Porochista Khakpour - The Last Illusion

Until one evening, during closing, whether he meant to do it or not, he took her out and let her go into the night sky. He claimed it was an accident, that he would pay for it, that they could take it out of his paycheck—

“Sorry, Zal,” the manager said. “I’m probably crazy for thinking you got obsessed with a bird, but you freed the same one you kept playing with. I’m in this business because it’s just a bunch of animals, no drama. The thing with you and that bird was weird. What’s it gonna be next, the iguana or the rat terrier? I can’t have employees that get all attached. I love animals, too, and I’d love it if they were all free to rule the world, but I got to run a business.”

Zal nodded and nodded and nodded. He was grateful for the interpretation.

And in many ways he was grateful to go through it: another human step: Being Fired from a Job. It was fine. He could get another one.

For a second he thought about calling Silber, but he knew he had, as they say, burned that bridge, maybe for good.

That night, he went home happier than usual. He gazed at the sky as he took those automatic steps and thought to himself, Somewhere a beautiful creature is free . He missed her a bit, but he reminded himself that he didn’t even know her, couldn’t know her. He reminded himself that she had entered his life — like the skydiving, like the job in the first place — to test him. And he had failed, but the beautiful thing about failure and humans, as he was realizing over and over, was that it was not just permitted but in many ways supported. Failure was part of the condition of life.

Many years later, Pet’s Delight, on the Upper West Side, was shut down because the owner was caught selling dozens and dozens — possibly more than a hundred — canaries to a ringleader of a canary-fighting ring upstate.

Canary fighting was a shock to most people, but not to Zal, who had grown up around them. They could fight indeed. But it all reminded Zal of his canary and her rescue, on the last day of his work. Sometimes, as they said, things really did happen for a reason.

He felt that mixture of heartbreak and relief that had defined all of his life’s many near misses.

Heartbreak and relief, also, when he saw Asiya come up his stairs — Zal had told her an abbreviated version of why it was too risky to meet at her place — and to his open door, and finally his open arms. Heartbreak, relief, and of course some fear and anxiety, but also, he thought, as his heart raced in the good way, maybe honestly love, too.

She looked more beautiful than he remembered, wearing what the old Asiya would never have worn: a floral silk blouse, of all things. Her hair had grown a bit, to a little-girlish bob, and her body of course had filled out just enough to still err on the side of slender but a healthy slender. She had on a tiny smile, like a schoolgirl with a secret. Zal couldn’t believe this was the girl he could call his.

“Look at you,” he gasped as he took her in his arms, squeezing her tight to convince himself she was indeed real.

“I missed you so much,” she whispered into his chest, as if communicating directly with his heart.

He felt the cliché of his heart melting. He led her to where she was going and they did it, in some ways, for the very first time. They surpassed sex — that duty Zal felt he had to perform for her sake — and made actual love.

“Is that it?” were the first words Zal said to her as they lay there in the dark, naked.

“Is what it? Why are you making that weird face?”

“I thought maybe I was smiling. God, I really feel it inside me, like it wants to come out. Not it either? Look, here. .” He made a grimace.

“Nope. But one day you’ll get there, Zal, I’m sure.”

“One day.”

They lay there in a peaceful, perfect silence for a few minutes.

“Hey, Asiya.”

“Hey, Zal.”

“Happy anniversary.”

“Happy anniversary to you. Why do you think I wore that outfit?”

“You look more beautiful than anyone!”

“Thanks, Zal. I feel. . good. Weird, but also good, you know?”

“Understandable.”

“But I can’t wait to get better,” she said, very softly.

Zal, in a type of ecstasy he rarely got to soak in, refused to read into that.

They got dressed again and decided to go to that nondescript café of the first day they met, for their anniversary meal.

As they walked out together, Zal could not get over his happiness. It was the type of bliss he hadn’t felt in ages, a happiness that seemed like it was bursting out of him, that seemed to have a life of his own. He thought the last time he’d been so happy was in the audience at Silber’s final act, thinking he could be the chosen one.

He wasn’t, of course, and that happiness had been a lie, and here was the thing that had replaced it: real life stuff, real love stuff, real normal reality. It felt good.

He tried to watch them as if he were out of his body: A Man and a Woman Walk Down the Street, on Their Way to the Café Where They Had Their First Date, on Their One-Year Anniversary.

What more could he want out of life?!

He was a man, a man, a man: finally.

Asiya also seemed happy. She was full of laughter, laughter and light, as if she were a whole other woman. He tried to separate what was medication — he had not asked yet — and what was just her good spirits, but he realized it didn’t matter. Everything about her was different, and he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for loving this new Asiya over who she had been, because he was so busy being so damn happy.

On the subway, they held hands and stared into each other’s eyes.

Then suddenly, three stops before they needed to get off, Asiya — still smiling — tugged at his hand and led him out the door.

“What are you doing? This is not our stop!”

“I just think we should get in a different car!” she said, giggling.

Zal paused for a moment. He could question this or he could ignore it. He decided instead to give her a quick hug. “Let’s do it.” And they got on the next car over.

They went one more stop and she did the same thing at that stop.

“Why are we doing this, Asiya?” he asked, starting to feel something like irkedness release a bubble or two inside him. It was an irkedness rooted in concern, he told himself, even though, looking at her, still smiling, still laughing, she looked more than fine.

She started laughing louder, as if her answer was that it was all just a game, or as if she couldn’t — just could not, not now, with them like that — answer at all, or at least, answer it honestly.

And they got on the next car again, until it was their stop.

When they got out into the open air, she burst into even more laughter, the most hysterical sort even.

Zal wished he could join along. “Ha-ha-ha, hee-hee-hee,” he spoke, as if along with her. “That’s not it, is it?”

He only made her laugh harder.

Zal kept doing it as they walked to the café, and she kept laughing.

They looked, he knew, like the happiest couple on earth.

When they got to the door, he cornered her under the awning and gave her a long kiss.

He missed kissing, first and foremost, he had to admit. But he also missed kissing her.

“Wait, check this out now,” he suddenly said, his hands crawling all over his face.

“What is that? What are you doing?”

“How about this?” He looked angry suddenly.

“What? What are you doing? Stop!” She was not laughing anymore.