Хлоя Бенджамин - The Immortalists

Raj and Ruby share a glance.

‘Forcing,’ says Ruby. ‘When a magician manipulates your decisions.’

‘But that’s just it,’ Mira says. ‘There was nothing he said or did to influence me. The decision was entirely mine.’

‘So you thought,’ says Raj. ‘There are two kinds of forcing. In psychological forcing, a magician uses language to steer you toward a particular choice. But physical forcing is likely what he used – that’s when a particular object is made to stand out from the rest. He would have paused at the nine of hearts for just a millisecond more than any of the other cards.’

‘Increased exposure,’ adds Ruby. ‘It’s a classic technique.’

‘Fascinating.’ Mira leans back in her chair. ‘Though I confess I almost feel – disappointed? I suppose I didn’t expect the solution to be so rational.’

‘Most magicians are incredibly rational.’ Raj is slicing meat from a turkey leg, placing it in neat strips on one side of his plate. ‘They’re analysts. You have to be, to develop illusions. To trick people.’

Something about the phrase needles Daniel. It reminds him of what he’s always resented about Raj: his pragmatism, his obsession with business. Before Klara met Raj, magic was her passion, her greatest love. Now Raj lives in a gated mansion, and Klara is dead.

‘I’m not sure my sister saw it that way,’ Daniel says.

Raj spears a pearl onion. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Klara knew that magic can be used to deceive people. But she tried to do the opposite – to reveal some greater truth. To pull the wool off.’

The candelabra in the center of the table throws the lower half of Raj’s face into shadow, but his eyes are lit. ‘If you’re asking me whether I believe in what I do, whether I feel I’m providing some kind of essential service – well, I could ask you the same thing. This is my career. And it means as much to me as yours does to you.’

The food in Daniel’s mouth becomes difficult to chew. He has the terrible thought that Raj has known about his suspension from the beginning and has played along out of generosity, or pity.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You feel it’s noble to send young men into deadly combat?’ asks Raj. ‘You’re motivated by some greater truth?’

Gertie and Ruby look from Raj to Daniel. Daniel clears his throat.

‘I have a deep-seated belief in the importance of the military, yes. Whether what I do is noble is not up to me to judge. But what the soldiers do? That’s nobility, yes.’

He sounds convincing enough, but Mira has noticed the tightness in his voice. She tilts her head toward her plate. Daniel knows she is avoiding him out of courtesy, so that whatever is in her gaze does not reveal him, but this only makes him feel like more of a fraud.

‘Even now?’ asks Raj.

‘Especially now.’

Daniel remembers well the horror of 9/11. His childhood best friend, Eli, worked in the South Tower. After the second plane hit, Eli stood in the stairwell to the seventy-eighth floor, ushering people toward the express elevator. Okay , he shouted. Everybody out. Before that, some people had been paralyzed by fear. Later, a colleague who had been in the towers during the 1993 bombing referred to him as the wake-up voice. Eli made it to the roof, a rescue location in 1993, and called his wife. I love you, darling , he said. I might be home late. He fell with the tower at ten in the morning.

‘Especially now?’ asks Raj. ‘When the infrastructure of Iraq has been decimated? When innocent men are being abused by sadists at Abu Ghraib? When WMDs are nowhere to be found?’

Raj meet Daniel’s eyes. This Vegas celebrity, this magician in expensive clothes – Daniel has underestimated him.

‘Dad,’ says Ruby.

‘Beans?’ asks Mira, holding the platter aloft.

‘And you would have us let a brutal tyrant continue the murder and oppression of hundreds of thousands?’ asks Daniel. ‘What of Saddam’s genocide against the Kurds and the violence in Kuwait? The Barzani abductions? The chemical warfare, the mass graves?’

The wine is hitting him now. He feels unclear and hazy and is glad, therefore, to have been able to articulate Hussein’s crimes on demand.

‘The U.S. has never been guided by a moral compass when choosing political alliances. They run military operations out of Pakistan. They supported Hussein during the height of his atrocities. And now they’re hunting something that doesn’t exist. Iraq’s WMD program ended in 1991. There’s nothing there – nothing but oil.’

What Daniel refuses to admit is that he fears Raj is right. He saw the horrific photos from Abu Ghraib: the men hooded and naked, beaten and shocked. There are rumors that Hussein will be hanged in December during Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holy day – a perversion of religion, and not by the enemy.

‘You don’t know that,’ he says.

‘No?’ Raj wipes his mouth with a napkin. ‘There’s a reason no country in the world is enthusiastic about the war in Iraq. Except Israel.’

He says it like an afterthought, as if he has, for once, forgotten his audience. Or was it calculated? The Golds seize, pulling together instantly, atomically. Daniel has his own reservations about Zionism, but now his jaw is rigid and his heart beats wildly, as though someone insulted his mother.

Mira puts her silverware down. ‘Excuse me?’

For the first time since his arrival, Raj’s confidence slips back like a hood.

‘I don’t have to tell you that Israel is a strategic ally, or that the invasion of Baghdad aimed to strengthen their regional security as much as our own,’ he says, quietly. ‘That’s all I meant.’

‘Is it?’ Mira’s shoulders are angular, her voice constricted. ‘Frankly, Raj, it sounded more like the scapegoating of the Jews.’

‘But the Jews are no longer the underdog. They’re one of America’s most important constituencies. The Arab world opposes an American war in Iraq, but American Arabs will never have the power of American Jews.’ Raj pauses. He must know the entire table is against him. But because he is threatened or because he has decided not to be, he advances. ‘Meanwhile, the Jews act as though they’re still the victims of terrible oppression. It’s a mind-set that comes in handy when they want to oppress others.’

‘That’s enough,’ says Gertie.

She has dressed up for this dinner: a maroon shift dress with pantyhose and leather mules. A glass brooch from Saul is pinned to her breast. It pains Daniel to see the grief on her face. Even worse is the look on Ruby’s. Daniel’s niece is facing her plate, scraped empty of food. Even in the candlelight, he can see that her eyes are beginning to smart.

Raj looks at his daughter. For a moment, he looks stricken, almost confused. Then he pushes his chair back with a screech.

‘Daniel,’ he says. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

Raj leads Daniel past the first line of maples – flaming weeks ago, now bare – to the clearing beyond: a pond rimmed by cattails and birch trees. He’s shorter than Daniel, perhaps five nine to Daniel’s six feet, but Daniel is struck by Raj’s confidence – how he strode out of the house and into the clearing, as if he’s as comfortable on Daniel’s property as he is at home. It’s enough to make Daniel strike first.

‘You talk about the war like you know just who to blame, but it’s damn easy to make allegations when you’re sitting in a gated mansion doing coin tricks. Maybe you should try doing something that matters.’ Where has he heard the phrase before? From Ruby. I want to go to college, she told him. I want to be a real person. I want to do something that matters. Daniel can feel the heat in his cheeks, feel his pulse in his throat, and suddenly, he knows exactly what will hurt Raj most. ‘Even your own daughter thinks you’re nothing but a Vegas showman. She told me she wants to be a doctor.’