Stray Read online

  7.

  Talk Therapy

  “And what,” Maestro Oburumu was asking as Emery awoke in the middle of class, “is Rittenhouse’s legal status as recognized by its respective circles and by Unity? Yes, miss Engal.”

  “Rittenhouse is a shared-land confederacy of four discrete, sovereign states,” Carla replied quickly, leaning forward on her circular crimson cushion. She was wearing a white short-sleeved turtleneck sweater, her golden hair suspended in an elaborate bun. Was the sweater sparkling, or was that just an optical illusion due to light sensitivity upon having just opened his eyes? Emery ruled neither possibility out.

  “Quite correct,” the maestro replied. He was of the Chukwu circle. His night-black face was framed by a shaven head and, more often than not, by an enormous white smile. “It is to this remarkable structure that many attribute our city’s successes in a region and time where most attempts at government have proven unstable and short-lived at best. However, to the best of our knowledge, this structure is unique to history; at the very least, it is highly uncommon. And with it comes a unique set of challenges. We need only recall the infamous upheaval in Ambler, and the turbulence it created here, to see the pratfalls of sharing a city between four largely independent governments.

  “Over the past two weeks we have briefly surveyed the process by which each circle appoints its representative justices to Unity. Beginning next week, we shall explore a subject arguably even more important: the separation of power between Unity and the governments of each circle. In the last few minutes of today’s class, I would like to preface that exploration with a short overview of our city’s founding. For those students who took Introductory History of Rittenhouse with me this past fall—about half of you, I think?—this material should be mere review.”

  “Thrilling,” muttered one such student—what was his name? He was a Farsi… Amir? No, Amir Bhatt with the timid one. Dan. That was it.

  The remark was so quiet Emery had barely heard it himself, but the maestro missed little. “It is my pleasure to thrill you, sir Akbari. Given your passion for the subject, I shall cede the lecture to you.” Whereupon the maestro strode to the semicircle where the students were seated and selected an empty cushion for himself, royal blue. He waited patiently as the pupil’s perplexed expression slowly transformed to terror. Dan started to say something, but M. Oburumu, still smiling, simply raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the front of the class. Laughs escaped some of the other students but were quickly stifled lest they receive such a penalty. Trapped, Dan Akbari shakily rose and crossed the classroom, wood soles clacking on the wood floor.

  “Why don’t you begin,” the maestro suggested, “by telling us who held the various territories that comprise Rittenhouse prior to its formation?”

  Dan cleared his throat. “Um,” he declared. “The Farsi and Roccetti, mostly. Like, not the Farsi, but the group that became the Farsi. Some Persian and Indian families, mostly. They were organized by the vedas, who’d managed to gather them under Haqiqat, the true faith. Shah Abbasi, the boss veda…”

  “I am delighted to see you remember your own circle’s history,” M. Oburumu interrupted. “Now, what can you tell us about your neighbors?”

  This, apparently, was what Dan had been trying to avoid. He stared blankly behind the maestro at the floor-to-ceiling glass that formed the classroom’s north wall. Emery followed his gaze; the sky appeared about to snow again. “Well, the Roccetti had some boats, and…”

  “Gino Gullini the Eighth was already calling himself the first rex before Rittenhouse was formed,” Carla interrupted. “Besides the Vorteil, who already had representative government in place with a two-chamber council, the Roccetti were the most advanced circle prior to Rittenhouse’s formation in the year 202 After Landing.” The year was an estimate, Emery knew. “Councilman Oberst, who drafted the plan for Rittenhouse, knew that securing the Schuylkill River was vital to the city’s prosperity, and the Roccetti, who already considered themselves a nation, were well on their way to doing that.”

  “Very good, miss Engal,” M. Oburumu replied. Emery was also impressed: he had expected Carla’s knowledge of circles outside her own to approach Dan’s, at the most. “I am certain sir Akbari was preparing to say precisely that,” the maestro continued, “but the rest of you should take note. Credit for the ‘idea of Rittenhouse’ is fiercely debated by the circles today, of course, but Theo Oberst was at least one vital figure in the city’s founding. And what else, sir Esposti, gave miss Engal’s circle leverage in negotiations to found the city?”

  Good: a question whose answer he already knew. “Firepower. The Vorteil had established the only known mass-production factories since before extinction. They were, and still are, the only group in New Providence to successfully manufacture a firearm.”

  “Correct!” M. Oburumu announced. “Thom Thorsen’s first model bolt-action rifle was key in securing the boundaries of the new city. When the Vorteil migrated to Rittenhouse, they ensured that no part of the Thorsen factory would be left intact for others to use against them. The sinkhole called West Sink, now inhabited by a native clan, marks where that factory once stood. Along with strict Unity oversight of current arms production, this measure was intended to guarantee that not a single Vorteil-made weapon ever reaches the hands of Rittenhouse’s enemies.” And yet, a single weapon had: Emery had the scar to prove it.

  M. Oburumu turned his focus back to Dan, who was still standing at the front of the classroom, rocking nervously back and forth. “Since your classmates have deprived you the pleasure of teaching on two of the four circles, I shall return the last of the lecture to you. What, sir Akbari, did my own fine people possess that warranted an invitation to become part of this new city?”

  “Well, the Vorteil had factories and guns, and—and the Roccetti secured the river against pirates and fished for food…” After a moment, apparently reviewing his own words, he added, “Food! I mean, farmland. Fairmount.”

  “Indeed. Thank you for imparting both your wisdom and your enthusiasm to the class; it is an inspiration to us all. You may be seated.” The maestro returned to the front of the class as Dan scampered back to his seat. “As miss Engal indicated earlier, the Chukwu had no hierarchical organization; in fact, my ancestors were a cluster of friendly but unaffiliated clans occupying vital agricultural land. Akin Chima, the Ibo king at the time, was selected by his peers to represent the tribes at the First Delaware Congress to discuss terms for the proposed city.” Emery felt himself beginning to drift off again; he discreetly pinched himself, which was little help. “Yes,” the maestro was saying, “Amir?”

  There was Amir Bhatt, the other Farsi boy in the class, raising his hand. “Whoever had the idea for Rittenhouse, it was the Farsi who thought of Unity, right?” It was clear that he knew he was correct but was too timid to state it with conviction.

  M. Oburumu nodded. “Quite right, sir Bhatt. And why is that?”

  With all eyes on him, it took Amir a moment to find his voice. “Well… Like Emery said, the Vorteil had guns. The Roccetti had naval power, and they and the Chukwu had all the food access in the proposed city scheme. The Farsi had to give up their own farmlands to construction, and we didn’t have anything really advanced in the way of weapons. We had things to offer, like the best medicine on the continent, but no real way to protect ourselves if these other circles moving into our territory just decided to take everything and kick us out.”

  “So Unity was established,” concluded the maestro, “to protect the circles from each other, with the first Chief Justice, sir Pahlavi, representing the Farsi during what they perceived as a vulnerable time. Thus began a government of inherent tensions: Unity guards the circles from each other, it falls to the circles to guard themselves and their citizens from incursions by Unity. Is for this reason that the persecution of most crimes by Unity requires the consent of the defendant’s circle.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Alas, we are short on time. Before we a
djourn, I would like each of you to write a hundred-word response to this question: what powers do you believe Unity should possess, and what powers should be retained by the circles? My assistant lecturer sir Akbari will hand out the tablets.”

  An abashed Dan Akbari rose to do as instructed, and a moment later Emery was staring blankly at a blank slate square. He was already formulating a “correct” response, the sort he fabricated in every class at the collegio, a response that would earn complements from instructors and tip the scale against his mounting list of incomplete home assignments. But when he put the chalk to the tablet, writing almost more quickly than he could think, a very different hundred words came out.

  It is essential to our city’s continued security and prosperity that all segregations be dissolved. Admittedly, doing so poses risks of its own, but none so dangerous as maintaining the separation. As long as we remain a people divided, we feed mounting hostility within each circle for all people outside it. Real unity—not the municipal body but the principle for which it is named—is the embrace of commonalities, yet Rittenhouse is predicated on defining us by difference. I perceive in this division the death of empathy and a cancer upon the body politic.

  He always sounded much better writing than speaking, he thought.

  He wiped the chalk from his right palm on the left leg of his slacks, and when Dan came around again to collect the tablets, Emery made hastily for the door the classroom. “Sir Esposti,” M. Oburumu beckoned from behind him, “if I could have a word with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he called back over his shoulder, “but I have to get to my counseling session.” The sessions in which Maestra Petrou had made him enroll were a low point of Emery’s day, but at least they provided an escape from unwanted confrontations with instructors. In his haste to distance himself from the maestro, Emery descended the stairs far too quickly and came down hard on the landing. He leaned gasping against the wall, a hand pressed against his side in a futile effort to alleviate the stabbing pain from the bullet wound that had never healed right. Everything hurt more now. He felt a sudden urge to vomit, but that would make him late. He swallowed back bile.

  Emery entered a small, brightly lit lobby to find Dr. Mari checking the time. She was a petite, professional Farsi woman of about thirty years. Emery had tried when explaining her to Juliet to find a more precise descriptor, but “professional” was the one that seemed most adequate. Everything about her exuded professionalism, from her professional black shoes and long skirts to her professional tightly-tied black hair to the professional unthreatening prettiness of her straight nose and neatly arranged features. Even her practiced demeanor was professional. She never raised her voice.

  “Oh,” she greeted his approach, “Emery. A pleasure to see you today.” Her colorless tone betrayed little pleasure. “Are you ready?”

  He followed her into a low-lit, overtly comfortable room with a large couch facing a large chair. There were pastel paintings of flowers and rivers, too mundane to distract anyone, and a single hazy mirror, set high in the wall, that seemed to emanate the faintest whisper of light. Emery took a seat on the couch as he did every week; Dr. Mari sat facing him. With a fluid motion she removed her professional wire glasses and set them on an end table beside her. “How has your past week been?”

  “Alright. How was yours?” The reflexive reply bought him a moment to think.

  “Good,” she said politely but dismissively. Dr. Mari said nary a word about herself. “So how have you been feeling?”

  Emery tried to call the past few days to mind, sorting the events into things he could talk about openly and things he couldn’t. “Up and down,” he said. “I haven’t gotten out much, besides attending Rex Muratore’s requiem mass this past Friday.” So the procession of half-truths began. Emery counted as a success every minute that passed without his telling an outright lie. He related the few events he could—meeting Sander, visiting Juliet the evening of the funeral. “I’ve been too busy to see her as much as I used to, but we’re going to try to get together more in the near future.”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “That’s good. Have you noticed any change in your mood when you’re out doing activities with her versus the time you spend at home alone?”

  Emery was never alone at home; he let that error slide. “Yeah. I mean, once I get out of the house, I’m generally happier when we’re hanging out, painting or whatever. It’s just finding the time—working up the energy, I guess—to get out in the first place.”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “It sounds like you exert yourself at home. What do you do there?”

  The questions would only get more difficult from this point. “A lot of study. Coursework. Still trying to navigate the mess of records and correspondence my cousin left behind, which is proving an endless task.”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “Coursework.” She pursed her lips. “Several of your instructors have approached me recently. I can’t speak to what you’re doing at home, but they say they’ve received virtually none of your work this term.”

  “The term just recently began. I’ve been scrambling to get everything organized, but I’ll be turning it all in soon.” He didn’t even sound convincing to himself.

  Dr. Mari nodded. “Well, that’s between you and your professors, of course. But if there’s anything that you feel is keeping you from being able to do that work, I want you to feel safe talking about it here.”

  Emery didn’t want to spurn her offer of help; beneath her detached manner, he tried to assume Dr. Mari was well-intentioned. But what could he actually say—and even if he told her everything, what would it change? He needed more hands in the tunnel; he needed to find where the medicine was being taken from the city; he needed to restore the waning support of the only real friend he had in the city. None of his problems were things some advice and a new outlook would fix. He shot a tentative glance at the one-way mirror. “Have you ever felt like there’s something you need to do, but you’re the only one who can see that need?”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “What do you feel you need to do, specifically?”

  Emery tried to think of a white lie to explain himself without revealing anything. He failed. “I don’t know. I just feel classes aren’t the most important thing for me right now. There are other uses of my time that matter more.”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “What things?”

  He’d cornered himself. “Just things. Independent study, managing my cousin’s papers…”

  Dr. Mari did not nod. “So it’s something very important, but you can’t quite think of what it is?” If the phrasing was irate, her affect was still just as flat. “If you’re going to get anything out of these sessions, Emery, you’ll need to choose to be a bit more open in our conversation.” She checked her watch. “I’d like to talk about your childhood, before you came here from Ambler.”

  Here, at least, was something he could give her. He had done it before, presenting a heavily redacted story of his kidnapping en route from Ambler to Rittenhouse. The facts of the past were less dangerous to reveal than those of the present. Still, he struggled to speak on it directly. “Oh. My childhood was fine, I guess. I mean, my parents and aunts and uncles and cousins are all there. It was a decent place to grow up. All my needs were taken care of, and besides what happened with my one cousin it was a safe city at the time.”

  “What happened with your cousin?”

  “That—that’s kind of an ugly story. But if you’d like to know…” he closed his eyes for a moment, searching for words. There was only so much he could tell, and even that was harrowing to recall. “Back when I was really young, maybe eight or nine, I had this cousin Seth who was a few years older than me. We spent a lot of time together. Our extended family has always been moneyed, but my parents didn’t want to accept charity from our relatives, and at the time both of them were working to make ends meet. So I’d stay with my aunt, and Seth and I would play after school. They had this little playhouse in their back yard where we hung o
ut.

  “This was back when the Vorteil were still in Ambler, and we didn’t have the kind of security both cities instated later. So we were never sure how, but one way or another, an outsider got into Ambler one day. He was mentally ill or something, I don’t know…” He needed to pause for a moment.

  “What happened?” she prompted.

  “Well, of all the yards he could have wandered into, he happened to find me and my cousin. And I don’t know why, I guess I’ll never know why. He locked us in the playhouse, and he just…” he cleared his throat. “He ended up killing Seth with a brick. He—he did other things to him first. I guess the same would have happened to me, but my mom had arrived after work to pick me up. When she started knocking, he kicked a window out and ran. They never found him.” He was choking up. “My cousin was still alive when Mom got there, but by the time she managed to get help he was gone.”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “I recall hearing tell of the event, but the particulars elude me now. Was the man apprehended?”

  Emery shook his head. “I guess he made it out of Ambler the same way he got in. There was a public outcry, and the city always had armed watchmen on the walls after that, the same way Rittenhouse does now. It’s crazy, though, I can’t even remember what he looks like. I can’t remember any details from that day, to be honest. I suppose it’s a mercy, but you’d think of all the things I’d be able to recall…”

  By the end of the session, Emery felt more drained than he had before it. This was a regular sensation; he was almost sure the result was supposed to be the opposite. “I’ve been thinking,” he began. “I really appreciate the time you’ve been spending with me, but I don’t really think either of us has been getting too much out of this. I’m sure you have better uses of your time; I’m not really the best client…”

  Dr. Mari nodded. “I neglected to show you this.” She produced a sealed envelope from the petite leather briefcase beside her chair and passed it to Emery. The seal belonged to Head Maestro Giorgio, the dean of the collegio. He didn’t bother to open it. “What’s this?”

  “Collegio administration has placed you on academic probation,” Dr. Mari explained. “Your performance at the end of last term and the beginning of this one has caused your instructors to question your ability to succeed here. One condition of your continued enrollment is that you attend these sessions. Another is that your grades for the remainder of the term show a marked improvement. Read over the letter when you get a chance; it covers everything in much greater detail.”

  He nodded, tasting acid in his dry mouth, and stuffed the envelope hastily into his pocket as he rose. “I’ll be sure to do that,” he said. “Thanks for meeting with me. I suppose I’ll be seeing you next week.” He cut out with a hasty bow.