Porochista Khakpour - The Last Illusion

After days and days of this, Zal began to notice that Hendricks and Asiya were in the apartment more and more, pacing around him, talking in hushed tones. He could almost feel the heat of their worry. One time, although deep in the world of canary bickering and veranda dusk, he thought he heard the sound of Hendricks snapping at Asiya — a forbidden sound — break through. By the time he shook that other world off himself, he found Hendricks in his arms suddenly, as if Zal were the woman, rocking his father back and forth, his father, who was crying into his son’s body, crying deep into him as if through the sobs he was trying to communicate with that one part of him he longed to, but could never, of course, hold: his heart.

The meaning. It had been days, at least — weeks? It couldn’t have been that long, as much as August 2001 was on a sort of runaway slow motion, since he had wondered who was pulling those strings, where it lay, this-that-and-the-other, anything and everything even vaguely smelling of that thing: meaning. He was in his usual all black of that era, sucking on a Fantasia whose bold red suddenly looked more blood than sex, watching all his workers shuffle back and forth, making the thing, that One and Only, happen, apparently. The Silbertorium seemed to grow less and less peaceful by the day, and Bran Silber wondered if it had always been a bit like that — maybe once you became an observer rather than a participant, the world suddenly became all din and disaster.

“You know that story ‘The Hungry Artist?’” were the first words he said that day, when Manning approached him, wondering if another day was going to go by with Silber in a sort of dead spell.

Manning nodded. “It’s ‘A Hunger Artist.’ Kafka.” Manning loved Kafka.

“It’s like the only story I have ever finished,” Silber said, “to be perfectly honest. I read it in high school, but I never forgot it.”

Manning tapped his boot impatiently. “And? So what?”

Silber took a drag and sighed. “I feel like the guy, the artist at the end of it. Like you’re all coming to my cage and you can’t even find me, because I’ve basically just turned into nothing. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m on the verge of being replaced — and by a giant, happy, fierce bear—”

“I think it was a panther,” Manning corrected.

“Whatever, a big fierce thing!” Silber hissed. “Isn’t that what’s going on here? Am I obsolete, Manning? Is this whole thing, what I’m making happen here, over before it even began?”

Manning squinted his eyes, half in disbelief, half in disgust. He’d waited all these days for Silber to come out of his shell, for this? Some misinterpreted Kafka and a pity party? “I wouldn’t overthink it.”

Silber snorted. “You didn’t want to do this anyway.”

“But I did do it.” Manning sounded dangerous.

Silber for once didn’t care. “ It is an overstatement. What is it, pops? You tell me. What is this mess?”

Manning shook his head and looked away, chuckling. “It’s money. It’s all money. I’m getting paid, you’re getting paid. Period.”

Silber nodded, with a demented smile. “And that’s about as close as I get to meaning myself. World Trade, plus or equal sign, money. Those go together, right? That means something, right?”

Manning nodded. “Sure as hell, it does. Nothing means more than money. That’s all we got.”

Silber looked down. “Well, pardon my math, but that means the WTC is one big zero, if it all equals money and money alone, if you add money. But maybe that’s all there is. Maybe that’s all there should be.”

“Look,” Manning snapped suddenly. “I don’t have time to philosophize. And neither do you. We have two weeks left, you hear me? You know what that is? That’s a zero. We got nothing. And it’ll be done, but right now, you and I are running on nothing. And in order for this to be about money, we gotta finish it. We’re not there yet.”

“It’s like the nothing before nothing!” Silber cracked a crooked smile.

Manning nodded. “Well said, asshole. The nothing before nothing. Now can you manage to get your ass up and make something of it or what?”

Silber nodded, with a shy smile. He couldn’t help but be a little moved. It was the closest Manning had ever come to caring about him, even though Silber knew well that it wasn’t just him that Manning was caring about.

Money, he kept thinking over and over. Maybe money is the key . And yet it felt like he was a bumper car, furiously bumping into a wall over and over, as if one of these days it would give. He knew as well as Manning, as well as whatever cruel god was presiding over that mess, that money was as much it as his work was real magic.

On that evening of Manning’s confrontation — when Silber, two weeks away from triumph or failure or whatever the difference was, took back the reins, slowly, gingerly, as if the thing would break if he went too quickly back to his old self — something more happened. Suddenly the Silbertorium seemed brimming with event, with occasion that all the illusion manufacturing in the world couldn’t compete with. It was one thing to have Bran Silber, after weeks, back on his feet, but it was another when the letter came.

It was Indigo — who was back at her old post — who interrupted the action, suddenly like the newer, graver Bran, also without the old affectation.

“Um, Bran,” she said almost ultrasonically, repeating it a few times, until Raj heard and tapped Silber on the shoulder.

He looked up at Raj, who pointed to Indigo. He looked at Indigo, who was looking down at a letter as if it were a ghost.

“What is that?” Silber went over, scrunching his nose at it. In the age of e-mail, they didn’t see paper letters anymore unless they were bills.

“Somebody really. .” Indigo began, pale as a smoggy sky. “Somebody kinda crazy, Bran. I don’t know. .” She seemed reluctant to give it to him, and it was making him reluctant to take it.

“The gist?” he muttered, backing away and yet trying to seem casual.

“It’s a woman,” she said, slowly, eyes still glued to it. “She needs you. She says something bad is about to happen. She needs your — she’s calling it a trick, but you know — to make it better, she’s saying. She’s making threats. She says you have to. Or else she’s gonna — shit. It’s about the WTC and making it disappear. She wants to make sure. Bran. . it’s all in a crazy sort of English. .”

“The gist,” he whispered, hoarse with fear.

“And she wants you to meet with her, that’s all. She says you have to or else she’s going to take matters in her own hands. Bomb the WTC, or us, or I don’t know, Bran, this is crazy—”

Bran snatched the letter out of Indigo’s shaking hands. She had done a poor job with the gist. She had, first of all, forgotten the line about the letter writer being “a friend of someone you know, who I can reveal once I meet you.” And, most important, she had left out the final sentiment: I don’t know what it all means to you, but it means everything to me, what you’re doing. It means the world, and saving it, really, Mr. Silber, so I hope to hear from you before ASAP. With much respect, urgently, Asiya McDonald.

The word means had appeared three times altogether. As horrified as elements of that letter made him feel, he also felt something mystical about it. This strange woman with the strange name, out of nowhere, somehow held the key to the meaning.

What he was about to do actually meant something to someone. For a moment, he was so happy he forgot to be worried.