CHAPTER

32

Vladimir Harrican’s offices looked westward, over Manhattan but mostly past it. The buildings were just so much tall grass to be bent aside and the cliffs of New Jersey that I had stared at on my run were anthills to be stomped as Vladimir surveyed the vast plains of America that, as far as he was concerned, were still virgin territory and his to conquer. Or perhaps he believed that his conquering would be so beneficent that he would erase all the conquering that had come before. He would wake the country up from the nightmare of history, cradle it to his chest, and say that it was all right, Daddy’s here, it was just a dream. Until then, there was a s’mores station in the waiting area. Graham crackers, dark chocolate, and marshmallows that could be roasted over the plexiglass-protected firepit in the center of the lobby. When I was led into his office, Vladimir was unhappy to hear that I had declined his assistant’s offer to make myself one, and he lectured me for two minutes on the underrated health benefits of dark chocolate.

“Nothing else we could talk about today could be as important as dark chocolate,” he said once that lecture was over. “But tell me the second-most important thing we have to cover.”

Simultaneously insulted and disarmed, I stammered a bit before coming to the point.

“I saw something in the news that I wanted to talk to you about,” I said.

“The guy who burned the sicko who killed his kids,” he said.

I was totally shocked. “How did you know?”

“The epiphany machine prophesied it on my arm. Just kidding. I have somebody keep track of all news related to the epiphany machine.”

“Epiphanies should be made public,” I said.

“A clear point of view, clearly stated. But before we get there, let’s back up a bit. Why did you come here?”

“Because I want to accept the offer you made. The one about working to make epiphanies public.”

“Okay, let’s back up a little further. The epiphany machine asks two questions of us. What are they?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Sure you do. The epiphany machine asks two questions of us: Will you believe the truth about yourself if it is presented to you, and what will you do about it? Of these two questions, only the second is interesting, since plenty of people know the truth about themselves but do not have the energy and, in most cases, any real desire to alter their habits in any way. Now, people who do improve their behavior for the better have some things in common. What are those things? You must have noticed when you were taking those—what did you call them?—testimonials.”

The truth? The truth was that I had observed no pattern, had learned nothing.

“They make a clear decision to change?”

“Why are you offering your insight as though you’re asking a question? Is it because you’re DEPENDENT ON THE OPINION OF OTHERS?”

“They make a clear decision to change.”

“Did you ever make a clear decision to change?”

“I think so?”

“You ‘think so’? And have you changed?”

“No, I guess not.”

“People who actually improve after their epiphanies are people who make a decision not to change.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You are who you are. That’s why the epiphanies are in ink.”

This suddenly struck me as obvious.

“Why get the epiphany tattoo?” he asked. “So that you can stop trying to change. So that you accept yourself. You accept yourself if you’re a person like me, a person of superior abilities who needs to remember not to feel guilty for accomplishing so much more and earning so much more than other people, although in my case I’ve always known that and have never needed to use the machine. You accept yourself if you’re a person like my father, a man whose extraordinary gifts were outmatched by his overwhelming need to be told what to do. As strange as I find it for my father to have given up the career of an acclaimed violinist for the career of an anonymous factory worker, I recognize that he fulfilled his specific destiny. You, too, should accept yourself as you are. You have nothing like my father’s gifts, but otherwise you’re a lot like him. You’re a guy who is decently intelligent but can’t make up his own mind and will be much happier if he fulfills his destiny by following somebody’s orders, instead of beating himself up all the time about not being the lone-wolf genius he wishes he were. You came to me because you need to follow someone’s orders, and you know that I am the person whose orders you need to follow.”

The truth of this insight struck me immediately, so much so that it put me in a defeated and obsequious mood. But I reminded myself that I had come here because I was certain I had a mission.

“I’m not going to sit here and take this,” I said.

“Of course you’re not,” he said. “Because you can’t accept what the machine told you. You’re what Adam calls ‘a waste of ink.’ Adam is an extraordinary observer of human personality, and if you would simply admit to yourself that you are DEPENDENT ON THE OPINION OF OTHERS, then you could get down to the important work you should be doing.”

“Good-bye and fuck you.”

“Is that what you would say to a kid who’s soon going to be molested by a guy who DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BOUNDARIES? ‘Good-bye, kid, and fuck you’?”

I had never heard anyone other than Adam talk about the DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BOUNDARIES tattoo before. I did not say anything, but I also did not leave.

Vladimir smiled and took a bite of a dark chocolate candy bar that he apparently kept in his desk. “I have somebody who analyzes data for law enforcement who noticed that a bunch of child molesters arrested over the last few decades have had DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BOUNDARIES epiphany tattoos,” he said. “I’m guessing that Adam, whether he’s aware of it or not, has some kind of sixth sense—sick sense?—for child molesters, so this is the tattoo he’s choosing for them. He also has some kind of sense for terrorists, which is why he chooses WANTS TO BLOW THINGS UP tattoos for them.”

Again, I did not say anything, but I also did not leave.

“This is where the epiphany machine’s usefulness becomes a bit tricky,” Vladimir said. “We don’t want child molesters and terrorists to just accept themselves. But that doesn’t mean that the machine has no purpose for them. Child molesters and terrorists need—probably, in many ways, want—to be destroyed, and the machine can destroy them.

“Now, let’s get to the real reason why you’re here. You’re upset about Devin Lanning, that you didn’t stop him when you had the chance, and you’re right to be upset about that, but there’s something that bothers you more. You go back and forth on your friend Ismail. Some days you’re certain that he is a terrorist and that he’s getting what is coming to him, other days you’re certain he is innocent and you’re essentially a Judas who didn’t even get thirty pieces of silver. So you want to work for an organization that is dedicated to making epiphanies public, meaning that you’ll be working against Ismail and people like him, because by making this kind of commitment you’ll be convincing yourself that Ismail is guilty. Right?”

I knew that this was exactly why I was here. “That’s not why I’m here,” I said.

“Venter. Of course it is. And of course it’s natural to feel conflicted about what’s being done to your friend, and to feel confused about whether he’s guilty. You’re looking for certainty that he was planning to destroy that bridge, so that you can sleep at night knowing that you did the right thing.”

“I haven’t slept a full night in a really long time,” I said.

“Because you haven’t found that certainty yet. September 11 raised the stakes for everyone, and your tattoo is out of date. You’re no longer DEPENDENT ON THE OPINION OF OTHERS; you’re DEPENDENT ON THE CERTAINTY OF OTHERS. Who can offer you that certainty? I can. I’m a very smart guy, Venter. All day long, I look at information and decide who’s telling the truth, who’s lying, who is a grand visionary, and who is a deluded moron. I’m so good at it that it has made me billions of dollars. Billions. I’ve looked a lot at your friend Ismail’s case, and do you know how much doubt I have that he was planning a terrorist attack? Zero. He has been arrested and has not been let go. I can list about ten million ways in which the American government is stupid and wrongheaded, but it wouldn’t keep a man in captivity without trial unless it had evidence that had to be kept secret for many reasons that we can clearly imagine.”

“I’ve been thinking along the same lines,” I said.

“You’ve been thinking along similar lines, but you’ve also been thinking along opposing lines. ‘What if the government messed up? What if hysteria in the wake of the attacks led the FBI to arrest a man for nothing other than a tattoo some people say is magic?’ You’ll never be able to decide which of those two sides is right, so your mind is a field on which you watch those two sides toss the ball back and forth, with no real system of scoring and no point at which the game is set to end, except for your own death.”

“My father used a similar metaphor once about keeping score. He took me to a cemetery and . . .”

“Your father’s a smart man, but he’s misled by what he wants to believe. He wants to believe that people are complicated enough to deserve rights. But they’re not. Each of us has a very simple role to play. My role is to use my judgment. My judgment is among the best that the world has ever seen, and I have judged your friend to be guilty. It’s good that you’re crying, because this is important. Don’t you want to share in my certainty?”

He reached into a drawer and pulled out a box of tissues whose sole purpose appeared to be given to people whom Vladimir had just made cry. I took one and wiped my eyes and blew my nose.

“I do,” I said.

“Good. Remember that. There will be times when you’ll have doubts and you’ll want to leave. But never forget that if you leave, all you will have will be doubts.”

“I won’t forget,” I said.

“Excellent. Go see Carol in human resources; she’ll take care of you from here. Make sure to get a s’more on the way out.”

I threw out my soaking, snotty tissue in the bathroom, started crying again, went through a few more tissues, and then headed out into the lobby to put a piece of dark chocolate between two graham crackers. I dropped a couple pieces of dark chocolate on the freshly buffed floor, but nobody who passed by seemed to mind, since this was obviously a freshly buffed floor that would soon be freshly buffed again. I stared into the furnace and watched the flame thicken and thin and thicken again. I thought about putting my hand into the furnace and burning myself alive the way that James does in the Merdula book. I could see the flames on my arm; I could feel the terror but also perhaps the relief that that pedophile must have felt as DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BOUNDARIES was about to be consumed. Perhaps word would find its way back to Ismail that I had killed myself, and that would bring him some comfort, wherever he was.