Broken Mirror (7 page)

“You were projecting negative emotions, and Sofie registered them.”

“I wasn’t thinking, ‘Hey, chimp, let’s fight,’” Victor said.

“It doesn’t matter. You may not have been thinking it consciously, but what you were feeling was written all over your face.”

Victor looked away. His granfa’s explanation made sense. He was sure he’d been neutral, when in fact he’d been hostile and combative. To not be aware of his own emotions, and yet to succeed in broadcasting them to everyone in sight
—
it was like living in an inside-out body, wearing organs like clothes, and walking around oblivious to others’ screams of horror.

Victor said, “A chimpanzee with empathetic super powers. What’s next? Cats in space? Or are you saying she’s a Broken Mirror too?”

“I know you’re upset, but think for a moment. What does this experience tell us?”

Victor bit back another remark about him being so monstrous he couldn’t make friends with animals. His granfa was giving him a chance to use and demonstrate his intellect. He shouldn’t waste it. Especially before his next dose of Personil returned his mind to dullsville.

“I need to control my expressions,” he said, “so I don’t get into trouble.”

His granfa shook his head. “That comes later, and it’s an imperfect skill. Even the most skilled confidence men struggle to keep their true feelings from peeking through their masks. The lesson is more fundamental than that.”

Victor looked at the ceiling, replaying the encounter in his mind. He had walked in, following the zookeeper, observing Sofie. She had greeted the man, followed him by the hand, looked at Victor, at his face, at his hand
—That’s it!
She had
examined
him. “She read me; she read my emotions.”

His granfa nodded. “Precisely. And what does that mean?”

“It’s a process, a procedure. Like taking a measurement.”

“Go on.”

“It’s about observing the facts. Other people’s movements, gestures, and expressions, and then deducing what they mean. If she can read emotions like this, then I should be able to as well.”

“You’ve almost got it, very good. But I need to explain the significance. You see, for Sofie and other apes, and for humans as well, maybe for all the mammals, this process is automatic, almost unconscious. People pick up on these signs and interpret them without ever being aware of it. This is your special challenge. You are bombarded by this input, which triggers emotional reactions in you that are out of proportion to the context. You feel what they feel, but much more strongly, and
—
listen, because this is important: there is a mismatch in the timing. So you have reactions that seem odd to others. I believe by more closely scrutinizing cues in your environment, including social cues, you can moderate your responses. I believe it’s a skill that can be learned.”

Victor felt his eyes go wide. His granfa’s explanation, illustrated so perfectly by the experience he’d just had, gave him hope of overcoming his disability.

After a moment, he asked, “You mean, I can read people without automatically, you know, feeling them?”

Granfa Jeff rubbed Victor’s back. “You face bigger challenges in your life because of who you are, but the rewards of success will be that much greater. Think of the insights you have access to, to be conscious of the emotional relationships among a group of people, which others feel but don’t necessarily understand. I believe a career in diplomacy could be quite fitting.”

Victor looked again through the glass, and in Sofie’s face he now saw not a collection of hostile features but a forest of signs and signals that needed to be decoded.

“I want to learn how.”

Although Victor had made great progress, due to the nature of mirror resonance syndrome, his mental state continued to be vulnerable to external influences and internal instabilities. I would have continued to work with Victor, but in September 1990, Jefferson Eastmore told me my services were no longer needed.

I had worked for the family for nearly a decade by then, helping Victor cope with his condition. I recommended additional mental health professionals to work with him in my stead, some of whom I had trained to work with people with MRS, but to my knowledge they were never contacted by anyone in the family.

—Statement by Dr. Laura Tammet, the Eastmore family’s neuroscience advisor (1998)

At dinner on the eve of Granfa Jeff’s funeral, six Eastmore family members sat clustered at one end of a long table that could have seated twenty. Old-fashioned sconces with incandescent bulbs were spaced along the wood-paneled walls every meter or so.

Granma Cynthia lightly squeezed the dinner table’s short edge, and the bell for first courses chimed. Soon Hieu and Granma’s assistant arrived bearing plates heaped with delicate lettuces, roasted winter beets, and a strong cheese with a smell that turned Victor’s stomach. He picked at the greens and beets and moved the cheese to the far side of his plate.

“I hate SeCa,” his cousin Robbie said. “Europe is wasting its money here.”

Victor looked up. It was bad manners to talk that way over dinner. Even he knew that. “What money?” he asked.

Robbie smirked. The expression twisted his otherwise plain, light brown face into something ugly and rodent-like. “Without Europe’s aid, SeCa would be a poor backwater, more than it already is.”

“I think you’re confusing propaganda with education,” Victor grumbled.

Robbie glared at him. “Confusion is
your
area of expertise.”

Victor bit his tongue.

“Europe fomented autonomy and self-determination in the United States to undercut a burgeoning rival,” Robbie said in a pedantic drone that sounded more like a stuffy professor than someone who was, at twenty-five, less than a year older than Victor. “During the Repartition, Europe cozied up to the fledgling nations of the A.U., and now all of them, including SeCa, are dependent on Europe for financing and foreign aid. It was a brilliant strategy at the time. But now the money would be better spent at home.”

“Home? You sound more European than American. Are you applying to change your citizenship?” Victor asked, knowing that his family would consider the suggestion akin to blasphemy.

Robbie straightened. “If dual citizenship were allowed, I’d consider it.” Victor’s ma sucked in her breath, and Granma Cynthia’s fingers tightened around her knife. Robbie faced them down unapologetically. “I like to side with the winners of history.”

“Enough, Robbie,” Victor’s fa said. He pronged his salad. “I suppose there will be questions about the future of the company.” Linus glanced at his ma and sister, affecting nonchalance, but Victor could tell from his voice that Fa was nervous.

“It’s a delicate balance,” Circe responded. She sat rigidly upright, addressing her ma at her side and her brother across from her as if they were her subjects, yet her narrow shoulders didn’t rise much above her place setting. Granfa Jeff had been the only tall Eastmore. “I have to show that Father’s actions over the past few months did no harm, yet at the same time steer the company in a different direction that puts all the rumors behind us. And I have to do all this without
—
how did you put it, Mother?
—
without dragging the Eastmore name through a manure pond.”

Linus said, “So we’re
not
going to make a buck off the stim addicts filling our streets? Can we at least agree on that?”

Victor looked up, surprised to hear him talk this way. Were they planning to treat stim addicts in SeCa? He stayed quiet, reflecting on how little he knew of the family business. As recently as a few months ago, there was talk of expelling the hopeless cases to other A.U. nations. He wanted to ask about it, but he couldn’t gauge how much of a taboo he’d be breaking. If he said anything unusual, Granma Cynthia might bring up what he’d said to her. He hoped she hadn’t already told his parents. He never should have mentioned murder at a funeral.

Circe raised an eyebrow. “We’re a health care company. We have to respond to the health needs around us.”

Granma Cynthia forked a half globe of yellow tomato. “Could we leave business until after dinner?” She looked at her daughter. “Or perhaps you’d like to go over his will during dessert?”

Circe shook her head, sending her black curls into dizzy vibrations. “I don’t want to upset you. I just want to prepare you. Would you rather read what I say on the Mesh?”

Granma Cynthia ate her tomato and said nothing.

“We need bold moves to maintain HHN’s leadership position,” Circe said. She looked at each Eastmore in turn. Her fork daintily gathered the salad components into a well-balanced bite
—
the same way she was gathering support from each family member. She would make a good company chief.

She continued, “We can’t rest on our laurels. Father’s image will be exonerated in death, and his illness will underscore the importance of the network’s mission. People will forgive his recent actions, given time.”

Ma hadn’t touched her plate. She stared down at the salad as if she were waiting for it to change into something else. “The public has a long memory.”

“Does it?” Circe responded without a shred of concern in her voice.

Ma asked, “What about the foundation? Is there a way to bring it back under our control?”

Granma Cynthia and Auntie Circe exchanged arch glances. Victor wondered if the foundation was a touchy subject. Or maybe they didn’t want Ma to have a bigger say in the family’s affairs, now that the loudest voice was gone.

“We’ll do what we can,” Granma Cynthia said stiffly. “Mason won’t give it back without a fight.”

They began to discuss what to do about the terriers.

Thinking of the dogs and the mausoleum brought back memories of his granfa’s appearance, which disturbed him all over again. How could the founder of the largest health care corporation in the world have degenerated so quickly? The great Jefferson Eastmore dying of heart failure caused by an infection? He could have gotten a transplant or grown himself a new heart. Yet the family seemed to accept the heart failure explanation all too easily. There must have been more to it.

Victor excused himself, saying he wanted to rest. He shuffled out of the room. His parents let him go. There was nothing surprising about a nap in the midst of dinner.

He climbed the wide, carpeted staircase to the second floor. His granfa’s office was off limits to everyone but Granma Cynthia, and maybe Auntie Circe, but these circumstances were exceptional, and Victor felt justified in snooping.

Still, he should be careful. Victor crept to the balcony. The foyer and sitting room were empty. He hadn’t been followed. A clock below chimed seven. The short winter day had faded into night.

Victor found the door to Granfa’s office closed and locked. He jiggled the knob as quietly as possible, but it didn’t turn. At least it wasn’t a modern reinforced door. He knelt and inspected the lock mechanism, finding a simple spring-tongue and socket.

Wood creaked behind him, and he jolted upright. Looking over his shoulder, he saw nothing amiss. The staff came up to the second floor only when summoned. They would be busy serving dinner. The house must be muttering to itself.

He pulled a Japanese multiknife from his pocket and wedged it into the door gap. The first swipe of the blade failed to dislodge the lock’s spring-tongue. He stuck it in the crevice again and drew it downward, slowly, catching the tongue and easing it back against its spring. He gripped the knob and pushed it forward. The door swung open with a loud, protesting creak.

Inside the room, against one wall, tall bookcases flanked a large oak desk, Granfa Jeff’s workplace when he wasn’t touring Holistic Healing Network offices and facilities. The center of the room held a couch and two high-backed chairs with a low table between them. Off to the side were a reading nook with a stuffed chair and ottoman and more bookcases next to the bay windows overlooking the mansion’s grounds.

Victor stepped to the desk and sat in Granfa Jeff’s large synthleather chair, absently sliding a book on the desk to the side. However, the book’s texture
—
real leather
—
caught his attention. He looked more closely, and recognized it as the handwritten compendium of herbal medicine Granfa Jeff had shown to Victor on a foggy summer day just a few months before Oak Knoll had closed.

***

On that day, the old man had seen Victor skulking in the doorway of his office. He sat up in his chair and cleared his throat. “Herbalism!” Granfa Jeff waved Victor inside and jutted his chin toward the leather volume.

Victor approached the desk and opened the book, running his fingers over its stiff yellowed pages, which were covered in blue handwriting that flowed around drawings of plants’ leaves, stems, and roots.

“What’s wrong?” Victor asked.

Granfa Jeff looked out the window and down at a row of sturdy hedges and ground cover that drank moisture from Pacific mists. He said, “Something we haven’t tried yet.”

“Plant medicine?” Victor asked. “That seems odd. Everything useful’s made of synthetic chemicals and bioengineering.”

Granfa Jeff said, “Up until the last hundred years
—
through the Enlightenment anyway
—
medicine was practically synonymous with plants. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about older forms of healing, especially those from the East.”

“Can plant medicine, er, herbalism, help me?”

Granfa shook his head. “I don’t want to get your hopes up. It will be years until we figure out any reasonable form of treatment for you. Until then, Personil’s the best we can do. But still . . .” The old man’s gaze returned to the volume in Victor’s hands.

***

Victor heard a soft gasp. He looked up to see his ma in the doorway, holding one hand to her face. Worry lines framed her mouth. “Victor, what are you doing in here?”

“I wanted to be with Granfa.” Victor swept a hand around the empty room.

Her gaze disapproved.

Victor rose and hugged the herbalism book to his chest.