lia’s face remained solemn.
“I need to go now, Apple. Will you be all right?”
“I’m strong.”
Claire kissed Lia on the head and made her way to the car. The observer watched her get in, start the engine, back out, and drive away. When she was gone, Lia stayed on the porch, unsure perhaps whether she was supposed to go inside or stay out and wait for someone to come get her.
“What happened?” Emile asked. “Where did she go?”
“It’s just as she said. Looking for you. Obviously she wasn’t success
ful.”
Maybe she drove to Colorado, searched the Eldridge once more, but found nothing and turned around. Maybe she went to the Idaho motel where she left him.
“What did she want from me?”
“I have no idea.”
“You followed her though,” Emile said. “You must’ve seen something.”
“Why would we do that? We knew where you were.”
Here. At Menninger, a world away, where Claire would never find him.
Totem stepped in front of Emile, blocking the ocean. “Maybe she’s worried, son. You heard her. Her dreams have returned. Maybe she’s scared that she’ll end up like her mother. That she won’t be there for Lia.”
Emile tried to dismiss the thought. He knew what Totem was trying to do. “That won’t happen.”
“She doesn’t know that. And neither do you.” Totem put his hands on his hips. “God Almighty, think about your work here. What would happen to your patients, to people like James, if you weren’t here to help them? What if you’re the only one who can help her?”
Totem placed a hand on Emile’s shoulder. He had the sick vision of himself as a father figure.
“I can’t,” Emile said. “Even if I wanted to.”
He pushed Totem aside and stepped closer to the ocean. The nearer he got, the higher the waves climbed. Past his shins, teasing his knees. A part of him wanted to keep walking.
“You can’t hear her,” Totem said. “Is that it?”
He’d crept up behind Emile, his thoughts and footsteps muted by the ocean. Emile didn’t say anything. He was trying to tune it all out, the water, the past. But he still heard Totem’s next words, in between the waves.