Porochista Khakpour - The Last Illusion

Only to return for an umbrella. Outside, as he made his way through the evening after-work crowds, a storm was in full force, one of those late summer storms full of gales and thunder and lightning. The sky flashed pink and brown and purple and the city hissed through the downpour.

It felt right. It felt just like she had said, just as he had imagined. Downpour. Downfall. The Before.

At Battery Park, just a few blocks from his apartment, the huge seating area was tented already, and crossed off by police lines. The buildings themselves were overtaken by awnings and a platform, and a few cranes that held giant lights. A massive black billboard seemed to envelop it all, announcing in lavish golden script, tuesday, september 11, 2001. . come behold the fall of the towers, the most earth-shattering feat of our lifetime. behold bran silber, the greatest illusionist in american history, alter the new york skyline. . and play with the future of not just the city, but the world 9/11/01, world trade center, new york city, u.s.a., a bran silber production.

Zal could hear Asiya’s thoughts break through those words; he could read his own interpretation to Silber that one desperate lonely night — and there it was. Silber had needed him, just as he’d once needed Silber. Zal would never be able to fly — he couldn’t even believe that, once, not even that long ago, he had held on to that desire — but he’d helped Silber soar. He had given him something much bigger than flight.

You’ve given me purpose, meaning, kiddo, Silber had said at the end of their call, weeping into the phone, a weeping that sounded like howling. A story to tell. I don’t think you know how big that is for a man in my business. It’s everything. It’s a reason to go on. .

They had hung up that night with the intention of seeing each other soon, at the show. Silber promised Zal seats, Zal promised to pick up the tickets from Indigo, and he had just never done it. He didn’t want seats. If it came to seats, he’d have other things to celebrate, namely survival.

And so Zal, umbrella overhead, stiff in his suit, walked the city that night. He walked almost the entire city, from that end of the city to Harlem. It took him three hours. When he got there, it was 10 p.m., and he stopped to get a papaya smoothie from a stand and walked all the way down again.

It was, in many ways, a beautiful city. And it was, in many ways, his home. He felt for it. He really felt for it.

By time he got to Battery Park again, it was very late. It had taken him longer than three hours to walk back downtown. He was exhausted. He couldn’t remember ever walking so much in his life.

And so he climbed over the yellow police tape and into an empty chair, in a back row, wanting to sit far away to get the full view. Huddled in his own arms, under the finally dry skies, he fell asleep.

He had never slept in the streets of New York before, but that was what he loved about the city — you could simply imagine doing the unthinkable, and then, the next thing you knew, there you were doing it. Nothing was out of the question. Anything could happen. You had to do it your way.

And as he fell asleep, he thought how strangely safe he felt. He really felt secure out there. Either he was completely losing his mind and thus gaining the strange peace of the truly lunatic, or his calm came from actually being quite safe — compared with what was to come very soon, after all.

And in that cage that had become her new home, where she sat day after day, drowning out her fellow inmates’ infinite variations on every profanity, the sounds of anchormen and women in some distant world overhead, the constant echoes of hard heavy steps — and sometimes, she swore she heard chains dragging down the corridor. She heard it all, and she transmitted right back to him the only thought she had for him: Zal, it’s okay. I know you loved me. And I know you couldn’t believe me. And I’m sorry I acted like it mattered. Belief is an optional bonus. What needs to happen will happen. These things were written long before our time. We’re just reading the lines off the script. There was nothing anyone could do, and I knew that and I still brought so much pain to us. That’s why I’m here. I’m where I belong. I’m where I should have been long ago. Locked up and away from all sorts of people that I could harm. But we’ll all be in the same boat soon, so what did the minor points even matter? Everything will be as it should be: equal once and for all.

We’re almost free.

You saved my life. Over and over. I owe you my life.

Zal’s words swirled through Hendricks’s head all evening. He could not get over the feeling of finality in those words. The gratitude, the tenderness, the deep warmth — it was not the usual Zal, the Zal they had until recently still believed incapable of expressing a love like that. Just when he’d become the son he’d always dreamed of, Zal was gone.

You mean free, Tony, free, he reminded himself. The point of saving Zal in the first place was freedom. His son was finally free. Hendricks hated admitting that freedom scared him.

He poured himself a glass of red wine in hopes that it would melt the worries into drowsiness, but he felt haunted. He tried to keep his eyes closed, but all he saw were other eyes: Zal’s, Nilou’s, it was hard to tell which. They were his family’s eyes: Iranian eyes, large deep dark brown orbs, that looked back unblinking and unguarded, heavy with history, overburdened with imagery, bold receptacles of set and scene changes from stories he’d never quite know.

But the stories I do know. . and he turned to the only place he ever turned to for comfort: to the Shahnameh lying there, in the same place he’d left it that last night he had read to Zal. He went back to his favorite passage, where the giant mythical bird, the Simorgh, frees the warrior Zal and restores him back to his kingdom, but not without one more offering of ultimate caretaking: Take these feathers of mine with you, so that you will always live under my protection, since I brought you up beneath my wings with my own children. If any trouble comes to you, throw one of my feathers into the fire, and my glory will at once appear to you. I shall come to you in the guise of a black cloud and bring you safely back here. .

It was over, the end — Indigo had known that weeks before. The arresting of Bird Boy’s bride had been the final straw. She had thought being a personal assistant to a magician was a matter of keeping appointments, maybe dry-cleaning tuxes and top hats, buying trick boxes and handkerchiefs, but no, especially not that season. She knew the best day to quit would be the end of the day of the illusion. First of all, he’d undoubtedly do several somethings to drive her nuts that day; he’d be the same wreck he always was when he was finally about to poop out the illusion. She could pretend it came out of nowhere and just snap and say, That’s it, Bran, no more! I’ve had it! Please mail me my last check and see you never. She’d say it without a single Silberism, too. But it would also be a perfect day because once the illusion was over, he’d be in the phase he lived for — that short-lived period in which anyone and everyone around him was in a constant state of gush and coo. He’d be glowing with self-love, and so losing Indigo Menendez, first assistant who had walked out before— but this time it’s for real, Bran! — would be “No big whoop, bitch!” as she could imagine him saying. Plus, it was a clean finish. She knew he had said that it would be the last illusion, but she didn’t trust him anymore. She’d have to walk out before he could even rethink the future of Silber Inc.