“No, not at all,” Brettigan said, picking up his cap and putting it on. “Please sit.”
The man dropped down in slow motion next to Brettigan, lifting the crease in his trousers in an old-fashioned gesture. “Thank you kindly,” the man said. He had a trace of a southern accent.
A few moments passed. The man cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he repeated, looking straight ahead before checking his pocket watch, like the White Rabbit in Wonderland.
“You have a plane to catch?” Brettigan asked, making a social effort.
“Yes, you could say that,” the man said.
“Where to?” Brettigan asked, trying to keep his questions on this side of politeness, the starchy affability one attempts with strangers.
“Paris,” the man said. “I’m goin’ to a conference.”
“Ah,” Brettigan said.
“And you?” the man asked. “Where might you be goin’?” He turned to glance at Brettigan, but behind the lenses the man’s eyes remained invisible. Maybe he didn’t have eyes. Maybe he had something else.
“Oh, me?” Brettigan shook his head. “I’m…headed out to the mall to get some exercise. I’ll meet with some friends out there, and then we’ll walk around until we tire. It’s air-conditioned, and although I don’t particularly care for—”
“Yes,” the man said, agreeably interrupting him. “I’ve seen them. I should say, I’ve seen walkin’ around people like you. But tell me, why don’t you stroll around the lakes in the city? Or the parks? Outdoors? I myself enjoy the city’s recreational locales this time of the year. Birds, and…” The man thought for a moment. “Trees.” The stranger wore cologne, Brettigan noticed. The scent was like autumn—aromatic burnt leaves. And the man’s accent faded in and out as if he were imitating a southerner without actually being one himself.
“I have a medical condition,” Brettigan informed him, “so I need to stay out of high temperatures, and therefore I—”
“Go out to the mall,” the man said, interrupting again.
“Yes.” Who was this character, prying into his early-morning life and finishing his sentences for him? “So,” Brettigan said, doing his best to take control of the situation, “if you don’t mind my asking, what conference are you going to?”
Rather quickly and as if by magic, the man reached into his pocket and drew out a business card before handing it to Brettigan.
DR. ARVER L. JEFFERSON, M.D.
PSYCHOANALYTIC AND
ASSOCIATED THERAPIES
Member: Midwest Institute of Proton-Analytics
The doctor’s email address and phone numbers had been printed at the bottom of the card, but the ink was smudged and mostly illegible.
“I’ve never heard of proton-analytics,” Brettigan observed, putting the card into his shirt pocket. “What is it?”
The doctor drew in a long breath. “I’ll give you an example. You see that man over there?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the young couple who had followed Brettigan onto the train. The man wore earbuds, and a stack of pamphlets lay in his lap. The woman seemed to be studying both Brettigan and the doctor. “Yes,” the doctor affirmed, “that one. As soon as I get off this train, he will ask you for money. He will test you. He will beg you for somethin’, anything. You must give him a dollar at least. Do you know the legend of Notre seigneur en pauvre, our Lord in rags?”
“No.”
“It’s a French-Canadian legend of Jesus,” the doctor said with low-level excitement as he warmed to his subject, “and in this legend Jesus is dressed as a beggar and is roaming the Earth, testing the generosity of everyone he meets. It’s a spot quiz for your salvation. You could think of that man over there as Jesus. I recommend that you do so. Did you say that you have a medical condition?”
Brettigan nodded.
“The airport is coming up soon, and I shall have to be on my way,” the doctor informed Brettigan. “But I will tell you another legend that grew up among my people in the South. This one will help you, I guarantee. It will help you personally. Here is what you must do. What I have for you is a cure, a cure for afflictions.” The doctor now seemed nervously energized and was enunciating his words with care, as if he were speaking to a child with disabilities. “Find a mirror, the largest one that you can easily carry, let’s say a hand mirror, and take that mirror to a creek or even better to a flowing stream or best of all a river, and here is what you must do. You must lower the mirror into the water.”
As he spoke, the doctor’s hands moved in the air in front of him, pantomiming, or so it seemed to Brettigan, a vigorous form of washing.
“The water has to flow over the mirror or the cure won’t work, and once you have the water streaming over the glass, you wash your reflected face in the mirror. Not your actual face, but your mirrored face in the water. Holding the mirror so as not to lose it, you wash your face, your reflected face, your face in the mirror, and you will get well, you will recover, and, renewed, you will prosper. I give you my personal guarantee. Really, I promise you, you will get better, freed from all your afflictions. This is an ancient cure. It is proven. It is so. There is a vast literature to this effect.”
The little recital sounded like nonsense to Brettigan, but even nonsense can serve a purpose sometimes.
The train entered a long tunnel, and the sudden change in air pressure caused Brettigan’s eardrums to pop as soon as he swallowed. He saw his own reflection in the window and was startled. Across the aisle, the half-sleeping young man wearing earbuds sat up and rubbed his face. In his lap, the collection of pamphlets appeared to levitate. Next to the young man, the woman gazed fixedly at the tunnel before taking out her flip phone and tapping a message into it.
“I must go now,” the doctor said, standing up and gazing at Brettigan one last time. His opaque lenses gave the doctor the appearance of a walking oracle. “Enjoy your walk, and do as I say. You will get better, I guarantee. You will be saved.” As he turned, his glasses reflected the sun. “Perhaps you shall see me again, and you can tell me how you got well.”
The doors of the train opened, accompanied by a two-note electronic chime, and the doctor hurried out, pulling his suitcase and checking his pocket watch, and as he exited, Brettigan thought he heard the doctor say, “You never told me your name,” but he might have imagined those words, tossed into the air behind the black trilby hat in the general tumult of passengers rushing out toward the terminal where the TSA would soon examine them for concealed weapons and malevolent intent.