These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

When she asks, “What about you?” she has no idea it’s a real question until, curiously, he shrugs, “How’s that?” before rushing into the rest. “Work goes all right, I suppose — new piece about the impact of torture at Guantanamo on the Muslim. . well, never mind. Alexander and I got into a bit of a row about it.”

“Zan in a row?”

“Nothing explosive.”

“Why did you invite him?” she asks. “I mean the lecture, or. . whatever it—”

“Oh,” James throws open his arms.

“Oh?”

“When one’s timer has been set, your perspective becomes fixed, doesn’t it? To whatever moment it’s going off.”

“James?”

“From that moment, everything looks different.” He shrugs again, this time less curious than ominous. “I, uh. . have some health issues.”

“My God. Are you all right?”

“Not a matter of making amends, mind,” he continues, “there are no amends to be made, are there? With you or Alexander.” She watches him; he sips his tea, won’t look back at her. “Did you find the girl’s mother?”

“Complete dead-end,” she answers after a moment. She takes her purse from the table and opens it. “No one will tell me how she died, and in all likelihood she isn’t Sheba’s mother anyway.” She says, “I never should have gone.”

“But you had to go,” says James.

“Zan didn’t want me to.”

“But he understood. Ronnie Joe Somebody.”

“Not the same thing.” She finds the photo in her purse and gazes at it as she did on the train last night.

“A moral compulsion, though, wasn’t it? To take responsibility, even for the thing you’re not really responsible for. Another endearing Viv quality.”

“My moral compulsion got me a photograph”—she hands it to him—“of the wrong, dead woman.”

James does a double-take. Viv’s not sure she’s ever seen James do a double-take. “But this woman,” he says, “is very much alive,” which isn’t as true as he thinks.