A Vision of Fire (4 page)

He shoved a food container into her hands and made her try some of the salad he'd just prepared. She smiled as she accepted a plastic fork from her son and jabbed it into the julienned carrots and jicama doused in what appeared to be a light vinaigrette. It was delicious and she said so.

As they left the lobby for the cab ride home, Jacob enthused over the chemistry of cooking with eggs. Fire engines loudly raced by and she winced but quickly forgot them, completely and gratefully absorbed in the moment, in their shared signing, laughing, and camaraderie.

CHAPTER 4

C
aitlin and Jacob were wrapped in a blanket on the couch in their Upper West Side brownstone apartment. The curtains were closed, the dishwasher was humming quietly, and Jacob was rapidly flipping through channels on TV. At this speed she wondered what could possibly be registering in his brain.

Caitlin wondered whether this was a sign of his transition into a preteen: where once he had shown tiredness by curling into a corner of the couch with his head on the armrest, now he channel-surfed like a zombie. She would wait to see if the behavior repeated on other nights.

But besides his restlessness, their time together was blessedly normal, and Caitlin cherished that. Each day was a challenge, today more than others, and she embraced these moments as if each were a little bit of Christmas morning.

“Okay, you,” Caitlin said and signed, though his hearing aids were on. “My eyeballs are getting whiplash. Time for bed.”

She was expecting an argument but didn't get one. He just headed for the bathroom, tapping the glass of the aquarium on his way out but not waiting to see if his bandit cory would peek out of her plastic castle.

“Teeth and face,” she called. She heard the faucet start.

She turned off the TV, booted her tablet, and picked up their high-strung cat, who was prowling on the couch. Five minutes later, Jacob and their tabby Arfa were both asleep.

Even Jacob's slightly off mood had felt like a relief from Caitlin's day. He anchored her hectic life, tuned the world for both of them to a mellow pitch. But the mood never seemed to stick when she was on her own again. Even now she was losing the magic as she focused on e-mails, got back into her work head. As if on cue her phone buzzed. It was her therapist, who had become a dear friend long ago.

“I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” Barbara said.

“Just finished TV time with Jake.”

“Excellent. I'm glad you weren't working after six o'clock for a change.”

“Says the shrink who's doing just that,” Caitlin replied.

“Touché,” Barbara said. “I blame the inventor of cell phones.”

“Remember when the world turned without us for hours at a time?”

Barbara laughed. “And then there were vacations. Remember those?”

“I'll keep it short,” Caitlin promised. “I've been restless today in a way that's different for me.”

“Who or what was different in your routine?”

“There's a case that's much more personal and emotional, but I treated the condition, not the patient.” Caitlin's answer had anticipated Barbara's next question. “What I'm actually wondering is, could my unease be perimenopause?”

“When did you get back from the relief camp?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Well good lord, Caitlin—”

“Okay, point taken. I'm still readjusting. But maybe I should be tested?”

“I think the result would be turningfortyosis,” Barbara said. “You
forget that it's the new thirty. Don't let the social programming kick in.”

“I know, I'm not a hypochondriac. It's just, something is off.”

“Sure, but I'd vote for exhaustion. And the peri tests are inconclusive anyway. I'd prescribe a couple weeks of dedicated health—real exercise, not just running for a cab. Take your vitamins, especially B and D, eat more vegetables—”

“I've been good about that. Well, Jacob's been good about it and I've benefited.”

Barbara laughed. “And sleep. Actual sleep, not the occasional Ambien. Also, take some time off.”

“You don't want much, just miracles,” Caitlin said as her phone beeped with another call. It was from a private caller. Her gut burned a little; she had a feeling who it might be.

“You asked, I answered,” Barbara replied.

“All right, will do. Hey, I need to take this other call—”

“Okay, but keep it short. Maintain your boundaries.”

“You're a mind reader. Talk soon.” Caitlin switched to the other call. “Hello?”

“Dr. O'Hara?” said a man's voice.

“Mr. Pawar.”

“Please, it's Ganak. I am sorry not to be visiting you in person, to thank you. But eyes are upon me.”

“Not a problem. How is Maanik?”

“She is a little better.”

Caitlin heard strain in his raw, raspy voice. “Did she have another episode?”

“Yes, but not like before.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We're not sure. It was—forgive me, I am not used to describing these things. It was as if she was there with us at dinner, eating her soup, but she was listening for something else.”

“Did she talk at all? Respond to you?”

“No. It was as though she was on the alert for something. But not in an urgent way. It's very difficult to explain.”

“How long did that go on?”

“Perhaps five or six minutes. She said nothing the entire time and we did not want to question her until we spoke with you.”

“I understand.” Caitlin paused to consider the situation. “Mr. Pawar—Ganak. Maanik may have been suffering from a mild, self-­induced trance.”

“I'm sorry. Do you mean she hypnotized herself?”

“Not exactly,” Caitlin said. “Did Mrs. Pawar tell you I used hypnosis to stabilize her?”

“Yes. And I must be candid, Dr. Deshpande expressed some concern—”

“Dr. Deshpande may be a fine doctor but he was prepared to overmedicate your daughter,” Caitlin interrupted. “That's like washing your eyeglasses with a hose. It's not my way.”

“Please, I did not mean to question your judgment. This is all so unfamiliar to us.”

“Completely understandable,” Caitlin said. “My point is, occasionally, individuals who have been given hypnotherapy will return to that state if they feel threatened in the same way as before.”

“You mean her mind self-hypnotized to fend off a relapse?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Caitlin said.

“I see.” The ambassador was silent.

“Sir, may I make a suggestion?”

“Please.”

“There is an obstruction in her mind, something that is redirecting her natural response to ordinary thoughts and stimuli. My guess is it has something to do with a traumatic event—in this case, the shooting. Maanik was very responsive to the superficial hypnosis I used earlier. I'd like to put her into a deeper trance.”

“Deeper? What does that mean?”

“I only helped her to sleep before; I didn't fully engage with her.
It's clear that something is blocking her normal self and we must uncover what that is. This process is a proven tool for enhancing memories.” She added, “Leaving her untreated could make the situation worse.”

There was another silence. Caitlin had the impression the ambassador was not considering her suggestion but thinking about how to refuse it respectfully. She was right.

“Hypnotism is a practice honored across time and across many cultures,” Ganak said. “The Hindu Vedas call it a ‘healing pass.' Yet I believe a mind moves between different strata of consciousness for its own good reasons. Interfering with that self-organization may be premature, if not dangerous.”

“I respect what you are saying but you're forgetting an important point—the self-mutilation,” she said carefully. “The sounds she was making while scratching at her arms alerted those around her. But it's possible that she could harm herself in silence in the future, without anyone knowing in time to prevent it.”

“Then someone will stay with her constantly,” Ganak said.

“Which could bear a psychological cost, drive her farther into hiding,” Caitlin pointed out. She let that sink in for a moment, then said, “One thing I can do for Maanik under hypnosis is guide her into symptom transformation.”

It took the ambassador a moment to rediscover his voice. “I am not familiar with the term.”

“We would choose a physical movement such as twitching her finger and associate it with her scratching at her arms. When fully conscious, any self-attack would be preceded by her finger twitching. As she exercised control over her finger she would also shut down the scratching.”

“An off switch,” he said.

“Exactly. It's one of many useful tools. And please understand, while she is in a trance she retains her power of choice. In hypnosis I am not operating her. We work together.”

“I will certainly keep that in my mind.”

“I appreciate your willingness to hear me out,” Caitlin said. “You may call at any time if the situation changes.”

“Dr. O'Hara, I may not have been sufficiently clear earlier about my reasons for caution.”

“Not at all. I can see that you're in a difficult situation.”

“Many political experts already feel that I am not the best chance for a peaceful and long-term resolution in these negotiations—I am the only chance. That is why radicals on both sides want me out of the way, by any means possible.”

“Does your daughter know this?”

“She has made a point of studying the situation,” Ganak said with a hint of pride. “You see, I am descended from the Pawar Rajputs, princes of Kashmir, so we are respected in India. But my family owns land in Gurdaspur near Jammu and Kashmir. It remains highly contested territory for the strategic importance of its road and railway. Because my family has never denied anyone access, the Pakistanis do not entirely mistrust me. So I have become the agent of all voices. There must be no blemishes on my perceived ability to engage fully. Please do not think I would risk my daughter's well-being—”

“I don't,” Caitlin replied. “Maanik's symptoms may not recur and this could just be a posthypnotic echo, but we have to be prepared either way.”

Ganak sighed. It was not relief exactly but cautious optimism. Tendering further apologies for interrupting her evening, the ambassador said good night.

Caitlin hung up and tapped a pen on the desk as she stared at her tablet. The fate of the region was on the shoulders of a sixteen-year-old. Perhaps Maanik knew that too.

After answering work-related e-mails—over two dozen in all—Caitlin was surprised to see that it was nearly midnight. It was past her bedtime but she was halfway through a weekly newsletter summarizing reports of adolescent schizophrenia episodes from around the
world and she wanted to finish. There seemed to be an uptick in the number of references to an “apocalypse” by teenage patients, but Caitlin was wary of seeing trends where there were none. She decided she was just tired and overwrought.

“Enough!” she said, and closed her tablet. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got into bed.

As she lingered between wakefulness and sleep, she had dreamlike visions of smoky waves of red and blue rolling in from the distance, a nightmarish surf, creeping toward her on shapeless fingers, finally oozing and sputtering, throwing off ugly clouds of suffocating dust.

“Dad . . .”

She was looking for him—for someone—but the waves were everywhere, undulating and crashing, rising and engulfing her—

Caitlin gasped herself awake, surprised to find that two hours had passed. She blinked away the nightmare, looked around at the dark familiarity of her bedroom. She let her head sink back, breathing regularly, easily.

“Night terrors,” she told herself. Everything was normal and right again, the room inside and the sounds outside. Everything—except one thing.

She was still afraid.

CHAPTER 5

The University of Tehran

Central Library and Documentation Center

A
tash Gulshan sat alone at a long wooden table looking over the first draft of his paper on the tariff protests that shook Tehran in 1905. He had been staring at the printout for some time without reading the words.

He blinked twice, three times, and refocused. Eyes were upon him, furtively, accusingly—he had an acute sense of them, forced himself to ignore them.
The population did not want to repay the Russian czar for lending money to the Persian king for his personal use.

A wave of nausea engulfed him, pushing from his mouth to his belly. Looking up, his gaze was misty.

Rashid
, he thought miserably.
Brother . . .

The nausea came a second time and he leaned forward on his fore
arms, shut his eyes. Atash saw the crane from which they hanged him, his brother's frightened but unrepentant expression as the stool was knocked away and the rope tugged his mouth and face horribly, unnaturally to one side.

Unnatural.
That was what they had called Rashid for being a homosexual. Atash had been questioned mercilessly after his brother was found with another man. Queried, pushed, slapped. He wanted to tell them he must be a homosexual too, for after all, he loved his brother . . .

When he opened his eyes, a featureless wave rolled at him from a pinpoint in the distance. It was not an object so much as a billowing movement. It reminded him of his mother shaking out one of the quilts she made—a bulky mass moving thickly and in slow motion. The wave was a low, glowing red growing brighter with each moment. As it moved it shook off charcoal-colored clouds that seemed almost like black cats leaping as a rug was pulled from under them. Atash stared, transfixed, as the wave writhed toward him, filling more and more of his view. His head suddenly began to throb above both eyes. He winced but remained very still. A part of the young man's mind remembered that there were strict rules in the library. Quiet. Respect. No electronics. If he moved now he was afraid he might stumble . . .

“
Ulzii
,” he whispered.

The library rules became a haze of meaningless sounds in his head.

“
Ulzii?
” he repeated.

He pushed the chair back, scraping it along the floor. There was someplace he had to be, but
ulzii
was not a place. It was . . .

He reached into his backpack under the table. Feeling his way through the lentils and onions, he found the sunflower oil. He grasped the small plastic bottle and held it tight to his chest with his left hand.

Ulzii.
He somehow knew he needed
oil
. Now he had to go as fast as he could.

The young man rose unsteadily, the legs of the wooden chair dragging again on the floor. He drew annoyed glances from half a dozen students at different tables. Atash was oblivious to their presence. He was walking now, bumping into the edge of the next table, pressing past it, bumping into another, slipping through a door.

“You cannot go there!” a student hissed as the door eased shut behind him.

Atash heard his words but they did not make sense. He saw glimpses of dark stone through a haze of red and black. He saw sheer fabric, white and yellow, spinning hypnotically as if caught up in a cyclone. This was where he had to be.

Ignoring pinpricks of pain on his cheeks and hands, the young man reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out cigarettes. He dropped the package to the floor and fished again blindly, pulling out a lighter. He flicked it open, uncapped the bottle of oil, released it spewing at his feet. He ignited the lighter and let it fall from his fingers. The flames crawled and then leaped up his pant legs.

He bellowed from deep in his throat.

Niusha Behnam, the librarian, jerked open the door and ran toward an orange shadow that could be seen among the stacks. Several students ran in after her as the smell of smoke reached the main room. They crowded the narrow alleys of books, pushing and shouting but also just staring. The students in the rear were forced back as Niusha called for the fire extinguisher. Someone yanked it from the wall and the crowd passed it toward her like an old-fashioned bucket brigade, and she turned the spray toward the fiery column. The flames had reached the paper-filled shelves and it took some strength and great sweeping movements to soak the rapidly expanding inferno. But at the heart of it, at the center of its blazing anonymity, was Atash, a boy, on fire and screaming.