METHOD OF EXHAUSTION

by

Ren Sakurai

PART I—DAMAGED BEYOND REPAIR

CHAPTER 2—MAYBE, GOODBYE

It felt like the earth was grieving, too.

Rain in sheets fell on the cold asphalt of the Rue St. Lazare and clogged the gutters with clumps of leaves and cigarette butts and bits of paper.

That was the kind of day it was when Joe Iverson stepped from his apartment, the day things started happening, the day he saw his sister walking down a gray and rainy cobblestone street in a Belgium town called Mons. Or, at least, he thought he saw her. That was the thing about grief; he didn’t know if he could trust his own senses.

Sometimes he could forget about what had happened, but even then a part of him knew it was there, and it would all come back to him. He would remember everything—and the ache would be there, and the ache would be the only thing. The trick was to try not to think of it, to know it was there but to live with it and carry on but now burdened by grief, the grief now inextricably bound to his every action.

But seeing her on the street brought everything back to him, and it came on in a wave of nauseating panic that threated to erupt from his throat. It could not be; no, it could not. But his eyes saw what they saw, and so he went after her. And later, after all the awful, wonderful, sickening things had transpired, Joe recalled how he had wavered and how, if he hadn’t followed her, perhaps none of it would have happened.

Because, the thing is, by then, his sister had been dead for eleven days.

#

It was the day was when Joe was supposed to be over it.

There was a set period of time that you could take off from work, and after that you were supposed to get back to it and be yourself again. It was supposed to be like nothing had ever happened.

But that is the other problem with grief; it changes you—permanently.

Joe left his apartment on la Rue Saint-Lazare in the cold drizzle but then thought better of it. He would be a little late to work, but sometimes it was hard to care. Deciding to try waiting out the rain, he stepped under the dripping awning of a boulangerie, the smell of freshly baked croissants and pains au chocolat polluted by the more powerful, earthy smell of the rain; it smelled old—eternally old, as old as the earth itself.

Inside the bakery, the baker wearing an apron dusted with flour bent down behind the counter to fill the cases with neat rows of petit pains.

A man carrying a sopping umbrella slid past him on his way into the bakery, asking, “Il va pleuvoir comme une vache qui pisse toute la journée?” Will it piss like this all day? He shook off his umbrella outside the door.

Joe tried to laugh, appropriately, saying, “J’éspère pas.” I hope not.

The man with the umbrella went inside and made small talk with the baker. It looked so easy. Joe saw how effortless it was—and it was unbearable, and he stepped from the doorway back into the rain. A gust of cold wind sprayed rainwater into his face.

In the doorway adjacent to the bakery, Baptiste, the beggar, had taken up his usual spot sitting in his rusty wheelchair, a dirt-encrusted blanket wrapped around his useless, toothpick legs. Joe said, “Bonjour, Baptiste,” and stooped to drop a 2-Euro coin into the man’s cup.

Baptiste’s glassy eyes found Joe’s, the grey stubble on his cheeks bending into a slow smile. “Merci bien, Joe,” said Baptiste, his voice rasping and harsh. “Magnifique temps, hein?” Lovely weather. It was the same every day. Joe would drop a coin into Baptiste’s cup, and Baptiste would thank him and say lovely weather; it was the one thing Joe could count on to be predictable.

Something about the way Baptiste hunched his shoulders reminded Joe of his father, whom Joe loved very much but whom he felt very sorry for because he was too much like Joe himself, or rather the other way around. Perhaps when you recognize yourself in someone it is easier to suffer along with them, to feel their joys and aches and longings, or at least to imagine them. Joe’s father carried himself the same way as Baptiste did—dejected, abandoned, hopeless—and it made Joe ache to think of it.

He walked a little farther, but the rain became a downpour and he found another awning to stand under. His coat drained down into his shoes as he watched the cars go by and splash muddy rainwater from the puddles against the sides of the brick buildings, until at last the rain began to let up a little. At the end of la Rue Saint-Lazare he crossed to the other side and made his way down la Rue Jules Cornet and onto l’Avenue du Tir, where dozens of people stood in line outside la Stade Charles Tondreau waiting to buy tickets when the windows opened.

On the corner he passed a man holding a sign that read, “J’ai besoin de tickets”—I need tickets. The street teemed with morning traffic, and people waiting for tickets with dripping umbrellas filled the sidewalks. Stepping into the street, he met another man with a sign saying, “J’ai des tickets”—I have tickets. Joe smiled to himself, realizing he hadn’t smiled in many days.

It was when he turned onto la Rue des Arbalestriers that he saw her.

He couldn’t see her face since she was turned away from him as she made her way down the other side of the street. But it looked like her from that distance. A cold, hollow emptiness filled his gut.

It was impossible.

She had been buried; he had gone to her funeral. The woman walking on the street could not possibly be his sister.

He stopped under the awning of a restaurant, resting his hand against the cold, stone wall of the building as he strained to see the woman across the street; he wanted to make sure the building was real—that he, himself, was real—because when you have just seen your dead sister your natural inclination is to make sure you are not dreaming.

He decided he had to get a closer look. Hurrying after the woman, he crossed the street as she strode quickly down the cobblestone sidewalk. She wore a dress the color of ivory, long and flowing. Her auburn hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back, just like Anne’s.

But something wasn’t right about her. At first it escaped him. But then he realized what it was.

She wasn’t wet.

She carried no umbrella and wore no coat. But she seemed bone dry, as if she were immune to the rain.

When she crossed la Rue de Nimy she turned to look for traffic. Seeing her face in profile gave Joe a sudden shock. She looked just like Anne. And she had Anne’s walk, carrying herself with the same determined confidence.

Maybe this is normal, he thought as he waited at the intersection for a delivery truck to roar past in a spray of rainwater. Other than Anne, the only people he knew who had died were distant relatives. Maybe this was how it always was after the death of someone close whom you loved dearly.

He brushed the thought aside, wondering how he—the most logical of people—could entertain such a possibility.

Then again, he knew what he had just seen.

He tried to keep up with her. She stopped just before la Rue du Grand Jour, hesitating, then looking back in Joe’s direction.

He froze. It could have been his mind playing tricks on him, but the resemblance to Anne was remarkable. He wouldn’t have sworn to it, but she may have smiled. Then she turned away and disappeared around the corner.

The drizzle ran in a thin stream from his hair down the back of his neck. He shivered. He didn’t know if he wanted to follow her or not.

For once, he decided to act on impulse. He went after her.

He hurried down the street, but as he rounded the corner onto la Rue du Grand Jour he ran headlong into someone else coming the opposite direction—a woman wearing a dark coat and carrying a thin leather case. He collided with her, causing the case to burst open, spilling dozens of sheets of paper onto the wet cobblestone sidewalk. Hand-written music lined the pages, the black ink beginning to dilute and run down the pages in the rain.

“Putain!” the woman said. Joe crouched to help her pick up the sheets of paper. He glanced across the street, looking for his sister, but she was gone. It crossed his mind to go after her, but what kind of person would he be to leave this woman to pick up her things after he had barged into her?

He looked again down the wet, empty street. He wasn’t even sure whether he’d truly seen anyone there at all.

“Je suis vraiment désolé,” he said, turning back to the woman with the music. “Je suis navré,” he said, thinking it sounded stronger.

She stopped bundling the papers into her case and looked at him sharply.

“No”, she said in English. “You are not navré. You are desolé, because it was your fault.”

Joe’s face burned.

“I am sorry,” she said, her eyes softening a little. “These songs, they are very important to me. I did not mean to sound like un connard…a jerk.”

The woman had a somewhat thin face that was almost too long. Her dark, brown hair was tied back carelessly in a bun with some of the strands escaping to form loose arcs around her cheeks as she bent over to collect the dripping pages. The little makeup she wore was done perfectly to slightly accentuate her cheekbones. But it wasn’t overdone, and he thought she was lucky to have a face that was pretty enough that she didn’t feel the need to cover it with a lot of makeup.

And yet she had faintly dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well, as if she were worried about something, the worry digging into her mind and keeping her awake at night. But she was still very pretty, not like a movie star or a model, but in a way that was rather approachable. The familiar dull ache filled him, and Joe felt himself flush again.

He handed her the last of the music, which she slid into her case, her long delicate fingers securing the leather strap around it.

“Vous allez bien?” he asked. Are you all right? He thought of his words carefully. He had been speaking French for many years, but it was far from natural and he translated it in his head from English as he spoke.

“Yes. I am fine,” she said as she continued putting the music back into the case.

“How did you know I spoke English?” he asked.

“Your accent. It is only a small one, but there is an accent.”

Her own accent was Wallonian as expected in the south of Belgium. Joe thought the sound of Belgian French was very pleasing; it wasn’t as elegant as Parisian French, but the beauty of Parisian French was too easily corrupted by the speaker knowing it was beautiful, its beauty polluted by the speaker flaunting it.

Joe looked at her and in his mind there was nothing else—no words or complete thoughts, just her sad, dark eyes and the faint flowery smell of her perfume and the sound of her voice that seemed to hang in the air even after she had spoken.

No words came to him. It was always just images and concepts that came first and not the words, which only came later and at the irreversible cost of translation.

Then a word did come, but he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Beautiful,” he murmured.

The woman raised her eyebrows.

He flushed. “I…” He couldn’t think of a way out of it.

She smiled, slowly. “Thank you,” she said. “But I cannot accept this compliment. Perhaps if it was for something I had to work at.”

“It was a mistake. I didn’t mean it.”

Her eyebrows went up again.

“No, I did mean it.” He winced. “But I didn’t mean to say it. Out loud.”

She smiled, and it was a smile that made people die inside.

“But maybe I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” he said. He might as well finish himself off. “Maybe I was just stating a fact.”

She laughed. He had never heard anything as wonderful as the sound of her voice laughing.

“Then that is permissible,” she said. “And you—may I also state a fact about you?”

“All right.”

She searched his face, a dark, far-away look coming into her eyes. “There is a sadness about you.” She blinked, as if coming back from wherever she’d been. “Yes, that is it. A sadness. May I ask, what is it that has made you so? Is it one big thing, or many little things?”

At first, he was taken aback. People who were overly forward made him nervous. But then the dark look came back into her eyes.

She wasn’t being forward. She seemed to know.

Something caught in his throat, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. He hadn’t thought it would show. He thought he had become an expert at concealing it.

“I am sorry,” she said. “It was not for me to say.”

“No. It’s all right. It is one big thing. And a lot of little things. And nothing.”

Her eyes watched him, searching. The rain had let up, and beads of it ran from her hair down her face.

“Tell me,” she said, gently. And it was the very gentleness with which she said it that brought on the grief, strong and gripping.

“I can’t.”

She looked at him—through him. “I believe that if one speaks it, that which is spoken is forever set free.”

He forced the words through his throat. “After more time has passed, perhaps.” He said it in French, because at least then he would have the excuse that it was a foreign language. “I have probably made you late for work,” he said, trying to change the subject.

“No. I don’t work until later. I am going to the cemetery.”

“The cemetery?”

She said quickly, with a smile, “It is not like that. I go there because it is peaceful. And sometimes I write there.” She held up the leather case. “Music, I mean.”

“In the rain?”

She laughed, and her laugh itself was like music, and he knew he would remember the sound of it and that it would be almost unbearable to remember it.

“If I waited for it to stop raining in Belgium I would never go outside. Sometimes writing it down comes later. Often I just sit and listen for a melody. Sometimes there is no melody, only silence. But that is also not a bad thing.” A shadow crossed her face. “And sometimes, the melody is ugly and horrible, and it is a thing that should not be put to paper.”

The shadow seemed to pass. “But I should go now. And you? Are you on your way to work?”

“Yes.” He tried a joke. “And now you have made me late.”

“Remember, this was your fault,” she said, smiling.

“Before you go, may I ask your name?”

“Elsie. And yours?”

“Joe.” He held out his hand. She hesitated at first, then took his hand in hers, and when she did he didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want it to end, but when it did there was a certain pleasure in the release, in the moment when her skin left his, when he could still feel her warmth in his palm.

He stood there, awkward. “May I buy you a cup of coffee? I mean, later, perhaps after work?” It took all his courage to say the words, when he didn’t know if it was appropriate at that moment, but he asked them, and once they were spoken he always tried to forgive himself if they were not the right ones, for he knew it had taken all his courage to say anything at all.

He saw the dark thing come across her face again, and now all the self-doubt came rushing back.

“I don’t think you would like to know me,” she said.

“No. I would like it very much.”

“I have to go now,” she said. The corners of her mouth turned up briefly into a smile, then fell just as quickly. “And now I am the one who is sorry.”

Elsie shifted the case against her hip and turned to leave. But then she stopped, facing him again. “Tell me, do you believe everything has already been planned, from the day we were born?”

“No. I mean, yes. I don’t know.” He smiled wryly. “Which answer would make you give me your phone number?”

She looked down the street, obviously wanting to leave. “Let’s make a test,” she said. “If we meet each other again, then maybe it was supposed to happen. Otherwise…” She looked behind her, as if expecting to see someone—or something—there.

“Otherwise?”

“Otherwise our meeting may have been due to unnatural circumstances.”

“Unnatural?”

She quickly shook her head. “Maybe my English is not so good. But now I have to go.” She smiled, but there was a trace of sadness in it, in how she seemed to will it into being. “Goodbye, Joe. Maybe, goodbye.” Then she turned and hurried down the street.

He wanted to go after her. He knew there had been something there, but that it wasn’t there anymore. He watched her leave, not understanding, filled with the question of whether anything he had said had driven her away and whether she would have stayed had he chosen different words. That was the thing about life; there were too many variables. He wanted the road of life to be more like a train track, where the wheels could only fit into the groove a certain way.

Elsie hurried down the sidewalk, shifting the strap on her case from one shoulder to the other, the sound of her footsteps now too distant to be heard against the cobblestones. Then she rounded the corner and was gone, but the thought of her stayed with Joe for a very long time.

#

He followed, moving down the street, over it, and although he tried not to be noticed he exuded something much brighter than the others. His melody was sadness itself but with the undercurrent of hope, and it was sweet and beautiful to listen to, not at all complicated like the man at the bus stop, not bitter like the other with the umbrella, nor angry nor wrathful as it was with so many others.

He stopped, awkward, in front of her. There was a brightness about her, too, but in a different way, hers quicker, more agile, with a vitality that burned behind eyes that missed nothing.

They moved away from each other, the intensity of the man lessening somewhat, the music slower, deeper, more meandering, with an ache in it that was almost unendurable.

But with her it was different, and it was not fully apparent until much later what it was. With most the light burned from the inside and flowed outward. Hers came not from within but from what was around her, until she absorbed it, assimilated it, until her cheeks became flushed with it.

And that was the difference. She seemed to be listening, always listening.

CHAPTER 3—THE GREAT TRAGEDY OF THE LOSS OF YOUTH

The eulogy. He had argued about the eulogy the day he’d picked his parents up at the airport, when they had come for Anne’s funeral. Joe remembered it as being yet another occasion when he had tried to stand his ground about something but later found himself bending to someone else’s will.

“Do you have your speech ready?” Martha Iverson had demanded as they made their way down the long, carpeted hallway as jets took off and landed on either side of them.

Normally, the smell of jet fuel and the sound of airplanes thundering down the runway liberated him, reminding him that every corner of the world was just a plane ticket away; he could board a flight today and arrive, just a few hours later, a new person on a different continent, anonymous, unplagued by the mistakes of a past he’d left behind, as if it were simply old luggage he had abandoned at the check-in counter.

But on that day, the planes sounded very far away, meant for anyone but him.

“What speech?” Joe asked.

“You know, the eulogy.”

“Eulogy? I wasn’t planning on giving one.”

He eyed his father. Normally he could count on Peter Iverson to back him up about most things. But Peter just shrugged and scratched at the dark grey bristle of his five-o’clock shadow before occupying himself with trying to tighten the strap on his carry-on bag, which was far too loose and which made the bag hang absurdly close to the ground. Peter looked too tired to argue—with Martha or the bag, which he gave up on and left where it was, compensating for it by hunching his shoulder as he walked. It reminded Joe of the beggar Baptiste’s mangled body, of one who has long since given up on propriety.

“What?” Martha stopped in the middle of the terminal, aiming her sharp, angular nose in Joe’s direction. People streamed around them throwing angry stares.

“I said I wasn’t planning—”

“I heard what you said. Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just…it’s just not my thing.”

“Your thing? Doing what’s expected of you isn’t your thing?”

“Expected? Who’s expecting me to?”

“Everyone, of course. Me, your father…everyone.”

“Well, I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Joe thought the matter of the eulogy had been settled as they made their way to the baggage carousel and stood waiting for their luggage. But his mother never seemed to mind belaboring a point.

“Just say a few words, Joe. She’d appreciate it.”

“Martha, please,” his father finally said. He stood with one shoulder arched high into the air and gave Joe the same wordless, apologetic look as always. Peter had lost the energy to fight Martha long ago. “He doesn’t need to. And not only is it not needed, it’s not even necessary.” Peter’s trademark—repeating the obvious.

Martha ignored him. “This is about your condition, isn’t it?” she asked Joe.

“No,” said Joe. This was a lie. He often blamed his shortcomings on his “condition,” as his mother called it—or the possibility that he had a condition; there still was some question about that.

“You know there’s nothing wrong with you, don’t you?” his mother said.

“No.” This was not a lie.

“For God sakes, Joe. This is your sister’s funeral, and you’re going to hide behind something that’s all in your head.”

Whether it was only in his head or not, he didn’t like talking about it, least of all with his mother.

“Ask Rémi to do it,” said Joe. “He’s good with words.”

“My God. You don’t ask a widower to speak at his own wife’s funeral!”

“But it’s all right to ask her brother?”

Martha scoffed and rolled her eyes. Predictably, she changed the subject when the logic of her argument began to unravel.

In the end, he did speak at his sister’s funeral. He only said a few words, but they were the truest words he had ever spoken: that the world had lost the kindest, most sensitive, and best person he had ever known.

#

He arrived at No. 103 Rue Roland de Lassus wet and cold and thinking about Elsie, the image of her walking down the street sharp and clear and lonely in his mind. Stepping through the double glass doors of the three-story building, he showed his badge at the front desk and said bonjour to the security guard, Arnaud, who looked up from the television monitors over a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

“Bonjour, Joe,” said Arnaud, his small, high-pitched voice at odds with his prodigious frame.

Joe reached into his bag and handed Arnaud a laptop computer. “Good morning, Arnaud. Here. I was able to fix it.”

“Joe, you are a genius,” said Arnaud, taking the laptop from him. “Did you spend long on it?”

“Not long.” He kept to himself the fact that it had taken him hours to rebuild the operating system from scratch, then hours more to salvage Arnaud’s mail and photos. “Next time give me a challenge.”

Arnaud laughed, throwing back his massive head of red curls. “Listen, Joe. My wife’s computer—she doesn’t know what is wrong with it. I hate to ask, but could you…”

“Sure, Arnaud. I’d be happy to look at it.”

“I’ll bring it in next time. What do I owe you for this one?”

“Charges comprises.” On the house.

“Thank you, Joe. In Belgium we never forget a kindness.”

In the musty hallway Joe passed the rickety elevator with the sliding wrought-iron grate, opting instead to climb the stairs to the second floor, the wooden steps groaning under his feet. When he got to his office, the building custodian—a thin, hook-nosed man named Christophe—was scraping a flat razorblade against the glass on Joe’s office door. When he got closer, Joe saw that Christophe was removing the room number from the door.

He caught the custodian saying putain under his breath.

“Bonjour, Christophe,” said Joe. “Excuse me.”

The custodian reluctantly stepped aside.

“Ils ont encore changé le numéro de chambre?” asked Joe. They changed the room number again? The bank’s vice presidents were always renumbering things, always trying to find ways to make things more efficient with some form of restructuring or another. He didn’t often see the point of it.

“Ouai. Again,” said the custodian gruffly.

“You have to do all the doors in the building?”

Christophe grunted and nodded. He motioned toward the door with the blade, his sable eyes penetrating Joe’s. “Are you going in?”

“Sorry,” said Joe and stepped inside, closing the door after him. The scraping against the glass began again, each rasp echoing off the stark walls and dirty tile flooring.

The office was neat, except for his desk which was perpetually littered with his hand-written notes. Next to the desk was a tall, narrow window that looked out into the Place du Parc. He used to love the office and the oldness of it and the view into the park, but now as he lowered himself into his chair, he only felt hollow and empty.

Christophe must have chosen a different tool, the scraping now lower in pitch.

Joe looked at his notes from the day before. It had been an unproductive day. He had spent most of the day answering phone calls and replying to messages. He hated this part of his job and remembered previous jobs he had left that didn’t have that unpleasantness, thinking that you can spend a lifetime searching for perfection only to find that you already partially had it but threw it away because you didn’t have the whole thing.

And now even the part of his work he used to enjoy—the tasks that involved analyzing data and numbers and finding the patterns in them—even that part of his work hadn’t been going well. When he returned to work after his sister’s death, it had become meaningless.

He worked as a data security analyst for la Banque Hainaut, and he knew that in some way the ultimate goal of his job was to make someone else a lot of money. He knew it, and on some days he was consumed by it and the uselessness of it, and on those days it was hard to put it out of his mind and to focus on the work itself.

The building in which he worked was a satellite and not part of the bank itself, and it was old and required considerable maintenance. But he liked it that way because it had character, and it always gave you something to talk about with the other employees; you could always fall back to what had broken in the office that day. There was even a case the previous year when three of the offices on the lower level had had to be vacated after the occupants had developed lung infections; it was later discovered that a vast colony of mold had been growing behind the walls, spreading in dark green, putrid sheets that spewed toxic spores into the air.

The scraping of Christophe’s blade came again--two scrapes, then three, then five. There was a long pause.

Joe turned toward the door, wondering if Christophe had finished his work. But the scraping began again—seven in a row this time. It dawned on him that the scraping came in sets of prime numbers.

Joe listened again for the custodian’s blade. When it scraped eleven times and paused, Joe stood up and stared at the door. He could just make out Christophe’s shadow against the frosted glass of the window. Joe thought the coincidence would be too great if there were thirteen in a row next time.

The scraping began again. Twelve scrapes. The blood pulsed through his head as he waited for the next one. He waited a very long time before he sat down again, telling himself he was being a fool, first following a woman he thought was his dead sister, now hearing prime numbers in the rasping of Christophe’s blade.

Suddenly the blade scraped again, once, very loudly. It echoed in the hallway. Joe turned sharply toward the door. There, against the door, loomed the custodian’s shadow, dark and unmoving…waiting. But it wasn’t Christophe; Joe could plainly see the long, flowing hair. He knew it couldn’t be. He tried not to blink, unwilling to tear his eyes from the glass. There was no mistaking it; it looked like the figure of a woman outside the door.

Anne. He tried to force the thought from his mind. It couldn’t possibly be his sister.

Very slowly, the shape moved away. Joe couldn’t help it and he stared at the frosted glass for a long time until his eyes started playing tricks on him and he got up and opened the door and looked out in the hallway.

It was empty.

He could faintly hear someone talking somewhere down the hallway. He said, “T’es dingue, toi,” aloud to himself—you’re crazy—then closed the door and sat back down. It must simply be his mind playing tricks on him after the long days of grieving, of going over in his mind what he could have done differently. He hadn’t slept well, either, his thoughts always returning to Anne, the pit in his stomach now seeming to be a new and permanent part of his physiology.

He sat up in his chair and tried to concentrate on his work.

It wasn’t easy.

The vice president in charge of his division of the bank had been somewhat generous about giving him time off, but he had made it clear that he was now expected to be productive again. Joe tried to concentrate, and when he couldn’t he started writing down prime numbers in a list, trying different ways of making patterns out of them.

Sometimes numbers were like poetry to him. He thought it was beautiful how predictable numbers were and how you could rely on their predictability, unlike human behavior whose volatility never failed to unsettle him. He felt guilty about not doing his work, but there was something mesmerizing about the numbers. He couldn’t pull himself away.

But the paradox with primes was that they could not, in fact, be predicted, even though there appeared to be some kind of rhythm to them, and it was that rhythm that attracted Joe to them with almost the same biological intensity in which he had been attracted to Elsie; he was drawn to them and felt compelled to find their secret. It was almost an obsession.

And there was the other thing.

In a small, secret corner of his mind, Joe thought about what it would be like if he were the one to unlock their mystery, he of all the people who had, throughout history, seen the mesmerizing simplicity of prime numbers and had been utterly convinced there was a pattern to them. Joe allowed himself the luxury of entertaining what it would be like if he were the one to discover the pattern; for once, he would be completely understood.

But as always when he thought of such things, he inevitably associated them with his “condition.” When he was five years old, his mother had made him see a psychologist about it. He remembered asking why, because he wasn’t sick. “This is a…Talking Doctor,” his mother had said. The Talking Doctor came to Joe’s kindergarten and asked him some questions and then watched him play with a wooden train set, first by himself, then with the other children. Joe could still remember the feel of the ridges in the wooden tracks that fit perfectly under the wheels of the train, guiding them along. With the tracks laid out on the mat in the playroom, there was only one way the train could go. It had to follow the tracks.

It felt safe.

Then the other children came in and began taking down the tracks. He tried to make them understand there was a pattern to it, that it made a perfect circle on the floor with a roundabout centered exactly in the middle. But then one of the children, an older boy named Raphael with curly blonde hair who frightened Joe with how close he came to him, kicked the tracks apart and laughed and left Joe looking at the tracks scattered across the carpet, wondering why the boy would have done such a thing.

Joe summoned his courage and tried asking Raphael why. He couldn’t possibly imagine destroying a thing someone else had worked to create. There had to be a reasonable explanation; he wanted to give Raphael the benefit of the doubt.

But he couldn’t seem to form the words into sentences. Raphael laughed. Then the other children laughed, Joe not understanding but trying to laugh along with them, thinking he must have missed the joke, the thought never entering his mind that there was such a thing as laughing at someone else’s expense. But their words came too fast and too jumbled to make any sense. He knew there must be a pattern that would put the words together and tried to force himself to understand what they were saying.

And in the hard, white lights of the room, much too bright now, the Talking Doctor watched the whole thing and wrote things in his notebook.

It wasn’t the last time Raphael would be the source of Joe’s misery. He was in Joe’s class for three years in a row after that. On the playground, Raphael would perpetually hound Joe about one thing or another—his shyness, the way he awkwardly hesitated when he spoke, even the brand of clothes he wore. Raphael always seemed to know just what to say to make Joe feel very small and very lonely.

After two more sessions, the Talking Doctor had given his diagnosis, but Martha had disagreed, suggesting, not politely, “Maybe it’s you who needs help.” She had taken Joe to a different psychologist who had said Joe was simply reserved, that some people naturally interact well with others, and that Joe was on the lower end of that scale than most. But his symptoms weren’t severe enough to be called anything in one of the thick textbooks on psychological disorders that lined the shelves of his office. He even said the symptoms, mild as they were, could be outgrown.

Martha had chosen the latter diagnosis, but Joe had always carried with him the doubt that perhaps the first doctor had been correct, that Joe truly did have a disorder of some kind—a condition, as his mother called it—and that it affected him and was responsible for his actions and, above all, for his failures.

Sometimes he was glad there had been no definitive diagnosis, for if he were pronounced fully normal, he wouldn’t have an excuse for being the way he was; now, there was at least the question of whether it were real or simply imagined. That way, he could trick himself into thinking he did have a condition and that his deep unhappiness was caused by it, rather than by any negligence on his part.

That way, he had an excuse.

#

Someone knocked on Joe’s office door, snapping Joe from the memory. He half expected to see Anne’s shadowy outline again, but instead it was his manager, Julien Gagnon. Julien let himself in and stood looking over Joe’s shoulder. Had it been anyone else, it would have annoyed Joe, but Julien was simply too likable.

“I cannot understand why you are so fascinated by prime numbers,” said Julien, looking at the papers on Joe’s desk.

“Hello, Julien. How are you?”

Julien scanned the pages of numbers. Joe was always struck by how blue Julien’s eyes were, especially because they contrasted strikingly with his dark skin. Joe was not surprised that many of the women and the two gay men who worked in his office often gushed about his looks.

“I’m good,” said Julien. “Do you know you missed a spot shaving? There, just under the bottom lip. Don’t you look in the mirror?”

“I try not to.” Joe rubbed a finger over the small patch of stubble.

“With your good looks? I would think you would have to pull yourself away from it.”

“Very funny.”

“I wouldn’t joke about such a thing,” said Julien, putting a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Another thing which I would not joke about is le rapport quotidien. You have finished it, yes?”

The daily security report—Joe had forgotten all about it. “Merde. I’m sorry, Julien.”

Julien shook his head and clapped Joe on the back. “You forgot? I have never known anyone who forgets so much things. Why are you very smart but you have no—how do you say—bon sens?”

“Common sense. For the same reason that you are a nice person and yet—how do you say—un con.”

Julien laughed. “I see that you are improved a little. This is the first joke you have said in a week. You are feeling better, then?”

“More or less.” He couldn’t bring himself to say he still felt Anne’s loss and that it felt like someone had kicked him in the gut.

“And now,” said Julien, “the next thing is to find for you a girlfriend, yes?”

Joe snorted. “There aren’t any left. You’ve taken them all.”

“Why do people say those things? Everyone thinks I have such many girlfriends, but I only have—” His face broke into a wide smile. “—seven.”

Julien laughed and it was impossible not to laugh along with him.

But it was short-lived.

Joe thought of Elsie, his mood darkening. He felt like telling Julien about her, but he didn’t trust himself to explain what it was about Elsie he had found so inviting. He was afraid Julien wouldn’t understand and made a joke of it. But he tried anyway.

“I met a woman today,” said Joe, “in la Rue du Grand Jour. A musician.”

“Really?” said Julien, raising his eyebrows.

“But I spoiled it.”

“Spoiled? How?”

“I don’t know.”

Julien crossed his arms and leaned against Joe’s desk. “This is a story I must hear. You will tell me, yes?” He made Joe recount the details of his encounter with Elsie, including how he’d run headlong into her on the street corner.

“Were you not looking where you were going?” asked Julien.

“No, I thought I saw my…” Joe stopped himself.

“Your what?”

“It’s stupid. I thought I saw Anne walking, and I was trying to keep up with her.”

“Your sister, Anne?”

“Yes.”

“And you ran into this Elise and spilled her music onto the ground.”

“Yes. She was going to the cemetery. To write, she said. She composes music.”

“In the cemetery?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it is probably better that she did not give you her phone number,” said Julien, standing up again. “She sounds maybe a little bit crazy.”

“Why?”

“Well, she was going to spend the day in the cemetery, Joe. That isn’t normal.”

“That’s why I liked her. Because I’m not…” He stopped himself. With Julien it was easy to let down your guard. He wouldn’t burden Julien with his problems.

“I see,” said Julien, searching Joe’s face. “You were about to say you are not normal, either. Yes?”

Joe turned away, heat flushing into his cheeks. “No.”

“I wonder,” said Julien, “when does a thing become normal? If only one person goes to the cemetery to write music, then it is not normal. But if two people do it, does that make it normal? How many people does it take?”

“I’d guess a plurality of the population.”

“I didn’t mean it literally.”

“Oh,” said Joe.

“Listen,” said Julien. He turned toward the window. For a moment Joe thought he was looking at something outside in the park, but then Julien leaned forward and ran his fingers through his hair, rearranging a few strands that were out of place. He turned back to Joe. “I will tell you a secret about women, yes? Not just women, but all people, really. People will know, instinctively, when you are not being yourself. They can almost smell it. I have learned this, and it is the secret for getting a woman to like you. You can be funny, you can be serious, or intense; you can even talk about your prime numbers. But if you are who you truly are, you will be surprised at how many women will like you.”

“I don’t need many women.”

“Many, a few, one—who cares? It will be more than zero, yes? If you are your true self, each thing will fall into its own place.”

Joe didn’t want to tell Julien that he didn’t think he could even be his true self when he was alone.

Then Julien became serious, and Joe knew he was serious because he sat down in the chair next to the desk. Joe had only known Julien to be serious when he sat down; in all other cases Julien’s energy didn’t permit sitting.

“Joe, I need to tell you something. And now, I am speaking as your manager instead of your friend. I don’t like to say it, but it is my duty.” Julien cleared his throat. “Now we will talk about your work. The daily reports you forget. The security risks that have slipped by when it is your job to catch them. Do you think maybe you would like to take some more time off? Maybe it would be better, yes?”

“No,” said Joe. “It’s fine. I can do my job.”

“Look,” said Julien. “Anne was a wonderful person, and I know she was very important to you. Why don’t you take one more week—”

“I’m fine, Julien. Really.”

“Joe, you have just said you were following Anne down the street.”

“I know. But…I was mistaken.” He tried laughing. “Of course.”

Julien smiled and nodded. “All right, but you must understand that the security of the bank’s systems is my responsibility. People will look to me if there is a problem.”

“Yes, I get it.”

“Do you really?” said Julien, and Joe knew he had tried to say it gently. “Sometimes it is not so obvious. Look at your desk. You are working on prime numbers.”

“I worked all morning, Julien. I was taking a break.”

“Yes. But I am wondering if perhaps something else is wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just needed a break, because of Anne.”

“I’m not talking about that. I mean before that, even. There is something different now. Do you remember the first years we worked here? We stayed until midnight working—later, even. It was a lot of fun, no?”

“Yes,” said Joe, with an indignation that suddenly flared. “I’m glad my youth was spent so valuably. Look at all the yachts anchored at Ostend I helped the owners buy.”

“And do you not see yourself in one of those yachts one day?”

Joe snorted. “Do you?”

“Of course,” said Julien. “It is a given. Is that not why everyone works? To retire with something at the end of it? Maybe not always a yacht, but with some money to spend on things you want?”

“But what about right now? I’m tired of working for them—Rocard and all the rest. When will I be able do the things I want to do? When I’m too old to be able to do them anymore?”

“That is what work is, isn’t it? And if you work very hard, then you earn a vacation. And after that, you come back to work and it begins again. This is no different than when we were monkeys picking berries all day long, and then as our reward we went back to sleep in our caves at night. Look, Joe. I think everyone has a central problem, and I believe I have figured yours out. Would you like to know what it is?”

“More than anything.”

“You think that every day you should feel—what is the word—epanoui.”

“Fulfilled.”

“Yes, fulfilled. For god sakes, will you please stop rocking in your chair? It makes me nervous.”

Joe hadn’t realized he had been doing it.

“Why do you think you deserve to feel fulfilled,” said Julien, “while the rest of us work at this bank and pay attention to things like when our computer systems are hacked into? Why do you think you are this special? Don’t you think all of us want…how do you say…une plus grande cause?”

Joe was ashamed, and hot shame filled his face. He knew what Julien said was true. He looked at the floor. “Higher purpose.”

“I think I understand now.” Julien nodded. “Yes, I understand. What you want is to go around all the time—I think in English you say ‘cumming’—without doing everything it takes to get there,” said Julien. “What about the…what is it called…les preliminaires?”

“Foreplay.”

“Yes, foreplay. What about enjoying everything leading up to it? The conversation—the look in her eyes. Haven’t you ever talked for many hours with a woman about…about nothing, and about everything both at the same time, and looked into her eyes and seen the life in them and thanked God you were alive at that moment just to be there to see them?”

Julien ran a hand over his clean-shaven face, the hint of after-shave drifting into Joe’s nose.

“And the two of us,” continued Julien. “We are both alive—right now, at this moment—and we are healthy and young and have each other as good friends. Isn’t that enough? Must you think life should be one long orgasm, without all the other things in between. I am sorry, Joe, that I say such things. But you must understand, it will not be a good thing for either of us if the bank’s security is compromised.”

“Yes, Julien, I understand.” And he truly did understand. And as it is with grief, spending a lifetime doing work you find meaningless is simply a matter of not thinking about it, of tricking yourself into not thinking about it while going about your business.

Then Julien stood up and wished him good luck on the report. Before he left Julien put a hand on Joe’s shoulder, as Joe’s father had done when Joe was a child, and, as often is the case, it is something as simple and fleeting as a single human touch that can make all the difference. “Frères,” said Julien. It was what he said to Joe instead of goodbye. Brothers.

When Julien was gone Joe thumbed through the pages of numbers he had written, thinking of Julien. A good friend, he thought. Maybe my only friend.

#

He got through the daily report, but later in the afternoon when his ability to concentrate wore off, the emptiness came back, descending slowly, heavily, like a dark fog.

He stared out into the park, the sky showing in gloomy patches of grey through the trees. Someone down the hallway had made coffee, and the smell of it suddenly triggered the memory of an earlier time, the way only a smell can conjure such an instant and visceral reaction. He and Julien were drinking dark coffee the morning after the Berlin Wall had fallen. They had boarded the first train eastbound out of Mons and celebrated atop the Wall, drunkenly, carelessly, with an abandon that Joe had never known. A great shadow had been lifted.

And yet, while Joe was as touched by the falling of the Wall as anyone, there was still a detachment in it. That had been the reason he had gone in the first place, to be, for once, immersed in something and feel it completely and wholly and not be detached from it, observing it from the outside as he always did. And when the detachment was still there even in the midst of something so great and so consuming in its immediacy, Joe withdrew and almost gave up hope…only almost, because while he was no longer a youth he was still young, and when you are young there is always the hope that there is something more and better in store for you. And there is an inevitability to it that makes you feel like all you have to do is wait it out and it will arrive, and when it arrives you will recognize it, and above all you will feel like you deserve it because of how long you have waited for it.

Joe waited, and while he waited he didn’t realize it had already arrived, long ago, and that he had had it the whole time, and it was not great and momentous like the falling of the Wall, but something that is always there and not something that arrives, with an arrival you can wait for. Nor was it a question of did he deserve it or not deserve it; you either recognized it and used it to your advantage, or you didn’t recognize it and despaired when you thought it wasn’t there.

And that is the great tragedy of the loss of youth: when you realize it had always been there and you didn’t recognize it and you did nothing about it when you had the chance.

#

Through the glass he sat and worked, not knowing how close he was to the answer. As is often the case with the lonely, wandering souls who face perpetually inward, it hadn’t yet come to him that he must also live in the world he sought to escape, and that often the world itself provides the answer in the least expected way, if only you would let it.

If only he would let it.