Gods Without Men

2009

Do not seek to know what is above you. Do not seek to know what is below you. Do not seek to know what is before you. The problem with modern people — one of the problems — was that they’d forgotten how to be humble. You could ride the subway, crammed together with all the other morning commuters on their way into Manhattan, and something in the book you were reading would make you pause and look around. Then you’d see the faces, ordinary faces that on other days (or in the old days, the days before) you’d not have thought twice about, men and women blandly confident of their importance in the scheme of things, assured that as inhabitants of a global city, citizens of the most powerful country on the planet, they were the inheritors of certain rights, among them the right to know the world in its totality, or if they chose not to know (for they had other claims on their time, such as working and being entertained), then for others to know on their behalf, so that an explanation could potentially be made to them, or if not to them, then to an expert who would receive it and act in their best interest. They looked so ugly to her, all the morning people, because when Raj went missing she’d seen the flip side of their self-assurance: the outrage when something unknowable reared up before them, not just unknown for now, because they or their designated expert had yet to enquire into the matter, had yet to Google the search term or send the e-mail or write the check for the correct amount to the relevant company or government department, but unknowable in principle, inaccessible to human comprehension. Their fear made them dangerous — murderous even — for in their blind panic they’d turn on whoever they could find as a scapegoat, would tear them into pieces to preserve this cherished fiction, the fiction of the essential comprehensibility of the world.

Lisa knew the true face of the morning commuters, for they’d come at her, ripped at her flesh with their talons. She’d seen them, and ever since, the work of her life had been to recover herself, to function in subway carriages and department stores and checkout lines among people who’d hated her, who’d wanted her to die so their world could carry on feeling moral and meaningful. The lesson she’d learned (this was another part of the work, to see what had happened as a lesson, as something from which she could gain, instead of a wound that went almost to the bone and would probably never heal) was that knowledge, true knowledge, is the knowledge of limits, the understanding that at the heart of the world, behind or beyond or above or below, is a mystery into which we are not meant to penetrate. Before, in her old life, she’d not had a name for it. Then Raj had disappeared and been returned to her and after that she’d found a name but kept it to herself, because she felt embarrassed in front of her husband and her clever secular New York friends. Now she could call it God, and say it out loud; she could ride the subway into Manhattan replete in her understanding, confident that though the world was unknowable, it had a meaning, and that meaning would keep her safe and set her free. Had anyone suggested the conviction she felt might have anything in common with the conviction she derided in the other passengers, she would have reacted angrily, violently, because her feelings, her self-knowledge, had been earned, authorized by suffering, while theirs was mere ignorance.

She felt like she’d been destroyed and rebuilt again. She felt, if she had to give a name to her feeling, symbolic, as if she now stood for something greater and more significant than herself, stood for the knowledge of limits, was — no, not God’s representative, nothing so grandiose or egotistical — just one of His signposts, a person in the crowd whose life story pointed toward Him, showed the way out of the vanities of this world and into reverence for the unknowable, impenetrable beyond.

So much of this had been unclear to her before she joined the group. Esther, in particular, had been gentle and compassionate in leading her along the path. She’d had questions — that was why she’d sought them out in the first place, a half-dozen women more or less like herself, professional, college-educated, in their thirties and forties. They’d gather once or twice a month, usually at Esther’s place. It was, Esther joked, much like a hundred other book groups meeting all over Brooklyn, except they had something more on their minds than whether they’d been entertained or moved or convinced by the doings of a bunch of made-up characters. It felt good to be surrounded by these new friends. None of them were preachy or overbearing. They were just ordinary down-to-earth Jewish women, coming together to discover more about their shared culture. Of course Lisa knew they accorded her a special status. There was an aura around her, a little frisson of glamour. They’d ask, shyly, how she’d coped when the media frenzy was at its height. They’d use her as an example of suffering, dig out apt quotations to share.

Esther thought Lisa ought to write a book about the witch hunt, about being a mother in the spotlight. Lisa, better than almost anyone alive, knew how it felt to be a woman hounded by the misogynist news media. It ought to be a passionate book. A polemic. It could really make a difference to other women going through the same thing. Lisa toyed with the idea, but she didn’t really have the stomach for it. Not just for the writing, for what it would mean to spend days in front of a laptop, forcing herself to think back to the bad days — the hotel in Riverside, the buzzing air conditioner, the TV and the dirty room-service trays — but for the whole process of turning herself inside out. She’d had enough of being discussed and picked apart. Now that her son had been returned to her, she wanted to luxuriate in him, and she wanted to do so in private, without interference or observation, without being judged.

Esther was understanding. We all have a right to a private life, she said. You more than anyone. Esther understood the beauty of silence, the silence in which a still small voice could make itself heard. Lisa admired her for that. In the first days after she and Jaz got Raj back, they’d barely uttered a word. It was as if they both had the same fear, that something fine and fragile was being woven around them — a magic cocoon, a crystal web — and loud voices or sudden movement would shatter it. They lived like medieval peasants, cowering from signs and portents. They hid from the FedEx man.

They were, the two of them, so very delicate, so bruised. She’d hoped — and she was sure Jaz had felt the same — that, like a broken bone, they’d eventually knit back together, filaments of new love reaching across the distance between the kitchen table and the sink. They’d been through so much. It would be absurd to split up. And she couldn’t deny how hard he’d tried for her. When she’d fallen down, he’d picked her up. When she couldn’t cope, when they were forcing her to walk back up to those terrible rocks, pushing some strange child in the stroller; when she was lying on the bathroom floor, paralyzed, catatonic, trying to abdicate all responsibility, trying to stop breathing, to stop her heart from pumping blood around her body, Jaz had tried his best to look after her. He’d tried to say the right words. But (and this was what lay over them like a miasma) he’d failed. He hadn’t been able to pull her round. When it came down to it, his love and care hadn’t been enough.

They were different. Of course it had always been that way, part of what had attracted them to each other. A mutual fascination, loving contact with someone new and strange. Not exotic, though, never that. She believed she’d always made the effort to see Jaz as an individual, not a representative of anything. After they brought Raj back, Jaz’s parents had taken the train up from Baltimore. Thank God, they’d said, pressing their palms together, and for once she’d been able to agree with them. But his mother had taken it too far, standing in their kitchen with her eyes shut, her hand on the top of Raj’s head, muttering in Punjabi. Lisa had felt like snatching her son away. It’s their culture, she told herself. It’s just their culture. Jaz came from that, but he wasn’t that. Her problem with him was purely personal.

For her it was enough to have Raj back. He seemed to be unhurt. He was proof that by loving, by holding on tight, what was lost would be returned. But Jaz seemed unsatisfied. He wanted an explanation. He worried over the evidence like a dog with a chew toy, phoning the police so often she was sure he was making a nuisance of himself. He spouted endless theories. One evening she came back from work to find him poring over a large-scale map of the Mojave Desert, drawing circles with a compass. Beside him was a yellow legal pad, scrawled with notes and calculations: how far a toddler could walk in an hour; the location of the nearest public road.

“It’s so frustrating,” he said. “The area where they found him is just a blank. It’s military land, so the mapping data’s classified.”

“I’m sure the police have all the information they need. What can you find out that they can’t?”

“They’re not doing anything. They aren’t making it a priority.”

“They have other problems, Jaz. Other cases.”

“But what happened to him? What do you think happened?”

“Does it matter?”

He looked at her pityingly. “How can you say that? He’s our son. Someone had him. Someone took him away from us. How can you live, knowing that person’s still out there, ready to do it again?”

“I don’t know, Jaz. I just don’t think it’s our job anymore.”

Sometimes it seemed to her that there was only so much energy in a relationship, so much electricity in circulation between two people. As she grew stronger and more confident, Jaz seemed to wane. He lost weight. He’d pad through the house in sweats and a T-shirt, looking like a ghost. She found his listlessness irritating. “What’s happened to you?” she asked him one night, when she came home, loaded with Barneys bags, to find him collapsed on the couch, watching a true-crime show in a litter of crusted cereal bowls and the previous day’s Times. Raj was playing unsupervised in her office. He’d upended a box of pins and clips, creating a chaos of sharp points on the rug. She bustled around, clearing up, angrily berating Jaz over her shoulder as he yawned and thumbed the remote. “You’re like a stranger. You should go back to work. You were better when you were working.”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” he said. Just that. As if he’d come to the end of something and hadn’t the will to go on.

Esther was blunt. “Do you still love him?” They’d met for a coffee. Lisa had brought Raj with her, and he was being an angel, sitting quietly at the little café table, eating an ice cream. A good little boy, dressed in a new blue-and-white matelot top. She glanced at him uneasily, trying to work out if he was paying attention.

“Esther, what a question!”

Her friend arched an eyebrow, making light of her curiosity. “It’s not a stupid thing to ask. If you love him, the rest will take care of itself.”

Lisa considered the matter. “Yes,” she said. “I think I do.” Yes, dimly. Yes, for old times’ sake. Here was Esther, blowzy big-chested Esther, with her chunky amber jewelry, her silk head scarves wrapping up hair still thin from chemo, her children already at Brown and UPenn and her unapologetically fat husband, Ralph, who was always blowing in through the door with something gift-wrapped in his hands, who’d always just happened to be passing a deli or a bookstore or a bakery that sold the most delightful little macaroons. Ralph was so plainly thankful to have his wife alive that going to the office every morning was a painful separation and it was all he could do not to crush her to his big barrel chest when he came home again at night. Their home was a temple, their family table an altar. It was hard not to make comparisons.

Lisa smoothed Raj’s hair. He allowed her to do that now, without flinching.

“I wish — I wish he’d let it go. It’s like he’s still out there, wandering in that awful desert.”

The previous night, they’d had a terrible fight. She’d found Jaz staring at Raj in the way he now had, a deep silent interrogation. He was squatting on the floor, watching the boy play, with a kind of forensic attention, as if every maneuver of his pack of plastic dinosaurs might yield up vital information. He spoke without even looking up.

“Do you think he was — you know.”

“Jaz.”

“There was no physical evidence.”

“Not in front of him.”

“That’s not definitive, though. The fact that they couldn’t find anything. I mean, he was away for months. It could have healed.”

“For God’s sake, shut up! I don’t want to talk about it. And it’s not appropriate in front of him.”

She scooped Raj up and half dragged him into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Once inside, she sat on the toilet with the lid down, hugging him tightly. He complained a little, tried to squirm out of her grasp. Jaz knocked tentatively on the door.

“Go away,” she called out. “Just go away. He’s back. Why isn’t that good enough for you?”

Of course she had the same questions. Where had he slept? What had he eaten? What was the first thing he saw when he woke up in the morning? Did they touch him, bathe him, smooth his hair? Was there one person? Two? There must, she thought, have been a woman. A couple. What was that woman thinking when she unbuckled him from his stroller and ran with him down the dusty path? Was she desperate? Angry? Insane? Each question bred more, doubling, quadrupling, a vertiginous recess of uncertainty. The only way to deal with such a pit of questions was to close the trapdoor, to refuse to look down. That was what Jaz didn’t understand. God had given their son back to them. It ought to be enough.

When the job came up at Paracelsus Press, she’d not taken it seriously. The offer came through Paula, one of the other women in the group. She was a nutritionist, friends with Karl, the publisher. They were looking for an editor. She’d immediately thought of Lisa. Instinctively Lisa found herself saying that it didn’t really sound like it was for her. Paula looked mystified. Why ever not? She’d have thought it was a perfect fit. Lisa looked through the list, and, among the titles on color therapy and dowsing, found a lot of books that were serious and considered. She was curious enough to set up an interview. Karl turned out to be a typical Lower East Side character, a rakish old communard with a graying ponytail and a little ebony stud in his left ear. He’d started off in the underground press, branching out into book publishing when the dream of a revolution in consciousness began to subside in the mid-seventies. He’d run Paracelsus out of his apartment for many years, but with the Internet (a miracle, he said, a boon) it had rapidly grown into one of the leaders in its sector. They’d had hits with an Iyengar yoga manual and an illustrated version of the Bardo Thodol, and he wanted to plow the money back into the business. Over a meal at a raw-food restaurant in the East Village, he told her he was looking for someone to work on a series about world religion, a collection of the mystical texts of the great traditions presented in a way that was neither too popular nor too scholarly, a route for general readers into the various intersecting currents of faith. She could work out of their offices on Ninth Street. She said yes straightaway.

Jaz sneered. If she wanted a job, why couldn’t she find one with a serious publisher? That word. One of Jaz’s words, like reasonable, rational, pragmatic. He read out titles in a scoffing voice. The Solar Seal: A Manual for Lightworkers. UFOs and the Manifestation of Spirit. Was that really the sort of crap she wanted to foist on the world? Sure, she admitted, some of their titles were aimed at a fringe audience. But she was going to be working on something substantial, something she really cared about. He could say what he liked, but she wasn’t going to be embarrassed anymore about what she believed.

“And what do you believe?”

“That my son was returned to me. And that I owe a debt.”

“To who? To the police? The people who found him?”

“I can’t talk about this with you.”

“Because it doesn’t make sense.”

“I know what happened. I kept my faith with Raj and he came back to me.”

“Lisa, you were catatonic. Suicidal. You told me you knew he was dead.”

“But he came back.”

“You don’t even remember. I thought — look, the idea that Raj was found because of your magical thinking is — you know it’s insane, right?”

“So because I want to do something more than sit in my own filth, eating chips and making up conspiracy theories, I’m insane?”

“Conspiracy theories?”

And so it went on. It was tiring, desperately tiring, but eventually he agreed. He didn’t want to work and she did. They had enough money. He’d look after Raj during the day when she was at the office. She hoped it would bring him closer to the boy. She was happy when she heard about the walks. It seemed healthy. A father-and-son thing. She had no idea they went so far, until one day she looked at the wheels of the stroller. They’d been worn down almost to the metal.

The job was absorbing, though she was glad she didn’t need to live off her meager paycheck. Her first commission was a book on Tibetan Buddhism, to be written by a Rinpoche in California, an American who’d studied for many years in the Himalayas. Karl was already pressing her to start work on the second volume, about medieval Christian mystics. She enjoyed being around him, working amid the heaps of papers in the little office, listening as he chatted to Teri, the other editor, and Mei Lin, who did the books. Karl was quickly becoming almost as important an influence as Esther. She grew to look forward to their one-on-one conversations, the lunch meetings over Thai or Japanese food, the sandwiches from the local vegan café. Karl was a positive force. It was his own description, but when you got to know him, it didn’t seem arrogant, just a statement of fact. He meditated. He rode a track bike. He brewed his own kombucha, scary-looking fungal cultures housed in mason jars in the office storeroom. He was enthusiastic about the history and landscape of East Asia, particularly Laos and Cambodia, which he described in passionate detail. Though he was much older than her, in (she guessed) his sixties, his body was lean and wiry. She began to wonder, idly, what it would be like to hold him, to run her hands over his thighs, his chest.

She felt as if she’d turned a corner. Every day her life seemed to get a little better. When Raj started to talk, she told her colleagues it was an affirmation, proof that they were all protected by a higher power. At the book group she and Esther and the others said prayers of thanks. She began to allow her imagination to range further. Raj was — it didn’t seem too much to use the word — a miracle. Every day he seemed to achieve something new. With a learning curve (even the doctors said this) so much steeper than normal, anything was possible. He might even turn out to be a genius, an extraordinary mind that had started life locked away from the rest of the world. She wrote off for school prospectuses, scrutinized entry requirements for gifted and talented programs. Only Jaz seemed untouched by the new possibilities. He winced when she voiced her (perfectly reasonable) wish that he be tested by an educational psychologist, to prepare him for entry to one of the elite elementary schools in the city. That (of course) provoked another fight. Why couldn’t he give thanks, like she did? Where was his joy? He told her he didn’t give a damn about being “out of touch with his light” and stormed out of the house. He didn’t come back until late that evening. He smelled sour, like stale red wine. She assumed he’d been sulking in some bar.

At other times they were united. Their friends came back. A few, at least. There were some she couldn’t forgive, others who still seemed alienated by the drama of the previous year. But there were the beginnings of a social life. They found a babysitter in the neighborhood and experimentally went out to dinner, leaving Raj in her care. It was a success. They began to buy listings magazines, looking at what was on in the city. Amy came to stay, with her new boyfriend, a very nice Nigerian doctor. Lisa cooked a dinner party, invited Esther and Ralph and another couple. Before they sat down to eat, she asked everyone to join her in a short prayer. Jaz looked stricken. The others understood. At the end, Adé boomed out a loud amen.

Afterward, as they ferried dirty plates and glasses into the kitchen, Jaz hissed at her.

“Well, that was embarrassing.”

“Why? Why would you be embarrassed?”

“You’re forcing it on people. Rubbing it in their faces.”

“Rubbing it in your face, you mean.”

“Try to understand, Lisa.”

It turned into an argument about Raj. What was possible. What the future looked like. She accused him of being willfully blind to the good things that were happening. Sometimes, she told him, she felt he didn’t believe in his own son. He said he didn’t even know how to answer such a charge.

She was triumphant. “Because you know it’s true.”

“No, because your accusation makes no sense.”

“You really ought to get your head out of the sand.”

“God, Lisa. You think I’m the one with my head in the sand? Yours is buried so far — look, I’m trying hard to be positive here. In fact I’d say I was optimistic. Cautiously optimistic. Raj seems to be doing well. But think of what actually happened. Anything could come up for him. Repressed memories, trauma. Until we know who had him, what he went through, we won’t be able to say for sure.”

That night, she lay awake in bed, listening to sirens dopplering in the distance. Barricaded by pillows, Jaz had wrapped himself in the quilt, hunched up into a rigid, accusatory ball. She’d tried to dismiss his point about trauma, telling him he had only to look at how well Raj was doing to know it wasn’t an issue. But in truth it did worry her. She had to admit she wasn’t as certain as she wanted to be. About damage to Raj, about a lot of things. For a long time she’d been obsessing — not, like Jaz, about the day of Raj’s disappearance, but the night before, her drunken odyssey into town. She’d been out of control that night. She was never out of control. Perhaps someone had put something in her drink. It was a sleazy bar, the kind of place where that sort of thing probably happened. She had only the vaguest memory of being in the woman’s car, the headlights lighting up the dirt road, the house they drove to, with its odd bulbous roof, its triangular windows, the animal-skin rugs lying on its polished wooden floors. The alcohol swimming in her head had dissolved everything into shadows. Only the stone hearth and the woman in the rocking chair had substance. She remembered collapsing onto a bed that smelled of dust and cigarette smoke, feeling a rough Indian blanket under her cheek. The two women were standing over her, talking.

“What about her?”

“Leave her, she’ll be OK.”

“What if she wakes up?”

“She’s got so much booze inside her, she ain’t going to move a muscle until morning.”

Why had that stuck in her memory? Had they left her? Where had they gone? How long had she been unconscious in that strange house? The trapdoor was open, the questions hatching and swarming, like maggots turning into flies. Raj had been spirited away into that teeming darkness. They’d said something about her, about Raj. What had they been saying about Raj? Shut the trapdoor. Draw the heavy bolt across it. There were places into which one shouldn’t trespass.

The call from Raj’s speech therapist came completely out of the blue. She’d met the woman, of course. She was expensive. The best. They’d been very happy with her work.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Matharu.”

“That’s quite all right. What can I do for you?”

“I’d really prefer to have this conversation face-to-face, but — well, it’s a difficult matter. I wanted to speak to you as soon as I could. Your husband came to see me.”

“Alone?”

“No. He brought Raj in for his appointment earlier today. But he asked if he could see me without Raj. Without Raj being in the room.”

“Why ever would he do that?”

“I don’t know why he chose me. Maybe because I’m — well, he may have thought I’d understand. This isn’t my area, of course. But I found what he told me — alarming. He has ideations. He seems very scared.”

“Ideations?”

“He’s got the notion that Raj isn’t your son. It’s unusual, but not totally without precedent. He told me he believes Raj — the real Raj — has been swapped for an identical double. A twin. I don’t know why he chose me to confess to, but I believe this thought has been in his mind for some time. He knows it’s not normal. He knows there’s no logical explanation. He’s very troubled by it.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I asked him how he knew about the substitution. How he’d noticed. What had changed. He told me absolutely everything was just like Raj, except it was clear to him that it wasn’t the same boy. This Raj is identical in every respect to your son, but in some essential respect he’s not the same boy.”

“But that’s crazy. It doesn’t make any sense. He really thinks this? That someone’s swapped Raj for a double?”

“Maybe, with the kidnap, the trauma …”

“You’re telling me he’s gone insane. That’s basically what you’re telling me.”

“I certainly think there are grounds for seeing a psychiatrist. Strong grounds. You’ve both — your family has undergone a great deal of stress. It’s possible that this is merely a reaction. Perhaps with rest, maybe some kind of medication, it will all be resolved. This is very tricky, Mrs. Matharu, and, as I say, I’m not qualified to make a diagnosis. You really need to see a specialist. Your husband has assured me he doesn’t want to harm Raj. He’s not hearing voices, or experiencing compulsions. He says he’s no danger to the boy.”

“Oh God! He’s out with him now. What should I do? Should I call the police?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. As I say, he claims he’s not going to harm him. Why don’t you wait and talk to him yourself? I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. This must be very distressing. If you need a recommendation, maybe I can call around and get you a name.…”

Lisa sat at the kitchen counter, twisting from side to side on a high stool. She felt stalled, short-circuited. She poured out the contents of the bowl into which they habitually threw spare change. She lined up coins to make patterns and moved them about with her forefinger, a game with no clear rules. Finally, she heard Jaz opening the front door and the sound of coats and boots being removed in the hall. Raj came barreling in. She scooped him up, held him tight.

She didn’t know how to start. Jaz started chatting, asking about her day. They’d booked the sitter. They had plans to go out to the cinema. What did she want to see? He seemed completely normal. She watched him. Did he seem more tense than usual? Did he seem frightened?

“I had a call from Dr. Siddiqi.”

“Oh yes?”

“Jaz, I don’t understand. She said you’d told her Raj wasn’t our son.”

Suddenly his face collapsed. He looked hollow. She knew then that it was true. Involuntarily she put her hand up to her mouth. He was shaking his head, holding out his open palms in a gesture of pacification.

“Look,” he said. And again. “Look.”

“What’s going on?”

“I know it’s not logical. But surely you of all people should understand.”

“I should understand? Why?”

“You believe in — all this stuff.”

“All what stuff?”

“You told me you thought it was a miracle.”

“A miracle that he came back. I don’t think he’s being — what? Impersonated? I don’t even know what you think is happening. What did you tell that woman?”

“I can’t — not while he’s here. Raj, go play in the other room.”

Raj looked from one to the other, confusion flickering on his face.

“Go on, darling. Go play. Why not find your dinosaurs? You can take them to the living room.”

Raj obeyed. Jaz sank down onto a chair, put his head in his hands.

“Lisa, I know how weird this sounds.”

“You have no idea. What exactly did you say to her? She told me you need to see a psychiatrist. She told me she didn’t think you intended to harm our son. She had to say that — she didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be sure.”

“I’d never do anything to him. I swear.”

“So what’s going on? It’s Raj. Can’t you see that? There’s nothing wrong with him. Nothing’s changed.”

“I can’t put a finger on it. It’s as if — as if something’s wearing his skin.”

“You’re terrifying. I can’t believe I’m hearing you say this.”

“I know how it sounds. I’m scared too, Lisa. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“You need to talk to someone.”

“A shrink?”

“Yes, a shrink. God, you’ve been with him all this time, wheeling him around the city. Wherever it is you go. Anything could have happened.”

“I swear I’d never hurt him.”

“But you don’t even think it’s him. You think it’s something wearing his skin.”

“Lisa, I’ll see a shrink. Whatever you want. If it’s me, my mind or whatever, I’ll get it sorted out. But don’t you ever think it’s strange, the way he’s changing? He’s completely different.”

“Yes, he is. He’s better. I don’t understand why you find that so hard to accept. It’s what we’ve been praying for, and now you won’t even believe it.”

“I need to know what happened to him. I can’t stand not knowing. There’s something different about him. And yes, I don’t feel like it’s him. I can’t tell you why. Haven’t you noticed the way he looks at you?”

“Looks at me?”

“At both of us. Like he’s ancient. Like he knows all our secrets.”

“He’s a little boy, Jaz. He’s just a little boy. I want you to sleep downstairs tonight. I don’t want you near us.”

“That’s ridiculous, Lisa.”

“Ridiculous. Really?”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Stay away, Jaz. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. This is too weird. You have to give me space.”

“Look at him, Lisa. That’s all I ask of you. Really look at him.”

She took Raj upstairs. As she got him ready for bed, brushing his teeth and helping him into his pajamas, she could hear Jaz roaming about downstairs, slamming doors, angrily rattling about in the kitchen. After a while the sound of the TV came filtering through the floor, some cop show, the volume turned up high.

Before she went to sleep, she wedged a chair under the door.

The next morning Jaz hung around in the kitchen doorway as she phoned Karl and told him she couldn’t make it in to work.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jaz said. “I’m not some kind of maniac.”

“I’m not leaving him with you.”

“I promise, Lisa. I’ll go to a shrink. Find one. Make an appointment. I’ll go.”

That day she didn’t let Raj out of her sight. She sat at the kitchen table with her MacBook, looking up psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, therapists of various kinds. Dr. Siddiqi had e-mailed a couple of names, and in the end it was one of them she phoned. She prayed silently for guidance before she went into the study, where Jaz was lying on the floor, doing stretches.

“That couch has destroyed my back.”

“I’m sorry you had an uncomfortable night.”

“OK.”

“I need to know you’re not a danger.”

“I see.”

“I can’t take the risk.”

“I’m not—”

“I know, you’re not a danger. I found you a psychiatrist. Here’s his name, and his number. You can see him Thursday afternoon. I thought you’d prefer a guy.”

“You did? OK.”

“You want to see a woman?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll see this”—he looked at the paper—“Dr. Zuckerman.”

She was relieved. That night, she and Jaz slept in the same bed, though she pulled the dresser partway across the door, so if he got up and moved it, he’d make a noise. He looked angry.

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

She shrugged. “Then you’ll wake me up.”

“OK, whatever you want.”

In the morning she phoned Karl, trying to let him know something serious was happening, without divulging details. She’d tell him. She’d already decided that. But she wanted to speak to him face-to-face, preferably over lunch. He’d be sympathetic. He might even be able to help.

“I can’t come in. It’s — a personal situation. I’m so sorry. Yes, I know about that. I’ll call him and reschedule. He can’t? I see. That’s tricky.”

Jaz was standing behind her, so close that when he spoke it made her jump.

“Come on, Lisa. You can’t do this forever. I haven’t hurt him. I won’t hurt him. I never would.”

“Jaz! I’m sorry, Karl, could you hold the line a moment? What the hell, Jaz?”

“Go to work. I’ll look after him.”

The meeting was important, and Karl seemed mystified — not annoyed exactly, but certainly not as understanding as she’d hoped. As she slid her papers into a bag, she reasoned to herself that Jaz had been with Raj several days a week for months, without any problems. It would probably be fine. As she left for work, the two of them stood on the stoop and waved her off.

It’d be fine.

At lunchtime she phoned Jaz’s cell. “Where are you?” she asked, straining to hear in case there was traffic noise in the background. She’d asked Jaz not to go out with him. Just stay home, she’d said. I’ll be back early anyway.

His voice was breezy. “Oh, we’re at home.”

“Everything OK?”

“Peachy.”

Something about his tone didn’t sound right. After she rang off, she sat at her desk for a few minutes, the wrong feeling working its way down into her chest, her gut. Without a word to Karl or Teri, who were looking at some cover designs, she grabbed her bag and went out onto First Avenue to look for a taxi.

She got back home just in time. Jaz and Raj were already outside. Raj was wearing his little yellow rain poncho. The trunk of the car was open. Jaz was stowing a bag inside. She shoved some bills through the taxi driver’s window and ran to the front of the car, placing herself between Raj and Jaz.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“I have to do this, Lisa. Don’t stop me.”

“Where are you taking him?”

“Where do you think? We have to go back there. Unless we find out what happened, we’ll never be able to move on.”

“You were just going to abduct him? Drive off, without telling me?”

“You think I’m insane. There’s no way I could explain to you.”

“You can’t take him.”

“If we don’t go today, we’ll have to go sooner or later. You can’t keep denying it forever.”

“I’m calling the police.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“There’s every need. You’ve gone insane. You’re abducting our son.”

“Come with me.”

“You’re sick, Jaz. You need help.”

“You know you have questions. Come with me. We’ll find out together. We’ll solve this. There’s an explanation.”

They’d been raising their voices. Lisa was aware of a neighbor standing and watching them from across the street. She waved her hand, trying to look jaunty, unconcerned.

“Come inside, Jaz. Please. We can talk inside.”

“Only if you’ll agree to come with us.”

“OK, OK. Anything you say. Let’s just do this inside.”

“Raj, Mummy’s coming too! We’re going on an adventure! Isn’t it exciting?”

An hour later they were on their way to JFK, inching through the afternoon rush-hour traffic. Jaz was at the wheel. She was sitting in the back with Raj, who was strapped into his booster seat, swinging his legs and counting off the vehicles in the other lane.

“Blue car,” he said. “Red car. Red car white car black car blue car white car.”

She felt as if she were being kidnapped. Strap-hanging on the subway, she’d sometimes see another passenger reading a Bible. Usually they were black or Latino, heading in to minimum-wage jobs in the city. Cleaners, custodians. She’d always imagined their faith in God as primarily a protective thing. Warding off debt, family illness. Their Bibles were usually well thumbed, often in foreign languages. Sometimes passages were underlined or highlighted with fluorescent marker. She’d always felt not above, exactly, but far away from such people. Now she wished she had her own dog-eared, familiar book, something she could clutch in her hand as they made that terrible journey.

At the airport Jaz parked the car in the long-term parking lot and carried the cases toward the terminal. She wondered if she ought to make a run for it, perhaps find a cop. What should she say? Jaz was so determined. Unless she could have him arrested, committed to a mental hospital, there was no way of stopping him. She imagined herself carrying Raj, fleeing along a moving walkway. It was useless. Maybe, she told herself, by going along with this, she’d help him see how lost he was.

They bought tickets for Las Vegas and sat warily in the lounge, half watching TV. News commentators were arguing about the war. The withdrawal from Iraq. The ramping up of operations in Afghanistan. There were brief images of mountains, bleak sandy desert. It was like a premonition.

“Are we going on a plane, Mommy?” asked Raj.

“Yes, dear.”

“Are we going to see Grandma Patty and Grandpa Louis?”

“No, baby. We’re just going to where you were when you were away.”

“Where’s that?”

Jaz leaned forward so he could hear. “Where you were. When you went away. You weren’t with us.”

“I couldn’t see you.”

“That’s right.”

“I was asleep.”

“No, Raj. Not when you were asleep. When you didn’t see us for a long time.”

“I went night-night.”

“No, Raj.”

“Leave him, Jaz. Leave him alone.”

Secretly she’d been sending texts. SOS messages to her mom, to Esther. Jaz behaving manically. Forcing us to go back to desert. Please help. When her mom called, Jaz looked over sharply. Don’t pick it up, he said. Don’t answer.

The flight was interminable. At McCarran they waited in line to rent a car. Neither would leave the other alone with Raj, each convinced that there would be trickery, that the other would try to sneak off. She hung around outside the men’s bathroom while Jaz and Raj were inside. When she needed to pee, she insisted on taking the boy in with her, even as he complained he didn’t need to go and she was hurting his wrist.

Locked in a cubicle, she called Esther.

“Are you OK?” she asked. “Has he threatened you?”

“No, nothing like that. But he says Raj isn’t Raj. That the real Raj has been replaced by something else. He thinks if we go back to the rocks we’ll solve some kind of mystery. He’s gone crazy, Esther. I don’t know what to do.”

“Why ever did you let him get you on a plane?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed simpler. I thought if I let him go through with it, he might see how crazy he’s being.”

“You might be right. Once he gets there, he’ll probably calm down. How far away is it?”

“A couple of hours’ drive.”

“Do you want me to send the police?”

“I don’t know. What will they do? Jaz can fool people into thinking he’s normal. He’ll probably have some explanation for them.”

“I could call them anyway, let them know there’s a situation. It might be easier than you just grabbing one and causing a scene.”

“OK. Maybe. Oh, I don’t know. Look, maybe we should hold off. I’ll call you when we get there. If you don’t hear from me, phone them.”

“Good luck, dear.”

“Thanks, Esther. Speak to you later.”

Jaz was waiting outside the door, suspicious, antsy.

“What took you so long?”

She didn’t reply. She fitted Raj into the booster seat, then got in and waited for Jaz to settle himself. No harm can come to you, she thought. Not in any way that matters. You’re a child of a loving, personal God, whose infinite care and wisdom surrounds you now and forever. This is the world you live in. A world infused with the spirit of God.

It was late afternoon. Vegas ebbed away into drab suburbs, then trailer parks and vacant lots, fronted by billboards advertising future developments, casinos, personal-injury lawyers, evangelical churches, strip clubs. Then the land rose up in its full intensity, white rock tinted pale yellow by the lowering sun. Jaz turned off the interstate onto a two-lane blacktop. By now the land was burnished gold, the mountains in the distance a copper-red.

“We’re so close now,” he said. “Can you feel it?” It was the first either of them had spoken since Las Vegas. “I’m sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry I scared you. But can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel how right this is?”

“Yes,” she said. And, to her surprise, she meant it. The alien land was beautiful. The vast emptiness all around them seemed pregnant with something, some possibility she wanted to see made flesh.

They passed through a dilapidated settlement, a few houses with a gas station and a boarded-up motel. At the edge of town was a gnarled tree festooned with old sneakers, like a flock of crows sitting on its bare branches. The road climbed a ridge, then dropped down into a basin, where some kind of commercial chemical operation was taking place, sheds and huge tanks squatting on the flat. Then they climbed again, heading straight, or so it seemed, into the huge gold disk of the sun, right into its heart. A collision course.

Up ahead on the road, they saw flashing lights. A barrier had been erected. A highway patrol car was parked askew across both lanes. They pulled up in front of it and a policeman got out. Jaz rolled down the window.

“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to turn back.”

“I need to get to the Pinnacle Rocks.”

“Are you a local resident?”

“No.”

“Well, then, I’m afraid you’ll have to turn the car around. We’ve got a serious incident up ahead. It’s not safe to proceed.”

“What kind of incident?”

“I don’t know exactly, sir. I believe there’s been an explosion. Some kind of chemical release.”

“But I really need to get to the rocks. We’ve come a long way. From New York.”

“Is that right?”

“I’ve got my son here, my boy. He’s very tired.”

“Well, sir, then I don’t see why you’d want to be putting him in harm’s way. If you get back onto the interstate, you’ll see signs for a number of motels. There’s also a diversion sign posted about fifteen miles back.”

“You don’t understand. We need to get there. Is there another way?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’m just doing my job, and I’m afraid you’ll have to turn the car around and head on back in the direction you came.”

“Please. You don’t understand.”

“Sir, I’m not here to argue with you. This is not optional. Turn the car around and head back the way you came.”

Jaz swung the wheel. The narrow ribbon of road stretched away from them. Long shadows scored the sides of the mountains. They drove in silence. Lisa stole glances at him. His jaw was set, his eyes unblinking.

Suddenly, without warning, he turned off the road, bumping across the sand, a great plume of dust rising up behind them. Gravel skittered against the bodywork. There was a rhythmic thwack, the sound of creosote bushes hitting the underside of the car. Lisa braced herself against the dash.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not giving up.”

“Stop, Jaz! Please stop! It’s dangerous!”

The car vibrated. Jaz swung the wheel left and right to avoid large rocks. They were gradually climbing uphill. Eventually there was a massive jolt as they ran over something and came to a shuddering halt, the airbags deploying, filling up the car like giant white marshmallows. Jaz seemed not to care, struggling out of his seat belt and flinging open the door. He pulled Raj out of the car and set him on his shoulders.

“Come on!”

Sobbing, Lisa followed them. There was a cut above her eye. Blood was blurring her vision. Raj was babbling, a stream of wordless nonsense that rose in tone until it sounded more like a chirruping bird or a fax machine than human speech. They scrambled up a talus slope, Jaz reaching out a hand to help her over the difficult parts. Little avalanches of stones skipped down behind them. She could feel the heat exhaled from the earth. She no longer cared what happened to her. The world had reduced itself to the slippery gravel beneath her feet, her ragged breathing. At last they stood together on the ridge of the hill, sweating and gasping for breath, the three of them holding hands and looking out across the great basin below. In the distance, the only form to break the flat surface was the three-fingered hand of the Pinnacle Rocks. They could see no evidence of anything wrong. There was no cloud, no column of fire, no toxic mist. The air was blue. Ahead of them lay only a vast emptiness, an absence. There was nothing out there at all.